Chapter 4 #2
His laugh was dry and pained. “Depends who was asking.”
Dr. Whitcomb leaned slightly closer. “Noah, you are safe here. No one in this room judges you.”
He glanced at Leah, who nodded.
Then at me.
I kept my face still, though every instinct urged me to go to him.
“You were told that Reid is your partner,” Dr. Whitcomb said.
Noah looked away.
“Yes.”
“Do you understand what that means?”
“That you think we’re together.”
“It is not an opinion. You and Reid have shared a home and a committed romantic relationship for five years.”
His throat worked.
I could see the pulse beating there.
Dr. Whitcomb placed my phone on the table. “We chose a few photographs. You can decline to look.”
Noah closed his eye for a moment.
“Show me.”
The first photograph was from the yard’s anniversary party. Caleb and Owen stood behind us beneath a banner. Noah had one arm around my waist. I was holding a glass of beer. We both looked sunburned and happy.
He studied it without speaking.
The second showed us sitting on the stern of a sailboat. Noah’s head rested on my shoulder. Our joined hands lay between us.
The third had been taken by Leah during a coastal hike. Wind had blown Noah’s hair across his forehead. He was smiling at me instead of the camera.
I remembered the second after she captured it.
Noah had kissed the corner of my mouth and whispered that I looked like I needed rescuing from nature.
He saw none of that.
“These can be altered,” he said.
“They can,” Dr. Whitcomb agreed. “Do you believe they were?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
He pushed the phone away with his right hand.
“I don’t feel anything.”
No one moved.
He looked at me then, and his face twisted with guilt.
“I’m trying,” he said.
I had promised not to ask him to perform love.
I rose from the chair slowly.
“You don’t have to try for me.”
His eye shone.
“I should know you.”
“You were hurt.”
“You look at me like—”
He stopped.
“Like what?” Dr. Whitcomb asked.
Noah swallowed. “Like I died.”
The room disappeared behind a film of tears.
I forced myself to remain where I was.
“You didn’t,” I said. “You’re here. That’s enough today.”
It was not enough.
It had to be.
Dr. Whitcomb ended the session soon afterward. Noah’s pain had increased, and his words were beginning to slur with fatigue.
A nurse administered medication.
As his eye drifted closed, he looked toward me once more.
“Reid.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t know you.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t owe me an apology.”
He fell asleep before I finished.
Outside the room, I braced both hands against the wall.
Dr. Whitcomb stood beside me.
“You did well.”
“He thinks photographs are fake.”
“His disbelief is a form of self-protection. Imagine being told that your entire life has changed and being shown evidence your mind cannot authenticate.”
“He apologized for not loving me.”
“He apologized for not remembering.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
I turned my head.
She met my gaze. “Do not confuse absence of access with proof of absence.”
“That sounds like hope.”
“It is caution.”
I had learned not to trust hope.
I trusted caution even less.
The hospital transferred Noah from intensive care to the neurological ward the following day.
His new room had a window overlooking the eastern hills. There were fewer machines and more space for rehabilitation equipment. The quiet was broken by carts, voices, and the distant ringing of telephones rather than ventilators.
His condition was improving.
His pain remained severe. He tired after short conversations. Sudden noise made him wince. He often forgot the names of nurses, though he recognized their faces and knew whether he had met them before.
He recognized me every morning.
Not as his partner.
As Reid, the man who came early and stayed too long.
I learned to accept the distinction.
“Want the curtains open?” I asked one morning.
He considered the question. “Half.”
I opened them halfway.
“Water?”
He nodded.
I held the straw near his mouth, careful not to touch him. He drank, then settled back against the pillow.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked at my work shirt. I had gone to the yard before visiting for the first time since the accident. Caleb insisted I inspect the payroll and sign two supplier forms. Being there without Noah had felt like walking through a model of my own life.
“Callahan Marine,” Noah read.
“Yes.”
“Your place.”
“Yes.”
“I worked there.”
“You do.”
His brow furrowed at the present tense.
“You’re still employed,” I clarified. “There’s no pressure to return. I mean the job is yours when you’re ready, in whatever way works for you.”
“Electrician.”
“Marine systems. You’re the best one on this part of the coast.”
A trace of skepticism crossed his face.
“You don’t have to believe that yet.”
“What are you?”
“At the yard?”
He nodded.
“Owner. General manager. Sometimes carpenter. Sometimes plumber. Mostly the person everyone blames.”
His mouth moved.
Not quite a smile, but close.
It was the first time I had seen even the possibility of one.
My chest tightened.
I looked down before he could see what the small expression did to me.
“Caleb and Owen want to visit,” I said.
“Who?”
“Friends. Coworkers.”
He turned his gaze to the window.
“Do I like them?”
“Most days.”
That earned another faint movement at his mouth.
“You don’t have to see anyone.”
“No. It’s okay.”
“They’ll be nervous.”
“Why?”
“Because they care about you and have no idea what to say.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
For a moment, the space between us felt different. Not familiar. Not intimate.
Honest.
“That makes two of us,” he said.
Caleb and Owen arrived after work.
They had both changed clothes and scrubbed the yard grime from their hands, though dark residue remained in the lines around Caleb’s nails.
Noah noticed.
“Electrician?” he asked.
Caleb glanced at me before answering. “Systems technician.”
“Owen does carpentry and finish work,” I said.
Owen lifted a hand. “Hi.”
Noah looked between them. “You know me.”
“Unfortunately,” Caleb said.
I shot him a warning look.
Noah’s mouth twitched.
Caleb saw it and nearly sagged with relief.
“We brought you something,” Owen said. He held out a small wooden object.
It was a miniature sailboat hull, unfinished, no longer than a hand.
“You started carving it during lunch breaks,” Owen explained. “You said you were making it for the office, but then you decided the bow was wrong and threatened to burn it.”
Noah took it with his right hand.
His thumb moved over the smooth wood.
“Did I make this?”
“Most of it.”
“It’s not bad.”
Caleb snorted. “You hated it.”
Noah looked more closely. “Bow’s wrong.”
The room went silent.
My heartbeat struck hard.
Owen’s eyes widened. “That’s exactly what you said.”
Noah frowned, confused by our reaction.
“Do you remember making it?” I asked before I could stop myself.
His face closed.
“No.”
The fragile moment vanished.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Noah set the hull on the table.
Caleb rescued the conversation by describing a customer who had attempted to charge a boat battery with a household extension cord and two stripped wires. Within minutes, Noah was asking technical questions.
He remembered the work.
Not specific boats or people, but systems, methods, dangers. His knowledge remained intact beneath the missing years.
Listening to him argue about grounding paths almost made the hospital room disappear.
Then his pain increased. His words slowed. He shut his eye.
We left him to rest.
In the hallway, Owen wiped his face with both hands.
“He’s still him,” he said.
“Yes.”
Caleb leaned against the wall. “He looked right at me like we’d never met.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was ready for it.”
“No one is.”
They took me to the cafeteria and made me eat a grilled sandwich. Caleb talked about the yard while Owen watched me with quiet concern.
“We can keep covering,” Caleb said. “Don’t start coming in because you think you have to.”
“I need to be there sometimes.”
“Then be there sometimes. Not sixteen hours.”
“I don’t work sixteen hours.”
They both stared at me.
“Fine.”
“Customers have been asking about Noah,” Owen said. “We put a card in the office. It’s full already.”
“Don’t bring it yet.”
“We won’t.”
“He gets overwhelmed.”
“We understand.”
I tore the sandwich in half and ate because they were waiting.
“How are you sleeping?” Caleb asked.
“I sleep.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Poorly.”
“Come stay with us.”
“No.”
“Marlowe keeps searching the guest room after I go to bed.”
My throat tightened.
“I’ll take him home tonight.”
“You sure?”
“The apartment will be familiar to Noah when he’s discharged. I need to get it ready.”
Caleb’s expression changed. “They think he’ll come home soon?”
“Not soon. Rehabilitation first. They don’t know how long.”
“And when he does?”
“I’ll use the spare room.”
“That’s where you store broken radios and six miles of cable.”
“I’ll clear it.”
Owen exchanged a glance with Caleb.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Owen said.
“Say it.”
Caleb sighed. “You’re making plans as if you can control every reaction he’ll have.”
“I’m making sure he has choices.”
“That’s good. Just remember you get to exist in the house too.”
“It’s his house.”
“It’s yours as well.”
The distinction felt irrelevant.
My life had become a structure built around Noah’s needs. Without that structure, I had nothing to stand on.
Two days later, Dr. Whitcomb tested his new memory.
She asked what year it was.
He answered correctly after a pause.
She asked where he lived.
“Greyhaven.”
“Where in Greyhaven?”
He looked at me.
“Above the boatyard.”
“Yes,” I said.
She asked who Leah was.
“My sister.”
“What does Reid do?”
“Owns the yard.”
“And what is his relationship to you?”
Noah’s face went still.
Dr. Whitcomb waited.
“He says we’re partners.”
The phrasing hurt, but she nodded.
“That is correct.”
He turned toward me. “Five years?”
“Yes.”
He looked away.
After the session, he slept for nearly three hours.
I went downstairs to the hospital café and bought coffee that tasted burned. On impulse, I walked two blocks through the rain to a small bakery Noah loved.