The Leaving Part 54

Lucas

"I wasn't expecting I'd hear from you again." Sashor shook Lucas's hand, and again Lucas didn't want to let go. But did. They walked down a long hall to his office together. "So, what's up?" Sashor asked.

They sat-Sashor at his desk, Lucas in a chair in front. A sign on the wall that Lucas hadn't noticed last time read, THERE'S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT

AND NO PRESENT LIKE TIME.

"Have you ever heard of a memory scientist named Daniel Orlean?"

"First I heard of him was from Chambers."

"His research had to do with erasing trauma, curing post-traumatic stress."

"Yes, I read up on him a bit. The science has come a long way since he was working in the field, but it's still a minefield of moral issues."

"It seems like maybe whoever did this was influenced by him, by the book. Because our traumas have been erased."

"You remember the scene of your mother's car crash, Lucas."

"But not the shooting. That must mean something."

"It could mean everything or nothing. Chambers and I, well-Lucas, I'm not sure I'm free to talk about it yet."

"About what?" Lucas asked.

Sashor just pressed his lips together.

"You're seriously not going to tell me."

"I'm really sorry." Sashor looked it, at least. "Soon," he said. "I'll have something to tell you soon."

"I kissed Scarlett," Lucas blurted, and Sashor looked surprised and interested. "And I knew it wasn't the first time. But I've been trying to will myself to remember and I can't. Can I will myself to remember things she and I did together?"

"Well, certainly there are memories we have and never access until someone else mentions them." Sashor sat back in his chair, swiveled a little one way, then the other. "Like someone will say 'Remember the time you did the "Thriller" dance in your underwear,' and you won't have thought of it in years but you'll remember it."

Lucas said, "I don't know that dance."

"You get my point," Sashor said. "There's also stuff that your subconscious hangs onto-like a buffering or savings effect-so if you memorize a list or something, then wait a long time until you're sure you've forgotten. Like if you tested yourself. Then if you try to memorize the same list again it'll take you less time than it did the first time around. So the memory of the sequences was stashed away somewhere in your brain and then reactivated."

"How do you remember everything that you know about memory?" Lucas asked.

Sashor laughed.

Lucas worked hard to phrase the next question just so. "So if I can remember loving someone, would I remember hurting someone?"

"I wish I had clearer answers for you, Lucas."

"I wish you did, too."

"I just wonder if there's a point at which you should just stop trying to remember. If maybe what you need is the opposite of trying to will yourself to remember. Maybe you need to intentionally forget about remembering."

"I'm not sure I follow." Lucas shifted in his chair.

"Imagine each memory of these past eleven years, imagine each one as, well, a penny. Say the reality of each moment is the penny. Now imagine them all stretched like Scarlett's penny-because your recall, if you had any, of what happened wouldn't necessarily be accurate anyway. So why fixate?"

"There was a woman in the nursing home. Where Orlean is. She couldn't remember anything. Not from one minute to the next. You leave the room and you go right back in, and she had no idea who you were."

"I've read about her."

"Who is she?"

"Her name, you mean?" Sashor shrugged. "I don't remember."

"No, I mean, how do you form and maintain your ident.i.ty if you have no memories?"

"You have the whole rest of your life ahead of you to make memories."

"But how do I know how to be?"

"How does anybody? Most people only come into adulthood with a handful of vivid memories of their childhood anyway. There's a forgetting curve that has been researched and doc.u.mented. The longer you live, the less you remember. Don't overvalue what you've lost."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm just thinking out loud. People aren't shaped by conscious memories so much as they are by their overall life experience and bonds. The important thing is arriving at adulthood feeling secure, and even though there are a lot of questions about what happened to you, you seem pretty secure."

"I have barely suppressed homicidal rage," Lucas said. "How does that make me secure?"

"Your rage is justified. You're feeling rage toward someone who did something awful to you, not just some random guy who cut you off on the highway." A beat. "I really am just trying to help."

"What's up with the sign?" He nodded at it.

Sashor turned. "Oh, that." Then turned back to Lucas. "A memory science in-joke of sorts. And by in-joke, I mean it's funny to me."

"I don't get it."

"We may not remember this moment," Sashor said. "And we might be happy we've forgotten it."

"Dancing in your underwear."

"Exactly."

AVERY.

So she'd been caught. Maybe she'd wanted to be.

"What do you want?" Scarlett demanded.

"Nothing. I just wanted to say hi, I guess. I remember you."

"Yeah?" Scarlett laughed in disbelief.

Poor choice of words.

Scarlett said, "What do you remember?"

"I guess I remember being sad that you were gone. Maybe in a way even sadder, at first, that you were gone than that my brother was gone. I think I worshipped you. In a kid way, you know. You were always nice to the littler kids. And making up stories about wizards and fairies and stuff. I felt like there was something . . . magical about it. About you."

"Trust me," Scarlett said. "There is nothing magical about me at all."

Avery shrugged and then her phone vibrated and she wanted to take it out, read the text, see if it was from Lucas.

She didn't want to be rude. She just wanted something more from all this.

"Well," Scarlett said, "I guess, nice to meet you. Again."

"Yeah," Avery said. "Sorry. For the following thing."

"It's okay," Scarlett said. "I hope they find him."

"Yeah, thanks."

Scarlett turned to walk away.

No.

No.

No.

"Wait," Avery called out.

Scarlett turned.

"Do you think he did it? Do you think Lucas killed that guy?"

Something in Scarlett's eyes turned darker. "Why would you think that?"

"He told me," Avery said. "That he thinks they're going to find his prints."

Scarlett tilted her head, took a step back toward her. "I would say that the Lucas I know would only have done that if his-or our-lives depended on it."

Avery felt her face tighten into something fake-feeling when she asked Scarlett the question she hadn't been able to ask Lucas. "Are you a couple or something?"

Scarlett was unflinching. "I think we used to be, yes."

He'd said he needed to figure it out. With her. But where was Scarlett's head in all this?

"What about now?" Avery dared, like her life depended on it.

Scarlett

Chambers put the brown paper bag on the dining room table and pulled out a large manila envelope. He slid a stack of photographs out of it, sifted through them as he spoke to Scarlett and her mother.

"All the photos are from an instant camera. I guess Norton didn't want to risk any of you being recognized if he had prints made somewhere? I'm a.s.suming that's the reason the blown-up shots didn't have you all in them, as well."

He pushed a square photo across the table to Scarlett, who had to move the fabric she'd been cutting, having already ruined some with weird st.i.tches.

She picked it up, looked- "That's me"-