More answers about Sarah’s visit to the police came out during our first home counseling session. Sarah hadn’t been able to tell the detectives anything. She didn’t know where she had been or what had happened to her—nothing. It was all a blank.
The police had asked about her bike, the one she rode on that last day. It had been found, carefully locked at a bike rack at the entrance to the park, about half a mile from where she was supposed to meet Max. When they dusted it for prints, all they found were Paula’s and mine (aside from Sarah’s, which were expected). But those were easily explained; I might have moved Sarah’s bike in the garage, and Paula said she had borrowed it once or twice. Sarah couldn’t remember leaving her bike there, or even where in the park she was meeting her boyfriend.
They asked about Max and showed her photos of her other friends. But most were a blank too—she remembered names, but nothing about them. Who she got along with, who she didn’t. If she had been fighting with anyone. Dad said she just shook her head, saying almost nothing.
“Did you run away, or did someone force you?” they asked her. “Were you kept in Florida? How long had you been there?” Her first memory was of waking up on the beach, in the jeans and tank top, with no shoes on. A police officer found her there and took her to the children’s shelter. From that point, her memory began again, but everything before that was lost or foggy.
The counselor from the center, an older woman named Dr. Levine, told us not to push Sarah. “The memories will return on their own, or they might not. Sometimes this kind of forgetting is a gift from the brain. It allows us to remember what we can handle and forget the rest.”
What the counselor said rang true for me—those first days and weeks after Sarah disappeared, they were all a blur now. What did I eat, what did I wear, what did I say to the detectives? It was like a dream, a terrible dream. My brain, trying not to deal, forgetting what I couldn’t face.
The counselor looked from my parents over to Sarah and spoke to her directly. “You might remember some things next week, next year, or maybe even ten years from now,” she said. She seemed like a young grandmother and spoke slowly and soothingly. “I had a client who suffered terrible abuse and was only able to recall her childhood when she had a child of her own. And by then, quite honestly, she was older and more stable and able to handle the memories.”
There was a moment of silence in the living room until Mom spoke. “What about seeing friends and relatives? Of course everyone wants to come and visit Sarah—Uncle Phil, the cousins, her grandmother—but we don’t want to overwhelm her. Would that be pushing things?”
Dr. Levine nodded and wrote something in the notebook on her lap. “That’s a good instinct you had there, exactly. It can be very overwhelming to see all these people you are expected to know but can’t quite recall.”
I looked over to Sarah to see if she had any thoughts to add, but she was just staring at Dr. Levine with a blank expression, slightly bored. Or maybe she was just tired.
“Sarah, do you feel ready to see people—maybe a relative or two? Some old friends?”
She blinked, then quickly answered. “I’m not sure. Maybe, just to see how it goes.”
Dr. Levine looked over at Mom. “A welcome-home party is certainly out of the question, as I’m sure you understand.” She smiled.
“Max emailed me—he wanted to drive down this weekend. If that’s okay,” I offered, looking from Sarah to Dr. Levine, trying to gauge their reactions.
“Well, your Gram also wants to come, and I think it’s family first,” Mom said.
“The answers to all of these questions are right here—with Sarah,” Dr. Levine pointed out. “Give her some time to think about what, and who, she’s ready to handle, and you’ll know when the time is right.”
That night, after Dr. Levine left, Sarah went to her room but left the door ajar, so a sliver of light shone into the hallway. I knocked gently and heard her say, “Come on in.”
She sat on the bed with the copy of Rebecca in her hands. It looked like she was reading it really slowly, for some reason—the bookmark had hardly moved. “That’s one of your favorite books, you know. You’ve read it a bunch of times.”
“Really? I’m loving it so much. But I don’t remember ever reading it before,” she admitted. She let out a little laugh. “The story does seem familiar, now that you mention it.”
“I guess that’s one good thing about amnesia, you can redo all kinds of stuff—books and movies, roller coasters . . .” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt weird for joking about it. I looked at her face to be sure I hadn’t offended her. She pulled in her legs and patted the end of the bed, inviting me to sit down. I hesitated. I had never sat on her bed in my life.
“Sit,” she finally insisted, tilting her head to one side.
“Naw, I’m sure you’re tired, I really just wanted to say good night.” I moved to the door.
“Nico?”