EverHeart

Chapter 18: Something Like Home

MARCO

Lucy was terrible at resting.

I'd suspected this before the storm.

After the storm, I had evidence.

“You're supposed to be resting.”

“I am.”

“You're sorting receipts.”

She looked down at the papers spread across the kitchen table. “My shoulder is resting.”

“That isn't how bodies work.”

Lucy pushed her glasses higher with one finger.

I'd learned something about those glasses. She only wore them when she intended to read long enough to forget the rest of the world existed. They were thin, almost too delicate for her face, and always slipped down her nose when she frowned.

They were slipping now.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked.

“Possibly.”

“Then your medical opinion is very reassuring.”

“More reassuring than finding out I was an accountant.”

One eyebrow rose above the frame.

I picked up a grocery receipt. “If I discover I voluntarily did this for a living, I don't want my memories back.”

She took it from me.

“You eat most of what's on these.”

“That makes me a stakeholder.”

“It makes you expensive.”

I put a hand over my chest. “After everything we've been through.”

“You ate seven eggs this morning.”

“Recovery requires protein.”

“Recovery from what?”

I pointed toward the garden.

“The tree.”

“The tree almost hit me.”

“Exactly. Very stressful.”

Her mouth tightened, but the corner betrayed her.

Victory.

I reached across and closed the notebook in front of her.

The almost-smile vanished.

“Marco.”

“No.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You were about to become extremely polite.”

Her eyes narrowed behind the glasses.

I'd learned that too. Lucy became suspiciously polite immediately before deciding to ignore advice.

“Please move your hand.”

“There it is.”

She leaned back. “What exactly do you expect me to do?”

“Nothing.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“Read something that isn't a receipt.”

“I was reading.”

“For fun.”

“I have hobbies.”

“What happened to them?”

She looked at me over her glasses.

“You arrived.”

I grinned.

A faint warmth touched her cheeks almost immediately.

“That isn't what I meant.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You were going to.”

She removed her glasses. “I'm going for a walk.”

I stood when she did.

Lucy sighed. “Are you going to follow me?”

“Yes.”

“I didn't invite you.”

“I live here.”

The words came out without thought.

Then they seemed to stop in the room between us.

My shirt hung over a chair. My shoes sat beside hers. The cupboard above the stove contained the crackers I liked because she'd started buying two packets instead of one.

My toothbrush stood beside hers.

I cleared my throat.

“Temporarily.”

Something softened in her face.

“Of course.”

I didn't know why that answer bothered me.

---

We walked into Puerto Espera slowly.

For Lucy.

Not me.

She accused me of hovering twice before we reached the main road.

The third time, she stopped.

“Marco.”

“What?”

“You're walking on my injured side.”

“Coincidence.”

“You've changed sides every time I have.”

I considered denying it.

The amusement in her eyes suggested that wouldn't work.

“Huh.”

Lucy stared at me.

I smiled.

She resumed walking.

She didn't switch sides again.

Puerto Espera still looked like the morning after a fight. Palm fronds were stacked beside the road, mud filled the gutters, and people worked on roofs while neighbors below shouted advice nobody had requested.

The sea beyond the harbor had already returned to blue.

That seemed rude.

Lucy stopped near the bakery.

I nearly walked into her.

“What?”

She pointed.

A handwritten sign hung in the window.

CLOSED — STORM DAMAGE.

Someone had added another line beneath it.

YES, MARCO, THIS MEANS NO PASTRIES.

I stared.

Beside me came a suspicious sound.

Lucy had one hand over her mouth.

“You think this is funny.”

“No.”

“You're laughing.”

“I'm breathing.”

“Treacherous woman.”

That broke her.

Lucy laughed properly.

Not the quiet breath through her nose she usually tried to pass off as one. A real laugh that narrowed her eyes and brought fine lines to their corners.

Sunlight caught the green when she looked at me again. A strand of black hair had fallen across her cheek, and she pushed it away without noticing.

I forgot about the sign.

For a moment, I forgot what I'd been saying.

Her laughter faded when she caught me looking.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You're staring.”

I was.

There was a tiny beauty mark beneath her left eye.

I'd known it was there.

I couldn't remember when I'd started knowing things like that.

“I know.”

Something changed in her expression.

Something shifted inside my chest with it.

I looked toward the harbor.

“Come on.”

---

We found Cami near the square helping an elderly man unload bottled water.

“Marco!”

She pushed a crate toward me, and apparently that was enough to volunteer me.

Lucy took the lighter bag.

I noticed.

I said nothing.

Growth.

“You two going somewhere?” Cami asked.

“Lucy insisted on walking.”

“I did not.”

“She became hostile when I suggested rest.”

“You tried to confiscate my notebook.”

Cami looked at me. “You touched her notebook?”

“I survived.”

“Barely.”

Lucy gave us both a flat look, though the remnants of her laughter still lingered around her eyes.

Cami noticed.

She noticed everything.

The old man thanked us with bananas. Lucy declined hers, so I took it.

“You see?” she said.

“What?”

“Expensive.”

Cami looked between us with that expression she sometimes wore, as though she'd noticed something neither of us had.

I decided not to ask.

Halfway home, we found Mrs. Alvarez sitting on the low wall outside her house with one shoe off.

Lucy noticed first. Her entire posture changed.

“What happened?” She asked, hurrying towards Mrs. Alvarez.

Her ankle was already swelling. I knelt beside her.

“Did you fall?” I asked.

“Slipped.” Mrs. Alvarez grimaced.

“When?”

“Five minutes ago.”

“Can you move your toes?”

She did.

I put my fingers carefully along her ankle.

And something inside me settled. The world narrowed beneath my hands.

Swelling. Tenderness. Movement.

No obvious deformity.

I didn't have to think about where to press.

“Tell me where it hurts.”

She pointed.

I tested the area gently, and her breath caught.

“Probably a sprain. Could still be a small fracture, so don't put weight on it.”

Mrs. Alvarez frowned. “I have things to do.”

“No.”

She blinked.

Lucy looked at me.

“What?” I asked her.

“You sounded like me.” She tilted her head.

“That is deeply upsetting.”

Mrs. Alvarez tried to stand.

We both stopped her.

She glared at me. “He's bossy.”

“I've noticed,” Lucy said.

“Traitor.”

Lucy had to call Cami for Dr. Ortega while we negotiated Mrs. Alvarez into accepting ice and a chair.

The doctor confirmed a sprain.

No obvious fracture.

Almost exactly what I'd thought.

Afterward, Dr. Ortega looked at me.

“You've done this before.”

It wasn't a question.

“I think so.”

“You knew where to check.”

“My hands knew.”

Another piece.

Medical training.

Maybe a doctor. Maybe something close.

A person with a profession.

A life somewhere beyond Moira. I should have wanted to run toward it.

Instead, when I stepped outside and couldn't see Lucy, my chest tightened.

Then I found her across the road buying tomatoes.

The feeling disappeared so quickly it annoyed me.

She looked up and found me almost immediately.

She held up a tomato.

“Dinner?”

“That's not dinner.”

“It's part of dinner.”

“You just watched me perform medical services. I need sustenance.”

“You ate two bananas.”

“That was medical work.”

Her eyes brightened.

I followed her home.

---

I cooked that night.

Or tried to.

The strange thing was that I knew how.

My hands understood knives, heat and timing. I tasted the sauce and reached for salt before consciously deciding what was missing.

Lucy sat at the table pretending not to monitor what I was doing to her kitchen.

“You're hovering.”

“I'm sitting.”

“You can hover emotionally.”

“I don't think that's a thing.”

“It is now.”

I added garlic.

Something tugged loose inside me.

A larger kitchen.

Someone laughing.

A hand reaching past mine for a spoon.

Warmth.

Noise.

Then nothing.

I stopped stirring.

Lucy noticed.

“What?”

“I don't know.”

She waited.

“I think I've cooked for people before.”

“People?”

“A lot of them, maybe.”

The memory was already gone, but the warmth it left behind wasn't.

That hurt more.

Whatever I'd forgotten, some of it had been good.

Lucy didn't ask me to force it back.

She simply stood.

“Move.”

“Why?”

“You're burning the garlic.”

I swore.

She took the spoon while I rescued the pan.

We saved dinner.

Barely.

Later, Lucy stole a potato from my plate.

I stared at her.

She chewed slowly.

“What?”

“You stole my food.”

“You steal mine.”

“That isn't the point.”

“It seems directly relevant.”

“This relationship has deteriorated.”

“What relationship?”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

The amusement disappeared from her face.

It hadn't sounded like a serious question.

Until suddenly it did.

Two plates sat between us. My shoes were near the door. Her book lay at one end of the table, my shirt drying nearby.

A cottage I'd arrived at half-dead had somehow become a place where I knew which cupboard held the glasses.

I smiled because that was easier than examining the strange pressure in my chest.

“The one where you provide shelter and I bankrupt you through eggs.”

Her shoulders loosened.

“Temporary arrangement.”

“Right.”

Temporary.

The word had made sense once.

Now it sounded slightly out of date.

After dinner, Lucy washed while I dried. She put things away, and I already knew where most of them belonged.

Later, she settled on the sofa with a book.

I checked the back door, locked the shutters and turned off the kitchen light without thinking about any of it.

That was what stayed with me.

I couldn't remember where I'd learned medicine.

I couldn't remember who taught me to cook, where I'd lived, what work I'd done, or the people whose laughter still survived somewhere inside my head.

But I knew Lucy took her coffee without sugar.

I knew the tiny line that appeared between her eyebrows when she was deciding how much to say.

I knew what her real laugh looked like.

I knew the bathroom window stuck when it rained.

I knew she left her glasses beside her book and forgot where she'd put them.

I knew which chair was mine.

Lucy looked up.

The lamp warmed one side of her face, her glasses already slipping down her nose.

“What?”

I leaned against the doorway.

“Nothing.”

Her eyes narrowed over the frames. “You've been spending too much time with me.”

“Probably.”

I looked around the cottage.

I didn't know what my real home looked like.

Maybe someone was waiting for me there.

Maybe I'd loved it.

Maybe one day I'd remember everything and wonder how I'd ever forgotten.

I wanted that.

I did.

But while rainwater dripped softly from the damaged roof and Lucy turned another page, something else had become true without asking permission.

Home was supposed to be a place you remembered.

Somehow, I'd found something like it anyway.