FORTY-SIX

I stared blankly at my ex-husband. When we were parked in Queens, he had said something about sleeping together, but I didn’t think he was serious! Now he leaned closer.

“You know how good it is with me, Clare. Think of it as a kind of medicine.”

“Let me get this straight. You want to have sex with me for medicinal purposes?”

“Me? No. I want to make love to you because I miss you. Because I want to be close to you. Because I want to hear you cry out with pleasure, like you used to with me, all night long.”

“Matt—”

“You, however, should let me make love to you because you’ll enjoy it. It’s the ultimate sensory stimulation, and it may bring back more of your memories.”

“You mean, all the years I missed seeing my daughter grow up?”

“You didn’t miss them, Clare. You simply can’t remember them. You were there for Joy, every step of her journey to adulthood. You were a wonderful mother, and your daughter loves you like crazy.”

“She does?”

“Of course she does!”

I wanted to cry. “You don’t know what a relief that is to hear.”

I rubbed my eyes and then my neck. It had been a very long day and my back was still sore from that nap in the van.

“Here, let me—”

Matt gently swiveled my bar chair around and placed his warm hands on my shoulders.

“Your muscles are tight. Try to relax. Close your eyes . . .”

At this point, my knots had knots, but Matt’s strong fingers were as patient in massaging me as they were in tossing his Cacio. Slowly, tenderly, he worked on releasing the stress in my molecules. There could be no objecting; it was too delicious—and I felt my resistance weakening.

“Just answer me this,” I murmured, letting my head loll from side to side. “How would sleeping with you help me remember the lost years with my daughter?”

“The last time we made love wasn’t that long ago. It happened when Joy was still in culinary school in Manhattan.”

“Go on.”

“You and I were alone together in the duplex, above the Village Blend. You called her mobile phone for some reason and a drunk boy answered—total asshole. He was at some club and implied that Joy had gone off with her girlfriends to a restroom to do drugs—”

“Drugs!”

“Take it easy. Before the night was over, our daughter was back in her apartment, safe and sound, and she called you to assure us that everything was fine. But until that call, you and I were pretty upset.”

“And after she called?”

“To say we were relieved is an understatement. We were together in a foxhole that night, terrified and tense—and then everything was fine again. It was late; our guards were down. You said something that made me laugh, and before we knew it, we were . . .”

Matt’s mouth kept moving but he was no longer talking. Sweeping my hair aside, he pressed his warm lips against my neck. Then he was caressing my jawline, my cheek. Finally, he turned the chair.

The kiss was deep and sweet. I did my best to relax into it. When I lifted my arms to embrace his hard shoulders, he whispered—

“Let’s go upstairs.”

My body was certainly amenable to Matt’s suggestion. My limbs and lips would have followed the man to any bedroom in this ridiculous house. But something deep inside me resisted.

“What is it?” he asked as I broke away.

“I don’t think we should be doing this. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Okay . . .” He pressed his forehead against mine. “You’ve had a long day. I understand.”

“I do want my memories back,” I assured him. “And your sensory approach did work before. But making love is a big step. Maybe we can try again tomorrow?”

“Whenever you’re ready. We have total privacy up here, and all the time in the world.”

I sat back. “But that’s not really true, is it?”

“What part?”

“The time part. You said I was there for Joy when she was growing up, and I hope to God I was. But I need to keep being there for her. How can I let her go through a wedding without her mother?”

“What?”

“How must she feel? Getting ready to celebrate one of the most memorable days of her life and having a mother who doesn’t remember her aging beyond Girl Scouts and middle school.”

“Clare, you’re mistaken.”

“No, I’m not. Everyone is trying to keep me from knowing, but it’s obvious she’s getting married.”

“Married? To that shaved-headed mook she’s seeing? Oh, hell no. Over my dead body. You’re wrong. They are not engaged.”

“I don’t know about any mook. I know that I was tasting wedding cakes at the Parkview. No one seems to want me to know the truth. But it had to be for Joy’s wedding. Nothing else makes sense.”

“Listen to me. The cake tasting wasn’t for Joy. It was for—”

Matt stopped so short, I thought he had choked on his own tongue.

I waited for him to finish, but his incomplete sentence stayed that way. Even after his strangled words echoed through all three stories of this great room’s ceiling.

“Well?” I said at last. “Who was the tasting for? Who is getting married?”

Matt’s abrupt silence continued, but his expression was communicating plenty. He looked more than disturbed. He looked downright guilty. And I made the obvious assumption—

“Are you telling me, before the print was dry on your second divorce, you and I were planning to get remarried?!”

“God, no. It wasn’t me you were planning to marry.”

I blinked. “So you’re saying I was tasting cakes for my wedding? My own wedding?” Matt’s deep frown seemed to confirm it, but I had to hear the words. “Answer me!”

“Okay, yes!” He put his hands up, as if he’d been unfairly backed into a corner. “You were selecting a cake for your own wedding because you’re the one who’s engaged to be married. And the man you’re engaged to isn’t me.”

My jaw went slack. Then my mind began to (for lack of a better word) race. Like me and Matt on the scary roads that led to this hollow Hamptons hideaway, my thoughts couldn’t see a place to turn. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to arrive at a disturbingly inevitable address.

Finally, after what felt like hours, though it was more like seconds, I gathered the courage to ask what had to be answered—

“If you’re not my impending groom, then who is he? And where is he?”