Clean Slate by Harley Crowley
Part of his awareness was on his surroundings, enjoying the bright morning air and the straggle of weekend students, some walking alone with intense expressions, others gathered jabbering in small groups, waving their arms around in enthusiasm. It struck him that they were still finding their way to who they would be.
He wondered what sort of man he had become. What was his character? Carrie could probably tell him something about that, but he was afraid to ask her. Sometimes she looked at him the way she had in the motel room, wary and suspicious. Wondering whether or not to believe him. Was he a liar, then? Well of course he was a liar, if he was carrying on a clandestine love affair. Had he been unfaithful before? Was this a pattern with him? He felt a huge revulsion at the idea. He wanted a fresh start, to sweep away whatever ugliness had gone on before. When it came down to it, did he really want to remember? Consciously he wanted his life back. But the real one? The one with all of his possible errors?
He speeded his pace to a jog. On the far side of the campus he found a trail heading steeply up into the woods. He chugged his way up, winding through the trees, gasping for breath by the time he reached the ridge. A sign pointed to a lookout and he took the fork in the trail that led there. A wooden tower supported on massive posts poked up above the treetops on the hillside. He climbed the several flights of wide stairs that took him to the platform, passing empty beer bottles left behind at the edge of the treads, and one large puddle of drying vomit. Friday night's excesses, come to grief. Or maybe the guy, or the girl, who left it there still thought it was fun to go the whole way to oblivion and barf. I was so hammered last night! I don't remember a thing!
From the platform at the top the town spread out around him. Much of it was flat, but at the eastern edge there were hills whose slopes were plastered with houses, and behind them larger hills sprinkled with more houses, sparser, and in some places clear-cut scars from lumber harvest. On the far horizon to the north were craggy peaks, and to the east, more peaks and one towering snow covered mountain that looked half again the size of the ones around it.
The run had cleared his head so that he felt as ready as he would ever be to call Katherine. There was no point in waiting. He had the lookout platform to himself. He sat on a bench and took out the phone. There were already two more messages from Katherine. She must have called while he was in the bookstore. The first was angry and demanding, and minutes later a second one, pleading and apologetic, and begging him to tell her if she had done something to make him angry.
He sat for a minute with his eyes closed, breathing deeply to prepare. Then he dialed. It rang four times and the recorded message came on.
"You've reached Katherine Wells. Please leave a message and I'll call you back."
Reprieve! More than he could have hoped for. He had expected to have to talk to her directly. This was so much better. He measured his words.
"Katherine, this is Brian. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I haven't returned your calls until now. Something . . . " He searched for the right words. "Something unusual has happened. I'm sure it's going to sound unbelievable to you. You'll probably hear about it at work eventually, but from your messages I think you have a right to know now." He thought about the best words to use, how to say it.
"I . . . I have amnesia. I know it sounds crazy. But I can't remember anything. I don't remember anything about my life, and I only know who I am because the police helped me, and my wife came to get me. I didn't remember her, and I'm afraid I don't even remember you. I don't know what else to say." He paused to think if there was something else he should add, but he drew a blank.
"I'm sorry." Then he repeated. "I don't know what else to say." He held the phone in his hand, looking at it, for a few seconds and then thought of one thing to add, something that might give him some time. "Katherine, I'll try to reach you again tomorrow morning. I know that we will need to talk." Then he turned off the phone.
His heart was pounding. He'd done it. Taken a step towards fixing things.
It had been almost forty-eight hours since he stood her up for lunch, and she'd had all this time to build up a head of steam. That's why he knew it was just the first step. Nobody could be completely mollified with that message. Every word of it had been the truth, although the meaning of "sorry" could be argued. It wasn't so much an apology as it was regret.
She would call again. He didn't think she would be satisfied until she heard it from him in person. And he would have to make her understand that it was over. If she hadn't told him she'd driven by the house, and then parked in front of it in the night, he wouldn't be as unsettled. But there was some satisfaction in knowing he'd done what he could for now.
He looked at his watch to see that it was nearing 9:30. He headed for home, retracing his steps through the campus and back through the residential neighborhood. It was easy to find his way; his current memory was working fine. He felt more relaxed after his workout, but he carried that niggling bit of anxiety that kept him watching the cars that passed him to see if the drivers were watching him. One woman waved at him in recognition, but she couldn't have been Katherine, because she was grey-haired and plump. Maybe she was a neighbor.
Carrie was back at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, reading from a sheaf of papers in front of her, a pencil in her hand. She looked up at him above her glasses and seemed unsurprised to see him. He thought he might have liked it if she'd been worried.
"I see you didn't get lost." Well, maybe she was a tiny bit worried, to have thought of that.
"I went up to the campus. Hey, do you have an office of your own? I looked for you on the English department directory."
She laughed. "I don't rate an office. That's why I carry so much around in the car. Some day, though."
He poured the still-hot water from the kettle over a teabag for himself and came back to sit at the table. "Am I interrupting you? I can be quiet."
"No," she said, and worked out the tension in her back and shoulders with a series of stretching exercises. "I'm taking a breather, really."
"Are you planning to teach when you get the PhD?"
"I've always thought so, but now I'm not sure. These seminars are discouraging. Most of the students just seem interested in the bottom line, even when they're far along in the program. I'm so tired of hearing 'What do I have to do for an A?' Like that's the only payoff. It's rare to see a student who's in love with literature for its own sake." She shook her head. "Don't get me going."
"What would you do if you didn't teach? What else can you do with a PhD in literature?"
"Ah, see, that's that bottom line thing. I think I've always planned on teaching because it would be a justification for all this time and work. But really, it's just an excuse to spend my days in books and pretend to the world that I'm accomplishing something economically sane. I think about writing. The dissertation could turn into a book. And I had one criticism article published last year in an obscure journal."
"Do we need the money? I mean, if you didn't have a regular job would we be okay?"
"Your income covers everything now. My pittance covers school expenses, and what's left I put in savings." She raised her eyebrows. "But we'll have to wait and see what happens with you and work, won't we? I hadn't thought about that." She was mulling it over. Brian had already thought about it, about what would happen if he couldn't work as a lawyer any more because it was all gone from his head. Burger King?
"We don't have to worry about it now, though. You have time. You haven't taken a vacation in ages, and then there's sick leave. Amnesia should get you sick leave."
"More hot water for your tea?" He scraped his chair back.
"No, it's back to work for me."
"Are there some chores that need doing around here? I was looking at the vegetable garden. I could dig that up for the winter. I think I need to keep busy."
"Sure, if you want to. In fact, you already said you were going to do it. Last week." On her way out th