Dear Evie: The Lost Memories of a Lost Child Read Free Page B

sported signs to imply that some sort of medical office resided at each address. One was a dentist with a sign in the shape of a tooth. Another was a chiropractor and another was a podiatrist. Guess you can get checked from top to bottom on this one street , I thought to myself and smiled. Why did I feel like I had been there before? It seemed familiar to me, but I didn’t know why it would. When I entered the house, I expected to see the usual waiting room setup. I had assumed there would be a row of chairs against the wall with magazines in a wall rack to look at while patients waited, and a receptionist behind a desk or behind a wall with a sliding window to talk through. Maybe a fish aquarium to make the patients feel more relaxed.
     
    When I entered the room I was surprised to see what looked like someone’s home. It had a beautiful leather couch with lots of pillows to accent the colors in the drapes. There was a recliner in one corner, and a television that had the remote laying on top of it. A large collection of Disney movies lined the shelf under the television and a sign taped to the shelf read “Please place movie back in case after use.” There were a few magazines on the coffee table and a reading lamp beside the recliner. There were pictures hanging all around the room that looked more like things that would hang in a person’s home, not in a doctor’s waiting room. I would have expected some abstract art that was a maze of colors splattered on canvas and left up to each individual to interpret what the lines and spots were. But these were personal pictures of the doctor and her family fishing, and one of a young graduate in his cap and gown that I somehow knew was her only son. The strangest thing was that I felt almost as if I had arrived home. The house gave me a feeling of familiarity and of calm and comfort that was beyond explanation. To my right was a kitchen and there was a pot of coffee on the counter with a sign that said Help Yourself to Coffee in a frame that rested on a small tripod. There were real coffee mugs, not those paper or Styrofoam ones you usually see in a waiting room, and a refrigerator that I knew was stocked with soda, tea, half and half, and small water bottles. If not for the free coffee sign, I would have started to question whether or not I was in the right place.
     
    “Oh, crap!” I was startled when a cat jumped up on the counter and meowed at me.
     
    “Sophie, you almost made me drop my cup!” When I realized I knew the cat’s name, I almost dropped it again. “How do I know your name?” I asked the cat as if expecting an answer then picked up the little circle on her collar to confirm my unexplained knowledge. It read, “Sophie. If found call 555-664-1604.” I’d been there before, I surmised, but when? The place was so familiar to me, and I knew the layout of this house. I began to tour the house in my mind, picturing every room as if I had just visited them yesterday. Down the hall to the left was a half bath that the patients used, and the door just past it was the doctor’s office. I was mentally confirming what I knew. Upstairs was a room with some special dolls and lots of art supplies. There was a table to sit at while patients drew, and the doctor would sit across from the patient and color a picture from a coloring book. I couldn’t explain why I knew it, but I knew the layout of the house as well as I knew my own.
     
    “Katherine Tipton, how good to see you.”
     
    “Thank you, and its Katherine Hunter now. I’m married.”
     
    A slender woman walked up to me from the hallway, extending her arms to hug me. So instead of the hand shake I expected, I gladly allowed her to do just that and it felt right.
     
    “Of course, I knew that! Well, Mrs. Hunter, it is good to see you,” she said as she gave me another quick hug and a pat on the back. It was like a hug a person would give a dear friend she hadn’t seen in a while.
     
    She looked to