me get back down, please.”
“You don’t have to try right now, darling,” Ellen assured him. “Don’t you want to go in?”
Alex shook his head. “I have to go up and down the steps by myself. I have to be able to take care of myself. Dr. Torres says it’s important.”
“Can’t it wait?” Marsh asked. “We could get you settled in, then come back out.”
“No,” Alex replied. “I have to learn it now.”
Fifteen minutes later Alex slowly but steadily ascended the three steps that led up to the gate, then turned to come back down. Ellen tried to put her arms around him, but he turned away, his face impassive. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go in.”
As she followed him into the garden, across the tiled patio and into the house itself, Ellen hoped he’d turned away before he saw the tears that, just for a moment, she had been unable to hold back.
Alex gazed around the room that was filled with all the possessions he’d had since he was a child. Oddly, the room itself seemed vaguely familiar, as if sometime, long ago, he’d been in it. But its furnishings meant nothing to him. Against one wall was a desk, and he opened the top drawer to stare at the contents. Some pens and pencils, and a notebook. He picked up the notebook and glanced at its contents.
Notes for a geometry class.
The name of the teacher came instantly to mind: Mrs. Hendricks.
What did Mrs. Hendricks look like?
No image.
He began reading the notes. At the end of the notebook there was a theorem, but he’d never finished the proof of it. He sat down at the desk and picked up a pencil. Writing slowly, his handwriting still shaky, he began entering a series of premises and corollaries in the notebook. Two minutes later, he’d proved the theorem.
But he still couldn’t remember what Mrs. Hendricks looked like.
He began scanning the books on the shelf above the desk, his eyes finally coming to rest on a large volume bound in red Leatherette. When he looked at the cover, he saw that it was emblazoned with a cartoon figure of a bird, and the title: The Cardinal. He opened it.
It was his high-school annual from last year. Taking the book with him, he went to his bed, stretched out, and began paging slowly through it.
An hour later, when his mother tapped softly at the door, then stuck her head inside to ask him if he wanted anything, he knew what Mrs. Hendricks looked like, and Mr. Landry. If he saw them, he would recognize them.
He would recognize all his friends, all the people Lisa Cochran had told him about each day when she came to visit him at the Institute.
He would recognize them, and be able to match their names to their faces.
But he wouldn’t know anything about them.
All of it was still a blank.
He would have to start all over again. He put the book aside and looked up at his mother.
“I don’t remember any of it,” he said at last. “I thought I recognized the house, and even this room, but I couldn’t have, could I?”
“Why not?” Ellen asked.
“Because I thought I remembered the garden wall without vines. But the vines have always been there, haven’t they?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I looked at the roots and the branches. They look like they’ve been there forever.”
Ellen nodded. “They have. The wall’s been covered with morning glory as long as I can remember. That’s one of the reasons I always wanted this house—I love the vines.”
Alex nodded. “So I couldn’t have remembered. And this room seemed sort of familiar, but it’s just a room. And I don’t remember any of my things. None of them at all.”
Ellen sat on the bed next to him, and put her arms around him. “I know,” she said. “We were all hoping you’d remember, but Raymond told us you probably wouldn’t. And you mustn’t worry about it.”
“I won’t,” Alex said. “I’ll just start over, that’s all.”
“Yes,” Ellen replied. “We’ll start over. And you’ll remember. It will be slow, but it’ll come back.”
It won’t, Alex thought. It won’t ever come back. I’ll just have to act like it does.
One thing he had learned in the last three months was that when he pretended to remember things, people seemed to be happy with him.
As he followed his mother out to the family room a few minutes later, he wondered what happiness felt like—or if he’d ever feel it himself.
CHAPTER NINE
The