‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘The shock of the lightning bolt stopped your heart for a while. You went into cardiac arrest. We had to shock you again to bring you back. Once we’d got you back with us we concentrated on rehydrating you. That’s just normal saline in the intravenous drip you have there. Then we dressed the burns. After that it was just a case of waiting for you to wake up.’
‘To see if I was brain damaged,’ I said, shaken that I had actually needed to be resuscitated, and again watching for his reaction.
‘I would like to schedule you for a head MRI scan,’ Dr Shakir continued smoothly, ignoring my comment and studiously avoiding my gaze. ‘But in the meantime you will have to trust me that you are the mother of those children and the wife of Mr Richardson.’
I looked at him sceptically. He was hiding something, I was sure, but there didn’t seem much else to say. I glanced towards the door and remembered with a sick feeling deep in my stomach the family that was out there waiting to visit me.
‘Please, I’m very tired,’ I pleaded, fighting down the panic that was rising in my chest. ‘Could I rest before I see…anyone?’
The doctor paused as if considering my request, then nodded briefly and left. I lay back against the pillows as the door closed behind him, sifting through my memory for any clue to this unknown family of mine, while the heart and blood-pressure monitors bleeped rhythmically beside me. The frustrating thing was that, despite everything the doctor had told me, my memories seemed perfectly intact—they just weren’t the ones it seemed I was supposed to be remembering.
After half an hour of alternately dozing and agonising over my predicament, I heard my supposed husband at the door asking to be let back in. Part of me was curious to see if he still thought I was his wife. I rather hoped he’d take one look at me and declare that he’d made a terrible mistake, but something deep inside told me it was a vain hope.
To stall for time, I brushed my hair carefully with a brush I was told belonged to me (even though I’d never seen it before in my life), then I sat up rigidly in the narrow bed and waited apprehensively for the stranger to come in.
The man who came towards me was slim and tall, maybe a bit over six foot. He had reddish, slightly wavy hair and freckled skin. He was wearing a black polo-neck shirt under a tweedy jacket, but he didn’t look professor-like in it. I wondered vaguely what he did for a living and it occurred to me that it was strange I was supposed to have picked this man for a husband, when red-headed men had never appealed to me in the least.
As he approached, I realised with a sinking heart that the charade was still on. He bent to kiss me, but I turned my head away and he straightened quickly, his face flushing slightly.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said firmly as he pulled out a chair and sat down next to the bed. ‘But I have no memory of you.’
He stared at me, and I could see he appeared to be fighting some internal battle. After a moment he seemed to come to a decision.
‘Dr Shakir told me you’ve lost your memory, sweetheart. I was hoping he’d got it wrong.’ He sighed deeply, then forced an uncertain smile and held out his hand formally to shake mine. ‘I’m Grant,’ he told me. ‘Grant Richardson. I’m thirty-seven years old, and we’ve been married for ten years.’
His grip on my fingers was cool and steady, but somehow the smile seemed unsure. I suppose it was a lot to come to terms with, finding his wife had lost all memory of him and their life together. I knew I was certainly finding the whole situation bizarre, and my heart went out to this stranger. If I was struggling to get my head round what was happening, what must it be like for him?
I didn’t know what to do. I could hardly say, ‘I’m Jessica, nice to meet you’, so I looked away from him to a point halfway along the wall to where a trolley stood stacked with medical supplies, and said nothing while he continued to hold on to my hand.
‘Have you got any questions for me?’ he asked gently. ‘Isn’t there lots you want to know?’
I had questions all right, but they were more along the lines of ‘What the bloody hell is happening to me?’ than the sort he would be expecting me to ask.
‘Lauren?’
Sighing, I realised that I was going to have to play along, if for no other reason than in the hope of getting some answers to this nightmare. I withdrew my hand firmly, then asked, ‘How old am I then?’
My voice sounded petulant and sulky even to my own ears, and his smile wavered momentarily as the depth of the problem came home to him. I shook my head and he sighed and ran his tongue over his lips, somewhat fearfully.
‘You’re thirty-five, Lauren. We married when you were twenty-five and I was twenty-seven. We were—still are, very much in love.’
‘When’s my birthday?’
‘The nineteenth of June.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I told him firmly. ‘I was born on the twenty-ninth of April. I wouldn’t have forgotten a date as ingrained in me as that!’
Grant avoided my eyes and shrugged. ‘It’s only a small detail, sweetheart.’
‘Okay, then,’ I said, taking a deep breath and trying to pull myself together. ‘How old are these children of ours?’
‘Sophie’s eight, Nicole is six, and the twins are just four.’
We sat in silence while I contemplated the hideous possibility that I was the mother of four children. I’d had very little to do with children in the past. My job as a legal secretary was with a small law firm, where I did far more than just typing up reports, legal papers and documents onto the computer. I also assisted one of the solicitors by researching areas of law for cases he was working on, took dictation and transcribed records, proofread letters and legal documents and, more interestingly, attended court, police stations and client meetings to take notes.
Aspiring to become a solicitor myself in the near future, I had been about to embark on a law degree and didn’t have much time to myself, let alone to consider marriage or children.
The memory brought me up short. Perhaps it was time to tell the truth. ‘It’s not that I’ve lost my memory,’ I tried to explain to the man beside me. ‘I have memories—it’s just that they’re different from the ones you say I should have.’
‘We should ask Dr Shakir about it.’ Grant eyed me suspiciously. ‘There may be some medical condition that has sparked unreal memories in you.’
I remembered the notes I had transcribed the last time I had been in the office, realising that I could recall them almost word for word. I pictured my boss’s diary, where I had entered the times and dates of his appointments with clients and his court appearances for the following week. I could even remember what I’d had for supper on Friday evening after getting in late from work.
‘My memories are real to me,’ I told him.
Grant shook his head tiredly. ‘I don’t know, Lauren. This is hard for me to take in too. I’ve been awake all night, waiting for you to come round. And the children are missing you, they’re really confused…’
He broke off, giving me a sideways glance, and I noticed him anxiously twisting the wedding ring on his finger. I looked down at my own left hand, which because of the pain in my shoulder had been tucked under the covers. While he watched, I peeled away a corner of the white hospital tape that was holding the drip in place, exposing my ring finger. I gasped. A thin gold band gleamed back at me.
This was one hell of a dream, I told myself, hastily covering the ring over again with the tape. But dream or otherwise, I hadn’t missed the signs of anxiety in his demeanour when he’d mentioned the children. Despite the extraordinary circumstances, my curiosity was aroused.
‘What else?’ I queried, ‘about the children? You were holding something back then.’
‘I