I’m grateful that the scent of butter, vanilla, and cinnamon is strong enough to overpower the subtle aroma of Emery’s skin. I’m aware that it sparks something ancient in me, something feral.
Without thinking, I reach out, straightening the strap of her tank top. It doesn’t cover more this way, but at least when righted it seems to quiet some of the instinctive urges I have to undress her here in the kitchen.
God, this is all so disorienting. No wonder we had sex the first night we met.
“I’m sorry I was out cold in there,” she says, breaking her gaze away.
“What?” My pulse kicks, adrenaline streaking down my limbs. “Why would you be sorry for sleeping?”
“I don’t want you moving around unattended. I don’t want you to need something and have to get it yourself.”
I smile at her, holding my tongue when my instinct is to say,You wouldn’t be apologizing if you knew what I did to you in my sleep.
As if reading something in my gaze, Emery gives me a little smile before walking to the coffee maker and getting a pot brewing.
“I woke up and panicked that you were gone,” she says, turning to lean back against the counter while the machine gurgles, releasing the heady aroma of coffee into the room.
“I’d love to go outside, but I get that it’s probably not the best idea to go alone yet.”
Emery smiles gratefully at this and then turns, reaching for a pen in a cup and writing something on a calendar on the wall next to the coffee maker. I turn off the stove and step closer, reading on today’s date:Have breakfast together
Curious, I scan the rest of the calendar—three months at a timeseems to be the system—and from May to July, only today’s square has her handwriting. The rest is what I can only assume is mine.
There are doctors’ appointments, dental cleanings, dry cleaning pickup—which, given that it’s during the daytime, I gather means I pick up Emery’s dry cleaning. Every Thursday is trash pickup; once a month I appear to change the water filter in the fridge and once a quarter I change the filters in the heating vents. In fact, most everything on the calendar relates to some boring aspect of adulting, except the night of my resurrection, which has a heart around the date and dinner reservations for 7:30, and every single Sunday has something penciled in, likeTorrey Pines picnic; drive to Laguna and lunch at Las Brisas; brunch at Parkhouse Eatery; 9 a.m. pickleball and 12 p.m. lunch at Madi.
“Sundays were busy,” I note.
I realize, when I look down to her, that Emery had been staring at my face, only inches away from hers. When our eyes meet, she blinks away, licking her lips distractingly, and glances at the calendar. “Oh. Yeah. We call them Sunny Sundays. We do something together every weekend.”
I take a few seconds to read between the lines. “Just Sundays?”
Emery pulls her lips between her teeth and shrugs. “We spent time together at home, too.”
What was our life like? What did she like about it, and what did I? The idea that I saw my wife only occasionally at home and on Sundays feels insane to me, but here I am—married to her, wearing the wedding ring, picking up her dry cleaning, still wanting to fuck her.
I step back, leaning my hip against the counter to face her. “Can I ask you something?”
She nods, eyes wide and nervous.
“What do you want to happen between us?”
“You mean, what’s my ideal situation here?” she asks.
I nod.
“That you get your memory back,” she says. “That we get to start over with everything out in the open.”
“And your job?”
Her expression tightens. “I don’t know.”
“Can you balance it with a life outside of work?” I ask. She’s the only anchor I have to the world right now. I don’t know how to feel about trying to navigate this amnesia, the unsanctioned use of the BioVIVE, her secret life—all of it all on my own. I don’t know exactly what I’ll do with the information, but I want it sooner rather than later. Only three and a half days in limbo and I’m going crazy. “What does a ‘life out in the open’ mean for you?”
Swallowing, she says firmly, “I’m going to prioritize us. If my job takes me away from home too much, then I quit.”
Something hard and sharp inside me melts. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear this.
19EMERY
