Back at the beginning, Jake told me I could make my amnesia a good thing by recreating myself, and even though he and I aren't friends any more I spend the next month doing just that.
Hannah and I work together nearly every day, and after a few weeks she offers to officially add me to her business as its CEO. I'm tempted, but I tell her I can only be unofficial until I figure out how I'll handle MMC. I'm certainly not able to take back my previous clients, since I know nothing about their lives and issues, but I'm not ready to give up the firm Donna worked so hard to build.
I see Doctor Ferraro twice a week, and while my love for Ryan doesn't fade my anger and pain over his pushing me away begin to. She and I are thrilled that I didn't slide into depression again over the situation; while she won't let me say I'm 'cured' she does think my more stable emotional balance is a good sign that maybe the ECT and the antidepressants I've been taking since Ryan and I first kissed have made a difference.
With the rest of my time, I read every book I can lay my hands on to expand my horizons and see what I like, work through the Starbucks menu as I'd planned, and gradually redecorate my apartment to suit the lovely pink pillow Hannah bought for me.
It's a busy month, and a fun one, but it does nothing to bring back my memories.
Now, at four in the afternoon on a gorgeous late June Thursday, I'm standing at the airport's international arrivals gate hoping I'm about to see someone who will.
People pour out of the gate, and I scan the crowd. What if I don't recognize him?
But when he appears I know him immediately, even though he's so grown up.
I wave, and my six-foot-tall little brother hurries over and grabs me in a hug.
"Ethan!" I wheeze as he squeezes me like he's trying to deflate one of the rubber rafts we used to use at our grandparents' cottage.
He laughs and lets me go. "Sorry. How are you?"
I sigh and he says, "Oops. Never mind."
"No, it's okay. I'll tell you at dinner."
He's tired, of course, after his flight and the time change from Germany, but he gamely takes a taxi with me back to the city, drops off his luggage at my place, and heads out for dinner. We talk for a while at the table about his career and his life overseas and when he got the elaborate tattoos on his forearms and then about what I've been up to, both postponing the inevitable, but eventually we run down and he says, "So, I can't help noticing the absence of Ryan."
"Yeah."
He gives me a sad smile and I gasp.
"What?"
I shake my head. "You just suddenly looked so much like Dad."
"In my teens I'd have punched you for saying that."
I laugh. "You probably punched me all the time in your teens."
He shakes his head. "Not after your trip to England."
"Right, you mentioned that before. What happened with it?"
"Okay. I was thinking about this on the plane. I don't really know as much as I thought, I'm afraid, but I'm sure we can piece together your teen years."
I smile, trying to hide my dismay. He doesn't know everything? He's truly my last hope. "Good idea."
"But first... Ryan?"
I sigh and explain that my husband is not my husband because I am not his wife.
Ethan takes a long sip of his wine, which I felt uncomfortable letting him order since in my mind he's still a kid, then says, "I kind of see his point, I have to admit. You don't remember any part of your marriage so I can understand why he feels weird acting like you're married."
"But isn't it also weird to push me away?"
"Probably. But maybe more tolerably weird. Since both options are weird."
I grimace. "When did you get so smart?"
He laughs. "It was the highlight of the years you lost. So sorry you missed it."
I look at the tall strong man my brother has become and my eyes fill with tears as I say, "Me too."
We sit in silence a moment then he gives me an awkward punch on the arm. "Come on, sis, get it together."
I sniffle, then realize something. "You don't know what to call me, do you?"
He shrugs. "I keep thinking Kadonna, like we said on that Skype call. But that's kind of stupid. Do you have a preference?"
"Not Kadonna," I admit. "Sounds too much like I think I'm a pop star. But either Kate or Donna will do. I think I'm both of them somehow."
"And yet you're not too. Whatever made Donna Donna, a lot of that has to have happened during the years you don't remember. Her trip and everything, and--"
I hold up a hand to stop him. "You're right, no question. But I want to know more about this trip."
"In twelfth grade, you did an overseas exchange program. Spent the whole school year in England."
"That part I know. You told me on the Skype call. Sounds like fun."
"Yeah. Anyhow, everything was bad at home before you went. Really bad."
I frown. "How come?"
He sighs. "This is the part I don't completely understand. I'm sorry. I'll do my best, but you have to remember I was just ten when it all happened."
"I get it. So? What do you remember?"
"Well, there was a lot of fighting before you left. I think the parentals didn't want you to go."
"England is a long way away."
He nods doubtfully. "Seemed like it was more than that. You guys were really screaming at each other."
I stare at him. "I never screamed at them!"
He gives a startled laugh. "Um, you totally did. Mom used to tell people that you were the perfect kid until you were sixteen and then you were a perfect nightmare." He shoots me a wry smile. "Gave me a complex, hearing about how perfect you'd been."
I don't remember being anything but perfect. Well, not perfect, of course, but I certainly don't remember screaming at my parents. "What did I yell at them?"
"Usually? Just about how they didn't understand you and they were the worst parents ever. Typical teen stuff. But over the trip, you kept saying you were going to do it and if they tried to stop you you'd just kill yourself instead."
My mouth falls open and I can't close it.
He nods. "It was way different than before. You were absolutely determined to go, no question. In the end, they had to let you."
"And I was gone for the school year?"
He nods. "You left a few weeks into September and came back partway through the summer."
I guess England's on a different school schedule than Canada. "Okay. Did I come home for Christmas or anything?"
He shakes his head. "I remember missing you a lot. Plus, Mom spent all Christmas day crying. Kind of a bummer."
"Sorry," I say automatically though I don't remember it. "I hope I at least brought you back some good presents."
He shakes his head again. "You actually came back with nothing. You didn't even have an English accent, which I thought was strange. I'd been planning to tease you for it."
"Why am I not surprised?"
He smiles. "That's what little brothers are for, isn't it? I tried once to make fun of you for not having the accent but Mom shut me down. And then we moved and I didn't much want to talk to you any more."
"Why were you mad at me because we moved? I'm sure it wasn't my idea."
He shrugs. "Actually, it was. Something went wrong with the school stuff and the year you spent overseas didn't count so you were going to have to do grade twelve again. You said you couldn't go back to the same school. The parents argued with you over it, but then told me one night that we'd be moving to Hamilton the next day. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to any of my friends. I was furious at you."
So we'd moved about an hour away from Toronto. Poor ten-year-old Ethan would never have been able to get back to see his friends. "I'm sorry I did that to you."
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry too." His neck reddens. "I told you I hated you, and you told me you hated me even more, and... remember I was a kid. I'd never say this now."
"You'll have to because I want to know."
He reddens more but says, "I said you should have just killed yourself instead of coming home."
I stare at him.
"If it's any consolation, the second I said it I knew it was horrible. I started apologizing but you burst into tears and said I was probably right, then went outside for another run. You'd come back a little overweight so you were running all the time."
This all seems so bizarre. "So I was so determined to go to England that I threatened to kill myself, then somehow did a year's exchange program that didn't give me any school credits?"
He nods. "I know it makes no sense but that's what I remember. Lots of fighting, then even more fighting when you decided to do the trip, then lots of sadness when you were gone, then more fights and more sadness and a lot of locking yourself in your bedroom alone after you came back."
I shake my head slowly. "I don't have a clue about any of this. Don't remember a thing. What were the parents and I fighting about before I went to England?"
He grimaces. "At first, that you got caught in bed with Jamie Parker."
I frown, trying to place the name, then stare at him. "The bully? The football player who liked pushing grade nine kids down the stairs?" Jamie had been cute, but so obnoxious that I'd hated him. Horror fills me. "Had he attacked me or something?"
Ethan shakes his head. "You never said so, anyhow. No, from what I overheard in your fights over the next few months it was more like..." He blushes again. "God, it's hard to say this stuff to your sister."
"Close your eyes and do it then." I need to hear it.
To my amusement, he does close his eyes, but my mirth vanishes when he says, "You slept with any guy who'd have you. And from the sounds of it a lot of them would."
***
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