Read The Unbidden Truth for Free Online

up with them again and grinned at her. “It won’t hurt so much next time.”
    â€œNext week,” Darren said, “after they toast you royally, will you bring Frank over to my place? I’ll grill some steaks or something.”
    She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”
    â€œGreat,” Darren said and got on his bike again; he and Todd headed toward the park. She understood that he had led before to avoid the crowded path there, to let her practice without an audience.
    Â 
    â€œI don’t know, Dad,” she said later in the kitchen. “It looks like I’ll have to find the foster parents eventually and see what they can tell me. I hate that amnesia thing. She learned to play the piano before she was eight, and evidently didn’t touch one again until she spotted the grand piano in the lounge. You’d think she would have come across a piano somewhere along the line before that.”
    He paused in slicing tomatoes. “Maybe it took a grand piano to stir up her memory if that’s what she learned on. Maybe just any keyboard wouldn’t have done it.”
    â€œAnd just how many houses have grand pianos hanging around?”
    â€œGood point. So come up with a better explanation.” He resumed slicing.
    She sipped her wine, watching him do his thing with dinner. While she could admire his skill, she had absolutely no desire to emulate it. Or try to.
    â€œYou want to set the table?” he asked. “Maybe out on the porch. Nice out there this time of day.”
    Or any time of day, she thought and stood up. She groaned. It hurt to stand up, and it hurt more when she first sat down. Frank chuckled and tried to disguise it with a cough.
    She didn’t linger long after dinner; her mind was on a soaking bath with Epsom salts, and the things she had to do the following day. First, formalize her arrangement with Carrie, then arrange for bail. Before, it had not been an option; now it was. Consult with Shelley and Bailey, get them started. But first a good soak.
    Â 
    That night Carrie was too restless to go to sleep. All those questions, and there would be more and more with no end. Questions she couldn’t answer. Then one of the snapshot memories that tormented her rushed in.
    Â 
    She saw herself lying in bed, her eyes closed hard, hands over her ears, but there was no way she could block the voices, or stop the images. They were yelling again, Stuart and Adrienne, in the living room. She crept down the hall and listened.
    â€œFor God’s sake, I can’t stand much more of this! She’s been telling Wanda’s kids her fantasies like they’re real. A house with a thousand rooms! Her father and that goddamn king. Uncle Silly and Aunt Loony. She’s the loony one! They didn’t tell us that she’s a mental case. I want to send her back.”
    â€œAdrienne, give her time. You know what they said. Post-traumatic stress, that’s all it is. The poor kid lost her parents, she nearly died. She just needs a little time.”
    â€œTime isn’t going to cure her! You heard that caseworker. Schizophrenia. She can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, dreams and being awake. It’s all the same to her, and it just gets worse. She’s crazy! She might even become dangerous. She belongs in an institution, a mental hospital.”
    She was crawling backward, faster, faster, then rose and ran to the bathroom and threw up into the toilet. Hospital and pain, send her back there. She washed her face and studied herself in the mirror, looking for craziness. Her hair was still short from where they shaved it off. It stuck out like a porcupine or something. Ugly. She’ll never cut it again, and she won’t talk about the house with the thousand rooms and Uncle Silly and Aunt Loony. They weren’t real, nothing she remembered was real. That’s what crazy meant. You couldn’t tell what’s real