“What else do you remember?” I asked.
He was thinking about it, I could tell, trying to pull his memories out as far as he could. “We live in a house…we have a family…and no dogs.”
That was so random. Maybe Derek had always wanted a dog. Mom and Dad kept saying they didn’t want one, so he was right. We were dogless.
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” James said wistfully.
Derek nodded. “Me too.”
“I guess we should get a dog then,” Mom said, and James put up his hand to Derek for a high five. Derek hesitated for just a moment, as if he didn’t know what to do, then he hit James’ hand.
“Okay, now that you’ve made Mom decide to get a dog, what else do you remember?” I asked.
“I go to…that place…with books…” He stopped, frustrated.
“The library?” James asked, bewildered. Neither he nor Derek cared too much for reading. Sometimes James did if he found a series he liked, but Derek was the only person I knew who hadn’t even read Harry Potter. Well, he read the first three and then just watched the movies and if anyone talked about it he at least knew the basic plot. A place with books was definitely not a library.
“School?” I guessed.
“Yes!” Derek said. “I go to school. And I know these people…” he gestured to the cards on the wall and the flowers.
Mom pulled out the yearbook. “Do you remember some of your friends?”
Derek looked at the yearbook, slowly turning the pages as we held our breaths. He pointed to Jason. “He’s my friend.”
He found so many others that we knew he remembered almost all of them. I was so thrilled I wanted to yell, but that might scare the other patients.
We couldn’t wait to tell Dad. We called him up and Derek talked to him, and did pretty well.
After the call I told Derek he was doing great.
“Yes. I’m glad,” he said.
It was only a few words, but I could see he was deeply pleased, and relieved. He was reclaiming part of what he’d lost, and he knew it. I wondered what he would be able to do—how much would he regain?
He could even read a little bit, but it was difficult. He would forget the paragraph he’d read before. The doctors said he would improve his short-term memory so maybe that would get better.
When he got sleepy we left, and through his half closed eyes I saw something different. I saw that he knew I was his sister—he wasn’t alone. He didn’t feel exactly the same way about me, but if he knew we were at least connected somehow, it was enough.
I remembered the night I prayed at my Granpop’s house. Everything was going to be okay, if it wasn’t okay, it was. We’d been given a gift—Derek knew us. But even if he didn’t get that back, we would still have loved him. It wasn’t his athletic ability or how smart he was that made me love him. He was part of me and he always would be. Nothing could ever change that. As long as he was happy, we were.
That’s all that counted. It was hard to believe that I could be elated over such a small development for him and for us, but I was. It was winning our own private lottery—a prize anyone else might mistake for a curse, but for us it was a miracle.
On the way home I checked my phone. I scrolled down my received messages to the one I never tired of.
I love you, too
.
Ren and I hadn’t said anything about it, but in a funny way we didn’t have to. It was a big deal, and it wasn’t. We were meant for each other, and even though we didn’t know exactly how all of it was going to happen, we knew it would.
I sent him the latest update on Derek.
He remembers me
I'm happy for you
Thx me too
I'll see you when you get home
K
It was dark outside now, the cold winter air holding the world still, waiting for another snow. The house was warm and inviting, Mom turning on the lights in the kitchen as we walked in. The aroma from the crockpot filled the house and my stomach grumbled. I set the table, putting bowls down and glasses as Mom sliced a loaf of French bread. The spoons were in my hand when my Dad drove up the driveway.
When he came in Mom called for James, who had disappeared into the living room to play video games. We sat around the table, the four of us, surrounded by the fragrant smells of dinner and the golden light of the kitchen. I missed Derek, but it didn’t haunt me as much because I knew he was coming home in a few weeks. I wondered if he remembered how good it felt to be at the table with all of us. He might.
I was rinsing the dishes after dinner when the doorbell rang. I’d forgotten to ask my parents if it was all right for Ren to come over.
I went out to the living room as my dad was getting up off the couch.
“It’s probably Ren,” I explained. Mom looked up from her book, blinking over the top of the pages and Dad just nodded.
I knew they were looking at each other and making some kind of “Well imagine that” face or something as I walked away.
He stood at the door, wearing two sweat-shirts, his hands stuck in his pockets and his thin shoulders hunched. His hair was spiked in his eyes and I could see his breath in the cold night air. “Hey,” I said, opening the door for him.
“Hey. It’s cold,” he said, stepping inside.
“Yup. You should try a coat.”
“Maybe, if I get desperate,” he said, his hand still in his pockets.
“I’m doing the dishes…do you mind if I finish up? You can come in the kitchen with me, if you like.”
“Sure.”
We walked in the living room from the foyer and Ren stopped and spoke to my parents. “Thanks for letting me come over,” he said.
He stood in the middle of the living room, his hood thrown back and his eyes calm—so calm he might have been speaking to old friends. I wondered if his confidence came from knowing my parents as they would be in the future.
My mom waved her hand. “Anytime, Ren. We like you.”
He smiled. “Thanks. I heard Derek is doing better.”
Dad was leaning back on the couch, one leg crossed over his knee and the remote dangling from his hand. “Yes, he is. It’s been a blessing. We’re very fortunate.”
“That’s good news. Hopefully he’ll be back home soon.”
I could see the Mom-wheels turning in her head, assessing Ren. I think it was favorable. “Are you being suckered into helping with the dishes?”
He looked over at me, smiling. “I do them at home all the time. With two of us it won’t take long.”
Dad picked up the remote, his gaze flickering over at a commercial. “Have fun.”
My parents got a 9.9 for that one.
We went into the kitchen, which looked even more yellowy and worn when I thought about it from Ren’s point of view. It wasn’t the polished granite and chrome he was used to. He didn’t seem to notice, peeling off his two sweat-shirts, giving me a sheepish grin.
“I didn’t want to take my clothes off in front of your parents,” he whispered.
I smirked at him. “So it’s okay in front of me?” I tried not to think about his flat, toned stomach and the muscles that bunched on his arms when he picked me up.
His dark eyes held my gaze as he quirked an eyebrow at me, and I blushed.
“You can put them over there,” I said, pointing to a chair. I brushed my hair back from my face as he threw his clothes on the chair. My cheeks felt a little warm.
There were only a few glasses left on the counter and the crockpot. I tackled the crockpot, filling it up with hot, soapy water and Ren took the glasses and rinsed them. I flicked some water on his gray t-shirt and the drops turned into dark spots that spread out. He looked over at the door to the living room and smiled bitterly, shaking his head at me. He wouldn’t dare splash back.
“So Derek remembers everyone now?” he asked, flicking some water out of his hair. “How did that happen? Like, all at once?”
“Yeah, sort of. We’ve been trying to help him remember and maybe that helped. It was like he looked at me today and all of the sudden I
knew
he knew me. That look in his eyes…it changed. I can’t describe it. You’d have to be there. And afterwards he could tell us things like James playing soccer and other stuff. He got it back.”
“I didn’t know he would lose his memory of you,” he said, putting the last glass in, his hand lingering on the bottom of the glass. He was thoughtful, almost talking to himself.
“It’s kind of random, isn’t it? What you can see?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I know enough to change the way I think about people, though. A lot of times it’s surprising, and sometimes it isn’t.”
“You changed Kyle’s future, though.”
“Kyle changed his own future.” He stood back from the dishwasher, looking around the kitchen. “Where’s your soap?”
I took a soap tablet out from under the sink and he popped it in and shut the door.
“Noah and I just helped him along. I wonder if helping people is the reason I could see futures at all. Or to learn from it. I don’t know. It can make some situations more…” he paused, holding my gaze and then looking away. “…complicated.”
Complicated? That didn’t sound good. Was he thinking that he wanted to change what he saw about us? Did he feel like he wanted another choice?
“If you can change Kyle’s future, you can change your own,” I said, running a soapy finger around the edge of the crockpot instead of looking at him.
He answered me, and his voice was cautious. “Yeah, I guess I can do that.”
So he did want to change what he saw about us. My heart hammered in my chest and I was afraid he would see my hands shaking.
“Excuse me,” I murmured, and he moved away from the dishwasher. I hit the start button and it hummed to life.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall next to the dishwasher, watching me. “What do you think I would want to change about my future?”
“I don’t know, Ren. You said it was complicated. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Simplify it.” My words were cold, though it wasn’t how I was feeling.
He looked over at the door to the living room. “You’re mad at me?” he asked quietly, not wanting my parents to hear.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and whispered back, “No. I’m just saying you can choose your future. It isn’t set in stone or some…trap.”
Because that’s what he was afraid I was. A trap he couldn’t get away from. He knew we were going to be together and he wasn’t sure he wanted that.
Taking one more look at the living room he whispered, “If I’m going to change anything it wouldn’t be you.”
My eyes starting to water, I said, “Then what did you mean by complicated?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. He wasn’t leaning against the wall anymore. Both of us were standing stiff straight, two statues in my kitchen.
He’d said he’d loved me, but only after I’d said it first. Maybe he’d only said it because he thought he was supposed to. How much of his feelings for me were what he thought he was supposed to feel and how much of it was real?
I was beginning to feel light-headed. He wasn’t the only one who could predict futures. I could see myself too in love with him to recover when he decided he didn’t want me. It probably wasn’t possible to stop loving him, but I had to at least give myself some space.
“I think I’d like to walk by myself to school tomorrow, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“Are we breaking up?” he asked, still whispering, and I could read the disbelief on his face.
What was I doing? “I don’t know. Yes.”
His eyes were black, unreadable. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t sure he wants to be with me or because he feels trapped. Nobody would want that.”
“I never said any of that. You did.”
“Does it matter? I just want some space.”
He hesitated, like he didn’t believe me, then he picked up his clothes and went out the back door without looking back. A draft of cold air swirled around my feet and the sound of the door closing was unnaturally loud. The whole house must have heard it.
I just broke up with Ren. I was too shocked to move at first. He wouldn’t call me and I wouldn’t call him. I would walk by myself to school. And home. I would be everywhere by myself. But I had been that way before, hadn’t I? No, this was different. I was never alone really, because I didn’t know what it was like to be with someone, and now that I did, I understood what being alone was.
I didn’t want to finish the crockpot, but I did. I didn’t want to go in the living room and tell my parents that Ren had gone home, but I did. They could tell I was upset, there was no hiding that from them. They knew me too well.
I went upstairs and closed my bedroom door but I didn’t turn on the lights. I climbed in my covers with my clothes still on and pulled my blankets around me. I didn’t pray. I didn’t want to think.
My cell phone was on, lying on my bed. I picked it up and flicked through all the messages Ren and I had sent each other, then I deleted them.It wasn’t hard. What was hard was looking at my phone, knowing he wasn’t going to call me or text me.
My chest hurt and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t cry. I turned off the phone, watching it go black. I tossed it across the room and heard it hit the wood floor where there was no rug. It might be broken. Good. Then I wouldn’t be able to turn it back on and see that he hadn’t called me. Because I knew that’s what I would do—check it and feel the fresh pain of his absence over and over again.