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  Tess frets her hands around mine as if she’s planning to snatch me up and make a run for it no matter what I say. But I guess she can’t think of any logical argument for me moving out of this mega-mansion into her too-small apartment with her and Daphne.

  Her shoulders sink in defeat. “Okay, sure, let’s talk again when you get your memory back. Any idea when that might be?”

  CHAPTER 9

  STEPHANIE

  Good question. Unfortunately, I can’t answer it for sure before sending Tess home.

  According to the doctors, I could get my memories back any day now. Galen even tells me this amazing story about one of his cousins, Woods Fairgood.

  Apparently, the guy was raised in a repellant criminal biker family and ended up in the hospital after a motorcycle accident. Thanks to a nasty case of amnesia, neither he nor the doctor who fell in love with him, knew about his criminal past. They managed to make it work, but their unusual love story made the news when his real identity was exposed. Despite that, their relationship thrived, especially after he got his memories back—“They just re-downloaded into his head a few months after his accident,” Galen explains.

  It didn’t matter what he’d done or believed before, Woods Fairgood renounced his old life, and now he’s a doctor, just like his wife. Hopefully, my memory recovery will go just like that since we have a similar kind of retrograde amnesia.

  Meanwhile, I throw myself into my current reinvention, learning the ropes of foundation work and hiring a team. I take on bigger crochet projects, like cardigans, sweaters, and even an area rug for my office. And rather than letting Galen hire someone to cook for us, as he apparently did when we lived in Louisiana, I order several French-language cookbooks and get to work, learning to read and follow instructions in the language I now somehow speak—but don’t read—fluently.

  No, I can’t remember the woman I became over the past decade. But I find it hard to believe this current version isn’t way better.

  My memories will come back any day now, I figure, as I go about living my best Black Barbie dream life.

  But days pass, then weeks, then months. And other than simply being familiar with pieces of technology that were invented during my memory gap era, no major memories break through that nine-year fog.

  It’s so frustrating, but the memory loss doesn’t otherwise detract from my life. There are so many opportunities to do good these days. After talking it over with Tess, I narrow our focus down to affordable housing for single mothers, since that will have the most impact. We put out the call and get many applications from worthy charities in return.

  By the time Daphne returns from her summer in Boston, I’ve not only set up an office on the third floor of Galen’s office building, I’ve also managed to get a new driver’s license with my married name attached. So I’m able to back my favorite single mother up, just like I was apparently doing before.

  Tess was worried about having to interact with Daphne’s birth father. But the doctor declares me fit for driving, and I am able to pick Daphne up from the elite private school she attends on her father’s dime, then drop her off wherever she needs to go, whether it be her mother’s humble shelter apartment or her father’s million-dollar condominium.

  Both are located in downtown Columbus. Not that it matters. Tess not having to talk to him ever is apparently part of their custody agreement, and from what Daphne tells me, she won’t even accept child support from him.

  “Countess is, like, the total opposite of Lady,” Daphne tells me.

  I’m relieved to see that the anxious, chubby nine-year-old I remember has grown into a way more confident chubby fifteen-year-old. Even if she teases me about hiding a hot hubby and insists on calling our subdivision’s lake a pond.

  Sadly, she can’t provide much insight into my marriage. Apparently, my father and I stopped talking after I dropped out of college halfway through my junior year—I can only assume to marry Galen. She didn’t hear one word from me until after our father committed suicide.

  “You took me to Disney World, and then we took three buses to Columbus to find Mom,” she explains the best she can. “When I asked you about the three years you were gone, you said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  So strange. I’d given up everything for Galen, only to leave him behind and move to Ohio? Of course, I ask him to explain exactly what we disagreed about.

  He just sighs and answers, “Everything, ma belle. I was a fool, a tete de cabri if you ever met one. We argued about where you went, what you wore, your father—every subject on Earth. I can’t blame you for choosing a studio apartment in Ohio over my mansion in New Orleans. At least you wouldn’t have to put up with me.”

  But the thing is, before Galen, I did everything my father asked of me. Down to signing a virginity contract. When had I gone and developed a backbone with the men in my life? One strong enough to make me actually leave a marriage?

  I always found it so hard to believe when teenagers in movies kept diaries. I mean, who had time for that?

  But now I wish I could go back in time and shake myself. Not only had I not kept a diary, I hadn’t updated any of my social media since that winter break when I decided to drop out of school. Of course, I had no way of knowing I’d be in a memory-obliterating accident someday, but I wished I’d left myself some—I mean, any—clues about what I was doing during my nine lost years.

  Anyway, Daphne can’t tell me anything about my relationship with Galen, but she likes my surprise husband way more than Tess does. She calls him Uncle G and gives him a hard time about always wearing suits when she joins us for an overnight stay because her father is out of town and Tess thinks she’ll be at the hospital all night with one of her laboring teenage moms.

  “My dad and my other uncle are in real estate, just like you, and they don’t wear suits unless they’re going to some kind of charity event,” she tells him over dinner that night.

  Galen takes her teasing with good nature. “You’ll have to ask them to give me some tips,” he tells her while dishing a second serving of the bouillabaisse I made for dinner into his bowl. “I’m still pretty new to this ruthless real estate mogul stuff. Let’s just say I didn’t grow up expecting this kind of life.”

  “Neither did my dad before my uncle started their big business,” she answers, reaching for the fish soup herself. “Uncle D says the secret is not to act. You’ve got to know deep down in your gut wherever you want to be is where you belong.”

  Other than dropping surprisingly sage bits of rags-to-riches advice, that night Daphne also reintroduces me to all the music I liked during my memory gap.

  Some I recognize right away, including hit tracks from Stromae, a Belgian singer who released a worldwide dance hit back when I was still a teen.

  Apparently, during my twenties, he’d put out more hits, quit music, and returned from the pandemic with another inspired album. Save for his latest work, I can sing along with every song.

  “And you know G Latham, that country trap guy I used to love?” Daphne asks, switching over to his YouTube Vevo page on my office computer. “Get this. He starred in a cartoon a couple of years ago, and now he’s married with a kid.”

  I did like G Latham’s music when I was a college student. You couldn’t walk into a frat party back then without hearing that one hit of his about how girls all over the world love backcountry boys. But when she tries to play the video he made for the family-friendly cartoon on my iMac, the sight of him makes my stomach churn. I have no idea why.

  “I don’t like this song,” I tell Daphne, so as not to alarm her. “Let’s go to the next person on the list.”

  No, my memories don’t come back.

  But by Christmas, I’ve crafted a life I adore with the three people I love most in the world: Galen, Daphne, and my surprise big sister, Tess.

  “Ma belle, you made all of this for me?” Galen got me a whole Porsche 911 as a coming-home gift. But his entire face lights up when he
sees my humble offering on Christmas morning.

  “It’s just a sweater, hat, and scarf,” I say apologetically.

  “Ain’t no such thing as just,” he insists. He confessed earlier to two years of working on losing his Cajun accent, but he slips right back into it to let me know, “You never made me nothing before. This here is about the best present I ever received in my life. Merci beaucoup, cher bebe.”

  I accept the kiss of thanks he presses into my forehead but inwardly stew.

  “Seriously?” I have to ask. “I crochet at an expert level, but I never made you anything?”

  Galen shrugs. “You always had projects you were working on for others. A few of our women friends paid you to make them crochet tops. You sold them as a way of earning extra pocket money.”

  Well, that explains all those random numbers and initials in the notebook I found in the backpack I was carrying the night of the accident. And why I had unconsciously slipped into a V-neck stitch when I was making a boat neck sweater for Tess. It must’ve been some kind of muscle memory from when I sold crochet tops for pocket money.

  Still, it strikes me as strange. Especially considering that I hadn’t been raised to take side jobs or do handiwork. My mother hadn’t even liked that I crocheted as a hobby.

  “That really doesn’t sound like me,” I tell him. “Why would I take on a side job when I could have just asked you for money?”

  “You wanted to make your own way a little, I think.” Galen wraps the pale gray scarf around his neck, and I’m glad I chose the color. I was right about it bringing out the silver in his eyes. “Plus, it gave you something to do other than waiting for me to get home from work every day.”

  Well, I suppose, that tracks. I’ve only been living my Barbie dream life for six months, and my schedule is already stuffed to the gills.

  Christmas Day is no exception. After I make lunch for the two of us, Galen drives us through the snow into Columbus to help Tess put on her big meal for the girls at her shelter. Daphne went back home with her birth father to Boston for the holidays, so I was officially Tess’s only family in town.

  She’s happy to see me, but she’s barely polite to Galen. And I know, she’s brusque by nature, but a few times, I notice her pursing her lips behind Galen’s back in a way that reminds me of our mother.

  She obviously doesn’t approve of him, despite the sizable reoccurring donation he set up for the shelter before bringing me on board, and the fact that he came bearing practical diaper gifts for all the single mothers currently in residence. And I don’t think it’s just because quite a few teenage mothers are staring and giggling at him like a Hollywood movie star has decided to give them a box of diapers for Christmas.

  She gives me a big hug when it’s time to leave, and it’s so tight, I’m a little afraid she’s going to try to keep me there.

  “My Christmas wish is that you get back your memories,” she murmurs in my ear.

  “Mine too,” I whisper back.

  Before the weather turned, I’d spent countless hours outside with my legs crossed in a meditative position and my palms turned up to the sky. Help me remember, I begged the universe. Anything, anything at all.

  It was the strangest thing. All my dreams about Galen Fairgood had come true in an unremembered instant as if some kind of genie had snapped his fingers. But the one thing I needed to get on with my life, my memories—well, that prayer went unanswered.

  And that soon became the largest crack in my dream life.

  Which is why, when my New Year’s Day birthday comes and goes without any huge downloads of memories on my part, I decide to take moving on with my life into my own hands.

  “I tell you what, my godmother used to make boeuf Bourguignon so good she’d have the whole swamp at our door down to the gators, all asking if they could have a bite. But that version you made tonight? Woo-boy…” Galen pauses washing the dishes he always insists on doing after I make dinner and rubs the portion of the Henley shirt clinging to his rock-hard abs. “If she were here, she’d come right into this kitchen and slap you with your own cooking spoon to knock the devil out of it.”

  All of Galen’s compliments seem to entail various accusations of being in league with the devil whenever I make him a particularly good meal. And usually, I preen under his praise.

  But tonight, I answer with a “thank you” that’s more nervous than grateful.

  My heart beats a little faster because we’re only a few more clean dishes and a couple episodes of the latest Disney+ Marvel show away from an important topic I need to talk with him about before we retire for the night.

  A few hours later, after we turn off the television and start walking up the stairs to my room, I take a deep breath—then immediately chicken out.

  But, big married-girl panties…

  Instead of stopping in front of my door, as I always do, and letting Galen give me a chaste kiss good night on my forehead, as he always does, I keep on walking.

  “Where you going?” he asks behind me. His voice is careful as if he’s worried I’m now suffering from short-term memory loss on top of my retrograde amnesia.

  “That accident was over six months ago,” I remind him instead of answering his question.

  Then I stop.

  In front of the set of double doors that lead into his room. And I pull my big married-girl panties all the way up so that I can turn and face him.

  “What’s all this about?” he asks.

  He glances at the set of doors I’ve never walked through, then back at me.

  I was not raised to be bold. Polite, delicate, and Southern—that’s me, through and through. That’s why I can’t keep my voice from shaking when I tell him, “I spoke with my neurologist and therapist. And they both said I’m now cleared for everything.”

  “Everything,” Galen repeats, staring at me blankly.

  Oh, God, he doesn’t get it. I’m being too subtle.

  I almost chicken out again. But I can’t stand the thought of returning to my room alone after yet another chaste kiss good night. Of touching myself in the dark when my husband is right down the hall—the man who has more than stuck by me during the traumatic brain injury piece of the “in sickness and in health” part of our vows.

  I don’t care what our relationship might’ve looked like before. I love him, and it just doesn’t make any sense to keep on sleeping in separate rooms.

  So, I dig down deep and find a boldness I was not raised to possess. Then, I look him directly in the eye, and yes, I spell it out.

  “It’s time,” I tell him. “It’s time for you to take me to your bed.”

  CHAPTER 10

  STEPHANIE

  “You want to sleep with me? In my bed?” Galen asks. His voice is hoarse and a little unsteady, as if we’re speaking two different languages and perhaps he’s misinterpreting the meaning of “It’s time for you to take me to your bed.”

  “Or, you can sleep in my bed—I mean, my bedroom. I just want…” My face burns, even though a husband and wife sleeping together should be the most natural thing in the world.

  God, why does this have to be so awkward? But I hold on to my big married-girl panties, and I insist, “It doesn’t matter where we sleep. I just want to sleep with you.”

  When I imagined how this would go, I hoped his eyes might flare like they did beside the swimming pool and when he was standing next to my hospital bed.

  But Galen glances to the side with a highly dubious look. Like I just proposed replacing his mattress with one made of nails, not resuming spousal relations.

  Doubt wiggles like worms inside of me. Had I mistaken his sexual interest? Maybe it had always been like this with us, living like roommates without S.E.X. coming into it. Maybe that was the reason I was okay with being apart from him for three y—

  All right,” he says.

  And I look up from my panic spiral just in time to see him swallow. Visibly.

  He’s nervous, I realize with a jolt.
As big and capable as he appears, he’s just as nervous as me.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, both to him and myself. “Everything will be okay. We can do this.”

  “Oui, we can do this,” he agrees. But his voice is quiet, and his silver gaze wary.

  “I don’t….” He falters. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to lose you.” Galen draws me into his arms just like he did the day he showed me my office. But this hug is nothing like that hug.

  It’s desperate and tight, and I can feel his manhood, long and hard against my belly. So, he wants me, but for some reason, he’s clinging to me like he’s afraid I’ll run, even though I’m the one who just invited herself into his bed.

  “You won’t,” I assure him—assure both of us, clinging on to him right on back.

  It’s been over half a year since I woke up to my dream husband and received my dream life as some sort of consolation prize for losing my memory. But it still feels so fragile, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

  “I’m tired of being scared of what might happen,” I tell him, despite that. “I want to live. I want to move on. With you.”

  Galen expels a long breath and lets me out of his tight hug.

  “I usually take a shower before bed,” he says with a weird, weary note in his voice. “Why don’t you go get whatever you need from your room, and then come join me in mine.”

  “Good idea—” I start to say.

  Galen turns and ducks into his room before I can compliment him on his practical suggestion. Then, he closes the door. Pretty much in my face.

  Okay, not exactly feeling particularly invited into his space.

  But that’s all right. Other than that awkward interaction, he’s been an absolute perfect husband. And I’m sure having a wife with a TBI would be awkward for anyone.