Sunday morning brunch always kept her busy as the diner. On that particular day of the week, tables and booths often filled up with more than just the usual patrons. Parents and grown children would meet there, taking over the large booths first and then squeezing into the regular ones. Some couples brought young children and babies, and Maggie pulled out the wooden high chairs from the corner where they were stacked. Still others preferred to eat alone, sliding into spaces at the counter, ignoring the strangers seated beside them.

And just as he had done the past weeks, Jake slipped in and found a spot before the start of her shift. Lorena had already served the boy a cup of coffee, and he was doing his best to drink it. Maggie suspected that he had filled half the cup with sugar and creamer.

Smiling to herself, she put in an order with the cook for a full meal. She knew he had no money to pay for it, but she hated seeing him there trying not to react to the alluring aromas while his coffee-filled stomach growled in protest.

She glanced at him as he caught sight of her approaching, and his expression was the same as it had been every day since their first meeting: awe. She was like an angel in his eyes, and now she truly understood why.

"Good morning, Jake."

She flashed him a smile and he answered with his own. In some ways, it was like looking in a mirror. How had she not recognized him sooner?

"Hi, Maggie." His voice betrayed only a hint of shyness.

For a long moment, she simply looked at him. He was tall for his age, she decided, and strong despite his wiry build. And he obviously had received a good education. But his clothes and empty pockets ruled out private school.

"Where do you live?" she asked suddenly.

His face fell, delight at seeing her replaced by shock.

"What?"

"Where do you live?" she repeated. "I think it's clear you aren't from Brooklyn. Manhattan, maybe?"

"Um… yeah," he managed, although Maggie could tell there was more to his story he had not yet shared.

She wondered if she should bring up Vincent, but based on his demeanor, Jake must not have yet learned of his father's encounter with her in the park. Loathed to cause problems between them, especially when she still knew so little, Maggie decided to say nothing for the moment.

Besides, she was still not entirely certain this Vincent person was real. Perhaps he was just a dream she had convinced herself to believe.

Jake shifted uncomfortably until Maggie moved off to help other customers. She worked quickly despite the ache in her leg. The pain was like an old enemy, both familiar and despised.

By the time she returned to Jake, the cook had prepared his meal. She set it in front of the boy and enjoyed his delighted smile and profuse thanks. Then she leaned back against the opposite counter, her arms crossed, as he began to gobble down the eggs, sausage, and pancakes. Unlike the occasional wealthy patron who turned their noses up at the too-greasy food, Jake seemed never to have met a meal he did not like.

Unfortunately, her job called her away again, and for the next hour, Maggie was only able to snatch a few brief moments with the boy. Whereas before his presence had annoyed and even scared her, now she feared he might vanish before her eyes.

By the time the crowd finally thinned in the early afternoon, giving her time to actually stop and have a conversation, Jake was on his way out the door. While she had paid for his meal, he had left a well-worn dollar bill as tip.

"Hey, Jake," she said, stopping him. "I was about to take a break. Want to join me?"

He nodded enthusiastically, and after letting Lorena know how long she would be gone, Maggie led him outside and down to her usual bench. The need for a cigarette left her a bit shaky, and she pulled one out and lit the end before attempting to say anything more. Beside her, Jake watched carefully, his eyes staying intently on hers. She could tell the smoking bothered him.

"So, uh… I guess we should talk," Maggie said finally.

"Yeah."

Jake nodded but ventured nothing more. Maggie took another drag on her cigarette, wishing she could inject the nicotine directly into her vein so she could circumvent the smoke and the smell the boy so obviously disliked.

"You think I'm your mom."

Rather than seeming put off by her confronting the matter head-on, Jake simply smiled.

"You are my mom."

"How can you be so sure?"

He shrugged. "I just know."

As enigmatic as his father, this kid, Maggie thought to herself.

"Okay, well… then tell me about yourself," she prompted. "Is Jake short for something?"

One of his eyebrows quirked at the question, but she kept her expression carefully schooled so as not to betray her encounter with Vincent. Slowly, Jake said, "Yeah, it's short for Jacob. I'm named after my grandfather."

Grandfather…

Not only did she have a son, her son had an entire family. The only one who seemed to be missing was her. Somehow, that fact left her even more disconcerted than so much of what he and Vincent had said so far.

"Are you in school?" she asked.

"Yep."

"What's your favorite subject?"

He sighed. "I'm kind of good at math, but my favorite is literature. My dad likes to read, and so, uh… we read a lot together."

Maggie smiled at how he looked away, clearly embarrassed at having actually admitted to enjoying reading. It struck her that while he was a budding teenager, the cloak of childhood still hung about him with easy familiarity.

"Like that book you brought to the park - Great Expectations."

He made a face. "I hate that book."

"Oh? Then why did you bring it?"

Jake paused. "Because it's one of your favorites."

With a snort, she responded automatically, "I've never read it."

"You have," he insisted, and the high-pitched, insistent voice of a boy who had not yet hit puberty began to annoy her. Or maybe it was just his certainty in the face of her lack of it.

"I don't remember."

Jake spoke with deliberate slowness as he explained, "My father read it to you, long ago. After he saved your life and nursed you back to health."

She froze at the description, and a scrap of memory floated back to her.

"'And in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.'"

They said the words simultaneously, she realized, even as Jake stared at her in wonder.

Time slowed for Maggie, like those moments in movies when everything simply moved at half speed. She heard Jake's voice and the words they had spoken together, but she could not comprehend the quote itself. Instead, she felt as though her consciousness had been transported to somewhere else entirely.

She felt trapped in the memory, like a flower pressed between two pages in a book, unable to escape or call for help. The experience, so like the coma she had endured years earlier, terrified her, and Maggie did her best to fight against the terror rising within her. But even as she felt something on her face - bandages? - a voice cut through the darkness.

It stayed at a distance, not too close but also not too far. And the deep tones, like timber and velvet and onyx combined, lulled her with a sense of calm and safety.

"Tell me your name."

The way he asked made her want to answer and to hear his response as well. But she could not remember what she had said to him. Her own name still escaped her.

"I'm worried, Vincent. I'm scared."

"I know. I can feel it in you."

He knew her. She had his name now, although not his face. But none of that mattered. What penetrated her own growing fear was the sense of safety in him. His voice, gentle and strong in her mind, pushed back against her rising anxiety. He had read to her, she felt, not recalling the memory so much as the sensation of letting herself relax in his presence, his dulcet tones washing over her like a warm tide.

"Maggie?"

For a moment, she did not even register that Jake had spoken her name - and likely more than once.

"Sorry," she said, raking a hand through her hair. Her cigarette had fallen out of her weak right hand, so she stepped on the butt to extinguish it.

"Are you okay?"

Shaking her head, she admitted, "I don't know. It's all a lot to take in, you know?"

Jake did not know, but he nodded anyway, and Maggie could not help but feel uplifted by the serious expression he wore as he regarded her.

"Hey," she said, catching his attention. "If you come back to the diner next weekend, I can give you that book back. And if you have any others you want to lend me, we can make an exchange."

The suggestion reignited that youthful flame within him, and soon Jake was chattering away at the different possible books to share. Did she like poetry? Obviously, she must be familiar with Shakespeare, but perhaps Byron? Or even Edgar Allan Poe?

Maggie simply shook her head and advised him to select his own favorites without her influence. In truth, she could not remember most of the poetry he cited. She remembered the feelings they inspired in her more than the words themselves.

Still, she remembered enough to be impressed by the depth of knowledge exhibited by this twelve-year-old, not to mention his own excitement at the subject. Hiding a smile, Maggie decided that perhaps her son was already a literature teacher in all but name.

Her son.

While the full import of those words had occurred to her before, somehow, the casual way her mind arranged the connection suddenly hit her full-force.

Her son.

She had given birth to a child, Maggie finally acknowledged. While she had been reluctant to face it before, this was not news to her. The inspection of her comatose body had revealed the pregnancy even though she recalled nothing about it. For years, she had pushed away thoughts about what her pregnancy might have meant.

But now... Part of her ached for those lost memories. Had she felt the baby kicking her from inside? Had she been able to hold Jake after his birth? Had she looked into his tiny blue eyes and recognized the life her body had grown from within? So much had been taken from her with the amnesia, and these lost memories brought it all back again.

Still, she never expected to receive a second chance. Not like this.

"I guess you should get back to work," Jake noted sadly.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so," Maggie commented. "But I'll see you next week?"

He lit up at the question.

"Definitely!"


After work that night, Maggie returned to her small apartment to give her weary feet a break. While she enjoyed her job and it allowed her the social aspect of a life she otherwise avoided, it was tough on her arches.

Slipping onto her fire escape, Maggie sat down next to her only living companion: a potted rosebush which thrived in the daylight while she was at work. Lighting a cigarette, Maggie automatically checked the soil dampness before using a small watering can to give it a much needed drink.

"I'm not sure about all this," she told the bush.

After so many years spent alone, why wasn't she more excited about finding out about her former life? Why hadn't she demanded to know more from Jake? Or chased after Vincent in the park until he showed her his face?

The only answer she found was a profound inner sense that danger lay ahead if she chose to pursue her past. She had suffered a near-fatal overdose to put her in that coma, after all, and Maggie sensed that if she had been pregnant, it could not have been accidental or self administered.

Someone had tried to kill her.

And then someone had exiled her to languish in a nursing home, nameless and alone. Vincent had mentioned presuming that she was dead, so her survival must have been kept secret. Whoever had done these things to her could still be out there.

And yet, she knew in her heart it could not have been Vincent. He seemed so surprised to find her alive. And the sound of his voice in describing her death was… intense. Maggie had heard love there - love and grief so great as to nearly break a grown man apart.

The thought of Vincent left her curious once again. Why did he hide in the shadows? What differed about him that he feared that she would turn away from him in terror?

"Perhaps he has a deformity," Maggie mused aloud. "Or scars on his face…"

Whatever set him apart, she still longed to see him again, to find out more about their shared past. As she finished her cigarette, Maggie watched the sun dip low in the sky, bathing the atmosphere in pinks and purples. Sunsets always made her feel hopeful, she realized, as if the coming darkness promised something wonderful.


She left for the park well after dark. In the past, she sometimes gone there to think and to escape the ever present press of other people. Living in the city meant it was difficult to find space to be alone. Physically alone, at least.

As far as Maggie was concerned, she had been alone all her life.

The closest streetlight to her favorite log flickered unevenly, and Maggie wondered if she should have brought Jake's book with her. But she would not have been able to concentrate on the pages anyway.

But even as she strained to hear any faint movements in the densely wooded area, she instead heard more distinct noises from the other direction. As she turned her head, Maggie noticed that she was no longer alone. Two young men, both boasting expensive black leather jackets and adorned with distinctive tattoos on their necks, were sauntering down the pathway in her direction. While she could not have placed which gang the two belonged to, she knew they were bad news.

Nervous about potentially being cornered in the small clearing, Maggie slowly stood up and began moving towards the path in the other direction. She did not move quickly, but she did walk with a determined gait. Alas, she must have attracted their attention because she heard a shout behind her.

Instinct kicked in and rather than turn, Maggie took off into a sprint. She found the path and followed it for a hundred yards or more, ignoring the sudden burning sensation in her leg. But after the path veered sharply into a ninety degree turn, she left the path and ventured into the darkness of the copse of trees beyond.

While she had calculated the escape to be at the darkest point along the pathway, Maggie had not accounted for the horrible noise her feet would make as they tore through the underbrush. Each footstep sounded absurdly loud to her ears, and once she was twenty feet into the wood line, she ducked behind a tree and froze.

Her breath came in ragged gasps as she fought to control her heart rate. But even as she desperately worked to school herself into silence, she listened for her pursuers.

"Where'd she go?"

The other young man's answer was muffled, but she hear them not far away, just on the path behind her. Closing her eyes, Maggie fought against a rising sense of fear within her. Fear would do her no good, she knew, but it still coursed through her.

She also felt anger at having been driven away from a spot where she had found peace so many times before. The park wasn't large, not compared to Central Park in Manhattan, but it had enough space to let her find moments alone, when the ever-present sense of people and problems could be put at a distance.

Now, that peace was gone.

"What was that?" one of the men asked, and Maggie stilled even more as she tried to make out what they had heard.

A moment later, her ears picked up what had spooked them: a low, animalistic growl.

She heard it close-by, from her side of the path, but closer to where she had been than her current hiding place. As she listened, Maggie wondered what could be making such a frightening sound.

And yet, she also knew.

"Man, what the hell is that?" one of the men asked the other.

Maggie peeked around the tree and saw them both looking with alarm down the path they had come from. And then, an even louder growl pierced the night and she flinched.

Just as his voice seemed familiar to her, so did this almost guttural cry. She knew who it was without his name even crossing her mind.

The men on the path fled, stumbling in their haste to get away from whatever inhuman snarl might have pursued them. But Maggie did not move. She remained locked in place, her back molded against the tree as she schooled her breathing into deep, quiet movements.

Only a handful of minutes passed before the heaviness of silence returned to the park. The distant bay of traffic, of horns and sirens further away, faded into the background, ever-present pieces of life lived in the city. But as Maggie began to wonder if it was safe enough to venture home, she heard the tell-tale sound of footsteps approaching her through the woods.

"Are you all right?" the voice asked her, its owner just out of reach of her eyes.

She could make out the figure of the man behind those words - a tall man, broad of shoulder. But his shape was an outline of darkness against darkness, and she had no hope of seeing his face.

"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you."

Even as she said the words, she knew he had been the one to scare away the young gang members. But the deepest part of herself had no wish to pursue those growls and snarls she had heard. To Maggie, they were but details to be reconciled later. At the moment, she had other concerns.

"I was hoping you would meet me tonight," she ventured carefully.

Vincent only paused for a moment before answering, "I couldn't stay away."

The deliberate certainty in his tone made her shiver, but not in a bad way. Having survived the near-encounter on the path, Maggie felt suddenly emboldened and she pushed off from the tree which had been her anchor.

She marched blindly through the darkness towards his voice. But before she could reach him, she heard him scramble back, away from her. For all his obvious quick thinking and careful planning, she obviously had the ability to keep him on his toes.

When it seemed only a handful of feet must separate them, Maggie stopped. She could only just discern the outline of his figure against the brightness of the woods shielding them from city lights. But that was enough for her to see that he wore a cloak and a hood which cast his face in shadows. Who still wore hooded cloaks in 2002? Clearly, he was used to hiding his face from strangers.

"You didn't tell Jake that we met," she said aloud, hoping the statement would not sound too much like a recrimination.

"No," Vincent admitted.

"Why not?"

He paused before answering her, and in his voice she heard both hesitation and doubt.

"I wasn't sure what to say," he said softly. "He succeeded in finding his mother, even beyond the grave. But she has no memory of her life before. Or of his existence."

The way he spoke, his soft and rumbling voice full of sadness, set off emotional landmines within her, and Maggie could suddenly feel things dredged from deep within her mind. Hurtful things. Agonizing things.

"We loved."

"There is a child."

The words did not come to her on a gentle wave. Rather, they felt inexplicably seared into her psyche, like brands burning into her from the inside. Her head suddenly erupted with pain, an inescapable ache which exceeded physical sensation.

Time seemed to stop as simply waited it out. She was good at waiting. And gradually, the pain subsided, leaving her with only a faint wisp of memory in its wake.

"Sorry," she told him, shaking her head to clear it. "I just… I remembered something."

A sudden electricity filled the air between them, and Maggie knew he must be both excited and desperate to hear more. But his reserved nature kept the rush of his questions tightly restrained.

"What do you remember?" Vincent asked finally.

Any other day, Maggie would have been relieved to report that she recalled no moments from her earlier life. While a stray image or sound clip played on the local news might leave her feeling anxious and undone, she had always been quick to turn away from whatever might push too hard against those buried memories. Never before had she been so brave as now in pursuing them.

She sighed, the enormity of what she now knew falling on her shoulders with a burdening weight.

"I remember telling you about Jake."

That revelation seemed so deep, so important, that it had seeped into her very bones.

"I was... about to die," Maggie went on, "and I only had a few moments to tell you. To make you understand."

While the events of that night seemed hurried and immediate in her mind, the quiet conversation among the trees and brush in the park kept Maggie grounded in reality.

"We had been apart for a long time, I think."

"Six months," Vincent affirmed softly.

"I was… held somewhere. Against my will."

"Yes."

A growing sense of nausea welled up in her throat, and Maggie swallowed hard against it. But in so doing, she found a lump, the kind which appeared whenever deep emotions overtook her. Before she could control herself, her eyes filled with tears.

She sobbed, "I kept hoping you would come. I knew you would be looking for me. And then when the baby came, I was so afraid you wouldn't even know…"

Her voice cracked, and Maggie lost the ability to speak, her entire body suddenly overcome with an overwhelming flood of emotion. The feelings seemed to come from everywhere all at once, filling her completely and drowning her in their burden. The pain from before was completely overshadowed, like a trickle turning into a full-fledged flood. The intensity of so many emotions hitting her all at once, of suppressed agonies and longing, might have done her in completely. But Maggie closed her eyes and pushed them away - forcefully. Even as her hand reached out blindly to find the bark of a nearby tree to ground her, Maggie shielded herself against the onslaught as she struggled to withstand it.

As the tide of memories finally washed over her, some of them clinging to her mind like so much seaweed and driftwood, Maggie could reorient and refocus herself on reality. Vincent stood nearby, poised to reach out for her, she knew. But whatever fear kept him in the shadows also kept him just out of arm's reach.

A name had been on his lips, she realized. Her name. He had almost spoken it aloud when her control slipped.

"That's all I remember," she stated quietly.

It was both the truth and a lie. More pieces were coming to her, fragments meeting and connecting, faces and names and events. But they were still a jumble, an incomplete picture of her past. She set them all aside to examine later. For now, Maggie focused her attention on Vincent, knowing that she craved more from this man than he had thus far permitted himself to offer.

His silence seemed contemplative, and Maggie wished she could see his face to read whatever he might be feeling. But she also sensed he was a quiet soul, prone to a great deal of thought and consideration before saying what was on his mind.

A few heartbeats later, Vincent informed her softly, "I did look for you. Every second that I could, I spent searching. But I only found you moments before your… before you were lost to me."

A chill went up Maggie's spine as she imagined the lengths this man had gone to to try and find her. She could tell that he did not exaggerate - he likely had spent every waking moment for six months looking for her. And then, by whatever quirk of fate, he had found her just before she seemed to die in his arms.

Quirk of fate indeed. That timing seemed unlikely to Maggie.

"How did you find me?"

Vincent shifted slightly, and she wondered if the query made him uncomfortable. At the same time, she did not care. He held pieces of her past, keys to locked doors she had been walled up behind for years. And while so many fears had kept her from trying those doors before, now she longed to fling them open with abandon.

"When we met," he said slowly, "I realized that we shared a bond. A connection."

"What sort of connection?"

"I could feel what you felt. When you were afraid or sad. But also when you were happy or joyful. Sometimes... I could almost make out what you were thinking, as if you were standing in another room and speaking to me. I could even tell where you were…"

He spoke the impossible, but Maggie believed him anyway. The absolute certainty in his voice made her believe. And she could sense his own sadness in how he spoke, as if something about that connection now caused him pain.

Then she froze.

"You could feel where I was?" she pressed.

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you just-"

Before she could complete the question, Vincent stated gruffly, "The bond was lost. Because of me. And then you were taken, and the means I previously had to protect you was out of my reach. Before, you had but to feel a moment of fear and I would be at your side as fast as I could. But with the bond lost… I could not find you."

The tone of his voice immersed her in his agony, in the untenable position in which he had found himself. Whereas before, he had been able to go to her when she needed him. But with the loss of their bond, she had been taken from him at first for many months and then… entirely.

Maggie sensed that he took too much guilt on himself.

Carefully, she pressed, "Why do you think the loss of this bond was somehow your fault?"

Sighing deeply, Vincent shifted again, and she watched as he moved so slightly as to put himself in profile. While the distant lights of the city were not so bright as to show her his features, she made out the shape of a relatively flat nose and an unusual curve to his lips as he spoke.

"Before you were taken, I was very ill. A peculiar malady unique to myself. I almost died. But you saved my life. For a time, I could not remember much of my past life. But unlike you, I gradually remembered. You were there for me when I needed you, and those memories returned. But the bond was lost."

"So you blamed yourself, because of your illness?" Maggie asked, her heart breaking for him.

If he believed himself to blame all the time she had been missing, how much harder he must have searched for her. And how much more it must have hurt when he did eventually find her on death's door.

"Yes." He took in a deep breath and then let it out again. "But I found you at the end because I felt the baby's heartbeat as he was being born. I also have a connection to Jake - to our son. That is how I found you again."

The thought of young Jake as a baby seemed strange to Maggie. Even as she had reconciled that he was her son, she had trouble imagining the earlier years of his life. She wondered about them now, about his first smile, his first word.

"It must be wonderful to watch a child grow. To follow a life."

She shook her head as the statement floated into her mind, the voice her own. But she had no memory of speaking the words. Not ready to face another returned memory, she took a deep breath and pushed it away.

"So the bond never returned after Jake was born? After I... 'died'?" Maggie asked, already knowing the answer.

Swiftly, Vincent shook his head, and then answered, "No, I have never had any inkling that you were still alive. Had I known…"

While he trailed off, Maggie suspected that she already knew the answer. Had he known she was alive, he would have come to her immediately. He never would have left her alone in a coma for over two years and then working quietly as a waitress in Brooklyn for a decade.

They both stood very still for a long time, neither knowing what to say next. Maggie had so much to absorb and the surge of memory she experienced earlier had left her exhausted.

"I should go," Vincent stated.

But before he could disappear into the darkness, she stopped him. "No, not yet. Please!"

She almost reached for him and then stopped herself at the sound of his gasp. But he did not move away from her.

"Will you let me see you?" she asked.

"Please…" he begged. "Please don't ask me that. Not yet."

The depth of emotion in his appeal moved her, and she she nodded once in ascent. But something else occurred to her.

"I know Jake can only come to visit me on the weekends. But will you… will come back again?"

He answered immediately. "Of course."

"Tomorrow? The same place? Ten o'clock?"

While part of her had thought to offer a different location - a safer location, considering her near run-in with those gang members - Maggie also knew that he maintained the need to hide his appearance under the cover of darkness. And she could think of no other place where he might be comfortable.

"I'll be here."

TBC