“Mrs. Masters, let’s try this again. Just tell me about how you saw Mr. Ramie in a line up, and identified him, if you couldn’t remember his face.”
I took a deep breath in and tried to sort out my thoughts before I spoke them aloud. “Up until the line-up at the police station, whenever I pictured the person who shot me, I could see everything except his face. His height, his build, his clothing. The only thing missing was the face.” I took in another breath, letting it out slowly, looking to Kalli for a little strength. She gave me a small and tight smile, obviously nervous for me. “When I went in for the line up, I even told the detective I didn’t remember anything. I assured him I wouldn’t be of any help, but Detective Dillard insisted I try. I went in the room and I started at the beginning, looking at each man, trying to make desperately sure that I wasn’t passing up the man who had shot a gun at me.”
I finally looked the defense lawyer right in his eyes. “The first five men looked like strangers. I had no recognition of any of them. Nothing. But when I started looking at number six, everything started coming together, like a fog was lifting.”
“A fog?” The lawyer smirked at me.
“Have you ever had amnesia?”
My question caught him off guard and he stumbled through a response, “Um, no.”
“Then you have no idea what it feels like to have a memory return to you. It is an all-of-a-sudden occurrence. There’s nothing slow and gradual about it. It’s like having the answer to a question or the name of a song on the tip of your tongue. It seems like it’s just right there, but it isn’t, and it either comes or it goes. But when it does come, it’s like a balloon popping. All at once and deafeningly loud. The memory screams at you to be remembered.” My eyes roamed over to Jason Ramie and our glares met one another. He didn’t look remorseful or contrite. He looked angry and annoyed. “Jason Ramie is the man who shot me and the fact that my memory returned when I saw his face is neither a coincidence nor a fallacy.” I paused, looking back at the lawyer standing in front of me, his face painted with a look of shock, much like I might have just told him to kiss my ass. He looked baffled and disoriented as he tried to think of what to say next. “But I will let Dr. Bronson tell you about the medical side of amnesia, seeing as how I am not a medical professional.”
The smile on my face probably looked bitchy. I most likely looked like the cat that ate the canary. But I felt wonderful. I’d finally gotten my chance to tell this small and secluded room of people what Jason Ramie had done to me. I’d looked him in the eye and told him that I knew who he was and what he’d done.
The rest of the trial dragged on. I might have been biased, but Mr. Donaldson was, in my opinion, a much better lawyer than Jason Ramie’s. The prosecution pressed on after my testimony. Mr. Donaldson did a superb job of bringing witnesses to the stand that painted a picture of Jason Ramie’s guilt. The jury heard about how the bullet pulled from my shoulder matched a bullet that had been shot out of the gun found on his person at his arrest. Detective Dillard did a wonderful job of talking about each gun’s “fingerprint” and how the two bullets each had the same “fingerprint” on them and so they were both fired from the same gun—Jason Ramie’s.
Dr. Bronson took the stand and spoke about my amnesia and, thankfully, backed up my testimony that memory loss was unpredictable and could reverse at any moment for any number of reasons. He also gave his professional opinion that I couldn’t have involuntarily assigned a new memory. In layman’s terms, I couldn’t have forced myself to remember something unreal or untrue out of want or need. He also reiterated that memories can come back swiftly and in response to stimuli.
The prosecution rested around lunch time and I was in need of a break. I called Porter and learned that not only had Mattie gotten the PICC line, but that Dr. Edwards was also planning on getting her echocardiogram done soon. My head dropped and my eyes closed—another thing I would miss. Porter assured me that Mattie was open and vocal about her dislike for being with Daddy alone. He was doing everything he could to make me feel better about being away, and I loved him all the more for it.