Finding Juniper

By Bailie Lawson

Finding Juniper is a story about a woman who wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. No-one comes to claim her. Is she completely alone in the world?

The hospital personnel tell her that an anonymous call was made reporting that a woman was lying unconscious on a quiet empty street late at night.

As she sets out to find out who she is, people appear who claim to be her friends and a man who says he is her boyfriend. She doesn’t know who to trust but her instincts tell her to be cautious. She starts having frightening flashbacks of being pushed towards a moving car. Did someone deliberately hurt her?

She begins to put clues together about her past life and makes some surprising discoveries not only about herself but about family secrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bailie Lawson
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005965693

Bailie Lawson

Bailie Lawson has always been interested in stories, both listening to them and telling them. She was born and went to school in Ireland and as an adult has lived in New York and the North-Eastern United States. She has worked as a psychotherapist and professor of psychology. She is the author of several novels including Well-Travelled Ancient Ancient Artifacts, Finding Juniper, Fanfare, The Imaginary Husband, Pixie Dust: Enchantment and It’s Consequences, Uncovering Julien's Past, Una's Journey, and Who Is Gigi?

Book preview

PROLOGUE

It was dark and cold and windy on this isolated street. I stood for a moment shivering, wondering if I was being reckless, if I should turn back. Why had I agreed to meet in such an isolated spot? And with someone who was angry with me!

I could see the lights of the restaurant down the block. It would be warm there and safe. There would be people there. Too late, I realized meeting like this was a mistake.

The car seemed to come out of nowhere, the extremely bright headlights startling me. I screamed and staggered backwards, falling against someone.

There was a male body behind me, catching me, helping me – only he wasn’t! He was pushing me, forcefully moving me forward, into the path of the oncoming car.

There was a screeching of brakes and as I fell, I saw the enraged face of the driver. My last thought before losing consciousness was they are going to kill me.

CHAPTER ONE

In some ways it feels as though I am only a few weeks old. What I mean is, I opened my eyes a few weeks ago, and didn't remember anything that had happened before then.

And so, I'm writing this account to see if it will help me make some sense of it all. If I write everything down that I can remember since I woke up, maybe it will bring some of my memory back, and maybe it will help me make sense of some of the strange things that have been happening in the past few weeks.

It’s important to remember for all the practical reasons. But perhaps I'm also looking for a kind of control. There's a horrible lack of control that I feel about not knowing my past, having to guess at what my past personality was, my tastes, my friendships, ways of treating people, my ethics. I don't know what kind of person I was. I don’t know if I have friends, family, children. I don’t know who I am.

*****

So here goes:

That morning - March 7 - when I woke up in the hospital, the first day of my life, as far as my memory is concerned, I didn't know where I was, but it had the feeling of a hospital. Even then in that foggy state, I knew somehow that it was a hospital. But I didn't know why I was there, or what day it was or how I got there.

Or even, I discovered when they came rushing in excitedly and asked me a lot of questions - even my name. They wanted me to tell them my name. But I couldn't recall. I could remember nothing. There was a buzz of activity around me - faces swimming into focus and out again. Someone asked me how many fingers they were holding up.

******

When I woke up next it was dark. I must have woken up gradually. I was in a state of being half-asleep, half-awake for a while, content, not worrying - for quite a while it seemed. Then my eyes started to focus on the room - window to the right, high sill, a medical smell, a screen to the side. I remembered the faces around my bed before - lots of white coats, nurses’ uniforms. When was it? They'd asked a lot of questions. I'd been too foggy to ask any myself.

Now I had questions to ask. Why was I here? I was sick, obviously. That’s why people were in hospitals. Oh, why couldn't I remember? Did they give me anesthetic? That must be it. I'd had an operation and I was just waking up from the anesthetic. But where did they operate? I felt each arm, my sides, my legs. I could move without trouble, not with much strength, but there’s no pain. Oh, my head! There was something - a bandage - on my head. What had happened?

I lay there for a long time trying to remember, but nothing came, except some more images of medical people around the bed. I wondered how it is that I could know that it was a hospital, and what a hospital feels and looks like, but I couldn't remember who my friends are, or how I got here. I dozed off.

It was morning when I was woken up by a nurse with food. She was young, cheerful, looked energetic and curious. How long have I been asleep? I asked her. How long have I been here?

Do you remember anything? she asked looking interested, but - something else - surprised maybe - or I don't know - concerned.

The neurologist will be here shortly, she reassured me. It’s better if you wait and let him fill you in".

So, I drank some weak tea. - I knew I didn't like that - and ate some toast.

Finally, the neurologist arrived, a tired-looking man in his late 50's, but with kind eyes. Again, fingers were held up and I dutifully told him how many. He stared into my eyes with a bright light and grunted something to himself. He had me wiggle my toes and move my fingers.

Then he asked me my name, which again I couldn't recall. He asked me who the President was. I couldn't come up with a name, though I recalled the names Kennedy and Nixon. Even as I said them, I knew somehow that that was from long ago.

He asked me my address and I didn't know it. And I couldn't tell him if I was married, or if I had children.

I stared with consternation at him. Why can't I remember? What am I here for? Is it the operation?

Operation? he asked. I touched the bandage on my head. Didn't I have an operation? Isn't that why I can't remember?

My dear, he said, You hit your head and had a concussion. You've been unconscious for four days - or rather, you've been in and out of consciousness for that long.

Four days? Unconscious? I stared bewildered.

He went on We have not been able to find any serious physical injury. You have some stitches, and the wound is healing.

Will my memory come back? I asked anxiously. How long will it take?

Now that you are awake, we can begin to address that problem he said.

****

In the next day or two I slept a lot. Maybe I was sedated or maybe still stunned but I wasn't yet panicked about not remembering. I wasn't happy about it, but I thought I would remember everything soon. I saw a social worker and a psychologist, as well as various doctors.

When it became obvious to my various examiners that I really remembered nothing and after I'd become increasingly agitated at repeatedly being asked my name and not being able to produce it, they revealed that my name was Juniper Margonsen.

The social worker didn't, in fact, give me the whole name at once. She asked me first if the name Juniper meant anything to me. It didn't. I was completely blank, except that I somehow knew that juniper was a flower or plant.

She said, It’s your name. She was warm and concerned, clearly wanted to help, but seemed uncertain about what to do.

Juniper. I'm Juniper. I repeated out loud to myself wonderingly. It’s a pretty name. I know what juniper is. I even think I know what it smells like. But how did I know that I asked myself? I had no recollection of anyone ever calling me Juniper, or of ever even writing that name.

After the social worker left that day, I practiced writing Juniper Margonsen over and over on a piece of paper. I printed it and then I wrote what I thought was probably my signature. Both looked awkward and unfamiliar.

I had no idea who this Juniper Margonsen was, what her history was - who her friends were - Friends? Family? Who were my friends? My family? Did I even have any? It was a very unsettling feeling. Had anyone come to see me while I was unconscious? I was anxious to know, but I wasn’t sure which scared me more – no-one coming to claim me, or people I didn’t remember showing up and claiming we were related. I must ask the social worker tomorrow, or the nurse.

In fact, I asked the nurse later that evening and she said that no family had come to see me that she knew, but she believed a lawyer had visited me. She looked concerned, apologetic, as if she wanted to give me different news.

Next day the social worker gave me a bag that was found with me the night of the accident. It was a black leather bag. I touched it hesitantly and opened it half-fearfully. The social worker watched me carefully all the time.

Inside was a wallet, a comb, lipstick, a package of tissues half-used, a pair of silver hoop earrings, a bunch of keys on a keyring, a small appointment book and a smashed cell phone, completely unusable. I opened the wallet. There were five $20 bills and a bunch of credit cards - two Visas, three department store cards, and a bank account card. - All with Juniper Margonsen's name on them. There was also a medical insurance card, also with my name on it, and my date of birth. I was 34 years old.

I felt a curious mixture of elation and sadness. Yes, this is me. It was wonderful to have so much proof of my name. But why did nothing seem familiar?

Eventually, from the information they gave me, I pieced together the following:

On the night of March 2nd, a Saturday, at about 10:45 PM, I was brought into the emergency room here at St. Jude's by an ambulance, which had picked me up near York Street in Brooklyn Heights after someone had called 911 to report a woman lying unconscious with a bloody wound on the side of her head. The ambulance had found me alone, unconscious, the caller nowhere to be found. In fact, there was no-one else in the vicinity either. The call had come from a public phone in a local restaurant and the caller had not been identified. The wound had required stitches, but no more. The emergency room doctor had noted that injuries were consistent with a fall. The problem was I was still unconscious so they couldn’t release me. I'd lain here in the hospital, fading in and out of consciousness for almost a week.

A card in my wallet had listed a person to call in case of emergency - Walter Staunton - who had come to see me a couple of times and asked to be contacted as soon as I regained consciousness.

My purse containing my wallet had not been stolen. They didn’t think I had been mugged or assaulted.

For another day I stayed in the hospital, watching some television. Faces, and especially voices, were vaguely familiar to me. I'd heard them before - the newscaster especially.

I moved around to the bathroom and for short walks in the hallway. In the bathroom I first saw my face. I looked in the mirror and saw a stranger's face looking back at me. It was startling, scary. I didn't remember ever having seen this face before, but yet it stirred up an uneasy feeling in me. It was pale, with large bluish grey eyes staring back at me in fright. My hair was dark and and shoulder length and needed to be washed. I couldn't tell my height or weight from the mirror, which only reflected my head and shoulders.

I felt a shiver of fright looking at that stranger's face - my face - in the mirror. The face stared back at me with no answers for me.

I had lost my past. What kind of person was I? Did I have a job? A family? Was I a kind person? A loner?

No friends or family had come to see me. Did that mean I had no friends? No family? Was I totally alone in the world? Did anyone love me? And why was a lawyer, Staunton, my contact person? The face staring back at me in fright revealed nothing.

I tossed and turned that night, trying desperately to recall anything from my former life, but with no success.

The next day they told me they were discharging me. They needed the bed, and I no longer physically needed to be hospitalized. I was advised to see the neurologist for follow-up visits, even though they could find no physical reason for my memory loss. CAT scans showed no abnormalities. They wanted to continue monitoring me. They also gave me the name and phone number of a psychotherapist to see for help in recovering my memory. They thought that it could be caused by the trauma of the accident. Claire, the social worker would set up an appointment for me and would call me to confirm the time. She gave me a phone number where I could reach her.

My address and phone number were on the medical insurance records. The nurse had called the home phone number a few times while I was unconscious. No-one ever answered in person, but there was an answering machine with a recording presumably in my voice. They concluded I lived alone. The medical insurance records listed me as single, aged 34 and with coverage only for me. No dependents. The insurance premium was paid by me, not by a place of employment. I was described as self-employed.

Mr. Staunton was sending someone to take me home.

While waiting, with some apprehension, I dialed the home number myself. It was an unfamiliar number. It meant nothing to me. After two rings a voice - mine I assumed - said I can't answer the phone right now. Please leave me a message.

What if someone had answered? What would I have said? Maybe I would have said nothing. Maybe just Hi and someone on the other end would have recognized my voice - would have sobbed with joy and amazement that it was me - that I'd been found; would have welcomed me with love. I felt an ache of loneliness, of longing. Was there anyone - if not in my home, someone I was close to, someone who lived elsewhere?

They gave me the clothes I'd been wearing when I was brought into the emergency room. They were hanging in a closet in my room all the time. There was a dark blue sweater and jeans, tan boots, a dark red wool coat. In the pocket were some coins and a piece of paper crumbled up. I smoothed it out and saw that there was some writing scribbled on it.

"York and Columbia. 10 PM. Near Harry's place. Look for wa......".

The rest of the paper had been torn off.

They had told me I was found on York Street. Did I have plans to meet someone there that night? Did this paper contain part of the directions? I pushed the paper back in my pocket. I'd think about it later. But now I was getting out of here. I had a big day ahead. I was hopeful that I would be flooded with memories as soon as I got out of the hospital.

The clothes fit me but looked unfamiliar. I was becoming excited though, and hopeful. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I thought, things would surely start coming back. People would recognize me. People wouldn't have known where I was. That's why no-one had come to see me in the hospital.

A young woman in a suit, with straight black hair came into the room just as I finished dressing, followed by the nurse, who said Juniper, this is the woman sent by Mr. Staunton to take you home.

The young woman put her hand out to