Read Online Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler - Free Book Online

noticed?
    “And yet they claim they’re working to make this city safer,” Dr. Morrow said.
    “Actually, I live in the county,” Liam told him.
    “Oh, really.”
    Exclaimed. That was another word you saw only in print.
    “But the point is,” Liam said, “I was hit and knocked unconscious, and I don’t remember anything more till I woke up in a hospital bed.”
    “They did a CT scan, I assume.”
    “That’s what I’m told.”
    “And they found no sign of intracranial bleeding.”
    “No, but …”
    Barbara used to say that he didn’t phrase things strongly enough when he visited his doctor. She’d ask, “Did you tell him about your back? Did you tell him you were in agony?” and Liam would say, “Well, I mentioned I was experiencing some discomfort.” Barbara would roll her eyes. So now he leaned forward in his chair. “I have a very, very serious concern,” he said. “I really need to talk about this. I feel I’m going crazy.”
    “Crazy! You told me memory loss.”
    “I’m going crazy over my memory loss.”
    “What is it you don’t remember, exactly?”
    “Anything whatsoever involving the attack,” Liam said. “All I know is, I went to bed, I slid under my covers, I looked out the window … and pouf! There I am in a hospital room. A whole chunk of time has vanished. Someone broke into my apartment and I must have woken up, because they say I got this hand injury fighting off the … assailant. Then a neighbor called 911, and the police came and the ambulance, but every bit of that is absent from my mind.”
    “You do remember other things, though,” Dr. Morrow said. “The time before you went to bed. The time after you woke in the hospital.”
    “Yes, all of that. Just not the attack.”
    “Nor will you ever, I venture to say. People always hope for some soap-opera moment where everything comes back to them. But the memories surrounding a head trauma are gone forever, in most cases. As a matter of fact, you’re fairly unusual in recalling as much as you do. Some victims forget days and days leading up to the event, and they have only spotty recollections of the days afterward. Consider yourself fortunate.”
    “Fortunate,” Liam said, with a twist of his mouth.
    “And why would you even want to remember such an experience?”
    “You don’t understand,” Liam said.
    He knew he had used up his time. A new tension had crept into the room’s atmosphere; the doctor’s posture had grown more erect. But this was important. Liam gripped his knees. “I feel I’ve lost something,” he said. “A part of my life has been stolen from me. I don’t care if it was unpleasant; I need to know what it was. I want it back. I’d give anything to get it back! I wish I had someone like the … rememberer out in your waiting room.”
    Dr. Morrow said, “The what?”
    “The young woman who’s bringing in her, I don’t know, her father, I guess, to see you. He seems to need reminding of names and such and she’s right there at his elbow, feeding him clues.”
    “Ah, yes,” Dr. Morrow said, and his expression cleared. “Yes, couldn’t we all use a rememberer, as you call her, after a certain age. And wouldn’t we all like to have Mr. Cope’s money to pay her with.”
    “He pays her?”
    “She’s a hired assistant, I believe,” the doctor said. But then he must have worried that he had committed an indiscretion, because he rose abruptly and came around to the front of his desk. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, Mr. Pennywell. There’s really nothing I can do. But I think you’ll find that over time, this issue will seem less important. Face it: we forget things every day of our lives. You’re missing lots of chunks! But you don’t dwell on those, now, do you?”
    Liam rose too, but he couldn’t give up so easily. He said, “You don’t think I could maybe, for instance, get hypnotized or some such?”
    “I wouldn’t advise it,” the doctor said.
    “Or how about