3
“Anderson and Gwendolyn Roche,” a man announces from the doorway, as if he’s introducing a couple at a stately ball. Enter Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. I would laugh if I weren’t so nervous.
“We’re Oliver’s parents,” Gwendolyn clarifies for the benefit of the staff, unaware that her daughter-in-law also appreciates the intel. She is immaculate in a petite navy shift, her slick silver-gray bob and navy glasses framing an ashen face. Oliver’s father—a great bear of a man with the same handsome features as his son—clocks the IV drip and the vitals monitor and takes inventory of all my exposed bruises. I tug the hospital gown across where it gapes at the neck.
“Was it fast?” Gwendolyn says in obvious despair. “Did he suffer, Evelyn?”
The heartbreak in her eyes should be reflected in my own. Instead, I’m still struggling with the fact that this woman—so impeccable compared to my adorably hot mess of a mum—has assumed my mother’s spot in my phone. In this moment, I understand that I must triage her grief above my own fear, and my voice cracks as I try to let her down gently. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”
“What do you mean?” Gwendolyn asks.
“It’s not just the accident,” I charge on. “I’ve forgotten everything.”
They stare at me, mouths agape.
“I don’t remember you,” I confess. “Or even … your son.”
She sinks onto the visitor’s chair as her husband takes a step toward me, and my body braces hard against the mattress, breath quickening. He’s all concealed heat and grief and despair.
He quickly turns to the psychiatrist. “What’s going on here? Concussion? Amnesia?”
“We’re still evaluating,” Dr. Gordon says, but Anderson doesn’t seem satisfied with that and looks like he’s about to challenge him. Gwendolyn reaches for his arm—a plea for calm in this sea of distress they’re both drowning in. People shouldn’t outlive their children. I want to throw them a life buoy—it was instant, I’m sure he didn’t even know—but I don’t have one. What was that app again? Uber?
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I offer helplessly. My gaze struggles to meet my father-in-law’s, skittering instead to the white sheet covering my lower body. Flimsy cotton, hopeless at protecting me from this disastrous situation. Or from him. “Sorry forourloss,” I clarify.
“Are you?” His voice is grave as he blinks hard, stoic sadness fading as anger jostles for supremacy across his features.
“Darling, please,” Gwendolyn whispers. “He’s beside himself, Evelyn. Of course you’re upset about Oliver.”
I suspect my mother-in-law’s role is to throw buckets of ice on flames. Live power lines lie hidden beneath the wreckage of this family, and I should be careful where I tread.
“Yes!” I assure them. “I mean, I’m sure I will be, once Iremember. After all, we were married for …” I pause, hoping one of them will fill in the chronology.
“Five years,” she says, quietly.
Right. So I was twenty-four when I walked down the aisle. Young, but not straight out of high school.
“How long will she be hospitalized? When will she get her memory back?” Anderson starts peppering questions. “People are asking us about the … arrangements.”
Arrangements? Gwendolyn starts crying and I realize he means the funeral. I hadn’t thought this chaos through as far as that. Now I’m imagining a chorus ofSorry for your losswhile I tiptoe through a social minefield, forced to act the part of grieving widow at twenty-nine going on seventeen.
“Can we keep it small?” I beg them. I’m thinking immediate family only. The funeral equivalent of an elopement. Just a brief, graveside service. Us and the officiant.
“Evelyn, we will want to give our son a proper farewell,” Gwendolyn says. This sounds like code for No-Expense-Spared, Scary-Big Send-Off.
Do I even have to go?I am a fraud, center stage in this family’s nightmare.
“Have you had any calls from the media?” Anderson asks, unexpectedly.
I think of the missed calls I’d assumed were from friends and shrug.
Gwendolyn pulls her chair closer, her expensive fragrance overpowering the smell of hand sanitizer and hospital-strength disinfectant. “We are very private people,” she explains, placing a beautifully manicured hand on my arm. “I know you have your little podcast …”
This is news to me. I once had a true-crime blog that gotabout six hits a month, all from my parents. I was fixated on every iteration ofCSIandNCIS. Fascinated by criminology. I should be forensically investigating crime scenes by now, like Temperance Brennan inBones, according to my Big Life Plan.
“Do I also have a job?”
Gwendolyn’s eyes flick to Anderson, who clears his throat.
