Brain Child Page 0,44

he said.

Marsh chuckled. “You not only wanted to, you nearly drove us crazy.” His voice took on a singsong tone as he mimicked a child’s voice. “ ‘More! More! Don’t want to go home. Want to swing!’ That’s why I finally hung one in the backyard at the old house. It was either that or spend every free minute I had bringing you out here.”

Alex turned and gazed at his father, his eyes steady. “I don’t remember that at all,” he said.

In the rearview mirror, Marsh saw Ellen’s worried eyes, and wondered if either of them would be able to stand seeing their son’s memory wiped clean of every experience they had all shared. “Do you want to swing now?” he asked.

Alex hesitated, then shook his head. “Let’s go home,” he said. “Maybe I’ll remember our house when I see it.”

They drove into La Paloma, and Alex began examining the town he’d lived in all his life. But it was as if he’d never seen it before. Nothing was familiar, nothing he saw triggered any memories.

And then they came to the Square.

Marsh bore right to follow the traffic pattern three-quarters of the way around before turning right once again into Hacienda Drive. Alex’s eyes, he noted, were no longer staring out toward the front of the car. Instead, he was leaning forward slightly, so he could look across Marsh’s chest and see into the Square.

“Remembering something?” he asked quietly.

“The tree …” Alex said. “There’s something about the tree.” As he stared at the giant oak that dominated the Square, Alex was certain it looked familiar. And yet, something was wrong. The tree looked right, but nothing else did.

“The chain,” he said softly. “I don’t remember the chain, or the grass.”

In the back seat, Ellen nodded, sure she understood what was happening. “It hasn’t been there a long time,” she said. “When you were little, the tree was there, but there wasn’t anything around it.”

“A rope,” Alex suddenly said. “There was a rope.”

Ellen’s heart began to pound. “Yes! There was a rope with a tire on it! You and your friends used to play on it when you were little!”

But the image that had flashed into Alex’s mind wasn’t of a tire at all.

It was the image of a man, and the man had been hanging at the end of the rope.

He wondered if he ought to tell his parents what he’d remembered, but decided he’d better not. The image was too strange, and if he talked about it, his parents might think he, too, was strange.

For some reason—a reason he didn’t understand—it was important that people not think he was strange.

Marsh pulled into the driveway, and Alex gazed at the house.

And suddenly he remembered it.

But it, like the oak tree, didn’t look quite right either. He stared at the house for a long time.

From the driveway, all he could see was a long expanse of white stucco, broken at regular intervals by deeply recessed windows, each framed with a pair of heavy shutters. There were two stories, topped by a gently sloping red tile roof, and on the north side there was a garden, enclosed by walls which were entirely covered with vines.

It was the vines that were wrong. The garden wall, like the house itself, should be plain white stucco, with decorative tiles implanted in it every six feet or so. And the vines should be small, and climbing on trellises.

He sat still, trying to remember what the inside looked like, but no matter how he searched his memory, there was nothing.

He stared at the chimney that rose from the roof. If there was a chimney, there was a fireplace. He tried to picture a fireplace, but the only one he could visualize was the one in the lobby of the Institute.

He got out of the car, and with his parents following behind him, approached the house. When he came to the wide steps leading up to the garden gate, he felt his father’s hand on his elbow.

“I can do it,” he said.

“But Dr. Torres told us—” his mother began. Alex cut her off.

“I know what he said. Just stay behind me, in case I trip. I can do it.”

Carefully he put his right foot on the first step, then, supporting himself with the cane, cautiously began to bring his left foot up toward the second step. He swayed for a moment, then felt his father’s hands steadying him.

“Thank you,” he said. Then: “I have to try again. Help