Chapter 16 Luca
I’ve painted us into somewhat of a conversational corner, so I’m not that surprised when Emery stands to clear our plates and call Annie.
I know she feels bad—I don’t know her, but it’s easy to tell that she’s going through a lot of complicated emotions that I can’t possibly name—but the feeling of nothing but emptiness in the rearview mirror of my life is too aggravating to leave room for worrying about much else.
Not to mention that it appears I was in the dark about her before, too.
She seems pretty upset by my present amnesia, but how much did it really bother her before that I was fully clueless about who she really is?
She says she was going to tell me, and that she hated the lies, but I’m not entirely convinced.
She somehow managed it for three years of our marriage—why should I believe she’d decided to come clean now?
I lean back on the couch, checking to make sure she’s disappeared into the kitchen before rocking forward and back, hands planted on the firm sofa cushion, gaining momentum before carefully levering myself up to standing.
I’m so fucking unsteady. It takes a good ten seconds or so for me to feel my feet under me, my leg muscles solidifying around bone.
Honey seems to sense this, too, and is immediately off the couch, leaning into my side for support.
I run a hand down her neck. “Thanks, sweet girl,” I whisper.
It’s strange to think about death—how I was on that end of things, was literally dead.
The one experience we humans don’t ever get to really understand, and I don’t even have memories of that.
No bright lights, no voices coaxing me over to the other side.
No sudden clarity at the end. I realize it’s absurd, but I feel a little cheated.
With careful, shuffling steps, I make my way to the fireplace.
It’s a beautiful and rugged veined quartzite structure, gray and white with streaks of green.
As I run my hands over the rough stone, and it feels so familiar beneath my palms, I wonder if I built it.
My thumb instinctively finds a band of subtle sparkle in the pattern.
A warmth pulses in me, an awareness or sense that this imperfection is what drew me to the piece of rock in the first place.
I guess that’s what it comes down to. I have no way of knowing if what I’m told is true; I just have to feel it.
Trust my instincts. I believe I died, that I was brought back in some kind of machine, and that Emery is my wife.
I know the rock in this fireplace. And when Em told me I worked as a landscaper, that felt right, too.
It was like a fact, true and solid, that locked into place.
I wonder what it will feel like to go outside, kneel down, dig my fingers into the earth.
Will it come back to me? Is it inside me still, the way objects and grammar and instincts are?
Atop the mantel is a row of framed photos.
In the middle is a wedding photo—Emery and me, standing on a cliff beneath an arch of flowering vines.
She’s in a strapless cream dress, her long, dark hair in a dramatic braid on top of her head.
A delicate necklace constructed of intricately interwoven chains rests across her collarbones.
She is absolutely beautiful. I’m in a tux, hair short, shoulders proud, with her arm through mine.
I can feel how happy I am. Our smiles split our faces; they turn our eyes into shining crescents.
A ring with colored stones glimmers on her finger; a band circles mine.
We were freshly wed. We were so obviously in love.
I run my thumb against the same ring currently on my finger.
It’s simple and gold, scratched and worn to gentle dullness with time, the skin calloused right below it.
Someone didn’t recently slide this ring on; it’s been there for years.
Closing my eyes, I dig back, searching for the day I got it, for the memories I know must be in there somewhere.
Our first meeting. Our first kiss. First sex.
First fight. Anything. First angry fuck.
First reconciliation, first hysterical laughter, first inside joke, first cry, first vacation, first shared enemy, first made-up word, first pet name.
But it’s blank. And listen, I can easily imagine being in love with Emery—she’s fucking gorgeous, funny in a weird, dorky way, and clearly brilliant.
The chemistry is there, it is real. I had a blip of a thought earlier to pretend that I remembered just so I could touch her in the shower.
I wanted to. I was grateful for the weight of the towel over my lap, and that Emery was better about blatantly staring than I was.
But even knowing nothing else, I know I’m not that kind of guy.
I feel it in there, another truth. I’ll have to wait for it to come back to me. If it comes back to me.
And then I remind myself that even if it does, and I remember everything, I didn’t know everything. Emery had been lying to me about her job.
I get it, but… did I ever ask her why she worked so much, what was so important about surgical lasers? I wonder how I would have felt to find out that she’d been keeping the truth from me. Would I have been surprised? Hurt? Angry? Humiliated?
Probably all of the above. I don’t even remember anything, and I feel all of that now.
I look at the photo just to the left of the wedding picture, and there’s Emery with the woman I remember as Annie—her coworker must also be a close friend if she’s earned this spot on our mantel.
They’re younger in the photo, and outside at a restaurant or bar.
Their grins are wide, cheeks flushed, skin glowing in the light of flickering torches, each with a fruity drink in her hand.
Beside that is a photo of me with two adults I assume are my parents. I look an absurd amount like my mother, with her dark blond hair and thick dark brows. Our smiles look like someone copied and pasted from her to me.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
I turn at the sound of her voice. Emery is leaning against the doorway, watching me. I have no idea how long she’s been standing there.
“They’re your parents,” she says, approaching. “Your mom, Ludovica, is Italian. Your dad, Andrés, is from Spain. They met when your dad was studying in Milan, where your mom was working in a café. You grew up in Italy until you moved here. I think you were nine or ten.”
This information is so unfamiliar to me, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she was making it up entirely. And yes, my mom is beautiful. Stunning, actually.
“Do you remember any Italian?” she asks, wincing.
The words are immediate and come out with a huff of defensiveness that surprises me: “Certo che mi ricordo la mia lingua madre.”
Emery laughs. “Silly me,” she says, and there’s a sparkle in her eye.
“I should have known you’d never forget your mother tongue.
” She tilts her head, smiling shyly at me.
“But I admit I’m relieved. I’d miss it.” She pulls one corner of her lip between her teeth, and heat rockets down my torso as I register her meaning.
I must speak Italian to her in bed.
Suddenly aware I’m wearing sweatpants, I redirect: “How did we end up in the States?”
She clucks her tongue as she shifts her attention to the framed photos. “Your dad got a job with Qualcomm. His older brother, your uncle Jose-Antonio, lived in Orange County, so he wanted to be close to him. Both of their parents died years ago.”
I stare at the photo and then move to the next one. It’s a picture of my mother, me, and two women standing on a beach. “Sisters?”
“Mm-hmm. Sofia and Ana Maria. Ana lives in Boston. Sofia and her husband live in Northern California.”
“Am I close to them?”
“You basically raised them, so yeah, but you’re closer to Ana. She’s great. She’s studying biology—she wants to be a food scientist. She just got a huge job offer from McDonald’s.”
“McDonald’s?” I lean in, looking more closely. I can definitely see the resemblance. “Cool. But weird.”
Emery laughs. “Yeah. And, hmm. You’re not very close to Sofia these days.”
“Why not?”
“Honestly? She’s kind of a brat. Your words, not mine.”
I cough out a laugh at this, shocked, and Emery shrugs sheepishly.
“She’s a bit of a diva with you. The baby who never grew up.
You’re good to her, but we don’t really go out of our way to get together with her and Dan, her husband.
” Emery tilts her head from side to side, like she’s measuring how many words to give her answer, finally settling on, “It took you a while to cut that tie a bit. I don’t know. She’s just a lot.”
Nodding, I register that there’s probably more here to know, but I’m already filling up fast on names and connections. We can deal with family drama later.
I move in the other direction, looking at the frames on that side of the wedding photo.
Me again, standing with a shirtless guy.
He’s tall and lanky, with jet-black hair, tattoos, and vibrant blue eyes.
I’ve got a foot on a lawn mower; he’s got what looks like some sort of electric hedge tool resting on his shoulder.
Something about the mischief in his eyes tugs at a thread inside my mind, and I try to chase it, but it’s like seeing in pitch-black.
It vanishes the second something begins to take shape. “Who’s that?”
Emery sighs, laughing. “That’s Crash. Always smiling, usually shirtless.”
“His name is Crash?”
“His name is Crispin, but you joke that no one calls him that except for the State of California and his mother. In fact, he’s the one I’m most worried about right now.”
I turn, looking at her. “Why’s that?”
“Because he’s your business partner, and you’ve been best friends since you were in elementary school.” She twists her full mouth into a thoughtful frown. “Some would argue he knows you even better than I do.”