“I’ve been around; I know.”
“Joyce had a great-aunt who disappeared in New York City in 1939,” Doug piped up again. “She was never found, at least that they knew for sure.” Then, after the slightest hesitation: “Do you think there’s a connection?”
“What, that every 68 years or so one of them does this?”
Ryerson belched idly. “It’s a pattern all right. Just like Judge Crater. If memory serves, he was from Maine too.”
But in spite of himself he asked Doug for Joyce’s great-aunt’s name and the approximate date of her disappearance. “I’ll have the file sent up here from records. It’ll take a day or so. In the meantime your girlfriend will turn up and we can all go through it together.”
Doug left, mollified for the time being.
“What the hell are you up to, Ryerson?” the detective at the next desk asked when Doug was gone. “I’m going bust them on Wyllie in records. He’s got life too easy.”
68
ENTR’ACTE
* * * *
Joyce played a game with herself. She would shut her eyes tight and then open them quickly, expecting to find herself in a hospital she recognized, or maybe even home.
Maybe I’ve hypnotized myself into thinking I’ve gone back in time somehow, she thought. Maybe I’m dreaming. I’ll wake up now, she decided, and did her best to rouse herself, slapping and pulling at her arms.
The ward nurse still pushed the same white enameled cart down the row of beds, filling water glasses from an earthenware pitcher. This nurse wore a cap that reminded Joyce of those wrinkled paper cups fruit ices are sold in.
In the bed across from her, a woman was reading a Photoplay magazine. Leslie Howard beamed at Joyce from the cover.
Okay, it’s not a dream, Joyce continued her interior monologue. Maybe I did suffer some kind of brain injury when I got hit by the car, and this is some kind of delusion.
Maybe I’m having a seizure, Joyce suddenly thought. She hadn’t had her medication yet, she planned to take it at lunch.
When the disorder was first diagnosed, when Joyce was a teenager, she would have auditory hallucinations. Low voices barely indistinct would invade and interrupt her thoughts.
For more than a year before she was treated, Joyce dealt with the voices herself by ordering them to speak up or shut up. They always stopped then.
She also got an aura, a sharp headache centered between and above her eyes, just before an episode. Both symptoms completely disappeared when she began taking the Depakote.
Joyce hadn’t had a seizure at all in years, and when she did they were very mild, barely noticeable to all but her closest friends and family. She would become confused, unable to concentrate.
69
FRANK JULIANO
Thoughts would be like birds in her mind, soaring off before Joyce could grasp them or was ready to let them go. Her judgment was impaired; she once signed the family up for over $200 of magazines from a salesperson lucky enough to find her home alone during one of these episodes.
But Joyce knew that the level of the drug in her blood would still be in therapeutic range. She had in fact gone without her pills for days before without any recurrences, and at least one neurologist who consulted on her case felt that Joyce no longer needed the drug.
Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, she thought. This may be a full-blown psychotic episode, Joyce thought sadly. I may be losing my mind.
But just in case I’ve really slipped back in time—what was it Professor Collins had said about wormholes?—I’d better not tell anyone about the seizures. How would they deal with those here, exorcism or the more-enlightened lobotomy?
Whenever Joyce had tried to test the reality of the situation, by challenging the idea that it was 1939, the nurse just said, “We’ll have to ask the doctor, dear.”
Joyce had asked for ibuprofen for her pain, knowing it wouldn’t have been invented yet, and had gotten the same response.
“Amnesia,” the staff
“Joyce had a great-aunt who disappeared in New York City in 1939,” Doug piped up again. “She was never found, at least that they knew for sure.” Then, after the slightest hesitation: “Do you think there’s a connection?”
“What, that every 68 years or so one of them does this?”
Ryerson belched idly. “It’s a pattern all right. Just like Judge Crater. If memory serves, he was from Maine too.”
But in spite of himself he asked Doug for Joyce’s great-aunt’s name and the approximate date of her disappearance. “I’ll have the file sent up here from records. It’ll take a day or so. In the meantime your girlfriend will turn up and we can all go through it together.”
Doug left, mollified for the time being.
“What the hell are you up to, Ryerson?” the detective at the next desk asked when Doug was gone. “I’m going bust them on Wyllie in records. He’s got life too easy.”
68
ENTR’ACTE
* * * *
Joyce played a game with herself. She would shut her eyes tight and then open them quickly, expecting to find herself in a hospital she recognized, or maybe even home.
Maybe I’ve hypnotized myself into thinking I’ve gone back in time somehow, she thought. Maybe I’m dreaming. I’ll wake up now, she decided, and did her best to rouse herself, slapping and pulling at her arms.
The ward nurse still pushed the same white enameled cart down the row of beds, filling water glasses from an earthenware pitcher. This nurse wore a cap that reminded Joyce of those wrinkled paper cups fruit ices are sold in.
In the bed across from her, a woman was reading a Photoplay magazine. Leslie Howard beamed at Joyce from the cover.
Okay, it’s not a dream, Joyce continued her interior monologue. Maybe I did suffer some kind of brain injury when I got hit by the car, and this is some kind of delusion.
Maybe I’m having a seizure, Joyce suddenly thought. She hadn’t had her medication yet, she planned to take it at lunch.
When the disorder was first diagnosed, when Joyce was a teenager, she would have auditory hallucinations. Low voices barely indistinct would invade and interrupt her thoughts.
For more than a year before she was treated, Joyce dealt with the voices herself by ordering them to speak up or shut up. They always stopped then.
She also got an aura, a sharp headache centered between and above her eyes, just before an episode. Both symptoms completely disappeared when she began taking the Depakote.
Joyce hadn’t had a seizure at all in years, and when she did they were very mild, barely noticeable to all but her closest friends and family. She would become confused, unable to concentrate.
69
FRANK JULIANO
Thoughts would be like birds in her mind, soaring off before Joyce could grasp them or was ready to let them go. Her judgment was impaired; she once signed the family up for over $200 of magazines from a salesperson lucky enough to find her home alone during one of these episodes.
But Joyce knew that the level of the drug in her blood would still be in therapeutic range. She had in fact gone without her pills for days before without any recurrences, and at least one neurologist who consulted on her case felt that Joyce no longer needed the drug.
Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, she thought. This may be a full-blown psychotic episode, Joyce thought sadly. I may be losing my mind.
But just in case I’ve really slipped back in time—what was it Professor Collins had said about wormholes?—I’d better not tell anyone about the seizures. How would they deal with those here, exorcism or the more-enlightened lobotomy?
Whenever Joyce had tried to test the reality of the situation, by challenging the idea that it was 1939, the nurse just said, “We’ll have to ask the doctor, dear.”
Joyce had asked for ibuprofen for her pain, knowing it wouldn’t have been invented yet, and had gotten the same response.
“Amnesia,” the staff
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