Do You Remember(39)

My fingers trace the scar on my scalp. Something happened to me. There was an accident. I just wish I knew what happened next. I only see one small mention of me in the last year, saying that Tess Thurman asks for privacy as she recovers from a car accident.

After I’m done looking up myself, I google the name Harrison Finch. But while my name is all over the Internet, he’s a ghost. I see nothing about him. It’s like after we broke up, he just… vanished. It makes me wonder how I found him in the first place.

I wish he had let me go with him this morning. I don’t want to be back here anymore. I wanted to leave with him. I don’t understand why he was so resistant.

I search my phone for the messages he sent me, but then remember he told me to delete them. I roll up the sleeve of my shirt—the digits Harry scribbled are still there, a reminder of our brief meeting. I close my eyes and feel that little tingle in my arm, remembering the way his fingers felt on my skin. Before I can overthink it, I type the number into my phone and send off a text message:



I miss you.



There’s no response. I stare at the screen of my phone, for five minutes, ten minutes, but still nothing. Did I imagine the entire encounter with Harry? Is that possible? No, it couldn’t be. He wrote his number on my arm—that’s proof! He was there. I know it. I’m not crazy.

Then the reply pops up:



I miss you too, Tess. You have no idea.



And then:



Delete these messages.



I do as he tells me. After all, he has a good point. If someone is drugging me, they don’t need to see these messages.

Camila is still in the kitchen, out of sight. If I’m going to go upstairs and check Graham’s office, now is the time. She’ll never even know I’m up there.

I shove my phone into my pocket and creep over to the staircase. The house has three bedrooms on the second floor. One for us and one for each of our future children, Harry told me when we were looking at the house. We weren’t engaged back then, but we knew it was coming. We used to joke about the children we might have.

Two boys, Harry would say.

No, I would argue, a boy and a girl.

Fine. A boy and a girl. But I get to name them both.

And then we would compete to come up with the most psychologically damaging names for a child we could think of. At last count, the leading contender for our first child was Purple Monkey Dishwasher Finch. We had almost gotten to the point where we could say it without laughing.

God, I really miss Harry.

I try the doorknob to the room next to our bedroom. The knob turns easily, revealing a guest bedroom. The bed is neatly made, the navy blue bedspread neatly folded, and the pillow perfectly plumped. I wonder if Graham and I used to entertain overnight guests a lot before my accident.

It occurs to me that Graham and I have been married four years, but we don’t have children. Both of us are already in our late thirties, so it’s unlikely that we were waiting to conceive in the future. I’ve always wanted children, and it surprises me that at this point in my life, I still don’t have any. Did Graham want children? Did he talk me out of it? Or did we try and fail to conceive?

I consider asking him later, but the answer would probably be depressing. Anyway, it’s the least of my problems right now. This situation would be so much more complicated if I had a small child to take care of right now. Or if I woke up six months pregnant. I clutch my abdomen protectively at the thought of it.

I try the doorknob to the next room over. Again, it turns easily in my hand. I push the door open, revealing a room containing a small loveseat, a tall bookcase littered with hard covers and loose papers, and as promised, there’s a mahogany desk in the corner of the room.

I have found Graham’s office.

I approach the desk. Right next to his laptop is a framed photo of the two of us. We’re on vacation, on the beach, looking tanned and happy. It’s… sweet. He wants to be reminded of our relationship while he’s working. The whole thing doesn’t quite make sense. I’m not in love with Graham because I just met the guy this morning, but he genuinely does not seem like an evil person. He seems nice. He’s stepped up and kept my company afloat when I obviously can’t. He’s been taking care of me when he would be justified shutting me away in some sort of nursing home. He even made me breakfast this morning, even though it was horribly burned, and also, I was too scared to eat it.

Is it possible that Graham isn’t drugging me? That somehow I got it all wrong, and I dragged Harry into my delusion?

I look down at the desk drawers. I pull them open one by one. They all open easily and are filled with papers related to my company. Until I get to the last drawer, which is locked.

I rattle the drawer, listening for the sound of pills shaking. I don’t hear anything like that.

I wonder what made me think there was something important in this drawer. Was it just the fact that it’s locked?

I go through the other drawers again, this time looking for a key. I’m sure Graham keeps the key on his key ring, but I bet he’s got a spare. Graham seems like the sort of guy who always has a spare key.

When my phone rings, I nearly jump out of my skin. I fumble to pull it out of my pocket, terrified it’s Graham, and he knows what I’m doing. But it’s not Graham.

It’s Lucy.