The Memory Painter: A Novel by Gwendolyn Womack Read Free Book Online Page B

please accept that and let it go?”
    “How can you tell me to just let it go? You were speaking Greek! I’m pretty sure that’s not a normal side effect!”
    “Yes, I’m aware of that!” He drank the water and spit it out. For some reason he could only taste the chlorine, fluoride, and heavy metals.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked, her concern overriding her anger. She took the glass and smelled it.
    “This tastes horrible.” Then he realized his perception of how water should taste had changed now that he had something to compare it to—pure water from the third century.
    Diana stormed over to the liquor cabinet. “How about a real drink?”
    Michael debated. A stiff one might help. “No, then I can’t drive.”
    “Where are you going?” Her back was to him. He could hear the hurt and bafflement in her voice.
    He wanted to apologize to her—he knew he should—but instead he said, “I need a library.”
    “At five a.m.?” Diana abandoned the drinks and sat on the couch, putting her head in her hands. “I knew this was a mistake. I can’t believe you talked me into letting you take it. Everything was on track. This could derail the study, our grant … everything.”
    “Diana, you have to trust me.” Michael couldn’t stop his voice rising again. “I will tell you everything, but not tonight.”
    “Well guess what?” She glared at him. “It’s morning.”
    Feeling helpless, Michael gently shook his head no.
    “Honey, I’m scared,” she pleaded with him. “Something happened to you. Ever since you took Renovo and woke up on that table, it’s like you’re not even here. Look at yourself in the mirror. What the hell happened?”
    Michael turned away from her, unable to deal with this right now. He could count on one hand the number of times they had fought in their six years together. She was his partner in everything and he had never kept her in the dark before. He grabbed the keys.
    His voice sounded far away, even to his own ears. “I can’t do this tonight. You’re not helping me.” He left before she could respond.
    He got into the car. The first thing he did was adjust the rearview mirror so he could see his reflection. Diana had not been imagining things. Something was different. Outwardly, he still looked the same—the same Roman features, the same thick, black hair peppered with gray, the same five o’clock shadow he could never seem to lose. But there was a barely perceptible change within his eyes. Of course Diana had seen it. She knew him better than anyone.
    He readjusted the mirror and drove, trying to kill the guilt he felt for shutting out his wife. She would forgive him later, once he explained, but for now he needed solitude to sort out the chaos in his head and prove that what existed in his mind was not some elaborate delusion triggered by the drug. He needed books.
    Checking the time, he knew the Research Services Desk at Harvard’s Lamont Library wasn’t open yet. He would have to wait. Driving aimlessly, he saw St. Francis de Sales up ahead and pulled over. Michael had driven past the church countless times but had never felt the urge to go inside, until now.
    He found the doors unlocked, inviting those in need of quiet reflection before the six-thirty mass inside. He walked in and was relieved to find no one else in sight.
    As he sat on a pew, the enormity of it all hit him: his team had just created a super drug that made LSD seem like baby aspirin, he had just relived the life of a priest in third-century Rome, and he was not sure if what he had gone through was a series of hallucinations or actual memories.
    All he knew was that the dream had felt as real as life and would bring ramifications. In one day, another man’s experiences had been added to his—a man who had lived over eighteen hundred years ago. Michael also couldn’t ignore the feeling that he had recovered a piece of himself he hadn’t even known was missing.
    The scientist within him could