words echoed in his head, but he couldn’t make any sense of them. He didn’t remember having a wife. But then, he didn’t remember being in Italy. He wasn’t entirely certain he remembered...anything. His name. Who he was. What he was. He couldn’t remember any of it.
“You are my wife,” he said, waiting for the feeling of blackness, the open space around this moment that seemed to take up his entire consciousness.
There was nothing. There was only her standing before him. This hospital room, this bright spot of the present, with nothing before or after it.
If he kept her talking, perhaps she could fill the rest in. Perhaps he could flood those dark places with light.
“Yes,” she said. “We got married two years ago.”
“Did we?” He tried to force the image of a wedding into his mind. He did know what a wedding looked like. Curious that he knew that and not his own name. But he did. And still, he could not imagine this woman in a wedding gown. She had light-colored hair—some might call it mousy—hanging limp around her shoulders. Her figure was slight, her eyes too blue, too wide for her face.
Blue eyes.
A flash of an image hit him hard. Too bright. Too clear. Her eyes. He had been thinking about her eyes just before... But that was all he could remember.
“Yes,” he said, “you are my wife.” He thought he would test out the words. He knew they were true. He couldn’t remember, but he still knew they were true.
“Oh, good. You were starting to scare me,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I’m lying here broken. And I’m only just now starting to scare you?” he asked.
“Well, the part where you weren’t remembering me was a little bit extra scary.”
“You are my wife,” he repeated. “And I am...”
The silence filled every empty place in the room. Heavy and accusing.
“You don’t remember,” she said, horror dawning in her voice. “You don’t remember me. You don’t remember you.”
He closed his eyes, pain bursting behind his legs as he shook his head. “I must. Because the alternative is crazy.”
“Is it?”
“I think it is.” He opened his eyes and looked at her again. “I remember you,” he said. “I remember your eyes.”
Something in her expression changed. Softened. Her pale pink lips parted, and a bit of color returned to her cheeks. Right now she almost looked pretty. He supposed his initial impression of her wasn’t terribly fair. Since he was lying in a hospital bed and since she had probably been given the shock of her life when she had been told her husband had been in a very serious car accident.
She had said she’d flown to Italy. He didn’t know from where. But she had traveled to see him. It was no wonder she looked pale, and drawn. And a bit plain.
“You remember my eyes?” she asked.
“It’s the only thing,” he said. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?” Because she was his wife. Why couldn’t he remember his wife?
“I had better get the doctor.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t remember anything. How can you be fine?”
“I’m not going to die,” he said.
“Ten minutes ago the doctor was in here telling me you might never wake up. So forgive me if I feel a little bit cautious.”
“I’m awake. I can only assume the memories will follow.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “You would think.”
A heavy knock on the door punctuated the silence.
* * *
Rose walked quickly out of her husband’s hospital room, her head spinning.
He didn’t remember anything. Leon didn’t remember anything.
Dr. Castellano stood in the hallway looking at her, his expression grim. “How is he, Mrs. Carides?”
“Ms. Tanner,” she corrected. More out of habit than anything else. “I never took my husband’s name.”
She’d never taken him to her bed—why would she take his last name?
“Ms. Tanner,” he repeated. “Tell me what seems to be going on.”
“He doesn’t remember.” She was starting to shake now, all of the shock, all of the terror catching up with her. “He doesn’t remember me. He doesn’t remember himself.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. And I didn’t know... I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know if it was like waking a sleepwalker, or if I should tell him.”
“Well, we will need to tell him who he is. But I’m going to need to consult a specialist. A psychologist. I don’t often deal with cases of amnesia.”
“This is not a soap opera. My husband doesn’t have amnesia.”
“He sustained very serious head trauma. It is not so far-fetched.”
“Yes it is,” she said, feeling desperate. “It is extremely far-fetched.”
“I know you’re worried, but take heart. He is stable. He is awake. Very likely his memories will return. And soon, I would think.”
“Do you have statistical evidence to support that?”
“As I said... I do not often deal in cases of amnesia. Very often a person will lose a portion of their memories following a traumatic head injury. Usually just sections. It’s uncommon to lose everything, but not impossible.”
“He’s lost everything,” she said.
“He’s likely to regain it.”
“These other people. These people who have lost portions of their memory that you’ve treated. How often do they regain them?”
“Sometimes they don’t,” he said, a heavy admission that seemed pulled from him.
“He may never remember,” she said, feeling dazed. Feeling her life, her future, slipping out of her hands. “Anything.”
“I would not focus on that possibility.” Dr. Castellano took a breath. “We will monitor him here for as long as we can. I would imagine that he will do much better recovering at home, monitored by local physicians.”
She nodded. That was one thing she and Leon had in common. His business often kept him abroad, which for her nerves was for the best. But they both loved the Tanner House in Connecticut. It was her favorite thing she had left of her family. The old, almost palatial home, the sprawling green lawns and a private rose garden that her mother had planted in honor of her only child. It was her refuge.
She had always had the feeling it was the same for Leon.
Though they tended to keep to their own wings of the house. At the very least, he never brought women there. He had allowed her to keep it as her own. Had made it a kind of sanctuary for them both.
It was also a condition of their marriage. When her father had hastily commanded the union when his illness took a turn for the worse, the house and his company had been a pivotal point. If—before five years was up—he divorced her, he lost the company and the house. If she left him before the five-year term finished, she lost the house and everything in it that wasn’t her personal possession.
Which meant losing her retreat. And the work she’d been doing archiving the Tanner family history, which stretched all the way back to the Mayflower.
So only everything,