Page 91 of Amnesia

“Sadie Gordon, gone,” he whispered, gazing out across the lake.

“No one knows what happened? The police found nothing?” I questioned.

He shook his head. “There was a huge search. It lasted weeks. People from other counties, even neighboring states, came, search and rescue. The state police brought in helicopters, search dogs…” His voice roughed. “They even dragged the lake, looking for a body.”

The scene he depicted was grisly, and I could imagine how something like this would rock a small lake town. “And nothing?” I pressed.

Eddie laughed, humorless. “They said we hit some kind of rock because it was dark and we couldn’t see. The rough current pushed us into it and it upturned the boat.”

“You don’t think that.” I didn’t phrase it as a question because I observed the look on his face. Partial disgust, partial confusion. I tried to picture him, a younger, more innocent version of the man who sat in front of me today. A little less controlled, a little more daring.

That night had to have changed him. Forever.

Just as it changed me.

“It makes sense. What else could it have been?” he replied. It sounded like something he’d repeated over and over to himself until it became the truth. “Nothing was out there. I swam around for hours. I lost my voice I yelled so much. The bottom of the boat had some damage from where it hit. The searchers found some rocks below the surface…” He shook his head again, rubbing the back of his neck.

“But?” I pressed.

“But the rocks were so far from where I thought we’d been. It just didn’t make sense.”

“You said it was dark, that the current was strong.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I just lost her.”

How horrible that must have been for him. Now I understood the searching looks, how his eyes tracked my every move, why he was so determined to visit me daily at the hospital. He felt responsible for me. For what happened.

“What about her parents?” I asked. “My parents. Why didn’t they come for me?” There were so many questions. So many.

Eddie made a sound, stood, and lifted a rock. I watched him turn it on its side and skip it across the lake.

“My mother,” I said, getting up and grabbing his elbow. “Is Maggie my mother?”

“No,” he replied, hoarse. Eddie spun around, his eyes searching my face, lingering on my eyes and hair. I didn’t pull away when he tugged his fingers through the short strands and cupped my cheek. “Maggie was best friends with Ann Gordon.”

“Was?” I pressed.

“After the accident…” His hand fell away from me, and he rotated toward the water. “Sadie’s father, Clarke, he… ah, he started drinking.”

Sadness washed over me. Sadness for everyone involved.

“It went on for years. He drank and drank. He pretty much became the town drunk. He hated me. I couldn’t blame him. I was the last one to see his daughter alive. I was the reason she was out on that lake.”

I touched his arm lightly. He gazed down at it but kept talking. “Ann stayed with him. She’d already lost her only child; she wasn’t about to lose her husband, too. She was faithful and loyal. She always picked him up off the floor and cleaned up any messes he made in town.”

“She was a good woman,” I said. It was odd to realize we were talking aboutmyparents. My mother and my father. I knew I was Sadie. I had the proof now, but even with that one horrible memory, it still seemed I was hearing about someone else’s life. I still felt oddly detached.

I didn’t fight that feeling anymore, though. I embraced it. That memory scared me to the core. I didn’t want to go back there.

“One night, Clarke got drunk and went on a rampage, ranting about Sadie. He got in the car, and Ann followed. He ran into a tree about five miles out of town, head on. They both died instantly.”

I covered my mouth with my hand. What a horrible way to die. After long moments, I said, “It’s why no one came to claim me.”

My parents were dead. Died having no idea what happened to their only child. And I wasn’t there to meet them in heaven. So even in death, they didn’t have their answers. A single tear slipped from my eye, making a trail down my cheek.

Eddie turned to me, his eyes finally focused on my face. “I wanted to tell you so many times. When I pulled you out of that lake, I thought I was going crazy. But then you looked at me, your brown eyes…”

“I look like her.”

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