“Well.” He smiles. “Welcome to Rosalind House. Won’t you come in?”
Inside, people buzz about. In the entrance to the parlor, I catch the pleasant scent of cinnamon and yeast, and I marry it to the plate stand of buns on the coffee table. My relief that they’ve found a good cook is only slightly marred by feelings of inferiority; after all, I never made cinnamon buns for visitors’ day.
Bert is in the love seat between his granddaughter and her husband and their new baby, a girl if the bow around her head can be trusted. Laurie is surrounded by middle-aged men, possibly his sons, wearing earpieces and carrying pocket radios, listening to some kind of sport and announcing it for him. May is sitting with two women carrying rosary beads. Everyone is absorbed with their families, and they don’t look up when Angus and I appear. There’s a gentle hum of chatter, and I think of Anna. She won’t like the noise. Then I realize she’s not here.
“Where’s Anna?”
“In her room, love,” says the woman pushing past, “with Luke.”
The woman carries with her the yeast scent I caught earlier. The cook. I crane my neck as she whizzes away, trying to get a good look. She’s short and thick and in a hurry—yet even from that quick glimpse, she radiates warmth. Then again, it’s no surprise. What person who bakes cinnamon buns doesn’t radiate warmth?
Angus has told me a little about how Anna and Luke have been these last few months. The confusion. The repetition. Now her memory is less than two minutes long. At least she has round-the-clock access to Luke, though. They’ve moved into Clara and Laurie’s suite now. Instructions to separate them have been rescinded. They are allowed to live and move as they see fit.
I reach Clara and Laurie’s suite—now Anna and Luke’s suite—and peer inside. Peter, Jack, and a little boy around Clem’s age are gathered near Anna and Luke. The boy is sitting on Anna’s lap, chatting nonstop about baseball, about his friend Tom, about the dinosaur he wants for his birthday.
Peter glances up first and smiles. Then he looks at his daughter. “Anna?” he says. “You have a visitor.”
Jack offers a small smile of his own. “Come on in, Eve.”
I remain in the doorway, inexplicably nervous. Angus steps forward, but I hold him back. “There are too many people,” I whisper. “She won’t like it.”
“Hey, Eath,” Jack says. “Why don’t we go climb that tree in the garden?”
The little boy slides off Anna’s lap. After kissing Anna’s forehead, Jack guides his son out of the room by the shoulders. Peter follows close behind.
When they are gone, I enter. “Hello,” I say.
Anna blinks up at me.
I scan her face for recognition, but I don’t find it. “I’m Eve. This is Angus.”
“Is it breakfast time?”
I have no idea if she recognizes me or associates me with cooking or what. In any case, it’s two thirty in the afternoon, so breakfast isn’t likely. “Not yet,” I say. “But I can get you a cinnamon bun, if you like.”
“No.” She looks at Luke and suddenly, inexplicably, she breaks into a smile. “Would you like a cinnamon bun?”
He shakes his head, smiling back.
She’s changed, even in the few months since I left. She looks older. Her face is more vacant and her shoulders have taken on a slight hunch. Still, there is a beauty to her. I think back to the day I met her, on the grass in the garden. “Help me,” she’d said. I hope, in some way, I did.
When Anna looks back at me, her expression is puzzled. I can almost hear her unspoken question. When did you get here? She cocks her head, perhaps searching for the information that her brain refuses to give her.
Instead of filling her in, reminding her of my name, I stay silent. Deep down, selfishly, I want the moment of recognition.
“Oh,” she says finally. “Is it breakfast time?”
We stay for fifteen minutes. And when we say our good-byes, Anna barely notices.
“Are you sad?” Angus asks me in the foyer. His face is concerned. “That she didn’t remember you?”
“No,” I say. “Why would I be sad? Anna and Luke got what they wanted—they’ll be together till the end.” I take Angus’s hand and lead him toward the door. “If only everyone could be so lucky.”
50
Anna
Six months ago …
I think I’m in a garden. It’s warm and bright and there’s a pattern of light on the green spike-thingies at my feet. There is a man next to me. A young guy. He smiles a little, so I smile back. It makes me feel happy.
And just like that, a memory is coming at me. Sweeping through my mind and collapsing every part of my brain until there’s nothing but a cloud of images. I’m as powerless to stop these visions as I am to, uh … what’s the word, conjure?… them up. I’m in bed. This man and I lie tangled in each other. It’s new, our relationship, maybe our first time together. He is smiling and I am happy.
“P-promise me we’ll be together in the end,” he says. “No switching a button, no ending it. Promise?”
I groan, but his face is determined. There’s no arguing.
“Fine,” I say.