Chapter 2
It didn't take him long to find the hospital, when he got there he asked to talk to Dr. Merrick and was told if he came back that afternoon she would have time to talk to him. So he left and spent the morning looking around, but again nothing looked familiar, it was just after noon when he walked back to the clinic.
Alex had been told there was a man that wanted to see her, he hadn't left his name but the receptionist thought he might need Alex's help. When she got the call he was back she went out to the waiting area to greet him. There was a tall man with long hair and a beard wearing dark glasses standing there, he didn't look homeless but he did appear to be down on his luck. She walked over to him, "Hello, I'm Dr. Merrick. I was told you wanted to see me." When the man looked at her she felt like he was scrutinizing her.
After a moment he said, "Oh you're not her," then he turned to leave.
"Wait. Excuse me, where are you going?" Alex started to walk after him. "Sir."
He turned back around, "I'm sorry to have wasted your time."
"Wait, you aren't wasting my time. What did you mean, I'm not who?"
He shook his head, "I don't know. You're just not her."
"Come sit, talk to me for a little while." Alex leads the man over to some chairs and they sat down. "OK, can I ask you what your name is."
"Um, well they would call me Jack, but that's not my name."
"It's not? So what is your name?"
He thought about it for a while, "I don't know."
"Where are you from, I'm hearing an accent?"
"I don't know that either."
Alex was quickly realizing this man could use her help. "Can I ask what made you come here? Or why you don't seem to remember anything?
"I saw this," he pulled the newspaper article out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. "I felt like I know her but that's a picture of you, and I don't know you. You're not," he paused for a moment like he was struggling to think of something, then said, "not Anna."
"What did you say?"
"Anna, that's her name. The woman in my head that's her name."
"There's a woman in your head, is this someone you remember?"
"She always there, hiding in the background but only comes out once in a while. I'm sure her name is Anna."
Did this man know her sister she wondered? "Were you in an accident? Is that why you can't remember anything?"
"I don't know, maybe a long time ago." He didn't know why, maybe it was because this woman looked so much like the woman in his mind, but he felt like he could trust her. "I have been kept in a dark place for a very long time. I was not always like this. About a week ago I woke up in a boarding house in Monor with some money and some clothes. When I saw that article I thought maybe there'd be things here I remembered since your photo seemed to draw me in."
"I want you to stay right here, please. I think I might be able to line up some work for you, that way you have an income. I can help you find another boarding house, and maybe you and I can just talk once in a while." There was something about his man that made her want to help him, and what if he did know Anna?
He thought about it for a while he had no idea what he was going to do anyway and what could it hurt to talk to someone that looked like the woman that he had held onto when they had taken everything else from his memory? Anna, that had to be her name, he wouldn't let her image go. "Alright, I think I'd like that."
Alex got up and made a few phone calls when she came back she told Jack he would be working with the grounds crew here, they needed a man and he could start next week. She also told him there was a boarding house not far from here that he could stay at and gave him the direction to find it. When he got up to leave he shook her hand and smiled, "Thank you not Anna, I'll see you next week," then he left. She smiled as he left he was right she was not Anna.
...
On Wednesday of the following week Jack walked into the main building on the grounds, he had been amazed how big the facility was and there would be lots of work to keep him busy. He was enjoying being outside even if the bright light still bothers his eyes. He now had a few different pairs of glasses that the tint was different on so he could always wear a pair depending on the lighting. He walked to Dr. Merrick's office and knocked on her door. "Come in." Once he was inside, she smiled up at him, "Hi take a sit," she offered, "Would you like something to drink?"
He nodded so she handed him a bottle of water, "Thank you, and thank you for helping me." As he sat down he asked, "What are we going to talk about when we meet?"
"I thought we might just start by talking. See if anything comes up that you might want to talk more about. How does that sound?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
"Are you enjoying the work here?"
"I like being outside after being in the dark for so long, it's nice feeling the sunshine again."
"You look like you're in pretty good shape so I thought you could handle the physical labor."
"I don't think I've done this kind of work before but I had a lot of time on my hands so I would work out to pass the time."
"This dark place, how long were you there do you think?"
"That small dark room was home for so long, it was years maybe even a decade or more."
"Jack, do you remember anything at all before the dark room?"
"I'm not Jack, that's just what they called me."
"I know that but I have to call you something," then she thought about the day they'd meet, "How about not Jack?"
He smiled, "That's better then nothing I guess, not Anna. I get flashes of thing sometimes but they don't make sense. Faces of people I must have known but they aren't in focus, I can see places like restaurants or my office but I don't know if it's real or just something my mind has made up."
"Why do you think you have made things up?"
"The men that kept me, they wanted me to forget. They did horrible things and I think I used to fight them a lot to try to make them stop, but I realized it was pointless. There was nothing to fight for anymore, I had nothing left."
Hearing this she felt sad for him, it sounded like these men had set out to break a once strong man. A man that must have lost so much to think he had nothing to fight for. "Someone did this to you on purpose? These men took away your memory?"
"I think so, but I'm not sure maybe I made that up as well."
"Not Jack, I don't think you did. I think you remember things but have locked them away so they would be safe. You said Anna was hiding but she would come out, she must have been very important to you. What do you know about Anna?"
He thought for a moment then smiled as he started to talk. "She is so beautiful, very strong-willed, stubborn, she is so self-assured, but can be very reserved and a little shy, she doesn't like to talk about herself. She is so elegant in the way she moves, but she's a fighter and can kick anyone's ass, especially if she protecting her loved ones. She's so caring with a beautiful heart and loves deeply." He wiped the tears from his cheeks when he stopped talking.
Who was this man? He had just described Anna perfectly and in the way a man that loves her would. She realized he wasn't the only one with tears in their eyes, "You love her don't you?"
"I lost her forever," then he got up and left.
After he'd closed the door Alex wondered if she should call Anna, she and Robin were living in Paris now. What would she say though? Hey, there's this man that doesn't know anything about his past or who he is but I think he loves you.
...
The following week when not Jack came to her office, they talked about what he had been doing since he had come to Budapest. He told her he was certain that there was nothing here that was connected to his past life and thought that might be why he ended up in Hungary. He didn't think the dark room had been here but didn't know where it could have been either. She wanted to try and talk about other things he might remember but didn't want him to walk out again. "Not Jack last time we talked you said you sometimes remembered places, you mentioned that you had an office, do have any idea what you might have done for a living?"
He thought about it, "No, I don't think I was an accountant or anything like that, I think my life was a little more exciting than that," he said and flashed this little grin. There was something in that grin that said he was right, there was something a little mischievous about it. "I can see Anna in the office, I think it's mine but maybe it's not, it isn't always the same office either. So maybe I just made it up to have somewhere for her to be."
Alex was amazed at the fact he couldn't trust anything that he thought he knew. She could tell he was an intelligent man, but wouldn't except anything he thought as fact. "You mean when you picture her you imagine her in these offices so she isn't just a vision in your mind."
"Right, something like that."
That did make some sense, he's putting her into situations where they might have met or spent time together. "You also mentioned restaurants, was there a certain place you think you spent a lot of time at?"
Not Jack thought about it for a while, "It's a little diner, it changes too but I think that was because I went there a lot over the years."
"What else can you remember about it, maybe the name?"
"We had a lot of good times there, I can see lots of smiles, but I don't see their faces really." He slammed his fist down on the arm of the chair, "I hate that I can't remember," he yelled. That was the first time she had seen any type of anger or frustration. Other then the tears when he talked about Anna it was the first real emotion she'd seen from him. "I know I was someone before, I had to have had a life. They wanted me to forget it so was I important did I know things people didn't want coming out? What did I do to deserve having this done to me?"
"I don't know but I want to help you find that out."
There was a knock at her door then Dimitri walked in, "Oh sorry I thought you'd be done by now."
Alex looked at the time they had been talking a lot longer then she's realized. "We lost track of the time, Dimitri this is not Jack, not Jack this is my husband, Dimitri."
"Not Jack?" then he shook the man's offered hand.
"I should be going talk to you again next week, not Anna."
After they were alone, Dimitri looked at her waiting for an explanation, "I'm not Anna, and he knew that the minute he met me but that is the only thing he seems to be sure of. Except that his name isn't Jack that was just what he was being called. He knows what my name is but that's just what he calls me, it's our little joke."
"Does he know that you're her twin?"
"No, I don't think he's ready to hear that and I'm not sure how he knows her. I've thought about calling her and telling her about him but I don't know who he is or what his connection to her in the past was."
"Aren't you breaking doctor-patient confidentiality by telling me this?"
"He's not a patient, we just talk. I got him a job here and helped him find a place to stay. When I met him I felt an overwhelming need to help him."
"Do you think he's connected to Anna somehow?"
"I think he might be," she admitted. "When he talked about her last week I got the impression he loves her, but then he said he'd lost her forever and walked out."
...
A couple days later Dimitri was walking up the walk on his way to see Alex when he saw not Jack working, he thought he might try talking to him too. "Hey, not Jack, enjoying the weather?"
He looked up, "Oh hello Dimitri. I enjoy every day I get to be outside and free to go where I want."
"Alex told me she got you this job, have you always done this kind of work?"
"No I don't think so, but I am enjoying it. I get the feeling yard work wasn't top on my list of things to do," he told him and smiled. "I'm not going to get in trouble for talking to you when I should be working am I?"
"No, I have a fair amount of pull around here as one of the main investors."
They talked for a little while then they both stepped out of the way as a family walked passed, a little girl with long dark hair smiled and said hi as she went by. "My little girl must be grown now, she'd be as beautiful as her mother." Not Jack watched the family walk away unaware that Dimitri was staring at him. When he looked back at him, "I should get back to work, it was nice talking to you," he walked over and picked up the rake and went over to the other side of the hedge.
Dimitri turned and walked inside, he walked straight into Alex's office, "He has a daughter!"
Alex looked up from her paperwork, "What? Who are you talking about?"
"Not Jack, I was talking to him outside and this family walked past, he just kind of zoned out watching them and said my little girl would be grown now."
"Did he say anything else?"
"Um, she'd be as beautiful as her mother. He watched the family a little longer then said he had to get back to work. That's what he did too, he just went back to work like nothing had happened."
"He might not have even realized what he said. He has never said anything about his family before or even that he had one." Again Alex was left wondering just who this man was, where was his family and what was his connection to her sister?
"I get what you mean about wanting to help him, there is just something about him, I feel for the guy, you can tell he's been through a lot."
"He seems lost somehow, so out of place but doesn't know where he belongs."
He saw the sadness in her eyes, "I came to take my beautiful wife out for lunch so let's get out of here," they got up and left, they put any thoughts about not Jack out of their minds and enjoyed their afternoon.