“That’s the thing. I don’t know how random it is. I think part of her remembers, but she’s blocked it all out somehow.” I released a heavy breath. “I’m not exactly sure how to handle it. The doctor indicated that it would be best to let her recover things at her own pace, organically, instead of trying to explain everything to her. I’ll call her physician and see if they can give me some guidance, and I’ll call you back.”
I turned into our long driveway, the fence-lined gravel stretching a few tenths of a mile before me, straight and only a little rutted from the recent rains. To my right, the small apple orchard that was part of our land reached spindly bare limbs toward the wintry sky. Birdie had been so excited about our recent fall harvest, teaching herself how to make applesauce and apple bread and apple butter — apple everything, really. The pantry was full of it, canned and neatly labeled.
The house and its assortment of outbuildings — shed, barn, chicken coop — came into view on my left as I crested a slight rise. Birdie had taken one look at the house and refused to look at anything else. This was it, she’d claimed: our forever home. So it was old, with a roof that needed replacing and windows that could use some updating. So it was a little rough around the edges. It was nothing a little elbow grease, time, and an HGTV subscription couldn’t fix.
I needed to get her out here, I mused, shutting the engine off and climbing out of the truck. I needed her to see this place, fall in love with it all over again.
Maybe fall in love with me all over again.
I walked up the steps to cross the porch, a mix of raw wood and painted boards from my efforts to repair a few places of rot and toed my boots off as I entered the house. There were boxes just inside the door, labeled ‘Christmas’ in my mother’s neat handwriting. I opened the closest one up and peered in at the jumble of lights and ornaments. Birdie had mentioned, weeks ago, that we were going to need to hunt down some decorations for our first Christmas together. Mom had come through, putting together everything we’d need from all the years of my childhood.
There was a familiar, red-clothed elf on the top of the pile of decorations. I reached in and plucked him out, studying him thoughtfully. Mom had used the elf for years with my younger brother and sister, placing it in various locations around our house as a reminder that Santa was watching. It became a game to see who could find the elf first each morning, and laugh over what predicament it had been placed in.
My personal favorite was the sink, alongside a pile of milk duds. Mom had an enviable sense of the absurd.
Maybe I could use the elf to remind Birdie of our life together? Of course, I’d have to figure out how to get her to the house.
Everything was just as she’d left it, a mish mash of hand-me-down and thrifted furniture, most in various stages of being painted or primed or reupholstered or whatever it was she’d decided to do with each specific piece. Birdie was creative like that. I hadn’t seen much she couldn’t do when she put her mind to it.
In the kitchen, I poured myself a drink and looked up the number for Birdie’s doctor. I wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to tell me, but maybe he could give me some hypothetical guidance. I was on her HIPAA. The receptionist that answered the phone was hesitant. “I think he just left,” she said. “I’ll check, though. Your name, please?”
“Hayes Ellison. I’m calling regarding Birdie Grant.”
A moment later I heard the line pick up. “Mr. Ellison. You just caught me. How’s Ms. Grant doing?”
“Thanks for taking my call. I’ll make it quick so you can get out of there. Birdie’s doing okay, I think. Struggling a little with what her instincts are telling her and what she’s not able to remember.”
“That’s perfectly normal, and actually an excellent sign. If she’s having ‘feelings’ about people, places, things like that, it may be an indication that full memory restoration isn’t far behind. That’s her subconscious working, and her awareness of it indicates that it’s leaking into her consciousness.”
“Good. Listen, I know you can’t tell me specifics, but something happened today and I’m not a hundred percent how to handle it. Birdie walked into my aunt’s shop and asked for a job. My aunt said it was obvious she didn’t recognize her, so she played along, and gave her the job. This is a place she’s worked at off and on for the past several years. She’s close with my aunt. Should she tell her who she is, or would it be better to let her figure that out on her own?”
“Hmmm. That’s fascinating. Truly amazing how the subconscious works…” I waited as he mused to himself. “Mr. Ellison, nothing is ever certain with head injuries. I hesitate to give you any hard and fast directives regarding things like this, other than it could be harmful to press her too hard to remember. I know that neither you or your aunt want to out and out lie to her, but maybe you should give it a few days and see if things start coming back on their own.”
“Will do. Thank you, Dr. Chen.”
I called Maggie back and let her know the verdict and she agreed to follow along, telling the truth however she could, but letting Birdie’s subconscious ease her gently back to remembering.
Weary all of a sudden, I placed the glass I’d been drinking from in the sink and started down the hall to the bedroom. I paused outside a guest room we’d converted to a studio, where Birdie had begun making the wooden signs that people shopping at Aunt Mags’s were going crazy over. She had a steady hand for pretty handwriting and a knack for turning expressions, scripture, and quotations into art. I entered the room and sat down at her workspace, my fingers skimming over the flats of wood laying there to await framing, the soft bristles of the brushes in a cup.
I needed to make a plan. I did better with concrete ideas, neatly organized. There was a stack of paper in a tray and I pulled a piece out to set in front of me, then rooted around until I found a pen. It was purple, like she’d used years ago when I met her.
I sat and thought, absently chewing the end of the pen as I contemplated my options.
Bring Birdie to house. Make her see what she left behind.
Elf.
Kiss her. Often.
I drew a blank after I wrote the words ‘kiss her,’ or maybe it was simply that my little brain was suddenly hyper-focused on the wrong thing. Then a thought struck me. The baby. The baby was really the only thing keeping us together at the moment, the only real thing for Birdie. I went back to number three with renewed purpose, and suddenly I was filled with vision.
4. Put together nursery.
5. Baby names.
6. Tell her.
I wasn’t certain why I wrote ‘tell her.’ I didn’t want to tell Birdie any more than I already had about one of the most awful nights I’d had. And yet…deep within was the persistent knowledge that I was screwing up, perhaps irrevocably, in keeping Serena Hansen from her. She didn’t fully trust me, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that her subconscious was throwing up walls.
I needed to circumvent those walls with honesty, or it was all too possible that I’d lose her for good.
“I would be lying if I said there were not times that I am an earthquake contained inside this skin.”