Sunshine

Thanks to all the gods and angels for Mel. I couldn’t explain that while yes, I’d always been a bit solitary, a bit disinclined to talk about what mattered to me, about what I was thinking about, it was crucial that I be able to go home, to my home, my private space, now. Alone. Where I didn’t have to lie.

I hadn’t forgotten nearly as much as I was pretending I had.

Mind you, I’d forgotten a lot. Post-traumatic whatsit, like the doctor said. The cops mentioned post-traumatic whatsit too. I had to check in with the cops because Mom and Charlie had, of course, reported me missing. I said that I’d driven out to the lake Monday night and didn’t remember anything after that. No, I didn’t remember where I’d been. No, I didn’t remember how I’d got home two days later. No, I didn’t remember why I was so beat up. Mel went with me for that too, even though he was pretty allergic to cops. (Charlie, trying to make a joke, said that he hadn’t done so much cooking for years, and did I want Mel to take me anywhere else? Florida? The Catskills?) And the cop shrink they made me talk to had to go into it again. The gist is that you only remember what you can bear to remember. If you’re lucky, as you get stronger, you can bear to remember a little more, and eventually you get round to remembering all of it and by remembering it then it can’t mess up your life. That’s the theory. Fat lot they know.

I didn’t say “vampires” to anyone, and I sure remembered that much. If I had said it, SOF wouldn’t have just talked to me, they’d‘ve kept me. People don’t escape from vampires. I wasn’t going to think about how I’d escaped from vampires—let alone tell SOF about it—so let’s just pretend I hadn’t escaped from vampires. Post-traumatic shock, phooey. Seemed to me the trauma was trotting right along with me, like a dog on a leash with its owner. I was the dog.

I had to talk to SOF, because anything mysterious might be about the Others, and SOF were the Other police. But I told them I didn’t remember anything too. By the time I talked to SOF I was getting good at saying I didn’t remember. I could look ‘em in the eye and say it like I meant it. They were cleverer about questioning me. They asked me stuff like what the lake had looked like that night, where exactly I’d sat on the porch of the cabin. They weren’t trying to trick me; they were trying to help me remember, possibly to our mutual benefit, trying to help me find a way in to remembering. I pretended there was no door, or if there was one, it had six locks and four bolts and a steel bar and it had been bricked over years ago.

It was easier, saying I didn’t remember. I walled it all out, including everybody’s insistent, well-meaning concern. And it turned out to be easy—a little too easy—to burst into tears if anyone tried to go on asking me questions. Some people are mean drunks: I’m a mean weeper.

The first days started passing and became the first week. The bruises were fading and the scratches skinned over, and I began to look less like hell on earth. On the second Monday movies night at the Seddons’ after my return, people began to make eye contact with me again without looking like it was costing them.

And I was making cinnamon rolls and bread and all like a normal crazed coffeehouse baker again, thus deflecting poor Paulie’s imminent nervous breakdown. He was going to be good, but he was still new and slow from lack of experience, eager to gain that experience, he’d been several weeks going through the wringer, or the five-speed industrial strength mixer, with me, and then I disappeared and everybody was barking at him because his presence reminded them that I wasn’t there, and sending him home. I wanted to cheer him up, so I let him in on the secret of Bitter Chocolate Death and he made it, beautifully, first time. This bucked him up so much he started humming while he worked. Gah. It was bad enough having someone in the bakery with me some of the time, so I could teach him what to do and keep an eye on him while he did it: humming was pushing it. Was it absolutely necessary to have a cheerful apprentice?

Charlie found someone who could loan me a car till I could replace the one they never found, and then found another one when the first one had to go back. The insurance took forever to cough up but it did at last. Their agent wanted to complain about my not remembering exactly what had happened, but he was promptly inundated by people from Charlie’s, staff and regulars, offering to be character references, the doctor I’d seen and the cop shrink I’d seen said I was genuine, and then Mom started writing letters. The company might have held out against the rest, but no one resists Mom for long when she starts one of her letter-writing campaigns.