“I can’t trust my own brain.” I clasp my hands together in my lap. My knuckles are white. “If I went to Van for help, I must’ve trusted him, or I was desperate. But why would I have been desperate to leave Jacob?”
“You don’t have any idea?”
“Not really,” I say.
“Were you desperate to leave, or desperate to go somewhere?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe it wasn’t leaving Jacob that concerned you, but going toward something or someone else.”
“You mean there was something important back on the mainland.”
“Perhaps,” she says.
“I remember the intensity of us . . . of Jacob and me together, but I know I was being pulled away from him, too. In the Whale Tale, I was certain I was about to leave him for good. I felt the sadness, like something was ending. But then it wasn’t. Van told me I went to him for help. Did I? Jacob and I might’ve been in trouble, but he tells me our marriage was perfect. I don’t know what’s real.”
“It’s not going to make sense all at once.”
But even the immutable aspects of reality—the rise and fall of the sun, the phases of the moon—seem suspect to me now. “Did you ever see the movie The Truman Show? A guy discovers his entire life is a TV show. Nothing is real. His wife is an actor, his town is a movie set. Everyone’s in on the joke, but he’s not. He believes everything is real.”
“Do you feel that way now?”
“What if I never escape from the show? What if I never remember everything? What if I never get to the truth?”
“You will. We’re making progress.”
“What if my marriage was truly over?” I say, rubbing my upper arms. “What if Jacob’s only telling me it wasn’t?”
“What would his motivation be for lying?”
“He didn’t want our marriage to end?”
She nods thoughtfully. “Sounds like you think that might be the case.”
“I thought that if I started remembering things again, I would remember falling in love with him. Instead, I’m getting a confusing jumble. I’m kissing Aiden. I’m in the shower with Jacob. Then I’m falling into Aiden’s arms on a hiking trail—something isn’t coming to me yet. Something important.”
“Maybe you’re not quite ready to remember the missing pieces.”
“Not ready? If my marriage was ending, should I leave Jacob now?”
“Do you want to leave him?”
“Apparently we patched things up. It seems somehow we did.”
“I wouldn’t make any hasty decisions,” she says. “You need time to sort through your memories and emotions.”
My days in rehab, a blur, darken the edge of my memory. “I do get impatient sometimes.”
“This doesn’t have to be all or nothing, black or white. You could’ve had problems, true. But you’ll know when and if you’re ready to leave, or whether you want to stay.”
“Thank you, I know you’re right.” As I leave her office, I should feel calmer, less confused, and better equipped to face the mystery of my past. I do, in a way. But I also feel as though my memories stop short, before the storm, at the edge of a precipice leading down into an abyss.
I’m standing in a square of warm sunlight, in my dream house. It’s exactly the way it was before. Only now I realize the house is modest, giving the illusion of space in its open rooms and large windows. I love the saffron-colored walls, the skylights. Sunlight shines through the rustling fir trees. A beautiful summer ocean winks at me from a distance.
This time, I leave the room, the nursery, and I go down the hall to the open kitchen. The living room is all windows facing the sea. My heart fills with warmth. Jacob stands in the kitchen, talking to a young woman in a blue pantsuit and matching pumps. Other offers? . . . Love the place, he’s saying. I walk up to him, but I’m confused. We’re supposed to be in the house on Mystic Island. This is all wrong. He looks up and smiles, and Aiden Finlay comes in through the sliding doors, into the living room, the sun at his back. The wind rustles his dark hair. He gazes at me. A dark cloud passes over Jacob’s face. Aiden doesn’t seem to notice. Hey, you two, he says, you should see the Jacuzzi tub.
In a slow transformation, possible only in dreams, Aiden becomes Douglas Ingram. You look like someone I used to know . . . The sunlight fades into the gray, oppressive clouds over Mystic Island. I’m under the comforter next to Jacob. He’s snoring softly. The dream is gone.
I slip outside into the cool, crisp air. The dawn feels scrubbed clean. I imagine this kind of autumn day is why I wanted to move here. The tide peels back from the beach to reveal a whole new world of stranded shells and crabs. As I head south toward Doug Ingram’s dock, my legs grow tired. But this time, I make it all the way to the secluded cove, only to find his boat gone.