Nora
Salve has stopped pushing me. We’re blocking the corridor. His mouth agape. His eyes melancholy.
“What?” I ask. He opens his mouth to speak but snaps it shut again, without a word. “What is it?” I ask again.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” He begins to push, and we’re off again. I don’t know what he’s sorry for. Everything worked out in the end for me. I was simply confused that first time. Maybe he is sorry for Anton but he shouldn’t be, I am so far past that event.
“Oh, will you stop here?” I ask. “ I want to see the babies.”
He rolls me to the window of the nursery. I peer through the glass at all the wiggly little bundles of pink flesh. It hits so fast, I’m taken by surprise. Pain contorts my face. I rearrange my features to a more neutral expression before Salve can notice. I press a palm to the glass. Salve hands me a tissue to wipe the tears I did not realize were pouring from my eyes.
“Nora,” his voice is soft. It sounds as though he is talking to someone else, far away. He pulls me back so he can fit between the chair and glass. “Nora, are you okay?” he asks. His eyebrows jump to his hairline at the sight of me. I cannot breathe. I cannot speak. I want to leave here. I want safe arms. I want long blonde hair to brush. Someone to read to. I am not equipped to weather this. “Let’s get you back to your room,” he says. I think I nod. I swipe at my wet cheeks with the back of my hand.
Dr. Richardson waltzes in, unannounced, while I am eating my dinner. I am surprised to see her and my expression must show it because she says, “Salve said you might need to talk sooner rather than later.” I scowl. Salve blabbed. I thought we had been talking in confidence but now I know I cannot trust him with my words. “Would you like to talk?”
“Not really.”
“Salve gave me the basics of the story you told him.”
“It wasn’t a story. It was life,” I say.
She sits. Makes herself comfortable. I huff. I have no choice but to entertain her now.
“The most important thing to remember is that when an evil act is committed, the shame belongs to the perpetrator. Holden’s and your friend Anton’s shame is not your shame.”
I shoot her a pointed look. “I don’t feel shame.”
Robin folds her swishy pant legs and leans back in her chair. Her legs cross and uncross, signaling a change in tactic. “It might help our progress to put a name on what you’re experiencing. The clinical term is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. When a person experiences a physical threat, and the person’s response involves intense fear or horror, certain side effects can result. I’d like to explore if you’re experiencing any of these side effects,” she says calmly.
I roll my eyes.
“The traumatic event can be re-experienced over and over, in the form of dreams, or during the day, as intrusive thoughts. Do you have thoughts like that, Nora?”
I stare at her red heels. “Nope.” I am a liar. Holden is always on my mind.
She presses her lips together in a firm line and scribbles a note down. “We know that you have the final symptom: inability to recall certain details. That said, I’d like to hypnotize you.”
The hair at the back of my neck stands on end. “What? No. I remember everything.”
“Not the location. And that’s crucial. It will be like falling asleep. When you’re under, I’ll regress you to the moment you arrived.”
“Can’t we just wait for me to remember? It was summer when I got there and the snow makes everything look different.”
“It doesn’t always work that way. Repressed memories can stay repressed for a lifetime. We don’t have the luxury of time.”
I plead with my eyes. “I’ll try harder.”
“It’s not a matter of trying harder,” she says. Panic takes root in my belly. She cannot know the things I know. She cannot know the dreams or feelings I have. She cannot know that I love Holden. I already know she will think I’m sick. That I’m a twisted, demented mess. And despite learning that about me, it will not help recover Lotte. I can hear Holden’s voice in my head.
“I’ll come for you, Nora. I’ll hunt them down, kill them and take you back. You won’t escape me.” I stuff his presence, deep into my bowels because I can’t focus on them right now.
“What exactly do you want to know?” I ask.
“We need details, Nora. Details that only you know. That could lead us to Holden and Charlotte.”
“We don’t need to find Holden,” I say. Robin’s face contorts and she chews on the end of her pen.
“Why is that?”
I say the one truth allowed. “He will come to me.”
Then, slowly, she asks, “Do you love Holden?”
I swallow. There is a lump in my throat as I speak. “Love is the wrong word.”
“Tell me what the right word is,” she says.
“Fervent, fastidious, imperious,” I spout off, “I don’t know. He has so many words.” I’m in too deep. Brick by brick, my walls crumble. Consequences fence me in.
What is done is done. I don’t want to say a word. I want to keep all my secrets. I can feel them breathing. Hidden underneath. I’m trying to keep them safely out of reach. They creep. They come to the surface in my dreams.
“What happened after the night you told Salve about?”