CHAPTER 1
Day one. I have a tattoo of a green heart on my foot. It’s on the inside of my ankle, down by my heel, like it’s trying to hide itself. Who gets a tattoo they want to hide? This tattoo is small and totally lackluster, and its meaning is lost on me. I’m left wondering if I’m the kind of person who gets a tattoo only to hide it.
My hate for it is visceral. So much so that when I see it, my stomach turns, and I feel like I might puke. Hating this tattoo is one of the only things I know about myself.
When I changed my socks, I caught my first glimpse of it. Stephen brought me fuzzy blue booties because I complained that my feet were cold, and there it was—the world’s most boring tattoo on my body. A high-pitched squeal tumbled out of my mouth when I saw it.
I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it. All it does is remind me that I have forgotten my entire life. And I want it back. However, this tattoo isn’t a good sign. Hate for something I chose to put on my body doesn’t speak well for the person I was.
For now, my conclusion is to stay still and wear my booties to cover up my tattoo. Avoidance shouldn’t be underestimated in these circumstances. Avoidance seems like a pretty solid idea right now.
In a way, losing my entire memory might not be so bad. Everyone has bad memories they want to forget. My situation wipes them all clean.
But there’s the other side—the not so good side. All the pieces of my past I want to remember, the ones that explain who I am, are gone.
Like a breath. My life decided to exhale.
That’s the part that gets me. I know I’m gone, even when Stephen shows me my chart and the minimal details he’s collected about my life—all from a brief conversation he had with my dad.
“Cleveland, Ohio. Sounds lovely!” Stephen’s voice is chipper. “I’ve always wanted to go to America. Do you think you know Justin Timberlake? He’s lovely. I’ve always wanted to meet him.”
“I don’t think I know Justin Timberlake.”
“Well, what’s Cleveland like?”
Nothing happens, so Stephen tries another tactic.
“I spoke with your dad yesterday. He sounds like a lovely man, too.”
“Lovely,” I say.
“So you remember him?” Stephen’s whole face brightens.
“You use that word a lot—lovely.”
Stephen seems deflated. He pats my bootie-covered feet. “Your dad will be here soon. I’m sure once you see him, your memories will fall into place. Don’t fret.”
“What happens if I don’t remember?”
“Let’s not think about that.”
But it’s all I can think about. My mind has already forgotten so much, there’s not much else to focus on. Who am I?
I’m a girl with a bad tattoo whose only memory is waking up in a hospital bed with a roomful of strangers. I try to cry for everything I’ve lost. Eighteen years. Vanished.
My doctor uses the term “retrograde amnesia.” A loss of access to memories before the plane crash. So while I may know what a television is, I can’t recall a single memory of actually watching television. Worse, Stephen informs me that my mom died when I was six, and I can’t recall a single thing about her. When my doctor sees the panic-stricken expression I must be wearing on my face, she’s quick to tell me that the memories usually come back.
“Usually,” I say.
“Yes. Usually.”
“But not always.”
She sits down on the bed, folding her thin hands in her lap. The scrubs she has on are too big for her waiflike body, and her brown hair is pulled into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. “Your memories might be gone, for now. But your soul remains intact.”
“But what do I do?” I ask.
“Wait. That’s all you can do,” she says. “Don’t lose hope, Clementine. You’ve survived worse.”
It’s a gentle reminder of the plane crash. Thirty other people didn’t survive. I should have died with them. No one knows why I didn’t. According to Stephen, whose accent is thick, making his words run together, the plane was flying into Shannon International Airport in western Ireland from Heathrow Airport, in London. A fire broke out in the cargo hold during the flight and burned its way into the electrical and fuel systems, causing a shutdown of the entire plane. The pilots tried to land, thinking they could make it to Shannon before the fire took complete control. But in the end, the plane went down just kilometers from the runway—there was just too much damage. I am all that remains.
The doctor leaves, and Stephen returns. I ask him, “Why was I on that plane?”
“Let’s wait for your dad to get here.” He bites his lip, busying himself with my blankets. That’s when it hits me: What if the clue I’m searching for is so bad it would be easier not to know? I nod in agreement, feeling a numbing sensation overtake me all the way down to my tattoo. The more I search, the more lost I get in darkness. Crying isn’t even the solution. What am I crying for? Who am I crying for? As far as I’m concerned, what’s lost never existed in the first place.
The memories mean nothing to me if I can’t recall them. Except for the small fact that . . . they mean everything. No matter what people want to believe, life is locked in the past. It’s all we are—a timeline of events that make up a person.
My father flew into Dublin early this morning and is driving across the country to take me home to Cleveland, Ohio, so I can get back to my life and out of the media chaos that’s created a sensation around Ireland. Apparently, the mystery of a lone survivor of a plane crash garners a lot of attention, perfect for Irish tabloids. People are loving the sensational nature of it all, according to my doctor, but she repeatedly tells me that everyone in the hospital is working to keep me safe.
Oddly enough, it’s not the public I’m most afraid of. It’s myself. And the large, impending reality that going home to America means getting on another airplane.
Later in the day, Stephen walks into my room, pushing a rolling cart as I stare at my covered foot.
“No more tests.” I cover my eyes and cringe. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Stephen chuckles, and I peek through my fingers to see what he’s laughing at.
“I thought,” he says in a bubbly voice as he wheels the cart over to me, “we’d have some fun.”
“Fun,” I say hesitantly, dropping my hand from my face. This feels like an odd time for fun, but it’s better than wallowing. “I think I like fun.”
“Here.” Stephen hands me a notebook and a pen. “Write that down.”
“Write what down?”
“Clementine likes fun.” Stephen smiles and winks at me. “So you don’t forget.” When I don’t laugh, he says, “Sorry. Bad joke.”
I open the notebook and ogle at the blank page. This is me—blank. It would actually feel nice to fill in the space with something, even if it’s just words.
“Actually, it’s not a bad idea,” I say, pushing myself up in bed and writing in the notebook I like fun. “OK. What else?”
“I figure we’ll try a few things out. See if we can add more items to your list and maybe jog that memory of yours. You never know.”
He sits on my bed and unfolds a gigantic map of the United States.
“This is America.”
I cock my head at Stephen. “I’m aware.”
He chuckles again and points to Ohio. “This is Ohio.” Then he points to a dot at the top of the state. “This is Cleveland. It’s on”—Stephen squints as he reads—“Lake Erie. Lake Erie is one of the five Great Lakes in America.”
I sit back in bed. “This is a lovely geography lesson, but how is it supposed to help me?”
“Close your eyes and think about water for a minute.”
I take Stephen’s advice, and for the next few minutes, I envision water, touching water, tasting water, the cool crispness of it . . . but nothing happens.
Stephen waves away the moment and gets out another map. “This is Ireland. Ireland is an island.” And again, I cock my head at him, making Stephen giggle once more. “This is where Limerick is in Ireland. It’s on the west side of the country.”
“OK,” I say, trying to take in exactly where I am right now. “What else?”
“It’s the third-largest city in Ireland. And”—Stephen dusts his shoulder off—“the friendliest.”
“Really?”
“You landed in a good spot, Clementine.”
“I believe I crashed.”
Stephen laughs. “You have quite a lovely sense of humor.”
“I do?”
He nods. “Write that down.”
I add I have a lovely sense of humor to my list, my spirit lifted slightly. Stephen starts reading off the names of the cities on the map to see if any strike a memory.
“Galway . . . Cork . . . Waterford . . . Dublin . . . Any of these sound familiar?”
The cities are easy to find on the map, but accessing a memory isn’t so straightforward.
“Maybe maps just aren’t your thing.” He sets them both back on the cart. Stephen then holds up two books—one with a woman and half-naked man on the cover and the other with a man in a trench coat with a gun.
“Romance or suspense?” he asks. “Do you like a little sex or a little violence?”
I take the books from him and examine the covers. “I definitely prefer the half-naked guy over the violence.”
“The guy,” Stephen says. “So you’re not gay.”
I shrug. “I don’t think so.”
Stephen perks up. “A development. This is good. Write that down.”
So I do. I am not gay (most likely).
On closer examination of the books, I notice the guy is pretty hot. “I definitely like this one more, and I might need a little distraction. Can I have it?”
An excited expression spreads on Stephen’s face. “I think we’ve found your thing.”
“What?”
“Clementine likes sex!” Stephen announces with enthusiasm.
“I’m not writing that down,” I say with a small laugh.
“There’s no shame in liking sex. It’s natural.”
“But I don’t even know if I’ve had sex.”
Stephen looks at me with a keen eye. “Oh. You’ve had sex.”
“How can you tell?”
“A nurse just knows these things,” Stephen says. My face heats.
“I’m still not writing that down.” I smile.
We go through a few more items. I discover I like tulips over roses, broccoli over green beans, and I don’t like balloons. At all.
“Knowing what you don’t like is as important as knowing what you do like,” Stephen says when we’re almost done with all the objects on the cart.
“Where did you get all of this stuff?”
“I popped over to the shop next door.” Stephen hands me a piece of chocolate cake. “But this I took from the cafeteria. Try it and see what happens.”
My first bite of the cake is spongy and delicious. I shovel in more and speak with my mouth full. “Decent texture. Not too dry. Definitely made with butter, but it would be better with dark chocolate and applesauce. Cream cheese frosting is a nice touch.”
Stephen seems impressed. “You can tell that just from a bite?”
“Is that unique?” I down another huge bite.
“Definitely.” Stephen takes an extra fork and eats a bite of the cake. “Write that down.”
As I do, Stephen instructs me to take another bite.
“Now,” he says, “maybe there’s a hint of a memory from a birthday party or a holiday hidden somewhere inside . . .”
A few tweaks to the ingredients, and this cake would be outstanding. I know it. But the food turns sour in my mouth as I shake my head and set down the plate. The truth is I don’t know why I like it or why I know what it’s made of. And I don’t know why I think I could make it better. The only chocolate cake I can remember is the one I’m in the process of eating right now.
Stephen tries something else. He holds up a green sweatshirt with an Irish flag that says “Limerick” on it and a purple sweatshirt that says “When Irish eyes are smilin’, they’re usually up to something.”
“Which one do you like?” he asks. “Green or purple?”
Both are fine, but I do prefer one. “Purple.”
“Clementine likes purple.” Stephen lays the sweatshirt down on the end of my bed as I write down I like purple.
“How is this supposed to trigger my memory again?”
Stephen’s sight line falls to his hands, and he smiles in a broken kind of way. “Well . . . this one isn’t. I just wanted to get you something. Everything you had was . . .”
He doesn’t need to finish his sentence. He and I both know this. Everything I had burned in the plane crash. The clothes I was wearing were cut off me on the way to the hospital. I have no passport. No money. I literally have nothing. Not even memories.
This purple sweatshirt is the only item of real clothing I own right now. I put it on over my hospital gown and try to keep the panic out of my voice. “Thank you, Stephen. I love it.”
He looks like he doesn’t really believe me.
“Wait here,” he says before disappearing out of the room. Alone, I fidget with my new sweatshirt and wonder how this is all going to end. Do stories like this even have happy endings?
Stephen comes back into the room minutes later with his arms full of clothes. He lays them out on the end of my bed and gestures to the messy pile. “Pick some.”
“Pardon?” I sit up quickly.
“You can’t feel human when you’re dressed like a science experiment.”
Shirts, pants, shoes, socks, bras, even a pack of new underwear are spread out before me. I sift through everything. “Where did you get all of this?”
“The lost and found.”
“Lost and found?” I say.
“Well . . . not everyone who comes to the hospital is found, if you know what I mean.”
I drop the shirt that was in my hand. “You mean these are clothes from dead people?”
Stephen rolls his eyes. “Not all dead. You’d be amazed what people leave behind here.” He picks up a bra and holds it up to my chest. “Thirty-four C. That should fit.” I snatch the bra from his hands, my face heating as Stephen chuckles. “It’s better than a hospital gown.”
He’s right.
Minutes later when I come out of the bathroom dressed in a plain red T-shirt and a pair of jeans, my confidence has grown. The pair of black-and-white Converse even fit.
“How did you know my bra size?” I ask.
“I’m a nurse. It’s my job to know the body.” Stephen and I exchange grins. He hands me the purple sweatshirt. “For an American, I think you’ve got some of our Irish luck in you.”
The word “luck” turns my brief positivity sour. I should be happy I’m alive. And I am. But I’m not sure how alive I actually am right now. Yes, I’m breathing. Yes, my limbs and my heart and my mind work, for the most part. But life should be about more than that, right? The story. The moments. And I’ve lost mine.
A chill comes over me even though I’ve put on the purple sweatshirt once again.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Thank you for letting me help.” Stephen goes to leave, pushing his cart with him, but before he does, I show him what I just wrote down in my notebook.
I like how Stephen says “tanks” instead of “thanks.” It’s lovely.
“You know,” Stephen says, “the Irish accent is always ranked as the sexiest in the world.”
“And as someone pointed out earlier . . . apparently, I like sex, so it makes sense I like your accent.”
Stephen taps on the notebook. “I thought that might come in handy.”
Even with all Stephen’s encouragement and help, the unease of amnesia makes it hard to move forward, no matter how much I fight to keep going. I know I should press on, determined, unbreakable. A stronger person would do that. She’d fight. But all I feel like doing is curling up and disappearing.
“Keep adding to the list, and eventually you’ll find yourself, Clementine.” Stephen hands back the notebook. “And if that doesn’t work, turn on the telly and watch Coronation Street. It always makes me feel better to see I’m not the only person with problems. Tracy is always up to something.”
“But I don’t know where I belong,” I say. “Have you ever felt like that?”
“Love, I’m Jewish and gay. In Ireland. Story of my life.” Stephen touches my arm, as if he can hold me together. “Stick to the list,” he says again.
I nod, mechanically.
“I can tell you one thing, Clementine. If you’re going to be lost, there’s no friendlier place to get lost in than Ireland.”
When he’s gone, I add another item to the list in my notebook.
I hate tattoos.