I remembered. Not anything of substance, and definitely nothing I can share with Hope. Sometime in the middle of the night, Hope’s voice popped in my mind.

“Women like me?” she asks, and there in the dark, with my eyes closed, I saw her pain.

“Ones who try to trap a man by his dick,” I accused her, ignoring her pain and going for the jugular.

“Do you really think that I’d pick some idiot who has nothing to his name to father a child with?”

That’s when I woke up.

I wanted to scream and remember more—yet, at the same time, I didn’t. That memory was painful; it was clearly a horrible moment between us. Is this why Hope has been so worried? Is she scared that I will get my memory back and be this asshole again?

Jesus, I couldn’t blame her. I wish I could forget the memory again.

Then, almost as if fate knows that I don’t want to remember my past at all now, another far more painful memory emerges.

“Operation?” Hope asks, pain, hurt and confusion covering her features.

“Trying to get knocked up so I’ll have to support you and your bastard child”

Her hand comes up to slap me across the face, to stop the words, but it doesn’t matter. They’re out there.

“If you finish that sentence, so help me God they will be finding pieces of you hidden in the Clancy valley for fucking years. My son is not a bastard and I take care of him just fine. I don’t need any man to support me or him.”

I close my eyes tight.

How could I have done that? How could anyone use such a vile term when talking about sweet Jack. What kind of bastard was I?

I want you gone and if you’re not loaded up and out of here in the next twenty minutes I will call the law to escort you!”

I get physically sick to my stomach with that memory. I can clearly remember standing at the pool when I said it. Was Hope finally kicking me out of her and Jack’s life? Did we have some huge fight and she felt guilty and has let me stay because of that guilt?

Can she ever forgive me? Last night she admitted she cared about me. Have I done enough to repair some of the damage from the past?

Is there anything I can do to fix the mess of our past?

I have to try. I don’t want to lose her. I love her. I might not have told her, but I do. She makes me smile, she makes me feel… cared for, important. Hell, sometimes she looks at me and I feel like I could conquer the world. With what I’ve remembered, I have no idea why she put up with me as long as she did. All I know, is that I don’t want to give it up.

I don’t want to give her up.

I need a plan. I need a thought out plan to capture my wife’s heart again. Surely, if I go about this logically, I can win her. Last night was good, instinctively I know that it’s never been better in my life. I need to protect that—protect her. I need to make sure she knows that taking a chance on me is something she will never regret again.

The most important things in the world to her are Jack and this motel. I think she knows I love Jack, but he’s special—not a tool to win her back, he’s my son. That leaves this motel. We’ve been averaging two to five visitors a night, thanks to being right off the interstate, but that’s not enough. It’s barely allowing us to pay the bills. If I can do something to make the motel a big success, so that she doesn’t have to worry about us paying our bills…

A thought begins to form in my mind, it might be a longshot—but I think it could work. I head straight out to the reception area, and then outside. One of the only rooms we haven’t rented out was room number seven. I was afraid to assign the number to anyone else, even after I started sleeping with Hope. I don’t know why she never has—maybe she’s like me and just didn’t want to presume it was okay. Hope and I don’t talk a lot when it comes to our relationship and that needs to change. We’re going to make this work long term, I’m not losing her.

Most of my clothes are now in the small closet in the room I share with Hope, but I still have a few things in the closet here. On the top shelf above the area where I hang the clothes I find the gold and diamond ring I was wearing when I came home from the hospital. It felt weird on my hand, I didn’t like it. I didn’t understand why, but it felt like I was hurting Hope by wearing it, so I took it off and stored it in a small box. I put it in the front pocket of my jeans and then sigh when I remember… I don’t drive.

I can’t ask Hope to take me into town. She’ll ask why, and then she might get her hopes up. If this doesn’t work…then I don’t want her to be disappointed. I haven’t really met anyone in Clancy. We’re located on the far end of the town and we stay so busy, very seldom do we drive into town and when we do it has more to do with grocery shopping than making friends.

There’s only one person I know here and I’m hesitant to call Daria. I get the feeling she doesn’t like me much. Still, I can’t really afford to be choosey here. I walk back to the motel, feeling better about my plan. I may not remember who I was in the past, but I know that being a man who thinks things out and attacks them head on feels…right. We have about an hour before the motel opens back up and I figure at least that long before Jack wakes up and then wakes up Hope. If I hurry I can leave her a note and be gone, before she insists on taking me herself and demands to know what I’m doing.