“I’m sorry; I never check my messages.”
“So go! Tell me what happened! I gave the worst performance of my life tonight. The conductor was staring daggers at me because of you.”
“First, I need you to sit down,” Hope started.
“I’m lying down in bed, and I plan to stay that way.”
Hope told him everything. She wasn’t the friend he had traveled the world with, the orchestra buddy who had gone from concert to concert with him over the years. The woman he had known had died in a helicopter crash, and the woman who had come back to life was someone different.
She apologized for being an imposter and swore she hadn’t known the truth until now, until the lighthouse had lit up the darkness of her memory.
Simon remained silent, and Hope apologized some more. She would leave tomorrow, she assured him. He would never hear from her again.
“I’m begging you, Simon, say something,” she cried. “You’re the only person I know, even a little bit. The only person I’m not a complete stranger to.”
“I think you’re being a little harsh on Walt and Dolores there,” he sighed. “What can I tell you? That I have no choice but to believe you? Or that I suggest you get yourself committed? I believe you. And I also think that the doctors who reanimated you have some serious explaining to do. Truth be told, Melly only really became my best friend after the accident,” he admitted. “Or should I say Hope. I guess I’ll need to get used to calling you that. Love at first sight is a thing. Why shouldn’t friendship at first sight be? Stay at my place for as long as you need. And I get the feeling that you need that now more than you did yesterday. I’ll be home shortly, and as soon as I get back, we’ll go out and celebrate this crazy news. Because not celebrating something this insane would be an affront to life itself. What you do next is what matters most now.”
“I know. I owe Melly’s parents an explanation too.”
“Good luck with that. But I was thinking of the love of your life.”
“I’ll find Josh, wherever he is,” Hope said. “Even though I don’t have the slightest idea where to start.”
“Returning to the scene of the crime is what all good detectives do.”
“Simon, when you get up on that stage, play for us. Promise?”
“Honey, if I didn’t have to stay quiet because the conductor is fast asleep in the next room, I’d be grabbing my violin right now and waking up the entire hotel. Don’t you dare leave me hanging without an update again. And now, I need sleep.”
Simon gave her his love and hung up.
Late the next morning, Hope arrived at the door to the Barnetts’ house. Harold was surprised to find his daughter home so early, and was doubly surprised by the serious tone in her voice when she asked him to fetch Betsy and to meet her in the music room.
There she revealed the whole story, and told them of their daughter’s tragic end. The real Melly, the talented concert pianist, hadn’t survived the helicopter accident. The woman before them was just Hope, a neuroscience student from the past.
Betsy accused her of having lost her mind, of not knowing what she was saying. She asked her if she had stopped taking her drugs, and told her she would take her back to the Center to see that wonderful doctor, and everything would be as good as new. She would pay no attention to this absurd nonsense, and wondered what demon had possessed her, to be standing there saying that their daughter was dead, when she was right there, before their very eyes? For the first time in their forty-year marriage, Harold shouted at his wife to be quiet.
“She’s telling the truth, Betsy,” he said once he’d regained control of his temper. “We’ve always known it. When she woke up, that wasn’t Melody’s light in her eyes. It was someone else. I tried so many times to talk to you about it, but you didn’t want to hear it, and I didn’t have the courage to make you admit it. Something happened at the Center. They must have lost Melly’s memory, or deleted it by accident, and so they gave us a different one instead. Right from the start, I thought that research director was hiding something behind that beard and those glasses.” Harold continued. “That distant look he had—it all stank of dishonesty. You thought he was God himself, but he had the smell of hypocrisy about him. I knew he was lying. And as for you, young lady,” he said, turning to Hope, “how long have you been deceiving us?”
Hope pulled a letter out of her pocket. She had written it that morning. In it, she declared that she was not related to the Barnett family, and waived all rights to any inheritance.
She gave the letter to Harold, and told him how very sorry she was for him and his wife. And then she left without another word.
Betsy rushed behind her, grasping to take her in her arms, but Harold held her back, pulling her toward him and embracing her.
Hope walked through the kitchen, hugged Dolores and Walter, thanking them for everything they had done, and left the estate. She would never go back.
In the cab speeding over to Simon’s apartment, Hope thought back to something Harold had said.
The Barnett couple weren’t the only people the research director had been hiding something from. She remembered the face hovering over her on the day she woke up, and now that her memory was back, she recognized the person behind the beard and glasses.
She asked the cab driver to change direction. They were heading to the Longview Center.
The receptionist wouldn’t budge: the research director was unavailable without an appointment, she
