“You were right about hiring the Emmerson twins; I feel like I have barely worked today, even though we were swamped for lunch and dinner.” Greta is helping me stack up the chairs on the tables so we can mop the floors as the girls downstairs see off the last of our diners. Today has felt more normal after a rough few days, and I’m starting to unwind again. My stress levels have been insane, and Greta has finally calmed down.
Jyeon and his friends left, finally. It’s the morning after the storm, without coming back. I heaved a sigh of relief but then had nightmares that made me feel like hell the last three days. I kept going back into the accident, the water, the night I crashed. Remembering his last words that he never wanted me in his life again and the pain of seeing him with that girl. It’s all come back to wound me all over again now that I’m an emotionally susceptible mess who cries at the drop of a hat. I hate that my past is once again my present. I know he is the cause.
I wake up drenched in sweat and screaming until Greta calms me because I’m drowning. Reliving the horror and trauma of getting through it and walking until I thought I might die. Everything I felt. The hopelessness, the despair, and the sense of being alone. Over the past two years, I still have them regularly, but this was a vivid reliving of the experience, as though it was happening all over again. Transported in time to the very feelings and sensations of dying again.
I was so jumpy after they left. Flinching anytime the shack bell went with people coming in. I couldn’t venture out of the kitchen until I knew he wasn’t coming back. I feel like my existence here is not as safe and happy as it was, and I’m hanging on by a thread that could snap at any minute. I know it could all unravel if he figures out I am who he thinks I am.
We hear the downstairs door ring go off a few times in a row and assume that’s the last of our customers being shown out. It’s quiet suddenly, and I stand up and stretch my back. We work out butts off in here all season, and in the winter, our online store is doing much better since we branched out to our store cupboard jars and recipes. Our ready-to-bake cookie kits are a best seller for the festive seasons. Finally, getting Greta to splurge on staff should make this season so much easier on us, and it’s not like we can’t afford part-timers.
“Send them home, and we’ll clean up the rest of the diner. The girls have been working hard all day.” Greta chin gestures towards the stairs to the ground floor, we’re upstairs, and I nod in agreement.
“I’ll tell them. I need to get the mop and bucket anyway. You can stack the highchairs for me.” I pat her on the head and waste no time heading to our wide wooden staircase and moving down, straining to look behind the counter for one of our twins as I get below the second-floor balcony.
“Girls? Where you at? You can both leave and head home. We got this. Good job today; you two rocked.” I call out, see Emily coming out of the kitchen, and get a beaming smile. She’s a pretty redhead with an abundance of freckles and a complete mirror image of her sister. I can only tell them apart because Emily always wears dresses, and Mary wears shorts. Adorable nineteen-year-old village girls.
“Okay, dokey, I’ll grab Mary.” She turns back and heads into the other room before both appear wearing lightweight raincoats because of tonight’s damp weather, and I walk with them to let them out the now-locked front door. It’s somehow peaceful with the pitter-patter of light summer rain on our glass-fronted windows, but it’s unusually dark for the time, and I wonder if it’s another storm brewing.
I stop to pick up a stool in passing that’s lying on its side, so they get ahead of me and out first. Picking it up and distracted by straightening it some more so they won’t fall when we start cleaning the floors. They leave with giggly goodbyes and are gone before I walk to lock it back up, but it opens again before I get there. Clanging merrily and swings to let some more wind and rain in while I’m still four feet away.
Two men duck in, shielding their heads from the weather with dark boating jackets, hoods up, and I frown and check the clock on the wall. It’s eight pm exactly, and we’re closed.
“Sorry guys, we’re not serving anymore tonight. There’s a twenty-four-hour pop-up food stall down at the west harbor if you need food. They sell beer and seafood. And have a tent to keep you dry.” I point out and gesture for them to leave again, not about to make an exception when we still have so much cleaning to do. Neither respond but both straighten up and pull their black headcovers down.
My heart stops in my chest, and I experience a second all-over shocked pause on sight as I come face to face with Jyeon again and have to blink hard because I hope it’s a hallucination. He has this ability to taser me with an imaginary zap by just showing up.
“We came to talk to you and your …. Sister.” The second voice is Bryant, and I turn to him and frown as he sarcastically emphasizes the title. Making it clear their attitude is different from our last encounter, and I hesitate, eyes flicking from one face to the other. Instantly nervous.
“What do you want? I thought my sister told you that you weren’t welcome here. We have nothing here for you.” I back off to widen the gap between us and hope Greta hears the voices and comes down. My heart flip-flops with an irregular beat, and my body runs cold as terror grips my soul.
“I think we should all sit down and talk. We’re not here to scare you or hurt you, Sohla. We have a lot to discuss.” Bryant is seemingly doing all the talking while Jyeon stares at me with unreadable tension, watching me intensely. Observing me while I fumble with my fingers to hide how my hands are the first to shake.
“We have nothing to talk about. It’s closing time. Can you go please?” I gesture past them once more, aiming an outstretched hand at the door. “Please go. Come back another time if it’s important.” A time when I can dodge them entirely and have Greta get rid of them once and for all.
Jyeon doesn’t say a word but opens his jacket and pulls out a rolled-up document he was keeping dry that he flips open and holds out to me with a raised brow. Hanging it between us, the front pages face me, yet I can’t read it in our dim lighting. My vision blurs because I am far from calm.
“What’s this.” I move back away from him, another step, not trusting him one bit and thinking distance is the only thing I have to combat him. A million things are racing through my mind at what this could be.
“Medical records and two background checks. On you…. and your friend.” Jyeon’s voice is huskier than usual, and a hint of emotion makes it almost raspy. His focus narrowed on me, and I can’t read what’s going on in his mind. I blink and stare at the white papers, everything swimming with the reality of what they are, and then push them away with disgust that they would dig around and invade someone’s life that way.
“Whatever bullshit this is, I’m sure it’s not even legal. … GRETA!!” I yell for my backup to come to me, hysteria evident in my raised voice and losing all composure. I thank my stars when I hear the distant scrape of a chair followed by footsteps coming to the stairs. Knowing she won’t ignore how I sound because it’s obvious I’m starting to panic.
“You were found wandering a road ten miles from here around two years ago. Suffering from amnesia, hypothermia, concussion, minor cuts, and lacerations. You were hospitalized for a week. You have a scar in your hairline from a head wound that could explain the memory loss, but no follow-up to say you ever regained them. The doctor detailed that you seemed confused and dehydrated, as though you had been through a traumatic accident or ordeal. A day after Sohla Park drove off a cliff… The background check says Greta Tarry is an only child who moved here seven years ago and bought this place with compensation for her child’s accidental death… She took you in, but you weren’t from here, and the name was given to you in place of Jane Doe. She’s not your sister, not a blood relation, and you have only lived here since the accident that took you from me... She found you and took responsibility for you….. You ARE Sohla Park. My wife! My Sohla!” His tone is heavy and precise, and he never takes his eyes off me. Eating into my soul with the darkest of gazes.
Now I know why he left so easily and didn’t come back. He must have been pulling resources and getting someone to dig who knew how to access things like this. That commanding president is known to be ruthless and consistent when he puts his mind to something. I was stupid to think he would fade away back to his world.
I swallow hard, unable to formulate a refusal when it’s so apparent and in my face like this. I should have known our lie was flimsy. I never thought they could easily check out stories or our paper trails.
“I told you I would figure it out for myself. I knew who you were the second I laid eyes on you. I spent my life next to you, living with you. Do you really think I wouldn’t know you?”
I’m standing ridiculously still and blank. I can’t react, not because I’m not trying to, but because our well-put-together story is being ripped apart, there’s a weird sense of freefalling and airlessness. I’m dazed and speechless and can’t think of how to get out of this.
“What right do you have to dig up shit like that?” Greta’s fierce and angry voice comes from behind me, and I’m tugged back harshly by her. Away from them so she can put herself in between us. My little forcefield of bravery who is the type to throw herself in front of a moving car for me. She has no fear when she’s in protector mode.
“Did you know who she was? Did you keep her here in hopes you might be able to cash in when she figured it out and came to claim what’s hers? Did you hide her so you could make her dependent on you? Owe you.” Bryant is in the fight, thinking like a lawyer and only seeing motives and dishonesty as to why Greta would help me when she did. I know because I used to think the same way. In our world, that’s all we know, so someone being pure of heart and motivated only by kindness is beyond his mental capacity.
It's the wrong thing to accuse her of, and as much as it angers me, I know it will incense her to pure rage and wound her pride.
“You’re a scumbag to think I would ever do anything like that to her. Cash in? I don’t know a damn thing about her, so why would I hope to make any kind of gain. She’s Anna, the girl who works here and is as close as my sister. A poor soul I scraped off the ground, who seemed like her world had rolled over her. She needed help and someone to protect her because it didn’t seem like anyone had wherever she came from. That’s who she is to me.” Greta lurches forward in anger, her temper flashing, and I catch her in the nick of time by her wrist and pull her back. My heart is aching with her veiled accusation aimed at Jyeon.
I have no words because I know we can’t lie our way out of this, no matter what story we think up. I never expected him to uncover it all, and it’s all too coincidental to keep up this ruse. They’re incriminating her, and I can’t let them. It’s stupid to keep denying it.
“No, she didn’t. We didn’t. I still don’t. You tell me you people know me, and you barge in here being this way, and I’m expected to listen to you and trust you. She’s trying to protect me. I don’t blame her, given my state when she found me. Why should we believe or trust you when you offer no proof or a reason I should even talk to you?”
Sticking with amnesia seems like the only sensible out for us. It takes away so many questions and motives. It hides my cowardice at never returning and saves me from accusing him of attempted murder. It’s a buffer.
Jyeon frowns, looks down at the papers in his hand, and exhales heavily, self-calming, believing me. Maybe he’s here with fear in his heart that knowing I’m alive, I might point the finger at him one day, and he has to tie up those loose ends.
“Can we sit down and talk about all of this? About who you are. I can show you a million pictures and articles. Tell you a million things about you that only you and I know. Back home, I have your ID, license, and credit cards that were all found in the wreckage.” Jyeon asks, softening his tone like he’s trying to appeal to me, and never once takes his eyes from mine. His manner is still, yet I can feel something radiating from him that I can’t put my finger on. It tells me not to trust a word that comes from his mouth.
“Can’t you accept she has a new life and identity and leave her alone? This is her home. She’s happy here, and she has friends that care about her. Who cares what she was before or where she came from? Can’t you go back to wherever, knowing she’s alive, and let it go? It’s been two years. She’s settled here. She came to us in a mess and obviously didn’t want to be where she was.” Greta appeals to their softer side, and I know it’s not working as the thunderous storm moves into Jyeon’s eyes, and Bryant frowns deeply. Greta can’t say what she wants because it contradicts us not knowing anything about my past.
“She’s my wife. My wife…… Why would I walk away?” Jyeon emphasizes the word, and I’m so tempted to drop the forgetful act to confront him about the ridiculousness of that statement. The fact he would use it now is beyond madness.
“So, you intend to do what? Huh? Take her against her will? Kidnap her? Upend her entire existence and drag her off to be with strangers she doesn’t know. In a world she has no memory of.” Greta’s trying to drive it home, but Jyeon seems stuck on only seeing it from his perspective. What he wants, what he needs from me.
“She can’t remember because she’s had no stimulus from her past life. How can she remember when she’s here and away from everything and everyone she knows? She needs to come home to remember. She needs to be given back what she has a right to remember. Twenty-six years that are owed to her.”