Hello from the other side. Right. This chapter is brought to you by sweat and blood and tears of frustration. No but really, this took a while to finish. and this other thing I like to call life keeps intervening. what a bitch. anyway, here we are.
Enjoy Coberts!
As usual, Unbeta-ed forever and ever, ignore the mistakes. they are mine and i dont like them either, but yeah, ignore them.
Chapter Five
Your words are like a whisper
Cora readies herself to bed that night with a heavy heart. She's made a lot of progress with herself today, but it doesn't feel like it means anything, not when she'll just forget about it the next morning. She thinks of the feeling she'd had earlier this day upon finding out that she has amnesia (as if it isn't cruel enough to have one kind of amnesia, she actually has two), and really, she doesn't look forward to having go through the same process tomorrow. She wonders, with a heavy and burdened chest, if every day for the rest of her life would be like this: sleep, awaken, forget, be reminded, sleep, awake, forget. Rinse, repeat.
It is a scary thought. Something she doesn't think she can go through that for the rest of her life. And really, she doesn't think she can put her family, her mother and brother, her husband through that.
Her thoughts follow her even as she submerges herself in the bath, the warm water soothing her aching muscles. The smell of chamomile infiltrates her senses, calming, even as her thoughts run miles per minute. She takes the soap in her hand and laves her body with it, gliding it up and down the length of her right arm, up her neck and chest, then her left arm. She feels the slippery block slide through her wet skin, and she lets her mind drift to this morning, to her husband, to the split second that she'd thought that he was going to kiss her. It actually surprises her how she'd stood immobilized in his arms, anticipating that moment he would press his lips against hers. She hadn't known then, and she doesn't know now, what she'd felt at that moment. She'd been scared, but she had wanted him to do it—to lean in and kiss her, to let their breaths merge as one, because even if he is virtually a stranger, she'd felt something with him that she doesn't remember feeling ever in her whole life or of what she remembers of it, considering how hard it is to gauge when she is missing more than six years of it, but still it had been different).
She doesn't believe in overly romanticized descriptions of love and attraction, in soul mates and in destiny, but it has been hard to ignore the pull, the feeling of every part, every nerve and every fibre, her whole being opening up and reaching out to him as if they are bound to connect and be one, and it no longer matters, isn't clearly defined anymore, where he ends and where she starts.
She shakes her head and places the soap back on the edge of the tub, leaning back, closing her eyes and letting the warmth envelope her senses and drag her away from her own thoughts. She lets herself relax and lets the tension float away from her.
She deserves a minute to herself, she thinks.
…
It isn't until she's sat on her bed, back against the headboard that she remembers the journals. She smiles at the thought of Robert's generosity, his giving her of the journals (even if technically, it is hers), but it's a written proof of she doesn't remember being, a part of her, amalgamated with the person she remembers from the past, the person she could and the person she is now. She wants to make it a point to not only record what she's been up to at any given day, who she is now to be remembered by the person she'll be tomorrow, but also to make notes of what she wants to do, of who she wants to be the next day when she no longer remembers.
It is rather complicated—her situations now—but she does feel that somehow, right at that moment that she's made peace with it. Truth be told, there isn't anything she could do about it. This is exactly what it is, she can't change that. Though she anticipates that come tomorrow morning, it will be another struggle to accept the fate she's been handed, another story of how she will play the cards she's been dealt with.
She takes the old journal and puts in on her lap. She stares at the leather bound cover for a long while, not sure if she should open it, because it does feel like she's invading someone else's privacy. Logically, she does know that it is her, her life, but somehow, on some level, reading her journal when she doesn't remember what is in it feels like she's breaching some kind of rule about confidentiality. It feels odd to think that she is about to get an insight about the life she lived for the past six years. She steels herself, breathing in deeply and exhaling through her mouth. She lets her fingers run down the spine before she flips the cover, opening the journal on the first entry, dated July 2010. She remembers this, still remembers the overwhelming sense of panic that's filled her when she first stepped foot in this rainy little country and realized that she'll be here on her own. She was around twenty-four then, and for the first time in her life, she's out of her family's grasp wandering to the other side of the world. She peers down the notebook and reads through the words written in her scrawl, her mind focusing on the words she'd printed on the pages.
'July 12, 2010,
First day in London. Another adventure. I'm half scared, half excited for this new chapter in my life. Although, I must admit, I do find it rather hard to be very adventurous when it's so gloomy and gray. It's supposed to be the summer! Oh well. It does feel like something out of a romantic movie, though. The beauty of this country is just astounding. So here is to hoping for a better weather tomorrow. And a great experience. I'll just have to see. x'
She'd ended her entry there, with a messy scribble of her name resembling a signature of some sort. She flips through the pages randomly, finding out that she hadn't really recorded her day to day activities for the past six years in the journal. Rather, she's recorded the most important life events, the things worth gushing over, those she didn't want to forget, she supposes. She hadn't recorded the little things, and she feels a twinge of disappointment at thought because it is the small moments, the intervals between the big milestones that make up who she is, make up her life, and now, she doesn't even remember those.
Cora sighs and lets her hand fall and rest limply against the duvet as she shuts her eyes tightly. She takes a deep breath as the tears of frustration well up in her eyes, prickling the back of her eyelids. She feels so tired, so frustrated. God, she just wants to scream.
She would if she could.
The soft knocking on the door startles her, pulling her away from her reverie and making her jump. She opens her eyes slowly, and turns her head towards the general direction of the door as the knob turns and the door opens.
"Hey," her husband greets, poking his head at the door and looking at her with silent concern.
"Hey," she greets back softly with a smile blooming on her face. "Did you need something?"
He pushes the door open further and steps in, closing the door behind him gently. She watches him quietly as he fidgets.
"I wanted to get some clothes," he says, nodding towards their joint closet. She follows with her eyes, her mind instantly remembering the array of suits hanging on the racks that she's noticed today, and the images her mind has conjured of him wearing them and quite possibly looking so dashing in them.
She puts that thought at the back of her head, to be examined at a much later date, perhaps when he isn't standing in front of her. She makes a mental note of putting that down on her journal.
"I wanted to get them now and take some with me in the dressing room, so I won't have to disturb you in the morning," he continues, explaining simply: "I've run out and need some currently."
She nods at him and gives him a soft smile, watching as he moves towards their closet, entering and rummaging through his clothes for the things he might need. He emerges a few minutes later with an armful, piled with stacks of nightshirts and some dress shirts and some pants. On his elbows, a couple of suits are dangling, and she'd laugh if he didn't look so pitiful, trying to balance everything.
She shakes her head and chuckles. "I'm not kicking you out of the house," she teases as she crawls out of the bed to help him.
He chuckles back at her. "I know," he replies, nodding. "I just did not want to have to go through the hassle of going back and forth."
She walks over to where he is standing and cuts his load in half. "Here, let me," she says. He looks about ready to protest, but she cuts him off with a look. "If I'm taking over the bedroom and sending you off to another room, the least I could do is this." She lifts her arms filled with his clothes. She then turns around and heads out, giving him no room for arguments.
His footsteps follow her down the hall and she looks back at him with a raise of her eyebrow while he just shakes his head at her. He gestures for the room with the open door and she nods, turning and heading inside the room. She takes in the bland interior. The walls are painted an off-white, not quite beige, not quite white either, the ceiling lined with dark wood, and the furniture are made of dark cherry wood. The bed spread is cream-colored, and there is a large window right at the other side, an open door leading to the bathroom, and some draws—other than that, it's bare of any personality, doesn't at all look lived in, and generally, looks like what it is—a guest room.
She feels bad, thinks once more just how hard it is for him, to be pulled out of his comforts for her sake. It must be difficult for him, for though he might have his own memories intact, he is still left to watch his whole world tip over and turn upside down, upended by this circumstance they've found themselves in, and really, there isn't much he could do about it other than let it run its own course.
"Cora, you're drifting," she hears Robert's voice cutting through the hazy fog in her brain.
She looks at him, the sight of him standing there, looking confounded but concerned for her wellbeing makes her eyes water. She bites her lip and ducks her head once more, walking over to the bed to deposit the stack of his clothes on top of the duvet. She doesn't speak, doesn't make a noise or a squeak, afraid to break the precarious and volatile thread they are walking in right now. She stiffens when his hand clasps around hers, but she feels the tension lifting when he squeezes once, twice, and one last time before letting go.
"Allow me to walk you to your room?" he asks, effectively putting an end to her thoughts, as if he already knows what she is thinking and knows instinctively that she does not want to talk about it.
She whips her head at him and tries to stop her lips from quivering, biting down on her bottom lip as she nods and looks away.
He leads her out the door and they both remain silent as they pad down the quiet halls back to their bedroom. She feels the words lodged on her throat, wanting, needing to spill, but she swallows them back. They pause at the door of the room, and the time seems to stand still as she stands in front of him, her back against the surface as he remains still before her, waiting.
For what, she doesn't know.
"Good night, Robert," she whispers, letting her words bridge the little distance between them that neither of them physically crosses.
"Goodnight, Cora," he responds with, leaning down to kiss her cheek, lingering a little while before pulling back, his breath brushing her skin.
She feels the words rolling down the tip of her tongue. She wants to say sorry for what she is putting him through, to apologize for the pain she must be causing him, but the words are stuck in her throat. Instead, she turns from him and walks to the bedroom, closing the door shut, her hand raising to cushion her head as inside, she falls apart on her own.
…
The day starts out dark and gray, but that isn't really anything new in London. He doesn't know exactly what time it is, can't tell from the lack of sunshine. He turns to his side to peer at the clock, only to be quickly reminded that this isn't their bedroom. He thinks it must be late in the morning already, not that it matters any for he doesn't feel any at all rested, having had a fitful night of sleep even if it had been dreamless. He'd been drifting in and out of slumber, his mind too full even when his body had been too exhausted. Cora is of course, and as usual, the subject of all his thoughts. Her soft skin the last thing he thinks of as he finally falls into an interrupted sleep—that must have been around four in the morning. And now, well now, he has to face another day.
Robert finds that while he had once looked forward to the beginning of the day, waking up next to his wife, he can't seem to find that enthusiasm anymore. If not solely out of the knowledge that today, his wife would have no recollection of him, of their life, and she won't remember anything from the past six years, which is basically everything they had. Have. And today, she might be different from the woman he knew. Knows.
He doesn't blame her for it, cannot blame her for it, really, but he can't help but resent the fates that brought them here. No one's asked for this, not him, not her, especially not her, but the effects have left them both devastated. He also knows she might feel a bit like a fish out of the water as she treads through the life she doesn't even remember, but he cannot help but feel that way too, as he treads through the life he does remember but has been upended so suddenly by the tragedy that has befallen them. He feels like he's been robbed off of a wife, of a life.
The thoughts swirling in his head further dampens his already souring mood, so he shakes himself, trying to wake just enough to throw away the lingering bad thoughts, and he climbs out of bed, stretching all the while his muscles protest. He isn't used to sleeping in this bed, isn't used to sleeping without her, but there isn't much to do, he thinks as he heads straight to bathroom, ready to start the day and take whatever it offers.
He walks down to the kitchen after he's made sure to look presentable enough (and really, by that he means a quick shower, a fresh pair of trousers, and a crisp blue button down polo did the trick), and he finds his mother in law sitting at a chair behind the dining table, munching on a piece of buttered toast and some mixed fruit.
A quick glance at the clock on the wall confirms his initial thoughts, it is rather late in the morning—ten am.
Where is Cora?
"Are you sure you're still allowed to eat anything with that ungodly amount of butter?" he teases his mother in law, scrunching his nose at the amount of butter on her toast. Of course, this is just his own version of ignoring the pink elephant in the room.
Martha snorts at him and rolls her eyes. "Oh please, everyone says that you're only as old as you feel," she tells him, her eyes following him as she makes his own breakfast (bacon, eggs, toasts and some marmite, all ready and prepared by their cook). "And I feel that you're older than me, so…" she continues, shrugging and smirking at him.
He chuckles, taking the seat across her on the table. He gives himself some time, chewing slowly and then swallowing, letting himself get a decent amount of food in his stomach before he even dares to ask. As he was taking a slow sip of his earl grey, Martha raises an eyebrow at him.
"Out with it boy," she orders, giving him a long meaningful stare.
"What?" he asks, faux innocently as he lifts his cup once more to take a sip.
"You aren't very subtle Robert," Martha tells him, shaking her head. When he makes no move to ask or now more, she sighs. "She's awake," she divulges, "She's upstairs in your bedroom, trying to absorb everything. I didn't have to explain much. That journal idea of yours seems to have helped her a lot."
Robert looks up (he's pre-occupied himself with the wonders of bacon whilst his mother in law spoke and he'd listened), his hand drops to the table and he stops pretending for a moment that everything is okay and this is normal.
(It might as well be, he thinks, but that is neither here nor there in regards to the situation in hand.)
"I must warn you," Martha adds as she takes a sip of her coffee. She looks at him over the rim of her cup, brow rising as she places the cup back down. "She's crying and quite sullen. Not at all like what she's been yesterday, warm and touchy feely."
Robert feels himself blush from the roots, but chooses to ignore that little ribbing as he clears his throat. "Is she okay?" he asks, frowning worriedly.
Martha shrugs but he can see the pain behind her eyes. "As fine as she could be under the circumstances," she tells him as she chews and swallows the last of her toast, washing it down with her coffee. "She asked for a processing time, which if you need translation, means cry time."
Robert nods mutely, numbly, sighing. He doesn't know what to say. He knows Cora, knows how she works her grief out of her system, had actually witnessed it firsthand, and he knows that she cries her heart out until she cannot breathe anymore and her eyes become red-rimmed and swollen. He knows how she crawls into a fetal position as she cries, as if being curled up in a ball helps keep her heart from breaking. But it does break, she breaks, and he cannot help but break along with her.
…
Cora feels absolutely heartbroken.
She stares at a blank point on the wall blearily as the tears continue to pour down her cheeks, clouding her vision. She cannot understand how this came to be, and though she doesn't exactly remember what's occurred the day before, she feels so tired, so exhausted. And it's not just the physical exhaustion of crying her heart out, but she feels the bone weariness due to this, her condition, everything.
Her eyes roam the entirety of the room she's been told she owns with the husband she's been told she has. It does look lived in, looks like she's been here, some of the products she knows she uses scattered in various places. Her heart and her mind ache to remember.
But neither can. Not yet.
Her eyes fall onto her side table and she spots the leather bound journals that her mother had handed to her this morning. She's only read the newer one, the one which had explained to her what exactly is happening, what her condition is, but mother has told her that the other journal holds her memories of the past six years, memories she doesn't remember now. She's been reluctant to open it this morning, not sure of what she'll find. She knows it's about her, but not remembering she's lived that life has thrown her off balance a bit and she's chickened out.
The curiosity to know who she's been when she can't remember and wanting nothing more than to fill in the gaps in her memories makes her sit up now and reach for the journal.
She splays it across her lap, opening it somewhere near the middle, running her finger down the page before lifting it up, just level with her eyes. She scans the words quickly, her face morphing from curiosity to pain as her heart clenches at the news revealed to her.
March 15, 2012
Today is a sad, sad day. I don't know to react, don't know how to feel. All I know is that right now, my heart is breaking so much. I feel like it's being torn apart. It isn't time yet, not yet, I don't think. Father had so much to live for, he was so full of life, but now he's gone and I'm just so lost. I'm still in shock, and I don't know what to do. I just want him back.
She feels as though her heart stopped and her blood ran cold. She sits paralyzed, unsure of what to feel, as she looks at the page marred with traces of her tears, traces of her grief. She tries to pick out a distinct emotion from the cornucopia of it inside her but she feels like a mess, feels like those emotions are entangling themselves inside her forming a knot and now she doesn't know which one she actually feels.
Angrily, she rips the sheets from her body and climbs out of bed, her footfalls are loud and strong as she stomps her way to the door and ripping it open. She stalks towards the living room where she hears the television droning on and on, playing background to her mother's and her husband's voices.
"Why did no one tell me that Daddy is dead?" she yells angrily at them, her voice carrying through the volume of their conversation and the buzz of the television. Both her mother and Robert jump, turning towards where she is standing by the door.
Martha looks stricken, tears instantly brimming in her eyes while Robert only looks like he'd really rather not have this conversation right now.
Oh but they are going to have this conversation now.
"Why wouldn't you tell me that?" she demands. "Why would you hide that from me?"
"Cora," her mother begins, her voice soft and low in an attempt to soothe her, to smother the anger she feels bubbling inside of her.
"No," she cuts off. "No I deserved to know!"
"It hardly mattered," her mother says carefully, looking at her and sighing as she points out, "You didn't have your memories."
Robert remains silent, as if he'd really rather just watch this play out than join in.
"Hardly mattered? It's the very reason I deserved to know!" Cora counters, feeling her anger intensify and merge with frustration and pain, and loss. "I needed to know that he's…"
"I'm sorry," Martha murmurs quietly, looking pained and making a move to get up, but Cora raises her hand in dismissal and shakes her head.
"I can't," Cora mutters, sniffling before turning around and running away, letting her feet carry her where it would.
She runs towards the yard, the garden, unsure exactly where she's going and only realizing so when she found the abundance of flowers scattered across the grounds. Gorgeous ones, her favorites, but that hardly matters now. She runs towards the heart of the small garden, finding a nook where vines seemed to grow over a frame of woods, making a shed like form. There is a swing that works as a bench underneath the roof made of fiber glass covered by over grown vines and some leaves. It looks like a sanctuary, perfectly hidden from the view from the house, kept away from intruders.
She walks over to the bench and takes a seat, her shoulders slumping as she breathes deeply. She feels the tears prickling her eyelids, and she breathes out, trying to control them from spilling. But an errant tear makes it down her cheeks, followed by another, and before she knows it she's sobbing, breaking down, her tears falling in quick succession.
Her head falls to her open palms and she stays that way for long moments, just crying her heart out. It won't change anything, won't bring back her dead father, won't turn back time and would certainly not bring back her memories. But the pain of not having known the truth hurts and the anger that permeates through the pain makes her unsusceptible to reason.
She is totally unaware of anything at that point, but she feels his presence before she sees him or even hears him, and she lifts her head from the cushion of her palms and peers up at him. She feels anger rise through the defeated feeling that has settled in her chest. She glares at him.
"What are you doing here?" she asks angrily.
He shrugs and slips his hand in the pocket of his trousers to fish out his starched white handkerchief which he hands to her.
"Here," he says, extending the cloth toward her.
She takes it from him gingerly, looking at him guardedly, and uses it dab around the corner of her eyes and against her cheek, drying her tears. She sniffs and rests her hands down her lap, also looking down to avoid looking at him.
The bench swings a bit and she looks sideways to find him taking the seat next to her. She raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything, making him sigh.
"I'm sorry," she hears him mumble and she wonders if this isn't a common occurrence, him apologizing. His shoulders are tensed even if he is leaning over with his elbows on his knees. He is breathing in and out deeply, as if nervous.
But her anger is not easily abated, her pain not easily removed. She is angry that her father is dead, angry that they never told her. Her fists clench on her lap and she bites her lip, trying to contain the urge to just start yelling at him.
"Neither your mother nor I had wanted to keep that information from you," he explains, his voice soft and low. "We were just…preoccupied."
"I don't even know how he died," she tells him, tears of frustration now coursing down her cheeks.
God this is just so messed up.
He was her father! How can she not know? How can she not remember?
"Frederick died of a heart attack love," he tells her, supplying the information that her brain can't remember, information lost to her. "Your mother found him in their bedroom, by the time he arrived at the hospital he was proclaimed dead. We hadn't meant to hide that from you. We didn't do it intentionally, at least. We knew you were going to be so positively heartbroken, and we didn't want to hurt you."
"You kept the fact that my father is dead from me! What did you expect me to feel? Elated?" she bursts out incredulously. She supposes she simply should have asked them about it, but she also she supposes she's been too preoccupied trying to remember the past six years.
"No of course not," he says gently, trying to diffuse her anger, oh, but she is not going to be handled. "We just hadn't wanted you to have to worry about it on top of your memory loss, you should be focusing on your recovery."
"He was my father," Cora exclaims, standing up. She almost sounds like a petulant child.
"Sometimes, Cora, you could be so curiously unfeeling," Robert mutters, making her face scrunch into something akin to anger and disbelief. "You must know that we have only wanted what is best for you. We didn't say anything because you were recovering, still are. Perhaps it slipped our minds, perhaps we hadn't really thought it was the right time to tell you. You're going to have excuse us, Cora because you were the one we were thinking of all the while. And you know what, perhaps it doesn't even bloody matter because tomorrow morning, you won't remember a goddamn thing," he says, his voice increasing in volume at every inflection. He is trembling, fists clenched as he also stands now, facing her. "Perhaps the fact that there are some things you don't know yet is for the best!"
"Things I don't know?"she echoes, the anger pulsating in her veins blinding her and refusing to see his side. "There are more?"
He looks at her sharply, blanching as though he isn't meant to say that, and that he just opened a whole new can of worms. That is probably the case. He wrings his hands together and sighs, shaking his head.
"Nothing," he says, his voice clipped and his stance stiff and guarded.
She doesn't know him, no beyond what she's been told, but instinctively she knows. She isn't stupid or born yesterday, she knows he's lying.
"Stop lying to my face," she spats acidly at him. "What else are you hiding from me?"
There is a beat that passes between them, an elongated silence, a pause pregnant with the words looming overhead and laced with tension so thick, it can be cut by a knife.
She watches him purse his lip stubbornly as he stands there, ramrod straight. He radiates of secrets ept, and by god if it's something that concerns her, she has every goddamn right to know.
"Robert," she hisses, staring at him piercingly.
"Cora, you won't even remember tomorrow," he tries to reason with her but she only shakes her head.
"You're either going to tell me now or I dig that journal and tear it apart until I find out," she warns dangerously at him. "God knows how that's going to end up."
That seems to do it, because he sighs and bites his lip before whispering huskily, his voice filled with anguish and thick with unshed tears: "You had a miscarriage." He looks at her dead in the eye, then. "The same year your father died…you lost our baby."
A/n: Sorry? I had to set this up so well, im just casually dropping that here. Please everyone, let me know your thoughts?
Also, I apologize for the quality? this chapter kinda sucks, but it seriously kicked my ass. :( anyway, there we are. Reviews would be lovely!
