When I Lost You: A Gripping, Heart Breaking Novel of Lost Love.(9)
And then there’s the worst part – the messy months in this current year of our life together. It is too much to contemplate and after all the tension and stress, this amnesia feels like one more blow to what has already been the worst period of my life.
Leo would snap at me if he knew just how sorry I am feeling for myself – get some perspective, Molly! There are children starving to death in Syria, you can survive a few awkward weeks with me. I try to console myself and to stay grounded. I need to calm myself too, and there are real positives here. Leo is alive, against all the odds. He can move – well, mostly – and he can speak. There could very easily have been infinitely worse outcomes from this accident.
I have somehow drifted into a light doze at Leo’s bedside when I am woken by movement. Hesitantly I open my eyes and see Alda standing beside him, setting up a tray on the mobile table.
‘I feel better every time I wake up,’ I hear Leo murmur quietly.
‘This good, Mr Stephens.’
‘Please, call me Leo. It’s Alda, isn’t it?’
‘Si, Leo,’ Alda confirms.
I stay in my chair, watching from a distance, unsure of what I should do. Do I approach the bed, or does he want privacy? There has been no dignity in the care he’s required in the last few weeks, but at least he didn’t know about it – his consciousness presents a new layer of sensitivity that I will need to navigate carefully.
‘I’m unbelievably thirsty and hungry,’ he says now, and Alda laughs quietly.
‘You no eat or drink for two weeks – I’m not surprised!’ she chuckles. I hear her tearing open packaging. ‘I feed you?’
‘No. God, no!’ he says, and he takes a spoon from her. ‘Apparently I can’t move my legs or remember what year it is, but I can definitely feed myself.’
He glances towards me and our eyes meet and lock. I have invested countless hours of my life staring into these beautiful brown eyes. I remember vividly the feeling of being close to lost in them when we first started going out – the sensation of sinking and drowning and feeling blissfully content to go to some other place with and through him. Leo’s eyes have seen the world in a way that I could never have imagined before I met him and in all of the perfect moments of those intimate stares, he shared some of that with me.
This is not one of those moments. In fact, those moments have disappeared altogether from our lives this past year. I can’t even remember the last time we really looked at each other – these days our eye contact has been reduced to passing glances and disdainful glares. Seeing the openness and curiosity in Leo’s eyes, I am sorely tempted to pretend even to myself that everything is as it always was, even just for a moment. This thought is followed immediately by guilt, as if I’m using Leo while he’s vulnerable – taking advantage of him even just in the way I’m looking at him. I drag my eyes to the floor before I greet him.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello, Molly,’ he says quietly. We fall silent as Alda pushes the little bed-table over Leo’s lap and then she flashes me a smile as she leaves the room. Then I am alone with my husband and there is no denying it – I am too nervous to even think straight and I have no idea what to do next. I stand but immediately regret it because I don’t want to move towards the bed and make him feel even more uncomfortable. After a moment of leaning forward as if I might approach him, then hesitating and stepping back, I settle on standing stiffly with my hands clenched in fists by my thighs. I will wait for Leo to make the first move.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he says suddenly. ‘About before. Was that earlier today, or was it yesterday?’
‘It was a few hours ago. And please, you don’t need to apologise, really.’ I trip over my words in my haste to console him. ‘You don’t remember anything at all about us?’ He shakes his head. ‘That must have been bewildering for you.’
‘It’s still bewildering,’ he says quietly. I can hear the uncertainty in his voice – he’s still not convinced that we are telling him the truth. I walk to the small table beside his bed and withdraw my handbag, then reach inside for my passport which I flip open and then sit on the blanket beside his thigh.
‘See? Molly Torrington-Stephens.’ I show him the text beside the obligatory bad photo and then I raise the fingers of my left hand towards him to draw attention to my rings. ‘And this, as I’m sure you remember, was your grandmother’s engagement ring. You had a new stone set in it because the old one was cracked, but the design will be familiar.’
He silently stares at the rings on my left hand. We have never talked about it, because Leo does not cry and he does not talk about crying – but I am sure I saw tears in his eyes when he slid this band onto my finger at our wedding. We made each other happy, at least that day. It was the kind of happiness that grows bigger than a person or a couple and engulfs everyone there to witness it. It was the best day of my life.
In spite of everything that came after, the idea that the memories of who we were together might be for ever lost to him is unbearable. We were good to each other – good for each other – at least for a time. I lift my eyes to his face and find him staring at the passport again, his expression unreadable.
‘If this is true,’ he says suddenly. ‘Why aren’t I wearing a ring?’