Chapter Six~

Regina's POV~

The world is silent as I pace the street, headed towards the address they gave me as I was leaving the hospital. The small piece of paper I have clenched in my hand is quivering slightly and my heart is pounding; I have no idea what to expect when I make it to what they tell me is my house.

The road diverges into an entrance, and I stop suddenly, my breath lodging into my throat.

But nothing happens.

I want so desperately to feel something, anything, but all I see before me is a huge white house and I feel nothing. No sense of nostalgia, no funny memories playing through my brain, no tears brimming my eyes, no anything.

I feel…. empty, and my eyes burn as I realize that this home must be full of so many memories I won't be able to remember. There are a few things I can recall—like the fact that I have a son—but everything else is foggy. I won't be able to remember the sound of his footsteps echoing through the house, or all the birthday parties we held for him, or his first words, or his first day at school, or even his favorite color or his likes and dislikes….

I let out my breath, my cheeks flushing with so many different emotions—I'm angry, depressed, confused—and I rush up the steps, wanting to get this over with.

A shaking hand makes its way to the doorknob.

I twist it, and the door opens, and I'm overwhelmed by the smell of apples.

It's like lightning. I feel something spark right in the center of my chest, filling me up with hope and happiness. I felt something. Remembered something. But just like that, it's gone, and again I'm in a house I don't recognize.

I'm getting overwhelmed as I see pictures of a boy that must be my son, of the blonde woman from the hospital, of friends and family I don't recognize, and I can't' bring myself to remember any of it.

But right before I can break down, I see something out of the corner of my eye. It's a young boy. Almost a man, really.

"Mom," he says, and rushes down the stairs.

And there it is again. A brief feeling of nostalgia that this has happened before.

The boy embraces me, and I wouldn't exchange anything in the world for the feeling that washes over me. It's warmth, it's love, it's home. So this is what it's like to be a mother.

All these emotions are exploding inside of me, screaming to escape, and they start spilling out of my eyes as tears.

I thought that I would be a wreck when I was reunited with him. They told me at the hospital that I had a son, and what fear it was knowing that…. I was so scared knowing that I had a son I couldn't remember. What would it feel like having someone so precious that I didn't know a thing about? I thought that I'd be broken….

But just the opposite occurs. I don't feel broken at all. In fact, I feel like this small little person is piecing me back together. (Small is not accurate, of course, seeing that he's already a teenager)

He looks up at me with soft, gentle brown eyes and the warmest fondness rushes through me. There is one thing I am certain of—whoever I was, whoever I am—I did and do love my son. The kind of love that you'd go through the ends of the earth for.

"Henry," I say. They told me his name at the hospital, but this feels so right that I almost believe I would have remembered it anyway.

"I missed you Mom," he says.

I smile. "I missed you too."

"I was worried about you."

"Aren't you still worried?" My heart speeds up, and I remember my anxieties.

"Why would I be?"

"Because… I don't remember any of this. This…. This life, I'm a stranger to it Henry. I'm a stranger to myself."

But he looks up at me and reassurance pours out of his soul into mine.

"It's going to be alright Mom. Trust me. People's memories mess with their sense of identity. Our experiences don't always help us find ourselves…. Instead we can get lost in them. You were lost Mom. And now, you're free. Now, you're just yourself. Your core self is showing because you're unable to be bogged down by any past experiences. Mom, I'm not worried about you at all. I'm relieved…. You look happy."

He smiles, and a part of myself left over from another life frees up immediately. I feel like the whole world has just been lifted off my shoulders. Whatever I did in the past, whatever memories had been bogging me down, they're lifted. And just like Henry said, I am free, I feel free. And for what I feel has been the first time in a very long time, I smile, a real genuine smile. And I think to myself what a joy it is to be alive. There's a strange sense that this is the first time in a while that I'm not merely surviving.