Page 12 of Down Memory Lane
Most of their time in the hospital had been spent with her getting to know a little about Felix and herself while playing card games, trading jokes over the quality of the hospital food, particularly the chocolate pudding, and watching a television show she didn’t recall but Felix informed her was one of her favorites. Autumn was skeptical about the dating show at first, but after watching a few episodes ofThe Bachelorette, she was hooked.
Seeing a large group of men compete for the attention of one woman by employing some of the most ridiculous male posturing that could possibly exist had been a lot of fun, but it was Felix’s running commentary that had truly made it entertaining television. He even had a dead-on impression of a man he referred to as “frat guy” that had her laughing until she thought she might cry. It was weird, having such a great time with someone you barely knew, but Autumn had tried trusting her gut a little more and it was telling her that Felix was a safe person.
Other people Autumn seemed to feel at ease with were members of his family. Felix’s parents stopped by and reintroduced themselves to her even though she’d apparently known them most of her life, never once making her feel guilty for not remembering them. The older couple was as warm and kind as their son had been since the moment he stepped into her room. Autumn also met his older brother Travis who spoke very little. He was a bit intimidating looking, but from the protective way he seemed to look at his brother, she could tell he was a good man.
Apparently, more of Felix’s family wanted to come visit, but he had told them to hold off, not wanting to overwhelm her, something Autumn appreciated immensely. She did recall that she was an only child and couldn’t imagine meeting Felix’s other three brothers, two of whom had significant others as well. She was happy to know so many people cared about her, but she also wasn’t sure she could take more looks of curiosity and concern, feeling too much like a museum exhibit at times.
Fortunately, her life would soon be getting back to normal, or whatever normal had looked like before her accident. The doctor had discharged Autumn from the hospital, not with a clean bill of health, but with a recommendation to a doctor closer by in order to monitor her progress more closely. Bi-weekly checkups did not sound like fun, but until her memory returned she guessed she would have to deal with it.
Autumn tried her hardest not to think about the other scenario the doctor had mentioned, the one where her memory never came back. The doctor was a neurosurgeon but had very few answers to Autumn’s questions. Hearing the phrasethe brain is still such a mysteryconstantly over the last five days had gotten very old, and by the time she’d been wheeled down to where Travis waited to drive her and Felix home, Autumn was in a bit of a foul mood.
She had wondered if getting into a car would be difficult for her since she’d just been in an extraordinarily bad car accident, but since she had no memory of it, that hadn’t been the case. The truck was large, sturdy looking, and she sat sandwiched between two giant men, so overall Autumn had felt as safe as she had in the hospital bed. She still spent most of the drive stewing over her lack of memory, but when Felix suggested they stop to get some snacks for the road, she brightened at the prospect of getting something that hadn’t been prepped by the hospital staff for her optimal health and wellness.
The moment she stepped into the small convenience mart, her excitement over a potentially fun food disappointed quickly. Autumn looked around the small store, completely unsure of where to start. Finally she found her way into the candy aisle where she stood for a long stretch of time, staring at the wide selection and having no clue what she wanted. When she asked Felix what her favorite treat was, he handed her a package of chocolate covered peanut butter discs.
The thought of having something that she loved was nice, but the reality had been severely disappointing. She tried a few bites, but found the sticky sweet treat to be not to her liking in the least. Not having something fun to eat was a bummer, but her not liking her favorite candy anymore was devastating. Playing it off as just not being hungry, Autumn had tucked the rest of her treat into the small bag of belongings that had been pulled from her car and spent the rest of the drive in contemplative silence.
A sign for Applewood passed by the passenger window, and while the name caused her brain to tingle slightly, it didn’t evolve beyond that as they passed through the small town. The brick and mortar stores of the downtown area looked slightly familiar, but was that because she remembered them or because they could have belonged in any small town from a television show or movie she’d seen before? It was unsettling, not knowing whether something was a part of you from experience or as something you may have absorbed offhandedly, and that was just the town.
When they pulled up to a dark gray farmhouse, Autumn was certain that she’d seen it before,beenthere before, but she couldn’t pull one concrete image of her in that place from the depths of her memory. The window into her own mind was a foggy pane of glass, smudged and stained, and no matter how many times she tried to wipe the film away, it never became clean.
Felix helped her down from the tall truck, and after saying goodbye to Travis, he led her behind the house and into a large orchard. The trees were barren but beautiful with small buds that waited patiently for that last bit of sunshine before they bloomed. She ran her hand over the rough trunk of one of the trees, remembering Felix telling her that they lived on an apple farm during the hospital stay. Autumn had hoped that touching a piece of the place would bring it all rushing back, but her mind was still frustratingly cloudy.
Turning to Felix, she smiled sadly. “I’m a little tired. Do you think we can just go home now?” Autumn had resided almost entirely in a bed over the last five days, but for as rested as she should feel, she was suddenly drained of energy. Her inability to recognize anything about her life was as exhausting as it was depressing.
He nodded and held out his hand. Autumn felt the urge to take it, but wasn’t sure. She watched the light in Felix’s eyes dim at her hesitation before he curled his fingers back and gestured toward a large building about fifty feet away. “Right this way.” He smiled, but it was more polite than genuine. Autumn hated disappointing him, and she felt horribly guilty once again. Their fingers brushed as they walked, and after taking a deep breath, she snagged one of his with her own. Felix smiled, but again, it looked perfunctory. “Don’t do anything just to make me feel better, Auts. I know you don’t really know me in the same way I know you, and I can be patient.”
Autumn nodded, but didn’t drop her hold on his fingers. Felix was right in that she had done it to make him feel better, but now that they were connected, even infinitesimally, she felt slightly more grounded. “I’ll try not to, but it’s hard when you look like a sad little puppy.”
Felix’s feet stopped at the base of a staircase as he barked a laugh. Shaking his head, he turned to her with a real smile, one that lit up his eyes that looked slightly bluer today than yesterday. “I’ll try my best not to give you any sad puppy looks,” he told her. The ascended the stairs, Felix’s hand at the small of her back making her feel cherished and protected. “But I can’t promise they won’t come out involuntarily.”
The door to the apartment swung open as Felix led her inside. The space was sizable enough with a large seating area, kitchen, and smaller dining area taking up space in the one room. Three doors stood off to the side. The middle was open and showed a bathroom with a shower and tub combination, but the other two were closed. Felix nodded to the one of the left and after opening it for her, allowed her to step first into the room she assumed was hers.
The brown wooden walls gave a cozy feel to the room and a large bed covered in a fluffy white duvet and numerous throw pillows of varying texture sat in the middle, looking far more inviting than the bed in the hospital. Wooden nightstands stood on either side of it with matching lamps atop each and a dresser of the same color was against one wall. A window seat covered in more pillows looked out onto the orchard, and while nothing in the room caused a light bulb to go off in her mind just yet, something outside the window immediately drew Autumn in that direction.
Looking outside, she spotted Travis as he hauled a large bag of fertilizer over his shoulder, making his way through the trees that covered almost every inch of space that lay on the ground below her. Imagining how beautiful it would look when the trees blossomed, Autumn smiled for the first time all day and turned to look around a little more. If any place was going to hold clues to the woman she was, it was her bedroom.
The pictures on the wall were sepia toned landscapes of what looked to be the surrounding area, but she couldn’t be sure. Darting over to the top of her dresser, Autumn picked up and discarded a cranberry scented candle, a novel with a half-naked man on the cover, and a few tools that she had no clue what to do with. Picking one up, she turned it around in her hands before holding it up to Felix.
“What’s this?” she asked, passing it over to Felix.
The long wooden stick with a metal loop at the end looked like something a dentist might use, but there was no way that was her occupation. Autumn didn’t know why, but she could tell that wouldn’t be true about her, even if her actual occupation remained a mystery to her.
Felix smiled sadly. “Um, it’s a loop tool, you’re first one actually.” He set it back down on her dresser and nodded at the few others that sat next to it. “You use them to shave off excess clay when you’re throwing.”
Autumn blinked at him, it was like he was speaking a foreign language. During their time in the hospital, Felix had kept his stories light and strayed from giving her too much information just as the doctors had informed, mostly distracting her from her situation with his presence.
“Throwing clay?” The term for making pottery was familiar, but the fact that she did it seemed to be brand new information.
Felix nodded before looking around the room. “Give me a second.” He disappeared for a moment before returning with an open laptop. He sat at the edge of her bed and patted the seat next to him. “You make pottery,” he explained. Autumn took a seat and looked over at the screen that displayed a site called Clay and Crockery. Pictures of beautiful pieces of stoneware filled the screen, some with buttons to purchase and others with the wordsSold Outwritten underneath.
The longer she stared at the screen, the tighter the knot that seemed to permanently exist in her stomach seemed to twist. The items were beautiful, but they were also unfamiliar, and the longer she stared at the screen, the harder a time she had believing she had created them. Tears swam in her eyes as she gazed upon one more piece of evidence that spoke of a life she could not recall.
Blinking them away, she sniffed and sat up. “Um, thank you for showing me.” She kicked off her shoes and pulled the duvet back before crawling underneath. “I’m going to take that nap now.”
“Oh, uh, okay.” Felix stood, the same sad puppy face he had earlier peering over at her. It would have gutted her, but she was already too upset to give into the guilt it brought. “I’ll let you get some rest and then we can have dinner.”
Autumn nodded, willing herself not to cry until he left. She could barely take sad puppy Felix, so she couldn’t imagine how downtrodden his expression would become if he saw her cry. “Sounds good.”
