Page 105 of This Love
I’ve tried over and over to put our life story into a form that will work. Sometimes you—or, me, I guess—are mean or scared when we come back after losing our memories. You don’t want to listen to anyone. You resist being helped.
I’m still trying to find a way to keep us safe when this happens.
But please read this. All of it. I learned not to put in addresses or phone numbers because things change. Life changes. One time you went to the most dangerous place of all by accident because of a location you found in this notebook.
I hope I’ve fixed it now.
Read, Ava. Sit and learn. Trust no one who talks to you, approaches you, or takes you anywhere until you have all the answers.
Find a safe place. Be careful of police or hospitals. Sometimes they send you where you should not go because that is what they have on record.
Learn everything first. You are here, inside these pages. But you are also inside yourself. Your brain has disconnected your memories, but we don’t only remember with our minds. We remember with smells, with tastes, with feelings. With muscles that automatically do things we didn’t know we could do.
I looked at my hands. It was true. They had opened the pill bottle.
You can take photographs, Ava. You studied it in college. You can drive a car. You can do math in your head and flip an omelet even if you’re half asleep.
And you can love, even when you’re sure you can’t. When Tucker finds you, try not to be scared. One thing we’ve figured out over all these memory resets is that love and fear are divided by a painfully narrow line. Don’t resist Tucker. He is the one who has always kept you safe.
It’s time to read about who you are. I’m sorry there are so few entries from when we were young. Mother destroyed almost all of those. Some of this story you wrote yourself. Other parts were done by Tucker.
Keep this story, Ava. Protect it at all cost. It’s why words are tattooed on your body.
Trust only this handwriting.
This is the book.
Remember your life.
Chapter 41
Tucker
Nurse Kenisha alerted the hospital security about Ava. Everyone started looking for her. All exits were watched.
But at this point, I’d been sitting on Ava’s bed for over an hour, holding baby Tad, absolutely terrified. Too much time was passing. I didn’t think she was hiding in a mop closet. She left. I knew it.
Nurse Kenisha was pissed as hell. Nurse Jennifer was supposed to stay with Ava in recovery, but she’d gotten paged to another room. Kenisha was supposed to be off shift, but she refused to leave, going through the hospital herself. Only a few people knew what Ava looked like. Even fewer knew about her condition.
Gram rubbed my back. “We’ll find her, Tucker. We always do.”
“We lost her for half a year in 2018.”
She sighed. “I know.”
Tad woke with a startled cry. I moved him to my shoulder, but he didn’t like that position. His face turned beet red.
“Let me take him,” Gram said. “You page the nurse for some formula.”
I pushed the red button on the bed. We were allowed to stay in the room until Tad was discharged, which would be tomorrow if Ava didn’t return. I couldn’t possibly leave. Ava had a hospital wristband. She might come back here.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my eye. No, she specifically warned herself about police and hospitals, literally on page two of her book. We did that to prevent another situation like in 2019 when a police report showed her last known location as her mother’s house.
The notebook would have no addresses or phone numbers. We took them out. And she wouldn’t remember having a baby, anyway. There was no reason for her to come back. Whatever made her run, made her search the room and erase her name, might scare her even after reading the notebook.
It felt hopeless.
Gram had the touch because Tad got quiet in her arms. “Let’s go over it again. What is in the bag?”
