Life as I Know It

by Melanie Rose

  I took the card with my appointment time from Dr. Shakir, then squeezed Grant’s hand reassuringly. “It’s not the end of the world, Grant,” I told him. “If you’ll give me the chance, I’m prepared to do my best.”

  He nodded, biting his lip, and then he went to wait with the children while I got ready to go to wherever it was they called home.

  I dressed quickly, being careful to avoid snagging the fresh antibiotic dressing that Nurse Sally had fixed over my burns. When I was done, I looked down at my alternate body attired in what to me were new clothes. Lauren certainly had a flare for style, I thought. Not for her the plain skirts and trouser suits in neutral shades that I wore each day to the office, or the casual jeans and sweaters I wore at home. I was wearing a pair of her soft black jersey trousers, elegantly cut, with a matching black T-shirt worn under an open suede shirt in pale tan. To finish off the outfit, Grant had brought some of Lauren’s jewelry: a gold rope chain with matching bracelet and clip earrings, a beautiful gold watch, and what I assumed must be Lauren’s engagement ring, all flashy diamonds and sapphires set on a gold band, which Grant had slipped onto my finger before following the children out of the door.

  I winced as I clipped on the earrings. Lauren was going to have to have her ears pierced at the first opportunity, I thought with a grimace.

  Gathering up Lauren’s few belongings one-handed from the bedside locker, I thanked Nurse Sally for everything, and asked her to thank Dr. Shakir for me. I noticed he had made himself scarce after delivering the depressing news of my condition to Grant, almost as if he felt he had failed us in some way and couldn’t bear to look either of us in the eye.

  I wondered if the good doctor regretted suggesting I had been faking, now that it had been proved without a doubt that Lauren’s memories had been irretrievably wiped out.

  Grant smiled wanly as I approached the playroom. He was sitting with Toby on his lap. They were looking at a book, but I could see Grant’s heart wasn’t in it. Sophie was watching Nicole dress a doll, telling her rather bossily that she was doing it all wrong, and Teddy was sitting hunched in a corner hugging his ball to his chest and crooning tunelessly to himself.

  “You look wonderful,” Grant said with a catch in his voice.

  The children’s heads shot up simultaneously.

  “Are you coming home with us, Mummy?” asked Sophie.

  Toby leapt off his father’s lap and raced at me, reaching me seconds before Nicole, who threw her arms round my waist.

  Taking a deep breath, I looked at them and forced a smile. “Yes, I do believe I am.”

  chapter five

  Home turned out to be a large six-bedroom house on a select road of evenly spaced, elegant houses, each with a manicured half-acre garden.

  As Grant parked the silver Ford Galaxy in one side of the double garage and switched off the engine, I stared around me with a mixture of apprehension and interest. The first thing I noticed was how tidy the garage was. My parents’ garage at home had always been a jumble of old mowers, strewn tools, and junk that my mother had wanted out of the house but wouldn’t actually throw away.

  The Richardsons’ garage had a board running the length of the back wall with fixtures for every imaginable kind of tool, each of which seemed to be in its proper place. As the children piled out of the car, I followed more slowly, noticing the neatly painted floor, whitewashed walls, and a gleamingly clean silver Mercedes convertible parked in the next bay.

  Nicole took my hand and half-dragged me toward a side door, which apparently led into the house. I followed her and found myself in a spacious playroom where a doll’s carriage stood tidily against the far wall and a road map covered a section of the floor complete with several miniature cars and trucks. I noticed a couple of beanbags in front of an old television set and an open cupboard full of jigsaw puzzles in one corner.

  “My goodness,” I exclaimed. “Have you been cleaning up especially for me?”

  Sophie ran over and closed the cupboard door. “Daddy says we mustn’t make a mess,” she said importantly.

  The kitchen was futuristic, all white and sterile, the only color coming from a glass fruit bowl full of red apples, early satsumas, and small bananas. I ran my finger absently over a work surface as I followed Grant through the room, feeling the smooth coldness beneath my touch.

  “Do we have a cleaning lady?” I asked him.

  He turned and looked at me, and I could see that the innocent question had unsettled him. His facial muscles contorted, but then he forced a smile and nodded abruptly.

  “She comes in for two hours every morning.”

  I followed him meekly out into the hall, where blue and white Willow Pattern plates stood on a high, narrow shelf just below the ceiling and matching vases stood on plinths on either side of an oak front door. The hall carpet was a lovely powder blue and I pictured it covered with Frankie’s muddy paw marks and dog hairs and the thought made me want to giggle.

  I must have made a small snorting noise, because Grant turned and stared at me suspiciously.

  Making my expression as bland as possible, I followed him into a beautiful lounge. The powder-blue carpet was in here too and matched the chintz furniture perfectly. Lauren obviously had an eye for interior design, but I couldn’t help but wonder how it stayed so pristine with four children in the house.

  It was then that I realized they hadn’t followed us into the rest of the house.

  “Where are the children?” I inquired.

  “They’re in the playroom, of course,” Grant replied.

  “Do they spend all their time in there?” I asked, ignoring his mood.

  “You don’t like them to spread themselves into the rest of the house; they make such a devil of a mess,” he replied shortly.

  Standing awkwardly with one hand resting on the back of one of the two sofas, I tried to think whether any of my friends’ children were kept out of the main living area like this. I hadn’t ever had a lot to do with children, but I couldn’t help thinking this wasn’t quite normal. It occurred to me as I gazed around at the immaculate living room that the Richardsons were somewhat obsessed with tidiness.

  “Where does… do I… keep my things?” I asked.

  “What sort of things?” Grant asked, obviously puzzled by the question.

  “Handbag, books, hobbies, correspondence, that sort of thing,” I said, thinking of my flat with its jumble of unopened junk mail, a half-written letter to my brother Simon in New Zealand, and an open bag of potting compost slung in a corner of the kitchen.

  “You keep your things in your dressing room. Come.” He stepped past me into the hall. “I’ll show you.”

  From the hall I could hear the children fighting in the playroom.

  “Are they all right?” I asked as Grant, seemingly oblivious to his children’s shouts and yells, walked up the staircase ahead of me.

  “Maybe we should send them out into the garden in a minute,” he suggested. “They’re used to being organized during school vacations.”

  “What sort of things do they normally do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m usually at work by the time they’re up and about. I work very long hours at the practice and leave the care of the children to you and the nanny.”

  “Nanny?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “We had a nanny until recently. She left a few weeks ago, said the children were too unruly. She used to take them out shopping, swimming, to the park, that sort of thing I think. You prefer them to be out of the house.”

  This information came as a surprise. I’d been thinking of Lauren as a devoted earth-mother type.

  I waited while Grant opened a door at the end of the landing. Sunlight flooded out into the corridor and I followed him into a light and spacious bedroom dominated by a four-poster bed with opulent cream and blue drapes. Ignoring the bed, I walked across to the huge window and stared down into the garden below. Like the house, it was tidy and organized, with a square la
wn ending at a tall conifer hedge, side borders brimming with a riot of colorful flowers and a child’s playhouse tucked away in one corner.

  “Don’t they have a swing or anything?” I asked, wondering what they would do when Grant herded them outside.

  “We don’t like the garden cluttered with their toys,” Grant said. “There’s always the park around the corner if they want play equipment.”

  He opened one of the doors off the main room and waved me over.

  “Your dressing room,” he said.

  The room was the size of my bedroom at home, with a bureau on one side and rows and rows of clothes hung on the other. My first thought was that that was how Grant had managed to bring a complete outfit for Lauren to wear home from the hospital. No man I had ever met would know what to choose for his wife to wear in the way of a matching outfit and accessories, and I’d been fairly puzzled by this uncommon ability of my supposed husband.

  Now, staring at the hangers full of complete outfits, I realized that Lauren had been obsessed by her appearance. Everything was stored in color sequence from mauves and blues, through to browns and blacks. A large jewelry box stood in one corner, and under the clothes were rows and rows of shoes in all colors and styles.

  Imelda Marcos sprang to my mind, quickly followed by an image of my own closet with the smart, if unadventurous work clothes on one side, my jeans and casual attire on the other, along with a few slightly more daring outfits for outings with my friends, and a jumble of shoes strewn on the floor underneath.

  Running my hands over the clothes, feeling as though I were in some wonderful expensive boutique, I wondered if I could somehow transport some of Lauren’s things into my flat. Strange, though, how that felt so dishonest. Here I was being Lauren, owning these clothes, yet if I were to somehow get hold of them as Jessica it would feel like stealing.

  It didn’t stop me, however, from taking down one of her dresses and holding it against me. Turning to look in the full-length mirror, I did a little twirl, letting the floaty fabric swirl around my body. It looked and felt expensive and I wondered how many hours I would have had to work at the solicitors’ office to be able to afford such a thing. I took down a second outfit and pictured myself wearing the elegant, pale cream two-piece suit with its nipped-in waist, long skirt, and matching shoes. I was itching to try it on, but somehow to do so felt like betraying my true self. Rummaging through the box filled with costume jewelry, I held a color-coordinated shell and bead necklace up to my throat with my other hand and narrowed my eyes, imagining my own slightly younger self as Jessica wearing these fancy baubles. One day I might be able to afford such things, but it would be me, Jessica, who would achieve it for myself by sheer hard work and determination. I shimmied from side to side, letting the skirt sweep softly against my shins. Frankie would soon have it covered in mud anyway, I thought, as I replaced it with a rueful smile.

  “Your good jewelry is in the safe,” Grant was saying from behind me. “I’ll let you have the combination later.”

  I thought of the safe at work and reeled the numbers of the combination off in my head. How could I remember details like that if that other life wasn’t real, I asked myself defiantly? Furrowing my brow, I pictured the appointments diary on my desk at Chisleworth & Partners. Everything about that life was so clear; I could recall not only the layout of the office with its desks and chairs and the coffee machine in the corner, but the dates and times of my boss’s client interviews, contract deadlines, and court appearances. That other life—my life—simply had to be more than a confused dream caused by the short-circuiting of this woman’s brain.

  Grant disappeared from the doorway and I heard him opening another door next to the one belonging to the dressing room.

  “The en suite bathroom,” he said as I appeared at his shoulder. “It’s your bathroom actually. I use the guest-room bathroom at the end of the landing; then we don’t bump into each other in the mornings when we’re getting ready for work.”

  “We?” I repeated stupidly. “Do I work? Apart from looking after the children, I mean?”

  “You come into the practice every so often,” he explained. “When the receptionist is on vacation or out sick. Since it’s my own practice, we save money on temps that way, and I don’t have the bother of trying to train them when I’m with a patient.”

  “Are you a doctor?” I asked, surprised. I’d thought I was quite adept at working out what people were good at. Grant didn’t strike me as being a particularly patient person or especially sympathetic. If anything he seemed rather highly strung, but then I’d only met him in testing circumstances.

  “I’m a dentist,” he said wearily. “I specialize in orthodontic treatment, private of course,” he added.

  Of course, I thought. Now that made sense: He still needed a good chairside manner, but didn’t see his patients often enough to have to build up a rapport with them.

  I stared into the luxurious bathroom with its cream-colored whirlpool bath and matching sink, toilet, and bidet. The carpet here was a deep cornflower blue, and Lauren had added matching soaps, candles, and vases of silk flowers. It was beautiful. I wondered when Lauren had found the time to use it, with four young children to bring up and a part-time job as well.

  A crash from downstairs had us both hurrying out onto the landing. Grant leapt down the stairs two at a time and bent to pick up a broken plate that had fallen from the high shelf onto the varnished telephone table in the hall. The twins were cowering in the corner, Teddy still clutching his rubber ball and Toby looking terrified.

  “What happened here?” Grant demanded. “Who did this?”

  “He taked my ball,” Teddy said in a quiet voice.

  Grant rounded on Toby. “You know you mustn’t touch Teddy’s ball,” he admonished his son. “You must not tease your brother. We have told you before. Now look what you’ve done, you’ve broken one of Mummy’s plates, and she’s only just come home.”

  I took the pieces from Grant’s hand and fitted the two halves together. “I’m sure it can be mended,” I offered. “Do we have any superglue?”

  “Lauren,” said Grant, barely keeping the exasperation from his voice. “It’s antique, worth hundreds. There’s no point in gluing the thing back together. It’s broken. What’s the point of keeping anything if it isn’t perfect? All it’s good for is the rubbish bin.”

  I saw the light go out of Teddy’s eyes and guessed what he was thinking. He hung his head as if knowing he was also broken, imperfect, and therefore not worth anything in his father’s view, either. My heart went out to him and I held out my hand. “Why don’t you show me where you keep your toys?” I asked.

  “Teddy doesn’t have toys, Mummy,” Toby blurted out as Teddy eyed my hand suspiciously. “You know he only likes his stupid ball.”

  “Well, show me your toys,” I said to Toby. “And Teddy can come and watch.”

  Grant touched my arm and I turned back to him.

  “Look, I’m sorry about that. I’m not myself at the moment. This is all going to take some getting used to. Will you be all right if I pop up into my study to catch up on some paperwork?” he asked.

  I nodded, already feeling exhausted. The burns to Lauren’s shoulder were beginning to chafe. “I’m sure the children will tell me where everything is,” I said, finding myself immensely relieved he wasn’t intending to be at my side every second of the day. “It’s not as if I’m really ill or anything.”

  He looked hesitant, but I assured him we’d be fine so he strode off into another part of the house and disappeared from my thoughts. As soon as he’d gone I followed the twins into the playroom. Sophie and Nicole were watching a game show on the old television set, lounging on the beanbags in the middle of the room. Sophie pretended she hadn’t seen me, but Nicole sprang to her feet and came to hold my hand as I stood there wondering what to do.

  It felt odd to be home in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, even if I ignored the strangeness of th
e rest of my situation. With my hand still imprisoned in Nicole’s, I walked with her to the window and looked out at the front garden and the road. Outside, the October sunshine beamed down and I thought how lovely it would be to walk Frankie on a day like this. The feeling that I was trapped descended like a cloud over me. I was used to being my own person and I needed my space.

  Toby had already started zooming his cars around the road map on the floor, crashing every so often into the white-painted baseboard so that white flakes dropped off onto the carpet. He held up a yellow dump truck. “This is my best toy,” he said. “This and the digger.”

  Nicole was looking at me anxiously. She seemed like a sensitive little girl who was desperate for my attention and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I squeezed her hand reassuringly, then turned reluctantly from the window and made a show of inspecting her brother’s toys closely.

  “They’re very realistic,” I said. “Do you ever take them outside and dig real mud or sand with them?”

  Toby’s mouth dropped open slightly and he shook his head. “You said toys aren’t allowed in the garden,” he replied.

  “Well, I’ve changed my mind,” I said firmly, straightening up carefully. I put my shoulder discomfort to the back of my mind. “Come on all of you. Nicole, Sophie, you can show me the garden. And Toby, bring your digger and truck.”

  I flicked off the television set, ignoring indignant moans from Sophie, and followed a grinning Toby out through a utility room into the back garden. There was a wide paved patio area, which hadn’t been visible from above, with a wooden table and matching chairs clustered round it. The patio steps led down onto the grassed lawn.

  “What’s behind those fir trees?” I asked them, staring down the garden.

  Sophie and Nicole exchanged looks as if to say “How can she be so stupid?” and Sophie said, rather condescendingly, “That’s where Jim puts the grass cuttings and stuff.”