“Oh, the High Park Zoo!” I said, my voice lifting with enthusiasm. “I’ve always wanted to come here.”
Matt cleared his throat, looked at me uneasily. My stomach dropped and my prior burst of energy fizzled. “We’ve been here a lot, haven’t we?” I said.
“It was on our running route,” he replied. “You always made us stop at the capybara pen. Said you thought it was some sort of mutant guinea pig experiment gone wrong but they were still adorable.”
I smiled and pulled on his hand, determined not to let all the good feelings I was having be overshadowed. “Come on. Let’s go see if I still think that, okay?”
He resisted a moment, perhaps doubting the wisdom of this field trip, but then seemed to relax as I felt the tension leave his fingers and he fell into step beside me.
“You probably won’t remember this,” Matt began, and we both chuckled as I added, “What’s new?”
“Touché,” he continued, adding, “But Bonnie and Clyde escaped last spring and they were fugitives in the city for weeks.”
“Who are Bonnie and Clyde?”
“That’s what they nicknamed the capybara couple. They were quite the celebrities last year. And apparently absence does make the heart grow fonder, because now they’re the proud parents of three little capybabies.”
I snort-laughed. “Capybabies?”
He shrugged, offering a wide grin. “This city loves these damn rodents. Spent fifteen grand searching for them. Even the mayor’s office Tweeted out a capybaby birth announcement last week.”
“I wish I remembered all this. Or any of it,” I said, sighing gently. Matt stopped suddenly, forcing me to stop, too. We faced one another, and he took my other hand in his.
“I’m so sorry this is happening to you, Lucy.” So earnest, he was. He pulled me closer, but there was still a sliver of space between our bodies. I shivered and he noticed, rubbing his hands up and down my arms to get rid of the chill.
“Happening tous,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, too, Matt. I wish I could get better. Get back to—”
I was about to say “normal,” but then Matt was kissing me. And without hesitation I pressed my body against his. He tasted of salt and coffee and I kissed him back, eager to get as close to him as I could. To morph into past-Lucy, who ran twenty kilometers on a Saturday morning, ate pancakes and two servings of bacon and regularly kissed her boyfriend in front of the capybara pen at the High Park Zoo.
He pulled back enough to apologize for the spontaneous kiss, but I put a finger on his lips, asked him to be quiet. Then I kissed him and for a moment felt like maybe, one day, I could again be that girl I no longer remembered.
13
Matt was trying hard to sort out what to say. I could see his valiant attempt to control his face, the way he held his lips together so he looked mildly pensive but nothing more. The curious rise to his eyebrows—not so high it seemed questioning, but noticeable enough to prove he had thoughts about what I had said yet wasn’t sure how to convey them.
I had, moments earlier, suggested he move back into our bedroom, and our bed.
Once Jenny told me about Daniel being married—and I recovered from the painful shock—and Matt took me to High Park, something shifted inside me when it came to us. It wasn’t that I remembered loving him (I didn’t...Would I ever?), but I understood he felt those things for me, while Daniel did not. The man I thought I had married loved another woman and, in fact, wasn’t in my life in any capacity. I needed to give Matt and my memory a chance, something I couldn’t do if I was stuck in this fabricated world with Daniel. Which was why I kissed him back at the zoo. Pretended we were merely a contented couple out for a Saturday stroll, our greatest worry being where we might brunch afterward.
That kiss and its intensity had wiggled something free inside me. Not a memory exactly, but a strong desire to do more of that because it felt good. Maybe evenright. I wondered if a more intimate situation with Matt might jump-start my memory, like live cables attached to a dead battery. Perhaps I was even close to some sort of breakthrough, though I had to remind myself breakthroughs were a bit like winning lottery numbers: exciting to imagine, unlikely to ever happen.
“I...I’m not sure what to say,” Matt finally said. “I mean, yes. Yes. But are you sure? Because you should be sure and you don’t need to do this for—”
I stopped him. “I’m sure.”
He nodded and then dropped his head so I could no longer see his face as he took a deep breath. I was nervous, not knowing what he was thinking or feeling. I understood Matt had a lot more to lose than I did in this scenario, which in some ways made my suggestion unfair. “Sorry,” he said gruffly.Oh, no. He’s crying.He sniffed a couple of times and then cleared his throat, getting himself under control as he raised his head back up.
“Luce, look. Nothing would make me happier than us being back to...sharing a room again. But there’s no rush, okay?” He understood as well as I did I wasn’t proposing us only sleeping in there, a nice wide gap in the bed between us as we did. And so he wasn’t going to treat it lightly, which made me feel even more secure in the decision.
“I’m fine in the guest room for as long as necessary. I have no expectations of you, or of this. Today, at the zoo...it wasn’t about this.” His gaze held mine and in that moment any doubt thatthiswas precisely what I wanted evaporated.
At first I felt buoyed by the realization, and then just plain sad. Matt was incredible and he was mine. He loved me, and I—until I forgot everything that seemed to matter most—loved him right back. What an unfair tragedy to have such an important, perfect thing erased from your mind. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t what I wanted.”
He watched me for a moment longer. “I don’t want you to get mad, but I have to ask.”
“Okay...ask what?”
He took a deep breath. “Did you change your mind because of Daniel? Because he’s married?”
