Page 8 of His

“Oh my gosh, you’re right.” Her eyes round. This is the most lucid I’ve seen her in days. “That was his name. Carl.” She chuckles. “What a terrible name.”

I’d thought the same thing. We’d laugh about it together. The few times we laughed at all.

“Do you know where it is?” She asks.

“In our storage unit in New York. We boxed it up with most of our stuff.”

“You mean Prishna boxed it up.”

I blink, startled by Valerie mentioning her deceased sister.

According to her doctor, Valerie is suffering from short-term amnesia. She remembers everything before the incident at the airport hangar, and everything since waking up at the hospital. But nothing that happened inside the hangar.

Valerie doesn’t remember seeing her sister get shot in the head, by Carlos, a man out for revenge. She doesn’t remember me putting a gun to my own head, asking Carlos to take my life instead of Sabine’s. She doesn’t remember Cillian dragging me out of the burning building while I fought against him, trying to claw my way back to Sabine’s bleeding body.

The only reason Valerie knows Prishna is dead is because after waking in the hospital, she kept asking for her. Eventually we told her that she’d passed away in an accident. We had a small funeral, and haven’t spoken about it since.

A long moment stretches between us.

Then—

“Why don’t you ever talk about her?”

“Prishna?”

“No. Chloe. Our daughter.”

My body stiffens. “I don’t know,” I lie.

The reason I don’t speak about our daughter is because the conversation always leads to one place: a fight between us.

Valerie shakes her head. “We should have sued the city, you know? It’s their fault they left the manhole cover off.”

“Chloe didn’t fall into that manhole, Valerie.”

“Yes, she did.” Valerie snaps, emotions flushing her cheeks.

“Then how do you explain the lock of hair that was missing from her head?”

“She cut it herself! You know she did. She’d cut her own hair at least half a dozen times.” Her speech begins to slur as her emotions rile. “I’d always tell you to put up the damn scissors. But you were never there?—”

“That’s enough!” My voice echoes against the walls.

The room falls deathly silent.

“I apologize,” I say stiffly, and stand. “Please drink your tea, Valerie. It will help ease you.”

I study my wife, unbelieving that we have been married for years, but still, and have always, felt like complete strangers. After having met Sabine and now knowing what real love is—the soulmate, can’t-live-without-you kind of love—only emphasizes the absences of feelings between Valerie and me. We never loved each other. We married because I accidentally got her pregnant after drunken sex in the back of my limousine.

When I turn to walk away, she calls after me.

“Where do you go twice a week?” She asks. “On Saturdays and Wednesdays?”

I stop cold. “What do you mean?”

“Twice a week, you’re gone for at least ten hours. Sometimes twelve. Where do you go?”

To beg for the love of my life to take me back.

---