"Wait a minute! Something is very wrong here," 2-year-old Jessica thought as she posed for a family photo. "Shouldn't I be seated next to Daddy ­ I mean Dan ­ and not before him? Shouldn't I be where Mommy ­ I mean Alicia ­ is, cuddling older brother Bradley, and not her? I'm all confused!"

Jessica racked her brain, but her life more than six months before was a blank to her. Deep in the recesses of her mind were fuzzy memories ­ distant memories of her being a grown-up woman, the wife of Dan, the mother of Bradley. Cloaked in a fog was something about a happy life shattered by something Dan surprised her with one evening. Something about wanting a divorce, whatever that was. It was a concept totally beyond the grasp and consciousness of baby girls.

Whatever it was, Jessica now remembered it being so upsetting that she visited Alicia outside her home. If only her mind weren't so clouded. Jessica vaguely remembered arguing with Alicia, but not about what. She hazily recalled having something thrown in her face, but not what occurred after she retreated into Alicia's bathroom.

Why should she have such awful remembrances about Alicia? Isn't she her mother, who changes her diapers, dresses her every day, bathes her, cuddles her in her arms and feeds Jessica her bottle three times a day? But, Jessica thought, isn't Bradley her son, not Alicia's? But Bradley is four years older than her. Couldn't be?

"Come on, Jessica. Smile for the camera," Dan cheerfully remarked. But Jessica couldn't ­ not when she had this awful feeling that somehow her world had been horribly warped, and that the truth about what occurred six months ago were stuck in the deep recesses in the back of her mind.



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