EverHeart

Chapter 6: Temporary

LUCY

The next morning, Marco learned I could sleep through a rough ferry crossing. He seemed personally offended.

“How are you doing that?”

I opened one eye. The ferry to San Telmo rose over a swell and came down hard enough to rattle the windows. Spray flashed beyond the deck. Moira had shrunk behind us into green hills and clustered roofs.

“Doing what?”

“Sleeping.”

“Usually with my eyes closed.”

“The boat is trying to throw us into the sea.”

“It isn’t.”

“That sounded confident for someone who isn’t looking.”

“I’ve been on worse.”

“How much worse?”

“Much.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

The ferry rolled again. Marco fell quiet, and I sat up. His hand gripped the rail; his attention stayed on the water.

“Marco.”

“I’m fine.”

True. Incomplete.

“You don’t have to look at it.”

“I know.”

He kept looking. The last thing he remembered before Moira was water. He might not recall what had happened at sea, but his grip on the rail suggested his body had kept something.

Eventually he let go.

“You really don’t get motion sick?”

“Not anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“I travel a lot.”

“For work? Planes?”

“Yes.”

“Boats?”

“Yes.”

“Helicopters?”

“Yes.”

His eyebrows rose. “What exactly do you do?”

I looked toward the horizon. “Administration.”

“Your administration has helicopters?”

“Sometimes.”

“Lucy.”

“Marco.”

“One day I’m going to get a straight answer out of you.”

“That sounds ambitious.”

He laughed, and some of the tension left his shoulders.

* * *

San Telmo was large enough to quiet him again when we docked. Traffic crowded the waterfront. Glass storefronts replaced Moira’s painted shutters. A courier with translucent wings waited at a crossing beside two office workers who barely noticed him.

Outside the hospital, Marco reached for his pocket. No phone, wallet or identification. He dropped his hand.

“Apparently I keep checking.”

“You did it at the ferry terminal too. Twice.”

“That may be useful,” I said.

“How?”

“You probably carried something there.”

“A wallet? So we’ve established I once participated in commerce.”

“A breakthrough.”

That earned me a smile. Then we went inside.

* * *

The scan was normal. So was the neurological examination. The physician reviewed Ortega’s notes, repeated several tests and sat across from us.

“No acute bleeding, swelling or structural injury.”

Marco breathed out. “So I’m not dying?”

“Not from anything I can see today.”

“That’s a very doctor answer.”

“It’s the only kind I’m licensed to give.”

“And the amnesia?” I asked.

“It could still be trauma-related. Physical, psychological or both. Memory may return gradually, suddenly, in fragments.” She paused. “Or not at all.”

Marco stopped moving. “Not at all?”

“It’s possible, not a prediction. You’re forming new memories normally, you’re oriented, and your procedural memory appears intact. Those are good signs.”

“Okay,” he said.

He didn’t sound convinced. We left with follow-up instructions and a bill he tried not to look at.

“That much? For pictures of my head?”

“Expensive head.”

“I didn’t even get to keep the pictures.”

“Ask.”

“Can I sell them?”

“No.”

“Then why would I want them?”

I took out my wallet. He watched me count the bills.

“You’re paying cash? For that?”

“Yes.”

“Cami was right. You really do just carry cash.”

“I carry enough.”

“How much is enough?”

“Enough.”

“Are you secretly rich?”

“No.”

Rich was relative. The question was badly defined.

“That sounded suspicious.”

“You’ve known me for three days. Everything should sound suspicious.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

* * *

We had three hours before the ferry. Marco wanted food, so we found a restaurant near the waterfront. He ordered enough for two people and stole one of my spring rolls.

I looked at his hand. He stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Were you going to eat this?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Do you want it back?”

“You touched it.”

“That feels unfair.”

“Keep it.”

He ate it as though he’d won something.

Conversation came easily for a while: the ferry schedule, Moira’s bakery, his apparent hatred of papaya, and whether disliking fruit counted as personality surviving amnesia. Then he set down his fork.

“What happens if nobody finds me? The police said it could take a few days. And the doctor said my memories might…”

“Not come back.”

His mouth tightened. People moved past the open restaurant carrying phones, shopping bags, errands.

“I can’t stay in your spare room forever.”

“No. You also don’t need to solve forever today.”

“That sounded suspiciously reasonable.”

“I have moments.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his napkin. “I don’t have money. Or identification. Or a job.”

“You might have a job.”

“That would be worse. Imagine being employed and just disappearing. I could be essential.”

“You could also have been fired.”

“Why do you always choose violence?”

“Evidence.”

“There is no evidence I was fired.”

“Exactly.”

He laughed, but it faded quickly. “I don’t like owing you.”

“You don’t owe me.”

“I live in your house.”

“Temporarily.”

“You buy the food. You paid for the clinic, the ferry, this.”

“You stole my spring roll. Consider it partial repayment.”

“Lucy.”

I set down my spoon. He wasn’t smiling now.

“I need to do something.”

“Then do something.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“You can cook.”

“I can make coffee.”

“You can assess injuries. You fixed the shutter.”

“One shutter.”

“There are other things wrong with the cottage.”

“How many?”

I regretted mentioning it. “Several.”

“Name them.”

“No.”

“You just told me to do something.”

“I didn’t mean dismantle the house.”

“I fixed the shutter.”

“You were personally offended by the hinge.”

“It knew what it did.”

I looked at my soup. When I looked up, he was still waiting.

“Fine. You help with the cottage. Cooking, groceries, whatever you can do without injuring yourself or anyone else.”

“And in exchange?”

“You stop acting like every meal is a debt.”

“That’s not how exchanges work.”

“It is in my house.”

He considered it. “Temporary?”

“Yes.”

Some of the strain left his face. “Okay.”

Then he reached for another spring roll. I slapped his hand.

“Ow. Quality control.”

“That one was mine. You’re terrible at employment.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Evidence is accumulating.”

* * *

By the time we returned to Moira, afternoon had softened into gold. Cami waited near the ferry terminal with an iced drink and no reason to be there that I believed.

“Well?”

Marco spread his arms. “Brain present.”

“Normal scan,” I said.

Relief crossed her face. “Thank God.”

On the walk uphill, Marco described the crossing as if we’d survived a maritime disaster. By the time we reached the cottage road, his version included a storm, a broken mast, and me drinking coffee while everyone else prayed. Cami knew none of it had happened and encouraged him anyway.

At the gate, she headed home after extracting a promise to meet for dinner tomorrow. Marco followed me inside, then stopped in the kitchen.

“The tap.”

“What about it?”

He pointed. Drip. Drip.

“It does that.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s been doing it since before I rented the place.”

His expression became purposeful.

“No,” I said.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You have a face. That one means tools.”

“Where are they?”

“Tomorrow. We just spent the day at a hospital.”

“I’m healthy.”

“You have amnesia.”

“Still?”

I stared at him. He laughed and opened the cabinet beneath the sink.

“Temporary houseguests usually ask permission before reorganizing plumbing.”

“Temporary hosts usually fix leaks.”

“I’m not the host. You washed up.”

“That argument makes less sense every time.”

I left him there. When I returned, the tap had stopped dripping and Marco was making coffee. He placed a mug in front of me without asking. Black. No sugar.

I looked at it, then at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a look.”

“It wasn’t.”

He smiled. Outside, insects started in the garden. Somewhere beyond the trees, a motorbike climbed toward town.

Marco opened the cupboard and found the coffee without searching. The mug warmed my hands while he reached for the bread.

“Can I eat this?”

“No.”

His hand stopped. He looked at me. I looked at him.

“Half,” I said.

His smile arrived immediately. I took a sip of coffee and let him have the bread.

Temporary, I reminded myself. Marco took half the loaf and put the rest back in the cupboard, exactly where it belonged.