A Novel Idea

by Melissa Bowersock

  Chapter 1

  SHE woke up, terrified.

  One eye opened on a small room with white walls, white sheets over her in a white bed, drawn white Venetian blinds. The other eye didn’t open at all.

  In a quick, instinctive action, she attempted to put her hand to her eye—right hand, right eye. The hand was bound, the arm splinted and secured to her side. With her good left eye, she stared at the bandaged, cast arm and white bandages.

  She put her left hand to her face. Her right eye was patched, taped, and the tape extended like a cap over most of her head. She had smaller bandages on her chin. At the movement of her arm, her ribs ached. They were wrapped, too.

  She was in a hospital; she’d been hurt. But she didn’t know how. She didn’t know what hospital in what city. She didn’t know anything that had happened to her, and she didn’t know who she was.

  In a sudden surge of panic, she tried to sit up—pain in her ribs grabbed her at her sudden intake of breath—and she looked around. She was in a private room so there was no second bed, no place for anyone else to be. The door was closed. If she were in a mental hospital, which she felt was a distinct possibility, it would be locked. A quick glance at her unbound left wrist allayed her worst fear, but didn’t reduce the panic building inside of her. She had to do something! A nurse’s button squatted on her bedside table and she jabbed at it. There was no sound. She hit it again, pushed it down and held it. There was a whisper of movement from behind the closed door.

  A nurse strode in, tall and slender, concerned, curious. She wore a tight smile.

  “Good morning. How are you fee—”

  “What’s happened to me? Why am I here? Who am I?” The voice burst from her, unfamiliar and high with panic.

  “What?” The nurse looked taken back. Quickly, professionally, she readjusted. “Now, calm down, Mi—”

  “Tell me who I am!” she pleaded piteously. “Please tell me who I am!”

  She didn’t recognize the doctor, but at this point she would have been suspiciously surprised if she recognized anyone. The nurse had skittered out of the room so fast that she knew she was seriously ill. She forced herself into a semblance of composure although she was still quaking inside.

  The doctor was average height, mid-forties, with short, curly salt and pepper hair. He had a quick smile, reassuring yet without the impersonal blandness of the nurse. His eyes were gray and quick, haloed by crow’s-foot wrinkles. He brushed past the nurse at the door and breezed in.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Dr. D’Angelo. I’m glad to see you’re awake. I expected you to come out of the anesthetic yesterday evening, but with all your injuries, I’m just as glad you slept.”

  She stared at him, her mind straining to remember him, to remember anything. It was all a blank.

  “I don’t—should I ...”

  Dr. D’Angelo smiled compassionately. “You don’t know me. The only time you may have seen me before was when you were already under the effects of the anesthesia.” His smile faded. “The nurse tells me you don’t know who you are. Is that right?”

  She was afraid she might cry. She nodded, feeling her chin quiver, wanting this man to comfort her, console her, give her back her life. “I, I ...” Her voice broke.

  “That’s all right,” Dr. D’Angelo said as he took her hand and patted it while she struggled to swallow her tears. “It must be terribly frightening for you. You are safe, though, and you’ll be fine in a few days, physically at least. Do you mind if I check something?”

  She shook her head. He pulled out a penlight and leaned toward her to shine it into her good eye. Whatever he saw when he held her eye open with practiced fingers seemed to satisfy him. He sat back in his chair.

  “We were afraid you had some internal hemorrhaging, but I don’t think so. You do have a severe concussion, though. Your right arm is broken, and your shoulder was dislocated. Your right eye is all right, just some close cuts that required stitches, and I was afraid you’d rub at them in your sleep. We can take the patch off now. Oh, and you bruised a couple of ribs.”

  “What happened to me?”

  “You were in a car accident. You don’t remember anything about it?”

  She shook her head. “Can you—tell me who I am?”

  That smile again. “Your name is Eleanor Cole. You’re twenty-four years old, and you were in a very serious accident. The driver of the car was killed. From what I can gather, you took the brunt of the impact on the right side of your upper body, which is why you feel so lopsided. We had thought you were extremely lucky to come out with a concussion when, by rights, you might have had your skull crushed. Is anything I’m telling you bringing any memories to mind?”

  “No, none of it. Does amnesia always do that, blank out everything? I feel so lost.”

  “I’m not surprised. Amnesia’s a funny thing. We still don’t understand it. Sometimes it can affect people partially, blocking out only parts of their memory, although mostly that’s a psychological mechanism. Yours, I would guess, is strictly physical, and that kind very often produces a complete blank.”

  “It is permanent?”

  “Again, we’re not sure. Sometimes it’ll clear up in a few days, sometimes never. I’ve seen cases where it comes back little by little and cases where the patient wakes up one morning and boom, it’s all back. I’m afraid that’s not very professional, but we just don’t know. It’s not a very promising picture, but I don’t want to give you any false hopes.”

  “I see.” Intellectually, she did. Emotionally, she felt like Alice in Wonderland, fallen down a rabbit hole and unable to get back or even to see where she fell from. Dr. D’Angelo was nice, but he wasn’t a fixture in her life. She had a name and an age, but other than that, she had nothing. She was entirely alone.

  “I hate to ask this, but do you feel up to some simple tests? Nothing difficult, just blood and pulse, simple reflexes, that sort of thing. Maybe later we’ll do a brain scan just to be safe.”

  “Will you be able to tell why I can’t remember?”

  “I don’t know. It’s doubtful.”

  “All right. Whatever you have to do is all right.”

  He studied her for a moment, then rose to go. “I’m sure you don’t feel lucky right now, but perhaps later, you’ll be able to look back and see it. You really are a very lucky young woman.”

  The nurse administered the first tests. Eleanor submitted to her instructions without protest. She allowed her temperature to be taken, her pulse, even a small blood sample and endured it all without a word.

  She didn’t feel like an Eleanor. Eleanor sounded like a comic name for an elephant, or at the very least an aged, maiden aunt. What kind of parents had she had that would name a baby Eleanor? And where were Mr. and Mrs. Cole anyway? Did they know that their daughter was dead and that a newborn, frightened girl cowered in Eleanor’s body?

  “What city is this?” she dared when the nurse removed the thermometer.

  “Denver.”

  “Colorado?”

  “Yes. Do you know the city?” The nurse went about her duties but watched Eleanor curiously.

  “No. I just know it’s in Colorado.” She hesitated to ask her next question. “Is there …. has there been anyone waiting to see me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Cole’s been quite anxious to see you. Do you think you’d like to have a visitor?”

  “I don’t know.” She was half relieved, half panic-stricken. At least someone was here who knew her, someone from her past life. That was comforting. But what would her father think when she didn’t recognize him? And where was her mother? Dead? She wasn’t sure she wanted to have her father come in and be a total stranger.

  “He’s been waiting all night. I think he slept in the waiting room,” the nurse went on. “I don’t know if the doctor had a chance to talk to him or not, but I know he’s very anxious to see you if you feel up to it.”

  “What about the tests?”

  “I’m
almost done with what I have to do here, and the doctor’s ordered a brain scan. That will be in a little while. You have time.”

  “Well,” she swallowed, “I guess so. Can I—can you take this bandage off my eye? Dr. D’Angelo said it was okay.”

  “Sure,” the nurse answered with a smile and peeled the tape off Eleanor’s tender skin. “Is that better?”

  “Yes. At least I don’t feel like a fish anymore, staring out only one side of my face. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll just run these things to the lab and then let the desk know you can see Mr. Cole. If you want anything, just buzz.”

  “Thank you.”

  Eleanor felt around her right eye. There were three or four small cuts woven with stitches. She realized Dr. D’Angelo was right. She was lucky. It was difficult enough coming to terms with her amnesia but how much more so would it be if she were blind? Just the thought made her shiver.

  She wished she’d thought to have the nurse open the blinds. She knew it was mid-morning, but she had no idea what day it was or what season. She’d like to look outside. Maybe once her father got over the initial shock, he would open them for her. She wondered what he would look like.

  There was the whispering behind the door that signaled someone’s entrance. A different nurse, younger, more girlish, pushed open the door.

  “Mrs. Cole?” she called cheerfully. “Your husband is here to see you.”

  Husband?

  The word was a cold steel sword piercing her body, impaling her on the bed in frozen fear. God, she was married! The idea of meeting her husband bound up her brain in a functionless vise. She pressed back into the pillows and stared at the opening door like a rabbit at an approaching snake.

  As soon as she saw him, she realized she had good cause to be afraid.

  He was huge. His thick, black hair only missed the top door jamb by a fraction of an inch, and his shoulders filled the entire width of the frame. He came in casually yet there was a tautness to his walk, a tension in his carriage that frightened her. But his eyes—his eyes were enough to elicit a whimper of fear from her.

  They were black and as deep as a bottomless pool. They looked like the kind of eyes Satan might have—commanding, examining, discerning. They swept her in a contemptible gaze. His entire face was arranged in a forbidding frown. She felt a chilling feeling wash over her, a feeling that he would much rather have seen her dead.

  “Good morning, Elly,” he said. His voice was deep-timbered yet she heard the bite of sarcasm. “How are you feeling?”

  She couldn’t answer. Her throat worked soundlessly, her mouth opened, but no words came out.

  “Speechless, Elly?” He stood close by the bed, his hands held behind his back as if to keep from slapping her. His black brows frowned down at her. “What’s the matter, did you use up all your powers of communication on that marvelous little note you left me? Or didn’t you expect to see me here? You don’t have anyone else now, you know. Just me.”

  It sounded like a threat. Elly squirmed. She didn’t like this man. She wished a nurse would come.

  “I’m waiting, Elly,” he said crossly. “If you’re expecting pity for your wounds, you can forget it. Well? No tears? No explanations? Your note was so well worded. I’m waiting for a live performance.”

  “Have you—” her voice was barely a whisper— “have you talked with Dr. D’Angelo?”

  “Last night. He told me what all you’ve got splinted and bandaged. You don’t really expect me to feel sorry for you, do you?”

  “I don’t expect anything,” she managed. “I don’t remember anything.”

  His scowl deepened. “What do you mean, you don’t remember anything? Don’t try to pass this off, Elly. It won’t work.”

  A needle of irritation worked beneath the fear she felt. The man knew he was threatening-looking, and he played it for all he was worth. She found a trace of stubbornness to use against his bullying.

  “I’m not trying to ‘pass off’ anything,” she said coldly. “I have amnesia. I don’t know you or anything about any of the things you’re saying. I can’t remember anything at all.”

  His black eyes sparked to life and he studied her face, his look leaving her cold. The planes of his face were like cool stone. She tried not to shrink away from the hatred she felt emanating from him, but it was almost a physical force.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he growled low in his throat. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t remember writing that note? I have it with me, you know. Or you don’t remember packing and leaving? It’s gone too far to play games, Elly.”

  “I’m not playing games, and I’m not trying to tell you anything except that I don’t remember.” She was surprised at the anger she felt, too surprised to notice how her voice had risen or how her husband’s jaw tightened.

  “If you don’t remember anything, then why did you look like a scared rabbit when I came in? You wouldn’t be afraid of me if you didn’t remember.”

  “I didn’t know you were my husband. They said Mr. Cole; I thought they meant my father. And when you came in, you looked like you wanted to finish what the accident didn’t. Why shouldn’t I be afraid? Apparently, I have good reason to be.”

  “You’re damn right you do,” he agreed.

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t know what it was that I supposedly did to you to make you so mad, but—”

  “You don’t know what you supposedly did?” he sneered. “Well, let me tell you, Mrs. Cole.” He pulled the doctor’s chair up and leaned over the back of it. “You wrote me a wonderful note telling me what an emotional cripple I was, packed your bags and ran off with your lover. That’s what you did.”

  Elly was stunned. “No. You’re lying.”

  “I wish I were.”

  She couldn’t face those black, bottomless eyes. Shaking her head, she looked down. “It’s impossible. I don’t feel like I could have done that. I ought to be able to feel something.” Try as she might, she could summon up no names, no faces, no emotions except the confusing ones struggling inside of her right now. Expecting her to claim those emotion-charged actions was unthinkable.

  Then she remembered something Dr. D’Angelo had said.

  “The doctor said the driver of the car was killed.” She stared up at her husband guilelessly. “Was that ... ?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded and looked away. “I don’t see how it can be true, what you’re telling me. I don’t even know his name. I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel—anything.”

  “His name was Adam,” Cole supplied through clenched teeth. “You know, like the first man?”

  His tone alerted Elly and she tried to read his eyes. There was something else there, an inference.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t spar with you about it; I don’t know my lines.”

  Their eyes locked in an unforgiving tug-of-war. Elly could see that her husband had no plans to let her off the hook for what she’d done, but she refused to be bullied. She didn’t feel guilty and she wouldn’t act like it, regardless of the way he glared at her. If their marriage had been so filled with hate, maybe they were better off divorced. Maybe, once she got her bearings, that was the course of action she’d have to take. It was ridiculous to fight with a man she didn’t know.

  “Mrs. Cole? Oh.” The tall nurse pushed in, then stopped at the sight of the hulking Mr. Cole standing so oddly over his wife. In the split second before he turned away, she could feel the tension. It was obvious they’d had words.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cole, I’ll have to ask you to leave now. Mrs. Cole is scheduled for further tests upstairs.”

  “Fine,” he said. He couldn’t erase the anger from his voice, but when he straightened and faced the nurse, his features were smoothed into an expressionless mask. “When can I see her again?”

  “I’m not sure how long the tests will take. You had probably better check with the doctor a little later. I’m sur
e he’ll have a better idea of Mrs. Cole’s condition.”

  He nodded and started for the door. Just past the nurse, he stopped and stared back at Elly. “We’ll catch up on things later,” he said, and walked out.

  During the testing, Elly asked the doctor—innocently—to brush her up on her past history. While a technician applied electrodes to her hairline, Dr. D’Angelo read her medical file to her.

  “Parents Glen and Peg Hatcher, address given as Carrizozo, New Mexico. One brother, Bryan, two years older, also in New Mexico. Your husband is thirty-four and a colonel in the Air Force. You live in Colorado Springs, where you are employed by the Colorado Springs School District. You have no children. Your medical history is normal: mumps, measles, chicken pox. No congenital diseases, no heart problems, no respiratory difficulties. You’re a normal, red-blooded American girl. Unfortunately your file has nothing about your emotional life. I can’t tell you a thing about what kind of life you had before the accident.”

  He paused, watching as the last of the electrode pins were placed beneath the skin around her hair. When the technician was done, D’Angelo handed him the chart and sent him out of the room.

  “The nurse told me your husband was in to see you. I don’t know what went on; I don’t think I want to. If I’d been consulted, I wouldn’t have allowed it, but I suppose I should have made that clear. I’m sorry. I hope it wasn’t too upsetting.”

  Elly remained silent. How could she explain what she didn’t understand herself?

  “I’ve left word at the desk that you’re to have no visitors without clearance from me, and I’ll always check with you. I think it best to re-educate you to your past life slowly.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “One thing, though, that I can’t ignore and you’ve got to know. You’re eight weeks pregnant.”

  The tests showed nothing that they didn’t already know. The EEG showed normal waves, normal activity. Whatever synapse that had broken down to cause her memory lapse was apparently not disrupting her other cranial functions, and she tested out perfectly normal. Dr. D’Angelo wasn’t surprised.

  “I was afraid it might be like this,” he shrugged when he visited her in her room later. “Not that I didn’t want you to test out normal, but it gives us absolutely no clues. The best we can hope for is that once you return to your regular day-to-day life, the familiar places, the people, the routines will jog memory banks and bring it back to you in time. It could start to happen immediately; it could take any amount of time you want to name. We just don’t know.”

  “I understand.”

  Dr. D’Angelo sighed impatiently. “I wish I could do more. The good news is that your concussion is not as bad as it could be, and you can go home in a day or two. I’ll have to set up appointments for you to check back, say every two weeks for a month or so, then I’ll want to see you about every six weeks. The cast can come off in four to six weeks. After that, you should be about as good as new.”

  Elly felt her stomach knot. Go home with her husband? Leave the safety of the hospital and go off with that huge, hulking stranger who hated her?

  “Mrs. Cole,” the doctor interrupted. At the sight of her pale stricken face, he reached for her hand. “If you have any doubts about your safety in a home situation with your husband, please let me know. Maybe I could call your parents, or ...”

  “Do my parents know? Do they know where I am or what happened?”

  “Your husband told me he had called them. More than that I don’t know and this, of course, was before we knew you were amnesiac. Would you like me to call them?”

  “I—no, not yet. I’ve got to think. I feel so lost, I just don’t know who I can turn to, who I need. It’s frightening to even think of meeting people I’m supposed to know and finding them total strangers.”

  “I’m sure it must be very strange.” He stood, clipboard under his arm. “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’ll check back with you after dinner.”

  “Thank you.” She braved a smile for the one person in the world who seemed to care for her. She didn’t even want to think about leaving the safety of his jurisdiction.

  “Oh, Doctor,” she called when he was almost out the door. He turned back. “The man who was killed? In the car?” He nodded. “Was his name Adam?”

  “Yes. Adam Wolfford.”

  Her bedside phone jangled her out of a troubled sleep. She instinctively reached with her right hand, remembered the cast and lay it against her side. It was a little difficult to learn to do things with her left hand, but she would manage.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Cole? Dr. D’Angelo. Did I wake you?”

  “Not really,” she lied. “What time is it?”

  “Almost seven. I’m afraid I’m running late; I had an emergency up here on three, and I’m not going to get back to you tonight. What I called for though was to find out if you want to see your husband. He’s been harassing the girls at the desk for over an hour, I guess, until I could get free. He’s very determined to see you.”

  Elly could well believe that. No doubt he wanted to do a little more headhunting.

  “It’s up to you,” Dr. D’Angelo continued. “If you feel up to it, it’s all right with me.”

  “Um, I think maybe no more today,” she said. “I am tired and I still need time to think. Maybe tomorrow he and I can decide what I should do.”

  “Good. I don’t want you immersed in emotional problems just yet. I’ll call down to the desk and have them tell Mr. Cole you’re sleeping. He can come back in the morning if he’s so determined.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then. Did you have dinner? Everything okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Any questions you want to ask, anything I can help you with?”

  “No, really, everything is fine. The only thing I want is my memory, and since I can’t have that, I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got.”

  She dreamed she was in a house, a huge white house with towers and gables and tall, leaded windows. She had to go inside, although she didn’t know why, and instead of rooms she found nothing but hallways. Long, dimly-lit corridors led in all directions, turned left, turned right, went on to infinity it seemed. At first she thought the walls were black, but as she chose a corridor and started down it, she realized it was paneled with mirrors—long, slender framed mirrors. Each mirror leaned at a slightly different angle than the ones on either side of it, so the collage of images they formed was a shattered, piecemeal picture of bits of frame and countless reflected mirrors. In none of the mirrors did she see herself.

  She walked on, rationalizing to herself that the mirrors were all at odd angles to her and that was why they were so curiously blank, but as she neared a corner she approached a larger mirror set heavily against the wall. Its face shown silver as she neared, and flattened to a dull gray as she came around its edge. When she stood in front of it, she stopped and turned her head slowly to its face.

  It reflected everything but her.

  When she assured herself she was awake, she had to lie still for a moment just to calm her pounding heart. Her left hand shook even as she pressed it to her chest, and her mouth was cottony. She caught her breath, then slid from the bed and made her way to the bathroom. The harsh, white light was almost blinding.

  She peered at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face was not familiar.

  She had blue eyes, dark with large, fearful pupils that seemed to try to hide in her face. Her features were ordinary, her nose average. She had neither high cheekbones nor a wide mouth. The only way to describe herself was, perhaps, nondescript.

  Except for the right eye. Uncovered, it still bore four small cross-hatched cuts that radiated outward toward her hair line. She touched a finger to the brownish stitches. One of them puckered, drew her skin upward in a parody of a childlike imitation of an Asian. Yes, her right eye had a definite slant to it.

  She wondered if Dr. D’A
ngelo had noticed. Perhaps the pucker would smooth out once the stitches were out. She’d have to ask him.

  Her cap of bandages was gone, but a three-inch square patch covered her right temple. She touched it gingerly; it was tender. Behind it, her hair was dark brown and hung lifelessly. It was blunt-cut just above her shoulders, and she apparently wore it without bangs. It looked very dull.

  Well, she thought, at least I have a face.

  For the first time she allowed herself to think about what Dr. D’Angelo had told her earlier. What would the baby look like? Her, or her dark, storm-cloud faced husband? She put a wondering hand on her stomach. Eight weeks wasn’t much. It wouldn’t move or even show for months. She had seven months to picture a face for it. Blue eyes, black eyes, or—God, she’d almost forgotten—what about Adam?

  She returned to her bed and fell heavily into it, the weight of the world pressing her down. It was all a huge, horrible practical joke, with her as the butt. Her former self had somehow gotten her into a hundred messes and then had conveniently vanished, leaving the new-born, memoryless Elly to clear them up. For some reason her marriage was a disaster, she was pregnant with a choice of fathers, and her lover, or at least the one man she trusted enough to go off with, was dead. It wasn’t fair that she be the one, she with no hindsight, to make sense out of the problems she’d had no hand in creating. And how could she possibly hope to handle having a baby when she was a baby herself, not even a day old? It was all ridiculous, crazy, insane. And depressing. Turning restlessly into her pillow, Elly felt tears welling in her dark blue eyes. Not even one day old, and she cried herself to sleep.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Cole. Sleep well?” Dr. D’Angelo settled himself cheerfully on the straight-backed chair.

  “Well enough, I guess. I think I could have used one of those frequently joked about sleeping pills, though.”

  He smiled at her humor. “Sorry. No sedatives for pregnant ladies. Maybe today you’ll feel more like walking. If we can tire you out, you’ll sleep better.”

  “I hope so. I’ve got so much to think about that my brain isn’t able to gear down. By the way, I did think of some questions I’d like answered.”

  “Oh? Good. I hope I can answer them.” He waited patiently.

  “Well,” she began slowly, “I’m not sure how to word it exactly. I was wondering why I know some things and not others. I knew Denver was in Colorado, I knew how to turn on the TV, how to open the blinds. Why can I remember unimportant things like that and not remember my name or even what I look like? I had to look at myself in the mirror last night before I knew what color my eyes were.”

  Dr. D’Angelo was nodding. “Yes, it’s usually that way. Very rarely we’ll hear of someone who needs to be completely re-taught, and I mean in everything—eating, walking, talking. Usually that sort of thing is bordering on catatonia, though, and that’s a whole different ball game. No, most amnesiacs are like you—the transparent knowledge of things we seldom think about is retained while anything dealing with the personality itself is suppressed. Again, as frustrating as it is, it’s not unusual.”

  “Frustrating is putting it lightly. Well, second question: I noticed my right eye looks a little slanted by the stitches. Will that be permanent?”

  “Oh?” He cocked his head at her, his quick, gray eyes dodging across her face. “Well, I’ll be. It sure is. I hadn’t noticed. That shouldn’t be a problem. Some of the swelling still needs to go down, and after a day or two you’ll probably notice the difference is less. Still, if it’s enough to bother you, we can do a little corrective plastic surgery. That part is easy.”

  “I’m glad something is.” She managed to return his smile. “I guess the only other thing is, do I get released today?”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I don’t know. Scared. I have no idea what I’ll be going to.”

  Dr. D’Angelo nodded. “Actually, I’d just as soon keep you one more day, just to be safe. By tomorrow morning we ought to be able to remove those stitches, fit you with a surgical girdle for your ribs and get that bandage off your head. At least you can go home not looking like a war casualty.”

  “All right. I can’t say that I mind.”

  “I didn’t think you would. I’m not awfully worried about your physical condition. You’re a tough, young woman. A lot of women would have lost that baby in an accident like that, but you must have deliberately shielded your abdomen with your head and shoulder. I’ve seen your records from your gynocologist in Colorado Springs and I can’t see that you’ll have any problems with your pregnancy. All in all, you’re in pretty good shape.”

  “Physically,” she amended.

  “Physically. Which reminds me. If you want any kind of counseling—psychological, psychiatric, whatever—we can set it up for you. It might make it easier to come to terms with your predicament, although I would say from what I’ve seen that you’re a pretty level-headed person.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think it would help. I’d probably fail the Rorschach. No, I think what I need to do is go home, wherever that is, and try to start where the me before left off. Somehow I’ve got to start at the beginning.”

  “Sounds commendable to me.” He rose to leave. “Which brings us to the fact that your husband is waiting to see you. Do you feel up to it?”

  She sighed and suppressed a shudder. “I guess so. He wants answers as much as I do, and at this point it looks like the only way to find them is by talking it out.”

  Dr. D’Angelo stared down at her a moment, pity foremost in his eyes. “If you need me, I’ll be on the floor. Just buzz the nurse.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  A nurse ushered Cole in, a slightly more reserved Cole, although his eyes sparked dangerously as soon as they settled on his wife. He kept his posture and carriage unprepossessing until the door clicked shut behind the nurse. Then, Elly realized uncomfortably, he reared up to his full height like a bear going to battle. It wasn’t a consoling sight.

  “Dr. D’Angelo said he’s going to release you tomorrow.”

  Elly ignored his lack of greeting. “Yes,” she said simply.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What are you going to do?” He stood at parade rest over her, his look at once commanding and daring.

  For the first time she considered the fact that he didn’t want her. Not that she could blame him, knowing how brazenly she had left once, but she had thought by his fiercely determined attitude that he still had some feeling for her. Hate binds as well as love, she reflected, and it was certainly hate she saw emanating from his eyes. But maybe it wasn’t the binding kind.

  “Well?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I have a lot of options. I might ask you, since you so obviously feel nothing but contempt for me, what do you care what I do?”

  He looked patently shocked. “You are my wife, you know.”

  “That doesn’t really answer the question.”

  “It does for me. You have a home, a career, a circle of friends. Where else would you go?”

  She shrugged with practiced unconcern. “I don’t know. I just have to wonder why you want me if I humiliated you so badly by leaving. You don’t love me—or who I was. I know that much. Why should you want me back?”

  He began to pace and looked for all the world like a huge black lion in a cage. Elly wondered if he were as brutally strong as he looked.

  “I need answers,” he said grudgingly. “I can’t deny that I’m angry and resentful of you. I’m not offering you a place of honor in my home, but I need answers. You can give them to me.”

  “Me?” She almost laughed. “I had to be told my own name and you expect me to have answers for you?”

  “Not right away, no.” He turned a stubborn look to her. “I’m not unreasonable. I know it’ll take time for you to remember. But when you do, I want to know why.”

  �
��Why what?”

  “Why you left me.”

  It was the last thing she expected him to say.

  “Dr. D’Angelo said I may never regain my memory.”

  “I don’t believe that. I think you will.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  His look darkened in rejection. “I guess we’ll never know until the time comes.”

  “I thought you said I left a note,” Elly remembered.

  “You did.”

  Suddenly she felt she was on shaky ground. Just the mention of the note brought a scowl to his face.

  “Did I explain anything in it?”

  “It was too emotional. It’s not valid.”

  “May I see it?”

  His head snapped up as if she had suggested something unforgivable. “No.”

  She roused in irritation. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not valid. It was an emotional attack on me and it just was not a practical explanation. It had no bearing on the actual situation.”

  “I would think if it were the last thing I wrote to you that it would have a lot of bearing. I may have been finally able to write what I had been feeling and not saying or, or—”

  “No!” he roared. “We won’t talk about the note! Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.”

  Like hell, Elly thought. His sudden thundering outburst quelled her own response, though. She wished she knew if he’d ever hit her.

  “All right,” she agreed, thin-lipped. “At any rate, I have more or less thought that I should go back home, wherever that is. I figured if I was ever going to remember, I would have to start where I left off before. I guess we’re both agreed on that.”

  He settled somewhat under her response. He looked relieved in a restless sort of way.

  “Good. I’ll pick you up tomorrow, then. About noon.”

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. Her coolness evaporated and she plucked nervously at her blanket. “It may make a difference, but you have a right to know. Dr. D’Angelo told me I’m pregnant.”

  There was a moment of silence but she couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes to his face. She had a feeling she wouldn’t have been comforted by what she saw there.

  “I know,” he said finally.

  “Did—did the doctor tell you?”

  “No. You did.”

  ###

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  Romance - Satire

  The Pits of Passion by Amber Flame