Free The Memorist by M. J. Rose

inscrutable.
    “How would you know that?”
    “I would have seen it in your eyes.”
    “That’s impossible,” she said, because if it wasn’t, then the pain she saw in his would be hard to bear.
    He looked away from the road to face her and the connection when they made eye contact unnerved her.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, and she wasn’t sure why he’d apologized. For the discomfort he’d just caused? The lack of pretense in their exchange? People didn’t meet for the first time and talk like this, even under extenuating circumstances.
    He negotiated the traffic and Meer examined the sights. Her father’s residential neighborhood had given way to a more commercial part of the city where the past mixed with the present. An occasional neon sign or familiar brandname emblazoned on a building did nothing to mar the sense that here, history was vitally alive.
    From the car’s stereo, strains of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony filled the silence, but something was wrong with the sound, as if two separate tracks were playing over each other, one slightly slower than the other. The overlaps created jarring contrasts that corrupted the piece.
    “Would you mind shutting that off?” Meer asked. She opened her window and let the cool breeze blow on her face.
    He turned off the stereo. “Are you all right?”
    “Fine.”
    He hesitated, then: “Your father told me.”
    “Told you what?”
    “About your childhood. Your memories. The music you heard but could never remember. The accident. How close you came to being paralyzed when you broke your spine and what a trauma it was.”
    Meer was exposed in a way she wasn’t used to and didn’t know how to respond.
    Again, as if he could read her mind, Sebastian apologized. “Please understand, he only told me because of what my son, Nicolas, is going through.”
    “How old is he?”
    “Almost ten.”
    “What’s wrong with him?”
    “At first…” Sebastian shrugged. “We don’t know. Dozens of medical doctors have confirmed it isn’t anything physical. My ex-wife is a psychologist and believes it’s a psychotic break but I don’t agree. Not anymore.”
    Meer knew what was coming and wanted to stop him from telling her. She didn’t want to hear about another child who was lost the way she’d been lost, who sufferedwith the mystery and isolation that she’d endured, but Sebastian was already explaining.
    “My research led me to past life trauma and the Memorist Society. After I described what had happened to my son, your father shared what had happened to you.”
    Unused to discussing her private hell with anyone, Meer didn’t respond. Forgetting to be worried about her father for a minute, she was instead angry with him. Who was Sebastian to him that he’d shared all this?
    Either not noticing her hesitancy or choosing to ignore it, Sebastian continued. “My son is now in very bad shape and is living at the psychiatric hospital where my ex-wife works. He can’t even talk to me anymore.” Anguish scarred his voice.
    “I’m sorry.” Meer was filled with empathy for him but even more for his child.
    “Thank you. It’s horrible. Not for me, for Nicolas, for every day that he loses. And what’s making it all worse is that Rebecca and I don’t agree on what the next steps should be…she’s a rational woman who looks at things one way only. I went along with her and the other doctors at first but too much time passed with no improvement…there are other things we can try and I want to try them all. We have to try.”
    “You mean regression therapy?”
    Sebastian nodded and made a right onto a wide street. Taking the corner too hard, his wheels screeched in revolt. He turned the stereo back on. Mozart’s Prague Symphony filled the car with its rich complexity. “I’m sorry. You have enough on your mind right now. I should be distracting you, not depressing you. Why don’t I tell you something about where we are instead of my problems.” His voice was