by Kate White
“No—at least not that I have any memory of. It almost seemed she was trying to be provocative.”
“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to sense that’s her MO.”
I notice his attention suddenly snagged by the bouquet on the table.
“What was she doing here, anyway?” he asks. “I thought you were going to take it easy today.”
“She was desperate to review some research with me before next week and basically invited herself over.”
“That’s annoying.” He glances down at the food on the counter. “I’m going to set all this up, but give me a minute to change, will you?”
“Sure. What can I do?”
“Nothing, just relax.”
But as soon as he heads down the hall to the bedroom, I call the front desk at WorkSpace. Carson’s shift must be ending around now, and I’m relieved when he picks up. I identify myself and ask if he remembers talking to me on Tuesday about my lost phone.
“Yes, did you find it?” he says.
“Unfortunately, not. Can I ask you a couple of questions, though? I was ill at the time and kind of discombobulated when we spoke.”
“I figured. You sounded pretty frazzled.”
Because I was beginning to separate from who I was?
“By any chance, do you remember the time of the call?”
“Uh, it must have been after lunch. Maybe around three, three-thirty?”
“And did I say where I was calling from?”
“No, but it sounded like you were on the street. You said you’d lost your phone somewhere and borrowed a stranger’s to make the call.”
“Right, right, a passerby was nice enough to loan me theirs,” I say, winging it. “I wish I had the number so I could send a thank-you text.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t help you with that. It would be tough to go back through caller ID.”
Damn it, I think. “Understood.”
“Anything else I can be of assistance with?”
He sounds eager to be done, but I can’t let him go yet.
“Nothing specific, no. I . . . I just hope I wasn’t a bother. I didn’t go on and on about what was wrong, did I?”
“No, you were fine. And no worries, we’ve all been there. Did you figure out the deal with the doctor?”
My heart jerks.
“Doctor? I told you I needed one?”
“It sounded like you had an appointment with someone, but you weren’t sure of the exact time—I guess because you’d lost your phone. You were hoping Nicole would know, but she wasn’t here. I think you mentioned a Dr. Early or something.”
“Right, right,” I say.
Okay, I’ve got another piece of the puzzle. It seems as if I was especially eager, maybe even desperate, to meet with Erling, but due to whatever mental distress I was experiencing, I must have lost track of when my next appointment was, even though Dr. Erling said she talked to me at nine that day. As I’m processing this detail, Carson is interrupted by someone with a question, and I realize I need to let him go. I thank him for his help and sign off.
Just as I set the phone down, Hugh saunters back into the great room, dressed in jeans and his heather green V-neck sweater. After shoving up the sleeves, he pops the plastic lid off the rotisserie chicken, whose juicy, herby scent, usually so inviting, turns my stomach.
“Something up?” he asks, grabbing a pair of poultry scissors.
“Sort of. That was Carson, one of the managers at WorkSpace, and he’s just filled me in about one detail from Tuesday.”
“Really?”
“I apparently called the front desk that afternoon, sounding frazzled. I told him I’d lost my phone and had borrowed one from a stranger. I must have used it to look up the main number at WorkSpace before calling there.”
“Wow,” Hugh says, pausing. “What about your purse? Was that missing then, too?”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“So you may have ended up separated from your purse and phone at two different times.”
“Right. And there’s something else.”
Hugh’s started to carve the chicken, but he pauses again, the scissors in midair. “Tell me.”
“According to Carson, I was trying to contact Nicole to see if I’d mentioned the time of my appointment with Erling.”
“So you were already having memory issues?”
“Or I was just really desperate to see her and didn’t have my phone to double-check my schedule.”
“Do you think you were anxious to meet with her because of our argument?”
“Possibly. But I’m starting to wonder if something really upsetting happened to me on Tuesday, midday, which would explain those bloody tissues I told you about. Maybe I lost my phone when this—this incident occurred, or right afterwards, possibly because I was rattled. And then I started to come unglued and was anxious to see Erling.”
Hugh nods his head lightly, pondering my words. He’s done cutting the chicken and pries off the lids from a couple of salads he’s bought.
“Okay, but if the dissociative state actually kicked in on Tuesday afternoon,” he says, “why don’t you recall anything from late Monday night or Tuesday morning?”
“From what I’ve learned, memory loss in this kind of situation can include a period of time before the traumatic event you experienced. I guess in the same way someone with a concussion might not remember events immediately leading up to the injury.”
“What do you think could have happened to you, Ally?”
“Maybe I was mugged?”
“But if you still had your purse later that day . . .”
“I could have struggled with the person but managed to save my purse. And gotten a nosebleed in the process.”
He smiles ruefully. “I don’t know whether your new theory makes me grateful or even more concerned.”
“What do you mean?”
“It scares me to think of you in a bad situation in the city somewhere, but I’m also relieved to know I might not have done anything to instigate this hell you’ve been going through.”
“You’ve been worried you caused this? Hugh, you can’t think like that. Even if the fight did make me unravel, I was part of it, too.”
“You’re giving me a pass on the famous ‘it-takes-two-to-tango’ grounds?”
I lean across the counter and lace my fingers through his.
“Absolutely,” I say. Feeling his hand in mine, I realize how little skin-to-skin contact we’ve had since yesterday. I want more than anything to be in sync with him again. Maybe this is a start.
During dinner I try to savor the food, as Erling suggested, but the chicken is dry, as if it’s spent too many hours churning in one of those supermarket roasting furnaces, and the salads—coleslaw and macaroni, both dripping in mayo—are almost indistinguishable from each other. A glass of wine might help, but I’ve decided to swear off alcohol for at least another day.
“We’ve done nothing so far tonight but talk about me,” I say, setting my fork down. “What’s happening with the Brewster case?”
This is the case Hugh’s currently in the thick of, and it’s a pivotal one for him. It was probably tough for him to focus on it when I was missing.
“Unfortunately, there’s not great news to report.”
“Wait, what?” A swell of panic forms. Am I forgetting something else? “I thought it was going well.”
“Seemed that way, but we had an ugly surprise this morning. It turns out a member of the company’s senior team sent an email several months ago to several colleagues about possible improprieties related to the case. This is going to blow up in their faces—and ours.”
“Oh, Hugh, I’m sorry.” I empathize totally but at the same time I’m relieved this is a new development, not one I should have recalled. “I can’t believe you have to deal with that and all this at the same time.”
“Look, it’s their own fault for not divulging earlier. But I’m going to have to revise my strate
gy and pray there’s a way to curtail the potential damage.”
“If you need to work this weekend, don’t hesitate on my account. Plus, I’m meeting Roger for a drink Sunday afternoon.”
We end up crawling under the covers at around ten, iPads in our laps. Hugh, I notice, is halfway through a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. Do I remember that? Yes, yes. We talked about going uptown one day to see the Grant Memorial.
I open a novel I’d started reading over the weekend and try to connect with it again, but my eyes slide across the screen, unable to gain traction. After only a few minutes, Hugh snaps off his bedside light and flips onto his side, facing away from me. Though my libido currently seems to be on the lowest flame possible, I consider reaching over and running my hand along his thigh. We have sex several nights most weeks, and it might be good for me right now, fostering not only a connection with Hugh, but a sense of being fully present. Before I can make a move, though, I hear him begin to snore lightly.
I turn off my own light and lie wide-eyed in the darkness. Despite my exhaustion, sleep once more eludes me. After throwing off the covers on my side of the bed, I move down the hall to the great room. Lying on the coffee table is the pad I scribbled my timeline onto late last night. I grab a pencil and add in what I’ve learned today.
MONDAY
evening: dinner, TV, argument
TUESDAY
7:00: still in bed
9:00-ish: took call from Dr. Erling
9:00–9:17: sent emails
Before 3:00: lost phone
3:00–3:30-ish: called WorkSpace
WEDNESDAY
Possibly lunchtime: bought food at Eastside Eats
THURSDAY
8:05: arrived at Greenbacks
I stretch my legs out across the coffee table. Today’s revelations aren’t much but they’re something. It’s been hard to believe that a fight with Hugh over familiar ground could have derailed me so completely, and what I’ve found out today suggests that hunch is right.
I’ve also had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of my fugue state being related to my discovery in the woods long ago. Yes, I’d been revisiting it in my mind lately, and it’s definitely stirred up both memories and questions, but why would it knock my wheels off so many years later? It can’t be that, can it? Regardless, I’m still eager to discuss the details with Roger.
What I’m left with is the x factor. A possibly traumatic event midday on Tuesday, one that I have no recollection of for the time being.
My thoughts stray back to today’s session with Erling, who wouldn’t be pleased to know I was ruminating this way. I struggle up from the couch, intent on trying to fall asleep. Before returning to the bedroom, I grab my phone from the kitchen counter and plug it into the charger nearby. As I’m turning away, it pings with a text. Shocked, I see that the message is from Damien Howe:
Can we meet? I need to see you.
11
When I wake the next day shortly before eight, I immediately regret my second-night-in-a-row late-night session on the couch. My stomach is queasy and my head hurts.
At least I’m here at home again. And I’m fully aware of who I am.
When I traipse into the great room, I discover Hugh already hard at work, coffee mug by his side and files and briefs strewn across the dining table.
“Morning,” he says, looking up with a smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good.”
“Is it going to be a problem if I hog the table today?”
“Not at all. It’s really nice to have you here.”
He glances back at his yellow legal pad, covered with carefully jotted notes, but then quickly looks up at me again.
“And you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, definitely.” There’s no point in whining about my headache when I have only myself to blame. And I’m certainly not going to admit to nausea. There’s a chance that’s due to fatigue as well, but it could actually be tied to the dull pulse of guilt I’m feeling from my response to Damien last night. Hugh’s aware that Damien was more than a fling in my eyes, and he’d be annoyed—justifiably—to learn we were in contact, especially after the bizarre mystery of me turning up at Greenbacks. But I have to meet with Damien. I need to know if he has any clue why I arrived at his company out of the blue with my coat dripping wet and my brain on idle.
Okay, I’d texted back. When?
How about Tuesday? he’d said. Six o’clock?
Six o’clock always suggests cocktails to me, rather than, let’s say, coffee, and there’s no way I’m going down that road. I countered with Can you do five instead? and he’d agreed, saying he’d get back to me with a location.
There’s another reason for five o’clock. This way I’ll be home by around six, greatly limiting my chance of bumping into Hugh on his way into the building and thus having to deceive him about where I’m coming from.
Okay, so I won’t have to lie, but still, it will be a sin of omission—because when Hugh asks about my day, I won’t mention anything about the meeting. This isn’t really how we do things as a couple. We’re not in the habit of . . . I was about to tell myself we’re not in the habit of keeping secrets from each other but that’s untrue now, isn’t it? My whereabouts from Tuesday to Thursday morning before 8:05 are a total secret to both of us.
After a breakfast of plain toast and tea, I grab my laptop and peruse a few headlines, but my attention soon flags. I toy with the idea of hitting the gym—it’s been a week since I’ve worked out—but eventually decide against it. I’m scared, I realize, about heading outside on my own. So I spend the next hours velcroed to the sofa, chiding myself for being such a sloth. At one point I slip into the bedroom to phone my dad, and though there’s comfort in hearing his voice, it’s painful that I can’t tell him what’s happened.
I’m relieved when finally, late in the day, Hugh suggests we take a walk in Central Park. As we emerge from the building, the air is crisp, and it’s the first time since I left the hospital that I’m actually aware of the season. The trees in the park haven’t peaked in color yet, but there’s an autumn scent along the paths that triggers a slew of recollections for me—buying pumpkins as a girl at a farm stand near our home in Millerstown, watching a college boyfriend tear across a rugby field, driving through New England on a “girls’ trip” with my mother the year before she died. If those memories are all there in my mind, tucked safely away, surely the ones from the missing days must be, too. I have to find a way to unearth them.
Hugh and I walk arm in arm through the park and end up eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant we both like. I feel more connected to the world suddenly—to the kick of the wasabi paste, the smell of the soy sauce, the image of Hugh using his chopsticks so adeptly. Good, I think, Dr. Erling would be pleased. Certainly, this is the definition of present.
“Any luck devising a new strategy for your case?” I ask Hugh.
He grimaces, plucking a piece of tuna roll. “I’ve managed to come up with a plan B, but if we win this, it’s going to be a miracle.”
“Please, Hugh, if you need to spend time in the office tomorrow, don’t hesitate on my account.”
He shakes his head. “I think I’m fine working from home, but I’ll have to hunker down for the rest of the weekend.”
Back at the apartment, I find a Scandinavian crime drama on Netflix, watch an episode and a half, and then dress for bed. I want sex tonight, I realize, as I massage lotion onto my arms and breasts. My loins aren’t exactly on fire, but I yearn for that kind of contact with Hugh, for us being back in sync sexually. But when I peek my head into the great room, I discover that Hugh’s still ensconced at the table, his brow furrowed in concentration and his fingers drumming lightly on the legal pad. I drift off to sleep alone.
Sunday morning proceeds pretty much like Saturday. Hugh does, however, squeeze in forty-five minutes for a run in the park along with his buddy Tyler, and I use the time to wander the apartm
ent with a cup of tea, finding my bearings. I feel stronger, I realize, more centered.
Midday I text Roger and say there’s no need for him to swing by later and pick me up as planned; I’ll simply meet him at the bistro we’ve decided on. Later, when it’s time to leave, Hugh urges me to let him play escort, but I tell him I want to try it on my own.
And it turns out I’m fine. As soon as I exit the building, in fact, the twinge of nervousness passes. It’s crisp out again today, and sunny, too, one of those October afternoons promising that anything is possible. As I stride the few blocks uptown, I pass several familiar faces from the neighborhood, and a few neighbors nod hello. A little boy in a stroller smiles and gives me a joyful wave.
I suddenly feel like me again, I realize. A city girl with places to go and people to see. This crazy episode is only a blip in my life, I tell myself. I’m going to figure out what the hell caused the fugue state and then guarantee it never occurs again.
My mood sours, however, as I approach the entrance to the bistro and catch a glimpse, through the window, of Marion seated next to my brother, each with a wineglass. I can’t believe it. I pause and consider my next step. I certainly can’t ask her to leave; that would upset Roger too much. Instead, I’ll have a quick drink and beat a retreat.
For half a minute I study them through the window. Marion’s back is to me and she’s shifted her position slightly, so I see only a sliver of my brother now. She’s doing all the talking. I can tell because she has a way of bobbing or cocking her head to punctuate every thought, opinion, conviction, and critique.
I’ve never understood the allure she holds for my brother. I adored his first wife, Kaitlin. She was fun and irreverent—at least in the early days—but over time, years of infertility took a toll on her demeanor and their marriage. Roger had earned millions by that point, and he made sure Kaitlin was compensated generously in the divorce. When he retired early and moved back near Millerstown, he told me he wanted a quieter, easier life, one filled with hiking, kayaking, polishing his culinary skills, and occasional trips into the city for an influx of culture. He eventually bumped into Marion, a former high school classmate, and married her soon after.