Publisher's Synopsis
A young woman in an orange jumpsuit smiles from one of the photos. She wears a nametag, but I can't make out what it says, not even when I squint. I am pretty sure that she's me. The rest of the room is bland and nondescript, like hospital food. I try to shake off the fog inside my head, but it hangs there, thick and heavy as a murky autumn morning at the Boston harbor. I examine the cheap floral prints on the walls and the sparse, utilitarian furniture around my bed. I desperately scan the room for clues, anything to help me remember, but there isn't much to go on. The other photo is of a middle-aged woman with braided hair and kind eyes. I concentrate on her face and will the fog in my mind to dissipate, but it doesn't obey. Relentlessly, irrevocably, I am losing my memories, but I cling to the one that is most important. This is my daughter, Kate. "Kate. Kate," I keep whispering until I drift off and lose myself in the fog. I hear Kate talking to the nurse in the corridor. "Damn reporters are still camped out in front of the building," she says. "I wish they'd leave us alone." I know what a nurse is, and what reporters are. General concepts are easy. I can recite the periodic table of elements and list each year the Red Sox won the World Series in the twentieth century. Some of the time useless trivia is easy, too. But I have no idea why the reporters are out there. I do not remember my life.
