While They Watch

by Sosie Frost

  Why did this hurt more than betraying the man in my memories?

  I averted my eyes. “We shouldn’t see each other anymore.”

  Shepard spoke slowly. “Probably not.”

  “This can’t be about me. Clue deserves her father.”

  “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “You’ve already helped.”

  Clue wiggled against my shoulder, her big eyes staring only at Shepard.

  “She knows your voice,” I said. “She trusts you. That’s been a help. I want to thank you for that.”

  Shepard stared at the baby. He nodded, turned, and straightened the folders on his desk.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” he said.

  I didn’t answer.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  For the first time, I wondered if I wanted to know what he would discover.

  The memories, the feelings, the instincts.

  The gunshots. The pain. The poverty.

  That wasn’t a life I wanted for my baby.

  Maybe I couldn’t force the amnesia, but I sure as hell could protect my child and ensure she had a better future than whatever hid in my past.

  Those memories were starting to emerge.

  And I couldn’t let my feelings for Shepard stop me from finding the truth.

  8

  The library wasn’t a great place for babies, but the kind, elderly librarian just had her last grandchild go to junior high. I bribed her with a few cuddles, and she let Clue stay at my side while I did my research.

  The endless research.

  Research that jumped into the middle of nothing, scoured through a pile of emptiness, and wasted more time on false leads and silly ideas.

  But at least I did something.

  I closed the hard-bound book. That was it. The last of the 2012 yearbooks for the four largest schools in Ironfield proper. By my closest guess, I was probably twenty-two years old. It was a long shot, but if I scoured enough yearbooks for the city schools, I thought I’d find something familiar.

  Like my face.

  But so far, the search was long, difficult, and endless. Ironfield had fifty-four schools in total, just within the city limits. I could narrow the search—something told me I was never a part of a good school district—but that didn’t make it easier.

  At least it gave me something to do. Some sort of action to take.

  A way to keep my mind off Shepard and the terrible fight that revealed more about our feelings than either of us wanted to share.

  I rubbed my temples. The names and pictures blurred together without even the slightest flash of recognition.

  What else was I supposed to do?

  I’d walked the city over the past week. Twice. Not only was it good for shedding the baby weight, Clue loved the stroller and could sleep through anything, provided we kept moving.

  So I searched.

  And I studied streets.

  I visited parks. Museums. Even strolled around a community college.

  Nothing looked familiar. Hell, I wasn’t sure what I was even looking for. I figured I’d know it when I saw it, but a churning, unwelcomed pit in my stomach whispered all sorts of discouraging thoughts.

  What if you aren’t from Ironfield?

  What if you never find out where you’re from?

  What if all the searching, research, and desperation is all an attempt to forget about Shepard?

  I hated that thought most of all.

  Especially since I knew that’s what Doctor Clark would want to talk about the most.

  The library wasn’t helping today, and I had to rush to get to the psychologist’s office for my weekly check-in.

  More like interrogation.

  But I attended every appointment with an open mind….a feat made easier because I had nothing in my mind, despite this being our sixth visit.

  Doctor Clark waited for us with a warmed mug of tea for me on her desk.

  She gestured to it. “To help you relax.”

  “So it’s going to be that sort of session?”

  Unless she’d loaded the tea with honey, lemon, and a horse tranquilizer, nothing would make our talk easier. Fortunately, I held the mug without shattering it into itty bitty pieces of scalding porcelain.

  “So…” Doctor Clark gave me her patented, soul-sucking smile. “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”

  Kissing a man who wasn’t my child’s father.

  Flirting with a handsome detective who wasn’t my past lover.

  Hating myself for getting so close to someone so perfect for me.

  “Oh, you know.” I shrugged. “The usual.”

  “And how are you feeling?”

  Shamed. Confused. Flustered. “Fantastic. You?”

  “I’ve been better.” Doctor Clark nibbled on the end of her pen. “Frustrating day at work. I’m sure you can understand.”

  Not without a memory of my profession. “I can?”

  “Sure. Go home. Stare at your wall. Ask it to share its feelings with you.” She sipped her own tea. “Let me know if it works out any better for you.”

  “With all due respect, Doctor…can I be the sassy one for a change?”

  “Use whichever defense mechanism you prefer, Evie.”

  “I’ll stick with willful ignorance.”

  Doctor Clark adjusted her glasses. “That’ll do. So…have you done as I asked? Started chronicling anything?”

  “Actually…” I had prepared for this. I pointed to the computer and sent her to a fully prepared, meticulously sorted blog. “I did. Good advice.”

  Doctor Clark scrolled over the website, reading the headers with moving lips and smirking to herself. “Do You Know Me – The Forgetful Amnesiac.”

  “I was going to go with 101 Lost Memories, but I didn’t want to get too artsy.”

  “Save that for the Pinterest page.”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  “So this blog…” Doctor Clark glanced over the few pictures and entries I’d uploaded. “This is for who, exactly?”

  “Anyone who finds it. I’m hoping someone else could read it, remember what I’m remembering, and realize who I am.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s a long shot.”

  “Possibly.”

  “But at least it’s me doing something. I feel better if I’m active. Keeps me from wondering about all the stuff I’m missing.”

  “What would you be missing?”

  “My family? My life? My job?” I cleared my throat. “My husband or boyfriend. Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  “I mean, definitely.”

  “Do you?”

  I sighed. “You’d be easier to talk to if you didn’t try to find hidden meanings in my words.”

  “And you’d be an easier patient if you were truthful.”

  “I did what you asked,” I said. “I started a blog. Any memory I get…within reason…gets posted.”

  “Which memories aren’t posted?”

  I nodded to the stroller. “Anything that might be age-inappropriate.”

  “Ah. Have you remembered many sexual moments?”

  I shushed her. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Well…I mean…”

  “So you have remembered moments of past intimacy.”

  I so didn’t want to talk about anything intimate. “Nothing major.”

  “I’d consider a memory like that to be very important. Those are the meaningful and emotional and critical moments that will help us overcome this amnesia.”

  “It was just…sexy. That’s all.”

  “With your lover?”

  “It’d be pretty boring if I remembered only myself.”

  She sighed. “With the baby’s father?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “And how did you feel?”

  Exactly as excited, wanton, and desperate as I had in Shepard’s arms, stealing kisses that didn’t belong to me and feigning a lif
e that wasn’t mine.

  “How any woman would feel at that moment,” I said. “I didn’t see his face. I don’t know who he is yet. But I’m working on it.”

  “Working on it?”

  “The blog is only the first step. I’m doing everything I can to figure out who I am right now.”

  “And what’s your plan?”

  “Yearbooks.”

  She lowered the notepad. “Explain, please.”

  “I’m looking through yearbooks at the public library, searching for myself.”

  “And you think you finished high school?”

  “I’m sorry I don’t hang my degree on my wall like you,” I said. “But I remember bookbags and class credits and reports. I was in college. So I must have finished high school.”

  Or I had dropped out and gotten a GED.

  The thought had crossed my mind. But I hadn’t let myself consider it too closely, not when the yearbooks were all I had.

  “I figure I’ll find myself,” I said. “Get a name. Research it. Find an address. Some family. Who knows? Maybe those answers will be enough to trigger everything for me.”

  “You think it’ll be that easy?”

  “That’s what Shepard thinks.”

  The pen rose once more. “Shepard Novak? The detective?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s been helping you? The last time we spoke, you said he had to investigate you. That he was waiting on your memories before his search could move forward.”

  I didn’t want to hedge the subject. I couldn’t remember how to lie effectively, and I had a feeling Doctor Clark could see right through it.

  “That’s right,” I said. “He was helping.”

  “Was?”

  “Is.”

  “Is?”

  I exhaled. “Ultimately, I have to be the one to remember. No one else can help. Not you. Not him.”

  “Especially not him.” She clicked the pen twice in a row. “We can’t let him get too involved, right?”

  She was absolutely correct. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “A handsome, single man like him? I bet you were spending a lot of time together.”

  “So?”

  “This blog as a lot of posts made from this week. Either you had quite the breakthrough, or…”

  “I finally got to work on it.”

  “Right. And the library search? All those yearbooks?”

  “What about them?”

  “You’re hitting those books pretty hard, aren’t you?” She studied me. “Looking for answers?”

  “I think it’ll work.”

  “What exactly do you think it will do for you?”

  I frowned. “Just what I said. It’ll give me a name. A lead. Maybe I can find someone who knew me.”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Doctor Clark surrendered, tossing her notebook on the desk. “Evie, look. I told you to start writing down your memories so you could explore them. I told you to look deep, to try to understand what it was that you were remembering. Why it was lost. What happened in your past. And instead, you make a blog which is deliberately created to search for people who know you.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You tell me. Why are you really in the library, looking for your face, your name, your clues? I told you to delve deep and medicate on those memories. Instead, you’re doing everything you can to slap a label on yourself and call this mystery solved.”

  “That’s the point! I don’t have anything right now. No name. No past. Nothing. And I need to find those answers.”

  “No. You want to find an escape. You’re looking for the easy solution to a problem that you haven’t even begun to face.” Doctor Clark leaned in close. “It’s been nearly six weeks, Evie. You are no closer to your past than you were when you first woke in that hospital. You’re desperate for your name so you can have a label. You want to know your past so you can feel secure. You want to find your lover because…”

  “I have a child with him.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “I want you to admit something right now, Evie. No lies. No distractions. I told you once that you might not want to remember your past. Was I right? Why is it you’re so desperate to be found instead of waiting and revealing it to yourself? What is it that you’re hiding from?”

  I hated that I answered so quickly. “Guilt.”

  Doctor Clark stiffened. She clicked the pen again, but it stilled over the pad. “Oh. I…thought you were going to say loneliness.”

  The air rushed from my lungs. “So did I.”

  The silence lasted only a moment. Doctor Clark folded her notebook closed. “You’re allowed to be happy, Evie. It’s been six weeks with no answers.”

  “That only means I haven’t looked hard enough.”

  “For him…” Her eyebrow cocked. “Or for the truth?”

  I didn’t answer. Neither did she. We both checked the time and decided enough was enough.

  She stood. “Think about what I said.”

  “Believe me.” I grabbed Clue’s stroller and her diaper bag. “I wish I could forget it.”

  “Forget what I said?” Her voice lowered. “Or forget something that you did?”

  I damned the kiss. A kiss was supposed to be a declaration of love. A moment captured within another’s heart long enough to leave a part of yours.

  Instead, my heart had shattered. Broken.

  And not for the man I’d accidentally wronged.

  But for the one who might have made it right.

  9

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Who the hell decided to give a plastic, urine soaked stick this type of absolute power?

  No warning. No preparation. Not even a cushion to slide under your ass once you read the results.

  “Pregnant.”

  Oh God. It sounded like such a horrible word. Ugly almost. Like it was defined only by swollen feet and stretch marks.

  Why didn’t the little plastic prophet come with a better word than pregnant?

  Like…expecting? Or family? Or…

  Miracle?

  Pregnant.

  We were having a baby.

  “Well…?” His voice melted every part of me. The anticipation.

  His hope.

  “Yes.” I stared only at the test. “We did it.”

  “Wow.” His arms crossed over my belly, and his kiss tickled my neck. “I was hoping we could try some more.”

  “We can do even better.” I placed my hand over his. “We can celebrate.”

  As usual, I didn’t see the man in my memories.

  Just heard his voice. Felt his touch.

  Missed him with every damn beat of my heart.

  It was getting harder now. Harder to ignore. Harder to be alone. Harder to think about.

  And so I didn’t. I paced the living room and checked my phone for the tenth time in a minute.

  Where the hell was he?

  The knock came five minutes too late. I flung the door open and hauled Shepard into the apartment.

  “Evie, what the hell is going on?”

  His shirt was unbuttoned. He tripped over untied shoes, and he brushed his hair with only his fingers. Apparently, my call woke him up at six in the morning.

  So why the hell did it take him fifteen minutes to get here?

  “Are you okay?” He stopped in the entryway. “You said it was an emergency?”

  I tugged on his hand, dragging him down the hall. “I’m sorry, but I needed your help. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He must have read the terror on my face. “Jesus, is it Clue?”

  He bolted to the nursery and dove at the crib. Clue wiggled inside, bundled up tight in her blanket. His fingers clutched the crib, but he shook his head.

  “Evie, she’s fine? What’s wrong?”

  “Wait.” I held a hand ou
t. “Just wait.”

  Shepard stared at Clue. She stared back.

  “Just wait,” I whispered.

  The poor thing. Maybe she was too hot now?

  I had no freaking idea what to do.

  “Evie—”

  “Wait.” I listened, hard. “Just…wait…wait…”

  “Wait for…what?”

  She was going to make a liar out of me.

  It didn’t matter. I’d heard it. All night. And my heart hadn’t stopped racing.

  “Evie, I think you need to—”

  Aschoo!

  I gripped my chest over my heart. “Did you hear it?”

  Shepard paused. “Was that a…sneeze?”

  “Or a cough!”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Evie.”

  “She’s sick!”

  Shepard nudged the blanket and pillow tangled on the floor next to the crib. “Did you…sleep in here?”

  “Figured it out without even dusting for prints?”

  “You don’t think that was a bit drastic?”

  “I know what you’re going to say, but I am not crazy. I had her monitor up to my ear all night just to listen to her breathe. She was so congested and kept making that little coughing, snorty, grunty sound. It scared the hell out of me. Then, suddenly, I didn’t hear her making it anymore. I panicked—”

  “Evie.”

  “So I camped out on the floor, and—”

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “Do I ever?” I bit my lip. “I’m really worried.”

  “She sneezed once. If it was even a sneeze.” Shepard cradled Clue against his chest. His voice softened as he spoke to her. “We don’t even know if it was a sneeze. Might have been a cough. Might have been a—”

  Ahshoo!

  He stilled. His hand rubbed over her tummy, but he stopped and listened hard. “I think she might be congested.”

  “Oh God.”

  “That was a sneeze,” he said.

  “Oh no.”

  “She might be sick.”

  My world collapsed.

  Nightmares of rogue ice cream trucks faded.

  I pinched my eyes shut. The night before last, a knife in the dishwasher had triggered a memory. The flash of steel. Some punk juvie reject stealing my purse for drug money.

  Like I didn’t know to keep my cash and phone on my body.

  Still, in that moment, I had been scared. But even a mugging wasn’t as terrifying as those four words.