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Because I don't want to disappoint you. I might not have remembered much, but I remembered where I came from - a neighborhood on Havana's edge. I had a good family - since I did whatever it was that got me kicked out of my father's house - but we were poor as dirt. My father didn't have a damn thing to his name all his life, except a few bottles of rum and his rusty boat. I was not educated. I was not classy, and I didn’t bring anything to the table. My last chance to feel worthy of this...of everything I had now, was to be stronger than a concussion. I did something well that made this man spare me another glance, and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know if I could do it again.
"Rita?"
"Hmm?" His rugged voice took me out of my spiral and back into our kitchen. "Sorry, my thoughts trailed off..."
"We need to talk about it, love. You passed on therapy, but I need to know...did you remember anything today?"
His tone was controlled and content, but inside his chest there was probably a burning hope that our lives would eventually go back to normal. I was about to smash that hope.
When he saw the distress on my face, James abandoned his plate and took my hand in his, entangling his fingers with mine.
"Talk to me, Rita."
"I didn't remember shit, ok? I expected to...I'm so sorry, James; it's like they never existed before. I am so, so sorry."
"You don't remember anything?" For a second, I thought I heard a relief in his voice.
"No..."
"Good."
My eyes jilted up to find his green pools watching me with faded enthusiasm.
"What?" I asked, confused, and he shook his head like he couldn’t believe what had just happened.
"What I mean is that not remembering right away is not a bad thing. You can't expect your memory back in one day?"
"But how about some? Because I've been waiting for weeks and not a second from the last years came back to me. Nothing. I can't remember how we met or any of our friends or what I felt when you proposed. I don't know what I felt when I found out I was pregnant or our wedding day. And I have no fucking idea what I did to get you." When I was finished, I was out of breath, shaking in frustration and anger. Patience was never my forte, especially when important things were on the line. My life was missing, and I didn’t have it in me to wait to get it back.
James got up from his chair and came to my side, allowing me the comfort to hide my face away in his chest.
"Would it be so bad to not get those memories back?"
"What?"
"I mean if you never remember...Can't we just live life from here?"
"No!" God damn it, no! "James, I can't live my life not knowing..."
I pushed myself away from him and turned around, catching my breath. My knees suddenly felt so weak. Since I opened my eyes in that hospital, I'd been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, but I had never considered giving up.
"Love, listen to me, that's why I wanted you to see a specialist. We need to accept the fact that you may never get those years back, and there's not much you or I can do. We need to see the positive..."
"The positive?" I turned around to face him with the force of a tornado. Didn’t he get it that I couldn’t handle a half measure? I needed all we had back. "What can be positive about forgetting the day my daughter came into the world? What the fuck is good about that, James?"
I was yelling in his face, but the man didn’t move an inch. The only sign that my tantrum was getting through to him was a fine line forming between his brows.
"Rita, the brain works..."
"Don't give me that doctor bullshit, Sullivan. Don't! You already made your speech about how mysterious the mind can be, and I get it, but you can't tell me to just forget about it and go from here."
If I did that, I'd just spend my life wondering if I was missing something.
James took a hand to his hair and ravished his neatly cut hair. It was obvious this was eating at him inside, but I didn’t think we were on the same page. I was trying to circle around the idea that I might never be the same, and in the end, he was right; no one could do shit about it, but him throwing it in my face really struck a nerve.
"You are the one thing I can count on, James. Your stability, the way you always pushed me up since...and now you're throwing me in the mud."
"I am telling you the facts."
