“How are things going with Matt?” Mom held up a gauzy white top that looked like at least a dozen other tops she had hanging in her closet. She glanced at the price tag, clucked her tongue and carried on. Even though she could have easily spent the money, she had these rules about the price of things. A top had to be less than forty dollars, unless it was cashmere and then she made an exception, on occasion. Pants and skirts were given a little more leeway for whatever reason, up to sixty, and shoes could go up to a hundred, but they had to be leather and “sturdy.” I once bought a pair of ballet flats for over two hundred dollars—they were worth it, the most comfortable shoes I ever owned—and Mom brought it up every time I wore them. “Two hundred dollars,” she would exclaim. “For a glorified slipper!”
Today we were hunting for a new top for her, appropriate for a fancy dinner out. This was our fourth stop and no luck so far. I hated having nothing better to do, but I didn’t—aside from an appointment later in the afternoon with my neurologist, Dr. Mulder, where I would hopefully be given the green light to get back to screens and, ideally, work.
“Things are fine, Mom.” I didn’t want to talk about Matt, because talking about him led me straight to thinking about Daniel. And I wasn’t in a good place to unravel what was going on with Daniel, or rather, how I was feeling about him. I mean, there was nothing going on with Daniel, but try explaining that to my discombobulated memory, my grief-struck heart.
So I focused us back on the task at hand—shopping. I pulled a deep purple silk shirt off a rack and held it up. “What about this one? It looks nice with your hair.” She took it from me and held it against herself, frowning as she sashayed in front of the store’s full-length mirror.
“Not bad,” she said. Then she turned over the price tag. “Oh, good grief. No.” I glanced at the tag—one hundred and ten—and put it back on the rack. “But it is pretty. You’re on the right track, love.”
“Why do you even need a new top?” I asked, following her as she weaved between the racks of clothes. It occurred to me she was creating busywork for us—an excuse to get me out of the house, to make me feel needed. Her praise for my fashion sense was the giveaway. Mom thought I wore too much black, not enough jewelry, and wished I would abolish my beloved ponytails forever. “Dad doesn’t care about stuff like this.”
She paused for a moment, a gold-hued cardigan in her hands, then shook her head. “You’re right. This is silly. How about some lunch? We have—” she tugged the arm of her coat up to look at her watch “—an hour before your appointment. Okay?”
“Sure,” I said, though I wasn’t hungry. And I had a feeling Mom would be circling back to things I didn’t feel like talking about. Sure enough, as soon as we sat down with bowls of soup and a plate of salted rosemary focaccia in front of us, she started up again. We sat side by side at a bar table, watching winter-wear-bundled people walk by the window as we ate.
“Any questions you have for me from your list?” she asked, dipping a strip of bread into her lentil soup.
I swallowed a spoonful of my own soup, shook my head and broke off a piece of bread. “Don’t think so.”
“Lucy, what’s going on with you?” Mom put her spoon down, turned toward me and wrapped both her hands around my arm nearest to her. I had been about to dip back into my soup but was now pinned, my spoon sticking up out of my hand.
I looked over at her. “Nothing is going on with me. What do you mean?” Except everything was going on with me. My memory was still a mess. I’d had coffee with Daniel. I hadn’t told Matt about it. “Could I have my arm back now?”
She sighed deeply but released my arm so I could get back to my soup, even though my already-weak appetite had waned. “I’m worried about you, sweetheart,” she said. “Dad, too. What did Dr. Kay say, about how things are progressing?”
“Dr. Kay thinks I’m doing very well,” I replied. “She thinks I’m making excellent progress.” I stuffed some bread in my mouth to give myself a break from answering anything further, and Mom nodded.
“Okay, good. I’m glad to hear it, because if things aren’t working out with her, your dad and I are happy to help you find someone else. Someone better suited to your particular situation. To your goals.” She dipped her spoon back into her soup, and now I watched her.
“Mom, you know I may never fully recover my memory, right? I may be stuck with these strange half-baked memories forever.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, but she didn’t look at me. Stared into her bowl as though the answer to everything could be found there.
“Mom. Mom.” I waited until she looked at me, and then I saw it. How scared she was for me. And that scared me. Now I put my hand on her arm and squeezed reassuringly. “It’s going to be fine. I am okay. Yes, I’m confused and upset and I feel like I can’t trust my own mind some days, but I am okay.” It was important she believed this, even if I had a hard time selling it to myself.
I pulled out the memory list from my purse. I was using a small notebook, and I turned to the page where my pen marked the most recent question I’d written down.
What happened with Margot? I laid the notebook on the empty space between us and pointed to the question. She read it, looked back to me.
“Okay, so I know Margot and Daniel are married.” A piece of rosemary bread was caught in my throat and I took a big sip of water to get it down. “But did I know they were together? Before my accident? And were we still friends, Margot and I?”
Mom glanced back at the list and seemed to be stalling. “Please tell me, Mom, if you know something. I hate how you guys are always coddling me about this stuff.”
“We are not coddling you,” she said, annoyed at the suggestion. “We care about you and are trying to help.”
“Fine, then tell me. Did I know about Margot and Daniel?”
“Yes,” Mom said. “You told me they were dating, but you were already with Matt and, quite honestly, you seemed fine with everything.” She wiped her fingers with a napkin. “As for whether you were still friends with Margot back then, I’m not sure. I do know I didn’t hear much about her after you and Daniel broke up.”
I nodded and swallowed hard. Felt nervous about the next question. “Do you know why Daniel and I broke up?”
Mom shook her head, placed her hand over mine. “I don’t, love. You never told us. Came home one day with your overnight bag and said it was over.” She pushed her used napkin deep into her empty teacup, swiveled so she fully faced me. “I thought you two would get back together, quite honestly. Told your dad it was probably prewedding jitters. But you were very clear it was over for good. We canceled the wedding venue a few days later, and you know what? I never once saw you cry about it.”
I felt incredibly disappointed, having pinned all my hope on Mom and what she might know about my breakup. I had hoped to avoid asking Daniel, but it seemed no one else in my life had the faintest idea about what went down between us.
“It’s so strange, isn’t it, how your mind decided to ignore all that? How it zipped things together and gave you and Daniel a happy ending. Our brains truly are amazing.” Amazing. That was one word for it, though not the one I would use at the moment. She checked her watch, sprang into action. “Are you finished?” She glanced at my soup and I nodded, though it was three-quarters full. “We should get going.” She put on her coat, buttoning it quickly. “I thought we might walk, if you’re up to it.”
As I gathered my stuff, I thought about what she’d said. It was strange and disturbing, and for the hundredth time since coming out of the coma, I wished my mind had chosen another aspect of my life to confabulate. I also wished I had worn my more practical boots, versus the heeled ones I chose that wintry day, completely inappropriate for the weather but a much better match to my outfit. Or that the store had known about the leaky awning, the pool of water that had gathered outside the door and frozen solid overnight into a slick, clear patch of ice that looked like wet sidewalk pavement. That I hadn’t chosen to buy that tie in that store that day for an anniversary I had no memory of.
So many things could have happened differently, though I supposed it also could have been much worse. The doctors did say I was lucky to come out relatively unscathed—at least medically speaking. But that was of little comfort these days as I navigated this disordered world of mine, gingerly putting one foot in front of the other as though I was walking the edge of a cliff, blindfolded.