Round Forty-Six
ROSE
Billy approaches the door ahead of me, carefully twisting the handle and pushing it wide without a word.
I had no clue silence could be louder than a thousand bass drums working in sync.
A hundred freight trains skidding on the tracks at once.
I follow him in, sandwiched by Cliff’s stoney, strong presence at my back, so when all three of us are in the room and Cliff closes the door, I come to a stop on the opposite side of the table, my back to the glass pane we’ve spent what feels like a lifetime looking through, and drawing a heavy, shuddering breath, I bring my eyes up and stop on the soft, concerned stare of the man on the other side.
Tears fill his eyes, the gentle, whimsical kind, and his lips curl into a kind smile. “Rose.” He pushes out of his chair and reaches across the table. “I’ve finally found—”
I take a step back, clasping my hands together and holding them close to my body.
Don’t touch. Don’t assume. Don’t even try.
“Found—You’re…” His mouth opens and closes, guppy style, and that smile he wore falls into a pained grimace. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” He dips his hands into his pockets, gulping and nodding. “I’m so sorry. They told me you were in an accident. They said you lost your memories.”
“I don’t know who you are.” My voice crackles and breaks. Weak and watery. “I don’t remember you.”
He nods, licking his lips as he backs up and lowers into his chair.
“I know. They said…” He looks to Billy. “They already told me. But it’s hard to look at you and reconcile the memory stuff when I know you’re just so…
” He pulls his hands out and lays them in his lap.
“You’re smart and witty and…” He shakes his head.
“Fast. You’ve always been so intelligent and certain of who you are. It’s taking me a minute to adapt.”
“Would you like to take a seat, Rose?” Billy pulls out a chair on this side of the table, tipping his chin downwards to urge me forward. “We’ll settle in and chat.”
“H-how did you know your name was Rose?” Darcy watches me, dark brown eyes following my every move. Every jerky reaction. Every shuddering breath. “They said—” He looks to Billy again. “The police said you’ve been calling yourself Rose for quite a while.”
“Sometimes I remember things.” I feel the warmth in my face. The pounding pulse in my neck. I slowly lower into my seat, but I don’t drag it forward and tuck myself in at the table. I don’t dare place myself close enough that our feet might touch. “Sometimes something just feels right.”
“Do you remember me at all?” He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Maybe not before, but now… Now that you’re looking at me.”
I shake my head, firming my lips and crossing my legs. “I thought your name once while I was asleep. A while ago,” I explain. “I didn’t remember it, but I was told I said your name.”
“While you were sleeping?” His eyes jump over my right shoulder. To Cliff. To the man he’s made assumptions about. Then he brings them back to me again. “That’s good, right? That you dreamed of me?”
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I don’t know.
“Maybe you could ask questions, Rose?” Cliff inches forward and presses his hand to my shoulder.
Darcy’s eyes drop to where we touch. They narrow and burn. But he’s careful, breathing and pasting on a kind smile. “Sure.” He brings his focus back to my face. “You could ask me anything you want. Anything at all.”
“How long have we been together?”
“It’ll be seven years in October.” He licks his lips, reaching up and scratching the side of his neck.
“We met at a Halloween carnival. It was extra cold that year, winter was rolling in early, and you and I had both stopped at a coffee cart at the same time. We got to talking while they were making our drinks and then…” He shrugs. “We never stopped.”
“I’m twenty-five years old?”
He nods. Easy. Comfortable. Relaxed. “Yes. You would have turned twenty-five a couple of months ago.”
“So I was eighteen when we met. A child. And you were twenty-five. A grown man.”
His cheeks burn a fiery red. “I suppose, when you say it like that, it sounds a bit funny. But the way it happened, it was just…” He considers, inhaling.
Then exhales and murmurs, “Organic. Everything we are…” He links his fingers together.
“Everything we were… was a natural progression from that night at the carnival. We took things slowly because you were so young. Only got engaged last year, because I didn’t want to rush you. ”
“Who asked who?”
Taken aback, he tilts his head to the side. “Who asked who, what? To marry?”
“Yes.”
“I asked you. It was our anniversary, and we’d made plans to go out to dinner at your favorite restaurant. We got dressed up. Even hired a driver, because I knew we’d enjoy a drink or two. I got down on one knee once dessert was served and asked you to be my wife forever.”
“And I agreed?”
He chuckles, his eyes dancing with humor. “Yes, Rose. You agreed. Enthusiastically, I should add.”
“She’s been in Plainview for three months,” Cliff rumbles. “And her ordeal was splashed on the news relatively quickly. Why’d it take so long for you to get here?”
“I’m sorry.” Darcy’s eyes jump across to Cliff’s hand again, perched on my shoulder.
“I’m confused by this…” He gestures our way.
“This relationship. Are you her boss, or her keeper? I hardly think it is appropriate if you pursue someone romantically when one, she’s your employee, and two, she’s vulnerable and suffering a brain injury. Is that not against the law?”
“He’s my friend.” I pat Cliff’s hand before he can take it away, then I meet Darcy’s harsh stare, thankful for his lack of composure.
Perfection is creepy. It’s practiced and fake and untrustworthy.
“I’ve made friends in Plainview. I’ve made a whole new life, in fact.
Three months is a long time, and other than not knowing what came before the accident, I’m entirely mentally capable. And you didn’t answer the question.”
“I’ve been looking for you,” he huffs. “Since the moment you went missing, I was searching. I called every hospital, every police station, every fire department, every single person and place I could think of within a thousand-mile radius of our home, Rose. I’ve hired PIs to help.
I haven’t stopped, I swear.” He extends his hands again, his expression falling when I merely fold my arms and shrink into my seat.
The two feet between me and the edge of the table may as well be a hundred.
“I was looking,” he groans. “And I begged the police to declare you officially missing. But they wouldn’t. They refused.”
Billy’s brows furrow in my peripheral. “Why not?”
“Because there was no evidence of a struggle. We didn’t fight.
Our neighbors didn’t report any screaming or shouting or anything weird in the days before you left.
You’ve always talked about traveling across the country.
You were vocal about it, so when you were missing and the police interviewed everyone who knew you, they basically said the same thing. ”
“I was traveling?”
“Yes. No.” He scrubs his face. “Yes, they said you were traveling. But you weren’t.
I knew you weren’t. When I went to the police and said something was wrong, they refused to open a file.
They’d said you’d left freely, on a trip we’d planned, and since it’s—their words—not illegal for a grown woman to travel on her own, they brushed me off and said to stop bothering them. ”
“That seems…” Frowning, I nibble on the inside of my cheek. “Careless.”
“Exactly! The police interviewed a few people, due diligence and all that, but your work-friends said how you liked to travel, and how you’d planned this trip.
The cops already thought I was blowing things out of proportion, so by the time they got to those interviews, it was all over.
They wouldn’t hear me. You could ask anyone we know.
My staff. My family. They’ll all tell you that I was a mess after you left.
I’d almost ended up in the hospital from the stress.
I’d stopped showing up to work. Stopped taking calls unless they were about you.
I was holed up at the house all day, every day, scouring the internet, searching the news, doing everything I could to find you. ”
“How did you find me?”
“I saw the interview you did from the hospital.” His voice breaks with emotion.
His eyes, glistening with unshed tears. “I never in a million years expected you to be so far away, so I missed the interview when it was first aired. Saw it a few days ago and knew right away it was you. I got in the car and crossed about seven state lines to get here, Rose. But my family…” He exhales noisily.
“They’re worried about us. Both of us. They saw how horrible things were for me when you went missing, and they were scared this would go bad—that you wouldn’t see me, because you don’t remember me—so they were on the phone for most of the drive.
They warned me to approach this carefully. Not to rush in and scare you.”
“Is that why you swung by the office yesterday?” Cliff grumbles. “To check her out without scaring her?”
He nods, shaky and unsure. “My brother said it could be a good way to get close and just…” He brings desperate eyes to mine. “To see you. To see how you respond.”
“To test me?”
“No.” He groans. “Not a test. I just couldn’t imagine a world where you wouldn’t know who I was.
I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. So Jeremy said I should drop by just to see how you’d react.
Maybe seeing me would bring everything back to you again.
And if it didn’t, I had to be careful not to scare you. ”
I bring my hand up and nibble on my pinky nail. “Who is Jeremy?”
“My brother. He’s…” He releases a heavy, sighing exhale.
“You’ve known him since forever, Rose.” Tilting to the side, he pulls out his wallet, splaying the leather open on the table and taking out a small stack of worn, folded photos.
Selecting the one he wants, he sets it down and slides it across the table.
“Jeremy and Jacey, his wife. And their girls, Amara and Claudia. They’re your nieces, Rose.
They’re our nieces.” Then he selects another picture.
“Tanner is my other brother. His wife Danielle. They have two boys: Ronan and Camden.” He slides that one across, too.
“Your nephews. We always joked that between my brothers, we had two boys and two girls, so the pressure was on me and you. We had to have one of each to keep the numbers even.”
My stomach curdles, twisting and aching.
“We’d made a plan, Rose.” He pushes his wallet aside and leans onto the table. “We wanted children, and we wanted marriage. But we were waiting for you to get older. For us to marry first, and then have kids later, and none of that was going to happen until you felt like your career was secure.”
“M-my career?” I bite my nail, tearing the new growth clear off and sending myself back to the person I was in the hospital. With a stumpy, short nail and a horrible habit I hadn’t even realized I’d kicked until now. “What was my career? What do I do?”
“You work with plants. In a… a…” He rolls his wrist, gesturing nowhere.
“A nursery. It’s a place that serves the public, so customers would come in and ask questions and plan out their gardens.
And it’s a place that also caters to wholesale.
You were heavily involved in grafting and growing all the plants, spending most of your time digging in the dirt. ”
“Plants?” I sit forward on my chair and glance back at the mirror. At myself. At my red, puffy eyes and the tears glistening on my cheeks. I try to see Ollie, because dammit, I know he’s there. I know he’s listening.
He figured me out from the start. He knew me even before I knew myself.
“You loved cultivating the plants. You have a gift for it. But on Saturdays, you volunteered to work in the garden center, where you would serve customers and answer their questions. It always boggled my mind,” he chuckles, his eyes glistening as I come back around in my seat.
“Why would you want to work retail when your job was so much more than that? But you said you liked it. It was only half a day, once a week. You said you loved helping people select the right plants for their gardens, and since you’d grown those plants since the start, you were invested and wanted to give customers advice on how best to care for them. ”