“Honey, honey! I didn’t say that’s what I’ve done. It’s just that I don’t know. Whatever I am, I can take my medicine, but I want to know what it is first. You’ve got to understand that.”

She tried a smile, blinking back the tears that lay close to the surface, and he forced a smile to pull at his mouth. It was difficult to comfort her, yet he knew that it was his duty to do so. She’d been through a hell of a lot, and she had the memories of it. He did not. Despite the alien feeling that was welling within him, he knew that she was the only person who could help him return to himself. Whether he loved her or not was immaterial; he needed her desperately to show him to the man he was. Perhaps it would all come back then.

“I’m sorry, Nick. I’ll try to help.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“Hungry?” She asked brightly, moving to turn the flame on under the coffee pot. At his nod, she went on: “There’s some apple pie and I can whip up a couple of sandwiches, or something.”

“Coffee and pie is fine.”

“In a way, it’ll be like courting all over again,” she told him, in an attempt at lightness. “It’s terrible to lose the things we had, the memories. I can’t share them with you anymore. But we’ll make a whole lot of new ones to take their place.”

“I’m interested in the old ones right now,” he told her glumly. “Things have happened so fast, it’s hard to accustom to the thing.”

“I know,” she mused, working over the meal.

He looked at her steadily. “Beth? When did you last see me?”

[p36]“Thirteen months ago.”

[p36]

[p

]

“No, no. I mean, where was I going, what was I doing?”

 Prev. P 20/96 next