Brain Child Page 0,52

stumbles across that trigger, his mind may fully reopen, and the past will come back to him.”

“And what about his intellect?” Marsh demanded. “Suddenly I have a very brilliant son, Dr. Torres—”

“Which, I gather,” Torres interrupted in a voice as cool as Marsh’s own, “is something you have always wanted.”

“Everyone hopes his children will be brilliant,” Marsh countered.

“And Alex is brilliant, Dr. Lonsdale,” Torres replied. “But keeping him here for another year isn’t going to affect that. I should imagine that the school can design a course of study for him that will keep his mind active and challenged. But there is another side to Alex—the emotional side—and if he has any chance to recover in that area, I think we have an obligation to give him that chance.”

“Of course we do,” Ellen agreed. “And Marsh knows it as well as we do.” She turned to her husband. “Don’t you?”

Marsh was silent for a long time. Torres’s words, he knew, made sense. Alex should stay home. But he couldn’t just go on letting Torres run his life, and the lives of his wife and son.

“I think,” he said at last, “that perhaps we ought to talk to Alex about it.”

“I agree,” Torres replied, rising to his feet. “But not for at least a week. I want to think about this for a while, and then I’ll decide what’s best for Alex.” He glanced at his watch, then offered Eisenberg his hand. “I’m afraid I have another meeting. If you need me for anything, you have my number.” With nothing more than a nod to either Marsh or Ellen, he left the dean’s office.

Alex lay on his bed staring at the ceiling.

Something was wrong, but he had no idea what it might be, or what he ought to do about it.

All he knew was that something was wrong with him. He was no longer the same as he had been before the accident, and for some reason his parents were upset about it. At least, his mother was upset. His father seemed pleased.

They had told him about the test results as they drove him home that afternoon, and at first he hadn’t understood what all the fuss was about. He could have told them he’d correctly answered all the questions before they even checked. The questions had been easy, and didn’t really involve anything like thinking. In fact, he’d thought they must be testing his memory rather than his ability to think, because all the tests had involved were a series of facts and calculations, and if you had a good memory and knew the right equations, there wasn’t anything to them.

But now they were saying he was brilliant, and his father wanted him to go into a special program down in Palo Alto. From what he’d heard in the car, though, he didn’t think that was going to happen. Dr. Torres would see to it that he stayed home.

And that, he decided, was fine with him. All day, he’d been trying to figure out what had happened at school that morning—why he had remembered some things so clearly, other things incorrectly, and still others not at all.

He was sure it had something to do with the damage his brain had suffered, and yet that didn’t make sense to him. He could understand how parts of his memory could have been destroyed, but that wouldn’t account for the things he had remembered incorrectly. He should, he was sure, either remember things or not remember them. But memories shouldn’t have simply changed, unless there was a reason.

The thing to do, he decided, was start keeping track of the things he remembered, and how he remembered them, and see if there was a pattern to the things he remembered incorrectly.

If there was, he might be able to figure out what was wrong with him.

And then, there was María Torres.

She had been in his room when he got home that afternoon, and when he had first seen her, he’d thought he recognized her. It had only been a fleeting moment, and a sharp pain had shot through his head, and then it was over. A moment later he realized that what he’d recognized was not her face, but her eyes. She had the same eyes that Dr. Torres had: almost black eyes that seemed to peer right inside you.

She’d smiled at him, and nodded her head, then quickly left him alone in his room.

By now he should have forgotten the incident, except for the