Demanding Ransom

Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN



I lower down in my seat and cup my hands around the warm mug. The steam tickles my nose as I draw in a slow sip of the hot chocolate. Ran’s been looking at me for several minutes without speaking. The fire stretching out of the logs in the fireplace behind him flickers and creates an orange backdrop against his frame.

“Thank you for letting me get out of there.” Ran’s lips press to the rim of his coffee cup. “That’s not really my thing.”

I take another hot sip. I don’t know how he can say it isn’t his thing, when everything about the way his body moved clearly indicated that it should totally be his thing.

“Why would they plan that for you then?” I ask, trying not to think about his dancing skills. “Isn’t tonight supposed to be a celebration of you going back to work?”

Ran drags his hand across his brow and my eyes pull to the faint, white scar that creates a one-inch long divot on his forehead. His bruises are gone. His arm is out of its sling. Everything looks healed, restored. The outside shell is near-perfect, never giving away his life-threatening accident. The accident where he fell asleep while transporting my little sister to the med center for fluids. The accident that occurred because he stayed up all night with her, comforting her as her tiny body retched and purged. The accident that happened because Ran, a stranger, took on the duties that belonged to my mother—the mother who was too drunk to be bothered with her sick child. The accident that caused Ran’s blunt head trauma and stole away two months of his life. My sister got her fluids. She healed. Ran got a helicopter ride, a one-month stay in the hospital, and a hole in the plot of his life’s story. It doesn’t seem like a fair trade-off.

Many people say that he got a second chance at life, but I don’t buy it. We get one chance. That’s it. You can’t go back and fill in the gaps. You pick up where things left off. Ran pushed me to do it with my mom—to start over and try things again. Look how well that turned out. Sometimes you just have to move forward and accept the fact that something you once had is gone.

Ran settles his mug on the wooden tabletop. “Why would they plan a night of drinking and clubbing when I’m not interested in either of those things?” He twirls the cup around by the handle in circles on the surface of the table. “I don’t know. Maybe they thought that part of me might have changed due to the accident.” His eyebrows lift. “I’m not sure. But honestly, I did it more for them than for me. They want something to celebrate—a reason to party. Me going back to work seemed like a good enough reason.”

“I guess.”

“What do you mean, you guess?”

I hide behind my mug and take another drink. “I guess it’s okay to let them exploit your amnesia for their benefit.”

He shakes his head and a lock of dark hair slips onto his forehead. “They’re not exploiting me, Maggie. Everyone loves a good second-chance story—this sort of thing is soap opera fodder. Guy gets in car crash, loses two months of his life. Will he remember who he once was? Will he suddenly regain his lost memory?” Ran speaks like he’s reading lines to some movie script. “People eat this sort of thing up. It’s like I’m Jason Bourne or even that guy from Groundhog Day. Why not give them their show and let them enjoy it?”

“Because it’s not a show, it’s your life, Ran.”

He tilts his head. “I get a do-over.” He slinks his back against the chair and runs his index finger over his lip. “Not many people get do-overs in their life.”

My stomach lurches. “But what if everything in your life was the way you wanted it and you didn’t need a do-over? What if it was perfect just the way it was?”

Ran squints his eyes at me and pulls in a breath. “I don’t know,” he says after a reflective pause. “I think in that case, it would be pretty awesome to experience perfection twice.” I don’t think it’s intentional, but as he says it, his eyes fasten on my mouth, and he doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s staring right at my lips. I bite them and tuck them into my teeth to try to shake his gaze, but it doesn’t work. It only makes him stare more.

“What is your last memory?”

Several more patrons enter the quiet coffee house, the chime on the door dinging as it swings open and a rush of cold air sweeps into the building. The fire flickers against the wind. Ran follows the people’s movements with his eyes while he chews on the inside of his cheek like he’s taking out his nerves on it. I wait for a reply, and with each passing moment my pulse picks up speed.

He brings his eyes back to mine and his jaw tightens. “When I asked you to leave my house.” Ran coils his hands around his coffee cup and then stares into it like he’s memorizing his own reflection in the brown residue that collects at the bottom. “When I took a look at your leg, and overstepped my boundaries by pressing you too hard about your mom.” He won’t look at me. “That’s what I remember, Maggie.”

I choke on the breath I was inhaling. I don’t get it. If that is the last thing he remembers about me, why is he sitting here with me now? Why would he want anything to do with me if that’s how he thinks things ended between us?

“You know how I knew you were lying about there not being anything between us?” His eyes snap up suddenly and the lump jumps into my mouth, filling it with bitter acid I’m forced to trap behind my lips so I don’t retch all over the table. “The way you acted back at my house—back with Nikon. That is not how our next interaction would have played out, Maggie.” Ran tosses his head back and forth. “There had to be more in between. You don’t go from yelling at someone, telling them to get out, to a lighthearted interaction like that—acting like nothing happened.”

I summon any type of resolve I have left in my shattered heart and hold back the tears that climb into my eyes.

“Am I right?” Ran reaches a hand across the table, like he’s waiting for me to take it. I just look down at it, then up at him. “Please tell me I’m right.”

“I have to go.”

Ran nods and blinks slowly, deliberately. “Fair enough.” I’m shocked when he stands to his feet and doesn’t challenge me. He holds out a hand once more.

“Really? That’s it?” I stand without taking his hand and tug the hem of my skirt down.

“You don’t owe me anything, Maggie. If you say there was nothing between us, I believe you.” His hand is still outstretched. “If you say that was it, then that was it.”

My lungs rattle in my chest and I’m biting so hard on my lip that I just about pierce the flesh. Why does it feel like I’m losing him all over again? If the emptiness inside me was already there, it’s not like it could get any emptier. You can’t subtract from what you don’t have. But that’s exactly what it feels like. Like more pieces are torn from me. Like the possibility of Ran suddenly remembering everything is snatched away. Like hope is gone. And losing all hope—that’s more than just feeling empty. That’s the feeling of despair, when even a shred of hope doesn’t have the chance to survive.

“I’ll drive you home?” Ran collects the two helmets resting at the base of his chair and holds one out for me.

I don’t protest, I don’t put up a fight or tell him how much I despise motorcycles. Instead, I follow him out of the coffeehouse, seat myself behind him on his bike, and wrap my arms around his waist, clinging to him with all I have as we wind through the city streets and coast onto the freeway toward my dorm. I cling to Ran, I cling to this moment, and I cling to the hope that I know doesn’t exist, unwilling to trade it for the despair that is blooming inside my vacant chest.

***

“Good morning, Tom.” I rap on the door with my knuckle and he rotates around in his seat, slow and steady, like he’s a turtle, taking his time. His hands, frail with wrinkles and purple age spots coating them, tremble against the handles on his wheelchair.

His cracked lips curl into a small smile. “It’s about time, Margaret.” He waves me over and taps a crooked finger on his cheek. I deposit a soft kiss in its place. “Been a while.”

“Yes,” I nod. “Four days. How are they treating you?”

“Still feeding me slop and the damn cable is out again.” Tom lowers his shaky hand back into his lap and twists one over the other. The loose skin is slack under the pull of his fingers.

“Could be worse,” I say. “And Caroline? How’s she?”

Tom’s eyes disappear into a grin. “Great as ever, that one. She’s a keeper.” He’s staring past me, and I’d think he was looking at the crack in the ceiling if I didn’t see the memory reflected in his eyes. I wonder if it’s actually real, or if it’s something he’s fabricated, because from what Ran said, Tom’s relationship with Caroline is a figment of his imagination. But the peace that washes over his features makes me wonder if that might be enough—just having these made up memories of her as his truth. The look on his face sure indicates it might be.

“How are the fish?” I say, pacing toward the low table in front of the window. The soles of my shoes stick to the linoleum floor.

“Damn staff here. Can’t keep anything alive,” Tom grumbles, wheeling his chair toward me, painstakingly slow. “Hard enough time keeping people alive, let alone goldfish.”

My eyes drop to the bowl. Swimming frantically around the circumference is one orange fish; the other floats belly up in the middle like a bobber a lake.

“Do me a favor and flush it.”

I lift my hand up to my mouth and cup it, but I feel the tear that slips down the ridges of my knuckles, and I see it when it drops into the bowl underneath me, rippling out toward the edges.

“Sure,” I sniff. “Of course.”

“Oh,” Tom continues, his voice gruff and curt. “And tell that Patrick to apply himself and actually show up for work every once in a while. We’d all like to be able to watch a little TV around here.”

I nod as I press my fingers to my mouth. There’s a clear plastic cup on Tom’s nightstand and I pick it up, and then dip it into the fishbowl to retrieve the floating goldfish. The water displaces and it takes a few tries before I’m able to scoop him up, and even after I’ve done so, the remaining lone fish continues her circular swimming, like she’s just going through the motions. Maybe she is. And maybe that’s all she’s expected to do now that she’s completely alone in her empty glass bowl. Maybe it’s all any of us are expected to do.

***

“Maggie?” I try to walk past without him seeing, but it’s impossible. His bike is parked immediately to the right of my truck, tilted and leaning on the kickstand. Ran pulls his helmet off and shoves it under his arm, confusion written in thick lines across his face. “Maggie, what are you doing here?”

It’s been three weeks since the coffeehouse. Three weeks of trying to live my life without Ran. And now, at this point, I’ve spent more time without him than with him. We had two months together. Now it’s late March and I’ve gone three months without him. Time is a weird thing. How it sometimes rushes when you need it to slow, and other times it drags on like a funeral dirge. It never seems to cooperate.

“Hey,” I mumble, shoving the cup with the dead fish behind my back. “I volunteer here twice a week.”

“Yeah?” Ran rests his helmet on the hood of my truck and slings a messenger bag over his shoulder. “For school?”

“Yeah. Psychology.” I wonder if he knows this is my vehicle, the way he drops his belongings onto it. I’m pretty sure I got it after our fight, after his last memory. “I’m doing a paper on Alzheimer’s and have to research a few case studies.”

Ran hooks his fingers under the strap of his bag and slides them up and down across his chest. His broad shoulders tighten. “Happen to meet a guy named Tom in there?”

“Yeah.” I don’t look at him.

“That’s my dad.”

“No way,” I reply, but it’s too monotone. I should have worked on adding a little inflection to indicate some sort of shock.

“Yeah.” Ran shifts his weight and peers around my shoulder. “Hey, what’s that?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Damn. “It’s just a dead fish I need to get rid of.”

His face drops. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice quivering. “Stupid goldfish. These things are impossible to keep alive. You’d think they could get their patients pets that are a little sturdier, like turtles or something. I think those are pretty hard to kill.” I scoot past Ran toward the gutter at the edge of the lot and tilt the cup, emptying the water and its contents into the grated drain. I hear the faintest splash as the fish hits the bottom.

Ran’s mouth falls open and I can see him swallow, his throat tugging up and down as his chest rises quickly. “Okay,” he says, shaking his head like he’s trying to erase what he just saw. He scoops up his helmet. “I’ll see you around, Maggie.”

“See you around, Ran.”

I grab the driver’s side door to my truck and slam it closed once I’m in the confines of the cab. Ran turns his back to me, and I watch him take long and precise strides toward the nursing home’s doors that stretch open and swallow him up. I wait until his shadow slips down the hall and I lose sight of him.

Then I completely fall apart.