Page 13 of This Love
The curtain to the third sectioned room was closed, so I paused to listen for a second in case it was the wrong one.
Then I heard Marcus. “Ava, this is a photograph of you as a young girl.”
He still carried her kindergarten picture. I wasn’t surprised because him having it when Ava had met with him after a decade apart was what had turned the tide of their estrangement.
There was no way to knock, so I cleared my throat and said, “It’s Tucker.”
The curtain moved aside. Marcus held it back to let me in.
Ava sat at the far end of a hospital bed, her knees drawn up to her chin. The white fabric of her dress spilled to the edges of the mattress, piling up inside the plastic rails.
I knew not to approach too quickly or to touch her. I stopped at the end of the bed. “Hello, Ava. I’m Tucker.”
She peered at me with wide, frightened eyes. Her hair had been swept into an intricate updo, fixed with rhinestone combs. It was now only half up, the rest flowing over her shoulders.
Ava never wore makeup, so this flawless version of her with creamy skin and lined eyes and long lashes took some getting used to. She was heartbreakingly beautiful and so scared.
“Does anything hurt?” I asked her.
“They gave her some ibuprofen for her head,” Marcus said.
I spotted her other shoe on the floor and set the matching one beside it. “I found this outside,” I said.
“I wondered where it went,” Marcus said.
I knew better than to do too much talking without involving Ava. It irritated her whether or not she’d had a seizure.
Her gaze moved to the camera in my hands. She tilted her head with curiosity.
For a split second, I almost wanted her mother before shunting that thought away. From Ava’s notes and talking to Maya, who had lived next door to Ava and her mother for years, sometimes Ava’s memory loss was so complete she could no longer read or write.
I had never seen that level of disability, and I didn’t know the signs.
I cleared my throat. “This camera has a video on it that you recorded so you could talk to yourself when you were scared.”
Her eyes lifted to watch my face.
I made sure to give her a kind, easy expression. “Would you like me to press play so you can listen?”
She looked back at the camera, which I took to mean she was interested.
I set the camera on the end of the bed and pressed the play button Vinnie had shown me.
Thankfully, the video started over.
“Hey, Ava, I’m you. If you’re not sure, look at this tattoo. Go ahead, find it.”
Ava’s gaze immediately moved to her arms. Her wedding gown was short-sleeved, so it was easy to spot the tattoo.
“Can you read it?” the recording asked.
This was good. Ava had already predicted what her future self would need.
Ava nodded at the recording as if her former self were there.
“Say it out loud,” the recording said.
“Trust only this handwriting,” Ava said from the bed. “Find the book. Remember your life.”
