Splintered Memory (12 page)

He
walked out of the kitchen and started to walk up the stairs that led directly off their living room. He could feel Charlie’s eyes on him, but he didn’t turn around to see if she was following.

When he reached the
ir bedroom he walked over to their bed to put her bag down, and he knew instinctively that she was behind him. He turned to look at her, and he answered the question that he assumed was most likely to be on her mind. “You usually sleep that side,” he said pointing to the right hand side of the bed that was the side furthest from the window.

She nodded
, her eyes taking in both the room and him.

“Do
you mind if I look around the rest of the house?” She asked.

“Of course not
,” he said.

H
e watched as she turned and walked out of the room, but he couldn’t bear to follow her. He didn’t want to watch her take in their surroundings as if it was all brand new, because it wasn’t. He sat instead on their bed and slumped forward, and put his head in his hands.

That night Matt hardly slept. He stayed on the farthest side of the bed from her, and allowed himself the smallest amount of room possible. He was terrified that if he accidently encroached on Charlie’s side he would scare her to death. He was also afraid
that if he got too comfortable he would fall asleep. He knew that if that happened, then there was a very good chance that he would roll over and pull her close to him in the night the same way that he had always used to.

He watched the light gradually creep in through their window, and he felt the last trace of hope fade away
as a sense of disillusionment settled deep within him. He was trapped inside a nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from. He was living with a woman that resembled Charlie in every way, but in his heart he knew that she wasn’t the Charlie that he loved and had married
.

One
of the only good things that came from her weekly visits to her psychiatrist was that she got to talk about all of the things that were bothering her. She knew that she was a burden on Matt, and as disconcerting as she found this she didn’t know how to talk to him about it. Instead she found herself withholding more and more of herself from him, which in turn led to her feeling more of a sense of relief from being able to talk to Maria.

Maria was an elderly woman with a sweet face and kind eyes, and Charlie had found something incredibly reassuring about her from the moment that they’d met. She was unsure if this was to do with Maria’s demeanour, or her grey eyes which seemed to hold a kind of wisdom and life experience that she herself didn
’t have. She guessed that Maria was in her mid to late sixties from the soft wrinkles that lined her face, and the grey that had replaced most of her once jet black hair.

Charlie had been terrified when she’d first come to see Maria that she
was going to end up alone. She’d confided to Maria that her greatest worry was that her friends, who’d all been kind and supportive since her accident, would eventually grow tired of her and begin to look at her the way that her husband did.

Maria had never sought to reassure Charlie during any of their sessions, but instead she’d listened to her concerns and let Charlie talk until she had nothing left to say. When Charlie had poured the contents of her heart out, Maria had addressed one problem at a time.

She’d first focused on Charlie’s concerns about her friends, and on her feelings of being overly dependent and burdensome on them. She’d given Charlie tips on how to navigate conversations away from herself, and she’d taught her how to reconnect with the people in her life.

From Maria’s tips, Charlie learned that it was quite easy to reform her friendships without having to constantly discuss the stat
e of her mental health. She’d simply, rather than keep trying to reintegrate herself with her friends based on who she had been in the past, set out to make friends with them all over again. She’d taken an interest in their lives. She’d found out about them, their work, and what they’d been up to.

It ha
d actually been rather easy, and enjoyable, and she’d realised that she could spend entire evenings talking and laughing with her friends without ever once having to talk about herself.

The
renewal of these friendships had helped her, and little by little and day by day she’d become to feel less like she didn’t belong. The fears too that she’d had about not being able to take back control over her life were dissipating, and she’d started to feel like her confidence was growing.

This new found confidence had led her to start
discussing with Maria what she could do with her life in terms of a career. She knew that she couldn’t return to the law firm where she’d worked before her accident, as she couldn’t remember anything about what she did or what she had learned at university, so she had started to seriously consider going back to school.

Maria encouraged Charlie to take a proactive approach to her life. She’d taught her not to dwell on a past that she couldn’t remember, and she’d explained to Charlie that sometimes the pursuit of trying to regain memories was actually counterproductive and could hinder rather than help the mind’s healing process. 

Charlie knew that she’d been obsessing over a past that she couldn’t remember, and she’d hoped that by planning for a future that was within her control she could help her mind heal. Yet the greatest difficulty in her life and a recurring theme in all of her sessions with Maria was Matt. She knew that whilst she’d begun to accept her life in the present, and had begun planning for a possible future where her memories might never return, Matt was less accepting of this. In fact it seemed to Charlie that he was less accepting of her altogether.

She’d started to feel a growing sense that her presence in his life was becoming a burden on him. His previous patience and kindness that he’d shown in the initial few weeks of her moving home, had
recently seemed to have been replaced by resentment and animosity. She’d heard the tone of his voice becoming harsher with her, and she’d felt his intolerance towards her grow.

Charlie saw how he got annoyed with her when she asked him questions that she knew that she ought to know the answers to
, but she hadn’t intentionally forgotten whether or not he took sugar in his drinks or for that matter if she did. She’d seen him slowly morphing from a man watching his wife with love and sympathy, to a man that was looking at a total stranger and wondering how he’d ended up with her in his life.

She wanted desperately to do something about the situation. She wanted to improve it as she
’d been able to do with her friends, but their relationship just seemed so much more complex. Any questions that she asked him about his life involved her. She couldn’t retract herself from a conversation with him. She couldn’t casually talk about what things were bothering him, because she knew what was bothering him. She was!

Charlie knew that they needed to bond and
to get to know each other again, but when she tried to talk to him about her sessions with Maria and her plans for the future she saw the hurt in his face and eyes. It grieved her to know that whilst she was finding some acceptance of what had happened, he was struggling with the fact that she was moving on and he was unable to.

She knew that her presence in his life was taking a toll on him, and that the future he saw was far less optimistic than the one that she’d started to envisage was. She’d begged Maria to come down off the fence in their sessions and tell her how to fix things with him, and what to do to make him happy again, but as always Maria remained impartial and
was careful not to make suggestions. She instead tried to encourage Charlie to try to work the situation out for herself.

Charlie had contemp
lated leaving Matt. If she left she felt sure that she would be doing them both a favour. She’d get to start over and he’d get to have a life again, but every time that she made the decision to leave there was something that stopped her when she began to pack.

There was something about him that she found strangely familiar, but when she
’d tried to focus on what it was it had nearly drove her crazy. How could she leave him when he and this familiarity she felt might be the key to her memory? Yet as Matt’s demeanour had become more sombre, and his mood had deteriorated, the feeling of familiarity she felt had begun to dissipate.

They had beco
me paralysed in a domestic hell and she felt trapped, but she was too afraid to move forward and unable to remember their past in order for them to go back.

His
relationship with his parents and friends had taken a rapid decline in the past few months. He had an increasing sense of apathy towards everything and everyone, and the only thing that did get him through each day was work.

Rich had met him at the hospital to take him for a pint, but he’d only been able to stomach one before having to leave. Rich’s endless platitudes about Charlie had gotten on every nerve in his body. He
’d gone on and on about how good things were between him and Bex. How great their wedding plans were coming along, and generally about how great his life was. As if this hadn’t been bad enough, and completely insensitive Matt had thought, he’d then started talking enthusiastically about Charlie’s recovery.

“What recovery
?” Matt had demanded.

“Ah come on man, it’s like having the old Charlie back. She’s chilled out, she’s funny, and she laughs at all the same things that she used to. She’s like her old self again. You can just sit and chat with her for hours. You must know what I mean
?” He’d asked.

“No, I don’t know what you mean
,” Matt had said angrily.

How was it that Rich, and all their other friends, had found a way to reconnect with Charlie he’d asked himself? He’d tried but he hadn’t been able to. Was it because they were all willing to take her on face value, re-form new friendships with her based on the fact that she still had all the same qualities as the old Charlie he’d thought.

If that was the case though, then why hadn’t he been able to? He was after all her husband. Wasn’t he supposed to love her more than everyone else? Yet despite knowing that he was, he knew that he just couldn’t see past the amnesia. He had no time for this new Charlie, no matter how nice, funny, or chilled out she was. He wanted the old Charlie back. He wanted
his
Charlie back. He wanted his wife back.

Rich hadn’t responded, but had taken to drinking his pint at a renewed speed.

Matt had slammed his empty glass down on the table and had walked out. He’d known that had he stayed any longer it was likely that he would’ve done something that he’d have regretted, like punching his best friend in the face, but outside he hadn’t known what to do. All he had known was that he hadn’t wanted to go home.

He knew that Charlie would be sat on the sofa reading whatever book she’d decided to re-visit this week waiting for him to get in, and he knew that she was probably hoping to talk to him about her latest session with Maria and her hopes for the future.

He was aware that he was being totally out of order, but being around Charlie was getting more and more painful with each passing day. She’d grown comfortable in his presence and in their home. She would smile at him with genuine sincerity whenever he came home, and she’d sit and chat merrily with him about her day and ask him questions about his.

There had even been times when he’d been so completely taken in by this Charlie, when he had become a little too comfortable with the her, that he had found himself wanting to be near her again. Yet each time that he’d given in to this new Charlie, and he’d tried to connect with her or he’d tried to touch her face or even just her hand, her reaction had always been the same.

She would panic and apologise profusely. She would jump up or move away, and she’d offer to make him a drink before she’d start apologising again. Matt always ended up feeling like shit, and his mood would spiral even lower, knowing that he’d allowed himself to be deluded into thinking that there was still a chance that their lives could ever return to normal.

He
was feeling increasingly lonely as it became clear that he and Charlie weren’t getting any closer, and he was starting to worry that his own recollection and memories of their past together were also beginning to fade. He felt isolated from his friends and family, and most days he woke feeling desperately low. Today had been no exception, and the pint with Rich had done little to raise his spirits.

He wasn’t ready to go home, but he also couldn’t go back inside to drink with Rich. He pulled his scarf up
around his neck and hugged his coat to him as he walked up the road to another pub. He wasn’t on call tonight, so he thought that he might as well lose himself in alcohol. This would at least afford him a few hours where he could forget the miserable state of his life.

After
three further sessions with Maria, in which Charlie had all but begged her for some advice. Maria finally caved in and spoke her mind about Charlie’s domestic situation with Matt.

“You’re living in no man’s land
,” she said. “You’ve taken steps to regain control of your life. You’ve reformed your friendships and you’re looking to enrol in college, but with Matt you insist on treading carefully. You’re being cautious, and you’re unwilling to test the ground on which you stand. You’ve said time and time again that you feel reassured by his presence, and that you trust him. Yet when he makes steps to move your relationship forward, when he tries to bond with you on a physical level and potentially re-ignite the connection that you once shared, you reject him.”