I Remember Somewhere New

By Grace Giska

It all started because of a damn baby. Well, a toddler—but that didn't make much of a difference to Samantha as she sat down in the waiting room. She scrolled through emails on her phone and checked for any missed text messages. Booking a spot with the reincarnation specialist had taken her weeks of planning, and per usual, Jen was MIA. Samantha leaned back in her blue rubber seat and inhaled the familiar scents of sanitation materials and dread.

There was a bright blue poster hanging beside the receptionist's desk. It said, "Discover all of you" in giant white letters. The poster showed an elderly African American man holding hands with a skinny Asian boy with a bowl cut. Could they really be the same person? Samantha had resisted this idea that one person could be the "past-life" version of someone else ever since it had gone viral a little over a year ago. Besides, was the poster saying that the little Asian boy carried the older man's wisdom? Or was the older man capable of reminiscing on the child's memories? Either way, the science wasn't that good; it couldn't be. As a practicing geriatrician, she believed aging was a one-way deal.

Samantha had worked at Davidson's Health Care Center on the geriatric ward for eleven years. None of her patients had ever hinted at memories of a "past-life" self. Not until the news got their hands on a toddler who said he remembered his own death in vivid detail. The news printed the headline everywhere—I remember dying. I was fifty-two. And a whole lot of other rubbish. Within weeks, scientists from every conspiracy-covered corner of the internet declared people could have lived multiple lives. Tests were developed in the coming months and approved for voluntary research. Whole research journals supporting the idea cropped up. The health care world was flooded with information that no one actually bothered to read. Why would they when everyone knew someone who bought into the frenzy? Everyone except Samantha.

A door clicked open. Several people looked up as Jen hurried across the waiting room. A few onlookers, mostly young-to-middle-aged women, saw Jen and did a double-take. One woman with neon red hair wiggled in her seat as she wrestled her phone out of her back pocket and snapped a very obvious photo. If Jen noticed the sudden influx of attention, she didn't show it. Instead, she threw a feathery pink scarf over her shoulder and relaxed into the seat next to Samantha. Jen leaned in and kissed her softly. Samantha recognized the taste of cherries and bubblegum lingering on her lips. That was something that only she knew about her very public wife. It always amused her that Jen was likely the only woman in the world who could still wear lip gloss after eighteen. Next month, she'd be turning 40, but nobody could tell TV host Jennifer Marcillo how to act or age.

"Sorry, I'm late. Things ran long at the studio," she said as she dug through her purse for her phone. Their small moment of tenderness was gone; Jen was back to business, thumbs typing out texts faster than Samantha could think of anything to say. Jen beat her to it, "You sent the doctor the samples he needed, right?"

Samantha nodded. The reincarnation specialist had required a battery of tests about a mile long to correctly estimate how many past lives they'd each had. This number was more commonly called a reincarnation level; a high level indicated more worldly experience. Meanwhile, a low number supposed the opposite. Samantha had borrowed testing supplies from Davidson to save money. Insurance wanted to charge them a fortune for the equipment. Instead, she and Jen had completed all the blood tests and stick pokes in their kitchen, with fluid bags draped over the top of the microwave and temperature-sensitive test tubes shoved in the fridge next to leftover stir fry from the night before. It wasn’t a proud moment for either of them. Still, Jen was dead set on doing these speculative (and crazy expensive) reincarnation tests, so that’s what they did.

"Samantha and Jennifer?" called a stern female voice. It reminded Samantha of how a librarian would speak.

Jen raised her hand. "Here," she said, offering the woman a quirky camera-ready smile as she stood up.

#

An hour later, they left with a handful of bright-colored pamphlets. Jen suggested they go to Dante's Deli to celebrate their good news. Jen loved the pimento cheese sandwiches and Samantha obliged because she wanted to wash her hands. The way the doctor had cradled her palms as he gently explained that she was on her first life made her feel like an incompetent child. She never treated her patients like children.

"He wasn't talking down to you. You forget that everyone has different styles of communication; some people need more support than others." Jen let go of Samantha's hand as she took a bite out of her warm, drippy pimento cheese on rye. She was still reveling in discovering that she was living her fourth life.

"It must be kinda scary to know that this is your first time doing everything," continued Jen, "like our first kiss was really your first kiss! Isn't that weird? Or when—"

Samantha shoved a fork-full of crunchy romaine into her mouth before she could hear the rest of Jen’s sentence. Jen had been with other people. It was already a sensitive spot in their relationship, but now that was ever more complicated. How many people had Jen been with in her other three lives? Was she straight in another life? Looking at her bedazzled neon wife, it was unlikely Jen was ever straight, but the questions still simmered in the back of Samantha’s mind.

"You should come on the show!" Jen said, her voice rising several octaves and her hands reaching out towards Samantha as if she could pull her into the studio right here and now.

Samantha stiffened. "Jen, you know how I feel about being on camera."

Jen relented with a rattle of apologies and excuses. Then she put down her half-eaten sandwich and squeezed Samantha's leg under the table. "You're special. You know that, right? The doctor said that you're only the second first-lifer that he's ever met."

Oh joy, Samantha gave her wife a withering look, and Jen pulled her hand back. They didn't talk about reincarnation anymore. Instead, they talked about Jen's upcoming show next week and how she wanted to get that "I remember" kid on the air before the end of the summer.

"He's only three years old," Samantha reminded her, imagining a grubby little toddler drooling all over Jen's plush red couches and chewing on the mics.

"He’ll be four next week.”

“You know his birthday?”

“Who doesn’t?”

Samantha started at the last piece of lettuce sitting on her plate. As she raised her fork and readied a response, her wife pulled out her phone and asked how work at the hospital was going. Samantha thought about mentioning her patient Lorretta, a gray-haired woman who was losing weight at an alarming rate. Lorretta had been on her mind all week, her vitals were weak, and the elderly woman didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Since Jen was still preoccupied with her phone, Samantha made a mental note to spend time with Lorretta tomorrow. She assured her wife that work was fine as usual.

#

Jen’s show broadcasted on Thursdays, so she left early the next morning. Samantha laid in bed a little longer, scrolling through her phone. Another geriatrician at Davidson was asking if anyone would cover his night shift. Typically, she refused night shifts on Thursdays so she could be home in time to watch her wife’s show from the comfort of their living room couch. But honestly? She didn’t want to hear anything else about past lives. Jen talking about how she’d always known that she’d been reincarnated felt wrong. But none of that would matter to the audience watching the show tonight. In fact, Samantha expected folks to flock to Jen’s story, and Jen would feast on the extra attention. Celebrity reincarnation reveals were all the rage right now.

Samantha texted her coworker and agreed to the shift change. Her coffeemaker downstairs sounded just about as enthusiastic as she felt as it spit and spluttered into her travel mug. The geriatric ward was generally pretty predictable, but working night shift meant working on a skeletal staff. Once she was armed with a cup of coffee and a white coat, she headed to work.

During the drive, her mom called. She had just found out that she was living her ninth life. For half an hour, she talked about all the tiny details that must have been significant to previous versions of herself. “I think I’ve always had a thing for dark-haired men,” her mother shouted through the car’s sound system. “You know how everyone thought it was strange when I listened to Elvis when you were little? I bet I had a crush on Elvis Presley when I was living a past life, I’m sure of it.”

Samantha bit the inside of her cheek, rubbing her tongue over the freshly forming raw spot. She was still several blocks away from the hospital, but she found her fingers drifting over the end call button. She was about to say goodbye when her mom interrupted.

“Oh, Jen called this morning. She told me that you’re on your first life; that makes so much sense, Sammy. Remember how much you struggled to learn reading? Well, of course, you were going to struggle. You’d never done it before!”

“Mom, everyone has to learn how to read when they’re in first grade. You don’t remember skills from your past life or anything like that,” Samantha snapped. Her nails dug into the steering wheel. The car silently rolled down the road. She was about to apologize when her mother spoke up. 

“I think some people remember things,” her mother said, quieter than before. Then she launched into another miracle story about someone who claimed, they too, knew about reincarnation the whole time and had the facts to prove it. Relief washed over Samantha as she pulled into the cool shade of the hospital parking garage and told her mother she had to go. At least people at work were more sensible than her family.

She marched straight up to the fifth floor, through the heavy bay doors to the geriatric ward. The smells of baby powder and lemon-scented cleaner enveloped her as the soothing echo of Norah Jones' voice reverberated down the hall from Mrs. Nancy’s room. The elderly patients were allowed to listen to music as much as they liked since familiar sounds could help stave off memory loss. Like a bird settling into her cozy nest, Samantha sat down at her desk and began sorting through case files. She plugged her pager into its charging station on her desk. When it started chirping at her, she’d begin her patient rounds.

#

Things stayed steady throughout the evening, although an incident around six pm stuck out to Samantha. Mr. Franklin, a 71-year-old gentleman under her care for a reoccurring infection, had been in a worse-than-normal mood. He kept blasting his assistance-needed button like an addict handling a pill dispenser. When Samantha checked on him, he was sitting up in his hospital bed with rigid posture and complaining that his pain medication wasn’t sufficient. With his nonexistent Ph.D., he’d also concluded that his infection must be spreading to his leg. Samantha inspected the appendage in question and deemed nothing wrong.

That’s when he’d insisted on knowing what reincarnation level she was.

Without thinking, Samantha admitted that this was her first life. Within seconds of this admission, Franklin furrowed his brow and clenched his jaw, refusing to talk to her anymore. About an hour later, she found out from a nurse that he’d requested a “more experienced” doctor take over his primary care.

“What exactly did he say?” Samantha asked the nurse.

The young male nurse shifted from one foot to the other, “Someone more experienced is all he said.”

This is because of that whole first-lifer bullshit. Samantha shoved her hands into her pockets so no one could see her curl her fingers into tight fists as she returned to her office to start Mr. Franklin’s transfer paperwork. She’d worked with the cranky old man off and on for three years; she’d never made any mistakes in her diagnosis and never refused him a phone call regardless of the time of day (or night). Her desk was disheveled by the time she’d finished up the paperwork in addition to her regular duties, and she slumped into her chair with a heavy sigh.

As she sat, her anger faded into a hollow spot in the center of her chest. Franklin got into strange moods sometimes, but overall, she’d liked being his doctor. Once, she’d even sneaked a cone of soft-serve ice cream up to his room when his nurse had threatened to cut him off. Samantha prided herself on being honest with her patients and rewarding their efforts to get better. No one ever expected the elderly to get better.

At nine o’clock that evening, she visited another patient who told her that she wanted to be taken off her medication because it didn’t matter if she died in this life. She wanted to come back as a little girl anyway. “Why wait?” said the woman as she signed the treatment refusal paperwork. Samantha bit her bottom lip and said nothing. What could she say?

An hour later, she paid a visit to Lorretta, a 92-year-old woman with long gray braids that hung limp at her sides. She had terminal cancer, acid reflux, and acute sensitivity to light—so her room was kept dark and muted with the curtains tied shut. Her bed light was still on when Samantha entered the dimly lit room. Lorretta beckoned her inside her dark domain.

“I’m dying, and you look worse than me,” said Lorretta. Her voice tremored like a trapped animal as she spoke. Smoker’s lung would do that.

“Your vitals are stable, but not where we’d like them,” Samantha said in return, keeping her gaze on her clipboard even though she had nothing written down to report. There wasn’t a reason for her to be here right now, other than she wanted to provide Lorretta with some company.

Lorretta smiled and patted her stomach with her bony wrist, “Any day now, I feel it coming.”

Lorretta didn’t say much; it was too taxing. So, Samantha spoke for both of them. She mentioned all the important outside-world updates she could think of; the good weather they’d had, the recall on lettuce released yesterday, the firework show that was happening this weekend. After a little while, she found that she couldn’t think of anything else to say. The short green line on the EKG proved Lorretta was alive, only resting, as it pulsed weakly on the buzzing monitor like a fly in the room.

“Ms. Lorretta, do you believe that people can be reincarnated?”

The older woman tilted her head back, though it could have been a trick of the light. Shame pooled into the pit of Samantha’s stomach. She shouldn’t be talking to a woman lying on her deathbed about reincarnation.

“Nothing would be new anymore,” Lorretta said after a long pause. She reached down and caught one of her braids between her fingertips. “I don’t think I’m…” she paused and inhaled deeply, a chuckle echoing up her throat. “I'm not going to Heaven. I know that much. Too much stuff I did when I was young, but—” she stroked her hair, “I’d like to be young again, do it right this time, you know?”

Samantha wasn't sure what to say in response. Luckily, her pager beeped. Eager to avoid the awkward silence she created, Samantha stepped outside, closing the door behind her.

The message was clear, "Emergency in labor and delivery." Where was the on-call pediatrician? Samantha started running through the hall and down the stairwell. Once she got down to the maternity unit, she saw a nurse running towards one of the rooms.

She pushed into the room and saw a senior resident and nurse huddled around a tiny red infant. "She isn't breathing," the nurse said as the resident stuck a miniature oxygen mask on the newborn and started CPR with his index and pointer fingers pressing on the child’s tiny blood-smeared chest. Samantha began to check the oxygen tank when her pager beeped again. Someone on the geriatric hall was coding, Lorretta's room. Her heart monitor wasn't working. Either that or her heart gave out.

The resident and nurse team must have seen the color drain from her face because the nurse motioned for her to go. She felt guilty that her first thought was one of morbid fascination. What a coincidence that one of her elderly patients would demand her attention right when the maternity ward fell into chaos. Enough of that, she scolded herself. Her patient needed a doctor, not a skeptic.

“Here,” shouted a wide-eyed pediatrician, pushing into the maternity suite with his gloved hands held out in front of him like the walking dead. He should have been here sooner. She was already climbing the staircase when the doors slammed shut behind her.

On the geriatric hall, it was quiet. No one was running to offer assistance; everyone was helping with labor and delivery or the emergency surgical ward. Opening the door to Lorretta’s room, her eyes traveled up the blue hospital bed across the older woman’s unmoving body.

The monitor was hooked up correctly, the green pulse line was flat across the bottom of the screen. Lorretta was silent, her dark eyes facing the blank ceiling. She knew better than to expect anything different. Lorretta had signed a DNR last week when Samantha brought up the idea. All that she could do now was record the time of death. A glance at her watch, and it was done.

Her feet started to retrace their steps, moving back down to labor and delivery. There was still a life that needed saving. She switched out her old gloves for new ones as she glided down the steps. The official paperwork and family phone calls for Lorretta could happen later. Right now, she was thinking about the infant downstairs. It was a little girl.

Returning to the room below, the flurry of nurses and residents moved slowly; some were completely frozen and numb. One nurse with gentle hands stood beside the mother, tucking her sweaty hair behind her ear.

"She'll come back in another life, won't she?" sobbed the young mother as she tugged at the nurse’s sleeve. The mother locked eyes on Samantha's white coat, then her gaze trailed upwards, "You're a doctor. You know about reincarnation. When will my daughter come back?"

Samantha was taken back by the woman's comment, stunned into silence.

"When will my daughter come back?"

The tender-hearted nurse looked at Samantha, pleading with her to pacify her tired, grieving patient. Samantha rested a hand on the mother’s shoulder. Her hope that human contact would be enough died when the woman grabbed her wrist and refused to let her go.

Samantha prided herself on being honest with her patients, but how could she honestly answer a question like this? The baby’s heart had stopped, Lorretta’s had too, but the mother was still here. Her hands were wrinkled and spotted with age, but she tightened her grip. The woman screamed like her newborn should have cried when it entered the world. A nurse tried to separate Samantha from her, but Samantha pushed the younger nurse back with her free hand.

“What happened to my daughter,” screeched the woman.

Her professionalism took over as she inhaled deeply. But there was something else too, and the words flew from Samantha’s mouth before she could stop them, "I don't know,” she said firmly. “But you'll see her again, not here. She’s gone somewhere new.”

Once the staff moved the grieving woman to a recovery room, a new mother-to-be consumed everyone’s attention. Samantha left the labor and delivery unit. On her way upstairs, she threw up in a wastebasket. The smell of unborn life stuck to her skin, her hair, under her nails even. She'd never been sick like that before. She wanted to leave early, and started locking up her office when two new residents from the maternity ward walked by. The new mother downstairs had just given birth to healthy twin boys.