Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN NAMED MEGAN
Beth showed me a photograph.
I had to sit down.
Megan was standing beside me in a hospital room.
She looked exhausted.
Happy.
A newborn Sophie slept against my chest.
My face in the photograph was unmistakable.
So was the expression on it.
I knew that baby.
Loved that baby.
There were more pictures.
Sophie at six weeks.
Me asleep on a couch with her on my chest.
Megan feeding me pizza while I held the bottle.
A photograph of the three of us beneath a banner that said WELCOME HOME, SOPHIE.
I looked at Claire.
“You told me Megan was someone I barely dated.”
Claire whispered:
“You were sick.”
“No.”
“You were confused.”
“Was Sophie my daughter?”
Claire said nothing.
Beth answered.
“Yes.”
My sister started crying.
I asked Rebecca why she had never told me.
Her answer hurt.
“I tried.”
“What?”
“After the accident.”
She wiped her face.
“You became panicked every time anyone mentioned a baby. Claire told the neurologist you were having false-memory episodes. She said bringing up Megan made your agitation worse.”
“Why did you believe her?”
“Because she was there every day.”
Of course.
Claire had been my emergency contact at work.
A longtime friend.
Someone I had known before the missing period.
Megan and I had moved fast.
We met seventeen months before the accident.
Sophie was born near the end of that period.
Almost my entire relationship with Megan existed inside the exact stretch of memory my injury damaged.
Claire existed before it.
So when my brain needed an anchor, Claire was familiar.
Beth explained what happened to Megan.
Five years earlier, Megan suffered a severe fall down the staircase at her townhouse.
Broken pelvis.
Head injury.
Internal injuries.
She spent weeks hospitalized and months in rehabilitation.
She was still undergoing physical therapy when my car accident occurred the same night.
“Same night?” I asked.
Beth nodded.
I remembered flashing lights.
A staircase.
Claire crying.
Then driving too fast.
Then nothing.
“What happened before Megan fell?”
Beth looked toward Claire.
“We were told you two had been arguing.”
“Me and Megan?”
“Yes.”
“Who told you?”
Beth didn’t have to answer.
I turned.
Claire looked at the floor.
“You told them I hurt Megan?”
“No.”
“You told me Megan left because she didn’t want me around Sophie.”
“It was complicated.”
“You told Rebecca mentioning my own child would damage my brain.”
“Your doctors said stress—”
“My doctors or you?”
Claire’s mouth closed.
That became the question.
Not whether I had memory loss.
I did.
Not whether recovery had been difficult.
It was.
The question was how much of my recovery Claire had quietly interpreted for everyone else.
That evening Beth took Sophie to Rebecca’s house while authorities sorted out the immediate situation.
I did not ask Sophie to stay with me.
I barely knew how to stand upright.
Before she left, she slipped her small hand into mine.
“You look like the pictures.”
My eyes filled.
“What pictures?”
“Mommy Beth has lots.”
I swallowed.
“Do you remember me?”
She shook her head.
That was fair.
She had been a baby.
“Mommy Megan remembers you.”
My chest tightened.
“Where is Megan now?”
Beth stared at me.
Then said:
“Twenty minutes away.”
I looked at Claire.
Five years.
May you like
The mother of my child had been living twenty minutes from me.
And my wife had spent every one of those years telling me the woman in my dreams did not exist.
