But Matt can’t be my boyfriend, I’d whispered again. And then once more in case I was too quiet the first time. Matt and I worked at Jameson Porter, a Toronto-based consulting company with impressive clients and a better-than-most corporate culture. It was full of young, highly motivated types looking to climb ladders quickly, and I’d been there for nearly four years. Matt was a business consultant, while I worked in communications, as the director managing the firm’s many press releases, industry reports and memos. We often grabbed lunch when Matt wasn’t traveling and joined our coworkers frequently for after-hours drinks at nearby watering holes.
“That’s the Matt I remember.” I squeezed my eyes shut and clutched the photo album to my chest. It made me feel sick to look at the pictures.
“Well, that Matt? Your work friend Matt? He’s also your Matt,” Alex said.
“But...but what about Daniel?” A crushing sense of loss crashed into me. “What happened with Daniel?”
And why could I remember him sliding a wedding band over my finger? Dancing to Harry Connick Jr.’s “Recipe for Love” for our first song as husband and wife. His hand on mine as we cut into our wedding cake—vanilla with lemon curd. What about the memory of him tripping, and us collapsing in a fit of laughter, as he attempted to carry me over the threshold of our Leslieville condo? How did I have all these memories of us together when apparently none of them had ever happened?
No one could explain it. They weren’t even sure where to start, except to acknowledge that obviously something was very (very) wrong inside my head.
“Honey, you and Daniel were engaged. But then you broke it off, oh, about four years ago now,” Mom said. “Is that right, Hugh?” Dad confirmed it was. Alex nodded. They looked as distraught to be giving me this history lesson of my life as I was to be receiving it.
“Four years ago?” They all nodded again.
Defeated, I pressed my fingers to my eyes to try to stop the tears. I’d never been more scared, and even with my family gathered tightly around me, I’d also never felt more alone.
* * *
“It’s called ‘confabulated memory disorder,’” my neurologist, Dr. Alvin Mulder, said, his white-coated arms crossed over my chart, which he held tight against his body like a shield. “It’s not uncommon in head injury cases.”
Does “not uncommon” mean “somewhat common”? I wondered as I took in his words. Or does it mean “rather unusual, but not exactly rare”? Not that it mattered. The answer wouldn’t change anything, couldn’t fix anything.
After I had asked where Daniel was, causing Matt to throw up with shock and Mom and Dad to insist on more tests, everyone realized things weren’t quite right with my memory. Obviously. But it wasn’t only amnesia we were dealing with; it was something altogether scarier. Dr. Mulder confirmed while my physical injury had mostly healed, it appeared there were some “deficits.” And these deficits may be long-term, he added, which caused Mom to slap a hand to her chest, her mouth open in a perfectly round circle. “How long-term is long-term?” she asked.
“Well, permanent might be a better way to think about it,” Dr. Mulder said, and I felt a jolt inside me.
“Permanent?” Mom echoed, her hand now on her neck, her fingers rubbing the skin there with apprehension. “I see.”
I didn’t see at all. All I had done was hit my head on some ice. And now I might be stuck with this mismatched memory permanently?
“I prefer the term false memories to confabulations,” Dr. Theodore Talcott, the hospital psychiatrist on my case, said. I glanced at him, careful not to turn my head too fast and set off a pounding headache, and he gave me a kind smile behind a trim, graying beard. “Your brain wasn’t creating new memories when you were in the coma and our brains don’t care for empty spaces, so it filled in the blanks.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels, now made eye contact with my parents. “And sometimes, like in Lucy’s case, these gaps in the memory get filled with a combination of new and old information—which is why some of what you’re remembering is accurate, while other things are not.”
“Like her marriage,” Mom said, still working away at the skin on her neck, now red and angry looking. “Dr. Talcott, you should know she’s still having a very hard time believing it isn’t real.”
“Mom, please.” I hated that she brought it up with the doctors again, even though it was clinically relevant. That she was talking to them as though I wasn’t in the room, like grown-ups discussing their child’s invisible friend in her presence. Voices a little too upbeat and encouraging, yet laced with trepidation.
“Please, call me Ted,” Dr. Talcott said. My mom nodded, though I knew she would do no such thing because this was a case when formality mattered. “Ted” would most certainly not have the answers we needed, but “Dr. Talcott” just might.
“The thing with false memories that is so fascinating—so fascinating—is how real they seem to the patient experiencing them,” Dr. Talcott continued, excitement filling his voice. He’d admitted to us earlier I was only his second false-memory patient—the first an elderly man who’d had a stroke and woken up believing he had won an Olympic gold medal in pole-vaulting at the 1948 London games. However, according to this man’s wife, while he had been a pole-vaulter that year, he had failed to qualify for the Olympic team. “False-memory patients can recount incredibly detailed descriptions of the event they’ve invented. It’s fascinating.”
Mom scowled at his mention of this being “fascinating” three times in one breath. Because to us this was anything but—it was terrifying. Devastating, even. Especially when the doctors said they had no way of knowing if the hidden memories would reveal themselves, and if these false ones would eventually disappear when my brain reset.
“So what can we do?” Dad asked. “About these false memories? Is there some sort of treatment? Or medication? Whatever she needs.” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “Anything she needs.”
Dr. Mulder shrugged his shoulders, my chart still stuck to his chest. “Brain injuries aren’t like broken bones. They don’t heal with predictable patterns, and unfortunately there’s little medically we can do.” Dad smiled at me and rubbed my shoulder. I didn’t smile back.
“Based on how things look right now, there’s a good chance you’ll have some postconcussive symptoms, like headaches and mild dizziness, and those we can treat with medication. Though we expect those symptoms will alleviate with time,” Dr. Mulder said. “But as for the confabulation—as I said, there’s no magic pill, so to speak. Which is why Dr. Talcott is here. This condition is better treated with psychotherapy.”
“So, therapy is the answer here?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Mulder replied.
Therapist Ted nodded, adding, “There’s great evidence therapy can help patients in these cases. But it’s a long process. As you can imagine, trying to reintegrate into a life that isn’t familiar can be a challenge.” He leaned on the rail at the end of the bed, and I noticed a wedding band on his finger. Shiny. I wondered if he was recently married, which made me think about Daniel. And Matt. I blinked hard and swallowed against the nausea that accompanied my pounding head. “However, the sooner you’re able to get back to your life, your routines, Lucy, the better.”
I didn’t want to do therapy, nor was I interested in this “long process.” I wanted to see Daniel, to have him comfort me and tell me everything was going to be okay. I wanted to apologize for missing our first wedding anniversary. And I desperately wanted—needed—everyone to stop looking at me like they expected