Jane gave the woman directions to the crash site. She had been here only once before, a few weeks after she came home. She had stared at the evidence of what she’d done: the spray-paint signs on the road, to indicate the direction and estimated velocity of the car; the lack of skid marks; the torn ground along the steep hill; the shattered oak saplings and cedar and ripped grass and the heavy rock where the front of the car had smashed. Just once. The doctors had said perhaps it would help prod her memories—but it had done nothing. Mom had watched her, as though expecting a dramatic returning of memories in a rush. She had stood in the sunlight, waiting for the miracle of memory. But nothing. The sides of the road rose and fell steeply, too steep for easy building of houses. There were only three houses, all palatial, but on the opposite side of the road from the crash site, and among them, only one person had heard the crash, a resident named James Marcolin.
The road curved and went back down the hill past the Marcolin estate, intersecting again with Old Travis Boulevard, the main thoroughfare for Lakehaven that stretched through the whole town and into Austin, south of Lady Bird Lake. High Oaks had many bends as it wound up the cliffside, and its two endpoints, separated by a mile, both dead-ended into Old Travis. Sometimes, during rush hour, it would be used as a cut-through. Most of the time, the road was lonely and quiet.
Jane wondered, So why were David and I here, on this empty stretch of road? We knew no one here. Where were we going, hours after school let out, when we should have been home doing assignments or waiting for early college-admissions decisions or looking at our friends’ pictures on social media?
The rideshare driver dropped her off; Jane gave her an extra-big tip and a five-star rating. The woman said, “You sure you’ll be OK out here?” Jane nodded and she drove away.
High Oaks Road was narrow, surrounded by oaks and cedars, undeveloped. The road ran west to east. The land north of the road where the three remote houses stood rose in a steep hillside, the south side began a slow then steep descent, tumbled down to boulders and more oaks and cedars and then finally a cliff’s edge. There was still a cleared path where her small SUV, two years ago, had torn through the growth. Here she walked down, through the shade of the trees, the wind gentle against her face.
No reason for her and David to be here. Unless they’d driven up here to be alone, or if the suicide note was accurate and she’d tried to drive off the cliff. But she hadn’t reached it. Of course maybe David, realizing her intent, grabbed the wheel and they fought for it and the car spun and crashed into the rocks before it could plummet over the edge.
She didn’t like to think about that.
Old bunches of flowers rested against one of the trees, part of a solid grouping of oaks close to where Jane’s SUV had come to rest on its crushed top. A large rock face, rising from the grass, was where the SUV’s front had impacted. If they had slid another twenty feet, they would have gone over the edge into a forty-foot drop into rock and cedars and oaks below. A bunch of deflated silver balloons lay by the flowers, still tethered together with strands of ribbon, the colors faded by the sun. Last year’s remembrances? Or for David’s birthday?
She sank to her knees.
Remember, she told herself. Remember. She made her own thought intense, commanding, stern. Willing her brain to give up its secrets.
She dug her fingers into the dirt. Like she could pull the secrets out of the ground. Or David. David had died here. Memories of three years of her life had died here.
She rose. She walked to the edge of the cliff. She felt vertigo but she made herself peer down. If she had wanted to end her life and David’s, like the note suggested, then…this would have been a good choice.
She knelt again and she cried. Silently. Despite the bright light she pulled off the steampunky sunglasses that guarded her eyes from the sun-spiked headaches and she let the tears fall from her face and water the rough stone.
“Oh, Jane. Are you all right?” a young woman’s voice said behind her.
Jane jerked, turned, slowly climbed to her feet—realizing how close to the cliff’s edge she was. An attractive young woman stood between her and the road, clutching a bunch of flowers and a football. She had black hair pulled back in a tidy ponytail, high cheekbones, a small, neat bud of a mouth. She wore expensive jeans and a black top, nicely fitted. Kamala Grayson. Her mother had been a beauty queen from India, fourth runner-up in a global pageant twenty-five years ago, and had used her scholarship money to get her medical degree here in Texas. Kamala’s father was from an old Lakehaven family.
Her smile was warm, compassionate, and caring. Jane nearly screamed.
*
Four days after Jane woke up from the coma, this lovely girl had come into her hospital room carrying flowers, smiling at her, saying, “Hi, the doctors say you may not remember me. My name is Kamala Grayson, we’re like sisters.” And Mom, gushing, happy to see a smiling face from Jane’s social circle, who had been fewer than Mom would have liked, saying, “Hi, Kamala, it’s so nice to see you, Jane’s memory isn’t quite back, forgive her.” As if Jane had committed a social blunder.
“So I heard,” Kamala had said. “Do you remember me?”
Jane shook her head. “Sorry,” she had said. “I don’t.” Her voice was very small. Every interaction felt like a test she was failing.
“Well, we’ve known each other since second grade. We went to middle school together, and now high school. We suffered through Mrs. Montoya’s Spanish class together.”
“OK.” Jane said this a lot. It seemed an all-purpose answer that never upset anyone.
“Kamala, would you like a Coke? I was just going to get one,” Mom had offered.
“I don’t want to trouble you.” Kamala didn’t look at Mom. Only at Jane.
“Maybe you talking to Jane will help,” Mom had said. “She just doesn’t remember anyone so far, but I know she’ll be better soon, the more friendly faces she sees.” Jane could hear a strain in her voice. “I’ll let you two talk while I go get us some Cokes. I find this hospital air to be very drying. Is it me?”
“No, ma’am,” Kamala said. “I agree with you. My parents say it’s always so in medical offices. Mom says you really have to moisturize.”
“Yes, absolutely,” Mom said, as if moisturizing was the biggest medical imperative.
“How do you feel?” Kamala asked after Mom left. She set the flowers down alongside the others that had been delivered.
“Sore. Everything hurts.”
“But you can feel, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. To still be able to feel.” Kamala stood close to her bed. “Your poor arm is broken.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get everyone to sign your cast when you’re back at school. And you remember nothing?” Now she touched Jane’s shoulder carefully. “I want to hug you but I know you’re hurting. And…you truly don’t know me, right? It’s not an excuse.”
“I’m sorry I don’t remember you.”
Kamala just watched her for a moment, as if Jane’s face were a map.
“You seem a little emotionless. I guess that’s a side effect.”
“OK,” Jane said again.
“Have you had a lot of friends visit yet? That must be awkward. I mean, since you don’t remember.” Kamala watched her.
“No. Not really.”
“You don’t really have a ton of friends.”
Her words had jolted Jane, but Kamala had said quickly, “Oh, I don’t mean that badly. You tend to go your own way. I always admired that about you. What can I do to help you?”
“I don’t know. Tell me who everyone is. I have no idea if I’ll even go back to school.”