Lisa: It's a Nice Day to Start Again
"Mom, I'm going to sleep over at Jimmy's house tonight, ok?"
Lisa turned off the water in the kitchen sink and turned to face her son. "Ok. Be careful," she said automatically. "I can drive you there if you want." She half-smiled when Ben gave her a humorous eye-roll.
"Mom. I'm almost fifteen. I'm practically an adult. I can walk myself five blocks."
"I know. Sorry." Lisa wiped her wet hands on a dishtowel and ruffled her son's dark hair. He was her height now, with a wiry build and a blue shadow hovering around his chin. It was just yesterday he'd been a little boy…letting her hug him and kiss his forehead at night. None of that nonsense for the teenager in front of her. "I'll see you tomorrow after school," she called at his retreating back.
The front door closed behind her son, and Lisa leaned against the edge of the counter, staring out the window at the brilliantly red maple in the back yard. Autumn always tugged at her heart, made her nostalgic for something she couldn't quite remember, something that fluttered on the edges of her mind like a moth trapped under glass.
She had had that feeling for years: that fluttering, twitching, almost itching sensation in her brain, as if she had forgotten something, something important, something from long ago. Come to think of it, she realized, it had started right after the car accident. That had been—what? Four years ago?
She didn't like to think about the car accident, but when her mind drifted that way, all she could remember was a haze of faces, Ben sitting by her side in the hospital. Apparently the guy that hit them had come and apologized while she was there, but the doctors must have given her some good drugs, because she couldn't even remember that.
She'd asked the doctors in later visits about her memory loss, the little gaps, the persistent questions about the things she felt were there but that she couldn't see. They all said the same thing: "It's common after an accident. Nothing to worry about, as long as it doesn't interfere with your daily life."
But she felt, in some weird way, that it did interfere with her daily life. Nothing she could put her finger on, but she had changed since that car accident. Old friends had drifted away, even family—it had been two months since she'd called her sister Nikki. Guys—forget about it. She couldn't even make it past a first date anymore.
Dates, in fact, were when she felt this nagging most strongly, as if she wasn't supposed to be there, as if the man across the table from her was nothing but a shadowy figment of imagination. They saw it in her eyes, and dinner always ended awkwardly, with no phone calls later.
"Snap out of it!" Lisa told herself aloud. "Don't be ridiculous. That has nothing to do with the car accident. How could it?"
She didn't feel like cooking dinner now. Ben wasn't home; she could make do with some mac 'n cheese later, and do extra yoga poses to make up for it in the morning. She smiled to herself as she left the kitchen. Yoga—teaching again—at least that gave her satisfaction. That and being a mother to her son.
The thought of Nikki still made her feel guilty. What kind of a sister was she, anyway? She picked up her cell in the hall and dialed.
Nikki answered on the third ring. "Lisa?"
"Hey. How's everything?"
"Fine. You? Is there anything wrong?"
"No, of course not. I just wanted to see how you and Hailey were doing."
"We're fine. Hailey's fine." There was a pause, and Lisa heard her sister setting plates on the table. "She's taking ballet now. How's Ben?"
"He's fine." Lisa paused, cracking open the front door to let the warm evening sunshine fall onto the carpet. "Nikki, I wanted to ask you something."
"What is it?"
"You remember that car accident I had, the one right before I moved to St. Louis?"
"Of course." An odd, rough edge made Nikki's voice husky for a second before she recovered herself.
"Did I change after that?"
"What do you mean, did you change?"
"You know what I mean. Am I different now than I used to be? You're my sister—you can tell me the truth."
"Well." Dishes rattled even more loudly on Nikki's end of the phone. "I guess so, yes."
"How?"
"Well, you moved away, for one. I never understood that. I still don't. And you just seemed off. I don't know how to explain it, and the doctor told me when I got there that you might have had a little bit of brain damage, amnesia or something. It just never went away, that's all."
"I'm sorry," Lisa said. It seemed the right thing to say.
"It's not your fault. I still love you." At least now Nikki's voice held a hint of a smile. "Hailey looks forward to your Christmas package every year. She'd love to see you. Why don't you come down and visit? Surely you can take some time off from the yoga studio."
"Yeah, they're pretty flexible. Maybe I'll do that. Was there anything else, Nikki? Anything else about the accident? I really can't remember much, and somehow it seems important."
"No, no I don't know, really."
"What about the guy who hit me? Did you meet him, when you got to the hospital?"
"No, no." Nikki laughed. "He was long gone."
"Do you remember his name?"
"Honestly, no, I don't think I ever knew it. Does it matter? Are you trying to find him? I mean, really, what would be the point?"
"I guess you're right." Lisa laughed reluctantly. "Bye, sis. Tell Hailey hello for me."
Setting the phone back on the entry table, she cracked the door open wider and sat down cross-legged in the sunshine, blinking like a cat. The itching, nagging feeling had never been this intense before. Something about that guy was important.
If she could remember his name, bring it out of the depths of her memory, maybe she could remember the rest. But she knew it wasn't something she could just dig out of her brain by force.
All her years of yoga and meditation had taught her a few things. She went into lotus position on the carpet in the sunshine, letting the brilliant light warm her closed eyelids and seep into her mind. She had gone deep with meditation before, but this time was different. She breathed steadily, deeply, knowing that this would take a while.
The sunlight moved down and down and down while she sat there, until it was dark. She felt fear, then. Fear and resistance and anger, all warning her to turn back.
"No," she said, without opening her eyes. It was important. The closer she got, the more she could feel the importance of this thing she did not know. She would not turn back, although chills ran down her spine and the darkness slid its fingers into her mind.
The name. That was all she wanted—the rest would come later. All she wanted was the name. She breathed, letting her mind open itself to knowledge.
Dean.
She was sure of the name that worked itself free from some wall deep below her consciousness and floated up to her in the midnight darkness. Dean. And the very briefest flash of someone in faded jeans and a field jacket, a flash that made her heart turn over though she didn't know why.
Lisa stood up stiffly, feeling pins and needles race down her legs and goosebumps form on her arms. Something deep within her, some wall of memory, had cracked. She had remembered a name.
Soon she could remember the rest.