by Jordan Marie
“I’m sorry I can’t release information on him.”
“But you have to! I was there with him when he fell. I need to know he’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, only immediate family are allowed in.”
“It’s okay, Lisa. This is his wife.”
I jerk at the answer. My gaze cuts behind me and I see one of the paramedics, from earlier, standing there.
“You’re his wife?” a nurse standing beside the receptionist asks, and I swallow nervously. “I’m so sorry! If we had known, I would have taken you straight back.”
It’s a moment of decision and a moment in time that I know I’ll never get back. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her the truth, but I don’t give it to her. I keep quiet. I just need to see him. I need to see for myself that he is okay. Maybe I need to plead with him to not sue me, and beg him not to have me arrested. That might also be on my mind; but then, I’m only human.
“Yes…I’m his wife,” I answer, the lie almost sticking in my throat. My voice is hoarse as I force it out. The nurse comes out from behind the counter and immediately wraps her hand behind my back, directing me back through a door. She’s rattling on and telling me things about Aden’s health and I know I need to concentrate on what she is saying, but I can’t really understand her. I can’t hear her over the beating of my heart that is echoing in my ears. My palms are sweating and my nerves only get worse with each step I take.
“He’s very disoriented. So, please, just keep that in mind,” she adds, opening the door. Those are the only words I’ve heard her say really.
The. Only. Ones.
Which is bad…because I really, really should have been better prepared.
Aden is lying in the hospital bed, he still looks pale and his forehead has been cleaned up and bandaged, but even so you can tell it’s swollen and discolored around the wound. His dark eyes go to us immediately and his gaze looks confused.
“There’s someone here to see you Aden,” the nurse announces. I try and brace myself for the yelling. I just know he’s going to lay into me over the railing. I’m prepared for him to mention suing me. Honestly, at this point I’d rather hear that. It’s much better than, I’m having you arrested. There was a part of me expecting him to have the police in his room, ready to arrest me. I have to admit that I’m breathing easier when there doesn’t seem to be any police in the room.
“How are you?” I ask, stepping gingerly into the room and forcing the question out when he doesn’t speak.
He looks at me strangely, his face going to the side, as if he’s studying me. I prepare myself. I wait because I’m aware he’s probably going to strike out verbally. I’m shocked when he doesn’t. Instead, he clears his throat.
“I feel like I’ve been tackled by a four-hundred-pound linebacker.”
“I’m really sorry about the railing,” I whisper the words, guilt and fear colliding inside of me.
“The railing?”
“The one at the pool that broke with you?” I half-answer and half-ask, mostly because he seems genuinely confused about it.
“Oh. It’s not your fault,” he says, surprisingly, and for the first time since the accident I feel like I can breathe.
“I was really worried about you,” I answer, because now that I’m not afraid he’s going to sue me or have me arrested for assault—not to mention the fact he’s alive so I can’t be charged with murder—I feel much better, and I can admit I was worried he was seriously hurt. He looks fine though, and he sounds good too. In fact, his voice has that same gravely tone he used in my dreams last night that set my body on fire—and was the main reason I was demanding he leave today. I can’t have sex with him again, no matter how much my body and brain seems to crave it. Maybe Daria is right and human beings aren’t made to go years without sex.
“You were?”
“Of course I was. I know things have been strained between us,” I start, giving him the understatement of the year.
“They have?” he asks, sounding surprised and I figure he’s about to comment on the reserved statement. It didn’t seem quite right, however, to announce in front of the nurses and the doctor that we hate each other with the blistering passion of a million fire ants biting white flesh in the hot sun.
“Well, yeah, but—”
“I… Who are you?” he asks, his voice sounding more than a little lost, and my body stiffens. My gaze moves up and cuts to his face instantly. That’s when it finally hits me. Aden has no earthly idea who I am.
“I—”
Before I can explain I own the motel he’s staying at the nurse moves in, putting her hand at my lower back, bringing me closer to Aden’s bed.
“This is your wife, Aden. Do you recognize her at all?
“My wife?” he asks, as the scream of denial is frozen on my lips and stifled by shock. “I’m married?” he asks and he’s not irate. In this moment he looks completely lost.
It’s for different reasons, but right now I completely understand how Aden is feeling.
20
Hope
“Ma’am, I know this is a hard time for you and your husband right now, but could I ask you to come out to the registration office and fill out the papers for your husband? When he came in all the paramedic could tell us was that his name was Aden, his condition and that his wife would be following shortly.”
“I… of course, but—” I whisper, still lost in my own thoughts. I need to come clean, right now is the moment to do that. But Aden chooses that moment where his whole demeanor changes—or maybe it’s just the real Aden trying to push through. Whatever it is, it stills the confession on my lips before I get the chance to utter it.
“I’m married? This makes no sense! Surely I would recognize my wife or even my own damn face!”
“I explained before, remember? How the fall did damage and we’re still evaluating—”
“I don’t give a damn what you’re evaluating. You’re telling me I’m married and I don’t feel married. I don’t even recognize my own wife! How can that be caused by a fall?” he yells and my heart beats wildly against my chest.
“I think there’s been a mistake. See, it’s funny—”
“I’m not finding anything funny at all about this!” Aden growls, “And if you’re my wife, I fail to see how you could.”
He may not know me, but that definitely sounds like the asshole Aden who has been renting out the room in my hotel.
“I didn’t mean funny ha-ha, really,” I mutter. “I meant—”
“I want this motel sued! I want the owner taken to the cleaners! I want—”
“You can’t mean that!” I literally scream—and yes, I mean scream.
“I do! Someone needs to pay for this mess. I can’t even recognize my own wife!”
“Well you can’t sue!” I growl right back at him. “You knew that railing was loose too, by the way. Everyone is so quick to sue anymore. You don’t—”
“Are you actually defending this motel owner? My own wife? Shouldn’t you be more concerned with the fact that I have no idea who you are?” he asks exasperated. “What if my memory never comes back? What if I never remember who you are? What if I never get my life back? I want these people punished for this!” he growls.
And that’s when I know. That’s when everything becomes crystal clear. That’s when I know I’m left without a choice.
“You can’t sue the motel,” I tell him, my voice firm if not a little quiet.
“Why in the hell can’t I?” he growls back at me like a grizzly bear that has his paw caught in a trap. It should scare me, but I’ve gone beyond fear at this point. No, right now there is no fear.
Right now I’m jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
“Because we own the motel.”
“What?” he asks, his voice quieter. His face still shows a lot of confusion, but I try not to focus on that. I can’t handle the guilt right now.
“The Hard Acre Motel. It’s ours.
We’re the owners and you were the one that was supposed to fix the railing and you just never did.”
The silence in the room is deafening. He stares at me like I’m some kind of monster from outer space and right now I kind of feel like one.
“Ma’am? The paperwork?” the nurse asks again, when it becomes apparent that neither of us are going to speak further—or even know what to say next.
“Oh…yeah I’ll just… I’ll just go fill those out…”
“Aden—”
“Just go,” he says, “just leave me alone,” sounding extremely tired and upset.
I definitely know that feeling right now…so I walk out, giving him what he wants.
21
Aden
It’s like some fucking nightmare I can’t wake up from.
That’s all I can think. I’m in a hospital room and I have no idea who I am. Everything is new. My face, my hand, even my damn voice sounds like a stranger’s and now they introduce me to my wife.
My wife.
I don’t remember her at all. Shouldn’t I remember my own wife?
Fuck. I should remember my own face and when I looked in the mirror the nurse handed me… there was nothing there. No recognition whatsoever. The same with…
“What’s your name?” I ask the woman. She left earlier to go fill out paperwork. She came back and we’ve been sitting alone in this tiny room for probably an hour and we haven’t said one word to each other. I don’t know why she’s not talking. For myself, I can only say that this is all so fucking weird that I don’t know what to say—it’s probably the same for her.
“What?”
“Your name, what is it.”
“Hope.”
“Hope?”
“Yeah. My dad and his sisters are kind of strange. They all chose to name their kids in a type of theme. Dad named me and my two sisters Hope, Faith and Charity.”
“Your Mom didn’t mind?”
“Mom never worries about much. She’s kind of…self-involved.”
“Good you had your Dad...”
“For a while, yeah.”
“He’s dead?”
“He passed away a few years ago. I miss him, he was an amazing man.”
“Do I have parents? Did you call them? Fuck! This is so… it’s a mess,” I growl out with a breath that hurts to take. My head is still throbbing. I lay back against the pillow, and I don’t know what kind of man I was before, but the one I am now, has the strangest urge to slam my fist over and over into the wall until something—anything starts to make sense.
“I… there’s no one for me to call, Aden. I’m sorry,” she says, her face down, refusing to look at me. Probably because she doesn’t want to hurt me by explaining I have no one in the world… Well that’s not exactly true. There’s her. Apparently I have Hope… my wife.
“What kind of themes were your cousins named from?”
“Well Aunt Edna never had kids. She’s the one I…we inherited the motel from. My Aunt Ida Sue though, she had enough kids to run her own football team.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She named her sons after colors and her daughters after flowers.”
“Flowers could work…but colors? That seems a little out there.”
“That’s my Aunt. There’s Gray, Green, White—you’ve met him, Cyan—”
“Cyan? That poor sap,” I mumble trying to imagine going through life with that name.”
“Yeah, and then there’s Black and Blue, the twins.”
“Now you’re just busting my balls.”
“Afraid not. I told you my Aunt is very…colorful—pun intended.”
I shake my head, but immediately regret it as pain radiates at the base of my spine and neck.
“Mother-fucker,” I mumble under my breath.
Hope jumps up and comes to my side. She puts her hand along the side of my face, brushing against my beard and pushing the hair from my face. It’s a soft touch, one I have to admit feels nice.
“You need to lay your head back and try to rest.”
“They told me I can’t sleep yet,” I joke.
“You can rest. I’m sorry, Aden… I really am,” she says and she sounds so sad. I lift my gaze to look into her eyes.
“How long have we been married?”
“Uh…well... that’s been a recent thing really.”
“It has?”
“We… well we didn’t like each other a lot.”
“In the beginning?”
She shrugs, but doesn’t really answer.
“This is so frustrating,” I growl, my eyes closing as I lean back, feeling hopeless.
“You don’t remember anything?” she asks.
“It’s so weird… I mean I look at the television and I know it’s a television. I look at the phone or things around the room and I instantly know what they are. I can remember the taste of a good steak and I remember smells I love. I can even remember that I despise the taste of tea. Yet…the rest of it… all of it, that’s all just…blank.
“And you can’t remember me at all?” she asks, and I hate that I have to tell her no. I can’t remember being married, but I imagine the last thing a woman wants to hear from her husband is that he remembers nothing about her.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, feeling stupid, but not knowing what else to say.
“Don’t worry about it,” she whispers, her hand brushing my face again. I close my eyes again and just try and breathe through the roaring ache of pain in my head. As I inhale, I catch a scent in the air above the disinfectant of the hospital.
“You smell like vanilla,” I tell her.
“Huh?”
“You smell like vanilla. I don’t know why, but I can remember that as my favorite scent.”
“Oh… it’s my bath crème and lotion…” she answers. I open my eyes to see shock on her face.
“It’s nice.”
“Uh…Thanks. You rest, I’m going to go talk to the doctor and see if I can do anything to help you.”
“Okay. Thanks… Hope.”
She doesn’t answer and a minute later I hear the door close. I instantly miss the scent of vanilla. I may not remember being married, but apparently I can remember the sweet smell of my wife.
My wife…
That sounds strange as hell.
Everything does.
22
Hope
I did a bad thing… but I’m not a bad person.
I keep repeating those lines over and over. I’ve done it for the two days that Aden has been in the hospital. It doesn’t help. I go home after leaving him here every night, feeling horrible. It’s made worse because Aden has actually been kind of nice to me. I mean, he has his moments, but for the most part he’s been nice.
Nice.
Daria thinks I’ve lost my mind and I have to agree with her. Still, it’s nine in the morning and I’m getting ready to leave and go pick Aden up. Today is the day he gets to come home from the hospital and I’m already a bundle of nerves.
“What are you going to do, Hope? Pretend to be married to him for the rest of your life? All so he doesn’t sue you?”
Admittedly, when she puts it like that it sounds absurd. Still, I’m in a corner here and I don’t know what I’m going to do, I just know I need time to figure things out.
“No, of course not. I just need a few days to—”
“Dig yourself in deeper? This is crazy honey, and before I thought you were just being crazy in your panic. There was no way you could go to jail, but this… honey this damn scheme of yours could actually end with you getting put in prison!”
“How? I’m giving him a place to stay. I’m helping him. I’m not taking anything from him.”
“Okay, fine. So maybe you won’t be thrown in jail, but you could definitely be sued for this. Do you think he’s just going to remarkably change his character when his memory comes back? This is crazy!”
“Dar, don’t you understand? I don’t have a choi
ce!”
“Honey, you do have a choice. You can end this now, before you dig yourself a hole that you can’t get out of.”
“I already have,” I tell her softly, opening up the door to leave. “Can you bring Jack to me this afternoon?”
“I can…I don’t know what you have planned in that head of yours, but I will.”
“I’m just trying to survive Dar,” I answer, leaning on the door. “I’m just trying to survive.”
I close the door before she can respond. I think I’m mostly afraid of what she will say. She’s right, I know she is. If I confess everything to Aden, will he sue me? Probably. Will he press charges against me and try to have me arrested? I want to say no, but despite what I told Daria, there’s a big part of me that thinks he will. Which leaves me… right where I’m at. Going to the hospital to pick my husband up and bring him home.
God help me.
23
Aden
“We live here?” I ask Hope when we pull up to the motel. I had no preconceived notions—or at least I thought I didn’t—but, I didn’t expect a motel that looks like a mom and pop place from the 1950’s.
Again, it’s frustrating that I can picture something like that in my head easily, and yet can’t remember what I had for breakfast four days ago. About the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now is Hope.
She turns the car off and I watch her from the corner of my eye. She stiffens at my words. She’s obviously proud of this dump. Maybe it’s because it was in her family; that’s the only reason I can come up with as to why.
“It may not look like much, but it felt like home after the mess of Indiana.”
“Indiana? Is that where we’re from? We just picked up and moved? What do I do for a living?”
“Uh…You help me.”
“Help you?”
“Yeah. You help me with repairs here and getting this place ready. We were supposed to open the day after your fall, but—”