Carides's Forgotten Wife

“I had better get the doctor.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t remember anything. How can you be fine?”

“I’m not going to die,” he said.

“Ten minutes ago the doctor was in here telling me you might never wake up. So forgive me if I feel a little bit cautious.”

“I’m awake. I can only assume the memories will follow.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “You would think.”

A heavy knock on the door punctuated the silence.

* * *

Rose walked quickly out of her husband’s hospital room, her head spinning.

He didn’t remember anything. Leon didn’t remember anything.

Dr. Castellano stood in the hallway looking at her, his expression grim. “How is he, Mrs. Carides?”

“Ms. Tanner,” she corrected. More out of habit than anything else. “I never took my husband’s name.”

She’d never taken him to her bed—why would she take his last name?

“Ms. Tanner,” he repeated. “Tell me what seems to be going on.”

“He doesn’t remember.” She was starting to shake now, all of the shock, all of the terror catching up with her. “He doesn’t remember me. He doesn’t remember himself.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. And I didn’t know... I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know if it was like waking a sleepwalker, or if I should tell him.”

“Well, we will need to tell him who he is. But I’m going to need to consult a specialist. A psychologist. I don’t often deal with cases of amnesia.”

“This is not a soap opera. My husband doesn’t have amnesia.”

“He sustained very serious head trauma. It is not so far-fetched.”

“Yes it is,” she said, feeling desperate. “It is extremely far-fetched.”

“I know you’re worried, but take heart. He is stable. He is awake. Very likely his memories will return. And soon, I would think.”

“Do you have statistical evidence to support that?”

“As I said... I do not often deal in cases of amnesia. Very often a person will lose a portion of their memories following a traumatic head injury. Usually just sections. It’s uncommon to lose everything, but not impossible.”

“He’s lost everything,” she said.

“He’s likely to regain it.”

“These other people. These people who have lost portions of their memory that you’ve treated. How often do they regain them?”

“Sometimes they don’t,” he said, a heavy admission that seemed pulled from him.

“He may never remember,” she said, feeling dazed. Feeling her life, her future, slipping out of her hands. “Anything.”

“I would not focus on that possibility.” Dr. Castellano took a breath. “We will monitor him here for as long as we can. I would imagine that he will do much better recovering at home, monitored by local physicians.”

She nodded. That was one thing she and Leon had in common. His business often kept him abroad, which for her nerves was for the best. But they both loved the Tanner House in Connecticut. It was her favorite thing she had left of her family. The old, almost palatial home, the sprawling green lawns and a private rose garden that her mother had planted in honor of her only child. It was her refuge.

She had always had the feeling it was the same for Leon.

Though they tended to keep to their own wings of the house. At the very least, he never brought women there. He had allowed her to keep it as her own. Had made it a kind of sanctuary for them both.

It was also a condition of their marriage. When her father had hastily commanded the union when his illness took a turn for the worse, the house and his company had been a pivotal point. If—before five years was up—he divorced her, he lost the company and the house. If she left him before the five-year term finished, she lost the house and everything in it that wasn’t her personal possession.

Which meant losing her retreat. And the work she’d been doing archiving the Tanner family history, which stretched all the way back to the Mayflower.

So only everything, really.

And she’d been ready to do it, willing to do it because she had to stop waiting for Leon to decide he wanted to be her husband in every possible way.

Except now here they were.

“Yes,” she said, feeling determined in this at least. “He will want to be moved to Connecticut as quickly as possible.”

“Then as soon as it is safe to move him, we will do so. I imagine he has private physicians that can care for his needs.”

She thought of the doctors and nurses that had cared for her father toward the end of his life. “I have a great many wonderful contacts. I only regret that I have yet more work to give them.”

“Of course. But so long as he is stable we should be able to move him to Connecticut soon.”

She looked back toward the room, her heart pounding. “Okay. We will do that as quickly as possible.”

Going back to Connecticut with Leon was not asking Leon for a divorce. It was not moving toward having separate lives. It was not finally ridding herself of the man who had haunted and obsessed her for most of her life.

But he needed her.

Why does that matter so much?

The image came, as it always did, of herself sitting in the rose garden on the grounds of her family home. She was wearing a frothy, ridiculous gown, tears streaming down her face. Her prom date had stood her up. Probably because going with her in the first place was only a joke.

She looked up, and Leon was there. He was wearing a suit, very likely because he had been planning on going out that night after meeting with her father. She swallowed hard, looking up to his handsome face. Dying a little bit inside when she realized he was witnessing her lowest moment.

“What’s wrong, agape?”