Last Summer(14)

Davie rubs her back. “No, you should cry. Come with me.” Davie straightens and holds out her hand. “Excuse us, Andrew.”

Andrew gets up from the table. “I’ll go find him and apologize, I guess.”

Ella follows Davie down the hall to her office, right next to Damien’s. She can hear Andrew’s and Damien’s muffled voices through the wall and wonders what they’re talking about. Her brother isn’t exactly famous for his apologies.

“I’m okay,” she tells Davie after she closes the door. She plucks a tissue from the box on her desk, dabs her eyes, and wipes her nose. “I think Damien thinks I’m lying.”

“About what?” Davie asks, sinking into the chair across from Ella’s desk.

“My selective memory loss.”

“He does? Did he say something?”

“Not really. It’s more a feeling than anything.”

“Forget a moment about what you think and what you think he thinks.” She waves her hands in front of her, confused. “Why would you fake something like this? There’s no point.”

“Exactly.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You guys will figure it out and deal when you’re ready. The memories will come back. Give it time.” Davie folds her legs under herself. “You know, I visited you in the hospital.”

“When?” Ella asks, sitting on the edge of her desk.

“Umm. Let’s see. Five days ago.”

“How was I?”

“Miserable. So was Damien. You were both in shock.”

“Makes sense.” Ella looks at her bare toes, the pink polish chipped and dull.

“Your pregnancy wasn’t planned,” Davie says softly.

“What?”

“I wasn’t sure how much you remember. I thought you’d want to know.”

Ella’s heart races. “Damien did want Simon, right?”

“Yes, he was ecstatic.”

“Good.” Ella sighs, relieved.

“But . . . it took him a while to come around. That’s what you told me.”

Ella chews her lower lip, her mind tracing back to Damien’s reaction to her memory loss. “You weren’t supposed to forget him,” he’d exclaimed. Why would he say something like that?

“Did I say anything at the hospital, anything strange?”

Davie frowns. “Like what?”

Ella shakes her head, unsure how to make sense of what Damien said and how to phrase it for Davie without it coming across as bizarre. Damien could have simply been shocked and the words came out of his mouth all wrong.

“What do you know about my accident?” she asks instead.

“Only what Damien told me.” Davie reiterates the same story Damien gave Ella that afternoon.

“Nothing else?”

Davie shakes her head. “I take it you don’t remember the accident.”

“No.” But she has the impression she and Damien argued beforehand. She asks Davie about it.

“If you did, you didn’t tell me.”

Ella hears laughter outside her door and the music on the Sonos speaker in her office abruptly stops.

“Game night is on,” Andrew shouts for them to hear.

Davie groans and sags in the chair. Ella, though, is relieved Damien’s mood has shifted.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” Ella could use an insane night of Cards Against Humanity. She slides off her desk and pats Davie’s knee.

“Fine,” she grunts, getting up. “As long as it’s not ‘Exploding Kitties’ again. I refuse to give your little bro another belly rub.”

“You weren’t supposed to give him a literal belly rub. And it’s Exploding Kittens, by the way.”

“Whatever. His fault for lying about the rules.”

“Maybe he’ll purr this time if you’re lucky.”

“Fuck you.”





CHAPTER 6

Ella wakes the following morning with the vague memory of Damien kissing her goodbye.

“I’ll try to be home early,” he murmured. But the softness of his tone belied his worry. He’d read an email from his vice president of sales before bed. They’d lost Imperial Properties, a nationwide commercial real estate company. Ella didn’t want him to go in to work. She’d rather spend the day in bed in his arms. The painkillers make her so sleepy. But after seven days off, he needed to make an appearance at the office and meet with his sales staff. He had to find out what went down with Imperial. Damien left before the sun was up with a promise. He’d pick up dinner at Bob’s Steak and Chop House. Ella loves their steaks.

Ella boils water and fixes her coffee, skipping breakfast. Her appetite seems to have taken another hiatus. Coffee in hand, she makes her way to her office, still wearing her wrinkled sleep shirt and ratty terry cloth robe. She’s ready to dive into work, grateful for the distraction. She’s also grateful Damien kept the door to the nursery closed. Easier to imagine the room as the guest room it was before. Empty for a very different reason than it really is: no houseguests rather than no baby.

She settles into her chair with a groan and sets down her mug beside a white iPhone box. A large silver bow is taped on top with a note from Damien.