Forager (19 page)

Mother opened the door and quickly pulled me inside.

“What are you doing out after curfew? You want to go to prison?” she scolded me. “And look at you! You’re soaking wet and as white as a sheet – are you trying to get pneumonia?”

“I have to see Father.” I stepped past her and strode towards his room.

“If you wake him in the middle of the night there’ll be all hell to pay,” my mother said as she rushed after me.

“He’s the one who’s gonna pay.” I assured her.

My older sister stood in her bedroom doorway, putting a robe over her gown. I ignored her and barged into my father’s room, which until recently had been my room as well. I switched on the light and shook him roughly until he woke.

“What on earth are you doing? Son – do you know what time it is?” he barked angrily as he sat up.

I glanced at the bedroom doorway to make sure Mother and Elder Sister were there. I wanted them to witness this, and then I launched my attack. “Why did you lie to me, Father?”

“What are you blabbing about, Son? Whatever it is, it can wait ‘til morning. Now get out of my room!”

“You aren’t gonna fob me off this time, Father. Why did you tell me I was in the hospital for nearly a year when you knew it wasn’t true.”

His anger vanished instantly, replaced by wide-eyed fear. “What are you talking about, Son? I’ve never lied to you.”

“No? Then tell me why you hid from me the fact that I got married back in 2120! You lied and said I spent that year in hospital, as though my wife didn’t matter at all!”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’ve been speaking to that wretched nuisance of a Japanese girl, haven’t you? Don’t believe a word she says.”

“That ‘Japanese girl,’ Father, is my wife! And for your information, she didn’t tell me. I saw my hospital file today, and it said I was admitted to hospital by a Nanako Jones, with the relationship to patient listed as wife. My memories from that year have also started to come back. Memories of being with her in Hamamachi!”

His face now as white as a sheet, my father climbed out of bed. “Okay, I admit I’ve been hiding a few things from you, but it was for your own good.”

“A few things, Father? You’ve done much more than that!”

“When that girl brought you back to Newhome you were in a very, very bad way. Not only were you shot while in Hamamachi, but they didn’t even have the medical expertise to treat you properly. You were having severe epileptic seizures every day and woke every morning with no memory of the previous day, nor of anything that had happened after you started foraging back in January.”

“You had no right to hide any of that from me.” I fired back at him.

“There’s more,” he said, but this time he spoke softly, and with deep emotion. “Every morning when you woke, you were so confused and disorientated from the amnesia. Every morning that girl would tell you she was your wife and everything that happened while you were together. And every time she did, you said the same thing – that you didn’t know her and couldn’t have married her because you weren't going to marry until you were thirty. Your answer always upset her and she’d start panicking, trying to make you believe her. Then you invariably told her to leave you alone and that you never wanted to see her again. Sometimes the nurses even had to take her out of the room just to calm her down. And when you woke the next morning, the whole cycle started again.”

“Father, she was scared out of her wits! She was only eighteen! You didn’t even have the common sense or courtesy to bring her home to meet my mother and sisters, did you? And you can’t use what I said when I was in that condition to justify what you did to her, and to me.”

“What exactly did he do to her?” asked my mother, breaking all convention by actually entering Father’s room. She was shocked and enraged that he had hidden all of this from her.

Father wouldn’t answer. He just stared at his hands.

“He got the Custodians to throw her out of the town!” I stared daggers at him.

“You did what?” my mother demanded, her face stricken with anguish.

Father’s head shot up. “I didn’t get the Custodians to throw her out of town. I got them to take her back to Hamamachi.”

“What’s the difference? You had her forcibly removed from me, her husband! And she’s had to wait until now for an opportunity to come back. And Father, you tried to marry me off to Sienna King! When you knew I was already married to Nanako. What were you thinking?”

“It was for your own good.”

“You keep saying that. But you know what? From now on, stay out of my life! You hear me?”

“That poor, poor girl,” Mother said as she turned to me. “Where is she now, Son?”

With a dizzying sense of dread, I suddenly recalled all the horrid things I said to her.

Ignoring the utter exhaustion that permeated my entire being, I somehow managed to run from my family’s apartment. I couldn't get to my flat fast enough! I had to see Nanako and apologise for my insensitive behaviour. But could she find it in her heart to forgive me? Or had I gone and blown it for good?

As I slogged back through the rain, using my superior hearing to avoid a Custodian patrol, it occurred to me that Nanako had been trying all along to tell me that we knew each other. She had been trying her hardest to trigger my memories of her.

She wore the same clothes that she wore when I first met her. She made me lunch and delivered it in her lacquered lunchbox, the same lunchbox she used three years ago when we first met and shared her lunch. No doubt the oden and udon dinners were further attempts to trigger my memories, as was the request to massage her legs.

And her attempts to trigger my buried memories were successful. Starting on the day we had rescued her and Councillor Okada from the Skel, I began having partial seizures, each one accompanied by a memory from my time in Hamamachi. And of course, the dream I had tonight, recalling when I first met her.

So was her strategy to try to help me remember her rather than force the truth upon me? It made sense if that was the case, considering how badly I reacted in the hospital when she forced the truth on me.

I continued to stagger towards my flat. I was so exhausted now that all I could do was put one foot in front of the other. My body ached from my wound as much as from exhaustion.

When I got to my flat, I reached out to open the door, but it swung open as soon as my fingers brushed it. Alarmed, I entered the flat and called out to Nanako, but was met with silence. I hurried past the kitchen and bathroom and into the lounge room come bedroom, desperately hoping to see her waiting on the sofa for me, but she wasn't there. Neither was she in the bathroom.

She was gone.

I sank onto the cold tile floor, fearing the worst. Had my callous accusations pushed her away for good? Had she gone back to North End to share her heartbreak with Councillor Okada, ready now to return to Hamamachi? A black despair took hold of me and I collapsed against the wall beside the shower. If I could only turn back time and think things through instead of losing my temper and saying such terrible things to her. I still couldn’t remember everything about our relationship, but I desperately wanted those memories back and I wanted to make new ones with her – if she could ever forgive me after shoving her away – twice.

I sat there, cold and depressed, when I suddenly remembered what she did the first night she came to Newhome. After waiting two years for an opportunity to see me again, her hopes were crushed when I didn't even recognise her. Downhearted and disappointed, she retired to her apartment's roof to be alone.

I sat up, a glimmer of hope piercing the gloom that overshadowed my heart. Had she reacted in the same way tonight? If so, she could be on the roof of my apartment block right now.

I scraped myself off the floor and stumbled out of my flat for the third time tonight. I headed for the elevator for the first time. I decided under the circumstances, I could break my vow to never use it.

The short walk felt like an hour, and the ride up to the tenth floor an eternity. But the elevator reached its destination at long last and the doors pinged open. Having regained a modicum of energy, I darted out of the elevator and into the stairwell, and up the stairs to the roof.

Doubt and worry assailed me as I reached out to open the door. What if she wasn't here either? What if she had given up on me and gone back to North End or somewhere else in the dark? What if she didn't want to see me again?

I shook my head to clear it and gently opened the door. A massive wave of relief swept through me when I heard the sound of Nanako's voice. Her gentle sobs cut right through me. I hurried from the stairwell housing and there she was, sitting on the roof with her back to the wall. She hugged her knees to her chest, completely soaked by the rain.

She looked up at me, eyes red from crying, black eyeliner streaked down her cheeks, and her hair plastered to her face.

I dropped to my knees, wrapped my arms around her, and rested my forehead gently against hers.

"Nanako, I'm so sorry for all those horrid things I said. I'm sorry I wouldn't listen to you. I should have known you would never leave me by choice. I should have realised my father had the Custodians throw you out of the town. And most of all, I'm so sorry for telling you I never wanted to see you again. I didn’t know – I couldn’t remember. But I’m remembering now, thanks to you.""

Nanako wiped her tear-streaked cheeks with the back of her hand and turned to face me, hope shining in her eyes. "Do you remember saying that?"

Ignoring the pain in my chest, I cupped her beautiful round face in my hands. "No, but I do remember when we first met, over in that warehouse car park where you and your three friends were racing lizards. You were wearing these very clothes, shared your lunch with me, and asked me to come to Hamamachi with you."

Nanako was shivering from the cold, but she threw her arms around me and hugged me so tight that I thought I'd pass out from the pain. "Oh Ethan, that’s wonderful - you’ve finally remembered me! But how did you find out what your father did?"

"After I ran away from you I started thinking and I put all the pieces together – all the things you said and did, and then it all just clicked. I went to my parents' house just now and confronted my father. He told me everything, even what he did to you. Nanako, I cannot even begin to imagine what you went through back then."

"Before you got hurt, we had everything, Ethan. From the time we met in January, we were inseparable. You lived at my next door neighbours' house but spent nearly every minute at mine with my family and I. You were able to join my foraging team too. We got married on the 7th of March 2120 and moved into our own little flat. We were so happy, but then you got injured in September and suffered from amnesia. You lost all your memories of me and the times we spent together. The seizures you started having were so bad, I was terrified I was gonna lose you. So I spent all of our money to pay someone to drive us to Newhome, hoping the doctors here could help you. They said they could, and your father promised to pay for the operation. I was so desperate for it to be a success – that you would recover and remember our lives together. But then those horrible Custodians turned up the day before the operation, dragged me from your hospital room, and drove me all the way back to Hamamachi.

"This trading venture with Councillor Okada was the first opportunity in two years to return here. No one was willing to make the journey because of the increase in Skel attacks. The guy who took us to Newhome the first time never made it back. I wanted to come back by myself before then, but my family wouldn’t let me.

"Ethan, do you have any idea how hard these last few days have been? To finally be with you again after all this time, with my head full of memories of all the wonderful things we did together, but you didn't even recognise me. And then to hear that your father was trying to marry you off, taking advantage of your amnesia."

"I'll never understand what you've been through with all of this," I replied sadly. "There is one thing I would like to ask you, though, and I think I know the answer. When you saw me on Monday, why didn't you tell me who you were, that you were my wife?"

She took my face in her hands and squeezed gently, as though trying to convince herself this conversation was actually happening. "Before I came here," she began, "I suspected you hadn't recovered your memories. If you had, I know you would have come straight to Hamamachi to find me. So when I got here and saw you didn't remember me, I wanted to see if you could fall in love with me again. I wanted to know if you could want to be with me again, not because you had to, but because you wanted to. I tried to trigger your memories of me by doing the same things I did when we met three years ago."

I grinned from ear to ear – I loved this girl. "So you made lunches and cooked dinners for me back then too?"

She returned the smile. "Yes, and anything else I could think of to make you mine." She paused, and added softly, "I want you back, Ethan. That's all I care about."

I took Nanako's small, bronzed hands in mine. My heart, my all, belonged totally to her. "Nanako, if you want me, you've got me. I am yours, now and forever."

"I do, Ethan, I do," she said, rapture glowing through her tear stained face. She lifted her chin, removed the choker from her neck, and slipped off the two gold rings that had been hanging from it. I noticed for the first time that they were different sizes.