Chapter 17Ana
Ana
“Where is she?”
The voice carries all the way from the foyer on the opposite side of the gigantic house and on through to the kitchen, where I’ve spent the morning baking bread with Artom.
Well, not necessarily with him. He got bored with it after about the third run of dough.
But he’s been hanging out with me, coloring and telling me stories that are at least half true.
Not that each story has a fifty percent chance of being true; I just realize soon in that he doesn’t have a great memory and is quick to embellish.
Or I hope so, at least. There’s no way I battled a cockroach the size of a chihuahua with a can of hairspray and lived to tell the tale. I may not know a lot about myself, but I know I don’t do bugs.
I’m making cinnamon rolls now, which Artom assures me is a favorite of mine.
As I slice through the rolled dough, I get this feeling that it’s Artom’s favorite, and it’s his favorite because they’re not made often at home.
And as much as I’m sure plenty of chefs stop at McDonald’s on the way home, I like cooking on my day off.
I’m pretty sure I hate making them.
I’m ready to throw the whole log in the trash when I hear that scream.
Where is she. Irrationally, I wonder if there’s a gun stashed somewhere in the kitchen.
There’s a nice big fence around the house, but having gone from the Consummate facility with its barbed wire and entire platoon to Vasily’s apartment in the sky to this house that’s nice and big but just a house, I don’t feel nearly as safe.
I wonder if I felt that way before. Growing up in this house, did I know there were safer places? Was I worried that my family’s business would put me at risk? Was I scared when I escaped to Florida? Did I know it was a risk, or was I completely blindsided when I was suddenly nabbed by traffickers?
I don’t even know if I’ve ever shot a gun. The way I felt with them in my hand in Vasily’s office wasn’t natural. I don’t think I have, and I need to learn as soon as I can. If Artom and I weren’t in danger before, we’re in danger now.
Because of Vasily.
He told me he loved me.
I’m working through the mantra I’ve been chanting to myself all day, reminding myself that Vasily lied, all he does is lie, and he raped me and filmed it for the entire world to see, when a woman with olive skin, bouncy chestnut waves, and a navy power suit storms in on heels that make clacking sounds all the way down the hallway.
For a second, I’m startled, having no idea who she is and worrying about an attack for completely different reasons, like she’s here on official business and she’s here to throw me in jail .
I take a step in front of Artom, who’s happily scribbling away at the kitchen counter. I don’t know how Child Protective Services works, and I will stab this lady with my bench knife— which is more of an unhandled spatula than a viable weapon— if she thinks she’s going to take Artom away from me.
She slides right into the kitchen island as she says, “Holy shit, you are here.”
I reach behind myself to keep Artom there, so of course he immediately pops out from behind me.
Another scurrying sound approaches from the hallway the woman just appeared from.
It’s louder but not nearly so sharp, more of a cacophony of rubber thwacking.
The woman spins around, screeches, “Will you please pretend to not be heathens for two seconds of your life?” and spins back to me, this time rushing forward with her arms outstretched.
Two little kids, both slightly smaller than Artom, one a girl in a nightgown that’s gotten snagged in her underwear and the other a boy in swim shorts and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, as identical as a boy and a girl can be and undeniably the woman’s kids, surge past her.
“Auntie Lacey!” the little girl squeaks as the little boy gives a war cry of, “Pool party!” They both throw their arms around my legs, hugging me as tightly as a fresh pair of jeggings.
I look back up to the woman, and my brain suddenly matches her face to the photos taken ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, but some things never change.
“Camilla?”
“Oh fuck, I’ve got this shit mascara on!” she hisses as she plants the heel of one hand right between her eyelashes, blotting tears away. Her other arm goes around me, and two smaller arms join in.
“Mommy’s home,” Artom says right to my butt, and he hugs me so much more tightly than Camilla and her kids that I’m crying now, too.
“I can’t believe I spent the day baking when there was a pool this entire time,” I mutter as I fuss with my too-small bikini. It’s not anything inappropriate, it’s just for a smaller version of me that didn’t have stretch marks on a wobbly belly and didn’t need anything to lift my boobs.
Camilla smacks my hand away, but she’s looking just unfairly hot despite having four-year-old twins. How did that happen? How does she have a flat stomach and perfect boobs and a big butt and hips but in the best way possible, all gravity defying and cellulose free? This is ridiculous.
As if reading my mind, Camilla says, “Gino got me a BBL for Christmas.”
“A BBL?”
“Brazilian butt lift. And every time I see you, I try to talk you into microdermabrasion. You always say no, it’s your mommy stripes, so that’s on you.”
I look down at my tummy and try ‘mommy stripes’ on.
I like it, actually. I wish my bathing suit was a size up, but I guess I’m okay.
And we’re not even outside. The pool is one of those set-ups where half is outside and half is in a sun room, perfect for this time of year when even Phoenix gets a little chilly .
The twins, Luca and Luna, come skittering in behind us— I guess that’s just the one speed they have, skitter— with Artom, kicking off their flip flops and ditching their shirts before belly flopping into the pool. Artom runs to the edge of the pool, and I yell, “Wait, wait, wait!”
He freezes comically, with one foot up in the air.
“Can you swim?”
Camilla snorts, and I’m pretty sure the truest sign of friendship is getting laughed at instead of coddled for my amnesia.
“Mommy, I was born swimming,” Artom says sternly. “I swimmed in your belly.”
Did I have a water birth? That doesn’t sound like me either. But kids say weird things. “Okay. Just... make me feel like a good, responsible mommy and go down these stairs this time, just so I can see, okay?”
He shrugs. “Okay, but you’re the best mommy.”
The good news is I don’t have to worry about my mascara running. I’m not wearing any.
“You kind of are the best mommy,” Camilla confirms.
“He’s the only one I’ve remembered so far,” I say, dodging more intense emotions. “Not an actual memory or anything, but I just suddenly remembered that I have a son, and I remembered his face and his name, and then it turned out—” I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Camilla’s hand squeezes mine. She’s got this big, glamorous, larger than life personality, it comes out every time she talks to Luca and Luna and when she literally greeted Tony with, “‘Sup, dicknuts? Stay the hell out of the solarium,” but she’s kept herself quiet with me.
It’s a comfortable quiet. I wonder if I’ve always been the quiet type or if she knows that right now, I don’t need conversation. I need support.
She gave me about three seconds of privacy to change into the ill-fitting bikini, though, and then her hand was back on mine, just casually holding it.
Squeezing it when I need it.
She watches with me as Artom barrels down those steps as quickly as possible, only going down two before his tiny body can no longer touch the step and he plunges in.
My breath catches. I have to take care of him. He’s all I have.
But he doesn’t even go underwater, not at first. He does a little paddle that’s somewhere in between a doggy paddle and an elementary stroke, but he’s clearly not having any issues keeping afloat.
“See, Mommy?” he yells.
“Yeah, baby. You’re doing really well.”
“I’m taking swim lessons this summer, too! I’m enrolled and everything.”
Oh, no. I would love to say that yes, absolutely, in a couple months, we’ll be returning home and he’ll be in those swim lessons this summer, but I don’t see it happening.
I’ve done a little research, as much as I could handle before I got myself upset, and the longer it takes for memories to come back, the less likely they will.
Even if they don’t, I know I’ll one day be fully functional and independent again, but I can’t move back to Florida until then.
If ever.
For lots of reasons.
Camilla gives my hand another squeeze, this one accompanied with a shoulder bump, and then guides us to a pair of deck chairs more suited for sunning outside.
The moment I get settled, I see the merit.
I pretend there’s sun but don’t need to worry about sunscreen or cancer.
It’s nice checking boxes like that off the list. And it’s only once the kids are out splashing in the water that Camilla asks, “Is it weird?”
I don’t need clarification on that question. “Super weird. It’s like... have you ever looked at a book cover and thought, ‘I have read this but I couldn’t remember a single thing about it’?”
“For sure. But I read something like two hundred books a year.”
I do a double-take. I don’t really have any way to avoid passing judgment on people since I don’t know if my opinions are based on looks or on unlocked memories, but I didn’t take her for a big reader.
“Smut, all smut,” she clarifies.
“Oh, I wasn’t—”
“Yeah, you were,” she laughs. “It’s cool. Believe me when I say that you’ve had some real shenanigans because of the smut I read.”
“I did? Was I reading it, too?”
“Nah, you were this perfect little Catholic girl. Scandalized by every word I read to you. That’s why I kept reading them to you.”
I guess your closest friends are the ones who traumatize you the most.
But then she looks over to me, says, “I didn’t realize you were going to use it as divine inspiration,” and waggles an eyebrow at me.
I recoil at that, suddenly feeling this urge to throw my cover-up back on and, like, hide in it. “What does that even mean?” I whine.
She levels me with a long, hard stare. I can see she’s actually debating about what to tell me, like she’s just now realized that the amnesia means I’m missing core information about myself that I might be better off not knowing.
But then she chuckles, lies back in her chair, and takes my hand.
With a squeeze, she says, “It means that as much as you act like you hate it, the entire world has seen the best fuck you’ve ever had. ”
She says it casually. She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t seem to care how I’m taking that. If she knows she’s dropping a bombshell, she gives no indication.
Vasily told me I was into exhibitionism. I doubted him, but he proved me right that day. So I can’t say that what Camilla is saying is false, but I also cannot imagine for a second that I would have let myself be filmed like that after...
After what Tony showed me.
I wince. “How can you joke about that?”
“Aww, Laces,” she coos. She does give me a sympathetic smile this time, which only confirms that she was referencing that very same incident.
“I’m so glad you’re back home, okay? This is where you need to be to heal.
We are the people who are going to protect you.
Not Vasily. Guy’s an asshole. He always has been, always will be.
What he did to you? He can fuck right off.
But he still gave you the best fuck you ever had, and that’s your words, not mine. ”
“There is no way I would have ever said that!” I fight back, ready to lose it on her.
But she laughs even harder, unquestioning as to whether this is bark or bite. “‘Course not. You’ve never said ‘fuck’ in your life. But yeah, you loved what he did. No shame in that. Now come on, let’s dunk these little brats. They’ll love it.”