Chapter 2

Before I could question Grant further, the doctor returned.

He checked Grant’s pupils, asked him the date and the name of our town, then gave him three words to remember.

Grant got the month wrong, but he correctly named the president, our town, and the company he worked for.

“Memory loss after a concussion isn’t always continuous,” the doctor explained. “Familiar routines often return first. Someone should stay with him tonight, and he shouldn’t drive for forty-eight hours.”

“I’ll stay,” I said.

“So can I,” Celia added.

No one had asked her.

Grant visibly relaxed. “She knows what happened.”

I was the one who had taken the hospital’s call, spoken to the police, and brought his insurance card.

Yet Grant preferred to trust the woman carrying my house key rather than acknowledge the wife standing beside his bed.

I didn’t argue. I put the listing documents back in my bag.

After Grant was discharged, I drove him home while Celia followed us.

The moment we entered the garage, Grant reached past me and entered four numbers on the alarm panel.

Zero. Six. Two. One.

June twenty-first. Our wedding anniversary.

“You remember the code,” I said.

“Maybe my hands remember it.”

“Do you know why we chose those numbers?”

Grant studied the panel, then shook his head.

Celia stood behind us with his medication. Grant turned to her, speaking as naturally as if the accident had never happened.

“The cabin uses the same code, except the last two numbers are reversed.”

Celia nodded. “I wrote it down when you took me there.”

I set my bag on the kitchen counter. “You took her to the cabin?”

“Grant gave me permission to stay there,” Celia said. “Of course I need to know how to get inside.”

“You already have a key.”

“What if I lose it?”

Grant lowered himself into a chair and pressed a hand to his temple. “Helen, can this wait? My head hurts.”

The doctor had warned me to watch for vomiting, confusion, or worsening pain. Grant knew that. So did Celia. One mention of a headache was enough to make every question I asked sound like an attack on an injured man.

I filled a glass with water and placed it beside his medication.

Celia still wore her coat and showed no sign of leaving. “I was planning to take some boxes to the cabin tomorrow. Should I postpone it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” Grant answered at the same time.

He picked up the water. “There’s no reason to change your plans.”

“The property is about to be sold.”

“I already told you. I don’t remember agreeing to sell it.”

Celia walked over and touched his shoulder. “You should rest. We can discuss the cabin later.”

We.

She had been inside my home for less than five minutes, and she was already speaking as if the decision belonged to her and Grant.

Celia eventually left with the blue-ribbon key. Grant didn’t stop her, but he asked me to get the gray blanket from the hall closet.

He remembered which shelf it was on, which remote controlled the television, and that the left burner on the stove sometimes failed to light.

He still didn’t remember our anniversary.

After Grant fell asleep in the recliner, I went to the family calendar beside the refrigerator. Two appointments were written beneath today’s date in his handwriting.

The first read:

6:00 p.m.—Susan. Sign cabin listing.

A line had been drawn through it.

Beneath it, written in the same blue ink, was another reminder:

Celia—spare key. Move boxes Friday.

I photographed the entire page, emailed the picture to myself, and returned the calendar to the wall.

The accident hadn’t made Grant give Celia our key.

Before his car ever left the road, he had already decided which promise to erase.