15. Sandrine
Sandrine
After breakfast, I showered, letting the hot water run over me longer than I’ve been allowed in years. I breathed in the steam curling thick around the glass and liked that it hid me, even from myself.
The entire bathroom was quite luxurious. There were no plastic dispensers bolted to the wall. Beautiful bottles filled with real hair products and sweet-smelling lotions were lined neatly along a shelf just under the mirrors. The scents smelled expensive.
I washed until my skin tingled, until I felt different. Maybe like my old self again, though I’m not entirely sure what that means anymore.
I dressed in clothes I was told were supposedly mine. The smaller-sized ones. I believe Kirill because they fit me. The sweater I chose is soft. It’s just clingy enough to feel snug and not tight. The jeans fit perfectly against my butt and thighs.
Only in Marlowe was I allowed to dress in regular clothes, but Elodie and Lourdes bought them for me. It was what they liked for me.
Looking down at myself, I smile, liking these on me. I don’t know if that comforts me or terrifies me. Are these people telling me the truth?
That thought pokes at my brain as I open the bedroom door to see what’s beyond these comfortable rooms Kirill gave me. The silence in the hallway feels like a trick, like it will suddenly turn into screeching chaos and knock out my eardrums.
If I’m supposed to live here and be some kind of queen, I should at least know the layout.
I head down a long corridor lined with embroidered wallpaper and dark wood paneling.
Wall sconces are dim for the time of day, and the only real light is a late-morning sun that filters through tall windows at both ends of the hallway.
It doesn’t feel like a prison, not the way the cell did. This place is nothing like Marlowe Rehab either. No watchful eyes, no clipboard, no schedule pinned to the wall dictating my day.
No meds. No needles. No questions.
I can use some time away from all that.
The hallway opens into a larger room. My breath catches as I take it in. It’s a library. The walls are lined with bookshelves, and there’s a table in the center. Under each window are soft plush chairs for reading in the sunlight or just sitting and staring.
Windows… I wonder if they’re locked.
Where would I go? Back to Marlowe? After five years of being in hospitals and facilities and being told what’s best for me, I’m not sure I want to go back. But I’m also not sure if I want to live here with that man.
Kirill.
He says I’m his wife, but he’s letting me sleep in another bedroom. Will we stay like that? Will I eventually have to sleep with him? And have…sex?
Something tingles at the thought of him on top of me. That handsome face, the square jaw, and burning blue eyes, rolling in the back of his head as he…
I shake that away and prepare to lose myself in a book. What else is there to do? Although I’d love to paint again. Maybe Kirill will buy me supplies. Or do I have my own money?
Hmmm. I approach the shelves that stretch from the floor to the ceiling. It’s filled with books arranged not just by size but by color. Subject matter would have been nice. A ladder rests along one wall attached to a worn brass rail.
I’ve seen these and always wanted to go for a ride. The metal is warm to the touch, and the closer I get to the books, the more overwhelmed I am by the scent of aged paper and their leather covers.
With no voice telling me to wait or ask permission, I climb up on the ladder. Moving where I want and touching what I want is a strange feeling of freedom.
Strangely wonderful.
I’m ready to push off, but a collection of thin volumes catches my attention. Glossy dust jackets over hardback covers stick out further than the other leather-and-gold raised ones. Pulling one free, I see these are art books. Lourdes sent me a few here and there.
The name on a cover catches my eye and clicks in my brain. Amon Fritz. My heart starts to pound. That’s the name the med student rattled off to me. Saying I copied his paintings. Anger roiling through me, I pull one book off the shelf completely.
A memory forms behind my eyes. But it’s not like the new ones I made after the accident. This one is fuzzy and hurts my head a little. Next, there’s a voice I can’t place, but it hits me like a spark in a dark room.
My pulse picks up as I slowly and cautiously open the book. On the first page is a photo of a lanky man with long, stringy hair, and his bio is in a box. I have no interest in his bio. I want to see his work.
Page after page is filled with images of paintings. The vivid colors step off each sheet with movement and texture. I keep turning, instantly drawn to the colors, shapes, and composition.
I stop breathing. I know these. I think.
While so much is fuzzy, this realization is immediate and absolute. I feel like I’m staring at my reflection. I know it’s me.
These are mine. I painted these. I just know it. Something flashes in my head: bright sunlight, white canvases, drop clothes, and pale-yellow walls.
A studio.
And me…in a blue smock.
The memory blinds me, and I get dizzy.
Okay, I think I can see the benefit of having facility people hovering nearby.
I’d been working on restoring memories. Doing useless exercises for months at the New York center, then Marlowe in Arizona.
Drips and drabs. Letting me hold small objects and waiting to know what it means.
Rarely did anything materialize in my head.
This is immersion therapy. Bam. This memory of painting in a studio and wearing a blue smock in the wash of sunlight knocks the air from my lungs. My fingers start to sweat as I tighten my grip on the page, tearing the edge.
My throat constricts, panic rising as I flip through the pages more quickly now. I don’t want to force these feelings away. More, more. I need more of me. The me I lost. The me that was stolen. My breath hitches. Was my memory stolen? Was someone trying to make sure I didn’t remember?
Didn’t remember what?
I glance around this room. Was I supposed to forget this place? Forget Kirill? But why?
I dig into this book for more clues. Am I mentioned?
“Gah!” The tears cry out of me before I can stop them.
Raw and startled, I snap the book shut with a force that smashes the quiet in the room. I hug my body. It’s tight with tension that I’ve not felt before.
Lies. These are more lies.
Before I can think better of it, I lift the book to throw it across the room. Like if it’s on the floor, all of this will go away. As I take my aim, I freeze.
I’m not alone.
A little girl stands a few feet away in the doorway. Did she hear my scream? Wearing a school uniform, she has her ponytail pulled back with a ribbon that has come slightly loose. The hair is…like Kirill’s. But her eyes… Right now, they’re wide, curious, yet entirely unafraid.
I’m a stranger in her home who screamed. She should scream. But she stays fixed on me with an intensity that twists in my chest.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Maybe she’s not real. Maybe I’m hallucinating from not having my meds.
But she tilts her head and speaks, “Who are you?”
Her voice is clear, not muddy like a dream.
“I—” I don’t know how to answer that.
I’ve been told something different from what I believed for the last five years.
I swallow, trying again to speak. “Who are you?”
Her nose wrinkles, like she doesn’t like that response. “I asked you first.”
She speaks with some indignation. She’s so sharp and confident that it pulls me back just enough to form an answer.
“I’m…” I hesitate, my name faltering on my tongue for the first time in five years. Like right now I don’t believe it. “My name is Jessica.”
The little girl considers that, her gaze sweeping over me in a shockingly thorough way for such a young child. “No. You don’t look like a Jessica.”
I would find her response funny if everything inside me didn’t feel like it was unraveling. “What do I look like, then?”
She shrugs. “Are you friends with Nadia?”
Nadia… Hmmm. Is that Kirill’s girlfriend? Surely, he has one. No man that good-looking would stay celibate for five years.
“No.” I clear my throat. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
“I’m Violet,” she chirps, back in the intimidation game.
Violet.
The color purple splashes across in my mind without warning. It feels deep, rich, and vivid. My stomach dips, and I feel like I’m falling.
“That’s a pretty name,” I manage, careful not to scare her with my unsteady, shaky steps.
“I know,” she says easily and spins. “My mother named me that because it’s her favorite color.”
That’s…my favorite color. The world tilts in a violent shift. The room stretches and narrows as my ears start ringing.
“Your mother?” I repeat, my fingers tightening around the book again to ground me.
She nods. “Uh huh.”
I force myself to breathe, to stay upright, to hold on to something solid as everything inside me begins to fracture again.
“Who… Who is your mother?” I ask the fragile question that might possibly have an answer I’m not sure I’m prepared for.
Violet doesn’t hesitate. “Her name is Sandrine.”
My vision blurs at the edges as the room folds in on itself. Pain in my chest suffocates me. I grip the ladder, the book slipping from my grasp. It lands on the floor, a random page opening.
The impossible, undeniable truth crashes into everything I thought I believed.
Sandrine.
Kirill called me Sandrine.
And the little girl’s mother is Sandrine as well.
No.
This can’t be happening.
But it is. It has to be. Because nothing else makes sense anymore.
Her hair. His. Her eyes. God, those eyes are… Mine. Kirill said I’m his wife. Did we have a child? Did I have a child?
“How… How old are you, sweetie?” I ask, bracing for her to say three or four. Maybe she’s just super advanced.
I know where I was three years ago, even four years ago. Not in a hospital giving birth!
This question about her age makes her smile, as I noticed it does with all children.
“I’m five,” she says, shooting her hands in the air and spinning again.
Five. I lost my memory five years ago.
Suddenly, I can’t breathe…