wanted to answer for his sins. He couldn’t even name them.
He wanted to understand why he had betrayed the woman in his arms. Why he had abandoned the little girl sleeping in the crib in the room down the hall. He wanted answers, and his own mind refused to give them.
He was the only one who knew these things. He couldn’t tell himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, because he had no other words.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” she said, miserable, broken. “It wasn’t my dream to raise a child you had with another woman.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I wanted to have your baby. I wanted you to love me.”
“Rose...”
“I sound like a child throwing a tantrum,” she said, her voice hollow. She drew her arm across her face, wiping in her tears. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted. All that matters is what we have. You have a baby.”
“I want her,” he said. He did. In spite of the ice block that seemed to grow larger inside his chest every time he looked at her. The fear. The uneasiness.
He had a feeling that even if he was in possession of all of his memories, coming into the care of a tiny baby would frighten him. But with nothing, with no background, with no reference for things like this, he was chilled to his bones.
“I know,” she said, her throat tight. “And I couldn’t ask you to do anything different. She’s your daughter.”
“But you don’t want her.”
“No. That isn’t it. I... I’ve known about you sleeping with other women, Leon. It has always been in tabloids. On gossip websites. It’s the world’s worst-kept secret. Everyone knows that you aren’t faithful to me. Everyone knows that you married a little homebody who can’t keep up with you. Who isn’t as beautiful as the other women you see.” She swallowed hard. “But this... Looking at the evidence of the fact that you were with other women... Knowing that someone else got something I wanted so desperately... It’s different. It isn’t something I can just brush off.”
“I understand that.”
“But it isn’t Isabella’s fault. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s so tiny and helpless, and her mother abandoned her... I can’t face the idea of abandoning her. I can’t.”
“I care about you. You are...the only memory I have, Rose. The one who has been there since I opened my eyes and came back to the world a man with no memory. And I am very sorry for my behavior. But one thing I know...beyond anything... If you feel like you will be angry with Isabella, in any way, if any of your feelings about what I have done might spill onto her...then it would be best if we worked out a different arrangement.”
It made his chest feel like it was cracking to say it. But his daughter would always have questions about what had happened to her mother. And if Isabella had to live in a house where her presence was resented he would never be able to forgive himself. He doubted he would forgive himself for any of this anyway. But for his sins, he had to do something to make it up to Isabella.
He waited. He waited to see if Rose would be angry. She would have every right to be. But it didn’t change the truth and what he said. She had every right to be angry. She had every right to punish him. She had every right to leave. But he had to protect Isabella.
“You mean I shouldn’t be involved with her if I can’t treat her like my own child.”
He shook his head. “I can’t ask for a promise quite like that. I only mean if you find it impossible not to resent her. If you cannot be in the same room with her. Those things... I deserve them. But she doesn’t.”
“I know.” She blinked. “I feel like I’m being scolded. And you’re the one who deserves to be scolded.”
“I’m not trying to scold you. It’s just... This kind of beginning... If I don’t make up for what I did to her then what future does she have? I signed my rights away. And now I’ve taken them back, but only because her mother has abandoned her. I never want her to feel like she was a child unwanted by so many. I don’t want her to be wounded beyond repair because the adults in her life were too selfish, too broken, to see beyond themselves.”
Rose nodded. “I understand. She’s just a baby. I’m not angry at her. It was hard for me to look at her. It was hard for me to hold her.” Another tear slid down her cheek. “Because I wish she were mine.” She pulled away from him, leaning back against the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I wish that things had been different. If they had been, then she very well could have been mine.”
“I can’t fix the past. I can’t even guarantee the future. I can only try and fix what we have now. She can be ours. And I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say it expecting that you can drop every last piece of baggage you’re carrying because of this. I don’t say it as though it’s a magical fix. But she is here. And so are we. I still... I want to make this work with you.”
“Sometimes I feel like you’re just going to keep asking impossible things of me,” she said, sounding weak, sounding reduced.
“Someday I hope you’re able to ask something impossible of me, Rose.” He leaned in, cupping her cheek. “And I pray that I am able to rise to the task.”
“I want to try.” Rose nodded. “For both of us. For all of us. I want to try. Where is she?”
OVER THE NEXT few weeks things seemed to progress slowly with Rose and Isabella. They employed a nanny—a married, grandmotherly sort, at Rose’s request—who helped care for Isabella during the day. Though Leon tried to assume as much responsibility as he could. It was just that given the state of things, he wasn’t sure he entirely trusted himself. What if he forgot some essential bit of information regarding the care and keeping of babies that everyone else knew? Or, more likely, what if he had never possessed it, but didn’t know enough about himself to ask the appropriate questions?
Employing someone to assist had seemed the best option. He could hardly ask Rose to interrupt her life to care not only for him, but for his child.
Still, Rose was beginning to take some charge of Isabella on her own. When Isabella cried, Rose was often the first to move to comfort her.
Seeing them together made his chest feel like it was being torn in two. Earlier today Rose had been standing by the window, Isabella held tightly to her chest as she stared out at the garden below.
It had been like looking at something much clearer than a memory—especially since he had none that extended beyond the past few weeks. But it hadn’t been wholly reality, either. It was a window into a life he didn’t truly possess. Something the two of them didn’t really have.
In that moment it was easy to believe this was his wife and child, and they had nothing but love between them.
Rather than the dark, tangled mass of lies and betrayal that wound itself around them like a vine covered in thorns. Thorns that wrapped themselves tightly around his gut, making it hurt every time he breathed.
He rubbed his hand over his face and eyed the bar on the other side of his bedroom. It was stocked with alcohol, evidence of the man he’d been before, he imagined. A man who had a drink as he brushed his teeth in the morning and at night.
A man who had sought oblivion with tenacity.
He laughed bitterly, the sound echoing in the dimly lit room. He had his oblivion now. And with it, he found no peace.
Improvement only described the relationship between Rose and Isabella. Improvement did not apply to his relationship with Rose. She would not touch him. She would barely talk to him.
He had imagined—erroneously, as it turned out—that after he had held her in his arms while she