Page 165 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

I waited until his eyes met mine.

“It wasn’t the same. It was better. I’m sure Liam thought so too.”

He looked away, a faint flush coloring his cheeks.

“Like I said. He likes whatever I get him.”

Probably because you always get him something great.

I looked ahead, letting the city blur around me while I tried to gather my thoughts.

Who was this man?

He couldn’t be the same one who’d stood in my hospital room, making everything worse with every word. The one who’d irritated me so thoroughly I could barely stand to be in the same room with him. The one who’d forgotten his wife, dismissed her pain, chosen everything else over her.

But why couldn’t he be? I was the same woman who’d once chosen him. The same woman who’d taken a chance on marriage, on forever, on us. The same woman who, a few months ago, couldn’t bear the sight of him.

He was the same man who’d put work first—and also the one who’d learned to make a soup I needed after I got sick, just so I wouldn’t have to go out.

He was the same man who’d accused me of faking my amnesia—and also the one who’d shown up at my door in the middle of the night with a bag packed, ready to sit with me through every hour of the sickness.

He was the same man who’d hurt the woman I used to be—and also the man who looked at me with awe when I laughed, as though my joy were something sacred.

Just like I was the same woman who’d loved him once, even if I couldn’t remember why anymore.

I reached for another hot dog, needing something to do with my hands.

“I confronted my mother.”

I froze.

The hot dog hovered halfway to my mouth.

Slowly, I turned to look at him.

He stared at his half-eaten hot dog as though it held the answer to something. He took a deep breath, then looked at me.

“She’s not really my mother.”

The words came out flat. Clinical. As though he’d practiced them.

“Not biologically. And not in any other sense, either.”

His gaze dropped again.

“No matter how much I wanted her to be.”

The last part slipped out softer, almost as though he hadn’t meant for me to hear it.

He gave me a sad smile, the kind that hurt to witness.

“My father cheated on her. I was the result. And then he left.”

He shrugged, as though the abandonment of a parent could be reduced to a simple movement of his shoulders.

“But she stayed. She decided to keep me. I was always so grateful for that—that she didn’t leave me too—that I brushed off everything else.”

His voice wavered, then steadied.