Last Summer(15)

All set up and fully charged!

Couldn’t find the same case so I got several.

They’re in the Apple bag on your credenza.

Love, D.



Ella swings her chair around and peeks inside the bag. Her throat swells with emotion. The past week had to have been hell for Damien. One of the worst in his life. Yet he still had the forethought to replace her damaged phone. God, she loves this man.

One of the cases looks similar to the one she had before, an owl pattern. She unpacks the case and the phone and powers on the device. Everything she had on her previous phone since her last backup loads, old emails and hundreds of new ones. Her voice mailbox is full—plenty of calls came in during the past week she’ll have to go through. Damien even synced to her cloud account. All her settings are the same.

Tears well. She swallows roughly, then laughs at herself for crying over a stupid phone. But it’s a phone from her husband, who’d labored over it while she’d been laid up. That man.

She sends him her first text. Thank you.

He doesn’t reply, but she didn’t expect him to, not right away, considering how busy he must be today.

Time for her to get busy, too.

Launching her laptop she opens Outlook and sags in her chair. Seven hundred fifty-eight unread emails. That’ll keep her busy for a while, but rather than culling through them, she opens the most recent message from her editor, Rebecca. Rebecca, whose tasteful bouquet of white lilacs and garden roses Damien had brought home from the hospital sits on her credenza. Her editor can be tough, but she’s always been Ella’s biggest cheerleader, and for good reason. Ella’s one of Luxe Avenue’s most dependable staff writers. She’s never missed a deadline, and memory loss or not, she doesn’t intend to break that record.

Rebecca’s email arrived earlier that morning.

Rest up and call me when you’re ready. Rebecca xo



Ella calls her.

“I said when you’re ready, not when you get out of the hospital,” Rebecca answers after the second ring.

“I’m fine,” Ella insists.

“I have it on good authority from your husband that your doctor put you on a two-week hiatus. Call me then or later. Take more time off if you need it. I’ve got assignments in the pipeline and I want you in top form when you get back.” Rebecca speaks a million miles a minute as usual and arguing with her when she’s like this is pointless. Ella sinks further into her chair with a long sigh.

“And Ella.” Rebecca’s tone softens. “Damien told me everything. I’m sorry about the baby.”

“Thank you,” Ella says, sitting upright. She wonders exactly what Damien mentioned. Does Rebecca know about her memory loss?

“Did he say anything else?” she asks.

“Not much. We didn’t talk long, and he hasn’t called since the day after your accident.”

Good. Rebecca doesn’t know about the amnesia and Ella wants to keep it that way. No need to give her editor reason to doubt her capabilities or redirect those assignments in the pipeline to someone else.

Unfortunately, that also means Rebecca can’t tell her anything more about the accident or what led up to it than what she’s already heard from Davie. Come to think of it, she’d be surprised if either of them knew anything. If she and Damien were fighting, he wouldn’t share those details. He’s too private and he’s yet to share them with her.

“Listen, why don’t you walk me through your calendar,” Rebecca suggests. “I can reassign whatever you’re working on and we can postpone everything else. Your job for the next two weeks is to get better. Everyone here is so devastated for you, including Paul.”

“How is Chief?” Ella asks. Their editor in chief rarely cracks a smile.

“The same. Every deadline is too long and every article is too short. He sends his best, by the way.”

For the next ten minutes, Ella takes Rebecca through her calendar. When they finish, Ella hangs up and dives into her laptop, clicking on documents and bookmarks, reading emails. She searches, peruses, and digs, looking for anything that can trigger her memories. There has to be something that explains why she’s blocked them out. But she finds nothing.

Andrew arrives around one with lunch. As kind as it is of him to check on her and bring food, she wants to be left alone so that she can try to unravel this puzzle. What happened to her? She buzzes him up and unbolts the door but goes back to her office, intent on remaining focused.

She hears him come in, and a few seconds later, he’s standing in her doorway, SF Giants cap on his head. He removes his blue-mirrored aviator sunglasses and whistles.

“What country did you piss off? Looks like a ballistic missile blew up your office.”

A patchwork of manila folders covers the floor. A career-length pile of papers and article clippings clutters her desk. Ella still hasn’t dressed or combed her hair.

“I think I’m going crazy.”

Andrew smirks. “That’s not news.” He comes into the room and flops onto the chair across from Ella. Kicking up his heels, he plants his DayGlo-green Nikes on Ella’s desk. “What’s going on?”

“I lost a baby I can’t remember,” she clips, sarcastic.

“Whoa! Easy on the DoorDash delivery guy.” Andrew looks around. “Anything I can do to help?”