Oh, no, thought Mitch.
CHAPTER 28
GRACE, WHO’D BEEN WATCHING through the one-way mirror, bolted from her chair and entered the interview room as quickly as her legs could carry her. She knew her presence was supposed to remain a secret, but the moment she heard her daughter’s confusion, motherly instinct took over. With a beaming smile on her face, arms open wide, Grace approached her daughter, who stood still, timid as a mouse. It had been a long time since they were last together, but she had no doubt Chloe would remember her mother.
“Chloe,” Grace said, embracing her daughter in a tight hug （which Eve would never have allowed）。 “Let me have a look at you.”
She pulled back to appraise Chloe at arm’s length.
“Mama?” Chloe’s sweet voice tumbled out, shaky and uncertain.
Grace had no idea why her daughter had regressed in years, but for sure Mitch would have some explanation. Her immediate concern was for her child’s well-being. Grace imagined it would be like waking up from a coma surrounded by bright lights and strange faces. “What’s going on?” she asked nervously. “Where am I?”
She spoke in the clipped, pressured tones that Dr. Cross had first observed some years ago. It was her default way of talking when agitated about schoolwork, but this was a pressure of a different sort.
“Chloe, please sit down,” Grace said, placing her hands lovingly on her daughter’s shoulders. Accessing that inner place that allowed parents to keep calm in a crisis, Grace coaxed Chloe gently onto a chair. She knelt down beside her. “Don’t be scared, sweetie,” she said, taking Chloe’s hand. “Everything is fine. It’s hard to explain, but you’re going to have to be brave and a little patient, okay?”
Chloe gave a nod. “Okay,” she said, anxiousness showing in her voice and on her face.
“I’m going to ask you a question. There’s no wrong answer … I just want your honest one. Can you do that?” Grace knew to offer reassurances that whatever answer she gave, it couldn’t be incorrect.
Chloe returned another nod.
“Can you share with me a memory that you have before I came into this room, before you made your drawing, even?”
Grace gestured to the picture. Chloe sent her mother a pleading look, then turned her attention to Mitch, who stood nearby. “Who’s he?” she asked.
“I’m Dr. Mitch McHugh,” said Mitch, stepping forward.
“A doctor … what for? Am I hurt?”
With a glance, Grace made it quite clear to Mitch that she wished to be the one in charge. “You were in an accident,” she said calmly. She hated lying to her child, but felt the end would ultimately justify the means. “You weren’t hurt, but you did suffer a head injury.”
Chloe touched her head gingerly as if expecting to feel pain.
“The injury—sweetheart, it’s actually inside your head. In your brain,” Grace explained.
“So my brain … is … it’s broken?”
Grace heard: So I’m not perfect?
“No, love,” she said. “You’re not broken. And you’re safe here.” Grace dragged over a chair to sit beside her—less painful on the knees. She retook Chloe’s hand.
“What was the accident?” Chloe asked.
“Well,” said Grace, pausing to think how to respond. “Honestly, we’re hoping you could tell us.”
“Tell you what? I … I don’t remember any accident.” Chloe focused her attention on Mitch, an understandable choice given how doctors were supposed to have all the answers.
“This is a tricky question,” Mitch said, coming around the table with his phone out, recording the events as he’d done before. “Think of it like a test and you want to do well on it. Close your eyes, and give it some real hard concentration. Do you remember a house with a tire swing? Having breakfast? Burning toast? What do you remember last?”
Chloe’s nature was to perform perfectly, whatever was asked of her. Through counseling, Grace had learned that failure, in Chloe’s mind, was an affront to her identity—though really it was Penny’s fears manifested, augmented, and presented in the form of this girl alter.
“Is closing my eyes a part of the test?” asked Chloe.
“Yes,” said Grace. “Now close them and try to remember.”
With that, Chloe shut her eyes tight.
“What were you doing before you were here?” Grace asked.
Chloe’s whole face was a picture of concentration. Grace observed the muscles around her jaw and eyes slowly began to ease. Is she remembering something?