Page 29 of Love Wells Kept

“Yeah…Lucy would’ve loved her. You…you know about that, right?”

I nod solemnly, vaguely recalling my dad breaking the news about losing Mom. Maybe it’s the medications I’ve been taking or the brain fog. Maybe I somehow knew deep in my bones that she was gone before he’d even told me. But I didn’t cry. It didn’t cut in the same way finding out I have my own wife and daughter I don’t remember does.

“You knew Mom?”

She smiles to herself. “Yeah…yeah, I did. I was her care aide for a while. Your dad hired me to help take care of her when she was sick, and that’s how I met you.”

“We must’ve been babies.”

“We were. So there. We aren’t as old as you thought.” She quietly scrolls on her phone for a couple seconds, then thrusts the phone back at me. “This is Rhett. He’s basically your mini-me.”

There’s a man—me? I think?—grinning at a toddler covered in ice cream. It’s smeared across the kid’s face, and down the front of his denim overalls, and a long vanilla stream is running the length of my forearm.

“We have a son?”

“We do. He’s so much like you—quiet, patient, and, like, crazy smart.” Her face lights up. “Speaking of which, the kids made you cards last night.”

She carefully lifts two folded pieces of brightly colored construction paper from her bag, and I trade her phone for the cards. They’re simple paper, covered in crayons and stickers, but they weigh more than anything I’ve ever held before. I hesitate to open them.

“Kate.” Fuck, even her name feels strange in my mouth. I think on it for a second, then repeat it with a softer tone. The way I imagine her husband speaks to her. “Kate, I can’t look at these. I can’t do this.”

“You need to look at them, Jackson. We need you to remember your family. We need you to come back.”

“No.” I slide them onto the bedside cart.

Her jaw tenses and she gives me the same intimidating look she did earlier with the water. She’s so goddamn bossy.

I’d get up and get the hell out of here, if I could. I’m stuck with a woman who seems apt to pry my eyelids open and force me to look at these cards, if I try too hard to fight her on it. My mom never took shit from anyone, but I’m a little surprised I married a woman who literally wears the pants in the relationship.

The first card must be from the toddler, because it’s nothing but scribbles and haphazardly placed stickers. I flip it over, then open it. Granted, I haven’t spent any time trying to read or watch television or anything like that since I woke up, but I thought my biggest problems with my brain injury were the memory loss and migraines. Staring at this mess of color, I’m more than a little worried about the state of everything else.

Kate scoots forward in her chair and traces the drawing with a fingertip. “He made you a superhero. You have laser eyes, and giant muscles, and I think this is a cape. You’re his superhero.”

I quickly set it down and reach for the second.

The sooner we get this over with, the better.

“Odessa wants a horse?” It turns out, I can read. I’m still a little concerned about my ability to comprehend pictures though, because the horse looks more like a giraffe with a drinking problem.

“You were supposed to be taking her to the auction that day…. You’d promised her a horse for her birthday.”

I scratch at the bandage wrapped around my head and shut the card, then toss it on top of the second. I’m done with this. I want to go back to spending my free time counting the ceiling tiles and watching my own monitors as if they’re televisions. It’s easier on my heart.

Kate doesn’t care about what’s easier on my heart. She talks my ear off for an indefinite amount of time, telling me intimate details of our kids. Their likes and dislikes, Odessa’s penchant for harassing the barn cats in an attempt to make them love her, Rhett’s ability to create incredibly intricate towers out of wooden blocks. She explains that my brothers are both married. There are a ton of kids on the ranch. We have a woman named Beryl, whose job title is hazy to me, but she’s apparently like a grandmother to our kids—and this is a good thing, I’m told, because Kate’s parents live far away.

She bullies me into drinking sips of water every time the mood strikes, and when food delivery comes in with a particularly heinous-looking plate of lunch, she demands I give each food group a fighting chance. She watches me with an intimidating look as I follow the occupational therapist’s direction. When I try to argue with nurses that I don’t need or want anything to help with the pain swirling around my head, she shuts me up and insists I don’t know what’s good for me. She’s soft, and tenacious, and unrelenting when it comes to her care for me.

By mid-afternoon, my head tips on the pillow so I’m facing her. Everything feels sluggish and I have a hard time keeping my eyes open.

During a particularly lengthy and confusing explanation of all the friends and family who live on the ranch—her fourth or fifth attempt at helping me understand—my blinks become increasingly long. Yawns frequent. On one of the rare occasions my eyes are fully open, I take a minute to look her over. To really study the woman I’m married to. Memorize her and pray I don’t forget.

She’s pulled her legs up so she’s sitting cross-legged in the upholstered chair, dressed in my tattered, baggy jeans and T-shirt. And suddenly a question is niggling at me. “Can I ask—Never mind. I can’t—Ignore me.”

“You can ask whatever you want…it’s kind of my job to fill in the blanks until you remember everything.”

“It’s not a question I should be asking. It’s too…invasive.”

“We’re husband and wife. You don’t know it now, but just last week you knew literally everything about me. There isn’t a question on Earth that would be too invasive.”