Chapter 21

"In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn." Octavia E. Butler

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Chapter Twenty – One

Luke's jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed as he looked down at Annaliese intensely. It had been a long time since he had seen his brother's wife, and the nervous expression on her face was not one that he appreciated.

"It is a miracle she is awake," Annaliese said cautiously, "but her doctor warned us all that if she woke up, it was highly likely that there could be problems."

Seeing as Annaliese was not jumping for joy at Isabella being awake, it was obvious that there was indeed a problem. Luke chose not to listen to Annaliese any further. He held Jamie tightly in his arms as he ran up the stairs. Annaliese called after him, but he did not stop.

There was a long, narrow hallway of patient rooms above stairs. As he was blind the last time that he was in Bath, he had no idea which one was Isabella's. There was one door on the far right of the hallway that was open. He decided first to try there.

"Where are we going, Papa?" asked Jamie.

Luke suddenly stopped in his tracks. Was it safe to take Jamie in to see his mother when there was obviously something wrong with Isabella? Luke placed Jamie down on the floor. "Go back to Aunt Annaliese," he instructed. "I will come and find you in a minute."

Jamie obeyed and retreated back towards the staircase.

Before he could even start towards the open door, or Jamie could fully descend down the stairs, Annaliese had hurried up after him.

"Luke!" she hissed quietly, motioning for him to come to her.

Luke reluctantly joined Annalise on the landing.

"You cannot go barging in on her. You will frighten her!" she whispered. Annaliese sighed.

"What is wrong with her? Tell me so at once or I most certainly will barge in on her. She is my wife!" Luke snapped.

Annaliese chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before saying, "Isabella woke up yesterday afternoon. I was so excited, but she was panicking. Luke, Isabella does not remember anything." Tears began to well up in Annaliese's brown eyes.

Luke furrowed his eyebrows. "She does not remember falling down the stairs?"

Annaliese shook her head. "She does not remember anything!" she clarified. "She does not even know her own name."

Luke stopped breathing as he stared at Annaliese in disbelief.

It had been a good five minutes before he spoke, in which he let out an odd sounding chuckle. "That is ridiculous. People do not just forget everything. Of course Isabella knows her name."

Annaliese shook her head adamantly. "She knows nothing, Luke. I told Isabella her name. I told her who I was and she had a meltdown of sorts. The doctor had to sedate her!"

The doctor. Luke growled. That quack of a doctor had drilled into Isabella's brain. Had that cause the memories to fall out of her head? "I want to speak to that doctor!" Luke demanded.

"Of course," Annaliese agreed. "We need to discuss what happens next ... where Isabella will live," she muttered.

"Where she will live? She will live with me. I am her husband," Luke insisted angrily.

"Luke, I know this is a shock, but we need to tread carefully. We cannot just – where are you going?" she demanded to know as Luke turned away from her for the second time.

Luke headed directly for the open door, having the feeling that Isabella was in there. He paused in the doorway for a moment as his eyes found the blonde woman that was sitting up in bed and staring out the window.

She was entirely too thin. She looked pale and gaunt, skin and bones, and her corn silk coloured hair was in disarray, sticking out in every which way. She wore a plain, white gown over her skinny features, and her bony fingers were knitted together on her lap.

But she was beautiful, and she was his Isabella. She was awake. She was alive. They could get through anything. After everything that they had endured, Isabella's memories would surely come back. They had to.

His weight on the floorboards caused a creaking sounds. Isabella gasped, and her head spun around. Her brown eyes found Luke in the doorway.

This was the first time he has seen her beautiful eyes in over three years. How he had longed to see them. How many times had he imagined them? How many times had he pictured the love that shone so easily through their chocolate depths?

But there was no recognition in her eyes. There was nothing but fear and panic. Isabella seized the bedclothes and pulled them up to her chin, creating a barrier made of sheets between them.

Luke held his hands up and entered the room slowly. "Isabella, it is alright. You know me," he said softly.

Isabella sucked in a quick breath, her brown eyes widening as Luke edged closer to her. "Do not call me that," she whispered. "I do not know who you are. I do not know who Isabella is."

There was nothing there. How was it possible that she did not even know her own name? What had that doctor done to her?

"Your name is Isabella," Luke insisted. "My name is Luke. I am your –"

"Luke," interrupted Annaliese. "Doctor Whitney wishes to speak with us," she said firmly, motioning for him to follow.

Reluctantly, Luke chose to leave Isabella's room in favour of berating her doctor. Isabella's wary eyes followed him to the door. Luke closed the door behind him.

"I overwhelmed her with information yesterday and she had to be sedated," Annaliese hissed angrily. "You do her no favours by frightening her with the news that she is married with a child!"

Luke knew that Annaliese was right. But surely, if Isabella was told everything calmly, her memories would come back to her.

Luke followed Annaliese back downstairs to where their party was gathered in the entryway. Another man had joined them. From the sound of his voice, Luke recognised him as Doctor Whitney, the insane man who had drilled into Isabella's skull.

Jamie latched back onto Luke and Luke lifted him back up into his arms. "What the bloody hell did you do to my wife?" Luke demanded to know angrily.

Doctor Whitney frowned sadly. "Shall we continue this conversation in private, Captain?" he suggested.

Luke nodded curtly. They all followed Doctor Whitney to a private office, no larger than the cabins that he was used to on navy ships. The walls were lined with bookshelves overladen with medical textbooks and journals. Luke bitterly wondered if any one of those books told a doctor how not to rid a woman of her memories.

Doctor Whitney sat down behind his desk. Luke and Annaliese sat down in the chairs before the desk, while the others gathered around them. Jamie sat quietly on Luke's lap.

"I had the chance to examine Mrs Cassidy this morning and I have found that she is in good health. She is underweight, of course, but that will be taken care of quite easily," Doctor Whitney began.

Luke balled his hands into fists. "Good health, is she?"

"Can someone please explain to me what is going on?" Mrs Dawson asked worriedly.

"Do not pretend to be concerned, Mother," Annaliese muttered bitterly under her breath.

"Let me explain it this way." Doctor Whitney pulled a fresh piece of parchment out of his desk drawer and dipped a quill in ink. He then drew an oval shape, before dividing it up with straight, random lines. He then held up the artwork to show. "In the medical field, we understand that each area of the brain serves a different purpose. When one area is damaged, its corresponding function is inhibited."

"And you damaged her brain when you drilled into it, did you not?" seethed Luke.

"You did what?" gasped Mrs Dawson.

"Mother, do not be melodramatic," grumbled Annaliese. "Doctor Whitney saved Isabella."

Luke clenched his teeth. "I am not so sure."

Doctor Whitney pursed his lips. "Mrs Cassidy's brain was already damaged, Captain. The trauma to her brain was evident when I operated. Had I not alleviated the pressure on her brain, she would have died."

"The fall is what caused this?" Luke clarified.

Doctor Whitney nodded. "It is highly likely."

Then it was Mary's fault. Luke would kill her.

"When will her memories return?" asked Annaliese.

"I cannot say," replied Doctor Whitney truthfully. "I have never had a patient with such extreme memory loss before. I have found that patients tend to lose their most recent memories before anything else. Mrs Cassidy has lost everything."

Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. "So you are telling us that Isabella is the most severe case you have seen?"

Doctor Whitney nodded. "Yes. It is a most extraordinary case. The medical community will be most intrigued to keep an eye on her progress." He paused awkwardly. "With respect, of course," he added. "The most important thing is to keep her calm. It is likely that something completely accidental will spark a memory for Mrs Cassidy. She is still in there. She has not forgotten how to do things. She simply cannot recall the moments in her life in which she learned to do them."

Luke frowned as he pondered that thought. "If she remembers how to do things, then surely her other memories will come back," he said to himself. Luke suddenly had an idea. If he could convince Isabella of who she was, then perhaps it could spark a memory. "I need some of that parchment," he told Doctor Whitney suddenly. "And a quill, and some ink."

Doctor Whitney curiously appeased Luke, and gave him what he needed.

Luke shifted Jamie from his lap and stood up. "I have an idea," he announced, before leaving the room swiftly. Luke took the stairs two at a time. He could hear his family following behind him. Luke barely knocked on Isabella's door before allowing himself entry. He knew that he should be more courteous but he was so anxious to test his theory.

Isabella instinctively tensed when he approached her bed. She watched him very cautiously as he placed the parchment on the bed in front of her. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

Luke dipped the quill in ink before holding it out to her. Ink dripped on the bedclothes but he did not care. Isabella nervously took the quill in her right hand. "Look me in the eyes," he said softly, suddenly aware that they had an audience.

Isabella's wide, frightened eyes obeyed him. She did not look away.

"Sign your name for me," he instructed soothingly.

Just as he had hoped, Isabella automatically began to sign her name on the parchment, without even stopping to think of what she was doing. Just as soon as she had finished writing her name in her usual, neat script, she dropped the quill in shock.

Together, they both inspected the parchment. Luke was very familiar with her signature. She signed it at the bottom of every letter that she had written to him. Right there, in Isabella's normal, elegant script, were the words 'Isabella Cassidy'.

Isabella clapped her hands to her cheeks. "How ... how did I know that?"

Luke smiled comfortingly. "Because you know who you are, Isabella." Luke looked up at their audience gathered in the doorway, all equally as shocked as Isabella was. "It is going to be alright," he told them. He looked back to Isabella. "It is going to be alright."

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Unfortunately, Luke, there is a difference between episodic and procedural memory :( Is it sad that they only place where I use my psychology degree is in my stories? What a waste lol. I wish I'd realised I didn't want to be a psychologist earlier! I love the science, hate the prac!

Essentially, things like writing our names are a motor skill ingrained into our muscle memories. When patients experience amnesia, they tend to forget their episodic memories, or past events, usually starting with their most recent memories as they haven't been consolidated by the brain yet and transferred to Long Term Memory.

If a pianist experienced retrograde amnesia, for example, he would be able to play the piano (procedural memory) but he couldn't tell you about his first piano lesson (episodic memory).

Gotta say, I'm impressing myself that I've managed to remember this much lol.

I learned the difference between retrograde amnesia (forgetting past memories) and antereograde amnesia (inability to form new memories) by going "retro means old so you forget your old stuff).  Have you seen "50 First Dates". Drew Barrymore's character has antereograde amnesia where she can't form new memories and forgets everything after a day. How sad is that? Check out the Guy Pearce movie "Memento" too, if you want to see more of it.

Anyways, so the election happened today .... I literally watched all day in disbelief of what was happening. Facebook was going nuts. No political argument intended, but I think a lot of people are as shocked as me lol. I'm hoping our stock market recovers or else I should have sold before today!!

2016, man, what a year.

Vote and comment xx