Page 19 of Last Summer

She lost Simon, too. Just because she can’t remember him doesn’t mean she isn’t capable of feeling for him. Ella lost her parents at six, her best friend Grace at fifteen, and her great-aunt Kathy at eighteen. If anyone knows how to grieve, she does. She loves Damien too much to let him do so alone. And she especially isn’t going to let him bottle up his pain. She did that more than once, and it’s its own worst sort of hell. Exorcising grief takes that much more of an effort the longer it’s contained.

Rising to her feet, Ella leaves the nursery and enters the master bedroom to find Damien toweling off from a shower. He pulls on sweatpants and a white T-shirt. With a glance in Ella’s direction, he folds back the bedcovers. She goes to him and holds his smooth jaw so that he must look at her. He smells of shaving cream and soap, his skin damp to the touch.

“I’m sorry.” The apology doesn’t seem enough. It won’t return their son. It won’t help her remember. And it won’t take away her husband’s pain. But saying the words makes her feel better. Maybe they’ll soften him, too.

Damien gently holds her hand and plants a kiss on the inside of her good wrist. “Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not your fault.”

“You think the memory loss is,” she challenges.

He looks down at the bed. “Take a nap with me. I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“Why did you have to work all night?”

“Had some things to take care of. I was worried about you, too. Made it hard to sleep.”

“Okay. But please don’t shut me out. I want to be here for you.”

He wraps his arms around her, holds her to his chest, right where she wants to be. “You are.” He kisses her forehead. “Get into bed. You need to rest.”

Ella crawls under the covers. Damien slides in behind and spoons her. She yawns, murmuring, “I love you.”

Damien doesn’t reply. He kisses her shoulder. Too exhausted to read into it, Ella slips into the darkness of sleep.

The lobby buzzer wakes Ella. She glances at the bedside clock. Teal numbers glow 7:00 p.m. and she blinks in surprise. She slept for three hours. Muted light drapes the room in charcoal grays. The rain has let up, allowing the familiar sounds of the city to reach her. Taxicab drivers punch their horns in irritation and police sirens blare. There’s the occasional sound of people shouting and the shrill brakes of a cable car traveling down Hyde. Off in the distance, the foghorn. Light reflects off low-lying clouds, and below, the city sparkles. Clean and wet, the street filth washed away for at least the night.

Ella slowly eases from bed, stiff from sleep and still aching from her injuries. The large contusions on her left shoulder and ribs have deepened to a Halloween purple. She finds Damien in the great room. He’s dressed in dark wash jeans and a fitted black T-shirt, his feet bare. She watches him for a moment, wondering how he feels after his rest, as he scans Pandora stations on the iPad they have linked to their Sonos speaker system. Then she comes up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist, and presses a kiss to his spine. He startles but quickly recovers and pulls her into his side.

“How’d you sleep?” he asks.

“Good, thanks. Who rang?”

“Davie. She’s on her way up.”

“That’s right.”

“She’s brought lasagna.”

“Mmm.” Surprisingly, food sounds good. Then again, it’s Davie’s lasagna, made from her Italian mom’s recipe. Mama Mayer’s lasagna would make anyone salivate.

Damien settles on Imagine Dragons and adjusts the volume to background music level.

Ella rubs her eyes. “Those meds knocked me out.”

“I can send Davie home if you’re not up for company.”

A part of her wants Davie to leave dinner at their doorstep so that she and Damien have more time to talk. She still has so many questions. But she’s hungry, and she misses her friend. And if memory serves her correctly in this instance, it’s been a while since she’s seen her.

“No, I’m good,” she says. “I want to see her and her food. I’m starving. I’m going to freshen up.”

In the master bath, Ella strips off her clothes and puts on the plastic cover the hospital provided her to keep her wrist brace dry. Lynn covered her C-section scar with paper tape-like Steri-Strips. Ella’s not supposed to mess with them. They’ll fall off on their own. But they can get wet. She’s just not supposed to scrub the area.

Stepping into the steaming shower, she avoids her reflection in the mirror and soaps her body quickly, but she can’t avoid how much bigger she is. Heavy breasts, soft belly, and fuller hips. All this new weight and no baby to show for it.

She slams off the water.

After her shower, she carefully towels off and pats dry the Steri-Strips. Getting dressed, she slips into an oversize button-down blouse and stretchy, high-waisted black yoga pants. The only loose and comfortable articles she could find that aren’t maternity clothes, clothes she doesn’t remember.

Damien and Davie are at the dry bar when Ella joins them. Damien has mixed Davie a Manhattan and poured himself a Macallan over ice. When Davie sees Ella, she bursts out crying. She sets down her drink and rushes to Ella’s side, hugging her as though she hasn’t seen her in years. But Ella catches the floral scent of Davie’s CHANEL Chance perfume and she remembers. They went shopping at Bloomingdale’s last week. Davie needed shoes for a function at SFMOMA. One of her publicity clients was exhibiting.

---