Face, The (25 page)

He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Nothing, really. Sounded like you had a nice epiphany at dinner.”

“I did. I’m excited.”

I slip my sweater from my shoulders and toss it over the security camera in the corner of the car, then I kneel and whisper in Judson’s ear. “The camera’s blocked. Why the private conference?”

He turns his head and it all comes tumbling out. “You didn’t seem like yourself tonight,” he says, his voice a rough whisper. “Are you okay? How are things going with your aunt?”

I prop my hands on the armrest of his wheelchair. “Epiphanies aside, the work is harder than I expected.”

“You mean the whiz kid has found something she doesn’t comprehend right off the bat?”

“You should
so
be a comedian.” I pause to pull my thoughts together. “You know what I had to do during my lunch today? Flip through magazines and look for smiles. After I found a few, Aunt Renee wanted me to imitate those expressions in a mirror.”

“What’s so hard about that?”

I blow out my cheeks. “If you had my face, you wouldn’t ask.”

“Honey.” Judson’s tone is slightly reproving. “I’ve known you for what—two and a half years? In all that time, you’ve never seemed anything less than lovely.”

My eyes fill with sudden tears. Judson turns, waiting for a response, but my throat’s too tight to speak.

“Sarah? You okay?”

Somehow, I manage to squeak out an “Uh-huh.”

“Baby girl—” Judson reaches for my hand “—I don’t know what happened to you, but I believe you’re ready to grow up. So even if the going gets tough, you keep going. Don’t let anything get in your way, you hear?”

He’s a huge encouragement, but he didn’t see me attempting to bend my lipless flesh in the mirror this afternoon. I tried to smile like a movie star, and ended up scowling like a freak.

“You hang in there,” Judson says, rubbing my hand. “You’re going to do just fine.”

Renee

A
fter a long, rainy weekend, most of which I spend helping Sarah gather research on micro expressions and deception analysis, I decide to begin the new week with a walk in the garden.

I step outside and lift my face to the sun, then realize I am not alone. Vincent Kollman stands about ten yards away, his hands in his pockets and the slanting rays of sunrise on his face.

“I thought I’d have this place to myself,” I call. “Apart from the chapel, I think it’s my favorite place on the island.”

He squints at me through the bright orange beams and steps closer. “Didn’t know there was a chapel. Then again, until I started hanging out with you, I didn’t know there was a graveyard.”

“A garden,” I correct him. “The beauty of this place depends entirely on your perspective.”

He smiles. “Spoken like a true shrink. Tell me, Dr. Carey, do you ever turn it off?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do. But that’s okay—I find your insights charming.”

He jerks his head toward the bench against the wall. “Care to sit and talk?”

“Do we have something to talk about?”

“Indeed we do—our patient. And since this is one of the few places we can talk in private…”

“Lead the way, sir.”

I follow him, my arms crossed against the chill, and we sit together on the bench. For a long moment, neither of us says anything. Then I elbow him. “So…how goes the work of finding our donor?”

He grips the edge of the bench with both hands. “That’s proving to be a challenge. Last night I thought I’d hit the jackpot—an accident victim in Kentucky was a match in all the crucial categories, and she had agreed to be a donor. They harvested her kidneys, her heart, and her eyes, but the family refused to even consider donating her face. The face is so…personal.”

My heart shrivels. “You didn’t mention this to Sarah, did you?”

“Not a word. I didn’t want to get her hopes up.”

“Smart thinking. And that’s okay—I’m not sure she’s ready. But she will be. I’ve been praying that everything will fall into place just as it’s supposed to.”

Vincent raises a brow. “You pray?”

“All the time, these days. I’m trying to reconnect with my faith.”

He snorts softly. “Not a bad idea. Especially when you’re involved in a case like this.”

“It’s tough, but I can’t give up. I knew it’d be tough.”

“Maybe not as tough as you think. After all, there are over six billion people in the world. And we only need one face.”

I like the way he says
we.
As if he, Sarah, and I are in this together.

“Speaking of surgery,” he says, leaning into me, “how’s your dog?”

“You know about Elvis?”

“Sarah mentioned something at lunch yesterday. Said he had a tendency to eat inappropriate materials.”

I laugh. “I managed to get a call out Friday afternoon, and Becky says he’s fine. Too fine, in fact. I don’t think he misses me at all.”

Vincent leans forward and turns his head so I can see his face. His eyes are serious, but one corner of his mouth curves upward. “I’m glad the dog is okay, but don’t take his fickleness to heart. If I were wherever he is, I’d be missing you something fierce.”

I blink, not sure how to react. I study him, and he studies me back. From the corner of my eye, I see a seagull land on a nearby grave marker and twist his head, his black eyes bright with curiosity.

Vincent gestures to the bird. “Have you been feeding them?”

“Not a crumb.”

“Then this guy must think you have a kind face.”

I smile, liking the curve of the surgeon’s mouth, the compassion in his eyes, the graceful strength of his hands. I’m a little confused by his easy charm—is he like this with all women?—but I’m willing to sit on this bench a little longer.

Maybe a month or two.

When a door slams, my first reaction is regret. But Sarah steps out and strolls down the narrow strip between the building and the graves, her head bent, her eyes downcast. She’s nearly to the bench before she lifts her head and sees us. “Oh! Sorry.” A flush colors her scarred cheeks. “I didn’t know you two were out here.”

Vincent twiddles his fingers in a playful wave. “No need to apologize. Maybe you’re the one the birds have come to see.”

“Me?” She glances around and spies the sharp-eyed gull on the cross. “Oh. Yeah.” She pulls the round end of a loaf from her pocket and tosses a few crumbs to the bird. Almost immediately four or five others join the scout, all of them circling and begging for a handout.

“I think,” I say, ducking, “this’d be a good time to go in for breakfast.”

“I’ll come with you,” Vincent offers. “Sarah?”

She shakes her head and tosses another handful of bread to the birds. A shadow has filled her eyes, and the sight of it gives me pause. Have I said something to upset her? Has Vincent? Or is this one of those inexplicable moods that often plague young women?

I reach out and touch her arm as I pass. “I’ll save you a seat at the table.”

Sarah

I
don’t go in for breakfast. Not because I’m not hungry, but because I don’t want to sit beside Aunt Renee and pretend that nothing is wrong while she smiles at Dr. Kollman and he grins back at her.

He’s my doctor. He works for my agency. So why has she suddenly become so interested in him?

They were sitting close together in the courtyard, shoulders touching. People don’t sit that close unless they’re attracted to each other or there’s no room on the bench.

There was plenty of room on the bench.

I jog up the stairs to the second floor, then stride into the operations center and wake my sleeping computer. They’ll probably ask about me at breakfast. Aunt Renee might even ask Shelba to set aside a bowl of oatmeal for me, but there’s nothing worse than coagulated mush.

Unless it’s cold toast. Or cold coffee.

I hate cold food almost as much as I hate the dark. Maybe because the two are forever linked in my mind, the link forged back when I used to curl up in my bed with my eyes covered in bandages. I was always cold as a child—either shivering because they kept the room cool or pulling away from the startling chill of the stethoscope and the iron bars they planted in my face. I remember darkness and the cold splash of Betadine across my cheeks, chest, and neck.

I’ve seen
Forrest Gump.
I know some kids wear braces on their legs or on their teeth. But I’ve never seen a movie in which a kid wore a metal band around his head and had bars poking through the skin above his jaw. That’s what I had. That’s what I knew.

I’ve heard Dr. M talk about my past with Aunt Renee and Dr. Kollman. She drops those years into the conversation as if they were nothing but a minor difficulty, but pain and agony were all I knew for months at a time. For her, those days were a means to an end, but I didn’t know the pain had a purpose. All I knew was agony, manipulation, darkness, pricks, blood…and cold.

Other children come out of childhood with memories of Easter egg hunts, bright Christmas mornings, and festive birthday parties. In movies I see kids dancing on Daddy’s feet and riding on his shoulders; they go shopping with their moms and fight with their siblings over who gets first dibs on the Nintendo.

I have none of those memories. I participated in no neighborhood high jinks like
Dennis the Menace,
no silly holiday gifts like those in
A Christmas Story.
And though Dorothy Gale was an orphan, at least she had Toto, Uncle Henry, and Auntie Em. She got a trip over the rainbow, but all I got was months of agony while Dr. Mewton adjusted screws on an apparatus implanted in my jaw.

I’d be happy to trade places with Dorothy…or any other American kid. Sometimes I look at Jud in his wheelchair and think that I’d gladly endure the frustration he feels now if I could enjoy the life he had before.

I draw a deep breath and watch a slanting sunbeam shorten, withdrawing by centimeters over the worn floor tiles. An unformed thought teases my mind, hiding like a shadow among my wishes and regrets.

I need to focus on work. I click on my in-box and delete a couple of unimportant e-mails. Raven has sent another message, wanting to know how I’m coming with the memory implantation module for Gutenberg. He’ll be glad to hear that I’ve made progress.

I click Reply and place my hands on the keyboard, then freeze as the teasing thought blooms into realization. Why not give myself the childhood I’ve always wanted?

If I can implant details of an imagined mission into someone’s subconscious, why can’t I plant memories of a happy childhood into my own head? Instead of transfusions, I could remember Popsicle ices. Instead of recalling endless hours of pain, I could remember idyllic days of walking on a beach or making sand castles.

I could lock my actual past in a drawer, choosing instead to remember things that bring pleasure, not pain.

Now that we have the technology, why shouldn’t I?

Renee

A
t breakfast, I tell Vincent and Glenda that Sarah reminds me of a night-blooming cereus. “It’s the homeliest plant you can imagine,” I say, spreading jam on my toast. “Looks like a cactus—scrawny and flat-leafed—until it puts out this bloom that hangs like that droopy bud in
The Little Shop of Horrors.
”

“Sarah loves that movie,” Glenda interrupts. “She and Holmes went through a phase where they watched it every weekend.”

“Go on.” Vincent smiles at me over the rim of his coffee cup. “Why does she remind you of this plant?”

I glance at Glenda. “Because the plant never seems to change, and then, boom! It flowers. But it blooms in the middle of the night, and the blossom only lasts for a few hours. But it’s one of the most beautiful and fragrant flowers you can imagine—large, pure, and completely unexpected.”

Vincent lowers his cup. “If it opens only at night, how does anyone ever see it?”

I laugh. “Well, you have to keep an eye on it, and when it gets ready to bloom, you have to camp out and wait for it. I’ve spent a couple of nights out on the back porch with candles, a book, and my camera. I consider it an adventure.”

Glenda abruptly stops chewing. “I fail to see how that relates to Sarah.”

I draw a deep breath. “It’s a metaphor. I meant that Sarah is a bit of a slow bloomer. We’ve been working together every morning, and most of the time I think we’re making no progress at all. And then—bingo! She’ll say something, or look at someone, and I suddenly realize she gets it. She’s experiencing an emotional awakening, but it’s coming in fits and starts.”

“You’ll be interested in her proposal, then,” Glenda says, pressing her napkin to the corners of her mouth. “She wants to meet with the three of us later this morning. In the conference room at eleven—she said she needs to talk to all of us.”

My gaze drifts to Sarah’s empty chair. “Is she preparing something for us now?”

“I don’t know what she’s doing,” Glenda answers, her tone clipped. “She’s kept her head down all week, but her logs show that she’s been working on the Gutenberg project. I have no idea what she wants to tell us.”

I look at Judson’s empty place, then glance at Vincent. His eyes warm when they meet mine, and his hint of a smile acknowledges the success of my mind reading. Wherever Sarah is, Judson is with her.

I’m glad she’s not alone.

At eleven o’clock, I slip into the conference room and take a seat with the others. As I might have predicted, Sarah and Judson are sitting on one side of the table, while the three chairs on the other side are clearly meant for Glenda, Vincent, and me.

“Thank you for coming,” Sarah says once we have all taken a seat. “I wanted you all here because I value your opinion…and because you have supported my desire to have the face transplant.”

My heart thumps against my rib cage. Has she changed her mind about the surgery?

“Aunt Renee,” she says, her flat mouth spreading in a thin smile, “without giving you too many details, you should know that I’ve been working on a program that probes the brain for specific memories. It also has the potential to
deposit
memories into a patient’s consciousness.”

“Wait a minute.” I glance around the gathering, not certain where this is going. “This doesn’t sound like computer code.”

Sarah folds her arms on the table. “The computer’s a tool we use in conjunction with an EEG. I’ve devised a program that will help us learn if a certain memory is in a patient’s head.”

I give her a wry smile. “Sounds like science fiction.”

“Not really. You know how people say, ‘I’ll recognize it when I see it?’ They say that because they know they have a memory tucked inside their brain. When they receive the proper stimulus, that area of the brain lights up. My program links various stimuli to the ‘hits’ in a patient’s brain and interprets the result.”

“Dr. Mewton—” she turns to face Glenda “—you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve solidified the procedure in which we implant memories into a subject’s subconscious. I’m sure Mr. Traut will be pleased.”

Glenda lifts a brow. “Hypnosis?”

“Partly. As you know, Dr. M, memories are called up via activation of the entire network across multiple regions of the brain. In order to plant memories, we’ll have to stimulate several regions—the process will be a combination of hypnosis, electrical stimulation, audiovisual feedback, and adrenaline injection. But it’s possible. We can do it.”

“Wonderful.” Glenda claps her hands, startling me with this unexpected display of emotion.

“I don’t understand,” I break in. “How are you supposed to internalize something that didn’t happen to you?”

“Adrenaline is the key,” Vincent says, nodding at Sarah. He looks at me. “As you know, our memories are a bit like gelatin—they take time to solidify in the brain. A memory reinforced by adrenaline becomes rock solid. Almost unforgettable.”

“Because I’m sure the process will work,” Sarah continues, looking from Glenda to Vincent, “I’d like to be the first to have memories implanted—memories of the childhood I was never allowed to enjoy.”

Sarah looks at Judson as silence sifts down like a snowfall. “Told you they’d be surprised.”

“Sarah,” Glenda says, confidence fading from her voice, “I don’t think we can sanction any sort of experimentation on one of our own.”

“I’m not talking about implanting a mission,” Sarah says, “but something completely innocuous. While I’m waiting for a donor, I can put together my own memories. Aunt Renee can help me. She could send for photo albums so I could compile memories of my father and mother…maybe even a pet.”

I am too startled by this suggestion to offer any objection.

“But Sarah,” Vincent says, bringing his hand to his cheek. “So many changes at once! A new face, new feelings—”

“Why shouldn’t I have new memories?” Sarah’s eyes widen. “I won’t be obliterating my real past, I’ll just be filing it away. But when I think about my parents, instead of drawing a blank, I’ll be able to enjoy memories of being with them.”

“Wait a minute.” I hold up a hand. “Sarah, you can’t pick and choose what happens to you in life. Everything that happens, good and bad,
is
your life. Your experiences are what shape you into the person you become.”

“You urged me to ask for a new face, didn’t you? How is that different from asking for new memories?”

“It—it just is. To a certain extent we can direct our present and our future, but we’re not all-powerful, only God is. The good and bad things in our past are uniquely ours. You can’t change the past without changing who you are.”

Glenda raises a brow. “Many people would disagree with your last statement.”

“You know—” Vincent presses his hands together “—they are now giving propranolol to people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Unlike adrenaline, which solidifies a recollection, propranolol seems to cut the cord between memory and emotion.”

“Cut the cord?” I gape at him. “By eliminating the links between memory and emotion, wouldn’t we be creating zombies? Children who can’t weep for dead parents, abused women who can’t vent their anger or fear—”

“You’re overreacting. If I had a daughter who’d been brutalized in a rape or a mugging, you bet I’d give her the drug. I’d do it in a heartbeat to spare her the memory of such pain.” He looks at me, one bushy brow quirked in a question. “Wouldn’t you?”

My mouth goes dry as all of them turn to me—Vincent, Glenda, Sarah. Even Judson, who has not offered anything to the debate, seems to stare at me through his sealed eyelids.

“I would give anything to prevent my child from suffering,” I say, my voice heavy. “But who can say that a painful experience wouldn’t serve a purpose in my daughter’s life?”

Glenda turns her head, waving my opinion away. “Spoken like a fatalist. Everything has a purpose in your world, right?”

“Well…yes.”

Vincent shakes his head. “While I respect your opinion,” he says, his voice warm with regret, “I have to admit that I agree with Sarah. What’s the harm in giving her a better childhood than the one she’s known? Why not let her have a handful of pleasant memories she can enjoy?”

“I—I need to think about it.” I look around the circle and struggle to explain my resistance. “But if we give Sarah a past that’s not real…isn’t that worse than keeping her in a pretend convent? She may not have enjoyed many experiences here, but at least those experiences were
hers.
Her life is her own.”

“Your illogic astounds me.” Glenda eyes me as if I were a bad smell. “You want to take our Sarah and send her away with a fake face. Yet when Sarah volunteers to use her own program to give herself a happy childhood, you balk.”

“I have to say, Aunt Renee,” Sarah adds, “I don’t understand, either. Of all people, I thought you’d be happiest for me.”

I look to Judson, hoping for a word of support, but he remains silent, his face tilted in my direction, his brows lifted in an unspoken question.

Apparently my answer is unacceptable to everyone in the room.