Chapter 3

On the third morning, I heard the nurse and the attending doctor talking outside my door.

"Does she still need to stay on the medication today?"

The doctor turned a page in the chart.

"Hold the oral doses for now. And the hydrochloride... we'll adjust the dosage too. Once her vision comes back, we'll see how the cognition looks."

I didn't catch the name of the drug that came after.

I searched my mind for a long time, but I could never remember what kind of medication would affect cognition.

That afternoon, the medication pulled me under again.

In the dream, someone had thrown red paint all over our front door.

The word "mistress" ran from the top of the door all the way down to the floor, and through the crack in their doorway the neighbors were talking.

"Her man's got a wife over in Northgate. She's just the other woman."

I crouched on the floor scrubbing with a rag, but the more I scrubbed, the more the paint smeared, staining my fingers red, staining my daughter's little shoes by the door too.

The scene shifted, and the infant swaddled in the blanket was already three years old.

She stood at the preschool gate with her yellow backpack, watching the other children run into their fathers' arms.

She was the only one no one came for.

The teacher crouched down and asked her, "Isn't Mommy here yet?"

She shook her head and explained in a small voice, "Daddy's at Aunt Joyce's kid's parent-child sports day today. Mommy's at work, she'll be a little late."

That day was her birthday too.

I rushed home after my shift, made a whole table of food, bought a cake, and waited for her father to come home.

My daughter lay curled on the couch, holding out until eleven-thirty, until she finally couldn't stay awake and fell asleep.

That was when the lock turned. Denys came in carrying wonton soup from South Street, sequins still clinging to his suit jacket.

I looked at him, and somehow I still felt relieved. At least he'd come home.

I woke our daughter and got her to blow out her candles before midnight.

Denys carried her back to her room, then pushed the wonton soup, already gone cold, in front of me.

"Today, I kept my promise. I spent your daughter's birthday with her."

"Tomorrow, you have to keep yours. We go and file for the divorce."

The dream broke apart right then, and I woke with the ache still sitting in my chest.

The door to the room hadn't been shut all the way, and the voices drifted in in pieces.

"So there was a point to you coming after all." The nurse's voice was thick with tears. "She's remembered a lot these past few days. Once she remembers everything, you leave."

"I owe her." Denys said. "I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to her."

I pressed a hand to my chest. Denys said he owed me. Did that mean everything in those dreams was real?

That evening, while Denys was wiping my face, I finally asked it out loud.

"These past couple of days, I've had so many dreams. Tell me, are they real?"

"The first one. Joyce burst into our wedding in a red gown, with the bride's flower pinned to her chest."

Denys's hand went still.

"The second one. My water broke. She used my mother's medicine to threaten me, so I wasn't allowed to call you."

"Stop." Denys's voice cracked.

"The third one. Someone threw paint on our door, and our daughter waited at preschool and her father never came."

I kept going, one word at a time.

"And just now, I dreamed that you traded our daughter's third birthday for the divorce papers."

He reached out and pressed a hand to my shoulder, the pressure held back, but he wouldn't let me say any more.

"That's all in the past." Denys took my hand.

"In the past. So then it all really happened. It wasn't a dream."

His hand loosened from mine, little by little.

"Back then, some things... I had my reasons."

I felt for his wrist and held on, so he couldn't get away.

"Do reasons let another woman wear my wedding dress? Do they let my child be born with no father there?"

"I never thought it would turn out that way..."

His breathing turned suddenly heavy, and he seized my wrist, gripping until the bones ached.

The nurse pushed the door open.

"Denys! You're hurting her."

Denys let go like he'd been burned.

A ring of red rose fast around my wrist, and the nurse held an ice pack against it for me.

Today was the fourth day after surgery.

The attending doctor finished checking the wound and confirmed the bandages could come off.

The nurse stood behind me.

"This is the last dressing change today."

"Once the bandages are off, you should be able to see normally."

I heard her draw in a deep breath.

The bandages came away, layer by layer.

At first the light coming in was blindingly white, and the nurse shielded my eyes with her hand, only easing it away once I'd adjusted.

The first thing I saw was her face.

Her eyes were rimmed red, and she was thinner than I'd imagined, with faint fine lines already at the corners of her eyes, her hair tied neatly back, the bandages she'd unwound still bunched in her hand.

I let my eyes travel down her white uniform.

The badge read three words: Susan Harding.

Harding. My surname.

Before I could get a word out, a mirror caught the corner of my eye.