Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen: Homecoming

They discharged her on Thursday morning with a sheaf of papers, a paper bag of pills, and a long, careful lecture from Dr. Okoye that Lena found oddly touching.

"No stress," the doctor said, ticking items off on her fingers. "No driving for six weeks. No alcohol. Rest, plenty of fluids, and you are to return for a follow-up in ten days, sooner if you have headaches that don't ease, vomiting, double vision, or any of the symptoms on this sheet." She held out the sheet. "And Miss Hartwell, I want you to listen to me for a moment, because it's not medical."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Whatever you decide to do with the rest of your life, be sure it's you deciding." Dr. Okoye's gaze was steady. "People with injuries like yours are often told what they feel. By relatives, by partners, by well-meaning friends. Don't let anyone tell you what to feel. Not even the people who love you. Especially not them."

"I'll remember," Lena said.

"Good." A very small smile. "Because that, at least, I suspect you will."

Ruth drove her.

It was a small gray hatchback that smelled of lavender and old books, and it took the highway south through a sheet of pale autumn sunlight. Lena sat in the passenger seat with her hands in her lap and watched the farmland slide by. The fields were brown and gold and very still. Somewhere in the distance, a line of geese lifted from a pond and wheeled away, and she found that she was looking at them with real pleasure.

"You could stay with me," Ruth said, for perhaps the fourth time. "I have a spare room. I make a decent soup. You'd have peace and quiet and no one would ask you a single question."

"That's kind."

"It's not kind. It's sensible."

"I know." Lena turned from the window. "But I'd like to see it. The apartment. The life I'm supposed to remember."

"Supposed to."

"I remember it. I just don't feel it. I thought if I went back, I might understand what I'm supposed to be missing." She paused, and her voice stayed light. "Or I might understand why I'm not."

Ruth was silent for a long time. Her hands, on the wheel, had tightened at ten and two.

"Lena," she said at last, carefully. "Is there anything you do remember? About the road? About the day itself?"

"Only fragments. The rain. A horn. Tomas, shouting." She tilted her head. "Why?"

Ruth's jaw worked.

Not yet, she thought. Not yet, not while the stitches are fresh, not while she's still half a stranger to herself. If I put that voice in her ears now, and it breaks her, I'll never forgive myself.

"No reason," she said. "I only wondered."

"You're lying."

"I'm an accountant. I lie badly."

"Yes." Lena's mouth curved. "I noticed. You do it with your whole face."

Ruth laughed, startled, and wiped her eyes, and the small gray car rolled on toward the city.

Mr. Teague was on the desk when they arrived.

He rose when he saw her. It was a small thing, the straightening of a gray, courteous man behind a marble counter, but there was something in it that made Lena's step falter. He came around the desk with a slow, unhurried tread, and he stood before her with his hands folded, and his dry brown eyes were bright.

"Miss Hartwell," he said. "Welcome home."

"Thank you, Mr. Teague."

"It's good to see you walking." A pause. "The whole building's been asking."

"That's very kind."

"I took the liberty of keeping your mail." He slid a slim bundle across the counter. His fingers lingered on it a moment, and his voice dropped to the barest murmur. "And, Miss Hartwell, if you should ever find yourself in need of something that the cameras might have seen, I've made a note of the date. Saturday. Seven-forty a.m. It is, as I said, a matter of leaseholder's request. But I wanted you to know the matter is not forgotten."

She looked at him. His face was perfectly bland.

"I don't think I understand," she said.

"No," Teague agreed. "I don't suppose you do. Not yet."

The elevator doors opened. Ruth took her arm, and as they stepped inside, Lena glanced back over her shoulder. The old man had returned to his post. He stood at attention with his eyes on the empty lobby, but one hand had come to rest on the edge of the ledger, and it lay there quite still, like a man guarding a door.

The apartment was warm and quiet and smelled of jasmine.

Lena stood in the entrance hall with her small bag at her feet, taking it in. The polished floor. The oatmeal-colored pillows on the sofa. The long glass wall, with the city spread out beyond it in the thin autumn light. She waited for her heart to rise at the sight of it. She waited for the old aching sense of belonging, or of trespass, or whatever it was she had felt each time she crossed this threshold.

Nothing came. It was a pleasant room. It might have been a hotel.

"Oh!"

Celeste stood in the doorway of the kitchen with a dish towel in her left hand. Her right was still bandaged, a little slimmer than before, and she wore an apron over a soft blue dress. She looked very much like the lady of the house, and at the sight of Lena, she put one hand to her chest.

"You're home. Oh, goodness. We didn't think... Damian said you wouldn't be discharged until tomorrow."

"They let me out early."

"How wonderful." She crossed the floor, quick and graceful, and took Lena's hands in her one good one. "You look so well. I've been so worried. I've barely slept."

"That's good of you."

"Please, let me take your bag. Sit. I'll make tea." Her voice was a warm, trembling stream. "Damian will be so pleased. He's at the office, but I'll call him. He'll come straight away."

"There's no need to call him."

"Nonsense. He'd be heartbroken to miss you."

"I'd rather just settle in."

There was the briefest pause. Celeste's smile remained exactly where it was, but something in her fingers tightened, a tiny, swift pressure, and was gone.

"Of course," she said. "Of course. Whatever you like."

Ruth, standing in the doorway, had not moved. Her eyes were on Celeste's face. Her expression was bland, and polite, and utterly without trust.

The guest room was restored.

Lena stood in the doorway and looked at it. New carpet, pale and plush. Fresh paint on the ceiling, a clean, bright white that gave no hint of any stain. A new bed, a new white coverlet, a vase of lilies on the dresser. The window was shut and locked.

"It was finished on Monday," Celeste said, behind her, in a soft, apologetic voice. "I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to presume, but I kept all your things safe. They're in the hall closet. And Damian..." A small hesitation. "Damian thought it might be best if I stayed on in the master. Until you were stronger. So you wouldn't be disturbed."

Lena turned.

"I see."

"I hope that's all right."

"Quite all right."

She spoke easily, pleasantly, without the faintest effort. It was a very strange thing, she thought, how light it all felt. Three weeks ago, she was told, she had slept on a sofa for the sake of this woman's comfort and apologized for the privilege. She could remember doing it. She could recall every hour. She could look at that memory from every side, as a stranger might examine a curious object in a museum.

It did not hurt. It did not even sting. It was only very, very interesting.

"I'll take this room," she said. "It's lovely."

Celeste blinked. "Oh. But... shouldn't you speak to Damian first? I mean, it's your home. Your room, really. The big one."

"It's a bed. This one will do."

"But..."

"Miss Marlowe." Lena smiled. It was a bright, gentle, genuinely friendly smile. "I'm very tired, and I'm going to lie down. Thank you for looking after my things."

She closed the door.

Through the wood she heard nothing at all. No footsteps, no sigh. Only a long, thoughtful silence, as of a person standing very still in a hallway, working out a sum that had come out wrong.

Damian came home at seven.

Lena heard the key in the lock. She heard his voice in the hall, low and urgent, and Celeste's, softer, answering. She sat on the edge of the guest room bed with her shoes off and her hands in her lap, and she listened to the muffled exchange with the mild interest of someone overhearing a radio drama.

Footsteps approached. A pause. Then a knock.

"Come in."

He stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves, his tie loose, one hand braced against the frame. He looked exhausted. There were shadows under his eyes, and a day's growth along his jaw, and when he saw her sitting there so composed and calm, something moved over his face, a quick, bewildered flinch.

"Celeste says you've taken this room."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It seemed the sensible thing."

"It's not sensible. It's absurd. You live in the master. You've lived in the master for eleven months."

"Did I?" She considered. "I remember. But it's occupied."

"That's temporary."

"Is it?" She looked up at him, mildly. "Then I'll be here until it isn't."

His jaw clenched. He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him with a soft, deliberate click. Lena watched him do it. A month ago, she thought, she would have gone rigid with terror at that sound.

"Lena," he said, very low. "Stop this."

"Stop what?"

"This... calm. It's unnatural. You're punishing me."

"I'm not."

"Then what?"

"I'm just being myself." She said it gently. "Or whoever I am now. I know it's difficult. I find it a little difficult too."

He stood there. His hands had curled into fists, and she saw, with quiet clinical interest, that they were trembling.

"I was out of my mind," he said, rough and abrupt. "On that road. I want you to know that. I didn't know what to do. I just... Celeste was bleeding, and you were..."

"Conscious."

"You were breathing. You were talking. I thought you were all right."

"I know."

"You don't. You don't know what that was like." His voice cracked. "You weren't there. You were lying in the wet, and I thought, she's tough, she'll be fine, and I..."

He stopped.

The words hung in the air between them, raw and unfinished. Lena watched him with a curious tenderness that had nothing to do with love, and she said, in the same level, gentle voice:

"You left me on the road."

"I didn't leave you."

"Forty minutes, Ruth tells me."

"I sent the second ambulance!"

"I'm sure you did." She tilted her head. "I'm not angry, Damian. I want you to understand that. I'd tell you if I were. I simply don't feel it. I look at that day, and I see what happened, and I think, how very sad, for both of us. But I can't find the part of me that's supposed to break."

He stared at her.

His face was white. His mouth moved, once, soundlessly. She saw, in his dark eyes, the first real crack, a sudden hollow terror, like a man who has leaned his weight against a wall and felt it give.

"I'll let you rest," he said at last, hoarsely.

"Thank you."

He left. The door closed. She sat quite still and listened to his steps retreating, slow, and uneven, and for the first time, uncertain.

Dinner was a strange, stiff affair.

Celeste had cooked. It was a roast chicken with lemon and thyme, perfectly golden, accompanied by a salad and a loaf of warm bread, and she served it with her good hand, laughing at her own clumsiness, apologizing for the way the potatoes had stuck. Damian ate very little. Lena ate everything and complimented the chicken.

"You always loved my cooking," Celeste said brightly, passing the bread. "Before the accident, I mean. I used to make you tea every morning."

"Did you?"

"You were so sweet about it. You said I was spoiling you."

"That sounds like me."

"And do you remember..." Celeste's voice grew soft and dreamy. "Do you remember the night of the board dinner? How nervous you were? You nearly spilled the water."

"I remember the board dinner," Lena said. "I remember being unhappy."

Celeste's fork paused.

"Unhappy?"

"Very. I remember sitting at that table feeling as though I'd been placed on a shelf." She smiled and reached for her water. "It's remarkable, isn't it? I can recall the entire evening. I just can't recall why it mattered so much."

A silence.

Damian had put down his knife. He was looking at her with a stricken, hunted expression, as though he had finally glimpsed, behind a familiar door, a room he had never entered.

"You were not unhappy," said Celeste faintly. "You were just tired."

"Perhaps." Lena inclined her head. "I'm sure you're right."

"I only meant..."

"It's quite all right."

The conversation limped on. Celeste told a story about a colleague. Damian answered in monosyllables. Lena listened with calm, courteous attention, and when she rose to clear her plate, she thanked them both, and wished them goodnight, and walked down the corridor to the guest room with a perfectly straight back.

It was past midnight when she found it.

She had been lying awake in the unfamiliar bed, in the dark, listening to the hum of the city. Her head ached dully. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, the cracked screen glowing faintly blue in the dark, and thumbed it open without any particular purpose.

Her notes app was already open.

She stared at it. She did not remember opening it. A small list sat in the center of the screen, written in cramped, careful sentences, in the voice of a woman she had once been.

1. Window open. Ceiling dry above. Water poured from top. 2. Blank emergency contact line. No sister. 3. Overheard call. "Don't move until I tell you." 4. Vance folder. "Before he signs." 5. Retreat. Sunday, 2 p.m.

She read it once. Then, slowly, she read it again.

She had no memory of writing it. It was simply there, plain and exact, a document from a stranger. But the stranger, she thought, had been very thorough. She read the first line, and the second, and found, with a faint stir of interest, that the items fitted together. A window. A ceiling. A blank on a form. A telephone call in the night.

She pulled herself upright against the pillows.

Vance folder.

Before he signs.

For the first time since waking in the hospital, Lena felt something move inside her. It was not love. It was not grief. It was something sharper, cooler, and altogether new, like the click of a lens coming into focus.

She remembered, dimly, a mind that had once worked very quickly on spreadsheets. A mind that had been good at seeing the shape in the numbers.

"Interesting," she said softly, to the dark.

In the next room, a bed creaked. Through the thin wall she heard Celeste's low voice, and Damian's, murmuring, and she lay very still in the dark with the little blue light glowing on her face and began, calmly and methodically, to read.

End of Chapter Thirteen