Everyone in My Family Remembered What I Did, Except Me Chapter 05

Everyone in My Family Remembered What I Did, Except Me Chapter 05

The hand holding that report wouldn’t stop shaking.

I went through every page, and the earliest evaluation was from two years ago.

But I had no inemory of ever seeing a doctor.

“That’s not possible. This is fake. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve never had anything like this.”

I threw the report aside.

Then I grabbed my own hair and came apart.

“I told you it would be hard to hear.”

“My name is Monica Quinn, and I’m your treating physician.”

“Dissociative identity disorder causes memory gaps. It’s completely normal that you

remember your appointments.”

don’t

Monica’s voice was soft, and she laid out my condition like she was reading off a form.

She said all of my memories came from the host identity.

The delusional symptoms had me convinced that my parents were eating at expensive restaurants every day and living well.

So, out of love for them, I had really been sending large amounts of money for food.

And the one who took the money back every time was my second identity.

A third identity was the one who went to the clinic on her own, and after the diagnosis, she told my parents everything.

“Memories not carrying over between identities is a common symptom.”

“Your parents couldn’t bear to let the host identity find out. They were afraid of what it would do to your life.”

“So they chose to go without food and go without heat instead.”

While she talked, Monica squared up my report and slid it back into the envelope.

My head was a mess, and I didn’t want to believe there was anything wrong with

my mind.

But it was all laid out in front of me, and there was no denying it.

The tears came, and I couldn’t stop them.

My parents saw it and started to choke up, too.

“Maddie, we went to the hospital today to ask Dr. Quinn about your condition.”

“She’s pregnant and it’s hard for her to walk, so we were all steadying her to keep her from falling.”

“It was lunchtime, and she felt bad for us, so she took us to that restaurant while we were out.”

“You really did get the wrong idea about us.

Guilt and regret churned in me like a storm.

I couldn’t imagine what those two years had been like for them, living with my condition.

They scraped by on nothing on one side, and they painted a pretty picture for me on the other.

While I was tearing myself apart over it, Simon told his side, too.

“Maddie, they didn’t only keep it from you. They kept it from me.”

“All these years I thought you just weren’t giving them anything.”

“I wanted to confront you about it more than once, and they always stopped me.”

“I assumed they were coddling you, right up until Dad told me you were sick.”

“We were going to keep it from you together. We never expected it to turn into a misunderstanding this big.”

With the whole truth in front of me, I sat there and had no idea what to say.

Finally, Monica told us to go home and talk it through.

She said we should start getting ready for a proper treatment plan.

We got back to the apartment.

I looked at my parents, who seemed normal and even a little relieved, and I apologized anyway.

“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry.”

“You went through all of that because I’m sick.”

“But I really did want to take care of you. I meant every dollar I sent.”

They didn’t say much.

They told me not to dwell on it, and that from now on we’d face whatever came together.

I didn’t sleep that night either.

First thing the next morning, I made a serious decision.

I wanted to inake it up to them.

I transferred every dollar of the six figures I had in savings straight to them.