I don't want to worry about that now. I came here to get reacquainted with my multifaceted husband."
"Multifaceted? That's a rather benign term, don't you think? Did Fitapaldi give you that one? It sounds like him."
"No," she said, "I thought of it myself. Anyway, it fits." She stepped away from him, shrugged off her sweater and tossed it across the foot of the bed. "Wait here a second. I have a present for you. I left it out in the hall." She disappeared for a moment and returned with a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.
"A present?"
"Sit down and I'll give it to you." She guided him to a chair and held his elbow as he eased himself into it. "It's not brand new. I mean, Jack found it for me. I told him what I had in mind, and he got this. I hope you like it."
He untied the string and folded back the paper slowly, prolonging the anticipation. He could not remember the last time anybody had given him a present. When the package lay open in his lap, he stroked his hand over the smooth, dark jacket of the book inside. "Ansel Adams."
"It's what he does with the light, the way the light shines through. I see that in your pictures. The ones at the lake. And the still lifes."
"My Camera in Yosemite Valley. You flatter me. Thank you. It's the nicest gift anybody ever gave me."
She smiled, then watched him as he turned the pages of the book. He glanced up now and again, enjoying her pleasure as much as the book, sorry he had pushed her away from him earlier, sorry he had caused her even that momentary pain. But, he reminded himself and forced his eyes down again, that must be his purpose with her, to push her away. He mustn't let himself get sidetracked from that.
"Nicholas," she said softly after a while. "You won't remember this, but not so long ago, you made me promise something. I want the same promise from you now."
"Don't, Trissa."
"It's not a very big promise, and I don't think the keeping of it will be too great a chore."
"I can't."
"All you have to say is that you promise you will never leave me. It's not so much to ask, is it?"
He looked past her to a spot on the wall, a chip in the green paint, trying to focus on it to shutter out the flashed afterimage of her sincere, eager hope. "The one you wish to bind with a promise like that is already gone. The promise is broken before it is made."
"No, the one I wish to bind is right here before me," she slipped to her knees on the floor by his chair.
"Trissa, please don't..."
"He's the one who took the pictures as magic with light as the ones in this book. He is you, Nicholas. You, Cole. One and the same."
"There will be no promises. I'm no good at promises."
"We'll see," she sighed, unknowingly echoing his words from yesterday. "Anyway, I have the law on my side. This morning, they cautioned me not to leave town. I suspect they'll expect the same from you. I will have you under house arrest."
*****
For the first few days of his return to the home he did not remember, Cole slept in the old cook's room off the kitchen. Augusta had thoughtfully made it up for him, thinking the stairs would be difficult for him to manage for a while. Cole was grateful for it. It had a narrow bed he was expected to share with no one, unlike the one he knew he'd find when wellness forced him back to his own room. It was close to the kitchen, the center of most of the activity in the house, and easy to escape to when the pressure of remembering faces and names became too much for him.
No one thought it strange when he slipped off for naps. They encouraged him to take it easy, take his time. No one knew that he seldom slept at all. Trissa, Fitapaldi, and Augusta had laid the groundwork for his forgetfulness by magnifying the extent of his head injuries. If he lost his train of thought in mid-sentence, or mistook May for Beverly, or forgot Maurice's name all together, they blamed it on the beating, patted him on the shoulder, and prompted him patiently.
Nobody seemed worried that they might harbor a homicidal maniac in their midst. They simply refused