He tried to open his eyes; one was swollen shut, but he managed to get the other’s lids apart. He was in a small hospital room—no shining metropolitan hospital pavillion, but a small country clinic with gingerbread molding on the walls and homey lace curtains, through which afternoon sunlight was entering.
So he had been found and brought to a hospital. That was good. He could have easily died out there in the snow; but someone had stumbled over him and brought him in. That was a novelty, that someone had bothered to help him; the treatment he had received in the bar last night—was it last night?—was more typical of the world’s attitude toward him.
In twenty-nine years he had somehow failed to learn adequate concealment, camouflage and every day he suffered the consequences. It was so hard for him to remember, he who remembered everything else, that the other people were not like him, and hated him for what he was.
Gingerly he felt his side. There didn’t seem to be any broken ribs—just bruises. A day or so of rest and they would probably discharge him and let him move on.
A cheerful voice said, “Oh, you’re awake, Mr. Niles. Feeling better now? I’ll brew some tea for you.”
He looked up and felt a sudden sharp pang. She was a nurse—twenty-two, twenty-three, new at the job perhaps, with a flowing tumble of curling blond hair and wide, clear blue eyes. She was smiling, and it seemed to Niles it was not merely a professional smile. “I’m Miss Carroll, your day nurse. Everything okay?”
“Fine,” Niles said hesitantly. “Where am I?”
“Central County General Hospital. You were brought in late last night—apparently you’d been beaten up and left by the road out on Route 32. It’s a lucky thing Mark McKenzie was walking his dog, Mr. Niles.” She looked at him gravely. “You remember last night, don’t you? I mean—the shock— amnesia—”
Niles chuckled. That’s the last ailment in the world I’d be afraid of,” he said. “I’m Thomas Richard Niles, and I remember pretty well what happened. How badly am I damaged?”
“Superficial bruises, mild shock and exposure, slight case of frostbite,” she summed up. “You’ll live. Dr. Hammond’ll give you a full checkup a little later, after you’ve eaten. Let me bring you some tea.”
Niles watched the trim figure vanish into the hallway.
She was certainly an attractive girl, he thought, fresh-eyed, alert … alive.
Old cliché: patient falling for his nurse. But she’s not for me, I’m afraid.
Abruptly the door opened and the nurse reentered, bearing a little enameled tea tray. “You’ll never guess! I have a surprise for you, Mr Niles. A visitor. Your mother.”
“My moth—”
“She saw the little notice about you in the county paper. She’s waiting outside, and she told me she hasn’t seen you in seventeen years. Would you like me to send her in now?”
“I guess so,” Niles said, in a dry, feathery voice.
A second time the nurse departed. My God, Niles thought! If I had known I was this close to home—
I should have stayed out of Ohio altogether.
The last person he wanted to see was his mother. He began to tremble under the covers. The oldest and most terrible of his memories came bursting up from the dark compartment of his mind where he thought he had imprisoned it forever. The sudden emergence from warmth into coolness, from darkness to light, the jarring slap of a heavy hand on his buttocks, the searing pain of knowing that his security was ended, that from now on he would be alive, and therefore miserable—
The memory of the agonized birth-shriek sounded in his mind. He could never forget being born. And his mother was, he thought, the one person of all he could never forgive, since she had given him forth into the life he hated. He dreaded the moment when—
“Hello, Tom. It’s been a long time.”
Seventeen years had faded her, had carved lines in her face and made the cheeks more baggy, the blue eyes less bright, the brown hair a mousy gray. She was smiling. And to his own astonishment Niles was able to smile back.
“Mother.”
“I read about it in the paper. It said a man of about thirty was found just outside town with papers bearing the name Thomas R. Niles, and he was taken to Central County General Hospital. So I came over, just to make sure—and it was you.”
A lie drifted to the surface of his mind, but it was a kind Be, and he said it: “I was on my way back home to see you. Hitchhiking. But I ran into a little trouble en route.”
“I’m glad you decided to come back, Tom. It’s been lonely, ever since your father died, and of course Hank was married, and Marian too—it’s good to see you again. I thought I never would.”
He lay back, perplexed, wondering why the upwelling flood of hatred did not come. He felt only warmth toward her. He was glad to see her.
“How has it been—all these years, Tom? You haven’t had it easy. I can see. I see it all over your face.”
“It hasn’t been easy,” he said. “You know why I ran away?”
She nodded. “Because of the way you are. That thing about your mind—never forgetting. I knew. Your grandfather had it too, you know.”
“My grandfather—but—”
“You git it from him. I never did tell you, I guess. He didn’t get along too well with any of us. He left my mother when I was a little girl, and I never knew where he went. So I always knew you’d go away the way he did. Only you came back. Are you married?”
He shook his head.
“Time you got started, then, Tom. You’re near thirty.”
The door opened, and an efficient-looking doctor appeared. “Afraid your time’s up, Mrs. Niles. You’ll be able to see him again later. I have to check him over, now that he’s awake.”
“Of course, doctor.” She smiled at him, then at Niles. “I’ll see you later, Tom.”
“Sure, mother.”
Niles lay back, frowning, as the doctor poked at him here and there. I didn’t hate her. A growing wonderment rose in him, and he realized he should have come home long ago. He had changed, inside, without even knowing it.
Running away was the first stage in growing up, and a necessary one. But coming back came later, and that was the mark of maturity. He was back. And suddenly he saw he had been terribly foolish all his bitter adult life.
He had a gift, a great fit, an awesome gift. It had been too big for him until now. Self-pitying, self-tormented, he had refused to allow for the shortcomings of the forgetful people about him, and had paid the price of their hatred. But he couldn’t keep running away forever. The time would have to come for him to grow big enough to contain his gift, to learn to live with it instead of moaning in dramatic, self-inflicted anguish.
And now was the time. It was long overdue.
His grandfather had had the gift; they had never told him that. So it was genetically transmissible. He could marry, have children, and they, too, would never forget.
It was his duty not to let his gift die with him. Others of his land, less sensitive, less thin-skinned, would come after and they, too, would know how to recall a Beethoven symphony or a decade-old wisp of conversation. For the first time since that fourth birthday party he felt a hesitant flicker of happiness. The days of running were ended; he was home again. If I learn to live with others, maybe they’ll be able to live with me.
He saw the things he yet needed: a wife, a home, children—
“—a couple of days’ rest, plenty of hot liquids, and you’ll be as good as new, Mr. Niles,” the doctor was saying. “Is there anything you’d like me to bring you now?”