Glass Shatters (2 page)

“You could’ve said something. Before you left.”

“I know.”

“You hurt my feelings.”

“I’m sorry. Truly.” I mean it. I am sorry. I don’t know why I would have left without telling.

“You hurt my mom’s feelings too. She said you’d probably moved away. Did you forget about us?”

I wish I knew the girl’s name. If I could just say her name. I look beyond her shoulder, out to the clouds sinking in a sky growing dimmer. I feel alone without my memories. I feel like a dinghy floating adrift.

“Why are you wearing a hat?” the girl says.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen you in a hat before. It looks weird. And are those bandages underneath?”

“Oh. I don’t know.”

“You look like you’ve been sick.”

“Do I?”

“You’re skinnier than before. And your skin is really white.”

I kneel down so that the girl and I are face to face.

“Is there anything I can do to make things up to you? I really need you to be my friend right now.”

“Promise never to leave again?”

“Okay. I won’t leave.”

I hold out my hand, and this time the little girl takes it, her handshake firm for a child her size. I realize I have no idea how old she is. Maybe five? Maybe eight?

I pause, willing myself to keep my voice steady, to not let it crack. “There’s a game I’d like to play.”

“A game? What kind of game?”

“Let’s pretend I don’t remember who I am.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been in an accident.”

The little girl’s eyes flash. “Or maybe there was an evil wizard who cut out part of your brain!”

“Yeah, let’s go with that. That’s much more interesting.”

“And who am I?”

“Who do you want to be?”

“How about I’m a magic fairy who knows everything about you? And I find you wandering in the middle of the woods?”

Woods. Trees. Tall trees like redwoods, towering around me. I see flashes of gray, shadows, my own heaving breaths as I’m running away as fast as I can.

“Charles? Are you ready?” the little girl asks. I nod. The girl ducks out of sight for a moment and returns with a pair of leafy stalks that she tucks into the back of her dress as wings. She dances toward me, a ballet through the imagined woods around us, until she comes upon me, her small green eyes reflected in mine.

“You don’t remember me?” she says.

I start to open my mouth, but then stop, simply shake my head no.

“I’m Ava, Ava Queen of the Fairies.”

“Ava, what a beautiful name. And who am I?”

“You’re Charles Lang,” she says. She pretends to rub a magic ointment on my wounds.

“What year is it?”

“2012.”

“And the date?”

“March. March something.”

“And do you know how old I am?”

“Thirty-four. We had a birthday cake for your birthday in December even though you weren’t here because I said we had to and my mom made sure there were thirty-four candles on the cake.”

I take a breath, then: “And when I left, I didn’t tell you why I was leaving?”

Ava frowns and acts as though she hasn’t heard the question, picking red and yellow blanket flowers from the garden around the side of the house. “Would you like to eat some of these flowers?” she asks, approaching me. “They’ll help you recover from what the evil wizard did.”

I take the flowers and pretend-eat them. Ava looks pleased.

“How do we know each other, Ava Queen of the Fairies?”

“You’re my neighbor and you’re friends with my mom. You help her with stuff like fixing the roof and sometimes you let me play with your lab mice even though I’m not supposed to.”

“Lab mice? Why do I have lab mice?”

“Because you’re a famous scientist,” she says, “like almost as famous as a movie star. Mommy says you make people new hearts and lungs and livers so that when they get sick, they can still stay alive.”

“Ava?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know why I feel so sad?”

Ava tilts her head down, stares at her feet. “Because you used to have a wife named Julie and a daughter named Jess but they disappeared one day and never came back.”

“Ava!” a woman’s voice calls out.

“I have to go, I have dance practice.”

“Okay.”

Ava hugs my legs again. “We were just playing a game, right? You remember who I am?”

“Of course, Ava. It was just a game.”

“Good. Don’t forget to feed Einstein. We were feeding him when you were gone but now you can do it.”

“Okay.”

I stand paralyzed as I watch Ava skip home, a fairy’s bounce to her step. I close my eyes. A fragment of a memory—again I can see myself running through the woods, mud on my shoes, every breath lurching in and out like shards of glass pressing into my chest, distant flickering lights fading until I can’t see anything anymore. I open my eyes. I wonder if this is all I have left. Why was I running? Was someone chasing me? Was I trying to escape from something? Or from somewhere? And why would I have disappeared six months ago without saying anything? I watch two boys playing catch across the street, listen to the
thwap
of the baseball each time it hits their gloves, and I wonder if maybe the memory loss wasn’t the result of an accident after all.

“Wait!” I shout out after Ava. I don’t want to be alone. Maybe her mother knows something more. I hop over a set of flowerbeds as fat raindrops begin to topple down from the sky. I run across the neighbor’s front lawn. An old green Volvo station wagon rumbles in their driveway as Ava slides into the backseat, barefoot and carrying her ballet slippers. Just as Ava’s mother is about to pull out, I jump behind the car, the Washington State license plate practically colliding with my knees. Ava’s mother catches my eye in the rearview mirror. She slams on the brakes. Her mouth hangs open.

“Charles?” Ava’s mother is out of the car now, a sweater over her head to block out the rain, both of us surrounded by the creeping smell of wet concrete. Her hair is curly and red
with streaks of gray swirled in, and her pastel green eyes remind me of soap, clean and soft. She’s dressed in pink nurse’s scrubs that are slightly too long.

“I … I don’t remember your name.”

“Iris. It’s Iris,” she says with a controlled calm. Iris takes my hand as if she needs to feel the weight of it to confirm that I’m really there. Before I realize what I’m doing, I blurt everything out in a great tidal rush, about how I don’t remember who I am, how I don’t know where I was, how afraid I am. My eyesight blurs with tears as she gives me a hug, patting my back as a mother might for her son. She then lifts up my hat and examines the bandages underneath.

“It’s going to be okay, Charles. We’re going to figure this out. These bandages look clean, so my guess is that you were recently treated at a nearby hospital. I’ll do some investigating at work today to see if I can pull up any records for you.”

“Thank you. Thanks, really, I appreciate it.”

“You know, in most cases, amnesia is a temporary condition. Your memory will likely return soon.”

“Hopefully.” My voice wavers. I’m not very convincing. “Iris, do you think there’s any chance that someone may have injured me on purpose? I mean, what if it wasn’t an accident? Should we call the police?”

“Usually when head trauma is caused by foul play, it’s a lot messier. More bruising, more bleeding, fractures.”

“Okay. All right.” I breathe in deeply. “You’re sure?”

Ava squirms in her seat, calling out for Iris.

“I’m sorry, Charles, I have to take Ava to dance and then start my shift … you can come with us if you don’t want to be alone.”

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll come check on you either tonight or tomorrow,” Iris says as she slides back into the front seat. A moment later, the Volvo drives away, exhaust steaming through the cold air. I turn back around. My house looks more imposing than before, somehow reaching even further into the depths of the sky in the past few minutes. It’s the type of house children would call haunted, that would have its own mythology. It’s the type of house that would be reluctant to let go of its secrets.

I wipe the mud off my shoes on the fraying welcome mat. It says “Home Sweet Home” in curlicue letters. When I close the door behind me, I’m struck by how dark it is inside the entryway. It’s as if someone has inhaled all the light in the room. I feel nauseated, my stomach turning, flipping over, and my vision gives way as if I’m walking through a fog late at night. Images flicker around me like old film spinning through a projector. A young girl in a ballerina outfit does pirouette after pirouette until finally she slips and falls, cracking her wrist against the floor. A woman in sweatpants reaches out to me, her glossy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wipes away a smear of blood from a gash on her forehead with one hand as she reaches out to me with the other. She’s never quite able to reach me. I close my eyes, sliding down against the wall. The woman and the girl eventually fade.

I stumble into the living room and lower myself onto the couch. They weren’t real. It was just my imagination. Maybe Ava was lying. Maybe I never had a wife and a daughter. My
brain feels sluggish, my feet like bricks. And I know, deep down, that what Ava said was true. I rest my head against a pillow and close my eyes, wanting everything to be the way it once was. I sleep a dense, dreamless sleep, yearning for a wife and daughter I don’t remember, wanting to hold them against me, warm and happy and healthy.

I end up dreaming after all, of a small child curled up on a couch, his thumb in his mouth, his small glasses pressed up against his forehead. His blond hair is pushed up in sweaty tufts of sleep, and his cheeks are a warm pink. The television screen glows bright blue. The boy has his arm wrapped around a video game controller as if it were a stuffed animal.

The dream continues. The front door opens and closes. There’s the slight crinkle of a coat being pulled off, the clack of business shoes against the hardwood floor. A tall man enters the room, sighing and loosening the tie around his neck. He spots the boy and nudges his shoulder. The boy opens his eyes and smiles.

“Dad—”

“Why aren’t you in bed, Charles? It’s past your bedtime.”

The boy stands up on the couch. He’s wearing pajamas with constellations on them, and he’s missing one of his front teeth. “I beat it, Dad! All forty-two levels in Super Mario. There was this boss in the end who was super tough. Bobby and Andrew haven’t even gotten past level thirty-five yet.”

“That’s enough, Charles.”

“It’s a really hard game, Dad.”

“Charles—”

“I’m just saying, it was hard.”

“Charles, video games are designed to be beaten. You haven’t accomplished anything that tens of thousands of other children haven’t already.”

The boy frowns. The man gives him a pat on the head. “Go to bed, Charles. I’ll see you in the morning.”

When I open my eyes again, I can’t tell whether it’s nighttime or morning. I can’t tell how long I’ve been sleeping. I can’t shake the feeling that the house has something to hide. The dream with my father confuses me. Was it a memory? And why were we in this house? Why would I now be living in my childhood home?

I sink down to the living room rug, my legs sprawled out in front of me. I try to say my name so that it sounds real: “Charles Lang, Charles Lang, Charles La—”

With each attempt, though, the sound of the name dissipates in my mouth, the letters evaporating before I reach the end. The name doesn’t feel like mine. I try again.

“My name is Charles Lang. I’m thirty-four years old. I’m a famous scientist. I had a wife named Julie and a daughter named Jess, but they disappeared one day and never came back.”

As I say this last sentence, a chunk of white plaster falls loose from the ceiling, cracking against the coffee table. I watch as the bits of white powder gradually clear the air. I want to go home, to a home far away from here, to a living room where I can sit on a couch with Julie and Jess and watch cartoons and eat too much popcorn. I don’t belong here.

My head feels like it’s swelling, my scalp sweaty and irritated. I return to the entryway, hoping to find a mirror. No such luck. I know it’s probably not a good idea to take off the
bandages, but I can’t help myself. The itching is unbearable. I search for a loose edge on the gauze and begin to peel the bandages away. They spread out in my hands like a snake’s molted skin. The bandages are stained with eight small circles of brown blood, the circles oddly symmetrical. With each bandage I unravel, I feel an intense stinging pain. I bring my fingers up to one of the circles and feel the tender, oozing skin. It has the texture of a burn. But what would have created a pattern of burns like this? I replace the bandages around my head, worried that otherwise I’ll get an infection.

I tilt my head back, close my eyes, and exhale a stale breath. I just want to find familiarity, to find out the truth. I open my eyes, and as they adjust to the light, I realize that I’m not alone. Instead, just above me in the rafters of the entryway are dozens of marionettes, beautiful young men and young women twisted around one another. I feel something shift in me, turning like cogs in a clock, as I descend into what I recognize could only be a memory.