was in wasn’t a lonely place. Isolation hadn’t been intended here and while I sometimes felt like a prisoner, it didn’t feel as though anyone was worried I would just up and leave. Truth be told, that was probably because I couldn’t. Where the fuck would I go? Who would I call? Was there someone to call? I had no fucking clue. The woman and little girls from dreams popped in my head any time my thoughts strayed toward leaving, but I had no idea who they were or how to find them just yet. Hell, for that matter, they could be nothing more than a vivid recurring dream I’d been having. Psychologically speaking, it was probably just me craving some sort of normal relationship.
A knock on my door startled me out of my wayward thoughts. I didn’t get the chance to invite whoever it was in because they just barged in. That was when my gut clenched and a light sweat broke out over my forehead. “Oh my goodness! Baby! I can’t believe I finally found you!” The woman patted her obviously pregnant belly and smiled down at me where I was seated. “Not a moment too soon too. I can’t believe you’ve been here all this time!”
I narrowed my eyes on her. While the cadence of her voice seemed enthusiastic enough, something in her whole demeanor rang false. “Who are you exactly?”
“Declan? Seriously? You don’t recognize your own wife?” She chastised me as if I didn’t have a head injury I had been recovering from, as well a whole hoard of other issues. Not the least of which had been a serious drug addiction. I knew, no matter how weird my dreams were or how much I wanted to believe that I had come from a beautiful life with a wife and daughters somewhere, that my reality didn’t support that.
“I had a trauma,” I explained.
“A trauma?” She questioned again. Then she took in everything around us. “No bars,” she mentioned out loud, although I don’t think she realized it. “You can’t remember?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “You want to fill me in?” I asked the woman even though an inexplicable queasiness was eating at my insides.
“I’m your wife,” she stated. My eyes immediately drifted to her left hand in search of a ring. She noticed. “Don’t be silly, I’m pregnant. My fingers swell all the time. It makes it impossible to wear my rings right now.”
I knew I wasn’t wearing a ring and there had been no evidence of tan lines or anything else to indicate I had been wearing one in the time since I came into Durbin’s care. I just cocked my head and continued to study the woman. There was something familiar about her, but I was having a hard time focusing on that fact because my body was bubbling up inside with uneasiness. Something Durbin once said to me came back. “You might not remember things right now but trust your body’s responses to your surroundings. Even when you might not remember up here,” he told me as he tapped my head, “Your body still remembers and responds accordingly.” My body was telling me that I wasn’t comfortable with this woman. There was no denying that fact.
“You don’t believe me?” Her words came out as a whine as her bottom lip poked out in a pout that just seemed put-on. She then looked down and dug into a purse she had hanging on her arm. The damn thing matched her posh outfit a bit too well too. I continued to watch her as she pulled a cell phone out of the bag, but the entire time I took in her appearance, all I could think was that this woman did not feel like someone I would be at home with. Granted, I had a failing memory, but she didn’t feel right. Her clothes didn’t seem right. The things I tended to identify with were the things I saw my old physical therapist came in wearing. He always had on denim pants, leather boots and jacket, and he smelled like freedom. Okay, freedom didn’t really have a scent, I guess, but he smelled like fresh air, leather, and motor oil even after he changed his clothes to work out with me. I asked once why he wore that stuff and he told me he would rather be safe and avoid road rash if he ever laid his motorcycle down.
I understood that sentiment on a level that