Page 55 of This Love
Eventually, I went in a different direction to home, constantly watching over my shoulder.
I pressed my hand against my hip, over the tattoo, hidden beneath my jeans. I wouldn’t have put it there if I hadn’t meant it.
Chapter 21
Tucker
Ava got spooked enough by an encounter with her mother that I immediately signed her up for self-defense.
I offered to take it with her, but she said I might be someone she needed to defend herself from, and if I learned it, she would never win.
While I was quite sure Ava could kick my butt, class or not, I understood her fear. I wouldn’t do anything that made things worse for her. So, I drove her to class and sat in the car to wait for her to be done.
During those hours, I took the time to read more about other amnesiacs’ recoveries. I already knew that the visual, auditory, and other sensory memories were all stored differently. What I wanted to know was the techniques that would help her reconnect her present circumstances to her old emotions.
Smells were the strongest, the research showed. A perfume, a favorite food, or the unique combination of scents of a specific place could evoke the feeling of a memory, even if the actual event could not be accessed.
It was important, though, that the smell be unique. If a cleaning fluid or a brand of cat litter or the whiff of the same lavender candle became commonplace, there was no way to access an emotion or even a sense of familiarity.
But I had ideas. If her brain couldn’t remember the life we’d built together, maybe her nose and stomach would.
The dates had gone well. But popcorn had gotten overused. And we’d been to most of the old places. Despite so much more time together, we were staying friendly. I couldn’t make any inroads into her heart. I might as well be Big Harry. Or Vinnie.
But I would work on it. On our next night together, I brought over a bag of groceries.
She let me into the house, her curiosity already urging her to peek at what was inside. “What’s all that?”
“I’m going to make us dinner,” I said.
“Good idea,” she said. “It costs less money, plus, we get leftovers.”
Survival Ava. We’d gone over our budget the week before, and she was aghast at how close we were cutting it. She redoubled her efforts to get her photography back to her old standard so she could earn more than she did at Harry’s.
“What are we having?” she asked.
“Lasagna.” This was once her favorite dish. It had served us well, getting us back together when she was nineteen. It had become shorthand for us over the years for when either of us wanted to get busy. Are we having lasagna tonight? Should we make lasagna? It’s been a while since we had lasagna.
“Have you made it for me before?” she asked. “We don’t serve that at Harry’s.”
This, I knew. And we hadn’t been to an Italian restaurant on a date. This would be new to her. “Not for a long time.” The lasagna I made from Gram’s recipe would evoke many good feelings, a true connection that ran deeper than friendship. It was the only ace in my hand.
She followed me to the kitchen. “I know the word lasagna, but I can’t picture it. Can you describe it to me?”
I began pulling the boxes and jars as I explained.
“It’s done in layers. First, you boil these long, flat noodles.” I held up the blue box. “And then you make the sauce.” I showed her the bag of tomatoes and began pulling spices from the rack on the wall.
“You’re using a lot of those,” she said. “I haven’t touched them.”
She’d been mainly reheating frozen meals or leftovers from Harry’s. “You’ll like how it all works together.” I pulled out packages of ricotta, mozzarella, and freshly grated Parmesan.
She examined the spread. “That’s a lot of cheese.”
“That’s what makes it so good. You layer the pasta, cheese, and meat sauce. Then you bake it. Would you like to make it with me, so you learn how?”
She glanced around the kitchen. So much of it was still foreign to her. She could pick up pots and pans and spoons and knives and know what they were, but the alchemy of cooking, remembering recipes, and portioning out the right amounts of ingredients were skills still well beyond her.
“All right,” she said. “I guess this is as good a day as any to learn how to feed myself properly.”
