Memory Lane: A Novel

Memory Lane

Season One

Ellen Goodlett & Sara Shepard

Memory Lane: Season One © 2023 text by Realm of Possibility, Inc.

All materials, including, without limitation, the characters, names, titles, and settings, are the exclusive property of Realm of Possibility, Inc. All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part, in any audio, electronic, mechanical, physical, or recording format. Originally published in the United States of America: 2021.

For additional information and permission requests, write to the publisher at Realm, 115 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10006.

ISBN: 978-1-68210-832-1

This literary work is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, incidents, and events are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Written by: Ellen Goodlett and Sara Shepard

Producer: Rhoda Belleza

Executive Producers: Molly Barton and Julian Yap

Table of Contents

Memory Lane Season One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Writer Team

One

Testing? Ah. There we go. Okay. Today is June fifth. I’m with Oleander Biomedical patient 6424. We’re going to do a word association. I’ll say a word, and you’ll tell me what word it makes you think of. Okay?

I guess?

"—Great. First word. Greenhouse. What comes to mind?"

Uh . . . new life?

"Don’t guess. There’s no right answer. What about doctor?"

Um . . . smart.

"How about lake?"

Actually . . . Alex. My daughter? ’Cause she wants to throw me into one, most days. She didn’t even invite me to her graduation, did I tell you? Asked some random guy instead.

All the more reason to do the study together. You can reconnect.

. . . But what if she never speaks to me again afterward?

Why would you say that?

I have a feeling there’s something she’s not going to like about the memories.

"But you chose those memories for her."

"It’s just . . . you know how you wake up from a dream and you tell yourself, Okay, that was wild, and I’m going to remember it exactly? But then, once you’re in the shower, the details . . . they’re different. And you’re like, Wait, was I using a sneaker to call 911, or was it the buttons on the microwave?"

"So you’re worried there’s something in the memories you’ve . . . forgotten? That will be painful for her? I can understand being hesitant . . . but look. We’re trying to help you. Remember how we talked about that? I wouldn’t have reached out if I didn’t think this could do good things. But if you don’t want help . . ."

"No! No. I . . . do. I just meant . . . Alex is sensitive. But never mind. Everything is fine. Please, we want to do the study. Forget I said anything at all."

• • •

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA. JUNE 12

The parking lot of Oleander Biomedical is organized by famous medical researchers: you can park in the Curie section, or the Louis Pasteur section, or, like our car, right under a large portrait of Watson and Crick. I turn off the ignition and my mother, Cassie—I haven’t called her mom since I was twelve—whips an e-cig from her pack and flicks the on switch.

"Really? You’re going to light up in front of the giant human lungs?" I gesture at the sculpture in front of the building. Two abstract lungs made of bronze stretch into the sky. Sunlight glints off the sculpture’s hammered surface.

Cassie smiles at me sideways while she takes a drag. Come on. You wouldn’t let me vape on the drive. And anyway, you’ve got your little puzzle. Let me have my thing.

I realize the Stim is in my hand already; I must’ve reached for it as soon as I turned off the ignition. You know they’re not the same.

Cassie shrugs and makes a sound that could mean anything.

The smooth, plastic disc of the Stim fits perfectly in my palm. I press its buttons in the right order and a warm feeling zips up my spine and floods my head. Within seconds, I’m infused with a feeling I can only describe as It’s All Good. It doesn’t last long—more like a sudden, wind-shifting burst of contentment—but it takes the edge off.

It’s my own dopamine, triggered by this external cue. I’m not ingesting or inhaling anything, unlike Cassie.

Sure, her brand of e-cig is marketed as a healthy alternative, loaded up with vitamins and antivirals—but there’s still a bunch of actual nicotine in there, too.

Hey honey? Thanks for driving.

I offer up my cheek when she leans over the console to kiss me like I’m a kid again. Then she pops out of the passenger side and rushes toward the building without even closing the door. I reach over to pull it closed, then hustle after her through the parking lot.

Of course I drove. This might’ve been her idea—an early medical trial that I’m not even sure is legit—but once I decided I was in, I was in. Leave it to Cassie to get us here, and she could flake in an infinite number of ways. Maybe just not show up, which actually happened at my college graduation last month. Or she might pull over to stop at a thrift store and entirely forget about our appointment. Or she might just drive the other way and decide to take us on a different adventure.

I’m technically supposed to be looking for jobs today. I’m hoping to find something in game design. Maybe an app. But when Cassie asks, she shall receive.

See, my mom has this way about her. She’s wildly flaky—she only remembers my birthday half the time, but when she does, she puts together a hell of a party. Inconsistent. But when she’s on, she’s on. Despite the fact that I used to spend my babysitting money on a therapy app to vent my grievances about her over Facetime, it’s not easy saying no to her.

But today I’m here for me. Because if Cassie is telling the truth about why we’re here—this study might reveal things I’ve always wanted to know. About her, about my dad, about me.

We’re going to be right on time, Cassie says as soon as I catch up to her.

There’s a first for everything.

My whole life, Cassie’s been running at least thirty minutes behind. Maybe that’s understandable—she’s always been juggling a lot. Cassie’s only forty-three now, so she was twenty-one when she had me, meaning she’d never really learned how to be responsible for herself before she had to be responsible for both of us. And she had to raise me alone. She struggled to keep a roof over our heads, to keep a job, to keep food in my belly, to keep from falling down the hole of addiction, and to control her mental health. And I don’t think it’s all her fault. Things happened to her, things she doesn’t like to talk about—something dark. Something to do with my dad.

A man I’ve never met. A man I know nothing about. But a man I’ve spent my life looking for. At least, until it all went wrong . . .

I look at the Oleander Biomedical building. It’s sand-colored and blocky, with uniform, rectangular windows. The place looks professional enough. But am I really going through with this? Is she really going through with this?

Cassie studies the cracked screen of her cell phone. Looks like we go to the fourth floor, and then turn left.

A guard at the front desk face-scans us, and then we’re in an elevator. It dings on the fourth floor and we walk down the hall to a waiting room with about ten or so people.

I swallow hard, suddenly feeling the urge to flee. When my mother first brought this up, uttering the words mother and daughter medical study, I almost hung up on her. "Alex, wait. It’s about memories. My memories. From, um, when I was pregnant with you. This study—they’ve figured out a way to draw them out. Transfer them into you. See if they can live in someone else’s mind."

My mind was going a million miles an hour, but I’d gone still. A memory transfer? That sounded nuts. Was it even possible? Was it safe? And why the hell had Cassie gotten roped into yet another scheme?

But apart from all the questions, there was only one thing I could bring myself to say: I thought you barely remembered being pregnant with me.

Hmmm . . .

Her response that could’ve meant anything. She was always claiming her memories got fuzzy that far back. A convenient excuse, I knew. An easy out. So why open up now? And why did we need to involve scientists?

For years, I’ve been trying to get my mom to talk about her past. I know the basics: stiflingly conservative parents. Her father died after contracting a new flu that was going around—he’d refused to be vaccinated. And I only met my grandmother once, when I was eight. She’d criticized my outfit, saying it wasn’t appropriate for a young woman. I was wearing jeans.

So my mom took off. I get why. But the years between her leaving home and her giving birth to me are a mystery. Given any other subject, she’ll riff forever, but she’s never told me much about that time—which is when she must have met my father.

I’ve tried everything. When I was really young, I’d see other dads and ask about mine. In grade school, I badgered her for any shred of information, claiming I’d fail my family tree project. And later, I’d slip in the casual inquiry after she’d had one too many glasses of wine, hoping she’d feel generous—or forget herself, or both. And Cassie’s face would always cloud over for a split second, so fast you could miss it, before it morphed into that signature smile. Playful, sly. It’s always just been me, baby.

The way she’d play it off, I started to suspect that she was trying to shield me from something. Something violent. Something she felt misguided shame about. I wondered who my dad really was. If he’d hurt her. Maybe that was why she never spoke about him—to protect me.

Still, I couldn’t let it go. Even if my father was bad news, I wanted to know who he was and what he’d done. I had half of his DNA. What if some of his traits were lurking inside me? How could I understand myself if I didn’t know both halves of the equation that produced me?

Well? What do you think? Want to do the study or not?

On the phone that day, the words felt jammed in my throat. I did want to do it. But