Publication: Oct 2014
ISBN: 978-1612359861
ASIN: B00OCBWC8G
Length: 214 pages
Genre: Romantic Suspense / Women's Fiction
Blurb:
What would you do if you found out the man you married is not who you thought he was? What would you do if you suddenly discovered that you have indeed had the one thing you had yearned for all your life without realizing it?
Now, imagine a woman transformed from a psychiatrist to patient, and lured into a compelling backward journey through her own life on a psychotherapist's couch. Imagine skeletons from her past pulling her back into the vortex of darkness from which she thought she had escaped, Paige Lyman is a woman conned by fate and plagued by damning memories she must decipher in order to be free.
Take Back the Memory is a psychological expose on love, betrayal, vengeance, and a heart-wrenching secret.
Buy it : Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Excerpt :
Chapter One
The
door of the consulting studio swung open at 9.00 a.m. and Dr. Wilson, a
slender, pipe-smoking clinical psychologist stuck his hoary head in
the doorway. His face lit up at the sight of Paige sitting cross-legged
in the cozy waiting room.
“Hello Dr. Lyman,” he smiled courteously, “I had no idea you were here already.”
She
nodded and looked away as he disappeared back into the consulting
room. Left alone, she gazed across the lounge. The psychotherapist’s
studio was illuminated by the sun’s rays through an opened venetian
blind, and the balmy sunlit ambience fascinated her.
“Like the cheery whisper of an admirer after a heartbreak,” she said wistfully and rose.
As
she did so, echoes of distant traffic momentarily brought her to a
state of mental alertness. Palms sweaty, Paige walked to the window and
opened it. She gazed, mesmerized, at the sun-drenched avenue on the
breezy late September morning and noted the peak time for fall foliage
in New York was weeks away yet. She closed the window.
In
the magnifying silence of the room, Dr. Wilson sat composed on his
standard, comfortable chair, the tip of his pen held against his lip
the way men who smoked would usually hold a pipe. His eyes remained on
her, and hers were on his. For several seconds their eyes locked; at
first warily, like two professionals trying to find a meeting ground, a
starting point.
“You’re
here to talk to me,” he said, crossing one leg over the other. “I
guess both as a colleague and as a patient, and I’ll love to listen to
you as much as I’ve loved reading your work.”
She
uncrossed her legs and quickly re-crossed them, and then she leaned
back on the couch, her fringed skirt shifting upwards. She noticed his
eyes, unlike those of most men, remained on her face and not on her
legs.
“Don’t
patronize me. Even my own daughter thinks I’m going mad. Don’t lie to
me. You think so, too, but I can still sit on that chair and listen to
patients.”
“You
certainly can,” he responded indulgently. “You were one of the best.
However, we both know things aren’t the way they used to be. If you
were on this chair, the first thing you would tell the patient would be
to admit their situation and talk to you about it.” He paused a
moment. “I think you have admitted that much within you,” he said
without looking at her. “That’s why you allowed Diane to convince you to
come. So, let’s talk, my friend. Let’s talk about the situation.”
Paige regarded him suspiciously. Let’s talk about the situation. Talk about the situation? Dr. Wilson’s words jangled in her head like the howl of a campanile. What was there to talk about?
Irritation
rose inside her like the beginning of a toothache. Yet, she knew he
was right. Things were not the way they used to be. In the course of
her checkered life and career, especially in recent years, nothing was
the same. It hurt her quite a bit the way everyone seemed to think she
had gone mad, the way she had been transformed from psychiatrist to
patient.
“Be frank with me,” she said. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Aren’t we all?” he laughed mirthlessly. “Come on, this is not about you being crazy.”
“What is it about?”
“It’s about you and me having a nice little talk so we can understand how things are.”
She
was silent for a while. She wished he could give her a reason to
scream. She wanted desperately to scream at someone this morning, so
why not this psychologist, with his calm, upper-class manners? After
what seemed like a long time, she realized, not without some
satisfaction, that he was determined to be courteous with her this
morning.
“I’m
at a loss,” she whined and turned on the couch to face away from him.
“I don’t know where to begin. I don’t even know what to talk about. I
mean, there are so many things to explore.”
“Let’s start from the endearing subject of your book. Are you convinced you want to tell it as it is?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Every little detail.”
He
watched her calmly. “I know you’ve never been afraid to bare your
mind, but between me and you, is there any aspect of this memoir that
disturbs you a bit?”
“Yes.”
She turned and smiled at him. “But an autobiography has to be frank.
What’s the point writing it if you are going to shy away from the ugly
part? I can’t keep it all inside. I want to let it out.”
“Very
well,” he said, his eyes agreeing with her. “Maybe we should talk
about some of the traumatizing aspects of the experiences you have
recalled and want to write about.”
She gazed at him without a word. Her mind began to tumble backwards slowly, very slowly.
“I
think it all began with a simple act of love,” she said at length, her
voice surprisingly nostalgic. “A simple act of love,” she emphasized,
“between me and Bill when we were kids.”
“I’m listening.”
She
sat upright on the couch. “My life is like a soap opera,” she
muttered, grimacing. “A distressing mélange spiced with love,
heartbreak, and a hidden truth. It will silence your thoughts.”
“I take it you loved this Bill.”
“Don’t
interrupt me,” she snapped at him and the psychologist pursed his lips
but did not smile. “What Bill and I shared wasn’t a sensual scream,
okay? We were kids.”
“We
grew up together in Kenya,” she told him. “We were on an unending
safari. Bill was a handsome Irish boy. You must understand, there
weren’t many white boys around to connect to, so I fell desperately in
love with him and thought I would marry him someday.” She paused and
stared at the rug on the floor of the consulting room, her thoughts a
riot.
She
hated to remember that back then while she was nursing her infantile
dreams of matrimony, Bill’s father was formulating a different program
for his son. “Into the service of God you’ll go,” he had told the boy.
“A priest, that’s what you are going to be.” Paige glanced up sharply
and thoughts jangled in her head. It might have been different, she
mused, if Bill had been a Protestant Irish and not Catholic.
She
gazed at Dr. Wilson’s shoes as memories flooded her mind. She tried to
speak and her voice broke, but the psychologist’s gentle manners
soothed her. She and Bill had attended the same school for expatriate
kids in Nairobi, she explained. After the boy’s primary school
education, his father bundled him into the junior seminary in Ireland,
and the world was never the same again. With all contact between them
lost, she willed herself to be heartbroken for long, sad years while
Bill went on to earn a degree in Theology and was subsequently ordained
a priest, or so she thought.
“Did you eventually recover from this heartbreak?” Dr. Wilson said.
“Maybe I did, in my own way.”
“What happened when you recovered?” He spoke warily.
Her eyes didn’t meet his. “A different passion engulfed me then.”
“What kind of passion?”
“Maybe you’ll call it vengeance.”
“Was it vengeance?” Dr. Wilson, like her, uncrossed and re-crossed his legs.
“Yes. A strange kind though.”
Paige
nodded and looked away. “It was priesthood that caused Bill to jilt
me,” she said in a defensive voice. “So, I figured a settling of scores
might heal me.” She paused, sighed, and then spoke. “I decided to wage
a very personal war against priests.”
“No,” she frowned, staring at her skirt.
“But a personal war...”
“A personal war that made nonsense of their vow, if you know what I mean.”
“Not really.”
“Yes.” She looked up at the psychologist now. “That is only part of the story.”
About the Author :
Augustine Sam is a bilingual Italian journalist and an award-winning poet. A member of the U.K. Chartered Institute of Journalists, he was formerly Special Desk editor at THISDAY newspapers, an authoritative Third World daily first published with the Financial Times of London. He later became correspondent for central Europe. His poems have been published in two international anthologies: The Sounds of Silence & Measures of the Heart. One of his poems, Anguish & Passion, was the winner of the Editors' Choice Awards in the North American Open Poetry contest, USA.Augustine's debut novel, Take Back the Memory, was awarded a 5-star medal by Readers' Favorite. And his collection of poems, Flashes of Emotion, was the 2015 International Book Award Finalist. Augustine lives and works in Venice.
Follow him :
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
