Do You Remember?

Do You Remember? (2022) is a psychological thriller by best-selling author Freida McFadden. As a practicing physician specializing in brain injuries, McFadden is intensely private about her identity and uses a pen name, given that she writes stories about people with brain injuries whom friends and family manipulate or kill. Tess Strebel Thurman, the protagonist of Do You Remember?, is exploited in this way after a car accident leads to a brain cancer diagnosis. The story explores the power of intuition and the link between memory and identity.

This guide is based on the Hollywood Upstairs Press 2022 paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of cursing, illness and death, and emotional and physical abuse.

Plot Summary

Tess wakes up with a headache and assumes that she drank too much wine after her fiancé, Harry, proposed. Dizzy, she goes to the bathroom and screams when she sees herself. A strange man enters, explaining that he’s her husband, Graham. In the bedroom are pictures of the two of them, and he gives her a letter to read, saying she wrote it to herself. She reads that she sustained a brain injury that affects her memory of the last seven years, that Harry betrayed her, but Graham is a good husband, and that her company, My Home Spa, is wildly successful. In the shower, she notices writing on her thigh and realizes that it’s in a place Graham wouldn’t see. She wants to trust the letter but is unsure.

Tess meets her dog, Ziggy, and is surprised by her love for him, which contrasts with her lack of feeling for Graham. She’s shocked that she named him Ziggy, the name of Harry’s pet finch. Ziggy dislikes Graham, who burns Tess’s breakfast. Graham now manages My Home Spa and says they met when he saved her from a speeding car. She finds the pomegranate juice he serves her disgusting, but he says she usually loves it and suggests a doctor’s visit. Tess hates the doctor, so she pretends that she’s fine. Graham gives her an iPhone, and she’s surprised that she knows how to use it; she finds that her father and her best friend, Lucy, are contacts. Her only other contact is “Camila,” whom Graham says she’s about to meet.

Tess realizes that Camila is her babysitter. She can’t drive due to “seizures” and feels like a prisoner, but Camila says they’re friends. Suddenly, a text from an unknown sender cautions Tess against trusting Graham. The sender asks her to meet at the dog park later, saying to write their number on her arm, text when she leaves the house, and then delete the messages. She leaves voicemails for Lucy and her father.

While watching The Price Is Right, Harry’s favorite show, Tess feels a stabbing pain in her head. She flashes back to Graham’s job interview at her company; then the office fades away, and she’s back in the living room. Camila says Tess had a “seizure,” but Tess suspects it was a memory. Tess goes outside with Ziggy and sees a padlocked fence around the yard. After lunch, she texts the mystery man that they’re leaving soon, but Graham is coming home early, so he’ll take Tess and Ziggy to the dog park; Tess and Camila will only go grocery shopping. As they pass the park, Tess thinks she sees Harry, but Camila won’t allow Tess to wait for her there. At the store, she tries to escape, but a security guard stops her. Camila explains that Graham is Tess’s legal guardian, so the police will take her home if she runs. She says Tess recently imagined Harry texting her, but he no longer lives locally. Camila drives Tess to the dog park, but the man is gone. Graham arrives, and they spend the afternoon there.

Lucy calls later, reassuring Tess that Graham is much better for her than Harry. Lucy accidentally reveals that Graham’s story about saving Tess from a car is untrue. In Graham’s den, Tess finds a locked drawer in his desk. He says it’s for work papers, and she confronts him about his story. He admits to lying and promises not to lie again. At dinner, he asks for Tess’s phone, saying she gets confused at night. Graham gets them drinks, and Ziggy growls at him. Soon, Tess gets dizzy; she notices white powder in her glass, realizes that she was drugged, and sees something ominous in Graham’s eyes. She grabs a pen from the kitchen, runs into the bathroom, and writes on her thigh, hoping to see the note in the morning.

The next day, Tess reads her letter but tries to avoid Graham. She finds the note on her thigh, which says he’s drugging her, and doesn’t know what to think. She meets Ziggy and thinks his name is a message to herself, and when Graham leaves the room, she calls the police. Graham says they met when he gave her the Heimlich maneuver in a restaurant. He pours her some pomegranate juice, saying she drank two glasses yesterday. She’s disgusted, and he suggests a trip to the doctor, but she declines. The police arrive, but Graham isn’t concerned. When Tess says she’s a prisoner, Graham explains that she wanders, so safety measures are necessary. The officer supports this and says that Graham is her legal guardian. Tess begins to wonder if she’s “crazy.”

Assuming that she was wrong about Graham, Tess watches The Price Is Right. As the contestants bid, Tess receives a text with a dollar amount. The texter’s guess is almost exactly right, and Tess assumes that it’s Harry. They plan to meet at the dog park. Camila and Tess leave, and when they arrive there, Camila sits down to read. A moment later, Harry joins Tess; he says she found him a month ago and requested help. She often tries to avoid ingesting anything Graham gives her, but it never works. Harry knows about the locked drawer and cautions Tess against trusting Lucy. He tells her Graham was an accountant and writes his number on her arm. She notices Camila staring at them.

Tess is surprised that her father hasn’t returned her call, but Lucy calls back, saying Tess has felt fearful for a month or so and that she and Harry broke up when she caught him trying to kiss Lucy. Camila prepares dinner, and when Graham brings drinks, Ziggy bites his leg. While Graham changes, Tess sees particles in her water, so she dumps it out. Graham catches her. Spotting Harry’s number on her arm, he takes her phone. Later, Graham says her water contained seizure medicine. He shows her the bottle, and she believes him.

On “Day Three,” Graham tells Tess that she has no phone. He pours her pomegranate juice again, saying she loves it, but it’s awful. She doesn’t trust him. When Lucy arrives, Tess cries in her arms. Lucy expresses surprise that Tess has no phone, but Tess knows Lucy is lying. Tess and Lucy walk Ziggy, and Tess has another “seizure,” recalling the day she married Graham. She wanted to call Harry, but Lucy wouldn’t let her. Lucy stays for dinner, and when Tess gets tired, Graham puts her to bed. Tess awakens around 11 o’clock that night, having another “seizure,” and recalls finding Lucy and Harry kissing. Lucy shoved Harry away, but he said Lucy kissed him. Now, she finds Graham and Lucy having sex. Graham says Lucy accused Harry to get a raise and a corner office, and Tess planned to leave him and cut him out of the company, but now she can’t. Fatigue overwhelms Tess.

The next morning, Tess spits out the juice, but Graham says she had two glasses yesterday. When she meets Ziggy, she loves him immediately. Harry calls out from the neighbor’s yard, worried because she didn’t respond to texts yesterday. He realizes that Graham took her phone and tells her where to look for it. After Graham leaves, Camila says Tess hates that juice. Finding her phone, Tess sees strange texts from Lucy. Graham brings home flowers, and Tess thinks she might believe his lies if she hadn’t found her phone. She has another “seizure,” recalling how she confronted Graham about his embezzling, and then writes another message on her thigh. Ziggy brings Graham’s keys to her.

Tess texts Harry to meet her at McDonald’s. When she arrives, they kiss, but she brought her phone with her, so Graham can track her. He arrives, and Harry is arrested for violating a restraining order. Tess doesn’t know what to believe. When they get home, Graham forces her to write a new letter, threatening Ziggy if she refuses. A few hours later, she feels a sharp pain and sees Graham standing by the bed with a syringe; he says he does this every night. Fatigue immediately overwhelms her.

On “Day Five,” Tess reads both letters. She’s reluctant to trust Lucy but likes Camila. When she calls Harry, he says he’s going to her father’s house. At lunch, Camila spills soup on Graham, and when he goes to change, she gives Tess his desk key. Just as Tess is about to open it, Harry calls and says not to. She has another “seizure,” recalling a fight when her father insisted that she know the truth, but Graham said it was up to him. Tess opens the drawer. As she reads her medical diagnosis, Graham enters and says she had a “seizure” while driving. After the accident, doctors found stage IV brain cancer. Treatment didn’t seem to work, so she stopped. She became depressed, and her psychiatrist recommended a new injectable drug to erase her short-term memory. For a while, she seemed happier, but the medicine ultimately resulted in her forgetting years of her life. Tess’s father and Harry arrive.

The doctors say Tess has six months. Wanting to enjoy them, she asks Graham to run the company, but she leaves him for Harry. Graham writes up a contract, and she’s about to sign it when Lucy arrives. Lucy admits that Graham was embezzling and that Tess confronted him. Graham denies it, but Tess destroys the contract. A few days later, Harry helps Tess pack for vacation. She filed for divorce and is suing Graham. Lucy said Harry never came onto her; she agreed to testify against Graham. Tess wonders why she reached out to Harry a month ago.

In a flashback to a month earlier, Tess’s doctor tells her the most recent MRI showed the cancer in remission. Graham is shocked, and that night, Tess makes dinner, thinking about Harry and longing to spend her life with him. She dishes up the pasta, and Graham pours them each a glass of water. His gaze makes her uncomfortable, and he isn’t eating. Suddenly, Tess feels exhausted and notices a white film in her glass. As she grows more tired, Graham says she has been the “perfect wife” since she got sick, letting him control everything; he doesn’t want to go back to how things were before. She runs to the bathroom and, using red lipstick, writes “FIND HARRY” on her thigh.