Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Is this a checklist of questions you learned in school? It is. Isn’t it? Next are you going to ask me if I’ve given any thought as to how I would do it?”
“Have you?”
“I’m a medical examiner. I know all the ways to die. It doesn’t require much thought.”
He nods. He’s having self-doubt. No amount of training can prepare one to talk another human down from the ledge.
“Maybe we can talk about my job.”
Dr. Byrd nods again. “What happened?”
“I was fired.”
He frowns.
“Well, that’s not fair. I wasn’t outright fired. It was more of an ultimatum. Get a psychiatric evaluation. Get help. Or clean out my desk. I cleaned out my desk.”
“Why?”
“Why are you asking questions you know the answers to? This isn’t PTSD. This isn’t going away. If I let you medicate me to the point that I no longer recall my past life, then I’ll be close to comatose and unable to do my job anyway.”
“Why did your superior give you the ultimatum? What tipped him off?”
“I’m a little slower than I used to be. Still capable. Still doing solid work. Just slower.”
And I told him I was a murderer.
“Why are you slower?”
“Do you have kids, Terry?”
“Two.”
I nod. “Imagine trying to do your job with your kids here. Chattering. Getting into trouble. Shaving each other’s heads. Threatening to kill someone. Just … stuff like that. Would you run behind? Would it take you longer to do your job?”
“Of course.”
I shrug. “Well, now you know. I have to cut through the voices, the images, the reminders of that life while trying to do my job, and sometimes it slows me down. But I do, in fact, get my job done. Well, not anymore because I don’t have a job. And that’s what brings me here. Without my job, I have nothing.”
“You have family. Friends. You’re getting married.”
“Let me rephrase. Without my job, I am nothing. No purpose. No identity.”
Dr. Byrd stares out the window for a second. It’s unusual for him. I’m used to his laser focus. “Sometimes, our identities and purpose in life change.”
“Terry, I won’t make it. I won’t make it another forty … sixty years with Winston Jeffries in my head. I don’t know if I’ll make it four to six months. Four to six weeks. You know this is a torture, not so different than ways that POWs are treated. And now I don’t have a purpose. Wife is not my purpose, even if it becomes part of my identity. I don’t believe it’s my purpose.”
Dr. Byrd stares out the window again. Even the “expert” has no solution.
And so … we’re done.
When I exit his office, Mom smiles at me. Mom, my babysitter for the day. Mom, my driver. I’m never alone.
“Would you be up for some shopping?” she asks. “I have a few gifts left to get.”
“Sure.” I search for a smile and find one that seems to appease her.
Over the next two hours, we file in and out of stores.
“What are you getting for Reagan?” she asks.
“I don’t know. What do young girls like?”
Mom chuckles while flipping through a rack of men’s shirts. “Need I remind you that you were once a five-year-old girl?”
“Need I remind you that I wasn’t a normal five-year-old girl? And now we know why. I doubt Reagan is into dead things, but I suppose we can see if there’s a zombie Barbie or a mortician Barbie.” I laugh. Then I laugh some more. “Mortician Barbie comes with a casket and a dead body.”
“Shh …” Mom glances around the store.
I press my lips together to compose myself, but in the next breath, I have a memory, but it’s not Winston’s life.
“I had Barbies and a few other dolls.”
Mom moves to another rack, but she doesn’t look at me.
“I cut off their hair. All of it.”
She ignores me.
“Mom, I cut off their hair. You knew this, but you didn’t remind me?”
“What would have been the point? I think your dad would like this one. Red is his color. What do you think?”
“I think when I’m dead, everyone will look back at so many things in my life and find it to be a goddamn miracle that I made it as long as I did.”
“Josephine Eleanor Watts …”
We have a silent standoff. What does she expect me to say?
“I’m getting your dad this shirt.” She turns and heads toward the checkout.
When we get in the car, she exhales and glances over at me. “I’ve talked with Colten. And we’re both in similar situations with you.”
“How so?” I stare out my window at the throng of people loaded down with gifts, congesting the sidewalks and gazing at the storefront displays.
“I chose to have you instead of aborting you. He chose to save you. You are so loved. And we hate what you’re experiencing. Even if we try to imagine, I’m sure it doesn’t even come close. I try to imagine what it would be like to relive the rape repeatedly. Or imagine what it would be like to watch him do the same thing to other women. And even if I could fathom that, I know it doesn’t come close to what you’re experiencing.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it.