"Ramani doesn't cook much anymore," he added apologetically. "She should be home soon.”
He brought Serene a mineral water and they sat on low furniture in a living room with too much fabric everywhere and whimsical, bright pictures that competed for attention, plants stuck in every spare nook, giving the room a slightly closed-in, swampy feel.
Serene sipped her water while John studied her, fascination that he couldn't quite tamp down emanating from his bright brown eyes.
"So I take it you don't remember me," he said.
She shook her head no.
John nodded and stroked at his short beard. "It's quite something, what you've been through," he finally said. "I can't imagine how difficult it must be to lose decades. How have you been adjusting?"
"I've been adjusting the way a person adjusts when they lose twenty-four years of their life," Serene snapped. Why was she sitting here, talking to this man about her memory loss? It was just like Ramani to be late, to be unprepared, to leave it up to her husband to greet Serene––a man she couldn't recall knowing.
John made an attempt to leapfrog Serene's sarcastic answer. "Yes. I suppose there's no easy way to navigate something like that. Um, your mother and I have been married for thirteen years." And then, awkwardly, "We met at a writer's retreat."
Serene set her glass down on a coaster on the wooden coffee table.
"Ramani writes?"
John's face lit up. "Oh yes, she's a wonderful writer. Poetry mostly, very moving, and some of her personal essays––heart-wrenching and funny as hell."
"What do you write?"
"Oh, nothing like that. Fiction. Romance, mostly."
"Romance?"
He smiled. "People always get a little shock when I tell them that. There are quite a few men in the romance genre. A lot of them use pseudonyms, women's names. I write contemporary gay romance, male couples mostly, and I dabble a little in heterosexual relationships. I've built up such a following with gay romance, though, that it's what my readers demand."
This revelation was not what Serene was expecting. Despite her irritation, she was intrigued by what this strange little man was telling her. "I worked as a psychotherapist for years,” he continued. “As a result, the couples in my books are all in therapy. Fictionalized, of course. They all see the same therapist, Marcy Grace."
Serene found a smile forming on her lips and then laughed. "Do you––I mean––are you published?"
"Oh, yes. I've written thirty-eight of these little gems in total. Hoping to reach forty by the end of the summer."
"Thirty-eight books!"
"Yup." He grinned. "But at the time that I met you, I had about three books under my belt, and you were doing some writing yourself."
"I was?"
"Yes. It was shaping up to be a thriller, about a little girl who lost track of her family at the beach and climbed into a car that she thought was hers to wait for her mom, dad, brother and sister. The family who the car belonged to came back and found her, but instead of trying to help her locate her own family, they kept her and drove away. Very intriguing. You gave me the first few chapters to look over and had been working on it here and there until about six years ago when you stopped."
Serene was flabbergasted. "I wrote a story? But how did I do that? I don't even read."
"Oh, yes, you do." John looked pleased that he had struck on something that captured Serene's attention. That he could help fill her in on the part of her past that she had yet to discover. "You picked up a love for reading after you had Barbara, you told me. All those hours spent around an infant's feeding schedule. The days were long, and you started reading your husband Steve's sci-fi books."
The words husband Steve sent a pleasurable feeling shimmering through Serene's being. It felt right, not like when she was referred to as Erica's wife.
"But then you discovered Ken Follett's espionage thrillers and moved onto Grisham and James Patterson. Although," John held up his finger, "if memory serves me right, your favorite authors are Liane Moriarty and Lisa Jewel. They write women's fiction. Your favorite book by Moriarty is––well, let me go get it. You gave me a copy years ago." He rose up a little stiffly and then walked with quick short steps out of the living room, returning moments later with a paperback book and handing it to Serene. "What Alice Forgot," John said. "Which, interestingly enough, is about a woman who loses her memory. She has a fall off an exercise bike at her gym and suffers amnesia for some weeks or months. It's been a while since I read it, so not too sure about the particulars anymore."
Serene quickly read the back matter and was instantly intrigued. She looked up at John and their eyes locked for a moment. He took his seat. A comfortable silence lapsed between them as Serene digested this new information about her former life.
"So," she said.
John leaned forward. He had a way of snapping to attention and becoming completely focused whenever she spoke.
"I was reading and writing when we met, but then when I became Dora, that all stopped?"
"Ah, yes. You know, that was interesting."
"Interesting?"
"Well, Ramani and I disagree on the matter, but that switch you made," he snapped his fingers. "Ramani said you liked pretending to be this Dora person when you were little, but," he rubbed his lips together and pointed his index finger at his temple, moving it in tight little circles in the air, "you see, talking to you right now, I know you're not Dora––are you?" His eyes held hers and Serene felt her throat tighten. Slowly, she shook her head.
"You are Serene now," he said softly. Then his voice returned to a normal timbre. "Dora… well, now, you can let me know if this conversation makes you uncomfortable in any way and we can stop, but now I've got my therapist
