‘I didn’t hear you the first time you said it. The rain was too loud.’
‘Which was actually great,’ Leo says softly, and he laughs. ‘Because I’d said it without thinking. So when you shouted “What!”, I stopped, and asked myself if this was really what I wanted – and every single thing within me shouted yes! So I asked you again…’
I stare at him. ‘You never told me that. I kind of figured it was impulsive; I didn’t realise just how impulsive it was!’
‘That’s a really shitty proposal story,’ Leo grimaces, and I laugh.
‘I thought you’d lost your mind,’ I grin at him. ‘And yes, I think it possibly was the worst proposal ever.’
‘At least this explains why I can’t remember thinking about asking you,’ he says, and he smiles to himself, as if satisfied by this realisation. ‘I didn’t think about it. It was pure instinct – it just felt so right.’
‘So then we found the cave and finally got out of the rain, and you took that photo on your phone.’ I gestured towards the wall. ‘I was amazed that the phone still worked because it was drenched. We thought it was a good omen.’
‘And then I dropped it as we walked back to the bus and the screen shattered,’ Leo says, and he groans. ‘Oh, God! What a disaster.’
‘When we were walking back after the storm passed, and I complained about my wet clothes and how tired I was, you kept trying to convince me it was romantic,’ I tease him lightly.
‘Did I do something more romantic at some point to make up for that?’
‘Not then, but you did surprise me with your grandmother’s ring a few days later; and if I wasn’t already madly in love with you, that would have done it.’
I raise my hand, and stare down at the solitaire above my wedding band. He’d walked into my apartment one evening and dropped onto one knee, and then wordlessly slipped the ring onto my finger. Later, he admitted that he’d stolen one of my other rings to get the size right, and he’d had to bully the jeweller into replacing the cracked stone overnight because he felt so bad he hadn’t been better prepared.
‘And we lived happily ever after?’ Leo says now. I look back to him and swallow.
‘Not exactly “happily ever after”. The hero isn’t supposed to lose his memory halfway through the story.’
‘What if the hero losing his memory is the start to our story?’ Leo asks me very quietly.
‘You don’t remember anything that happened between us, Leo.’
‘All that I know is that I love you. If our life together has been disappointing to you, then I’m going to find a way to make it right.’
‘I love you too,’ I say unevenly. ‘But you can’t make promises like that to me.’
‘Yes, I can,’ he says simply.
‘There’s so much water under the bridge,’ I whisper, and I feel rising panic because I know that I have to tell him now and it’s going to break my heart. I raise my eyes to him, and see the love for me, right there, where I could almost reach out and touch it. ‘Things between us aren’t like you remember now, Leo.’
‘What is it like, love?’
All of a sudden the panic inside me recedes and I accept my fate. Calmness settles over me. It is time to end this trip down memory lane once and for all. I can’t prolong this anymore, leaving it even another hour will hurt us both too much. Leo waits patiently while I collect my thoughts, and then I take a deep breath, and I whisper, ‘Leo, I’m pregnant.’
Part 2
24
Leo – August 2015
As soon as Molly says those words, I know that something is wrong.
I feel it in my body – a shiver of annoyance that does not at all match the words she is saying. And she is clearly anxious too – I can see her shaking. At first, I am too distracted by the sensation of displeasure to really absorb the meaning of her words – all I know is that, for some reason I can’t identify, I don’t like this news.
‘Is this a good thing?’ I ask her eventually. A tear runs down Molly’s cheek and I automatically shift myself around the table to give her an awkward hug. I reflect on the tear-drenched weeks we’ve shared since we came back to Sydney. This emotional Molly does not at all match up to the memories I have recovered, something I’d not really considered until now… or perhaps I’d just put it down to the stress she’d been under since my accident. Now though the hormonal cluster bomb of pregnancy makes perfect sense, and I lean a little so that I can survey the shape of her body beneath her pyjamas. Molly’s whole shape has changed from the memories I have of her – she has gained a little weight, and she is much curvier.