Page 71 of Memories of the Lost

She never lost her phone. It was here somewhere. She checked the bathroom, kitchen, studio, couch, bed.

No.

From her bedside table, she picked up her tablet and used it to ping the phone, listening for the series of dings.

Nothing.

Carrying the tablet with her into the kitchen, she poured hot water over the tea she’d already measured, and while it steeped, she realized that she was desperately thirsty. She poured a glass of water. Whatever she’d been doing, she was hungry, thirsty, and slightly sweaty, as if she’d walked a long time.

Well, yeah. Three hours.

The app offered a message:Phone cannot be located. Last location: Home.

Damn. The charge had been very low last night when she got back, but she’d forgotten to plug it in. The phone must have died somewhere before the locator pinged the restaurant.

Anxiety started roiling up from her gut. She should call Jon and—

Oh, wait. She didn’t have her phone.

A faint Mylar line buzzed to life over her right eye. No! She couldn’t get a migraine right now, not with a lost phone and a terrifying amnesiac episode, and her best friend on a plane to Crete and—

One thing she knew for sure was that this whole thing was getting out of control. She needed to talk to her therapist, pronto. Before the zigzag light took over her vision, she searched for the therapist’s name in her contacts and sent a text through her tablet.

Winnie, I need help urgently. Having strange memory and migraine issues, even a panic attack. When can you talk?

It was only a few minutes before Winnie texted back.Can do a session in one hour. Phone or in person?

Zoom, pls.

Done. Sending link now.

The tablet would show her if anyone had texted her phone, but only if both were on the same system. Tillie and Liam were on different ones, so she couldn’t tell if he’d tried. This added to her anxiety, but the aura was taking over her vision, so she stumbled into her bedroom. Setting the timer on the tablet for fifty-five minutes, she covered her eyes with a pillow to try to empty her head.

Surprisingly, she dropped off almost instantly, maybe worn out from walking so long. No dreams.

The alarm awakened her at almost the same moment the tablet dinged with a notice. She rolled over, testing, relieved to discover that there was no emergent migraine, just a little bit of a stiff neck.

The message was a text from Jon.On my way, baby.He added an airplane emoji.

Have so much fun!She typed back a dancing emoji.

She took a long swallow from her water bottle, then propped pillows against the wall and opened the Zoom app to connect with her therapist. The thought of her orphaned phone ribboned through her, as if she had physically injured herself, but if it wasn’t locatable, it wasn’t being used, either, so nothing dire would happen in the next hour. She imagined it lying on the floor of the restaurant, out of juice, hidden beneath a table or kicked into a corner, and it felt like her own body was lying there. She thought of the conversation with Liam about no television or computers when they were kids, and it seemed absurd that a phone felt like her body now.

But it absolutely did. She felt weird without it, like she was missing a kidney or a foot.

Before her thoughts went too dark, Winnie appeared on-screen, and only then did Tillie think to look at herself in the little window. It made her so self-conscious that she often left it off, but it was on from the last call she’d had. Her hair looked windblown, and any makeup was entirely worn away.

Winnie had seen her in worse shape. “Hey,” Tillie said.

“Tillie! It was such a surprise to from you. It’s been a while!” Winnie was in her fifties, maybe, with prematurely silver hair and a penchant for great lipstick. “What’s going on?”

“It’s crazy,” Tillie said. “So crazy.” She told Winnie about the painting, the strange bits of lost time, finding out she had a sister who’d died, the strangeness of the death certificate with her name.

Winnie nodded, listening, interjecting a question now and then, mostly clarifications. When Tillie reached the end—the strange business of walking around the city for three hours with no memory of it—Winnie sat quietly for a moment.

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Let me get this straight. It sounds like the painting triggered a push for your memories to surface, and the guardian portion of your brain that wants to keep you safe is pushing back to keep the doors closed.”

“That sounds right.”