25
Steve - February 2020
Steve waited a full minute after ringing the bell before Erica answered the door. Her eyes were puffy, and she was still in pajamas, though it was eleven in the morning. Her face formed the question before she asked, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to see Dora."
Erica shook her head, running her hand over the shadow of curls that covered her scalp. "I might have to take her back to the clinic, she hasn't been doing well since I brought her home yesterday."
"Is it alright if I come in?"
Erica glanced over her shoulder and then stepped out, closing the door behind her, and folded her arms. "Let's talk out here."
He rubbed at the stubble on his cheek with the back of his hand. "Barbara tells me that she thinks there's more to Dora's condition than just the amnesia." Steve paused at the flicker in Erica's eyes. "Is there something that you're not telling me?"
Erica sighed. "Maybe we should have started with visits first. I think it's been too overwhelming for Dora, seeing the kids and the house and then sleeping here."
"It's been a month of Dora recovering, but this is not just about Dora and her needs. The kids have been affected too. Jesse told me last night that he didn't think she wanted them."
Erica did not respond; she kept her arms crossed, standing before the door like a guard. It was something Steve found particularly annoying about her, how she emotionally retreated from conflict, would get very quiet, go into observation mode. Conversation was like a jump rope and Erica had a habit of dropping her end.
"Dammit, Erica, I'm talking to you."
"What do you want from me?" She challenged.
"My kids are spending time with a mother who, by all appearances, is mentally unraveling. I'd like to know what we're dealing with."
When Erica spoke, her tone was calm, measured, her voice soft. It was how she controlled the conversation. Bring it down, bring the anger down. The more upset a person got, the calmer she became.
"It's a matter of confidentiality. Dora's confidentiality."
"So, there is something more? And while you're trying to protect Dora, what about the children's sanity? Their safety?"
"They are safe, Steve. Whose house are the children at right now? Your house."
The door opened, startling both of them, and there she was. Dora. Like Erica, she still wore pajamas. Her straightened hair hung mussed and uncombed over her shoulders. She'd put on weight, mostly in her legs. They were a little thicker and her hips slightly wider. Dark half-moon shadows hollowed out her eyes and her brown skin held an unhealthy pallor, like greying beef. She stared at him blankly as if he were a stranger, and it suddenly dawned on him that Dora didn't recognize him. She had no idea who he was.
"Dora." Her name came out of him like an exhalation of breath.
Dora frowned and her eyes darted to Erica as if she were silently asking her wife to translate the role this strange man played in her life.
Erica uncrossed her arms, her expression softening. "Do you know who this is?" She asked, gesturing toward Steve.
Dora looked at him again, eyes large, luminous. Inside those eyes was someone else, someone he hadn't seen in a long time. She shrugged, a familiar gesture he'd witnessed thousands of times. It was how she lifted her shoulders that made his throat tighten. Shyness masked as quiet confidence.
"Do you remember Steve?" Erica asked.
He was not prepared for the look of shock that swept over Dora's features, her mouth opening, hands flying up to her hair, tucking the front locks behind both ears, once, twice, three times.
"Steve?" She asked in a voice that wasn't Dora's. A voice he hadn't heard in a long time.
His throat tightened. Dora glanced at Erica and then back at him, her eyes moistening into tears that pooled into a thin film and then fell in large drops, one splashing on her hand. A bubble of mucus expanded out of one nostril."
"Hey," Erica said softly, reaching over to hug or pat Dora, Steve wasn't sure. But Dora sidestepped her and moved closer to him, chest rising. Sharp little gasps of air. The tears so copious that her face within seconds had become a wet mess. Steve did something he hadn't done in years. He caressed her cheek, her twitching wet cheek, pushing down his own emotions as best he could. Grief that threatened to swallow him whole, grief he thought he'd annihilated when his marriage had gone up in smoke after Dora had taken over. Loud, laugh-in-your-face Dora. When he managed to tear his eyes away from Dora and focus back on Erica, she seemed to have visibly shrunken, to have become smaller in stature in a matter of mere seconds.
"May I come in?" He asked again.
Erica said nothing, but Dora nodded, clutching his hand. It was only when he and Dora had stepped inside that Erica seemed to come to life and followed them in.
Cuppa was making breakfast. When she saw them, she set down the carton of eggs she held in her hand.
"Oh dear, what do we have here?" She said, rushing to pull out a chair for Dora at the kitchen table, but Dora shook her head and pulled Steve after her, pulled him into her tiny little office that used to be her bedroom. He took in the futon still on the floor,
