“She, um, must have forgotten to remove me as beneÞ ciary on her insurance forms.” Cees frowned. She’d never had any inkling that Arie was well off. They rarely ate out, and when they did, they tended to Þ ght over the check until they agreed to split it. It made sense that Arie had been so unconcerned about Þ nding another job; she hadn’t needed one Þ nancially. But the Arie Cees knew only stayed still when she slept. It made no sense to her that she would be unemployed for so long.
“Oh, that’s just great. They trying to accuse you of attempted murder? You didn’t talk to them, did you?” Lilly whipped out her cell, hit a button, and put the phone to her ear.
“Talk to them about what? Who are you calling?”
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“Momma. My cousin Yon just passed the bar.”
“Lilly. Don’t.” Cees put her hand over Lilly’s, forcing her to close the phone.
“She had a car accident while trying to avoid hitting a mother and child stranded in the middle of the road. They contacted me because I was listed on her paperwork and she has no other family.”
“Oh,” Lilly said and grudgingly dropped her phone back in her purse. Before she could zip it closed, the rap song “Mama Said Knock You Out” blared.
She glared at Cees as she began rooting around in the bottom of the purse. “Why’d you buy Momma a phone with Caller ID?”
Cees shrugged and tried not to look guilty. Why had she bought her that phone?
“Yeah?” Lilly barked her standard greeting. “Nah, I thought Cees needed cousin Yon’s number. Nah, nah, she all right. I thought she was gonna be on trial for murder because she was the sole beneÞ ciary on an insurance policy. You know how they always come after you for that on truTV.” Cees reached for one of Lilly’s beers and took a swig as an explosion of rapid-Þ re Vietnamese emanated from the cell phone. Lilly answered back, and Cees took another long pull from the beer when she heard Arieanna’s name mentioned.
“Okay, okay,” Lilly said before hanging up without saying good-bye. “Momma said to tell that skank bitch to stay away from her girl.”
Cees covered her mouth to keep from spitting out her beer.
“She did not say that.”
“She sort of did.”
Lilly’s bottom lip was stuck out, and Cees entertained the thought of hugging her before judgment prevailed. “I love the way you two try to protect me.”
“Somebody needs to. So what was it like? Seeing her again?”
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The change in conversation confused Cees for a moment and then she realized that Lilly was referring to Arie.
“She’s confused, in pain. The doctor says she’s been having nightmares and migraines.”
“But otherwise she’s gonna be Þ ne?” Lilly probed.
“Yeah, her doctor thinks so.”
“Good, then you don’t need to keep seeing her.”
Cees felt something tighten in her chest. “Lilly, she doesn’t remember who she is. She only knows her name because they told her. She’s alone.”
“Again, her choice, not yours.” Lilly pointed this out gently, but it still hurt Cees to hear it. In the weeks after their separation, Lilly had asked if she thought Arie was seeing someone else.
Cees had racked her brain and came to the conclusion that there had been no one. It was another dagger to the heart to realize that Arie had simply decided she didn’t want a life with her.
Momma’s ring tone blared again, and Lilly stood to answer it. Cees wondered if Lilly’s choice of ring tone was a conscious one since she seemed to brace herself every time she answered the phone.
“Okay, okay.” Lilly clapped the phone closed. “Momma said dinner’s ready and she wants you to come.” Cees knew she would get a grilling about staying away from bad girls like Arieanna. Momma Nguyen treated Lilly and her like they were still fourteen and sixteen instead of thirty and thirty-two. As much as she loved the Nguyen family, Cees didn’t think she was up to a lecture tonight. Surprisingly, Lilly’s had been mild compared to what she’d expected.
“I think I’m going to stay in tonight. Maybe have a glass of wine while I still can.” Cees smiled as she remembered the monumental decision she still had to make. Arieanna’s sudden reappearance into her life couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
Lilly gave a disgusted grunt and stood up. “Promise me
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you’ll stay away from her. I know you want to help her. It’s in your nature to help, but…I don’t think I can stand seeing you like that again.”
Cees smiled. “That was a long time ago, Lilly. What we had, what Arie and I had, is over. Like you said, she made sure of that.”
Lilly stared at Cees for a long time and then she did something surprising: she hugged Cees hard. “Momma said you’re like a dumb abused puppy. You just keep loving and loving no matter how many times someone kicks you in the chest.”
Cees pulled away from Lilly and laughed. “She didn’t say that.”
Lilly stood up to leave. “Yeah, Cees. She did.”
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CHAPTER FOUR
The absolute darkness was interrupted by the sound of someone crying. The sobs of the brokenhearted could never be mistaken for physical pain. Arieanna reached toward the sound, but something stopped her. Offering comfort would only make things worse in the long run.
“Why are you doing this, Arieanna?” The question was a sledgehammer to her brain. She pressed her hands against the side of her head, and a wave of nausea swept over her. She knew the voice; she knew it as well as she knew her own.
“Please don’t do this.” Arie wrenched herself from her nightmare and cried out.
A night nurse must have been walking by her room because she was at her side almost immediately. “Ms. Simon, are you all right?” Arie reached out and grasped the hand on her arm tightly as she tried to catch her breath. The nurse reached across her with her free hand and pressed the button for the small lamp next to Arie’s bed. “Okay, sweetie, let me look. You need to calm down.
Do you understand?”
Tears spilled down the sides of Arie’s face as she thought of the voice and remembered the look in Cees Bannigan’s eyes when she’d seen her. She had found the recognition she was seeking, as well as some unexpected emotions—pain and fear. She was certain of one thing. She had done something so awful that those
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eyes, those beautiful eyes, had been crying. She hadn’t seen her face, but the sound of Cees Bannigan weeping was as familiar as her own body. It was more than memory, it was knowledge.
Another wave of nausea hit, and this time resulted in her retching into the basin that was put in front of her. Tears of frustration slid down Arie’s face. Was that why Cees seemed so vague about her whereabouts? Had they argued? Had she perhaps done something to hurt her? No. Arieanna pushed the thought away as quickly as it had come. She didn’t need memory to know she wasn’t a violent person. She would not have hurt her physically. Not ever.
No.
“Better?” the nurse asked.
“Of course not, I don’t know who I am,” Arie snapped. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. I…thank you.”
The nurse smiled, and Arie realized that she was young, perhaps a few years younger than herself. According to the driver’s license found tucked in her sock, she was thirty-two.
“Nightmare, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember it?”
Arie stiffened, recognized that the nurse was only doing her job, and forced herself to relax.
“No,” she said, and although it was a lie, it did make her to feel better not to have to relive the dream.
“All right, keep your call button close.”
Arie watched until the nurse left the room. Her eyes went to the televisi
on. She picked up the remote and was disappointed when she found the local broadcasting station had gone off the air. She hoped Nurse Kerr would be able to get the recorded shows for her because she wanted to Þ nd out if watching them brought back memories. So far, Cees Bannigan was the only one who knew her and the only person or thing that seemed to jog memories in her, though they didn’t seem like good ones.
The fear of more nightmares kept her awake long after she should have fallen asleep again. Something Dr. Parrantt said to
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her kept ß oating in the back of her mind. The brain is a funny piece of equipment, he’d said. Sometimes it will act as a protector if it feels we need it. He’d left soon after that, but what he said lingered with her. It scared her that her doctor had been either unwilling or unable to give her a better idea of when she would start to remember.
Arie ran her hand through her hair. She hadn’t forgotten the way her hair felt, nor was her own body unfamiliar. But it was familiar in that way that an old childhood toy was familiar. As if it belonged to her—only, a long time ago. Detached. She fell on the word and almost smiled in triumph when she found it. That’s how she felt.
The nightmares were the only thing she could be sure of, and the fear of them had been making it hard for her to sleep.
She was happy for the lack of a roommate, even temporarily.
Being alone meant she could watch TV despite the late hour. She searched the channels as she had searched Cees Bannigan’s face for something she recognized.
The fear and confusion were still there, still hovering in the back of her mind, but she didn’t feel so alone. She had been disappointed to learn she had no family, but not surprised. She felt as if she would remember a family, and that they would at least have missed her if they hadn’t heard from her in a week.
She frowned. Cees Bannigan said they had argued, that she had decided they weren’t right for each other and had ended it. Arie sensed there had been more to it than that. She had been hoping the police would Þ nd someone who knew her, and they had. She hadn’t been prepared for her reaction when Cees walked through the door. Arie felt both shy and unable to remove her gaze from Cees’s face. She thought she was familiar, but she didn’t know why. She was unprepared for the pain. No, it had been stronger than that. It was as if something had been pulled forcefully from her when she looked at Cees.
“What did I do to you?” Arie said aloud. The fear was skulking back. She could feel it creeping up around her chest,
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paralyzing her vocal cords. She closed her eyes and tried to force herself to remember, as she had numerous times since she had awakened in the hospital. When no memories came, she tried to remember the way Cees looked that morning. To her relief, Cees’s face came to her as clearly as if she had been standing in front of her bed at that very moment. Arie’s limbs relaxed as she focused her mind on Cees, hoping the memory of their one meeting would keep the nightmares and the painful headaches that followed at bay.
I am not alone. I am not alone. She repeated the mantra in her head until there was only Cees’s face, only her smile, and the oblivion of sleep.
v
When Cees didn’t come the following morning, Arie reminded herself that she hosted a television show and was probably busy. Still, she found herself glancing at the clock often.
Visiting hours came and went. When Nurse Kerr arrived to check on her before her shift ended, Arie was watching a sitcom, but the only laughter in the room was from the TV.
“I asked my daughter about the shows. She said she would let you borrow them.”
“Never mind,” Arie said shortly.
“Maybe she just got busy at work.”
“Maybe.”
“She left her number at the nurse’s station. I could call her to remind her that—”
“Visiting hours are over, aren’t they?”
“I could leave word to make an exception for you.”
Arie shrugged and turned to the TV. “She knows I’m here.
I’m thinking most people don’t forget they have a friend in the hospital. But then again, I guess most people don’t forget their friends, and I seem to have managed that.”
Nurse Kerr paused for a moment, glanced at Arie, and then
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left. Arie closed her eyes. She had been rude for no reason. No, she knew the reason. She was scared at the possibility of being so alone, but more than anything, she was sad and disappointed that Cees Bannigan had not come to see her. If the nightmares had any truth to them, their relationship had not been a good one. So she understood why Cees had decided not to come, but the disappointment was acute. The need to see her was almost stiß ing in its persistence. She wasn’t sure why or how, but she knew she had hurt Cees Bannigan, and in doing so she had lost a part of herself.
What was wrong with her? Cees Bannigan owed her nothing.
Hell, the nurse owed her nothing more than she would offer any other patient in the hospital. Nurse Kerr had stopped to check on her out of kindness, and she had reacted like a petulant child.
Now she was angry because a woman she didn’t remember hadn’t come to visit her. What kind of person am I?
v
“And cut. Hold steady, Cees.” Cees obediently stood still while her director, Jan Kutchings, checked lighting. She had been distracted and grumpy all day, both of which were showing in her performance, though Jan had been kind enough to overlook it.
“We’re done.” Cees pulled off her protective goggles and started to walk toward the door of the set. She was going to head home and grab a cup of tea, but Miranda was waiting for her when she got up to her ofÞ ce.
“I watched the screen repair scene.” Cees sighed and plopped down on the couch next to her. “Is there something wrong?”
Miranda expressed the concern that had obviously been on Jan’s mind but that he hadn’t been comfortable enough to express.
“I’m Þ ne. Just distracted.”
“I could tell. You didn’t look like you were having fun out there at all.”
Miranda was right. Guilt over not having visited Arie the
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day before was making her distracted and short-tempered. She had intended on driving to the hospital, had been sitting in the Monster with the engine grumbling and her hands ten and two when an ache started in the center of her chest and swelled to full-blown searing pain. She had told herself that Arie wouldn’t care. Hell, Arie didn’t even remember her, why would she care?
But deep down Cees knew that wasn’t true. She had bumbled into the situation because in the back of her mind she had hoped there would be an explanation for what happened to them, something Þ nal enough that saying she had moved on was no longer just lip service. But Arie couldn’t even tell her what she had been doing the last year, let alone what happened to their relationship.
“That’s what I said when you replaced that toilet.” Miranda shuddered. “Imagine someone actually doing that themselves?”
Cees smiled. “That’s what you have me for.”
Instead of returning her smile, Miranda looked at her steadily.
“And do I…have you, I mean?”
Cees felt her smile fade, and she looked down at her hands.
What was she doing? First she pushed Miranda away, and now she said something like that.
“Miranda, I…”
“Cees, it’s okay. It’s just that, when I was in here the other day, I got the distinct impression you were trying to break things off with me, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed.”
Cees searched Miranda’s face. She did look disappointed.
Cees was tempted to reach out to her, tell her it was PMS and everything would be Þ ne. They had given each other pleasure, comfort, and companionship. Sex with Miranda was good, but
was it enough?
“You’ve met someone else, haven’t you?” Miranda asked.
“She willing to settle down and have a family with you?”
Sadness swept over Cees. It would have been easy to let Miranda think there was someone else, but she couldn’t lie about something like that. “It’s more complicated than that.”
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“Don’t tell me you’re getting involved with someone who doesn’t want the same thing you do?”
“No, it’s not that. I’m not really sure what she wants, and it’s not exactly a relationship.”
“But you want it to be?”
Cees sighed. “No. I think I’d like… I think I need to be on my own for a while.”
Miranda continued to search Cees’s face. “But there is someone else. I can’t imagine you being this distracted because of a decision not to have sex with me anymore. Mind you, I plan on wearing some tight and revealing sweaters here and there in an effort to change your mind.”
Cees laughed and gave Miranda’s shoulder a light push. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“So, you going to tell me about her? I have to admit I’m feeling damn jealous but fairly adult about the whole thing, so if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
“There really isn’t anything to tell…she’s someone from my past.”
“UnÞ nished business?”
“Cliché, huh?”
Miranda stood up and stretched. Cees’s eyes traveled up her thin body, taking in her khakis and button-down shirt, and almost willed the small tingle of desire to return. When it didn’t, she had to bite down her own disappointment. Miranda had a small smile on her face, and Cees almost blushed. It was as if Miranda had read her mind and forgave her for Þ nding her wanting.
“Sweetie, we all have our unÞ nished business. Some of it is worth pursing, and some of it…” Miranda shrugged, her eyes clouding and clearing so quickly that Cees wondered if she had imagined it. She realized that she and Miranda had worked together for eight months and had been sleeping together for half that, yet she really knew nothing about her. All she had to do was kiss Miranda, tell her that she was right, and things would
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