Turn of Mind

comfort in it, have enjoyed being so adored.

Other residents are jealous. They try to steal Dog away. Several times I have awakened from deep sleep to find a dark shape bending over my bed, attempting to grab the whining wiggling body. I always let it go without comment, and the thing always returns to me. My familiar. Every crone needs one.

The only thing that helps is the walking. What the people here call wandering. They’ve set up a kind of a trail. A labyrinth for the mentally deficient.

On any given hour, there might be two or three of us traversing the loop. If someone tries to wander more randomly, they are stopped and firmly put back on the trail.

I remember the Chartres labyrinth, the children fascinated with it, following its mesmerizing lines to the center. Where pilgrims hoped to get closer to God. Where repentant sinners who suffered the stony path on their knees finally arrived, bloodied and weary, their penance fulfilled.

How I would love to experience once again that sense of freedom that follows punishment, that release that children feel once they have confessed and paid for their trivial crimes. But I—I have no choice but to keep wandering.

We have a visitor, Jen. Aren’t you glad we had a bath? Look how nice your hair looks!

It is a face I have seen before. That’s what I am reduced to now. No more names. Just characteristics, if they are idiosyncratic enough, and knowing whether a face is familiar or unfamiliar.

And those are not absolute categories. I can be looking at a face that I have decided is unfamiliar only to have its features shift and reveal a visage that is not only known but beloved.

I didn’t recognize my own mother this morning, disguised as she was. But then she revealed herself. She cried as she held my hand. I comforted her as best I could. I explained that, yes, it had been a difficult birth, but I would be home soon, the baby was doing well. But where is James? I asked. Mom, Dad can’t be here right now. Why are you calling me Mom and him Dad? More tears.

And then my mother was gone.

Now this one. A different sort altogether.

I am Detective Luton. We’ve spoken on a number of occasions.

Who performed your thyroidectomy? Was it Dr. Gregory?

My what? Oh—and her hand goes to the scar on her throat. I actually don’t remember his name. Why?

He always had a good hand with the needle. Your scar healed nicely.

So I’ve been told.

Has your dosage been titrated correctly?

Ma’am?

When was the last time your T3 and T4 levels were checked?

O, perhaps a year ago. But that’s not why I’m here.

It’s not my specialty, I know. But it’s something I would ask your endocrinologist. I find that eighty percent of the people with chronic thyroid conditions aren’t adequately monitoring their levels.

Okay, well I appreciate that. But I actually came here on another matter. I know you don’t remember, so I’ll just fill you in real quickly. I’m with the police. I’m in charge of an ongoing investigation into the death of Amanda O’Toole.

She pauses as if waiting for something.

Is that name familiar?

There’s someone on my street of that name. But I don’t know her well. We’ve only just moved into the neighborhood, and I have a new baby and a very busy practice. So I’m very sorry to hear it. But we were not more than acquaintances.

I’m glad. Because it was very upsetting to the friends and family of this woman. The sudden death, but also the way her body was treated after death.

Go on.

We believe, due to the violence with which her head hit the table, that it was not an accident. And then, sometime after death, the fingers of her right hand were cut off. No. Not cut. Surgically removed.

An interesting modus operandi. And why are you telling me this?

Because I want your brain. I need your brain.

I don’t quite understand.

We think you know something about this. But that you don’t know what you know.

How did you know that?

Just a hunch. You see a lot in my line of work.

Yes, I’ve been worried. My memory. It’s not what it used to be. Just this morning, I told James—my husband—