Back at Alex’s place after the run and memory of Matt’s proposal, I dug through the few drawers in her kitchen until I found an old take-out menu and pen—in my haste I’d forgotten my notebook at Jenny’s—then sat on the bed and, with a quivering hand, wrote out the questions I needed answers to.
Did Matt propose?
Where is the ring?
Why has no one told me about this, especially Matt?
What am I going to do about it?
I nervously chewed the end of the pen while I glanced at the four questions. I should call Matt and ask him outright, I thought, regardless of how messed up things were right now between us. But then what? Where did that leave us? Something had happened between the proposal I remembered and my accident, and I wanted to arm myself with more information if at all possible before I talked with Matt. So I called Jenny instead.
“Lucy! Thank God! I’ve been calling you nonstop. Why was your phone off? What happened to you last night? Why did you disappear? Are you okay?” Her words came out in a rush, and I waited a few seconds to make sure she was done before I spoke. “Lucy? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here,” I said. I had decided not to bring up anything about Margot, needing to focus on one thing and one thing only: my engagement to Matt. But once I heard her voice, I struggled against a rush of anger, thinking of my conversation with Margot, her pregnancy, the fact she had worked with Jenny not so long ago. With a sigh I tamped it down, would save it for another time. “Why didn’t you tell me Matt and I were engaged?”
Silence. Then, “What the hell are you talking about?”
I was exasperated. “Jenny, I know Matt proposed. I remember it. But what I can’t figure out is where the ring went, and why no one—no one at all—has said anything about it.”
She drew in a deep breath and spoke slowly, yet with conviction. “Lucy, I swear to you I don’t know anything about Matt proposing.”
Now I was silent. I never told Jenny Matt proposed? I was thrilled to be engaged. I remembered the joy of it, the way it felt when he put the ring on my finger—like the world made sense in a way I hadn’t before thought possible. Jenny would have been my first call, I was sure of it.
“Matt proposed? Seriously. I had no idea.” She sounded like she meant it. “Maybe...maybe it’s another false memory?”
“But I remember it so clearly.” All the bubbling, joyful energy that had filled me since the memory came back disappeared, leaving my limbs heavy and my stomach churning. “It felt so real,” I added weakly.
Jenny spoke carefully, gently. “I’m sure it did, Luce,” she said. “But haven’t all the memories felt real? You were convinced Daniel was your husband.”
I frowned as I listened to her. She was right, but I wasn’t ready to toss the memory of Matt’s proposal in the same box with my confabulations. “I know,” I replied, my tone carrying more of an edge than I intended.
“It doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” she said. “But for sure you didn’t tell me. Sorry, hon. I wish I could make all this easier for you.”
“Trust me, so do I.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the pillows, my hamstrings protesting from my lack of proper cooldown after my run.
“Do you want me to come over?” she asked. Then I heard a voice—distinctly male—in the background and I realized Jenny wasn’t alone.
“Sounds like you’re busy. Who’s there?”
She lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. “Thomas. The actor,” she said. “Wait, you probably don’t remember him. I’ll text you the details, and a picture.” She raised her voice back up to a normal level. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay, Lucy?”
“Like you said, it’s probably another false memory. I’m going to lock it up with the others and move on.”
“Right. Sounds good,” Jenny said, obviously distracted. There was a muffled whisper as she tried to continue our conversation and also speak with Thomas the actor.
“Maybe we can meet up later?” Jenny didn’t respond, and I realized her focus had fully shifted to Thomas, and whatever was currently happening between them. “Listen, I’m going to go, okay?”
“Oh, sure. But I can chat more if you want. Just a lazy Sunday over here.”
“Go enjoy your lazy Sunday,” I said pointedly, which made her laugh. I was jealous of Jenny, with her overnight guest and undamaged memory. What I wouldn’t give to switch places, even if only for one afternoon.
“Call me later?” she said, and then we said our goodbyes and I hung up.
I sat for a few moments, stretching my screaming hamstrings while I worked out what I wanted to do. I scrolled through my recent calls, found Matt’s number and let my finger hover over the call button until the screen went black again. I tried to imagine how that conversation might go. If I’d been braver, I would have called and asked him. If it was a false memory, it would be an awkward exchange, but then I would know, and we could go back to whatever this current state of things was. But if it was real...
So what if it is real? What then?
My breath came faster, because getting confirmation Matt had proposed was almost more terrifying than not knowing if I could trust the memory. We were not in a good place at the moment, and I didn’t know how to fix things between us. And no matter how many ways I rolled the memory around in my mind, I kept coming back to the fact Matt had said nothing about being engaged. There had been no diamond band in the personal items bag from the hospital. No evidence anywhere of his proposal. It was almost like it had never happened.
Exactly, Lucy. Exactly.
Paralyzing depression soon crawled its way through me, replacing the antsy, breathless feeling, and in the end I called no one and asked no questions—even if Matt and I had gotten engaged, I was not the same person I had been back then. The moments that had brought us together were no longer shared. You would think the memory of his proposal would have unearthed all the right feelings, too. And to some degree it had—I loved Matt for the dependable and devoted boyfriend he was, for everything he’d done for me, for being there when I needed him, for sticking by me...but I wasn’t in love with him. God, I wanted to be, but the truth was it was hard to be in love with two people at once. And Daniel—regardless of what I’d told him the day before, of Margot’s shattering news, of the mystery that continued to surround the end of our relationship—was still inside me, taking up precious space I wished I could have given to Matt instead.
Sadly there was no list of experiences I could memorize to put Matt and me back to where we had been and send Daniel packing, no data chip I could load into my brain to reboot what had been lost. I wanted to shed the old Lucy, like a tissue-paper-thin snakeskin that would blow away with a stiff breeze. The life I used to know was gone.
Then I remembered Matt was in California for the weekend, visiting his parents and sister, and so realized our place was empty. Two hours later I had looked through every drawer and closet and cupboard, twice, but didn’t find the ring. But what I did find, tucked behind a shoebox full of old receipts on a shelf in our bedroom closet, was a stack of save-the-date postcards that took my breath away, proving, once again, I had no idea who I was.