Chapter 6: Temporary
1974 Words
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 another swell and came down hard enough to rattle the windows. Spray flashed white beyond the deck. Moira had already shrunk behind us into green hills and clustered roofs.
“Doing what?”
“Sleeping.”
“Usually with my eyes closed.”
“Lucy.”
I closed the eye again.
“The boat is trying to throw us into the sea.”
“It isn't.”
“That sounded very confident for someone who isn't looking.”
“I've been on worse.”
A pause.
“How much worse?”
“Much.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
The ferry rolled again.
Marco went quiet.
Too quiet.
I sat up.
His hand had tightened around the rail. His attention remained fixed on the water.
“Marco.”
“I'm fine.”
True.
Incomplete.
“You don't have to look at it.”
“I know.”
He kept looking anyway.
For most people, a ferry was transportation.
For Marco, the last thing before Moira was water.
Maybe his mind had forgotten drowning.
His body might not have.
Eventually, he released the rail.
“You really don't get motion sick?”
“Not anymore.”
“Anymore?”
“I travel a lot.”
“For work?”
“Mostly.”
“Planes?”
“Yes.”
“Boats?”
“Yes.”
“Helicopters?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows rose.
“What exactly do you do?”
I looked toward the horizon.
“Administration.”
Silence.
I glanced at him.
“Your administration has helicopters?”
“Sometimes.”
“Lucy.”
“Marco.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“One day I'm going to get a straight answer out of you.”
“That sounds ambitious.”
He laughed.
Some of the tension left his shoulders.
Good.
---
San Telmo was large enough to make Marco quiet when we docked.
Traffic crowded the waterfront. Glass storefronts replaced Moira's painted shutters. A courier with translucent wings waited impatiently at a crossing beside two office workers who barely noticed him.
Marco stopped outside the hospital.
His hand went automatically to his pocket.
Nothing there.
No phone.
No wallet.
No identification.
He dropped it.
“Apparently I keep checking.”
“You did it at the ferry terminal too.”
“I did?”
“Twice.”
He frowned.
“That may be useful,” I said.
“How?”
“You probably carried something there.”
“A wallet?”
“Likely.”
“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.
So was everything except the part where none of it made sense.
The physician reviewed Ortega's notes, repeated several tests and eventually 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.”
I looked at her.
“And the amnesia?”
“It could still be trauma-related. Physical, psychological, or both. Memory can return gradually, suddenly, in fragments…”
She hesitated.
“Or not at all.”
Marco stopped moving.
“Not at all?”
“It's possible. That isn't a prediction. You're forming new memories normally, you're oriented, and your procedural memory appears intact. Those are all good signs.”
“Okay.”
It was the kind of okay that meant nothing of the sort.
I didn't correct him.
We left with follow-up instructions and a bill Marco tried very hard not to look at.
He failed.
“That much?”
“Yes.”
“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 pulled out my wallet.
His attention shifted.
“You're paying cash?”
“Yes.”
“For that?”
“Yes.”
He watched the bills leave my hand.
“What?”
“Cami was right.”
“Dangerous sentence.”
“You really do just carry cash.”
“I carry enough.”
“How much is enough?”
“Enough.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Are you secretly rich?”
“No.”
The answer came easily.
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.
Of course he did.
We found a restaurant near the waterfront, where he ordered enough for two people and then 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.”
A pause.
“Do you want it back?”
“You touched it.”
“That feels unfair.”
“Keep it.”
He ate it with the satisfaction of a man who had won something.
For a while, conversation came easily.
The ferry schedule. Moira's bakery. Marco's apparently instinctive 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 question had apparently been waiting for us to stop laughing.
“The police said it could take a few days,” he continued. “And the doctor said my memories might…”
“Not come back.”
His mouth tightened.
People moved past the open restaurant carrying phones, shopping bags, errands.
Lives.
“I can't stay in your spare room forever.”
“No.”
He looked at me, surprised.
“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 over the edge of his napkin.
“I don't have money.”
“I know.”
“Identification.”
“I know.”
“A job.”
“You might.”
“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 despite himself.
It faded quickly.
“I don't like owing you.”
There it was.
Not money.
Not really.
Dependence.
“You don't owe me.”
“I live in your house.”
“Temporarily.”
“You buy the food.”
“Unfortunately.”
“You paid for the clinic. The ferry. This.”
“You stole my spring roll. Consider it partial repayment.”
“Lucy.”
I set down my spoon.
The humor had gone from his face.
“I need to do something.”
Simple words.
Heavy ones.
“Then do something.”
He frowned.
“You can cook.”
“I can make coffee.”
“You can assess injuries.”
“Less useful inside your kitchen.”
“You fixed the shutter.”
“One shutter.”
“There are other things wrong with the cottage.”
His attention sharpened.
“How many?”
I immediately regretted this.
“Marco.”
“How many?”
“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 before he saw the smile.
When I looked up, he was waiting.
Not teasing now.
“Fine.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You help with the cottage. Cooking, groceries, whatever you're capable of doing 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.”
The word settled between us.
Temporary.
It should have simplified everything.
Instead, something in Marco's face eased.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Then he reached for another spring roll.
I slapped his hand.
“Ow.”
“That one was mine.”
“Quality control.”
“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 absolutely 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.
None of those things had happened.
Cami knew it.
She 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.”
I nearly walked into him.
“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 dangerously purposeful.
“No.”
“I haven't said anything.”
“You have a face.”
“I always have a face.”
“That one means tools.”
He grinned.
“Where are they?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“We just spent the day at a hospital.”
“I'm healthy.”
“You have amnesia.”
“Still?”
I stared at him.
He laughed.
Then opened the cabinet beneath the sink anyway.
“Temporary houseguests usually ask permission before reorganizing plumbing.”
His head disappeared beneath the basin.
“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.
Marco stood at the counter making coffee.
My coffee.
He placed the mug in front of me without asking.
Black.
No sugar.
Exactly right.
I looked at it.
Then at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was a look.”
“It wasn't.”
He smiled.
Outside, evening settled over the cottage. Insects started in the garden. Somewhere beyond the trees, a motorbike climbed toward town.
Marco opened the cupboard and found the coffee without searching.
Three days.
That was all it had taken.
The mug warmed my hands.
The kitchen no longer sounded empty.
Temporary, I reminded myself.
Marco reached for the bread.
“Can I eat this?”
“No.”
His hand stopped.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
Then I sighed.
“Half.”
His smile arrived immediately.
Temporary, I thought again.
This time, the word sounded less convincing.
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