SWNOVELS : Chapter 104
Alexander
I hadn’t expected Iris’s memory to come flooding back on our very first attempt at the visualization exercise.
That would have been extraordinary.
But after three days of trying to follow the doctor’s orders – which was not easy with a willful and reluctant patient – I was getting absolutely nowhere
and I was getting tired of it quickly.
Just how long a road had I embarked upon with this project? Only time would tell. It was reasonable that three days was not long enough for this process to work completely, but it did not seem like a good sign that we had made zero progress.
Iris was still only answering my questions with quick replies in the vein of “I don’t know,” “I can’t remember,” and “This is giving me a headache.”
Was this going to take another week? Two? Three?
Or would it take months?
I couldn’t handle Iris being here months down the road. That had never been my plan. The baby was coming in a matter of months; Fiona would need me even more as the baby grew and took more of her
strength, and once it was here, she and our child would be my focus.
“Iris, please just try.”
Today, she had given up within the first five minutes of our visualization exercise.
“No,” she said stubbornly. “I’m tired. And I don’t see any point to you asking me questions about things I don’t remember, anyway.”
“Iris, the entire reason I brought you here from the moors was so you could help with this investigation.
Help me get justice for my mother. If you are going to give up after only a few days, why are you even here?
Why did you come?”
“Well,” she said, going to her kitchenette and starting a pot of tea. “Maybe I thought that I could do it. But it’s
just going to take more time. I need a break today.
With the headache starting, it’s better I just lie down for the evening. We could see about it again tomorrow.”
The nervous energy in my body was building up. I could not remain seated, but I also didn’t want to pace the room, knowing it might make Iris agitated to see me agitated.
I stood near the door, turned my back to it. Iris was fixing her tea, her back to me.
“All I have asked of you today is five minutes of your time to try the visualization exercise. Please do this.”
This was my last polite ask.
She carried her tea over to the bed, climbed up and made herself comfortable. All while wearing a pouty face. “I don’t want to,” she said again. “Will you please
just stay here and hang out with me today?”
I snapped. “If you don’t want to help me with my investigation… if you won’t take five minutes out of your day to help me. Then what the hell are you doing here, Iris? Why did you even come with me?”
“Alexander, stop it!” She looked up at me with horror.
“Why are you getting mad at me? Why are you saying these things?”
“Because you are being impossible. And no, I am not going to sit and hang out with you. I have many responsibilities. I don’t have time to waste, and I don’t have time to argue with you, either.”
Iris’s big eyes welled with tears. “I thought you wanted me here,” she said shakily. “I thought you wanted to take care of me. That’s what you said.”
A muscle in my right forearm – I’d probably strained it yesterday on the salmon ladder – started twitching aggressively. It was distracting and annoying. I used my opposite hand to apply some pressure to the muscle but it didn’t stop its incessant spasming.
I took a deep breath and willed my body to relax.
It didn’t work. I tried to answer calmly anyway.
“I wanted you to come here to help me with this, Iris.
And yes, I am happy to provide you with healthcare. I am happy to provide for your needs while you get well. But you have been refusing to call the doctor when you are sick, and now you’re refusing to work, even for five minutes, on recovering your memories.”
My arms flew into the air in frustration. “So what are we doing here? You’re refusing to accept my help, and refusing to help me.”
Iris buried her face in her knees and began to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said between sobs. “I didn’t think about it like that. I’ll do it now. I can try to remember. I’m sorry.
I was just tired and being stupid.”
I sat down. “I don’t think you’re stupid, Iris.” A sigh escaped my lips. I hoped she wouldn’t read too much into it. “And thank you for saying you’d be willing to try. Do you need a minute before we start?”
She pushed away from her knees, rubbing her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. “No I’m okay. We can do it now.” Her voice was back to normal.
Iris laid down in bed and I dimmed the lights, as we’d been doing all week for this process. This was part of the doctor’s instructions.
She closed her eyes. I resumed my seat and we began.
“Imagine that you are in the palace. In Queen Alexandra’s suite. You are working, like any average day. Tell me what you see.”
Iris drew a long, shaky breath. “I see the room. Her big bed with the canopy over it. The furniture.” She shook her head, opened her eyes and turned to face me. “It’s only the same things I already told you yesterday.”
“Iris, please. You have to try to stay in the memory for more than a couple seconds. Please close your eyes and this time, keep them closed. Okay?”
She sighed, exasperated. But rolled back onto her back and closed her eyes.
We began at the start again. But this time, Iris behaved, keeping her eyes closed for several minutes
“Now,” I said, “think about the last time you saw my mother. What did she look like?”
“Hmm.” Iris was quiet. Then, slowly, she said, “She looked real bad.”
“Where was she?”
“She was in bed. Wearing her nightgown in the afternoon. I’d been trying to get her to change, but she was so tired. She could hardly move.”
“Why was she tired? Did she say?”
“Hmm. She said she… she said she felt like she might vomit. I went to get a bin.”
I couldn’t believe it. Iris was remembering things that
she had not been able to recall before.
I tried to be very deliberate with my questions. Not wanting to push too hard, for fear Iris would get irritated and quit again. Focusing on small details like the doctor instructed.
“Where did you go to get a bin?”
“I went to the bathroom. The Queen’s bathroom. I took the bin from under the sink.”
“What color was the bin?”
“White.”
“And when you went back into the room, carrying the bin, what did you see?”
Iris’s eyes flew open. She shot upright. “Oh my god,”
I went to her bedside, put a hand on her shoulder.
“What is it? What did you see?”
She looked up at me, silent tears pouring down her cheeks. “She already threw up,” she said. She opened her mouth again, looked ashamed, looked away from my eyes. “I don’t wanna tell you,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“It’s your mom,” she said. “You don’t want to remember her like this.”
I let go of her shoulder and took a step back.
“That doesn’t matter to me, Iris. What I need is to know exactly what happened. Please tell me what you
Iris grimaced. “She had thrown up all over herself. It was awful. It was everywhere. And it was all red.”
Suddenly she threw her hands to her eyes, began to shake her head side to side violently and cried, “Oh, please don’t make me think about it anymore.”
I spent several minutes after this comforting Iris, until finally she seemed to calm down and become very tired.
In fact, after I told her I was going to leave to give her some time to rest, she laid her head on the pillow and seemed to fall fast asleep in an instant. I turned the dim lights out entirely before making my exit.
Out of her company, I allowed myself to smile.
It was not a happy smile. But a hopeful one. A
The memory Iris had been able to dig up today was not pretty. But it was a good lead.
And it meant that she was starting to remember.