“Three months.”
“Maybe four.”
“That’s a long time.”
“It isn’t.”
“It will feel like it.”
“You’ll be all right.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
“I know.”
“You have to promise me something, Meg.”
“What?”
“When they ask about me, don’t fight them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t argue. Don’t try to prove anything.”
“But you are real.”
“I know.”
“They keep saying you’re not.”
“I know.”
“And you want me to agree with them?”
“I want you to get out.”
“They’ll want me to say you’re gone.”
“Then say I’m gone.”
“But you aren’t.”
“Not while you’re here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“You won’t be there forever.”
“Three months.”
“Maybe four.”
“And then?”
“Then you leave.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be here whenever you remember.”
“I don’t want to forget.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s the one thing they can’t take away.”
“What?”
“The memory.”
She was quiet.
“Say it again.”
“What?”
“Say it.”
“I’ll always have the memory of you.”
“Good.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s enough.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I know.”
“And remember—”
“I know.”
“Say it again.”
Meg swallowed.
“I always have the memory of you.”
“Goodbye, Meg. For now.”
“Goodbye.”
▪︎
It had been a week since she had had Meg admitted to the clinic. Cheryl sat at her desk, reviewing Meg’s file. On her monitor, a video recording from the hidden camera in Meg’s room was playing. The grainy video showed Meg sitting at the small desk in her room with her hands folded in her lap.
From somewhere behind the camera, a nurse said “Time for your medications, Meg,” in a pleasant voice. Meg held out her hand and the nurse dropped two tablets onto her palm.
Meg smiled and said “Thank you,” in an equally pleasant voice. There was the sound of a closing door. Meg sat quietly for ten seconds. Cheryl leaned forward to stare into the monitor. Meg waited another five seconds, then she slipped the tablets into her pocket.
Cheryl smiled and muttered “Very good.”
The nurse glanced at her. “Doctor?”
“Nothing.”
On the screen, Meg stood and walked to the bathroom. Cheryl paused the recording. Meg’s face froze on the monitor.
“She thinks she’s fooled us,” the nurse said.
“She does.”
“Should I increase supervision?”
“No.”
“But she’s not taking the medication.”
“Not the medication you think.”
The nurse looked at her.
Cheryl pressed PLAY.
Meg returned from the bathroom and sat on the bed. She looked toward the closed door. For one brief moment, a smile flickered at the edges of her mouth.
Cheryl smiled back, reflexively.
“She’s getting better?” the nurse asked.
“Yes.” Cheryl closed down the video, made a quick note in the file, and shut the file folder.
“She just doesn’t know what she’s getting better for.”
The nurse looked at Cheryl, puzzled.
“Is she eating her meals? Any disciplinary problems?”
“She hasn’t missed a meal so far and she gets along.”
“Good.”
“She still refuses the mealtime tablets.”
“I know.”
“Shouldn’t we do something?”
Cheryl looked down at the chart stapled to the front of the file.
“No,” she said after a moment. “She’s getting everything she needs.”
“But if she isn’t taking them —”
“She is.”
The nurse frowned.
Cheryl looked up at the nurse.
“Leave the tablets, and don’t push at mealtimes.”
“Why?”
“Because she needs to believe she’s winning.”
▪︎
Cheryl quickly read through Meg’s file while Meg fidgeted a little in the seat across the desk from her. The file was full of Cheryl’s notes documenting Meg’s progress: the deceptions, the suggestions, the controlled resistance, the acceptances. And the preservation of one idea: I’ll always have the memory of you.
Cheryl looked up from reading Meg’s file and smiled. “You’ve been doing well.”
Meg shrugged. “Have I?”
“Yes.”
“I still think about him, you know.”
“I know. You keep trying to avoid mentioning him when we talk.”
“You want me to stop thinking about him?”
“No.”
Meg looked up. “No?”
“I want you to stop needing him.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A great deal.”
Meg considered that. “Do you think he’s real?”
Cheryl gave her a psychiatrist’s gentle smile. “This isn’t about what I think.”
“Everyone says he’s imaginary.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what I remember. And it was horrible.”
Cheryl leaned back in her chair, engaged in the conversation. “Then don’t lose the memory.”
Meg stared at her. “You just said—”
“I said you don’t need to live inside it.”
Meg said nothing.
Cheryl gave her another smile. “You can remember something without belonging to it.”
Something in Meg’s expression changed. “That’s what you want me to learn?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Three months.”
Meg smiled faintly. “Maybe four.”
Cheryl smiled back more openly. “Maybe four.”
▪︎
It was ten p.m. Cheryl knew that there would be no-one around except the ward nurses monitoring the patients. Meg’s file was on her desk, opened to the latest daily report. The file had become quite thick with notes, reports, subtle reminders. Three months. Four at most.
Three months had passed. One more to go. Cheryl closed the file: enough preparation. Enough observations; enough progress notes. Enough evidence of compliance; of independence. Enough to release Meg. Cheryl chuckled at the thought: Even Meg will believe she is safe.
Cheryl had been very careful. Every suggestion had been small; had been planted deep. Every step had been Meg’s own — that was important. No one could say Meg had been coerced. Meg had to be ‘cured’.
Cheryl looked at the drawing clipped to the inside cover of the file. It was a drawing Meg had done of the man. She was a good artist — it really looked like him.
For a moment, Cheryl allowed herself to remember: the humiliation; the betrayal. She put the drawing back, facedown.
Meg had come to her private clinic a year ago, complaining of dreams that haunted her — violent dreams that she could neither understand nor stop. Cheryl saw her opportunity and went to work on Meg. She had slowly planted the idea of Bryan in Meg’s mind, filling in details of his story, of how he looked. Meg’s mind did the rest.
And then Cheryl treated Meg for her ‘delusion’. Planting deeper suggestions, erasing the surface memory but leaving a new core memory: an image of a man and a remembrance of violence. “And remember, you always have the memory of me.” She had said this to Meg over and over, until it became Meg’s own chant.
Cheryl looked at the drawing and thought about the man in Meg’s mind. She had drawn him perfectly — even the small scar on his left cheek from that night.
“Once you’re out of this place,” she whispered, “that son of a bitch, David, will pay for what he did to me.”
She looked at Meg’s file, then at the drawing, then back at the file. And she smiled the slow smile of revenge. Not because she had found a way to kill him. But because she had found a way not to be the one who killed him. She had spent months looking for a weapon. She had been looking in entirely the wrong place. Cheryl picked up the file, weighed it in her hand. “I found the perfect murder weapon.”
She paused. “And it’s somebody else.”
______________________________________________________________
Robert Willis is an emerging author who has published short stories and poems, and who has too many fiction, poetry, and non-fiction projects in progress. Robert lives on Vancouver Island with his family and two god-like cats. Robert’s work has been published in Grand Little Things, dadakuku, several FARK Fiction Anthologies, and Polar Borealis. Robert’s website can be found at https://rawillis.byethost18.com/
