Chapter 5 #2
I push my way through the heavy door onto Fifth Avenue. Through charcoal clouds, dramatic sunbeams are now illuminating the park. I cross Fifth and enter the park at 69th Street, crunching over the last of the fallen leaves, my mind racing. Is none of my old life real?
There’s a crowd ahead — the ice rink. The ideal spot to people-watch and ponder. I buy myself a hot chocolate from a vendor and sit on the bleachers, double-wrapping my scarf around my neck for warmth.
The scene in front of me is a classic movie image.
Skaters of all shapes and sizes, wearing a wide array of colorful knits, glide or falter across the ice.
Behind them is the southern edge of Central Park, the almost-bare trees still showing flashes of red and gold.
Beyond them, the towers of Manhattan rise up majestically.
At least New York and its beauty are consistent.
I sip the syrupy hot chocolate and take some calming breaths.
Okay, let’s think about this. Is it possible the doctor is right, my old life a construct, filling the void left by amnesia?
I consider this for a long time. On the surface, logic suggests he is right. It makes more sense than my belief that I have switched places with another version of myself from an alternate reality. Obviously.
But, no. It can’t be true. My old life is too detailed.
If I had only a vague picture, then perhaps.
But I can remember the minutiae of the last three years in my old life, and nothing of my current one.
My home in Brooklyn: moving in, hauling furniture up all those stairs, hanging the forest painting — that now admittedly hangs in Rob’s apartment — Mum visiting and her complaints about the futon in the second bedroom.
The dinners I’ve hosted around the tiny table.
My radio job. My chipped desk always covered in cracker crumbs.
The feel of the headphones over my ears.
Even the radio voice I use. My friends and mentors at the station. And my brother. David.
If he’s really been dead more than two years, how do I remember a conversation with him three weeks ago about Trump’s presidency?
And what about this past September, when I flew to France to join him and other friends on a surfing vacation in Biarritz (the guys surfed, our friend Mel and I played with her baby)?
And last Christmas, when I went back to the UK and my family had Christmas Day at David’s flat in London.
There are so many, many memories that can’t be explained away.
Did I really imagine them all?
The doctor has to be wrong. Understandably, considering the information he’s been given, but wrong. He just has to be.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that is such a good thing, given that my truth is that I am stuck in an alternate timeline with a husband I don’t know and a brother who is dead.
In many ways, it would be much easier to accept this new world.
And yet believing my old life exists and David is alive, somewhere, even if beyond reach, is immeasurably comforting.
I watch the skaters whirling about while I think about my two worlds. When I realize I am getting too cold, I check my watch. It’s almost 4 p.m. and the sky is darkening. How did two hours fly past?
Back in my new neighborhood, which is becoming familiar, I stop to pick up some fresh tagliatelle, smoked salmon, dill, and some crème fraiche at the local store.
Rob gets home as I’m chopping the herbs. “The famous smoked salmon pasta,” he comments as he shrugs off his overcoat. “Are you trying to impress me?”
I blush, realizing I might have told him at some point that this is a favored date-night meal. “It’s easy.” I shrug. “Make a salad, would you?”
“Sure,” he says, but his eyes are smiling and he’s not making a move toward the fridge. “How was the doctor?”
“Interesting. I’ll tell you about it. Did you guys pin down the penthouse deal?”
“We did!” Rob declares. He pulls out a bottle of champagne from behind him. “Seventeen-point-seven-five, including the furniture. Everybody’s happy. I thought we could celebrate. This will be delicious with dinner, too.”
“Congratulations.” I examine the bottle. “Wow — the good stuff.”
“Nothing but the best.” Rob puts it in the fridge to chill. “Okay, salad.”
Later, at the dining table, Rob waits until the pasta and salad are plated and then pops the champagne, pouring into tall-stemmed flutes. “What should we toast to?”
“To the sale,” I reply. “To 17.75 million. Nice work.”
We clink glasses. “To our success,” Rob adds. “And to getting to know each other. Whether for the first time, or all over again.” He smiles, then knocks back a generous glug.
I take a sip of the cold, crisp bubbles. “That too.”
Rob swirls the pasta expertly on his fork, “So . . . tell me about this consultant.”
“Dr. Weinstein. Well, he was smart. We had an interesting chat. I told him . . . a partial truth, about believing I had been living a different life for the past three years. I played it down, saying I was unsure now, although I still couldn’t remember anything from since I met you.
Didn’t want to seem too crazy, in case he had me taken away by men in white coats.
He had an interesting theory.” I spear some lettuce onto my fork and look up. “Kinda threw me.”
Rob arches an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“He thinks my brain, having lost short-term memories, is reacting against that void by filling it with false memories. Stuff that could have been from dreams, my subconscious, my life before you — about David being alive, me being unmarried, working another job, and so on. And they seem real, because my actual memories of that period are gone.”
Rob picks up his glass, absently swirling the champagne around. “What do you think?”
“It’s a sensible suggestion, I guess. Given the information available.”
Rob’s eyes are on my face as I take another mouthful of the creamy pasta. “But? I feel like there’s a but.”
I swallow. “But. I thought about it — for a long time, I sat in the park for hours — and I can’t believe he’s right.
I can’t have imagined every single memory for the past three years.
I lived them. As real as you’ve lived the past three years.
I remember being in my Brooklyn place, Skyping with David a few weeks ago, talking about current politics.
That couldn’t have happened three years ago.
I remember a holiday in France with our buddies this past September, including a baby who wasn’t even born three years ago.
I have so many memories of the past few years, and it was a different life. It can’t all be imagined.”
Rob frowns. “I guess not. I’d find it pretty weird if everyone told me I’d never met you, I had a different wife, I lived in a different part of town, and I didn’t have my job. I’ve been trying to imagine what that must feel like.”
I lean toward him, putting my hand on the table near to his. Not quite touching. “I appreciate that.” And I mean it. “All this must seem crazy. And so hard for you. Me not remembering you. You’ve been so kind.”
Rob inclines his head and half-smiles. “So, I guess the big question is, what do you think happened? Really? I won’t judge, I swear.” He tops up our glasses and waits.
I push away my plate and grip the edge of the table.
“I know this sounds nuts, but . . . I think the impossible happened. I’ve been somehow jolted out of my reality, my timeline.
My life split, three years ago, when I did or didn’t meet you.
And that was because of a near-miss on my bike that day — because in my world, I sprained my ankle, and missed that conference, never met you there.
Then, at the moment of my recent bike crash, at the exact same spot, I was shifted onto this alternative path. The road not taken.