"Almost everything looks normal. There's an anomaly in your blood test, but you're physically healthy," Dr. Williams said with a warm smile at odds with the cold sterility of the room.
"Just a mental mess?" she prodded.
"Don't be hard on yourself," he chided, pulling a rolling chair up to the exam table. "Your amnesia is trauma induced from the rape you survived six years ago."
"I was raped?"
"And beaten near death," he said with a shake of his head. "I don't know how you survived, but you did. To protect you, your mind backtracks whenever you feel overwhelmed, overly stressed, mentally threatened."
She gazed at him skeptically. Her file --two inches thick --was yet more proof that the world that seemed foreign to her really wasn't.
"So my mind blanks stuff out?"
"Precisely. It's a survival technique. The human mind is so wonderful and so versatile." By his glowing eyes, he loved his job. His enthusiasm and genuine warmth melted more of her resistance.
"But how is it I remember being alone getting on the train, and Toby got on at the next stop?" she challenged.
"It's how your mind wakes up from whatever sleep it went into. You fantasized him appearing at the next stop; it's how your psychosis snaps and brings you back to reality."
"That makes no sense."
"We've gone over this several times," he said. "You'll have to take my word on this."
"Do I usually do that?"
"No, but I'd like to get home to my wife before midnight. And I called the judge on your behalf and volunteered you to go to counseling. The judge liked that option rather than jailing a single mom."
Jailing a single mom, like her. She managed a nod. He gave another warm smile.
"Get dressed and take your file to the nurse. Please call me if you experience any other problems. I'll tell my receptionist to make you an appointment for next week. Your blood test results were unusual."
He handed her a business card and left. The antiseptic pine-laced air from the hallway made her nose wrinkle. She looked at the door, the familiar scent disturbing her, then down at her file.
Everything was documented, every visit, every doctor-scrawled record, every prescription she'd ever taken.
It was too real not to be real, yet it didn't feel real at all! She followed his instructions and traded the file for two prescriptions to drugs she'd never heard of. She considered debating with the nurse at the front desk, whose friendly grey eyes were familiar. Toby hopped up from his chair and waved to the nurse. Tired and confused, Katie left without asking what the drugs were for and stepped into the chilly fall evening. Toby trailed silently.