Lucy is haunted by her dreams. They were fleeting images of people and places at first, but as the months pass, images are replaced by increasingly more detailed and graphic scenes. It’s as if she is watching a film playing in her head. None of the things she sees are familiar and they scare her, she’s afraid to fall asleep. The psychiatrist isn’t unduly worried. It’s normal, she reassures. While the brain is building connections with the transplant it is bound to get some things wrong, but with time, things will sort themselves out. You just have to be patient, she says.
As Lucy sleeps, my memories emerge.
My sixth birthday and my small body is fizzing with excitement. There’s an enormous cake with pink frosting, just for me. One big puff and the candles are out. I can’t wait for a taste of its delicious sugariness. The apartment door slams open. Cussing and angry, my father, drunkenly stumbles in, demanding his dinner. Eyeing the cake, he flips and in a blind rage picks it up and throws it at the wall. I scream. My mother yells, then crumples to the floor crying, the red imprint of his hand on her cheek. Warm pee trickles down my legs. The baby’s pissed herself, he jeers. My birthday is forgotten. I hate him.
Sarah wakes with a start. Something has disturbed her sleep, something alien. She listens, there’s someone downstairs. Not again, she whispers frustratedly to herself as she gets out of bed, trying not to wake Richard, this is the fourth time this week. Disturbed, Richard groggily surfaces from his deep, comfortable sleep.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“It’s Lucy,” Sarah replies putting on her robe, “go back to sleep, I’ll deal with it.”
“Lucy, again! How long is this going to continue?” he asks exasperatedly, “we’ve had months of disturbed sleep, it’s like having a baby again.”
“We just have to be patient with her and give her time, as the Psychiatrist told us,” Sarah says, kissing his forehead reassuringly.
Sarah crosses the landing, taking a quick look in Lucy’s room, before going downstairs. A light is on in the living room, the door slightly ajar. Sarah peers into the room, careful not to startle Lucy, who is sitting on the living room floor surrounded by towers of photo albums of different shapes, sizes and colours.
“Lucy,” she exclaims, “what are you doing up at this time of night? What on earth are you doing?”
“I dreamt about my sixth birthday, and I needed to see the photos,” she answers, her face pale and drawn, “I needed to know what it was like.”
“For God’s sake Lucy, it’s the middle of the night, couldn’t it have waited until morning?”
“No, it couldn’t. You don’t understand, you don’t know what it’s like, I needed to know now,” she replies aggravated.
“OK, OK, I’ll help you find what you’re looking for,” Sarah replies calmly trying to diffuse the tension in the room.
She reminds herself of how lucky she is that Lucy, against all the odds, is still alive and that a few changes due to the transplant were inevitable, weren’t they? The positives, most certainly, outweigh the negatives, and they’ll get over the blips like tonight.
“I’ve found it,” Sarah says smiling, handing Lucy a dark blue photo album.
Lucy scans the photos, searching for one showing her birthday cake.
“I remember now,” Sarah says looking at the photos over Lucy’s shoulder, “your sixth birthday was the year you were obsessed with hamsters. I blame the pet hamster they had at school. It had a funny name, what was it?”
“Biscuit,” Lucy replies her face relaxing into a smile at the memory.
“That’s it. You pestered us for months about getting a hamster, but we didn’t want the mess and the smell of having a real one, so we got you an interactive one, all the rage that year, and you loved it. You even had a hamster birthday cake if I remember correctly. Yes, look, there it is,” Sarah points at a photo in front of them, Richard and Sarah on either side of Lucy smiling at the camera behind an outlandish chocolate and cream-coloured hamster-shaped cake with a pink nose.
Lucy laughs, “I remember now. Cookie, I loved him.”
Sarah watches as Lucy’s body relaxes.
“Happy now? she asks, “can we please now get back to bed?”
Lucy nods.
As Lucy drifts off to sleep again, memories of her sixth birthday party and her cake flood back to her. The nightmare was just her imagination running wild.
Not imagination Luce, my reality.
A few weeks later, sitting in a comfortable chair in Maya’s office, sage green walls, natural oak flooring and big windows, a floral mug of mint tea in front of her, Lucy tells her Psychiatrist about her latest strange dream.
“I’m standing in front of what I think must be our house while the landlord hurls our possessions, one by one for effect, into the street. My mother, although it doesn’t look like her, pleads for him to stop, but he ignores her, sneering. I’m mortified with embarrassment, as a crowd gathers, watching our humiliation. I’m only ten but I wish I were dead. Mum cries hopelessly as Child Protective Services take me away but there is nothing she can do, she’s homeless, can’t provide for me. I hate him.”
She pauses before continuing
“The problem is none of this ever happened to me. My mind seems to be inventing new memories. Why is it doing that?”.
No, but it happened to me, the voice in her head whispers.
Maya watches as a puzzled look comes over Lucy’s face.
“Anything wrong Lucy?” she asks, “you seem distracted.”
Lucy shakes her head, “it’s nothing, just my mind playing tricks on me again.”
Maya thinks for a moment, scanning her notes as she tucks a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
“I know it’s unsettling what you are experiencing currently, but you have to remember that you are the only person in the UK, possibly the world, to have had this type of surgery, and there is a lot we don’t know about what impact it will have on you. As we’ve discussed before, it will take time for the neural networks to form between your brain and the transplant, and while it does this, there may be some faulty wiring that occurs in the short-term, if you see what I mean, that causes this type of misinformation to occur. We are confident that things will sort themselves out with time, so for now, don’t try to make sense of it, just dismiss the false narratives and accept the true ones. I’m afraid you just have to continue to be patient and give it time. It’s time to start living again, focusing on your future rather than the past.”
Maya sees the frustration in the strained smile on Lucy’s face as she accepts what she has said. She is fit and healthy now, ready to get on with her life, but these dreams, these false memories, are holding her back. As she shows Lucy out, Maya makes a mental note to arrange a meeting with Mr Gillespie, Lucy’s Neurosurgeon, to discuss her case and see if she can get any more insights into the surgery so that she might help Lucy more.
He said he’d be patient with her, but looking at Harry across the candlelit table in the posh French brasserie, Lucy can see that his patience is beginning to wane. He had visited her every day when she was in the hospital, first bringing flowers and, as her strength grew, books from her favourite authors and expensive chocolates, keeping her up to date with all the news and gossip from the hockey club and university. They had been soulmates once, him the men’s hockey team captain and her the women’s, a match made in heaven, but that had all changed since the operation, and they are now like strangers. She can’t trust him to not let her down. She’s had the same recurring dream since returning to university, and although she doesn’t recognise the people or places in it, she knows that she can’t risk getting too close to anybody.
Meet me behind the bleachers after the game, the note said. I can’t believe my luck, Brad, wants to meet me, me! I’m fifteen and have never been kissed, yet. I watch the game, my head spinning with excitement, cheering his every move. He could choose anyone, but he’s chosen me. I’m nervous. As I approach the meeting place, I see Brad’s red Chevy parked up on the grass, music blaring from the radio. Hello gorgeous, he says, hop in. I get into the car, and he tells me how he’s had the hots for me for ages. I’m so flattered and flushed with pride that I don’t object as he removes my t-shirt and unclasps my bra. Let me take a good look at you, he says sexily, and I’m ready, my entire body tingling with excitement, for what I expect is to come. At that moment, there’s a flash, and I’m confronted by a group of sniggering cheerleaders, Savannah at the centre, taking photos of my exposed body. You’re such a dork, Anna, she jeers, Brad and the others laughing with her. You didn’t honestly think he’d be interested in mousy little you, a welfare reject, did you? I can feel, hot, embarrassed tears trickling down my face as I open the car door and run, my hands covering my naked breasts, Savannah’s mocking laughter following me. I never return to school. I hate them.
Trust nobody but yourself Luce.
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