Chapter 2

I jolted awake, my clothes soaked through with cold sweat.

Denys reached out to take my hand, and almost on instinct I pulled it back.

The movement came so fast it startled even me.

At nineteen, I couldn't get close enough to Denys. I held his hand crossing the street, leaned into his shoulder at the movies, tugged at the hem of his shirt even in the middle of a fight, refusing to let him walk away.

But just now, the moment he touched me, my body drew back on its own.

The conversation between the old woman in the next bed and her daughter broke the awkwardness between us.

"You come every single day. It's too much for you."

The daughter laughed. "When I was little, you wore yourself out looking after me. Now you've had your cataract surgery, and it's my turn to look after you."

Listening to them, I felt a blank space open up in my head.

Where our home was when I was small, what my mother and father looked like, I couldn't remember any of it.

"Denys."

"Where are my parents?"

He got up to pour water. "I don't know much about your father. All I know is that your mother raised you."

"And my mom, in the future, is she doing all right?"

The glass in his hand knocked against the mouth of the pitcher, a small clink.

"When you were twenty-two, she got leukemia. But you did everything you could, and you saved her."

My heart clenched. "Was it you who helped me?"

"Mm. Yes."

I let out a breath.

The year I was seventeen, I ran a high fever, and Denys climbed over the locked dorm wall and carried me two miles to the hospital on his back.

Back then he barely had enough to cover the emergency fee, but he told me that no matter what happened after that, he'd always find a way.

Even now, knowing we'd once divorced, I still wavered because he'd said he saved my mother.

That was when his phone rang.

Denys glanced at it, and instead of stepping out like the last few times, he answered right there.

The other side talked for a long while. "I said it's not a good time. I'll call you back later."

After he hung up, I asked, "Was that Joyce?"

"Once your bandages come off, I'll tell you everything."

"Waiting for the bandages again." I touched the gauze over my eyes. "I can't see, so it's easier to lie to me?"

His breath caught.

"Some things are better if you see them with your own eyes than if I tell you."

"See what?"

He didn't explain.

The next morning, the nurse came to bring my medicine.

She placed the pills in my palm. I didn't take them. I asked her quietly, "Can eye surgery affect your memory?"

A few drops of water spilled from the cup in her hand.

"I've forgotten a lot of things, and I keep having these very real dreams." I gripped her sleeve. "We knew each other before, didn't we?"

She was quiet for a moment, then patted my back. "Take your medicine first."

At noon, the moment I closed my eyes, the images came.

I was standing alone in the living room, my belly heavy and full. Then a sudden warmth ran down below, amniotic fluid mixed with blood streaming down my calves.

Holding on to the table, shaking, I dialed Denys's number.

But it was a woman who answered. "He's celebrating my birthday with me."

I could barely stay on my feet from the pain. "Put him on. I think I'm going into labor."

The woman gave a little laugh.

"If you want the child in your belly to live, don't call again."

"The day I agreed to save your mother, we settled it. You're Denys's mistress, and I'm his lawful wife."

I gripped the phone.

"I never agreed to that."

"But Denys did. He signed the contract."

"If you dare come and ruin my birthday today, I'll stop your mother's medication right now."

The line went dead.

I dropped to the floor and called for an ambulance myself.

Ten hours later, the baby survived, and so did I.

But my womb couldn't be saved.

There was no family waiting outside the operating room. Denys's assistant stood at the far end of the hallway, beside a postpartum nurse hired at the last minute.

I woke from the dream crying out loud.

The Denys who'd traveled back came to wipe my tears. I didn't turn away, but I didn't lean into him the way I once would have either.

"Just now, I dreamed someone was trying to take you from me, and you chose to be with her."

His hand stopped at the corner of my eye.

In the voice of my nineteen-year-old self, I told him, plain and earnest, "Denys, listen to me. If a day ever comes when you need me to step aside for another woman, you won't have to send me away. I'll leave on my own."

He said nothing.