“Actually, I have. Just this morning, when I was jogging.” Sam told her about his incident on San Vicente, about the red, writhing word that had formed on Katy’s forehead while he was sitting beneath a coral tree. It took ten minutes to tell the story because Dr. Frolich kept interrupting with questions.
“You must have witnessed the accident and then blacked out, transposing the timeline in your mind.”
“No, it was all pretty clear … what accident?”
She took a deep breath and retrieved her laptop from the desk. She tapped on the keyboard for a few seconds, then turned the monitor to face him. “Is this her?”
Sam stared at a picture of Katy from a newsfeed. “Yes, that’s her.”
“Katy Villa. The mayor’s daughter. She was killed in a hit-and-run on San Vicente at eleven-thirty this morning. Right around the time you said you were jogging.”
Sam thought about all the flashing emergency lights he’d seen when he’d regained consciousness and felt his throat close up. He barely registered Dr. Frolich talking about a follow-up neurology consult.
“Sam? Sam?” she was saying.
“Sorry. So … are premonitions a side effect of the new drug? Because I didn’t see that on the accompanying list of horrors when I filled my prescription.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “It wasn’t a premonition, Sam, and I don’t think it’s related to the drug. There are a lot of variables, and at this point I won’t rule out a pharmacological or psychological component, but my guess is you experienced a new neurological phenomenon of some kind.”
“Like an enhanced hallucination, something like that?”
“You’ve described similar episodes in the past, blackouts and brief hallucinations with colors and shapes, something like synesthesia. Seeing a word is a derivative of that. I’m going to speak with Dr. Guzman and I’d like you to see him as soon as possible.”
“But I didn’t see the accident, I’m sure of that. When I came to, I was still under the coral tree. I saw emergency lights in the distance, but I wasn’t there. I was never there, so the hallucination was kind of a massive coincidence, don’t you think?”
“You have no memory of being there.”
Just like you have no memory of getting your gun and going to the front porch. You’re mobile and functioning when you’re blacked out, which should really scare the shit out of you. You’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.
That inescapable conclusion summoned a spirit-crushing despondency that didn’t go unnoticed by Dr. Frolich.
“There are multiple explanations for this event, Sam, and I want to cover it in every way so we can find out what’s behind it.”
And fix it. That was the express implication in all discussions with medical professionals about troubling symptoms or tragic test results. His plastic surgeons had inferred the same thing, but in the end even they would have to admit defeat. And what if his brain was like his face? Something that couldn’t be repaired?
“Can you lay out one of these multiple explanations? Because right now, I’m just seeing two. Either my brain is scrambled beyond salvation or my psyche is an unmitigated disaster. Wait, I’m seeing three—I’m suddenly psychic.”
“I can’t speak to the neurological possibilities, but from a psychiatric point of view it’s quite simple. Katy noticed that you were in distress. She was empathetic and asked you if you were feeling all right. You two connected in some small way. During the time you were blacked out, you heard the sirens and either went to the scene or learned of the accident from someone else. This prompted your subconscious to craft a false memory of a hallucination to go with the tragic storyline because you liked her.”
“Why the hell would my subconscious do that?”
“Because you’re allowing it to punish you. If you had foreknowledge of her death and did nothing to stop it, that makes you culpable. You think you’ve failed before, back in Afghanistan. You’re living survivor’s guilt over and over again, and with survivor’s guilt comes fixation on death and what you should have done to stop it. Neurological aspects could be an exacerbating factor or a symptom.”
“So I’m a total wreck in all ways, but I’m not psychic? I’m looking for a new career, you know.”
“I wish there was the possibility of being psychic, but I’m afraid we all have to trudge through each day, not knowing what to expect.”
“I guess you’re absolutely right about that, otherwise I wouldn’t have signed up for a second tour.”
“Sam, in your dreams, you mention a voice.”
What did you see? What do you remember?
“Right. My subconscious is trying to torture me and apparently finding new ways all the time. I believe you mentioned internal conflict resolution.”
“In PTSD, it’s not unusual to feel like you have unfinished business. Many patients even rewrite events to serve that narrative and we don’t want you to go there. It would be a setback.”
“Setback? You mean it could get worse from here?”
She ignored his question, which he didn’t take as a positive sign. “Has anything about the voice changed?”
“No. Well, yes, kind of. I’m hearing a child now.”
“Saying something?”
Sam shook his head and looked down. “Screaming.”
“It could be a repressed memory or it could be a fabrication, a false narrative, as I just mentioned. At this point, I encourage you not to attach significance to these things. Real or imagined, they are part of a nightmare. Have you been able to remember anything new about that day?”
“I remember too much about the blast, but nothing that happened before it, not for several days. And nothing after it, until I was at Walter Reed. Will this ever go away, Dr. Frolich?”
“That’s what we’re working on, and you’re making some progress, Sam, don’t be discouraged. This is a long journey.” She steepled her fingers and gazed out the window. “There is some new research on the effects of high explosive blast waves on the brain. They’ve found a previously unidentified injury pattern, something they don’t see in victims of other traumatic brain injuries such as repeated concussions or car accidents. I’ll discuss it with Dr. Guzman when I set up your neuro consult.”
“And it can cause symptoms like mine?”
“The research is in the very early stages, but perhaps there are some palliative approaches they’re considering.”
“Maybe Dr. Guzman can send the researchers my MRIs and I can sign up for a trial or something.”
She shook her head. “No, Sam. This isn’t something they found with MRIs. They discovered it examining thin slices of brain tissue under a special microscope that’s a thousand times more powerful than an MRI.”
“So I’d have to be dead before they could find a way to help me.”
Apparently, the circle of irony and the absurd hadn’t been closed after all.
Chapter Seventeen
CONSEULA ORTIZ LET HERSELF INTO THE apartment and frowned. All the shades were open and that wasn’t right. Señor Gallagher always closed them before he went to work. There was also a faint scent of trash that hadn’t been taken out. Maybe he was home sick today. Or out of town again and had forgotten or hadn’t had time to close the shades or take out the trash.