Last Summer: A Novel Read online

  “Easy now.” Damien presses a button on a panel attached to the bed rail. Slowly, the head of the bed rises. Ella stares at her splinted wrist. She slips her other hand under the covers, searching for the source of discomfort as her husband adjusts pillows behind her shoulders. Gauze and tape over her pelvic region meet her wandering fingers.

  “What happened to me?”

  Damien gives her a tired smile. His fingers lovingly caress her cheek. “Relax.” He points at the food in front of her. “Eat up before Nurse Grouchypants catches a whiff and makes me toss it.”

  She watches the steam diminish as the omelet cools. She turns her face away, sickened by the smell.

  Damien pops open his oatmeal. He shovels a spoonful of the ungarnished oats into his mouth. He eats his oatmeal plain, and he’s eating ravenously. Ella wonders when he last ate. When did she last eat? Did she even eat the dinner she cooked?

  He glances up to find her watching him.

  “Aren’t you hungry? You’ve hardly eaten this week.”

  This week?

  Damien nudges the food tray closer to her. “You need your strength to recover.”

  Recover from what?

  “Why am I here?” She kneads the bedsheet.

  The spoon pauses midway between the cardboard cup and his mouth. “What?”

  “Why am I in the hospital?” She truly doesn’t know and tries to recall the past week. Checking into the hospital. Talking to a doctor. Eating the horrible food hospitals are known for. She can sense the memories are there. She reaches for them, stretching. She tries to grasp them, to hold on to something, anything about what landed her in a hospital bed with a splinted wrist and taped-up abdomen. She comes up empty-handed, confused and bewildered.

  Damien stares at her like she’s asked the most ridiculous question, which she probably did. Ella feels like she should know. She licks her lips. They’re chapped. Her throat hurts when she swallows, and she aches everywhere—muscle, bone, and tissue. Everything about her situation feels wrong—her body, this place, Damien carrying on as if her being laid up in a hospital bed is their new normal.

  Damien remains speechless, his lips slightly parted. The skin between his brows creases and his eyes dip down. He drops the plastic spoon in the oatmeal and sets the cup on the table. When he still doesn’t say anything, Ella pushes away the food cart and shoves down the sheets. A hospital gown bunches at the juncture of her thighs. She jerks up the hem, exposing her stomach, and gapes. Bigger than she’s ever seen it and spongy to the touch, her stomach looks like a partially filled air mattress. A large square gauze pad is taped to her pelvis.

  She starts picking at the gauze. She needs to see what’s underneath.

  “Ella, stop.” Damien grasps her wrists and she hisses. “Sorry.” He releases her braced wrist but keeps a firm grip on the other, holding her hand away from her.

  She struggles. She needs to see what was done to her. “Let go.”

  “Settle down. You’ll pull your staples.”

  “Staples? What did they do to me?” she cries.

  “Are you serious?” Damien asks, his face inches from hers.

  “Tell me.”

  “Don’t screw with me like this. It’s not fair.” He releases her wrist and backs away.

  “I swear I can’t remember why I’m here. I can’t remember anything.”

  “Bullshit, Ella.” He vigorously shakes his head. “I call bullshit.”

  “Why are you upset with me? I’m not lying.”

  Damien crosses the room and stares out the window. Sunlight too intense to be early morning brightens the rigid angles of his face. His cheek flexes, his tell that he’s disturbed.

  Ella draws the sheet up to her breasts. She feels exposed, lost. She doesn’t want to be here.

  She wants to go home. Better yet, she wants to wake up from this dream.

  That must be it. She’s still dreaming.

  She pokes at the bandage on the back of her hand, where an IV must have been inserted at some point. The area feels tender. Bile rises. The room, the equipment, her injuries. It’s all real.

  From across the room, Damien warily eyes her. She stares at him in horror. “Say something. I’m freaking out over here.”

  “You really don’t remember?”

  Ella slowly shakes her head.

  “Do you remember the car accident?”

  Her heart plunges into her stomach. “No.”

  Damien closes in on her. “What about Simon?”

  “Who’s Simon?”

  His face blanches. “Our son,” he whispers.

  Ella would laugh if she weren’t so terrified. They don’t have children. Damien doesn’t want kids. “That’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s true. Simon died. The impact of the airbag tore the placenta. Simon didn’t survive.” He cups a hand over his mouth and nose. He stares at Ella, shaking his head. “Impossible.”

  That she lost her memory? Maybe she hit her head in the accident Damien mentioned. Amnesia makes more sense to her than Damien saying she was pregnant. But her bandaged pelvis and the drastic changes to her midriff prove he’s probably telling the truth.

  “You forgot Simon. Our baby. Christ, El. You weren’t supposed to forget him. What about your emergency C-section? Do you remember that? What about last night?”

  “What happened last night?”

  “Seriously? You don’t remember any of it?”

  “No. How can I? I don’t even remember being pregnant.”

  Damien’s mouth falls open. One second. Two. He snaps it shut. “No. Way.” He cuts a hand through the air. “There’s no way you could have forgotten that. What the hell, Ella? Tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m not! I don’t remember any goddamn baby! Now tell me what is going on.”

  Damien swears and stabs a button on the remote beside her. She startles.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Paging the nurse.”

  He shoves the food cart out of his way. Long strides take him to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Mindful of her injuries, Ella sits up, ready to climb from the bed and follow him. She’s disoriented and scared. It takes a lot to frighten her and Damien isn’t helping. She doesn’t understand his anger. Why is he upset with her? It’s not as if she forgot on purpose. She’d expect her husband to be compassionate and understanding. Maybe even a little scared himself.

  Damien stops at the door. “Stay put . . . please. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Not until you tell me where you’re going,” she demands, swinging a leg over the side of the bed.

  He yanks open the room’s wide metal door. “I’m getting your doctor. You’re freaking me out.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Dr. Tate Allington, a neurologist, stands at the end of Ella’s bed. Bleached-white hair, a stark contrast to his sun-soaked skin, dusts the back of the wide hands holding a smart tablet. Silver wire-rimmed glasses sit on the end of his weathered nose. As he studies Ella’s CT scan from earlier in the week, her mind drifts. She wonders if he spends his afternoons golfing or on the tennis court. Maybe he likes to garden. He did mention his wife’s beautiful rose vines. Right after he announced he’s one month away from retirement. He wouldn’t mind working until he found himself in the morgue downstairs. Medicine is his passion. The brain is his favorite puzzle to unravel. But it’s the wife, you know. She wants to travel. He smells like sunscreen, Ella thinks, sniffing the air. The coconut aroma is a pleasant relief from the hospital’s sterile environment. And thoughts about the doctor’s personal life are less unsettling than her own problems, which seem insurmountable. She can’t remember her pregnancy.

  She sniffs again, a deep inhale that draws Damien’s attention. He tosses her a funny look, then goes back to brooding. Ella folds her hands in her lap and waits for the doctor’s diagnosis.

  He’s just finished explaining that they’ve met before. He evaluated her on her admission to the hospital. But for Ell
a’s benefit and because of the sudden memory loss, he recounted his findings. After her emergency C-section and due to the nature of the auto accident, Ella had undergone a CT scan. The scan revealed no evidence of trauma. No bruised brain tissue, bleeding, or other signs of damage. Other than her unfortunate miscarriage and a sprained wrist, her injuries are limited to scrapes, bruises, and aches from shattered glass and whiplash. That would explain the stiffness Ella feels in her neck and shoulders.

  Ella would have preferred a visit from her ob-gyn, Dr. Lynn Noriega. She and Lynn go way back. They met almost ten years ago in their early twenties at a mutual friend’s dinner party. Once Lynn opened her practice, Ella was one of her first patients. She trusted Lynn. She wants to ask Lynn about her pregnancy. Had it been an accident? She can’t recall when she and Damien discussed having a baby. The only time they did talk about kids was before they married. Damien was quite clear on his position. No kids. Ella went into their marriage knowing this, so when did everything change?

  She doesn’t remember, which worries her. So does Damien.

  He stands apart, keeping vigil by the window, arms crossed tightly over his chest. He’ll glance at her every so often but he won’t make eye contact.

  Maybe he’s frightened and this is how he deals with it. Pulling back and closing himself off. In the four years they’ve known each other, Ella can’t recall ever seeing him afraid or uncertain. He always has a handle on whatever dilemma he’s facing. He always has a plan. He’s a brilliant strategist at the office and at home. And he’s the first to praise her published articles and compliment her dress when he escorts her to the opera season’s opening night. He talks her through her writer’s block and is ready with an open bottle of champagne whenever she wins a prestigious assignment after going head-to-head with Luxe Avenue’s other staff writers.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Dr. Allington asks, bringing Ella’s attention back to him.

  “Dinner with Damien.” She glances at her husband. His attention is on the doctor. “I cooked pork loin,” she adds.

  She remembers their meal clearly. Damien arrived home from work, tie loosened, with a fitted dress shirt that showed off the muscles in his shoulders and lean hips. From the kitchen, she could hear him walk through his Honey, I’m home routine. He hung up his coat on the rack by the door, dropped his biometric briefcase on the floor, and shuffled through the mail Ella had left on the side table. He then joined her in the kitchen. She felt his breath on the back of her neck before his arms wrapped around her waist. It sent an intimate ripple of warmth through her. He kissed her shoulder, rubbing his nose along the curve of her neck. Her skin tightened, tingling in anticipation of what might come next. She’s always been so responsive to his touch.

  “You smell good.” He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Dinner smells good. You’re cooking.” He sounded amazed.

  “I’m trying.” She wasn’t a fan of cooking. Neither was Damien. But there were three things they did exceptionally well in their kitchen: brew coffee, make screwdrivers, and screw. Since the day they met, they’ve always eaten out or ordered in. But Ella had grown weary of take-out dinners and remembered she’d wanted to start cooking more often. They had a beautiful gourmet kitchen. Why not use it? Why not be more like a family?

  The memory stalls.

  Family.

  Maybe she wanted to practice cooking since she had a baby on the way. Damien had something urgent to tell her.

  We need to talk.

  About what?

  “When was the dinner?” Dr. Allington asks, looking from her to Damien.

  Who cares when the dinner was? Isn’t what her husband had to tell her more important? She wishes she could remember what it was.

  “Last week,” Damien answers when she can’t. “The evening of Ella’s accident.”

  Dr. Allington tucks his tablet under folded arms. “Are you pregnant in this memory, Ella?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think back. How do you see yourself?”

  Ella focuses inward. She can feel her shoulder blades pressing into Damien’s chest. His hands are on her stomach. She looks down, and when she does, the area blurs, much like an image that a photographer has touched up to obscure the subject’s identity.

  “Are you pregnant?” he asks again, more gently.

  “I can’t tell. I sense something’s there.” But she can’t see it, and she feels no emotions for what could be there, growing inside her.

  Damien shakes his head and turns back to the window. He keeps his back to the room. A dismissal of her or her condition? She wishes she knew.

  Dr. Allington needs to leave so that she can have time alone with her husband. It’s been chaotic since he paged the nurse and left to get the doctor. That was several hours ago. Damien doesn’t believe her. As much as it disheartens her not to have Damien’s trust, she didn’t believe him either. It took Nurse Jillian showing Ella her medical charts before Ella could accept she’d been pregnant and miscarried.

  “Poor dear,” the nurse cooed, adjusting Ella’s pillows and checking her stats. “I don’t blame you for forgetting. After what you’ve been through and the ruckus yesterday your guest caused, I’d want to forget, too. Margaret—she’s the head nurse on this floor, in case you don’t remember—she was right to call security. Your husband, though, we couldn’t get him to leave until you calmed down. You were crying something fierce. We gave you a sedative and you finally relaxed. That wonderful man of yours talked to you and held your hand through most of the night. I know I shouldn’t have been watching, but I couldn’t help it. He’s a keeper, and so good looking.” She winked at Ella and patted her arm. “Dr. Allington will be here shortly.” Jillian left the room, leaving Ella even more confused than before.

  Damien turns around, hands on hips. “What’s your diagnosis, doctor?”

  “Selective memory loss, given recent events and judging by the partial memory recollection. You have recent memories that you can’t recall in their entirety,” he clarifies, addressing Ella. “Losing a baby twenty-one weeks into your term is quite traumatic.”

  “Twenty-one weeks?” Ella says, incredulous. For five months she and Damien would have shared the joy of starting a family. It’s inconceivable. Them. Parents.

  “Will I get my memories back?” she asks the doctor.

  “More than likely. Give it time.” Dr. Allington pushes his glasses so they sit more securely on his nose. “Our minds can be sneaky. They’ll plant false memories when we can’t make sense of something and bury others when we can’t deal. Your memories are there, but for whatever reason, you can’t retrieve them.”

  “This happened almost a week after my accident. Why now?”

  “It’s probable your memory loss is motivated.”

  “She did this on purpose,” Damien states.

  “Subconsciously, yes. How was she this week? Emotionally speaking.”

  “Emotional.” Damien moves closer to her. “Depressed. Devastated. We both are.”

  Dr. Allington brings up Ella’s records again. “I see Dr. Noriega has you scheduled for release tomorrow. I’m going to recommend that you go home and rest, and then you should see a psychiatrist. In fact”—he waves the stylus at Damien—“you should both go.”

  Dr. Allington leaves and Damien closes the door behind him. He turns to Ella, taking up the doctor’s position at the end of her bed. He stares at her, his expression perplexed.

  “You still don’t believe me.” It hurt more to say the words out loud than it did for Ella to think them. Why wouldn’t he trust her to tell the truth?

  “I don’t know what to think. We discussed—” He stops, flattening his lips with a finger. He then looks at his watch. “I’m going to see if there’s any paperwork we need to complete before you’re released.”

  “Damien.” Ella reaches for him. “Sit with me. Just for a moment, please.” She needs to feel his touch. She wants his reassurance.

  Dami
en takes her hand and kisses her forehead.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “For what?”

  “The kiss. I needed that.”

  His face softens. He keeps his gaze locked on her mouth and runs his thumb along her lower lip. “Everything will be all right.”

  Ella hopes so. She has always prided herself on having a sharp memory. Disconcerting doesn’t begin to describe what she’s experiencing inside her mind. To know the memories are there, just elusive, unattainable, floating downstream like a discarded flip-flop. It’s horribly unsettling.

  CHAPTER 3

  Ella stands at Damien’s side as he unlocks the door to their condo in Russian Hill, an upscale San Francisco district of steep hills and corner cafés.

  The jangle of Damien’s keys reminds Ella of the first time they saw their place, two months after they’d met. Damien had proposed the week before. He was thirty-two and she was thirty. They weren’t twenty-year-olds interested in late nights at the bars and weekends at concert festivals. They didn’t want the pomp and circumstance that accompanied elaborate weddings at the Top of the Mark. Neither of them had parents to please. They knew what they wanted in a relationship and spouse, so why wait to get married?

  Kate Wu, their Realtor, had met them on the street outside the building. Balancing on her four-inch Jimmy Choos, she took them up to the tenth floor, opened the condo’s front door, and with a grand gesture, stepped aside for Ella and Damien to enter first. Ella fell in love with the space the moment she took in the panoramic view outside the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows. It stretched from the Golden Gate to the Bay Bridges, with the Marin Headlands between and city streets below. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, a welcome mat of blue sky and sunlit bay.

  Kate trailed them into the flat with the click of her heels on the dark walnut-stained wood flooring. “The entire condo faces the bay. There are four bedrooms and two and a half baths. You can see the Golden Gate from the master, and Sausalito at night is gorgeous,” she explained, her arms flapping like she was a flight attendant pointing out the exits as she indicated each room down a wide hallway. “The entire unit has been remodeled and updated.”