The second she stepped into the living room Noah's eyes lit up. She didn't know the boy, not really, didn't remember his personality, what behaviors were normal for him, but their interactions while she'd been in the hospital had shown him to be a quiet, almost reserved sort of child. He could speak, but often chose not to, preferring to snuggle close to his mother, safe and warm. Now was no different; he didn't leap to his feet, didn't race across the room, but he did move at the sight of her. He'd been sitting on Rosie's lap while she flipped through a picture book with him, and as Olivia approached he carefully picked his way to the floor and then began to trundle towards her with his arms stretched above his head in a silent request for her to pick him up.

"Mommy," he said, the word almost a plea, his voice small and almost sad, and Olivia felt her heart twist at the sound of it. He was so young, only four years old; shouldn't he have been happy?

"My sweet boy," Olivia answered, scooping him up at once. She cradled him close and when he buried his face in her neck she pressed her cheek to his soft hair, breathing in deeply. He smelled like soap and home, and the weight of him in her arms was a comfort to her.

"Come on, Olivia," Rosie said, patting the couch cushions next to her. "Come sit down."

One step at a time, Olivia reminded herself. There was an urgency in her heart, a desperation to know, an eager drive to ask every question, explore every nook and cranny of the house. There were answers to be found here, she was sure of it, and she needed those answers, needed them with an immediacy that made her hands shake. There was a clock ticking somewhere in the back of her mind, counting down to what she wasn't sure, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was running out of time. But why should she be? There was no schedule here, no deadline. All of her needs were met, and she was safe at home with her son and her friends, and whatever clues to the secrets of her past were hiding in this house, she would find them eventually. Right now all she really needed to do was to hold her son and speak quietly to her friends. There would be time later for her investigations.

"Thank you," she told Rosie earnestly. "For looking after him. I don't know what I would've done without you."

What would've become of her boy, if Rosie had not agreed to take him? As far as anyone knew Olivia had no family; there were no aunts or uncles or doting grandparents waiting to step in and care for one of their own. It was a frightening thought, the totality of her isolation. Wholly dependent on the kindness of people who were not bound to her by blood, who had by their own account known her less than two years. How had that happened? Her thoughts kept returning to that one question, worrying over it endlessly. What had happened to her family? Surely she had one, once, a mother and father at least. Where were they now? Dead, maybe; the birthdate on Olivia's license was 1978, and it was 2018 now, and that made her fifty years old. Not too young to have lost both her parents, but she didn't know.

"I didn't mind a bit," Rosie told her cheerfully, reaching out to pat her leg in an affectionate, maternal sort of way. "I miss having a little one around sometimes."

"Rosie's got three kids," Malcolm explained for her, perhaps seeing the question flickering in Olivia's eyes. "And she used to be a kindergarten teacher. Noah's been in good hands."

Olivia thought that must have been true; there was something very kind about Rosie's weathered face. It seemed to Olivia that Rosie was older than both Malcolm and Olivia herself; Rosie's short hair was thick and silver-grey, and her dark eyes were buried in a nest of crow's feet, the shadow of a thousand brilliant smiles etched permanently in her skin. By appearance alone, Rosie seemed to be a warm and gentle person, and she had taken good care of Noah, who looked clean and content and seemed to like her. What a blessing it was, Olivia thought, to be surrounded by good people who cared about her.

"I've got to go," Rosie said then, a bit regretfully. "But I'm just two doors down, if you need anything, and I'll be back here first thing in the morning."

Olivia thanked her again, and Malcolm walked her out, left Olivia and Noah alone for the first time since this nightmare had begun. Part of her was nervous, anxious about being left alone with a small child even for the few short minutes it would take Rosie and Malcolm to say their goodbyes; she didn't know what she was supposed to do. When she sat he'd wiggled around a little, made himself comfortable on her lap, and now he was just resting there, his little head on her shoulder, his thumb in his mouth. The picture book Rosie had been reading to him was discarded on the seat next to Olivia so she reached for it then, began to flip idly through it, showing the brightly colored pages to Noah, but her heart wasn't really in it, and he wasn't even looking at it.

What interested Olivia in that moment was not the vibrant red apple on the page, but the objects that surrounded her, and so she looked up from the book, and studied the room instead.

It was a comfortable sort of place. Homey. The sofa was plush and grey, and it matched the two armchairs that flanked it. One wall of the room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and each of those shelves was laden with books, but not only books. There were candles, too, and little knick knacks she wanted to examine more closely, and photographs. Mostly the pictures were of Noah, taken at various stages from his infancy until now, but there were pictures of her, too. Pictures of her and Ed.

Ed.

Who was he? She wondered, her eyes falling on a picture of the pair of them standing before a grand old building she couldn't identify. What sort of man had he been, her husband, the father of her child? His eyes were bright and blue and sharp, almost; when she looked at them she felt as if she could see a spark of something, wit or intelligence, some flash of personality she didn't yet know how to name. Maybe he'd been brilliant, her Ed; maybe all these books belonged to him. Maybe he was a great reader, or a student of history; maybe he'd been a storyteller. But was he kind? Was he gentle? Had he been a good father, a good husband; had she loved him with every piece of herself? She wanted to believe that she had. Wanted to believe that she had loved him wholly, desperately, sweetly, that they had been happy every moment they were together. The more she loved him, though, the more wonderful he was, the more it hurt knowing he was gone. Would mourning a great love be better or worse than discovering their marriage wasn't as happy as it seemed to be in pictures? How happy could they have been, really, if the only memory she retained was the recollection of another man's face?

"All right," Malcolm said as he came walking back in the room, smiling. "What do you want to do first? Shower, or dinner?"

Olivia wasn't ready to be separated from Noah just yet; she could shower once he'd gone to sleep.

"Dinner," she said.

"Let's do it," Malcolm said agreeably, and then he turned away, and Olivia took that as her cue to follow him. She rose carefully to her feet, still holding Noah close, and followed Malcolm deeper into the house.

It was very neat, that house. Very clean. Of course, Malcolm said that Rosie had cleaned it; maybe Olivia didn't keep her home this neat all the time. It was a strange sensation, the not knowing. She supposed she'd find out soon enough.

There was a table in the kitchen with four chairs around it and so Olivia went there, sat down once more and watched while Malcolm busied himself with dinner. He seemed to know where everything was, the plates and the forks, the food from the country club ladies in the fridge, and Olivia knew she wouldn't be much help to him, opted instead to stay out of his way. He was halfway through plating up their dinner when a strange beeping sound distracted him, and as Olivia watched he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Thanks to the nurses, Olivia knew what a phone was. Something people used to talk to one another but also something they used to store and access information, and it occurred to her in that moment that a phone might be a very helpful thing to have, just now.

"Hey, Malcolm?" she called to him softly. He'd already tucked his phone back into his pocket, and glanced over her way curiously. "Do I have a phone?"

"Sure you do," he answered easily. "It wasn't with your stuff at the hospital though, they might have left it in your car. We can call the police tomorrow and ask them what we need to do to get your stuff back."

"That would be good," Olivia said.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Malcolm mused, half to himself. "Everybody you know will be in your phone, and all your old messages and stuff. Email. You could learn a lot that way."

"Do I know a lot of people?" she wondered. It didn't seem like it; Malcolm and Rosie were the only ones who'd come to visit her in the hospital. The mysterious country club ladies had volunteered to keep her fed, but none of them seemed to want to see her.

"I'm sure you do." Malcolm sounded confident, but Olivia couldn't help but wonder if he was just saying that to make her feel better.

"You told me that I - that Ed and I - moved here about two years ago. Where were we before that?"

Come to think of it, she wasn't entirely sure where here was. She'd have to ask him that, too.

The first of the plates was in the microwave now and there was nothing left for Malcolm to do but wait while it heated up, so he turned around to face her, leaned back against the counter and watched her thoughtfully. He really was a nice looking man, Malcolm. His hair was thick and dark, streaked through with grey in a way that made him seem dignified. He had broad shoulders and a square jaw, and blue eyes. Like Ed. Like the man in her dreams.

"You and Ed lived in New York City," he said slowly. "It's a - it's a really big city, a few hours' drive from here. Do you remember anything about it?"

No, she didn't remember the city; she didn't remember anything. But the doctors wanted her to try. They'd told her they wanted her to remember things on her own, not just be satisfied with what she was told. And so she paused, for a moment, closed her eyes, and focused on the thought of home. That place, New York City, that was her home; it was where she'd come from, where she and Ed met, where their son had been born. Home, she thought, focused all of her will on that one word. What was home?

She couldn't see it. Buildings and streets, faces of old friends, her school, her job; none of it came back to her. But as she turned that word home over and over in her mind the face of the blue eyed man swam back to the surface as it had done so many times before. Only this time, this time she heard his voice, too.

Let's go home, Olivia, the ghostly voice of the stranger echoed in the vaults of her mind.

"No," she said to Malcolm, her eyes fluttering open. "I don't remember it at all."

"It'll come to you," Malcolm said. "Now that you're out of the hospital, you can sleep in your own bed, wear your own clothes. Something will register with you, I'm sure."

The microwave beeped, signaled that the food was ready, and Malcolm retrieved the plate and brought it to Olivia, set it down in front of her before he went back to heat up the second one. The food looked good; spaghetti, she thought. How could she remember spaghetti, and not her husband?

"You said I'm retried," Olivia said then. The evening stretched out in front of them, long hours for her and Malcolm to spend together, and she wanted to ask him every question that threatened to burst out of her. So far he seemed like a patient man; she hoped he wouldn't get tired of her incessant queries. "What did I do before that? What was my job?"

There was a possibility, she supposed, that she never actually had a job, but that didn't seem right. The wedding photo proved that she and Ed weren't young when they married, and Noah was her only child; it seemed unlikely she'd spent her entire life before her marriage unemployed. She must've done something.

"Uh," Malcolm said, sounding uneasy for the very first time. "You and Ed were both cops."

That surprised her; she hadn't been expecting it, somehow, though truthfully she hadn't known what to expect. There had been cops, at the hospital, grim faced men in dark uniforms who came to talk to her about the accident. How could she have been one of them? Was it a dangerous job? Cops helped people, right? Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

"I'm afraid you never talked about it much, though," Malcolm confessed. "You and Ed both, it was like you…you wanted to put it behind you. I never asked too many questions. I'm sorry for that now."

"Please don't be sorry," she told him earnestly. "You've helped me so much already. I don't want you to feel…responsible for me. I don't expect you to know everything."

"I wish I did," Malcolm told her sadly. "I wish I'd known you both better."

"You can get to know me now." Olivia wanted that, very much. He was such a nice man, Malcolm. A friend to her. They were starting over now, and she hoped that he would like her as much now, this new, somewhat lost version of herself, as he had before.

"I'd like that," he said warmly. "If we can get your phone back, I bet you have some old friends in the city we can call. Maybe they can help answer some of your questions."

It seemed like a fine plan to her. Tonight would be spaghetti and Noah, Malcolm and this quiet, clean house. Tomorrow they could track down her things, and begin to piece together the puzzle of her past. For now she was safe and warm, and she could not ask for more.