“Most of us drifted apart.”
He paused.
“The few I still speak to know about your memory loss. I didn’t want today turning into people asking you questions you can’t answer.”
At the time, it sounded thoughtful.
Now, hours later, I stood at the terrace doorway watching his hand tremble around a champagne glass.
This wasn’t normal wedding-day nerves.
When Richard noticed me watching him, he turned toward the dark garden.
I followed.
He leaned over the railing.
Champagne spilled over his fingers without him noticing.
He was much drunker than I had realized.
“Richard?”
He turned toward me.
His expression made my stomach tighten.
“If you knew what I really did,” he whispered, “you wouldn’t be wearing that ring.”
The night suddenly felt cold.
“What are you talking about?”
“I should have told you before we got married.”
His voice cracked.
“I was selfish. I kept thinking if I waited long enough, maybe it wouldn’t matter anymore.”
“What wouldn’t matter?”
He looked away.
“I’m sorry, Claire.”
“For what?”
Before he could answer, his knees gave out.
Richard slid down against the terrace wall, too drunk to continue.
A hotel employee helped me take him upstairs.
I laid him on his side in the bed.
Then I opened my notebook.
I wrote only one sentence.
If you knew what I really did.
By sunrise, I still hadn’t slept.
Richard hadn’t moved.
I started gathering the clothes and glasses scattered around the suite.
His tuxedo jacket was hanging over a chair.
When I picked it up, something shifted inside the inner pocket.
Something heavier than fabric.
I reached inside.
And pulled out a thin gold chain.
I knew what it was before I even looked at the pendant.
My mother’s necklace.
The small oval pendant I had been wearing the night of my accident.
The hospital told me it had disappeared at the crash site.
I stared at the necklace.
Then at the man I had married nine hours earlier.
Richard had never told me he was there that night.
My fist closed around the chain.
For two years, I had trusted my notebook because it contained the pieces of myself I could no longer remember.
But suddenly, one question terrified me.
How much had I discovered about myself?
And how much had Richard taught me to believe?
He stirred.
Then his eyes landed on the necklace in my hand.
His face changed immediately.
“Claire.”
He sat up.
“Let me explain.”
“Please do.”
Richard rubbed his face.
“I was nearby the night of the accident. I heard the crash and reached your car before the ambulance.”
“You’re a nurse. You helped me?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“I pulled you out of the car. Your necklace caught on my sleeve and broke. I kept it because I wanted to repair it.”
I stared at him.
“I was planning to give it back to you after the wedding. I thought it could symbolize the night we met.”
The explanation sounded too smooth.
Too complete.
Too rehearsed.
“You always told me you first saw me at the hospital.”
He blinked.
“I didn’t want you remembering the accident. The doctors said you were fragile.”
I forced myself to smile.
Then I kissed his cheek.
“Get some rest. You have a shift at noon.”
His entire body relaxed.
He thought I believed him.
I didn’t.
A few hours later, the hospital called and asked Richard to come in early.
The second his car disappeared, I opened my memory notebook.
Behind several medical documents, I found two utility bills from before my accident. Both showed an address I didn’t recognize.
If I had actually lived there before the crash, someone there might know something about the life I could no longer remember.
Forty minutes later, I stood outside an old brick apartment building on Halsted.
The manager stared at me.
Then he smiled.
“Claire? Haven’t seen you in forever.”
I glanced at his name tag.
“Mr. Alvarez?”
