by Zoe Cannon
With shaking hands, I unlocked the door to his office. It creaked as I pushed it open. I listened, but didn’t hear the telltale squeak of the bedroom door opening, or the pad of footsteps coming down the hallway.
After a few seconds, I got up the courage to step through the door. I flicked on the light.
At first, all I could do was stare. Hugh always kept the rest of the house uncluttered and sparkling—for my sake, he said, because it had supposedly mattered so much to me before the accident. But in his office, precariously-leaning piles of papers took up every inch of desk and floor space. Sticky notes dotted the sides of his computer monitor. The few bare patches of floor I could see had crumbs ground into the carpet. The room smelled like coffee and stale beer.
I had wondered, a few times, if my old self really had liked to keep things that clean, or if he was the real neat freak and was just embarrassed to admit it. Now I regretted ever doubting what he had told me. This, clearly, was the real him. Everything he did out there in the rest of the house, he did for me—and by the look of things in here, forcing himself to clean took a major effort for him. Warmth kindled in my chest.
I shook my head, reminding myself of why I was here. Where would he have kept the discharge instructions? If they were in one of the piles on the floor, I would never find them before he woke up. But there was a filing cabinet next to the desk, half its drawers hanging open. I started toward it, then stopped. If he had referred to the papers often, maybe they were in one of the piles on his desk. And that was a much less daunting target.
I sank into his leather swivel chair. It felt like trespassing. I shot a glance over my shoulder before I realized I was doing it. I got another tingle of transgression when I had to pick up one of his client files to see what was underneath, even though I wasn’t looking at any of the information inside. There was nothing under it but another client file, and another, and then…
I froze. The file slipped from my fingers. Its contents spilled out onto the floor. I didn’t even look. My eyes were locked on what I had found underneath.
Catalogs. Old ones. All those high-end companion bot catalogs we kept getting—the ones that, when they arrived, always prompted a laugh and another good-nature joke about replacing me. We always threw them away together; sometimes we rated the bots’ looks first.
Only Hugh hadn’t thrown them away. He had saved them.
There were six or seven of them here, all of them with softened edges from frequent thumbing through. In a couple of them, the phone numbers in the back—Call for a custom quote!—were circled in red ink.
It had only been a joke. A joke he repeated a few times too often, sure, but still a joke. I knew he wouldn’t leave me because of the accident, not when he was working so hard to help me get better. And if, God forbid, his patience ever did run out, he had too much self-respect to console himself with some artificial version of his wife.
Custom hair, skin tone, and body shape available! one of the catalogs proclaimed. Give us fifty photos or a half-hour of video, and watch us work our magic.
I shoved the catalogs away too hard, which sent a minor tremor through the rest of the papers on his desk. I piled the client files back on top, except for the one that had fallen.
I needed those discharge instructions. If I found them, and they triggered my memory, it wouldn’t matter if he had been tempted to take the joke too far. Once I was myself again, he wouldn’t need to think about a replacement. We would be back to normal.
Do I want us to go back to normal, if he would rather have a bot wife than a sick one? But the thought flitted away and was gone. He was lonely, I told myself. I couldn’t blame him for being lonely.
I stood up and pushed the chair back in. It rolled over the papers I had accidentally dropped. I tried to gather them up, but they kept sliding out of my hands, getting even more hopelessly out of order. After a few minutes of making things worse, I gave up. With how messy this place already was, maybe he would think he had done it himself.
I turned my attention to the filing cabinet. At least it was alphabetized. I checked under M first, for medical, but only found a few years-old sheets from Hugh’s annual checkups, telling him he should lose twenty pounds and start taking a multivitamin. Next I tried G, for Gauthier Memorial, the hospital that had treated me. Nothing. P next, for personal. Ditto. Finally, I tried A, for Annika.
After my previous failures, I didn’t really expect to find anything. But there it was—a folder labeled with my name in his thick block printing. I lifted it out and opened it.
There were no printed discharge instructions inside. Instead, all I found was a sheet of paper that looked like a map, and under it, a letter envelope with a hard lump inside.
The map had no roads I recognized. The roads it did show kept twisting all over the place and looping back on each other in odd configurations. The squiggly river running down the middle finally showed me what I was looking at. A map of hiking trails. He had scribbled an X near the river—that must have been where the accident had happened.
Goosebumps rose on my arms at the sight of that X. For a second, I hoped this was it—but the shiver had only been from the thought of the accident. No actual memories followed on its heels.
A small rip in the paper, like a pen had torn through it from the other side, made me flip it over. The back of the map had notes scrawled across it, dotted here and there in no recognizable pattern, all in his writing. June 15th, one of them said—the day of the accident. But he had put a question mark afterward. Had he not been sure of the day it had happened? Hadn’t he been there with me?
Below the date, he had written out several times of day—six a.m., two a.m., seven p.m., and others—with tally marks after each, divided into groups. Ten a.m. had Crowded! next to its large collection of tally marks; that was the only way I figured out he had been counting the number of people on the trails. Probably over a period of multiple days—that was why the marks were grouped into several clusters. Seven p.m., the time with the fewest tally marks, had been circled.
We went out on the trails after dinner, he had said to me. It was late, but I wanted to show you the sunset from the overlook.
Another shiver. My mind skittered away from the thought before it could come into focus.
In the lower right corner, a small, furtive scribble caught my eye. He had written it in tiny letters, not as thick and bold as his usual writing. But if I squinted, I could still make it out. Crush 1 pill in water. Wait 1/2 hr. If still awake, give 1 more.
I shoved the map back into the folder, and slammed the folder closed. I wiped my fingers on my pajama pants, as if the map had left some invisible filth behind. I was tempted to put the envelope back without opening it, but I forced myself to look inside.
The first thing I saw was a thick stack of bills. In my head, I found myself reciting the story of how we had first met. You pulled out this big wad of actual cash… In the corner of the envelope, I found one tiny white pill. Only one.
An image was forming in my mind. Not a memory, but as clear as the secondhand images Hugh’s stories gave me. I saw the two of us hiking. I saw Hugh handing me a bottle of water, and me chugging it gratefully—I wasn’t used to that kind of exertion. I saw myself slumping into his arms as we reached the river, and him holding my limp body under. Then chickening out at the last minute, pulling me onto dry land, performing frantic CPR. Just in time—or, depending on how I wanted to look at it, just a little too late.
Had Hugh tried to kill me? And was he… I thought back to the catalogs on his desk. Was he thinking about making another go of it and upgrading to a better model, now that the accident—if that was what it had been—had left me damaged?
But no actual memories came. I couldn’t see my vision going blurry, or feel myself sagging against him. I had no memory of my lungs burning as I coughed out water. If it had happened that way, surely this would have been enough to make me remember.
But if it hadn’t, what else w
ould explain all this?
My fingers found something else at the back of the envelope, a hard rectangle. I pulled it out and found myself staring at a driver’s license. The picture was of Hugh, but the name underneath was Paul Levine.
This time, I couldn’t convince myself I didn’t know where my shiver had come from.
Was this his contingency plan if something had gone wrong, if anyone had doubted his story of me trying to cross the river and falling in? There was enough money here for a plane ticket. More than enough—half of that could have gotten him out of the country easily.
The driver’s license slipped against my fingers, and split in two. No, it hadn’t split—there was another license underneath. The second one had my face, and the name Madeleine Levine.
I counted the money again. Yes, it would be just about enough to get us both plane tickets, plus a little extra.
But if this had been his getaway plan if the police had gone after him for murder, why had planned to bring me—his living wife—with him?
“Annika?” a voice called from down the hall. “Where did you go?”
I stuffed the envelope into the folder, and jammed the folder back into the filing cabinet. I switched off the office light.
Footsteps, getting closer. “Annika? Are you in the bathroom?”
I closed the office door, flinching at the squeak that was as loud as a scream to my ears. I fumbled with the key, and almost dropped it, but managed to get the door locked.
The footsteps were almost to the kitchen now. “Answer me, Annika. Is everything okay? Did you have another lapse?”
I stared down at the key in a panic. At the last second, I threw open the nearest cabinet—the one with the mugs arranged by size, the smallest in the front—and dropped the key into the closest mug. Then I grabbed a glass and turned on the tap just as Hugh walked in.
Relief spread over his face when he saw me. “I woke up and you weren’t there. I was worried.”
“What are you doing awake?” I asked.
“You ever close your eyes and land straight in the middle of a nightmare?” He screwed up his face and shuddered.
If I had, I didn’t remember. “What was it about?”
“I’m not even sure. It was gone as soon as I woke up. But when I didn’t see you in bed, I was afraid something had happened. Are you all right?”
I searched for the warmth in his eyes, the sight that always chased my fears away. But in the darkness, I could only see two black pits in the center of his face.
“I needed a drink of water.” I held up the glass as evidence.
He walked up to me and kissed the top of my head. I stood stiffly, and tried to keep from flinching back.
He drew back and looked at me, frowning. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” The memories still eluded me, but I could picture the scene almost as clearly as if it were real. Those familiar hands holding me under the water. I realized I was staring at his hands, and forced my eyes up. “Let’s go back to bed.”
This time, when I climbed under the covers, I closed my eyes right away. As always, though, sleep gave me no escape. In the space of a single blink, it was morning, and Hugh was smiling down at me. Always looking out for me. Never letting me out of his sight.
* * *
I knew what I had to do next. What I didn’t know was how to make it happen. Every minute of every day, Hugh was there. Rubbing my back, asking me how I was feeling, offering me a glass of lemon water. And prompting me, again and again: Do you remember the day we first met? Do you remember our first date? Do you remember our wedding? Let me tell you about it. Some days it seemed like he spent every moment from dawn to dusk reciting the stories and then listening to me parrot the words back, as if he still thought this would be enough to jar something loose in my mind. Or as if, in his mind, hearing me tell the stories was as good as knowing I remembered them.
But one day, he had to drive out to a client’s office an hour away. He stood in the doorway with car keys in hand, peppering me with questions, until I thought he was going to make himself late. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I’m fine.” I tried not to look him in the eye, afraid he would see the eagerness there.
“And you won’t try to cook?”
“I’ll microwave something. Or eat the leftovers from last night.” I was perfectly capable of cooking. I only had problems with my long-term memory, aside from the incident with the coffee cup and a few others like it. And I used the stove every day under his supervision with no issues. But the key there was under his supervision. He insisted on standing over me while I cooked, and had made me promise more than once never to touch the stove unless he was in the room.
He looked like he wanted to make me say it again, but he moved on. “And don’t answer the door for anyone.”
“I can’t remember the last time anyone came to visit anyway.” In the weeks after my homecoming, a few friends had tried to visit. Hugh had thought too much excitement could interfere with my recovery. He had always been there to answer the door or the phone before I could so much as say hello. Eventually, they had all given up.
Hugh frowned. “Maybe I should stay home.”
“No!” As Hugh looked up in alarm at my outburst, I steadied my breathing and tried to undo the damage. “I want to prove to myself that I can do this. That I can be alone for a few hours, and be okay. It’s important to me.”
He studied me for a long few seconds. “All right,” he finally said, with clear reluctance. “If you really think it will help you.”
“It will.”
“Call me if you need anything.” He turned to walk out the door, but looked over his shoulder at me, and kept on looking until the door closed behind him.
I watched the clock for fifteen long minutes, to make sure he wouldn’t double back for some forgotten paperwork. Then I walked out to the garage and climbed into my own car.
The seat felt strange—it poked me in all the wrong places. And it was too stiff, not like the couch at home, where I spent most of my time these days. The car didn’t sound any more comfortable with me than I felt with it; when I turned it on, it gave a long grumble of protest before finally humming to life.
No one had driven my car since the accident. I had never bothered to suggest going for a drive, because I had known what Hugh’s answer would have been. I couldn’t even say he would have been wrong to say no. I wasn’t sure I even remembered how to drive. After all, I didn’t have any memories of sitting behind the wheel.
But although I couldn’t call up the memory of the last time I had driven—or the first time, for that matter—my feet found the pedals without my having to think about it. My hands acted automatically, one shifting into reverse and then into drive, the other holding the steering wheel in a loose grip I didn’t remember learning.
I programmed in the directions to the start of the hiking trail. This trail didn’t start at the entrance to the nearby state park, like most of the big trails. Instead, it began a few miles down a lonely two-lane stretch of highway, with nothing much in either direction but trees and a single convenience store. Hugh didn’t like the busy trails; what was the point in going out to the woods to get away from the world, he had said once, if the world was only going to follow him out there?
Or maybe he was looking for a trail that was quiet enough to hide a murder, my mind whispered.
When my car announced—a little skeptically, I thought—that I had reached my destination, I pulled off to the side of the road and got out. The leaves were already starting to change color, red spreading around the edges and along the veins. And when I stepped into the shade, acorns crunched under my feet. The afternoon was colder than I had expected, colder than it should have been—but then, I had been assuming it was still the middle of summer. I wished I had brought a jacket.
Had it really been that long since June? When I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t looked at the calendar
in weeks. My days had a tendency to blend into a single endless moment, when all I did was stay in the house with Hugh and let him try to bring my memories back. Now, staring up at the changing leaves, I had the sense of time melting away from me, all those days and weeks and months irretrievably gone.
I was here to get it all back, I reminded myself. Maybe not the months since the accident, but everything that had come before, and that was the part that really mattered. Once I had my past back, I would know where to go from here, and then I would finally have a future beyond the couch and Hugh’s ever-present helping hands.
If helping was what he was doing.
It had rained that morning, and the air still held the bitter musk of wet leaves. The old me, the one who had decorated the bedroom in stark whites and grays, would probably have hated the smell. I drew in a deep breath, savoring the sharp earthiness of it. The old me had liked the smell of lavender so much that she had put plug-in lavender air fresheners in every room. Hugh dutifully kept them plugged in, even though I didn’t care one way or the other. Until I breathed in the scent of the woods, I hadn’t realized how much I had been aching to smell something that wasn’t lavender.
I started down the trail. Given how much time I had spent lazing around the house lately—recovering, Hugh kept assuring me, but it felt more like being a couch potato—I expected to find myself out of breath within the first quarter-mile. Since coming home, I hadn’t gotten any exercise besides the occasional walk around the block with Hugh, his arm wrapped protectively around my waist. But my breath stayed easy as I walked down the trail at a clip, always too acutely aware of the minutes ticking by to let myself slow down.
I didn’t pass anyone else on the trail, which wasn’t surprising. It was two p.m., one of the quietest times according to Hugh’s tally marks. Solitude—the thing I had been craving since I had come home from the hospital. But it didn’t ease my nerves the way I had expected. I kept imagining Hugh getting home early and finding me gone. Again and again, I told myself to turn around. Because I didn’t want Hugh to worry, if he finished up early and came home to an empty house.
