by J. A. Delese
Nate didn’t actually think that Tom would give him a reason. He waited for several seconds for his brother to answer, but Tom didn’t say anything back, just as he expected. He let his brother go, and Tom dropped onto the sofa. Nate felt this was a waste of his time to be here with this monster, so he turned back and was about to walk out of the ward.
“I love her,” Tom said.
Nate stopped walking. He thought he heard wrong. He looked at his brother. Tom was still sitting on the sofa with his head bowed and continuing to talk.
“I love her. I’ve been in love with her ever since the day I saw her. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to admit it….”
Then he cried into his hands. Nate didn’t know what to say. He got confused. He didn’t expect his brother would react this way. He thought Tom would deny it. He thought Tom would say he did it for fun. So he was extremely angry. He planned to punch his brother’s face for hiding behind the mask of a gentleman. He wanted to rip away the mask and let everybody see his true face, but he didn’t know what to do now. He had never seen his brother cry like this.
What the hell’s going on….
Nate looked at his brother and Catherine for a while and left the ward.
Catherine
She knew she was dreaming. Of course, this was a dream. Otherwise, she couldn’t travel this far this fast. It started with her childhood. Her poor childhood was gray in color: the day she entered kindergarten, the days she studied in school, all passing so quickly, all gray—even her father’s corpse. She saw it from their apartment corridor. He fell from it and landed on a neighbor’s car. Blood spread over the car, a gray pool.
Then she moved to the day she met one of her mother’s boyfriends. Mom said she would buy Tonkatsu for her, so she followed. Then a big guy appeared. She cried the whole way. She didn’t like this guy. This guy scared her, and she wanted to spend this evening alone with her mommy. Her mom was angry with her in gray.
Quickly, she moved into a bit of a brighter world. There were colors—yellow, blue, red. It wasn’t clear, but she could tell that there were colors. She arrived at her university. The trees were in color. They looked so lovely, so she stayed there for a while to look at them.
“How beautiful,” she said.
“They are.”
She turned her head to look at the man who said it. It was her ex-husband. He looked so young. He held her hand and kissed her. She closed her eyes to feel his lips and when she couldn’t feel them, she opened her eyes. She could see a ceiling. She could feel pain in her chest. She kept coughing. Then her ex-husband came into the room. He gave her medicine and wiped her body with wet towels. He held her hand and stayed up the entire night beside her.
“Honey, I love you,” she said to him for the first time. She felt dizzy. She thought it was because of the medicine. Then she fell asleep.
When she opened her eyes, she was with her lawyer at the table. He showed what her husband’s family offered. She agreed. She stamped her seal on the divorce papers. She felt sad, but she tried her best not to cry and walked out of the firm. When she got out of the building, so many maple leaves were falling down from the trees. She looked around the place. It was the school where she studied law. She felt so tired. She felt like she couldn’t sleep for days, but somehow she knew that she should move to the library, so she did. She sat on a chair and opened a book. She tried to focus, but she felt too sleepy. She laid her head on the table and told herself to sleep for ten minutes, and just like that, she fell asleep.
She didn’t know how long she had slept, but she heard a banging sound and woke up. It was a judge. He asked the court to be silent and found her client not guilty. He rapped the gavel. Her client smiled as did as her senior. She felt happy and came out of the courthouse. It was a shiny day. It wasn’t easy to open her eyes, because of the sunlight, but soon the sun was blocked by something. She looked up to see what was blocking the sunlight. It was Patrick. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
“What did you buy?” he asked.
She looked at the paper bag in her hands. She didn’t know what was inside, so she had to think for a moment.
“Rebecca’s scarf!” she said cheerfully. “She said she liked scarfs. So I bought a new one for her!”
“That’s nice.”
They smiled at each other. She remembered this day. It was Rebecca’s birthday. They were on their way to the party. They arrived at the bar, but Mitchell called her. She needed to go back to the office.
“But you just got here!” somebody said loudly.
She turned back and looked at the person who spoke. It was Nate.
“We didn’t even sing a song for her yet!”
Nate looked like he was going to cry and that made her laugh.
“I’m sure you’ll sing much better than me.” When she said this, she heard her phone ring. She answered the phone, but she had to pull the phone away from her ear. Someone was yelling at her.
“I TOLD YOU TO COME BACK AND FINISH THE WORK!”
It was her boss, Mitchell.
“Alright! I’m on the way now,” she said.
“I’m so sorry, Nate. I really need to go now.”
“Okay…see you very soon again, Cathy.”
Nate smiled at her, but somehow she felt he was sad. She felt it was a bit strange that Nate was this sad, but she decided not to care. She ran back to the firm and got into an elevator. Her office was on the thirtieth floor, so it usually took some time to go up, but it took longer than usual. It seemed like she was climbing up for several hours. She felt this was not right, so she pressed the emergency button, but it didn’t respond at all. She felt scared and moved to the back and leaned against the wall. Then, suddenly the elevator stopped.
What?
She walked to the door and put her ear against it and listened to what was happening outside. She couldn’t hear anything, so she pressed the button to open the door and this time it opened! As soon as the door opened, she couldn’t even open her eyes because of strong sunlight. She covered her eyes with her right hand and walked out of the elevator carefully. It was still too bright, but she managed to open her eyes a bit. She could see something was moving. She opened her eyes wider and looked at the thing that was moving. It was a woman. She was arranging something. Catherine couldn’t tell what exactly this woman was doing.
“Al…lo….”
She tried to say hello, but somehow what she heard herself say was not hello. She tried to say hello again, but this time, she couldn’t even make a sound.
What’s happening?
The lady in the white outfit, however, turned her head and saw her. She seemed shocked. She held something and shouted, “She’s awake! Call Dr. Dempsey now!”
Tom
He rushed to the hospital. He wanted to go to the ward where she was staying right away, but Dr. Dempsey asked him to come to visit his office first. As he walked to Dr. Dempsey’s office, he could feel that his heart pounding. He couldn’t believe she woke up so quickly. Doctors said this kind of case could last for several years, but it’d been slightly more than two months and she woke up!
He arrived at the front of the office and the nurse opened the door for him. Dr. Dempsey was standing behind the desk and welcomed him.
“Good afternoon, Doctor Dempsey,” he said.
“Good afternoon, your grace. Thank you for coming promptly.”
“I should be the one say that to you, Doctor. Thank you for informing me promptly,” he said cheerfully.
He couldn’t wait to see her again. Surely, she’d be upset and possibly cry for days because of the miscarriage, but he would try his best to make her happy this time. He wouldn’t hurt her physically or mentally. He would let her do anything.
Well, doesn’t mean that I will let her go though, he thought and smiled bitterly.
“She’s in good condition now. Actually far better than we thought she would be,” Dr. Dempsey said.
“That’s great!” Tom said.
“Her somatosensory function is normal, as well as her discriminative sensory function…,” Dr. Dempsey continued to talk, and he just listened. Everything was normal meant everything was good. He would bring her back home and shower her with all the nicest things in this world. He would do anything for her. Anything!
“But there is one thing that is not positive right now,” Dr. Dempsey said and Tom could tell that it wasn’t easy for Dr. Dempsey to say this. He realized that this was why the doctor asked him to see in the office first.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We guess that she’s suffering periods of amnesia now.”
“WHAT?” he asked loudly. “What does that mean? She doesn’t remember everything? Does she know who she is?”
He voice had become aggressive, and Dr. Dempsey tried to calm down.
“It’s not so serious, your grace. She knows who she is and she knows that she’s a lawyer who was working in New York, but she doesn’t know that she’s in London now.”
He felt like somebody banged his head. How could it be possible? She didn’t remember everything that happened over the past year?
“We hope that this is a temporary amnesia. If she takes medicine and starts going to rehabilitation, she will recover her memory soon and—”
The doctor said more things after that, but he wasn’t listening. He was thinking what to tell her. If she didn’t remember that she was in London, it meant she didn’t remember that she had been kidnapped, and that meant she still didn’t know what he did to her. What if she asked him why she was in London now?
Then…what should I tell her?
He felt confused. He wasn’t sure if this was a chance or a trap. Maybe this could be a chance for them to rebuild their relationship in a more positive way.
Or maybe it will drive us crazy one more time.
“Your grace?” Dr. Dempsey called him.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You can go and visit her now,” the doctor said with a smile.
“Oh… thank you, Doctor Dempsey,” he said and walked to the ward where she was waiting for him. When he got into the ward, she was talking with a nurse and looked a bit tired. He could tell that she was still in pain, but he was extremely happy to see her eyes open. He took several steps towards her cautiously, and she realized that he was there. Their eyes met, and they looked at each other for a while. He didn’t know what to tell her. Should he say hello to her? Should he just go and hug her? He had been thinking about what might be his best move, but all his thoughts were washed away by her smile.
She smiled at him. She showed him the same smile that he had seen a long time ago in the opera house. He could still remember the smile. The smile that made him smiled. The smile that made him fell in love with her.
“Hello,” she said first.
He couldn’t say anything back. He couldn’t even move. He surely knew that he should say hello back to her, but he couldn’t say anything to her. He couldn’t open his mouth. He feels like his whole body had frozen, including his throat.
“Hello…?” she said again.
He took one more step closer to her. She was still smiling, but he could tell that she already felt uncomfortable and that was not good. So he squeezed his throat to say, “Hello.”
It was a simple word, but he choked with emotion. The nurse offered him a chair, and he sat beside her bed. He felt like crying, but used all his power to stop his tears. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He looked at her with teary eyes.
“May I ask your name?” she asked.
“WHAT?”
He hadn’t meant to shout.
What is this? She doesn’t even remember my name?
“I…I think I have some memory loss. I know it sounds odd to you. Maybe we know each other very well, but right now, I don’t remember who you are. Actually, I don’t even remember coming to London. The last thing I remember is that I was in New York, working as a lawyer in a firm. That’s it,” she finished and looked at him for a while.
They were looking at each other for a moment, but he felt it was less awkward this time. She was probably looking in his eyes to find out what she missed, and he fully understood it.
“I’m Thomas Sharpe,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Sharpe,” she said back with a smile.
His heart was melting at the sound of her sweet voice and her smile. How many times did he try to see this? She had been like an impregnable fortress to him all this time.
“Hello, Catherine,” he called her name with teary eyes.
“Are you related to Nate Sharpe? He’s a journalist at The Guardian,” she asked cautiously.
“Yes. I’m his brother,” he answered shortly.
“Oooh! I see! You are Nate’s brother. No wonder you look similar to him. I remember Nate. I met him two or three times, I guess?”
She was quite excited to talk about Nate, but he didn’t really care. He didn’t care what she was talking about now. All he cared about now was her smile. He couldn’t believe she was smiling at him like that. He was pretty sure that she had never smiled at him before.
How come is it so easy to see this?
All these days, he had tried his own best way to see it, but nothing worked at all. It just made her cry more. Tom felt he was in heaven with an angel with her face.
“Am I working with you? Is that why I’m in London? I really can’t remember why I’m here now. They said it’s 2016, but I thought it was 2015. So, I guess I spent about a year here, but I don’t remember why…it’s so confusing.” When she finished talking, she looked so depressed by what she said, and he couldn’t take it. So he held her hand with his hand. She seemed shocked at what he did, but she didn’t resist. She was just looking and waiting for him to talk.
“No, Cathy. You didn’t come to London to work.”
He held her hand tighter. He wanted her to know how serious he was. He wanted her to know he would do anything to keep her safe from now on. It didn’t matter how much he needed to pay for that, it didn’t matter what kinds of things he need to give up for that, he would do whatever things were necessary for both of them.
“You came here to marry me.”
Catherine
She felt so comfortable like this. She was resting her head on his shoulder—no, it wasn’t his shoulder. It was his chest. She could hear his heart beating. It was so nice and comfortable to lean on him. Since she woke up from the coma, Tom came to visit her every day. He brought some books for her to read or some sweets she likes. The doctors recommended her not to eat too many sweet things, but she couldn’t help it. She loved to eat sweets. Though all the things he brought for her were good, the best thing he brought was his story. She liked to listen to his story. She asked him many times to tell her their love story, but he always refused. He said it was not good for him to tell her their story before she remembered it by herself. She, however, was too curious, and even told him that she won’t marry him unless he tells her their story. She could still remember his face when she said, “I won’t marry you!” He looked like a child who lost the candy that he was holding.
“So, you should tell me about us!” she asked, and he finally started to tell the story to her. He said he saw her at the opera house and fell in love with her at first sight. So he asked her out, and they dated for about a year. It sounded quite romantic, and she liked it.
“Maybe we are meant to be,” she said.
“We are,” he said gently.
“I thought we met because of Nate. I thought he introduced us.”
“Well…he sort of did…,” he mumbled weakly.
“I want to meet NATE!” She suddenly spoke loudly, and it made him jump.
“Sorry, I just feel like talking to him,” she blushed.
“Last time, I remember meeting him was at Rebecca’s birthday party. That day he told me he and Rebecca were together. Are they still?” she asked.
“No idea,�
� he shrugged.
“How come? You are his brother!”
“Doesn’t mean that I need to know all his relationships.”
“Well…true,” she said and smiled.
“He promised me he would tell me their story.”
“You really love stories, don’t you?” he stroked her cheek affectionately and laughed.
“I love stories with happy endings. Don’t like sad stories.”
He hugged her tighter to his chest at that.
Seems like he really knows about me.
She sensed it. People usually thought that she had lived a very nice life till now, but it was not true. Every step she took was in pain. She, however, still pretended that she was proud, from a nice family, and that she had no hardships in her life. If he knew about her suffering, it meant she was really close to him, otherwise she wouldn’t tell her personal story to him. She held him with her arms.
“Tell me about our first kiss,” she said.
“What?”
“Our first kiss! When was it?”
She fluttered her eyes to act cute, but she could tell that he felt embarrassed. She couldn’t understand. Why does he feel embarrassed? It was just a kiss! She wasn’t asking about the first time they made love! Or was it because he didn’t remember?
Don’t tell me it’s because it had never happened!
That thought chilled her. She really hoped that he was not a guy with some problems. She sat up straight and took a look at her fiancé.
“Have we kissed?” she asked cautiously.
“Of course, we did!” he answered.
She gave a secret sigh of relief in her head.
“Then, when was it?”
“It was….” He couldn’t finish the words.
“Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t remember it!”
“No, it’s not that! I remember. I do remember. It was the night that you came from work. You were exhausted and depressed from work.”