Do You Remember(29)

I look down at my left hand, expecting to see the ring Harry gave me. The modest little diamond that he saved up for over several months. But it’s not there. Instead, there’s a much bigger diamond—almost embarrassingly large.

“I know this is hard to accept.” Graham settles down on the edge of the bed next to me. His hair is still damp from the shower, a few water droplets glistening in the short strands of his hair, which is darkened by moisture. “But after the initial shock, you’re usually okay. You usually have a nice day.”

I run my fingers through my dark hair. I can’t get used to how short it is. And then when my fingertips touch my scalp, I feel something strange. A scar. A jolt of electricity goes through my skull and I jerk my hand away.

Graham pushes his glasses up his nose. “They did surgery. To remove some of the blood from your brain. That’s why we had to cut your hair, but it’s mostly grown back.”

Gingerly, I reach for my scalp again. I trace the raised skin, where the hair will never grow again. There’s a long scar in the shape of a C on the right side of my skull.

“God,” I murmur.

Graham attempts to reach for my hand, but I pluck it away. I’m not ready to let this stranger touch me. Not yet.

I look over at the fancy dresser across from the bed—at all the photos of me and Graham in our previously happy life. The pictures span our lives until a year ago, when I apparently was in a horrible accident that permanently damaged my brain. I look at the center photo, of me in a gorgeous white wedding dress and Graham standing next to me, looking devastatingly handsome in a tuxedo.

“How come the glass is broken on our wedding photo?” I ask.

He looks up sharply, following my gaze to the wedding photo. “Oh. You dropped it yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to get it replaced.”

I stare at the broken glass in the photo, the scar on my head aching dully. Our wedding photo is broken—smashed to pieces. My face is a spider web of cracks. There’s something unsettling about it. Why wouldn’t he put the photo away until he could replace the frame?

“Why don’t you go take a shower?” Graham suggests. “I’ll go downstairs and make us some breakfast before I have to leave for work.”

I don’t want to say this to him, because he’s being so nice to me, but I’m deeply relieved that Graham is going to leave the room, and even more relieved that he’s going to work and will be out of the house all day. I don’t want to be anywhere near this stranger.

I return to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I reach for the doorknob to lock the door, but that’s when I realize there’s no lock on it. When Harry and I bought this house, there was a lock on the bathroom door. I remember it distinctly.

Where did the lock go?

I suppose it was removed at some point. Maybe Graham felt it wasn’t safe for me to be locked in the bathroom, given my situation. But I hate the idea that anybody could burst into this room at any moment.

I force myself to look at my reflection in the vanity mirror. It’s so strange. It’s me, but not me. But also definitely me. The short hair is the most jarring part of all, but my face looks different in subtle ways. Ways that maybe only I would notice. A few creases around my eyes. My cheeks aren’t quite as full.

And there are dark purple circles under my eyes.

I pull off my night shirt and drop it on our shiny new toilet. I run my fingers over the bare skin of my chest. It’s not that different from what I remember. But if I continue to have these memory problems over years and decades, that will change. Someday, I’m going to walk over to the mirror and see an old lady staring back at me.

The thought of it brings on a wave of nausea. I double over, clutching my stomach. I need to calm down. It’s like that letter I wrote said—if I relax and accept it, I’ll be fine.

And then I notice something on my thigh. Black ink.

Somebody scrawled a sentence on my thigh, above where my nightshirt ends. It looks like my own handwriting, but it’s hard to tell. I squint at the words, and a chill goes through me when I realize what they say.

Graham is drugging you.

Oh my God.

I’m shaking so badly that I barely make it to the toilet before my legs give out beneath me. I sit there, staring at the message scribbled on my leg. I’m obviously the one who wrote it there. It’s upside down, the way it would be if I were writing it. Nobody else could have written that. And I wrote it in a place where I didn’t think Graham would see.

My husband is drugging me. I don’t know whether I have a head injury, but either way, something is going on. He’s doing this to me.

I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to call the police.

I peek outside the bathroom—Graham has gone downstairs. I forget about showering and slip outside the bathroom. I fumble through the drawers, looking for something to wear. I find piles of women’s clothing, but none of it looks familiar to me. All my old stuff is gone. My Weezer T-shirt. My fuzzy green sweater I always wore on St. Patrick’s Day. My favorite pair of blue jeans with the giant hole in the right knee that Harry used to joke made me look like I was in a grunge band. Everything is gone.

But I don’t have time to care about any of that. I select a sweater and a pair of jeans, then slide my feet into a pair of blindingly white sneakers, so new that they still feel stiff. I look around for a wallet or any kind of money—I usually keep my wallet on the clothing dresser.