Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child (2 page)

Chapter Two

I was sitting at the kitchen table in the house I grew up in. I was almost eleven years old when I moved to the house, but it was home to me. I suppose it was my obsession with my daughter growing up so quickly that left me feeling nostalgic; but as I watched my mom working at her kitchen sink, I found myself drifting back to days gone by. How many times had I sat there either working on my homework or helping her prepare a meal by peeling potatoes or breaking beans into smaller pieces? The small radio on the shelf above the sink was always playing tunes from our local station, and there were times my wonderfully fun mother would grab me by the hand, and we would dance a few circles around the room before resuming our tasks.

The kitchen had always been my favorite room in the house. If we had company they would often sit at the table with us and talk and laugh while a perfectly comfortable couch stayed empty in the next room. People just seemed to feel welcome and secure in the kitchen. As I sat there thinking of all the smells and tastes that filled my mind with fond memories, I watched my mother prepare the sandwich she was determined I needed to ward off starvation. A vision suddenly popped into my mind. I can’t say it was a memory because it was a total shock, and I had no clue who the lady in the vision was. The figure of Vanessa Tipton was, for only a fast moment, replaced by another lady doing the exact same thing. I didn’t see her face exactly, but I knew she was making something for me. As if on cue, my mother’s voice pulled me out of my daze, and it reminded me that this kind of thing was exactly why I needed her advice. I had wanted to see if she still had the name of the psychiatrist she had suggested to me a few weeks back.

I had mentioned that I was having nightmares and had even wet the bed several times. Before I could say another word she was looking in her kitchen junk drawer for a card from a doctor she thought I needed to talk to. When I noticed the card was for a psychiatrist, I couldn’t hide my surprise or hurt that she had been so fast to imply that I needed that kind of help.

“I’m sorry, Katie. I didn’t want to upset you, but it is nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes it helps to talk things over with someone who can be impartial and objective.”

I was adopted by Bill and Vanessa Tipton when I was almost eleven years old. They had been my foster parents for six months, and a week before my birthday the adoption was final. It seemed fitting that I became this new person so near my birthday. It was as if I had been born a second time. Not like the Bible talks about, but it felt as if I had become someone new and the person I had been never existed. My new parents had a beautiful cake made to celebrate my birthday. The three of us were the only ones at the celebration that year. I was not ready to be around a lot of people at that time.

Vanessa Tipton was an attractive woman with short spiky red hair and blue eyes. She was a very animated woman who was always cheerful. She used her hands a lot when talking and made faces when emphasizing the details of her story. My mom was the queen of optimism, so when she suggested that I go see a doctor; it was enough to make me think I really did need help. My dad would always just say, “Whatever
Mother thinks.”

Bill Tipton was a quiet man who kept to himself most of the time, but he always made me feel loved and special and truly his daughter. He was husky and tall, kind of the gentle-giant type. The top of his head was almost completely bald with the exception the short cropped gray on the sides and a few very long strains of hair that he combed over the top as if that would hide the baldness. The skin that he was trying to cover under that thin layer of hair was so shinny I expected to see my reflection. It looked as if he waxed and buffed it. His eyes were a soft brown and I saw in them a tenderness that just assured me he would never do any harm.

There was no physical resemblance between the Tiptons and myself, but in my heart they were my parents. I couldn’t imagine feeling any closer to the birth parents I had lost. It was strange not to have any memory of them. If I had been a baby when I was adopted, it would have made sense; but I was ten when I lost my parents in an accident. No one had ever elaborated on the details of the accident, but I assumed it was a car crash. All I did know was that I woke up in a hospital bed with bandages on my hands and my body covered in bruises and cuts. They told me my hands had been badly burned in the fire that killed my parents. It felt like I’d awakened from a nightmare, but I couldn’t remember the nightmare at all. I had no idea what my name was, how I had gotten there, or any memory of the years leading up to age ten. I do remember going to live with the Tipton’s and going back and forth to doctors a lot, but then it all just blended into normalcy and I never looked back.

“You look exhausted, Katie. You just need to talk this out with someone, sweetheart.”

My mother was obviously concerned about me when she laid the card on the table and patted my hand.

“I thought that was what I was doing with you, Mom, talking to someone about it.”

“I know, dear, but you need to talk to a professional. Talk to someone who can help you work through your problems.”

Okay
, I thought to myself,
my mother thinks I’ve lost my mind, and my husband is becoming angry with my obsession, so I guess I do need to talk to someone else
. I had to admit I was surprised at my mother’s reaction to my dreams. She reacted nervously when I described the little blonde-haired girl with the big blue eyes that would stare at me from my dream. I always felt very afraid in my dreams, but it wasn’t that I was afraid of her; it was more like I was afraid
for
her. And of course let us not forget, I’d just seen a vision of some lady in the kitchen. At least I thought I had, but I did not share that information with Mom. Vanessa Tipton was determined that I go see the doctor she recommended. She jotted down the name and address for me, and even insisted I call from her phone and make my appointment. The doctor was willing to see me the next day. I was shocked she had an opening so soon. It seemed even the doctor was in a hurry to help me. I gave my parents a hug and told them I loved them. I promised them I would let them know how it went with the doctor. The sad look on my mother’s face was making me a little uneasy. She obviously felt there was something very wrong with me.

“Mom, do you think I’m crazy?”

“Of course not, baby girl. You are so strong and smart. Your dad and I have always been so proud of you.”

“So you aren’t sorry you kept me?”

I said this with a cheesy smile, as if joking; but I was honestly beginning to believe they might have ended up with a crazy daughter. My mom walked over and stood beside me. She gathered my hands into hers, and I knew from the look in her eyes that she had a thousand things running through her mind. I saw that her eyes were wet as if she was holding back tears, but I could also see a deep love. One thing I had never doubted for even a second was that those wonderful people loved me with all their heart. And I loved them too. Whatever was wrong with me and whatever was giving me nightmares and causing intimacy problems had nothing to do with the Tiptons.

“Katie, you have been the greatest blessing of our lives. The day I saw you in the hospital, I fell in love with you. But there was obviously something that had caused you to completely forget your life before coming to the hospital. You were so withdrawn and afraid when you came to us. It has always been a concern of mine that the past you seemed to have forgotten might resurface and that is something you need to explore. I only want what is best for you, sweetheart, and that is why I rushed to suggest you seek help.” Mom smiled. She looked at me with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “It wasn’t because I thought you were crazy, but if it turns out you are, I will love you anyway,” she teased.

We both had to laugh then. Not so much because it was funny, but a laugh of relieved tension and that familiar feeling of comfort I always had with her. I picked up the paper with the doctor’s name and information on it and placed it in my purse.

“Thanks, Mom. I guess we will see tomorrow for sure.”

***

The next morning I set out for the doctor’s office, convinced it was a total waste of my time. I arrived at the address Mom had written down, expecting to see an office building or clinic, but instead I found a Victorian house with a fence around it and a gate that sported a sign that read, Dr. Anna Martin, MD Clinical Psychiatrist. It wasn’t in a business area but in a neighborhood. The street was basically a dead end, but it circled to give access to each house, and then merged back into itself. I noticed that the other four houses in the circle also sported signs to imply that some sort of medical office resided at each address. One was a dentist with a sign in the shape of a tooth. Another was a chiropractor and another was a podiatrist.
Guess you can get checked from top to bottom on this one street
, I thought to myself and smiled. Why did I feel like I had been there before? It seemed familiar to me, but I didn’t know why it would. When I entered the house, I expected to see the usual waiting room setup. I had assumed there would be a row of chairs against the wall with magazines in a wall rack to look at while patients waited, and a receptionist behind a desk or behind a wall with a sliding window to talk through. Maybe a fish aquarium to make the patients feel more relaxed.

When I entered the room I was surprised to see what looked like someone’s home. It had a beautiful leather couch with lots of pillows to accent the colors in the drapes. There was a recliner in one corner, and a television that had the remote laying on top of it. A large collection of Disney movies lined the shelf under the television and a sign taped to the shelf read “Please place movie back in case after use.” There were a few magazines on the coffee table and a reading lamp beside the recliner. There were pictures hanging all around the room that looked more like things that would hang in a person’s home, not in a doctor’s waiting room. I would have expected some abstract art that was a maze of colors splattered on canvas and left up to each individual to interpret what the lines and spots were. But these were personal pictures of the doctor and her family fishing, and one of a young graduate in his cap and gown that I somehow knew was her only son. The strangest thing was that I felt almost as if I had arrived home. The house gave me a feeling of familiarity and of calm and comfort that was beyond explanation. To my right was a kitchen and there was a pot of coffee on the counter with a sign that said Help Yourself to Coffee in a frame that rested on a small tripod. There were real coffee mugs, not those paper or Styrofoam ones you usually see in a waiting room, and a refrigerator that I knew was stocked with soda, tea, half and half, and small water bottles. If not for the free coffee sign, I would have started to question whether or not I was in the right place.

“Oh, crap!” I was startled when a cat jumped up on the counter and meowed at me.

“Sophie, you almost made me drop my cup!” When I realized I knew the cat’s name, I almost dropped it again. “How do I know your name?” I asked the cat as if expecting an answer then picked up the little circle on her collar to confirm my unexplained knowledge. It read, “Sophie. If found call 555-664-1604.” I’d been there before, I surmised, but when? The place was so familiar to me, and I knew the layout of this house. I began to tour the house in my mind, picturing every room as if I had just visited them yesterday. Down the hall to the left was a half bath that the patients used, and the door just past it was the doctor’s office. I was mentally confirming what I knew. Upstairs was a room with some special dolls and lots of art supplies. There was a table to sit at while patients drew, and the doctor would sit across from the patient and color a picture from a coloring book. I couldn’t explain why I knew it, but I knew the layout of the house as well as I knew my own.

“Katherine Tipton, how good to see you.”

“Thank you, and its Katherine Hunter now. I’m married.”

A slender woman walked up to me from the hallway, extending her arms to hug me. So instead of the hand shake I expected, I gladly allowed her to do just that and it felt right.

“Of course, I knew that! Well, Mrs. Hunter, it is good to see you,” she said as she gave me another quick hug and a pat on the back. It was like a hug a person would give a dear friend she hadn’t seen in a while.

She looked to be around the age of my mother, late forties to early fifties, and wore black slacks and a very pretty yellow sweater with little diamond looking stones embellishing the rounded collar. I don’t know why, but I had expected scrubs or at least a white doctor’s coat with a name badge on the pocket.

“Fix your coffee, dear, and come on back,” the doctor said. “Sophie, get off that counter, girl. You know better. I can’t believe she can still jump up there; she is eighteen years old after all.”

She told me the cat’s age as if it were something I already knew, and, oddly enough, I think I did.

Her smile was comforting and familiar and I felt as if I had come to visit an old friend or a favorite aunt or something. I was definitely ready to hear what she had to say. I followed her down the short hallway to her office, and, like the rest of the house, the room looked familiar. There was a large desk with a computer on the right side of the room. Shelves on the right and left of a wall contained hundreds of books, and other shelves halfway down the middle of the wall contained pictures, as well as little statues and trophies, most of which were whimsical and probably gifts from patients or family. To the left of the room was a long divan. I could imagine her patients lying on it while she listened to them spill their guts. There were also two overstuffed chairs that pointed to the center of the room so that the occupants could face each other in conversation and a small table between the two chairs with a box of tissue and a candy dish full of peppermints on it. Behind one of the chairs was a reading lamp, so I assumed that was the doctor’s chair and she used the lamp to see her notes.