The Eumenide

Anna drove recklessly toward the hospital, fighting traffic and an overwhelming sense of guilt for abandoning Consuelo. The ER physician w’ho’d called her at the office said the drug screens were still pending. But when they’d lavaged Consuelo’s stomach they recovered an ominously large number of Depresade capsule fragments.

At the hospital Anna ignored the sharp pains in her back and ran to the MICU. After identifying herself to the nurses she walked into Consuelo’s room—and froze, horrified at what she saw.

Consuelo lay quiet and unmoving on a bed in the darkened room. Nasal prongs delivered oxygen to her, and a bag of normal saline dripped into a vein. Her body was attached by black cables to monitors that beeped rhythmically and flashed blood-red numbers on their displays.

A part of Anna’s mind felt intense relief that ail the readings on the monitors were perfectly normal. What horrified her was that, beside Consuelo’s bed, sat a gray-haired woman.

Anna hissed, “You! What are you doing here?”

Then the obvious answer came to her. “What did you do to her? Are you responsible for this?”

The gray-haired woman frowned pensively. “Yes, I am responsible. If it weren’t for me, if it weren’t for foolish decisions I made, none of this would have happened. Those two beautiful children would never have died.”

“Did you make her take those capsules?”

“No. It was her own choice.” A strange smile flickered on the woman’s face. “Her choice.”

Anna said furiously, “What kind of person are you? How could you, of all people, do those vicious things to her?” “I had to test her like that. It was the only way to prove she was really cured, and no longer a danger to anyone else. If your treatment hadn’t really worked—if she was pretending to be cured, or if it was only partially successful—she would have tried to kill me with the gun I gave her. After my little performance at the parole board meeting, and the other things I had to do to make her and everyone else think I hated her, she could’ve plausibly claimed I threatened her with it. That she killed me in self-defense. And wouldn’t you have believed her?”

The gray-haired woman saw the horrified look on Anna’s face. “I’m sorry. You didn’t know about the ‘gun’ part of my experiment.” She rattled her heavy purse, and shrugged. “No matter. The important thing is, Consuelo passed my test. Instead of lashing out at me, she showed by what she did that now she could feel guilt and remorse. Faced again with ‘abandonment,’ she turned her pain and loneliness inward, against herself, and not against me. She made the right choice.”

Anna’s face burned with rage. “You call killing herself the right choice? If you were trying to execute her, you were too late! The woman who murdered those people is already dead! I, Nemo and the others—we killed her! When we repaired the parts of her brain that made her turn violent when she felt abandoned—when we wiped out her memories of being that pathological personality—that ‘Consuelo’ died! She paid with her life’ for her crimes! Then, this Consuelo was born.”

Anna pointed at the young woman on the bed. “In every meaningful way, she’s a new person now. It’s not fair to blame and punish her for what that other Consuelo did. This woman is innocent!”

“And now, after what I’ve seen her do, I agree.” The gray-haired woman paused. “But don’t be so naive. I would never deliberately hurt Consuelo. Actually, I’m thankful you’ve misjudged me. I was afraid you would figure out my plan, and prevent me from doing it in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to protect her.”

Reading the bewilderment on Anna’s face, she continued, “Nearly all the capsules in the medicine bottle I gave Consuelo were placebo. Only the top three were Depresade. Just enough to make her sleep soundly. The gun I offered her didn’t have any bullets—just in case she decided to turn it on herself instead of me. And who do you think called the paramedics to bring her here?”

Looking down at the slumbering figure on the bed, the gray-haired woman said, “When Consuelo wakes up, she and I will have a long talk together. Then I’ll call Krueger and tell him to get the parole board to have her transferred from your custody to mine. We can’t undo what’s already happened. But we can help each other rebuild our lives. It’s not too late for that.”

Then the older woman looked at Anna. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you and the others for what you’ve done for Consuelo. It’s like a miracle. She was ‘dead and has come to life,’ she was lost and has been found.’ After everything that’s happened over the past nine years, I’d nearly lost faith that life had any meaning, or in God. As much as my heart wanted it to be so, I didn’t dare even hope that the treatment had worked. Even though it tore me apart inside to do those terrible things to her, I had to be sure Consuelo was cured, beyond any possible doubt. For her sake, for the sake of those she might have hurt if she hadn’t really been cured—and for my own.

“Thank you, Anna. You were the only one who was kind to Consuelo when everyone else was cruel. You’ve been more than just a doctor caring for a patient. When she desperately needed one, you were her friend. But now she needs more than kindness, or even friendship.”

Consuelo Lopez stirred a little, almost ready to awake, reborn, to a new life. Then, like a mask falling from her face, the gray-haired woman’s stern expression changed completely. Anna had never seen one like it before. It was full of pain and anguish, yet also held the most profound joy and happiness.

Her eyes brimming with tears, Dr. Maria Teresa Aguilar Lopez tenderly caressed the hand of her only child, her beloved daughter, and sobbed, “Now she needs someone who loves her.”