We end up crawling under the covers at around ten, iPads in our laps. Hugh, I notice, is halfway through a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. Do I remember that? Yes, yes. We talked about going uptown one day to see the Grant Memorial.
I open a novel I’d started reading over the weekend and try to connect with it again, but my eyes slide across the screen, unable to gain traction. After only a few minutes, Hugh snaps off his bedside light and flips onto his side, facing away from me. Though my libido currently seems to be on the lowest flame possible, I consider reaching over and running my hand along his thigh. We have sex several nights most weeks, and it might be good for me right now, fostering not only a connection with Hugh, but a sense of being fully present. Before I can make a move, though, I hear him begin to snore lightly.
I turn off my own light and lie wide-eyed in the darkness. Despite my exhaustion, sleep once more eludes me. After throwing off the covers on my side of the bed, I move down the hall to the great room. Lying on the coffee table is the pad I scribbled my timeline onto late last night. I grab a pencil and add in what I’ve learned today.
MONDAY
evening: dinner, TV, argument
TUESDAY
7:00: still in bed
9:00-ish: took call from Dr. Erling
9:00–9:17: sent emails
Before 3:00: lost phone
3:00–3:30-ish: called WorkSpace
WEDNESDAY
Possibly lunchtime: bought food at Eastside Eats
THURSDAY
8:05: arrived at Greenbacks
I stretch my legs out across the coffee table. Today’s revelations aren’t much but they’re something. It’s been hard to believe that a fight with Hugh over familiar ground could have derailed me so completely, and what I’ve found out today suggests that hunch is right.
I’ve also had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of my fugue state being related to my discovery in the woods long ago. Yes, I’d been revisiting it in my mind lately, and it’s definitely stirred up both memories and questions, but why would it knock my wheels off so many years later? It can’t be that, can it? Regardless, I’m still eager to discuss the details with Roger.
What I’m left with is the x factor. A possibly traumatic event midday on Tuesday, one that I have no recollection of for the time being.
My thoughts stray back to today’s session with Erling, who wouldn’t be pleased to know I was ruminating this way. I struggle up from the couch, intent on trying to fall asleep. Before returning to the bedroom, I grab my phone from the kitchen counter and plug it into the charger nearby. As I’m turning away, it pings with a text. Shocked, I see that the message is from Damien Howe:
Can we meet? I need to see you.
11
When I wake the next day shortly before eight, I immediately regret my second-night-in-a-row late-night session on the couch. My stomach is queasy and my head hurts.
At least I’m here at home again. And I’m fully aware of who I am.
When I traipse into the great room, I discover Hugh already hard at work, coffee mug by his side and files and briefs strewn across the dining table.
“Morning,” he says, looking up with a smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good.”
“Is it going to be a problem if I hog the table today?”
“Not at all. It’s really nice to have you here.”
He glances back at his yellow legal pad, covered with carefully jotted notes, but then quickly looks up at me again.
“And you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, definitely.” There’s no point in whining about my headache when I have only myself to blame. And I’m certainly not going to admit to nausea. There’s a chance that’s due to fatigue as well, but it could actually be tied to the dull pulse of guilt I’m feeling from my response to Damien last night. Hugh’s aware that Damien was more than a fling in my eyes, and he’d be annoyed—justifiably—to learn we were in contact, especially after the bizarre mystery of me turning up at Greenbacks. But I have to meet with Damien. I need to know if he has any clue why I arrived at his company out of the blue with my coat dripping wet and my brain on idle.
Okay, I’d texted back. When?
How about Tuesday? he’d said. Six o’clock?
Six o’clock always suggests cocktails to me, rather than, let’s say, coffee, and there’s no way I’m going down that road. I countered with Can you do five instead? and he’d agreed, saying he’d get back to me with a location.
There’s another reason for five o’clock. This way I’ll be home by around six, greatly limiting my chance of bumping into Hugh on his way into the building and thus having to deceive him about where I’m coming from.
Okay, so I won’t have to lie, but still, it will be a sin of omission—because when Hugh asks about my day, I won’t mention anything about the meeting. This isn’t really how we do things as a couple. We’re not in the habit of . . . I was about to tell myself we’re not in the habit of keeping secrets from each other but that’s untrue now, isn’t it? My whereabouts from Tuesday to Thursday morning before 8:05 are a total secret to both of us.
After a breakfast of plain toast and tea, I grab my laptop and peruse a few headlines, but my attention soon flags. I toy with the idea of hitting the gym—it’s been a week since I’ve worked out—but eventually decide against it. I’m scared, I realize, about heading outside on my own. So I spend the next hours velcroed to the sofa, chiding myself for being such a sloth. At one point I slip into the bedroom to phone my dad, and though there’s comfort in hearing his voice, it’s painful that I can’t tell him what’s happened.
I’m relieved when finally, late in the day, Hugh suggests we take a walk in Central Park. As we emerge from the building, the air is crisp, and it’s the first time since I left the hospital that I’m actually aware of the season. The trees in the park haven’t peaked in color yet, but there’s an autumn scent along the paths that triggers a slew of recollections for me—buying pumpkins as a girl at a farm stand near our home in Millerstown, watching a college boyfriend tear across a rugby field, driving through New England on a “girls’ trip” with my mother the year before she died. If those memories are all there in my mind, tucked safely away, surely the ones from the missing days must be, too. I have to find a way to unearth them.
Hugh and I walk arm in arm through the park and end up eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant we both like. I feel more connected to the world suddenly—to the kick of the wasabi paste, the smell of the soy sauce, the image of Hugh using his chopsticks so adeptly. Good, I think, Dr. Erling would be pleased. Certainly, this is the definition of present.
“Any luck devising a new strategy for your case?” I ask Hugh.
He grimaces, plucking a piece of tuna roll. “I’ve managed to come up with a plan B, but if we win this, it’s going to be a miracle.”
“Please, Hugh, if you need to spend time in the office tomorrow, don’t hesitate on my account.”
He shakes his head. “I think I’m fine working from home, but I’ll have to hunker down for the rest of the weekend.”
Back at the apartment, I find a Scandinavian crime drama on Netflix, watch an episode and a half, and then dress for bed. I want sex tonight, I realize, as I massage lotion onto my arms and breasts. My loins aren’t exactly on fire, but I yearn for that kind of contact with Hugh, for us being back in sync sexually. But when I peek my head into the great room, I discover that Hugh’s still ensconced at the table, his brow furrowed in concentration and his fingers drumming lightly on the legal pad. I drift off to sleep alone.