I'm Not Sam

On the way to bathroom I look in on Patrick again. I think he may be dreaming. He hasn’t moved. His mouth is open slightly and his brow is knit and his eyes are restless beneath the lids.

He’s hiding in sleep. How well he’s hiding isn’t clear.

The shower feels wonderful. Our water pressure’s fine and I turn it on full blast, standing with my back to the shower-head so that the warm sting of it pounds away at my neck and shoulders and creates a sort of white noise in my head.

I don’t have to listen to myself think anymore.

I wash and condition my hair. I soap my armpits and shave away those tufts of fur. I shave my legs carefully so as not to nick the skin. I take my time at both these things and then I just stand there a while in the spray. I’ll deal with my pubic hair some other time — for now I just wash myself clean, inside and out.

It’s only when the water begins to chill that I turn it off and towel dry. If I could, I’d stay in there all morning until my skin begins to prune and pucker.

On any normal day I’d blow-dry my hair, I’d moisturize, but this is not a normal day. Now I do want that coffee. After the shower, I think my stomach can handle it. I slip on my robe and pad out into kitchen.

The microwave tells me it’s seven-thirty. I’ve been in there almost an hour. I sit at the kitchen table and sip the strong hot coffee, black with two sugars. There’s no cream. He’s not picked any up for me. Patrick takes his black.

Doc’s an early bird. He’s the kind of old country black-bag doctor you hardly ever see anymore. He opens at eight. So at eight o’clock sharp I’m on the telephone.

My hands are shaking again. I don’t think it’s the coffee.

Millie, his receptionist-slash-nurse, picks up right away.

“Hi, Millie, it’s Sam. Is he in yet?

There’s a strange hesitant pause on the other end.

“Sam? Why, it’s so good to hear from you, dear. I’ll put you right through.”

Then it’s Doc on the line. He sounds surprised and happy.

“Sam! Damn, girl, you had us worried!”

And hearing his voice I can’t keep the sudden tears out of my own. Rational Samantha Burke is having a complete and total meltdown on the telephone.

“John, what’s… I don’t understand… what’s happening here… I don’t… I’ve… somehow I’ve lost days, weeks, I don’t remember… and Patrick won’t… he’s… he just… our living room’s destroyed, and my wedding dress… John? Who’s Lily?”

There’s a silence.

“Sam, Lily’s you.” he says.

And that’s how I learn that for eighteen days, I’ve been a little girl.

He asks me to calm down and try to begin at the beginning so I tell him about waking up and Patrick’s strange, scary reaction and his sleeping and the trashed living room and the children’s toys and all the rest and I try to go slow but it’s hard, I know I’m skipping over things, but he listens patiently without interrupting and then he tells me about Patrick bringing me to his office and his interview with me and the subsequent results of the MRI, which were negative. He tells me that Lily appeared to be a smart, polite child of about five or six years old. He tells me that apparently I’d suffered from selective memory loss and age regression — he avoids the phrase split personality — that I knew my cat Zoey, for instance, but not my husband.

“I gave him the name of a psychoanalyst to call, Sam. I wanted you to see her right away. For some reason Patrick wanted to try to bring you back himself. I guess he did.”

“Will I… good god, John, is this going to happen to me again?”

“I honestly don’t know. Will you try the therapist?”

“Of course I will.”

“Good. And from what you’re telling me, so should Patrick. Tell him to give you her name and number. I’d see Patrick myself today but I’ve got a meeting in Oklahoma City at ten o’clock and I’ll be gone all afternoon. I’m really glad you caught me. Can you bring him in tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’ll see to it.”

“Okay, nine o’clock. In the meantime, let him rest. He’s had quite a shock. And you might try to get some yourself. Any valium in the house, anything like that?”

“I think so. I’ll check.”

“If you need some, call Millie. I’ll leave a prescription for you.”

“Thanks, John. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Sam. You try to relax now, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

I sit down with the dregs of my coffee and think this over. It’s a hell of a lot to take in all at once like this but that’s true of the entire morning. I need Patrick to fill me in on all the rest of it but Doc said to let him rest, so I will. The thing to do, I think, is to get busy.

I’m going to put our house in order.

In the bedroom Patrick’s turned away toward the window and Zoey’s curled up in the crook of his arm. I walk over and scratch her neck and the top of her head. She’s purring.

I hang up the robe and slip on a pair of panties, jeans, a Jimi Hendrix tank top and my running shoes and I’m ready. I close the bedroom door behind me against the noise I’m about to make and haul the Electrolux out of the hall closet and the trash basket out of the kitchen.

Zoey’s favorite stuffed toy is lying near the baseboard at the entrance to our living room. I pick it up and inspect it for glass. It’s clean. It’s escaped the general devastation.

Our cat has the strangest relationship to this thing. Every now and then we’ll hear her yowling, this loud sad mournful sound coming out of her, and every single time the toy’s on the floor or the bed or the couch where she’s deposited it right in front of her.

The toy’s a tuxedo, just like her. Patrick’s theory is that she thinks it’s family — a dead or lost brother or sister possibly. I tell him that’s morbid. But with that sound she makes, he might be right.

I toss it out of the way down the hall toward the bedroom and plug in the vacuum. It roars to life.

For a while after that all I’m really conscious of is my battle against the glass, the tinkling of glass through the metal wand. When I get to Patrick’s framed Incredible Hulk poster, the beer bottle and the painted shade I carefully pick up the larger pieces and put them in the trash basket. The smaller ones fly through the wand.

Is a wand called a wand because it’s magic? There’s the momentary urge to giggle. I wonder what Lily’s laugh was like.

I set the coffee table, standing lamp and fireplace screen to rights and shake out my wedding dress. I inspect it for damages. There’s dried blood on the train. There’s a small tear from the end of the zipper down, about an inch long. The blood can be cleaned and the tear repaired but the veil is hopeless, torn to pieces.

And that’s when it hits me. I did this. The shattered glass, the overturned furniture, the torn dress.

I did all of it.

A little girl inside me. But also me.

Once I’ve got the place straightened up and I’m satisfied that all the glass is swept away I set to deconstructing what Lily’s done while I was away. The wedding dress goes in the hamper for cleaning and repairs.

Teddy goes back behind the glass doors in the hutch in our bedroom. Patrick’s still sleeping the sleep of the dead, if not the innocent. In the guestroom — her room — I gather up the Barbies, thinking I’ve got to get rid of those swimsuits at some point and dress them in their proper clothes, and put them in the hutch beside Teddy where they belong.

The boxes for all the toys are in the guest room closet. I’m not surprised to find them there. Patrick’s an inveterate pack-rat.

For some reason I want that Easy-Bake oven out of my kitchen right away.

I pull the box out of the pile and in the kitchen, pack the entire ridiculous bright-purple thing away along with all its pans and moulds and boxes. I trek it back to the guest room and shove it deep under the bed.

That’s when, for the second time, I notice the half-empty glass of milk on the bedside table. A shaft of