Free The Faithful by S. M. Freedman

he have a strong chin, or did it recede into the folds of his neck? Did he have my pale skin, or was he more tanned?
    Why couldn’t I remember?
    The panic crested inside me like a wave filled with malevolent, biting sharks. I launched myself off the couch, startling Dan into spilling beer on his pants. “Oh my God, Dan. I can’t remember my dad!”
    “What?”
    “I can’t . . . remember . . . my dad !”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Looking for a picture!” I yelled, continuing to pull books off the built-in shelves surrounding the flat-screen TV and throwing them behind me like a dog digging for a bone.
    “Whoa! Watch out!” Dan ducked aside as an Astronomy 305 textbook flew toward him.
    “Where are my photo albums? I can’t . . . aha!” I pulled a thick album out from the bottom shelf, sat down on the floor, and opened it over my crossed legs.
    “Here we go, let’s see . . . no, this is at MIT.” Shoving the album aside, I turned back to the shelves. Dan picked it up and flipped through it.
    “Ooh, sexy.” He held up the album, and I glanced back. It was a group shot taken at Carson Beach during the summer of 2005. While the others around me looked tanned and fit, my skin was albino white, my hair a lit candle in the summer sun. I grabbed the album away from him.
    “Yeah, I was twenty-three. I haven’t worn a bikini since.”
    “You should. Maybe you’d get a boyfriend.”
    “Ha-ha,” I murmured as I continued to yank books and toss them aside. Finally I sat back on my haunches.
    “What the hell?”
    “No more photo albums?” Dan asked, although the answer was obvious.
    “What did I do with them?”
    “I don’t have any albums, either. All my pictures are digital ones on my computer and phone.”
    “Sure, me too, for my recent photos. But where are the albums from my childhood? I used to . . . I mean, I could have sworn . . .”
    “Could they be in a box somewhere? Maybe in your garage?”
    “There’s nothing in the garage but my car. I unpacked everything when I moved in.”
    “Maybe you lost them in the move from Westford, but you didn’t notice until now?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Okay, try this. When was the last time you remember seeing them?”
    Closing my eyes, I tried to picture the albums. But just like my dad’s face, they were hazy. I shook my head and looked up at Dan from the pile of books, a drowning woman looking to be saved.
    “I don’t know.”
    Dan’s brow was furrowed. He grabbed my hands and pulled me back onto the couch.
    “Listen, maybe I should take you to your doctor?”
    “Jesus, Dan. I don’t have a brain tumor or anything.”
    “I’m sure you don’t, but it couldn’t hurt to get checked out, right?”
    “Dan, come on. You saw that note; you probably still have it in your pocket! Something in that note has triggered something inside me.”
    He opened his mouth to argue, and then shut it and handed me another beer. This time I drank the whole thing.

    “Let’s be scientific about this,” Dan said three beers later. He pulled a notepad off the kitchen counter and found a pen. Sitting at the table across from me, he ripped my grocery list off the top of the pad.
    “Sounds good,” I said through a mouthful of rocky road.
    “I’m going to write down everything you remember, okay?”
    I nodded, pouring more caramel sauce into the bucket.
    “Where were you born?”
    “Well, I don’t exactly remember that, but I was born in Chicago on May 24, 1981.”
    “And your mom?”
    “She died during childbirth.”
    “That still happens?”
    I shrugged. “Apparently.”
    “So your dad raised you?”
    “Yup.”
    “Okay.” He was writing as he spoke. “So you grew up in Chicago?”
    Chicago?
    “Rowan? You grew up in Chicago?”
    “Sorry, yes. That sounds right.”
    He looked up from the notepad, eyebrows raised.
    “I . . . yes, I grew up in Chicago.”
    “And where did you go to school?”
    “Uh . . .”
    “Rowan?”
    “There were