Lost Past by Teresa McCullough, Zachary McCullough Page A

Eric?
                  Judging from a couple of hours on the Internet, apparently it was. He was unfamiliar with some of the psychiatric drugs used. It wasn’t until it occurred to him that he should look up their chemical formulas that he might have a better idea of what was going on. He translated the formulas into Vigintees and that made it easier for him to understand them. Most of them meant nothing to him. Two popular drugs seemed right, but he couldn’t find certain drugs he was searching for. Lacrasices , which was used for schizophrenia, didn’t appear to be available.
                  It was afternoon before John went to the hospital. He was bombarded with friendly greetings from everyone from the head of the hospital to members of the janitorial staff. He politely told people that no, he had not recovered his memory, but he hoped that being on familiar ground would be helpful.
                  Eric asked him to stop in his office for a few minutes. The office had a large rosewood desk whose surface contained only a couple of pictures, a cup of pens, a stapler, and a computer. Psychiatric texts lined the walls, as well as his degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Joh n barely glanced at the degrees but picked up the one of the pictures.
                  “My wife,” Eric said. “She died of cancer nine years ago.”
                  The second picture showed a family of three. A young man, who looked like Eric, was with an ordinary-looking young woman holding a baby. “You’re responsible for that,” said Eric. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. It was tempting not to tell you because it doesn’t reflect well on either of us, but as a doctor, I can’t conceal this information from your past. Possibly Arthur didn’t even know it.
                  “You didn’t get into medical school the way you were supposed to. You had an online undergraduate degree with almost no lab experience. My son Larry has, or perhaps I should say had, schizophrenia. He wasn’t functioning and it was getting worse. My wife was dying and Larry . . . Well, you came to me and offered me a bargain. You said you could significantly improve Larry’s life if I would support your medical school application. I didn’t even agree, but five days later, Larry was working at McDonald’s. You can’t understand what it’s like for a father to be proud of his son saying, ‘You want fries with that?’”
                  “What did I do?” John asked.
                  “I don’t have a clue. But Larry told me you helped him. He went to the community college and he now works with computers. He’ll never be rich, but he is functioning. He married a sweet girl and they have a baby. Larry says he owes it to you, and I believe him.”
                  “You got me into medical school?”
                  “One man doesn’t have the power. All I did was vote in favor of you. You said you wanted to be a psychiatrist, and Larry’s recovery told me you could be a good one, at least that’s how I justified it to myself. But another man advocated for you and lost a great deal of weight. He was never able to do so before. A third man had an autistic grandchild who is now doing so well that people are wondering if he was misdiagnosed. I never figured out what you did for a woman on the committee, but she seemed happier afterwards.”
                  My knowledge predated my training, John thought. How did I learn so much and where did I learn it? I was, what, twenty-five when I started medical school? When did I have time to learn so much?              
                  Eric handed him off to Cara, who had somehow shed her responsibilities for the afternoon. She willingly helped him find a branch of his bank, where he withdrew five hundred dollars. Returning to the hospital,