Assimilation Read online

  Robert came every day, as he said he would. And if he wasn’t there when Andrew woke, the first thing Andrew saw was Robert’s face in a framed portrait on the side table. His hand clasped Simon’s shoulder, and the woman was in it too.

  I’m in it. I’m the woman. I’m she. I remember when that photo was taken. I remember being Natalie. But I don’t feel like her.

  The will to regain the ability to move his head and eyes came from the desire to turn away from that picture. Upon feeling himself coming back, he’d keep his eyes closed and feel for which cheek was on his pillow. If it was the right, he’d turn his head and open his eyes to the wall.

  The reprieve was never long.

  “Good morning, Nat! How are you? Dr. Brigman says you’re ahead of where most people are. Always the overachiever.” Robert sat by the bedside.

  Only days later Andrew could feel when Robert kissed his forehead or caressed his cheek, and each touch was accompanied by a rock in his stomach. He was still unsure what to do – what he’d say, when he could say anything. The eventual revelation occupied his thoughts when he was awake and Robert wasn’t there to touch him, talk to him, and generally unnerve him.

  I know how crazy this sounds. The woman in that picture, Natalie, died. I can’t be your wife.

  He’d stop rehearsing the confession. In real, un-cryogenically reanimated life, a person could wake one morning and decide not to be with their partner. But what clouded Andrew with uncertainty was the reason he didn’t feel he could be Robert’s wife.

  I feel like a man. Please believe me – No, no. He would shake his head. You don’t have to beg. You didn’t do anything wrong. It feels wrong, but it’s not your fault.

  But did he comprehend the situation enough himself to be able to explain? Did he believe it enough?

  It has to be possible. Something changed. Something more than a name.

  Being called Natalie was horrible. And other feminine names he could be called induced a similar wriggling, slimy feel. He felt there was a different substance at his core. An alternative lens interpreted the world and a new material was being built upon.

  Maybe that’s how it’ll make sense to him. Like a building moved to another foundation. Doesn’t the base make all the difference in the world? On this new ground I can’t be your wife, Robert. The place I am feels like Andrew.

  He couldn’t imagine hiding his aversion to the name, to pronouns, or Robert’s affection. In his current frozen state, whenever his hand was petted or his hair caressed Andrew would wind tighter and tighter. A similar scenario would then play out as the machines revealed what he couldn’t by their frantic beeping.

  “Nat, are you okay?” Robert would squirm. “You can’t tell me. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  Robert’s panicking actually played a role in releasing the agitation to calm Andrew’s mind.

  If you genuinely love me, there’s a good chance you’ll understand, right? That you’ll try to help me figure out this mess.

  Robert’s anxiety was also better proof of his care than physical gestures or constant verbal adoration. It made Andrew feel more powerful. If he had control over nothing else, he could influence Robert, because he was so invested.

  The noise of the machines usually waned by the time Brigman arrived.

  “What’s wrong?” He’d bluster in.

  “Nothing, now. I was holding her hand, and they started going off. Does everything look okay?”

  The doctor turned to the screens behind Andrew’s bed, giving them an unnecessary level of scrutiny.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  I feel like I’m a paralyzed man trapped in a woman’s body. What part of this is fine?

  Brigman would look from Robert to Andrew. The doctor’s eyelids came closer together as he scanned Andrew’s face, and he gave a broad, though thin-lipped smile, causing lines to pile in the corners of his mouth.

  “You’re all right, Mrs. Keller, aren’t you?” Knowing one wouldn’t come, he’d still wait for a reply. When he turned to Robert, the smile relaxed, releasing a crinkle or two. “See, perfect. Like always.”

  And not realizing more lurked beneath the surface, Robert would agree.

  *

  Andrew knew that Robert hoped their one-sided conversations would end soon. And sometimes the feeling was mutual.

  To reveal anything frequently felt like it would be better than nothing. The simple request to stop calling him Natalie would be a relief, even if a response to the inevitable “why” was still muddled and confusing.

  You’ll help me work it out. You’ll tell me what happened to me, and then maybe it will all make sense.

  Why had he died as one person – Natalie – but been reanimated as another – Andrew? Maybe the answer had been in the smiling family pamphlet or buried in the legal document. Like a list of side effects on a medicine bottle.

  But who reads that shit? And it’s not as easy as the doctors having switched my brain with another since I remember being Natalie. I don’t remember this feeling of Andrew.

  The possibility that he may be unable to shake the masculine feeling was terrifying with its consequences, and the limited options for resolution had been trudging through his head one afternoon during visiting hours.

  “Nat, are you okay?” Robert had lowered the magazine he’d been browsing. “You looked sad. Were you thinking of something sad?” There was no response, but he paused like Brigman and everyone else. Despite trying to ignore it, being treated and talked to like a toddler caused that internal sparkwheel to strike the ignition button.

  I may be mute for now, but I’m not an idiot.

  “I know what will cheer you up!”

  Andrew watched Robert’s shoulders move as he rummaged through a bag at his feet. He remembered how Natalie had liked the way they moved – muscles working under the overly starched cotton shirts he wore. Robert’s powerful shoulders made her feel safe and protected. They made Andrew want to upchuck the sludge he’d involuntarily ingested.

  “I can’t believe I forgot. Simon asked if you liked it this morning, and I had to say you did. But you will, so it wasn’t much of a lie.”

  Robert shuffled his chair closer and held a large, folded piece of construction paper in front of Andrew’s face. A sloppily written “To: Mom” was etched on its cover and scrawls of flowers decorated the bottom. A lot of care had gone into a particularly intricate flower, which resembled a cat that’d swallowed a beehive.

  Andrew nodded for Robert to open the card. When he saw the contents, everything changed.

  A house was drawn on the right half. Smoke curled from the chimney in the shape of a heart, and the door’s window looked like a deflated hexagon.

  A peach colored creature hovered to the house’s left, and it took Andrew a minute to identify the airborne thing as an angel. When this occurred to him, he recognized the blue smudge on the blob’s face was a pacifier.

  Michael.

  His gaze moved from the sad depiction to three figures standing under a sun as big as the house.

  Simon had recreated a family portrait Andrew couldn’t look away from. Robert held hands with a small boy wearing glasses, who was holding hands with the figure of a woman. Of any drawing on the page, the most attention had been paid to her. He’d drawn the laces on her shoes, the rings on her fingers, the lashes on her eyes. While Robert was missing an ear.

  Above the family, the words in purple crayon: “Come home soon.” And like an afterthought, squeezed at the bottom in cramped writing: “Please.”

  Despite the whirl of emotions – the waves of anger and anxiety where he felt split in half, Andrew hadn’t cried. He wasn’t sure if he hadn’t been physically able to, or if Simon’s card was his breaking point.

  While technically he’d survived death, he’d been spat out as a fraction of the whole person he’d been before. Hardly anything of Natalie felt okay, let alone those feminine traits completely lost. But as angry as he became when he was called Natalie, or
when Robert touched him, he couldn’t deny that those things were familiar. The state of Natalie wasn’t home, but it was a place he’d been before. A sofa with plastic on the cushions. Uncomfortable, but still a place to sit.

  And there was Robert. How was he going to feel when he knew that something was wrong, and not “perfect like always”?

  Andrew would try to console himself, cringing as Robert smothered him with worshipful stares. Look how much he loves her. He could find someone else who won’t die and come back feeling like a man.

  But this fine rationale couldn’t fit for Simon. Sure, the boy could have a stepmother, grandmother or any number of maternal figures, but it’d never be the same. He was only eight years old, and for a child too old to forget but too young to move on, no one could take Natalie’s place. It was an idea Andrew hadn’t considered until reading the simple plea on the card. How would he tell Simon?

  I look like your mom, but I’m not her. I may not know completely who I am yet, or what kind of future I’ll have, but I don’t want a family with you or your dad. I’m sorry, and this sucks for you—

  “Come home soon. Please.”

  A boy’s innocent appeal for nothing more than his mother to return. Natalie could be horribly deformed. She may never talk or walk. She might not remember who he was. But Simon didn’t care. He only wanted her back.

  Andrew’s eyes ached. Michael was the dead pigeon, and Simon could be any child in a playground. There may not be attachment, but Andrew wasn’t a selfish monster. Was he?

  Ugly, gasping sounds came from his mouth, but he couldn’t stop them.

  “It’s okay, Nat.” Robert sat on the bed, and Andrew felt himself rocked. “You’ll be home soon. Don’t cry. It’s okay.”

  *

  So above everything, you’re a monster. How does that feel?

  The evening after receiving Simon’s card, Andrew woke in the middle of the night.

  You’re a regular 22nd century fucking Frankenstein.

  He visualized how the scenario had played out. Dramatically pulled from the wreckage, Natalie had died, and Dr. Brigman wheeled her lifeless body into a dark tower. Green and blue Tesla coils spiraled to an open ceiling, and Brigman snapped a pair of jumper cables onto the exposed bolts from her neck. He pulled the switch, and fifteen million volts coursed through the body, jump-starting the heart. Brigman raised his hands to the sky, cackling that his creation lived.

  At two in the morning, it could’ve been real.

  They electrocuted her brain and zapped the part that made Natalie, Natalie. I’m what’s left over. He tipped his head, but couldn’t feel any bolts. Not that they couldn’t have removed them afterward.

  Stop being stupid. You may not know exactly what happened, but this isn’t a horror movie. It’s a legitimate medical procedure that has saved countless lives. Maybe a surgeon just dropped his watch in me.

  But whether due to electric shock, freezer burn, or masculinity-inducing metal poisoning, the result remained the same.

  Robert had left Simon’s card on the side table, and it called to him. It reached out with illusory arms, brushing his face and coaxing him to remember who’d made it, and what revealing another identity would do to the child.

  Andrew closed his eyes, and there she was – Natalie. The specter. Worse than imagining her sitting on the hospital bed, or seeing her smiling face in the portrait. She was in the purple dress with the meticulously drawn shoelaces. And he saw Simon at the kitchen table with his crayons. The tip of his tongue out between his lips, and his brow furrowed in concentration. With a combination of urgency and precision, he’d make the card perfect so his mother would come home.

  If I could walk out now, they’d never find me. I’d disappear. God, give me the strength to get out of this bed. Prove you don’t want that boy to suffer.

  But the Almighty was as unresponsive as usual. There was nothing Andrew could do to help his own situation, let alone Simon’s. He had to lie there and rot. And worry.

  Where would you go? You’re so brave in the daylight. Creating passionate speeches to deliver to Robert and Brigman, then storming out. But where would you actually go?

  It was a sobering reality that besides Robert and Simon, he had nobody. Natalie had been an only child and her parents were dead. But even if they’d been alive, they weren’t his. Andrew had no family. He had no friends. They all belonged to the real Natalie, not the person imprisoned in her skin.

  Not much else was in his favor either. Nowhere and nothing. There was knowledge, though. For some reason, while many of her other qualities were empty chalk outlines, Natalie’s comprehension of art had remained with Andrew. But what good did that do? Parents wouldn’t be okay with a freak teaching their brats, so he’d have no way to support himself.

  Yes, it’d be honesty. He’d be true to the world and who he felt he was. What people on the outside expected of a hero. But how courageous was it to be alone? To be on the streets? To destroy the lives of those around him. And for what?

  You think Robert would help and understand. But the person he loves isn’t you. What you are, is the thing that’s replaced his Natalie. Not only will you hate yourself because of what you’ll do to them, but they will hate you.

  Andrew couldn’t remember a time when Robert had been angry with Natalie. He was a man who managed his life from sets of blueprints – straight lines and exact ninety degree angles. And Natalie had always allowed him to take the lead, preferring to operate placidly within his instructions. The infrequent deviations from Robert’s plans were only met with frustration, and then quickly resolved. But a hole being burned into one’s favorite slacks with an iron paled in comparison to one’s wife being substituted with a man.

  He’ll hate me. And I do care about being hated. Isn’t that a type of love?

  Though even if he had the support of anyone, or somewhere to go:

  The existence I have is unnatural. I’ll always be mismatched. Who’d want anything to do with me?

  His only hope seemed to hinge on CryoLife recognizing a mistake had been made and correcting it by removing his brain and putting it in a different body. For the thousandth time, why hadn’t Natalie invested in understanding the legal document? Or read the pamphlet. Past the bullets highlighting CryoLife benefits.

  If you’d pinched off your ovaries for ten goddamn minutes to look at the facts and not focus on your children’s prematurely weeping faces.

  But he was sure CryoLife must’ve inserted a clause limiting their liability. It would’ve been foolish not to. Admitting their error and fixing it was a slim possibility at best. And this took him back to where he’d started.

  Does this thing you are merit any value? Is Andrew worth it?

  Robert’s lovesick mauling annoyed him, but the actions came from a genuine place. Andrew would forfeit the safety and security Robert could represent if he admitted his feelings. He had a ready-made family if he wanted. It might not feel like his, but nothing except his conscience stopped him from taking it.

  Natalie was happy. I was happy as her. Maybe I could be again. How do I know I’m not crazy? I feel different, but feeling isn’t the same as being. How is it possible to wake up a different person, with the memories of someone else?

  The medication.

  It hit him. That IV bag had been hanging on the drip pole since he’d opened his eyes. He had no idea what they’d been dosing him with. Who’s to say that disassociation with Natalie’s identity, masculine feelings, and unstable emotions weren’t side effects of the drugs? What if he revealed his confusion to Robert, crushing him and the boy, and then became normal after he got off the medication?

  The more he considered the idea, the more sense the answer made. “Andrew” was a medically induced identity disorder. These delusions would clear when CryoLife left him alone, and the gulf separating her would disappear. He couldn’t throw away the life and relationships he’d built as Natalie due to being drugged out of his fucking mind.

&nbs
p; I want to be at peace, to be happy, and to be loved. All these things are her. He closed his eyes. I’ve been giving into hallucinations, that’s what this has been – an imaginary struggle and a waste of time.

  He had to resist the perverted thoughts. Perhaps like regaining mobility, he’d have to relearn being Natalie. She was another neural pathway that needed to be reactivated by continuous movement.

  I can learn to love you, Robert. She – no I, must be in here.

  He was eventually able to drift back to sleep with his mind set to the task of forgetting he ever woke feeling like a man named Andrew.

  Chapter 3

  Like most CryoLife staff and visitors, Robert entered the Cryobiotic Treatment Center by way of the indoor entrance. These secure double doors separated the Center from the east wing of Savannah General Hospital. The main doors were manned by two armed guards, but they were also stage to constant and occasionally belligerent demonstrations.

  Activists fanned cardboard signs with biblical verses through the air, churning the sticky Georgia humidity with the scent of black markers. Fortunately, they were prevented from assembling inside the private property of the hospital, but their roaring proclamations from God could sometimes be heard within the building as they shouted down a naïve deliveryman. Robert chose not to think much about them.

  They have no idea what they’re talking about. Here’s what God wants: families that aren’t broken by accidents or disease. He’d swipe his visitor’s pass through the eastside card reader and the steel doors would slide aside. They’re hypocrites anyway. Where were the protesters when CryoLife solved the organ donation crisis? This is the same. Giving life and hope. These are wonderful people. They gave me back my Natalie.

  Even if he still worried about her.

  Before going in to see his wife, he always stopped by the nurse’s station. Those women had their fingers on the pulse of everything.

  “How has she been today?”

  “Oh, fine, Mr. Keller. Doing very well.” A nurse would close her laptop and immediately come around the counter to speak with him. The service and attention of every CryoLife staff member had been unparalleled.