“That’s music to my ears, my good man,” she says.
The nurse continues delivering trays down the row of other patients like me, but then returns to the foot of my bed. “I haven’t had a chance to finish my food yet,” I tell her.
“Take your time, dear. When you’re through with breakfast though, there’s someone here to see you. I can bring you into a more private space so we can make sure you have quiet, and a bit of time to process your thoughts to see if you remember this person. Does that sound all right with you?”
My family is dead—my mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather. She’s the nurse who told me so. “Of course,” I say.
I scrape up the food on my plate and eat faster than I should. Though it’s been a while since I’ve gotten sick from eating too quickly.
“You’re supposed to take your time with that, Luka,” the nurse says, returning to my side.
“I did. I would like to see whoever came to visit.”
The nurse helps me into a wheelchair, not because I can’t walk, but because of the risk of falling. The injury I sustained to my head will need time to heal, though it doesn’t hurt anymore. But the nurses and doctors insist I be cautious for a while.
The nurse wheels me out of the ward and into a closed off space with a small window. “I’ll be right back with your guest,” she says.
I wheel myself over to the window to look outside from this angle of the building. There isn’t much to see other than another building almost within reach.
“Luka…”
I suck in a breath before turning around, searching for a memory of the voice, but nothing flashes through my mind. I twist my chair around, finding a young woman with short blonde hair, rosy cheeks. She’s frail, with a lot of uncertainty in her bright blue eyes.
“Yes, that’s me,” I say with a hoarse rasp.
My response makes her chin tremble, but she walks closer to me. “Do you remember who I am?” she asks, her voice unsteady.
The longer I take to answer, the more sorrow fills her pretty eyes. “What’s your name?”
She shudders an inhale. “Ella. Ella Bosko.”
“Ella,” I repeat. “I know—I know your name.” But how are we connected?
“You do?” she asks, her voice full of hope.
“There’s a girl with a long blonde braid, freckles, and the sweetest laugh—I see her in my dreams,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows furrow as she stares at me. “I did have a long braid,” she says, weaving her fingers through short strands that end at her chin. Again, she takes a few more steps closer to meand kneels so she’s not hovering over me. The light that filters in through the window behind me highlights freckles across her cheeks.
“You’re Ella—the one in my dreams.”
She smiles and sniffles. “Yes, it’s me. I don’t know what you went through after I last saw you…”
“Were you in Auschwitz, too?”
Her eyes gloss over and widen. “Yes, I was, but there were many months between the time I saw you last and?—”
“When I suffered a head injury and lost my memory,” I say, finishing her sentence.
She nods and places her hand gently on my knee. The warmth of her fingers sends a chill up my spine. “We loved each other very much, but we were separated in Auschwitz, so it was hard to see each other.”
“We loved each other?” I ask, a smile lifting my cheeks.
“Yes,” she says, her voice breaking. I’m hurting her and it’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.
“Are you—my wife?”
Ella laughs through a gentle sigh—and the sound paints a picture in my mind…I see her sitting in a tree beside me. Both of us are swinging our legs. I wrap my arm around her and hold her tightly.
