Maybe Malcolm was right, Olivia thought, scrubbing furiously at the tears that stained her cheeks, trying valiantly, fecklessly, to stem the flood of her grief. Maybe it was too much. Maybe I didn't really want to know.
It wasn't as if Fin had told her everything. He'd said it himself; everything was a whole hell of a lot, and there were only so many hours in a day. In a low, sorrowful voice he'd broken the news to her, filled in the blank space of her early days, told her where she'd come from, if not everywhere she'd ever been, and the memories he passed on to her were both entirely too much, and not nearly enough. Too much to bear, and yet not enough to bring her peace. It seemed violence had cast its shadow over her from the very second of her conception and followed her like a thundercloud forever after and the thought of it terrified her now. Perhaps the old Olivia, the one before the accident, had become hardened to that violence - to the truth - a callous building up around her heart protecting her from the hurt of it, but that callous had been stripped away and her heart was tender and bare and could take no more hurt today.
They ate lunch together, Fin and Malcolm and Olivia, but as the morning wore into afternoon her strength began to fade; she still had so many questions but she was exhausted by the answers, by the truth Fin had told her of her mother, her father, her brother, her work. The two men each seemed to sense her discomfort, but it was Fin who suggested she take a break first. Malcolm wanted to, she knew, could see in his face that he wanted to send Fin away, but something - fear, perhaps, Fin was an intimidating sort of man - stayed his tongue. It was Fin who said get some rest, Liv. We'll talk again later. She was grateful to him for that, for respecting her limits - more than she did herself - for giving her time. Fin had arranged a hotel room for himself in town and he departed for the hotel around 2:00. Malcolm called Rosie, arranged for her to pick up Noah from daycare alone, and then he guided Olivia into her bedroom, and encouraged her to take a nap. Rosie will bring Noah home and she and I will look after him here. You just rest, Olivia.
And she was trying, now, to rest, but she couldn't. She lay curled beneath the blankets of her bed, weeping, her thoughts racing as she struggled to comprehend the loneliness she had inherited from herself. It was just awful, she thought, awful that she had been born in grief, raised in isolation, awful that love and joy had come for her so late in her life, and stayed for such a short while. Her marriage to Ed, the son they'd had together, the family she'd finally managed to make after decades of standing alone, that life was beautiful, and it had lasted a bare few years, and ended months before the accident. Her husband, her love, was gone, and there was no one else to hold her.
No one but Malcolm. It was no wonder, she thought now, no wonder she'd fallen into bed with him. She must have been so dreadfully lonely.
The words kept spinning through her mind; mother, father, husband, brother. All dead, now. All gone, and her with no memory of them, nothing but Fin's words and a few pictures to fill the hole where her family was meant to be. The photo of her mother was burned into her mind; an elegant woman, her eyes obscured behind those sunglasses, the truth of her still beyond Olivia's reach. She wanted to love her mother, and did, she thought, loved her in the primal way every child loves their mother, but she did not know her. Maybe I never did, she thought; Serena drank too much, was too angry, too bitter, too sad, too wounded, and Fin had so little to say about her, and Olivia could not help but wonder if she'd ever really gotten to know her mother at all. The woman she was, not just the less-than-stellar parent but the woman, with hopes and dreams and fears all her own. What had Serena Benson ever dreamed about? Was there anything, anything at all, that would've made her happy? I didn't, Olivia thought. I didn't make her happy.
It was useless, trying to sleep; maybe it would've been a comfort to sink into oblivion and forget once more, but there was too much confusion swirling through Olivia's heart for her to give into dreams. After a time she abandoned the effort, and rose slowly from her bed.
The box Fin brought with him was still in the kitchen; they had not really even begun to unpack it, and there was no way to know what further secrets it held. She wanted, very much, to go out and dig through the box, but she didn't want to risk seeing Malcolm, to risk him seeing her like this, brittle and devastated. The box would have to wait, but there were secrets lurking in this room, she was certain of it.
She'd already been through the bedside table and the dresser, but there were piles of boxes still in the closet she'd yet to examine. High up on the shelf above the rail where her clothes hung, more than dozen boxes were piled up to the ceiling, some with words written on them - Ed, Noah, Olivia, kitchen - some without. As she stood staring up at them she realized glumly that she'd need a ladder or a step stool to reach them, and there was nothing in the bedroom for her to stand on. Another time, she thought. There were some bins and boxes on the floor, though; clear plastic totes full of clothes she'd decided to store away, for whatever reason, smaller boxes that looked just big enough to hold a pair of shoes. She sat cross legged on the floor, and began to open the smaller boxes.
The first few boxes she opened did contain shoes - high heels, mostly, sparkly and expensive looking - but the third or fourth box she opened was home to something else entirely. This box was full of pictures, pieces of paper, various and sundry other items, little clues as to the life she'd once lived. There was a black badge with a gold shield on it, the numbers 4015 engraved just beneath the shield. It was her badge, she thought; she did not remember it, exactly, had not remembered before this moment what a badge was or that she'd ever had one, but when she looked at it she recognized it at once. It was a piece of her old life, a talisman she'd once carried on her hip every day, and now it lived in a shoebox at the bottom of her closet. She ran her thumb over the surface of the badge, the bumps and ridges of it familiar, comforting to her. It made her feel strong, somehow, holding that badge in her hand.
I was strong, wasn't I? She thought. All the heartbreak Fin had shown her, she'd survived all of it, and still found her way to a normal, fulfilling life. She'd fought through so much pain and achieved her quiet retirement, with her kind friends and her safe little house and her wonderful little boy, and that took strength, didn't it? The strength to carry on, and not crumble, as it seemed her mother had done. Just now she didn't feel particularly strong, but she must have been, once.
Carefully she laid the badge down in her lap, and began to flip through the photographs. The faces in them didn't really register, not at first; herself she could recognize, though in the pictures she was younger, her hairstyle different in nearly every single one - I guess I couldn't make up my mind, she thought - but as she went she noticed a change; the last ten or so photographs were of the same two people, over and over. The last ten or so photographs were all pictures of her with a smiling, blue-eyed man.
In each one they looked a little different; in some they were as young as they had been in the photo she'd found in the bedside table, but in others they were older, his hairline receding and her eyes decorated with thin crow's feet lines as she smiled. Liv and El, she thought. The people in the pictures, they were strangers to her, Liv as unfamiliar to her as El, but it was plain that they were not strangers to one another. Liv and El, old friends who'd known one another for years, who stood smiling with their arms around one another, happy and at ease together.
Who is he? She wondered for perhaps the hundredth time. This man she dreamed about, the only face she remembered, this person she'd clearly cared for once, though she did not know him now; who was he? Fin had not spoken his name, and she'd not asked. That question remained tucked away with the others she had yet to find the strength to voice; who is El, and why are you so afraid of me talking to Stabler, and where did these scars come from, these things she wanted to know, and yet didn't. She'd wanted to know about her mother, and now that she did she wished she didn't, wished she'd waited a little longer, like Malcolm said, wished she could find some place to put it down, the heavy weight of this sorrow, so that she did not have to carry it upon her back.
Maybe El was dead, too. Dead like Ed, like Serena, like the man who'd brutalized Serena, like the son he'd raised who'd never known he was living with a monster. Maybe that was why she'd hidden the photos of El, tucked them away out of sight; maybe he was gone, and maybe she was never going to remember what it had been like to love him.
Fin was coming back; maybe for dinner tonight, certainly tomorrow morning. He was going to come back, and she was going to have the chance to ask him more questions. For now she could have some space, some time alone, and then she could try again.
Maybe Malcolm was right, and she should've waited. Maybe she'd rushed into this too quickly. Maybe she'd feel better if she waited, and took her time about it, this business of learning who she was. All of that might have been true, but the floodgates were open, now, and she felt no more patient than she had been this morning. If anything there was a renewed sense of urgency in her; Fin had laid the first of the puzzle pieces on the board but she wanted, desperately, to assemble them in full, to see the final picture now.
I could call him, she thought, but though she reached for her phone it was not Fin's name she tapped, not Fin she sought to reach out to. Instead she made her way to the text messages she'd exchanged with Stabler.
Stabler was an old friend, too. He'd been kind, in his messages. Apologized to her, told her he'd understand if she hated him. Did she hate him? She didn't remember, and didn't remember why she would. The thought of it intrigued her, though. The thought of him intrigued her. The man she'd called before the accident, who had reached for her after, the man Fin wanted her to stay away from. Fin seemed to be a good man, a good friend, but she had demanded so much of him already; it would be kinder, she thought, to let him rest, too, to not bother him with her racing thoughts. Maybe it was Stabler's turn to answer some of her questions.
If she made a phone call now Malcolm might hear her, but a text would make no sound.
She did it the same way now that she had last night; using other texts as a guide she slowly, painfully typed Who is El, and sent the message without hesitation.
Where are you, she wondered, staring at the phone; it was midafternoon on a Wednesday, and that meant Stabler was probably at work, didn't it? What did he do for work? Was he a cop like her, like Fin, like Ed? Like El seemed to be; in most of the photos he was wearing a badge just like the one lying in her lap. Maybe all her friends were cops; maybe she'd never really had the chance to meet anyone else. If Stabler was a cop, he was probably busy right now. It would probably be ages before he could answer her. Maybe she should go lay down, maybe she should -
The phone vibrated, and Stabler's response appeared on the screen.
You don't know?
She frowned. Texting was difficult for her, and she'd not yet told Stabler that she'd lost her memories. How was she supposed to explain that to him now? He must be so confused, she thought, but he was there, on the other side of the phone, listening to her, waiting for her.
No, she typed back.
It would certainly be easier to speak to him if she just called him, but Malcolm said that sometimes calls could be disruptive, and she didn't know where Stabler was or what he was doing or if he could even call, and truth be told she was a little afraid to confront him. Afraid of what he might have to say, about why she hated him, about what he remembered, afraid that Fin was right, and she shouldn't be speaking to him at all. Texting was easier; she could stop whenever she wanted. She could just put the phone down, walk away, she could -
It's me, Stabler wrote back. I'm El.
Holy shit, she thought faintly.