really know more about me than I know about myself, don’t you?” he asked. Realizing she had access to his life while he didn’t felt strange.
“You do understand why I don’t just tell you everything I know, don’t you?”
“So you won’t fill my impressionable mind with fake notions of who I am. I know it would be easy…false memories and all that. But sitting here with a stranger who knows me inside and out, while only a couple of hours ago I was homeless without a plan is…disconcerting.”
Lizzie reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “I’ll bet it is. But if you ever settle down you’ll work through some of it. Maybe even more than you expect.”
He studied her hand for a moment—porcelain-smooth skin, a little on the pale side compared to most of the people at The Shack. Nice hand. Gentle.
“Now that you’re not restricted by any kind of medical ethics with me, tell me how much I can expect to return. Or how much will never return. Can you do that much for me?”
She pulled her hand back. “There’s no formula for that, Mateo. No way to predict. I’d like to be able to give you a definitive answer, but the brain can’t be predicted. You may be where you’re always going to be now, or you may improve. Losing pieces of yourself—or, as I call it, living in a fog—has got to be difficult. I see it, and I understand it, but I can’t relate to it.”
He smiled. “Wish I couldn’t relate to it either. Look, I appreciate you taking me in for a couple of days. I really do need some time to figure out what comes next. But you’re not responsible for me, Lizzie. Just be patient for a little while, and on my end of it I promise no more dancing on the table or anything else. I’ll be cooperative. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
He meant it, too. It was time to figure out his life, and it was nice having a friend on his side to help him. A friend who was patient and caring the way Lizzie was.
“Why didn’t you do that at the hospital?”
“Four walls, a bed, and a window to the world. That’s all it was, and it scared me, Lizzie. Still does when I think that’s all my life might be about.”
“So you refuse traditional help, do everything you can to distance yourself from it, in order to—what? I want to know, Mateo. If I hadn’t lived within walking distance of the hospital, or if a couple of the people who work here hadn’t known where I live, what would you have done? Because so far all you’ve done is walk away. From Germany, from the veterans’ facility in Boston, then in California, and from the hospital here. From—”
She shut up and took a bite of her burger.
“From everything, Mateo,” she said, once she’d swallowed. “And it all adds up to you walking away from yourself.”
“You were going to say fiancée, weren’t you?”
“You remember her?”
“Vaguely. Must have been a short relationship, because she didn’t leave much behind in my head. Except, maybe… She didn’t want to live with someone in my condition, did she?”
“Actually, I don’t know the whole story. It was in your chart, but since you weren’t my patient I didn’t read it. The only things I know about you are what I heard at the weekly patient review meetings.”
“That’s right. By the book, Lizzie.”
“You think that’s a problem?”
“I think in today’s medical world it’s an asset. There are too many people getting involved in aspects of a patient’s care who shouldn’t.”
Suddenly he could feel the tiredness coming on. And the headache. Dull to blinding in sixty seconds. So, rather than pursuing this conversation, he stood abruptly, tossed a few dollars on the table—enough to cover both meals and a tip—then walked away. He wanted to get out of there before the full force of the headache made him queasy, caused him to stagger.
Once away from The Shack, Mateo headed toward the beach, then sat down on the sand, shut his eyes, and tried to clear his head.
Right now, he didn’t care about what Lizzie was holding back. All he cared about was the pain level rising in him and how to control it.
And that didn’t come easy these days. Not easy at all.
She wasn’t going to interrupt him, sitting alone out there on the sand. Mateo was entitled to his moods and his mood swings and it wasn’t her place to hover over him. If he needed her help, he’d ask. Or not.
It was almost an hour later when he returned to the house. When she looked in Mateo’s eyes she saw how lost he was, but she also saw the depth of the man. He was in there—just locked away.
“Look, I’m going out for a night swim, then I’m going to sit on the lanai for a while to relax. You’re welcome to come, or you’re welcome to stay here and read a book, watch a movie—whatever you want to do.”
“You don’t have to feel responsible for me, Lizzie. I can take care of myself.”
“I was just being polite. You look tired, and I thought a swim might make you feel better.”
He looked more than tired. He looked weary. Beaten down. He looked like a man who was fighting with everything he had to get back on the right path. It worried her, even though she had no right to be worried. Still, she couldn’t help herself. There was something about Mateo that simply pulled at her.
“And I was just being honest. I don’t want you disrupting your life for me.”
She smiled. “To be honest, I hadn’t intended on doing that. I just thought it would be a nice way to end the evening.”
With that she went upstairs, changed into her swimsuit—a modest one-piece, black, no frills, nothing revealing—and went straight to the beach alone, leaving Mateo watching some blathering documentary on her TV.
Too bad, she thought as she dipped her toe in the surf. He might have enjoyed this. And she might have enjoyed doing this with him.
She was stunning, even though she was trying to hide it in that swimsuit. But her kind of beauty couldn’t be hidden. Not the outside beauty, and not the inside beauty.
This was a huge imposition, him living in her home. He knew that. But so much of him wanted to get to know her and, while ending up here really hadn’t been his intention, when good fortune had smiled on him he hadn’t had it in him to turn his back on it.
He moved along the beach from where Lizzie had entered the water. He wanted to join her, but he didn’t want to impose. Yet he’d wandered down here, not sure what he was hoping for. Another invitation? Perhaps nothing?
In all honesty he had no right to think anything or want anything, in his condition. But watching Lizzie… It gave him hope he hadn’t felt before. Maybe something in him would change. Or something would
