Thyla - Kate Gordon [3]
The other thing I remember from these hospital days is constant, unrelenting fear. Fear of the not-knowing, certainly, but also, strangely, fear of the knowing. I had nightmares – awful, shadowy nightmares – of darkness and screaming and blood. There was little detail, just shadows and slashes of red, and yet the dreams terrified me. Whenever I closed my eyes these dark dreams came to me. They seemed like memories and I thought, If these are memories, perhaps I do not want to remember. I did not tell you about these nightmares. I didn’t want to worry you.
I did tell you, however, that there was a part of me that was fearful of finding out my past.
‘I think you know the most important thing,’ you said to me, holding a freckled hand against my cheek. ‘You know you like to help people. You know you need a purpose. You know you are giving. Remember the little boy?’
I did remember him. It had happened only the day before. A young boy – perhaps only three years old – had wandered, lost and alone, into my hospital room.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Who are you, then, young man?’
‘Jordan,’ he replied in a whisper. ‘Jordan John Possum.’
‘And where are your parents?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Jordan said, his chin wobbling.
‘Me neither,’ I said, pushing myself up from the bed. It still hurt to do so, but I knew it was no time to be a coward. The boy needed me. ‘All right, Jordan. Let us find them,’ I said.
You discovered me walking around the hospital holding Jordan’s hand in mine, knocking on doors and asking for a Mr and Mrs Possum.
We found Jordan’s parents – the Hopes, not the Possums – in the reception area, asking frantically for help to find their son.
‘Possum!’ Jordan’s mother cried. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been with Tessa,’ he said. ‘It’s okay. She made me safe.’
The woman looked up at me with her grey-blue eyes. I could tell she thought that I – the wild, unkempt creature that I was – did not seem the type to worry about the safety of a child. Still, she nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and then held out her hand. ‘I’m Chloe,’ she said. ‘This is Daniel. Thank you, Tessa, for what you did.’
‘I needed him to be safe,’ I told you later. ‘Like you make me safe.’
‘I’ll always make sure you’re safe, Tessa,’ you said, your voice very serious. ‘No matter what happens, we will be friends. I’ll always be there for you.’
I didn’t ask you why you visited me so much more often than Vinnie did. I didn’t ask why you stroked my hair as the doctors examined me or why you held my hand while they poked and prodded and jabbed at me. I didn’t ask why you spent hours consoling me after the nurse cut off my hair (and consoling them over the bite I gave them while they were doing so).
I worried that, if I asked you why you were doing it, you might not be able to think up a good enough reason.
And you might leave me.
And I wanted so badly to stay with you. I felt safe with you. When I was with you, the nightmares were held at bay and the bad memories could not touch me. I felt like I was in the light.
It was like having a mother. You stroked my newly stubbled hair. You even read to me when I was too tired to lift the book. You read me White Fang. I liked the wolves. I hated the men.
You visited after work and sometimes in your lunch break, because the police station was not far away.
And then you brought me my notebook.
‘It’s for writing down your memories when they come back,’ you said. ‘It’s to help you piece together the puzzle. You can write in it every night or whenever you have a quiet moment. You can write down everything.’
‘But can’t I just tell you?’ I asked. ‘That’s what I’ve been doing.’
And I had. I had been telling you every single time something little came back to me. I had a little assembly now, a little team of memories:
Tessa (my name)
scars (still there, still hurting, still confusing the doctors. ‘They seem unnatural,’ I heard one young doctor say. ‘Inhuman.