CHAPTER EIGHT
MARIE SHIFTS, SCRAPING THE HEEL of her shoe across the floor. “I’m going to step outside and check on . . . the others.” Marie exits, and I run my palm down my face, holding on for the bigger reveals to come.
“After your release from the facility was secured,” Dr. McKee continues, “your grandmother brought you to us. She was concerned because you still seemed so deeply sad. Marie and I . . . we felt we had a viable cure with the Adjustment. We thought we could fix you.”
“I’m a human being, not a computer virus. And how do I know any of this is true? Nathan told me that my grandfather used his journalist connections to get me out.”
“That was part of it,” he admits. “The possibility of exposure did aid in your release. But there were side deals. And ultimately, Dr. Warren signed off on a statement saying you weren’t a threat to yourself, her position supported by your handler.”
“I wasn’t a threat,” I snap at him automatically.
“But you were,” he says sadly. “You most certainly were, Tatum.”
I want to deny it, but I remember what I was like the night I was taken into The Program. The way my knuckles bled. The way I hated myself. I needed help. I didn’t need The Program, but I did need help. Maybe I was a threat.
Dr. McKee continues talking, beginning to pace the room, slightly out of breath. “In the agreement to let you out, Dr. Warren insisted on erasing your time in The Program. Erased the history of you and Wes. We’ll never know all that she erased, but we had a good idea because we had your file. Still, this had to be done undercover—without her knowledge. If she knew you’d been adjusted, it would have broken the arrangement. You would have gone back to The Program.”
“Give me my file,” I say.
“I don’t have it. We lost it months ago.”
“Of course,” I say, not believing him. “So you gave me back memories—wrong ones—and wanted it secret. But you let me keep seeing a Program doctor,” I continue. “Putting myself in danger every time I showed up for therapy. She could have flagged me at any point!”
“We couldn’t risk her knowing we’d interfered with your care. We erased the Adjustment while we gave it.”
“What did my file say?” I ask. “What memories did you put back in, and why are they wrong?”
“Over two days, we implanted all the information we could gather. But we focused on memories that would allow you to resume your life. We had no idea that you and Weston Ambrose had broken up. It wasn’t something you admitted to in therapy, even with the help of medication.”
“How?” I ask. “Doesn’t The Program always find out the truth?”
“Yes,” he admits. “They have their ways. And that’s also why we’ve dedicated significant resources into keeping you healthy, both you and Wes. You beat The Program. To some extent, you did. We’re hoping your continued health will prove the Adjustment works.”
Right now I don’t feel like the victor. I feel like a lab rat. “My grandparents let you put memories in my head?” I ask.
“They wanted you to come home, not just physically—fully. They were worried about you.”
“Did I fight?” I ask, sitting back in the chair. Dr. McKee comes to lean on his desk, and I notice his right shoulder sags slightly. He swallows hard.
“Yes,” he says. “You were not a willing subject, Tatum. And this was . . . this was difficult for everyone involved. But it was for the best. Your grandmother knew she could trust me, so she let us treat you.”
I cover my mouth, horrified at the idea of these doctors strapping me down, injecting me with serums, all while my grandparents stood by. How far will people go to keep their family? At what point is it no longer my life to control?
“Tatum,” Dr. McKee says softly, as if he can see I’m struggling with his explanation. “You’re safe now,” he says.
“But I’m not,” I say. “I’m going to fall apart just like the rest of them. I’m a returner too. And in case you missed it, they’re crashing back.”
“That won’t happen to you,” he says. “Not the same way. You’ll have crashbacks, yes—but you come back. You process these memories differently. Don’t you see? You are the only one who has come through the Adjustment without a setback. You are our proof of concept. You are the cure.”
“I’m no cure.”
“But you are. Our entire case study is built around you. We haven’t figured out the difference—why the procedure worked on you and not the others. Why not Wes? Why not Vanessa? We don’t know the answer yet, but your existence proves the Adjustment can work. And Marie is close to the answer. You’re going to save lives.”
“No,” I say, horrified. “I’ve ruined lives. Because it worked on me, Vanessa is dead. You wouldn’t have replicated it if I hadn’t proven it could work. And Wes wouldn’t have been reset again. You’ve turned me into a weapon. It’s on my conscience.”
“Oh, honey,” Dr. McKee says, and reaches for me. I slap his hand away, a sharp sting on my palm. He slides his hands into his pockets.
“Why did you use my memories in Wes’s Adjustment?” I ask. “You knew they weren’t real.”
“We thought they were accurate,” he corrects. “In fact, we thought they might be better, clearer than real memories. It was a risk that didn’t pan out.”
“Didn’t pan out,” I repeat in disgust. “And what about Jana—Melody? Or whoever she is. What is she doing in all of this?”
“Melody Blackstone is a handler, and she has worked closely with Marie since the beginning. She left The Program and wanted to make things right. She wanted to cure people. So she was assigned to watch Vanessa and, from a distance, you. Unfortunately, Vanessa found out who Melody was, and it caused her breakdown. We’d hoped to avoid that.”
“So she’s using Nathan?” I ask, my anger rising. “She’s using him to watch me?”
“She’s trying to protect you.”
“I don’t want your protection!” I shout. “I want you to leave me alone. Leave all of us alone. I won’t be your cure, your case study. Leave me out of it. I won’t be your excuse to kill anyone else.”
“Tatum,” Dr. McKee says like I’m being unreasonable. He stands up and tries to take my arm, but I rip from his grasp.
“Don’t touch me,” I hiss. “Don’t you get it? You stole my life.”
“We were trying to give it back to you. We did.”
“No.” I shake my head. “This was a deal with a doctor who erased only part of me, a part that you tried to fill in, patching up holes with false memories. Changing my life. Who knows if anything I said in The Program was real. If I could hide one truth, I could hide them all.”
I stare at him, and the familiar sense that I know him is back. An awful idea itching at the corners of my mind. I take a step toward him.
“You knew my grandmother for years,” I start, my voice hoarse. “Am I supposed to believe that using me as your pet project only occurred after I was taken into The Program?”
“Yes.”
“Because you say so?” I ask. “How long have you been treating me, Dr. McKee?”
And it’s the slight pause, the one second of raw guilt that makes my heart sink. Before he goes on to deny it, I lunge forward and grab him by the collar of his lab coat, fierce and violent. “How long?” I demand.
Dr. McKee meets my gaze head on, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard. “I treated you when I was with the grief department,” he says quietly.
Oh my God. He has treated me before. “For what?” I ask with barely a breath.
“Your mother,” he says. “She neglected you.”
“I know—”
“No,” Dr. McKee says with a wince. “You don’t know, Tatum. Your mother took off with you when you were about five. She left the state.”
“Five?” I say, letting go of his jacket. “No, my mother left when I was a baby.”
Dr. McKee watches me carefully, and then continues his story despite the discrepancy. “Your grandparents didn’t think your mother was well, and they wanted her to get help. But she refused, and she ran off with you. I’d sit with your grandmother at work as she called around to hospitals, searching for unidentified bodies of a mother and her child. There was a stretch—nearly three months—when she was convinced you were both dead.”
He looks at the floor, his expression weighted with compassion. His mouth sagging. I don’t want to believe this. I have to trust some of my memories, and my childhood is beyond reproach. The manipulation can’t go that far back.
“Your grandmother asked me to help her . . . help her cope,” Dr. McKee says. “I was going to send in a closer to end the loop of grief—someone to pretend to be you so your grandmother could say how much she loved you. How she’d always protect you. And just before the closer was due to arrive,” Dr. McKee continues, “we got a call. Police had found your mother, safe—but malnourished and filthy.”
“And me?” I interrupt, growing invested in the story despite my doubts.
Dr. McKee’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look at me when he talks. “You were there,” he says. “Same condition. Your mother was set to face charges of neglect, but she agreed to sign over custody of you to your grandparents and be on her way. However,” he says, looking at me finally. “You were having trouble with the new arrangement. You wanted to stay with your mother. Your grandmother asked what I could do to help you cope. And I . . .”
Dr. McKee flinches and clears his throat, looking perturbed.
“I brought you to Dr. Arthur Pritchard,” he says. “He was renowned for his work with children. He met with you, and through a combination of therapies, you forgot about before. Those memories were rewritten—happy ones with your grandparents placed instead. We gave you the gift of contentment.” He loosens his tie. “If you saw what you were like when you arrived, you would agree that it was a gift.”
“I was five. You stole my memories,” I say, offended. Horrified. “You and that prick thought that you knew what was best. You decided. At least my grandparents loved me; their complicity in this is somewhat understandable. But you . . . ,” I sneer, unable to even find the right word to describe a man who manipulates grief, abuses broken hearts.
I’m about to shout, scream, when Dr. McKee sucks in a wispy breath of air, seeming to choke on it, before taking another. His eyes widen, and he quickly bangs once on his chest, hard enough to make it echo in the room. I take a startled step back, knocking into the chair and sending it to the floor with a loud thud.
He gasps again. “Marie,” he chokes out.
I look around the room and remember that she left. The doctor’s face is growing red on his cheeks, blue near his lips.
“Marie!” I scream, and it’s only a second before she rushes into the room.
I turn back to Dr. McKee, and his expression is twisted in pain. He reaches his arm out to Marie. Before she gets to him, he falls forward, and I do my best to catch him, stumbling back. Marie grabs on to him and carefully lowers him to the floor.
“Call 911,” Marie says to me calmly as she brushes the doctor’s hair off his forehead.
I take out my phone and dial, holding it to my ear as I watch them. Marie looks down at Dr. McKee.
“Stay calm,” she tells him soothingly.
Dr. McKee wraps his hands in her coat, his face pleading. “You have to call my daughter,” he begs. “You have to call Nicole.”
Marie stares at him, her dark eyes filling with tears. “You know I can’t do that, Tom,” she whispers back miserably. They hold each other’s gaze—a million words passing between them without a single one being uttered.
Dr. McKee’s hands slip from Marie’s coat, but she quickly catches his grip, her hand tightly around his. A tear drips onto her cheek and runs through her makeup.
Doctor McKee’s face has gone ashen, his glasses askew. His lips are bluish as he winces in pain again, his other fist clutching his chest. The 911 operator comes on, and I tell her we need an ambulance. She gets the address and tells me one is on the way. I put my phone away just as the door opens, and Nathan and Melody come rushing in.
Melody gasps and watches in horror, and Nathan comes to stand next to me, wrapping his arm over my shoulders—holding me steady.
Marie doesn’t let go of Dr. McKee’s hand; they watch each other. It’s a moment so full of secrets that I feel like I’m intruding. I open my mouth to ask if he’ll be all right, when Dr. McKee’s eyes roll back, his face scrunches up, and he chokes out a gurgling sound.
“Hold on, Tom,” Marie murmurs, although she doesn’t seem to believe it will do any good. She brings his knuckles to her mouth and presses them against her lips, her eyes squeezed shut as the tears flow freely now.
Dr. McKee fights to look at her, his eyelids fluttering. His face clears for a moment, and he smiles sadly at her.
“Tell her that I loved her more than anything,” he whispers, his face wet with tears. “Tell her that I’m sorry.”
Marie moans out what sounds like “I can’t,” and I don’t understand why she won’t just placate him. Lie to him to give him peace. But that must not be the sort of relationship they have. Painfully honest even until the last second. Even as they lie to everyone around them. I don’t know what it would be like to have someone be so truthful with me. Does anyone know that kind of loyalty?
Dr. McKee blinks slowly, his body relaxing back. “We could have done anything, Dr. Devoroux,” he murmurs. “Together, we could have saved the whole damn world.”
She laughs and uses her free hand to wipe the tears off his cheek. “I still will,” she says. “I’ll do it for her.”
Dr. McKee’s face breaks a little at the mention of “her,” but he nods as if that’s all he wants. Her.
And then Dr. Tom McKee closes his eyes and dies quietly in the back room of the Adjustment office.