After 'Happily Ever After'

Of

A child's laughter is contagious and weakening, I keep hearing it.
I can't see the face attached to it or any connection between myself and any child.

I know it in my soul that I'd remember if I had a child, I've always wanted a child. I'd remember being a mother, right?

The doctors stated that the gaps in memory only seem to go back 4 years. Jay implied that 5 years ago we were together, with that whole 'fuck off' memory, so why can't I pieces it together?
Piece him together in my memory

I can't expect anyone to understand just how frustrating memory loss is.
I woke up at a hospital 6 months ago and asked for my parents, only to be told they both passed away a few years ago.
I'm still recovering from that grief

Jay was there when I woke up,
Oh my god!
He was there! I didn't know him and kept asking for my father.
He left when his presence gave me hysteria and that was the last time I saw him.
My sister Thandeka came claiming she and I hadn't spoken since our father's passing 2 years ago.

She doesn't know the details of my life before the memory loss.
She stated she's happy that we're back to speaking terms but she disappeared 3 months ago with a mere text saying
'I'm glad you're back on your feet and things should stay as there were. You're gonna be fine. Take care of you'

I haven't seen or heard from her since. I drove to her place and tried calling her with different numbers but nothing. I eventually went to the Free State to try to make sense of things and find out how my parents died or why Thandeka and I had stopped talking
My cousin Sipho and his family now live at my father's house but they were very welcoming.
My cousin was a little worried that the memory loss would cause me to ask them to leave when initially, Thandeka and I begged him to stay there after the funeral. It sounds like something we would say, Sipho was raised by my parents and is more of a big brother. There's no one more suitable to take over the house and poultry farm

I went to my parents grave, it's said they were gunned down during a hijacking 2 years again.

On my way back from the gravesite, I drove to Thabo's parents house. I was looking for something, anything that felt similar

"Oh my child, we haven't seen you in years, since we buried your parents him actually. How are you" she asked pouring me a cup of tea from her pink and white tea-set.

The scones were freshly baked, and her living room had a musky plastic smell that felt familiar. I burst into tears not sure where to start

"Mama, I don't know where to start, everything is a mess"

"4 years of my life is gone, just like that"

For a woman whose son I hurt, she sympathized with nothing but gentleness

" maybe this was God's way of redirecting you. Don't you think? Another chance to rewrite your story, be a better wife and mother maybe" she said

"You're not sleeping, quit playing Rato" a voice says jerking me out of the memory

The doctor explained that I had been in a medically induced coma 2 months after the memory loss in hopes to recover the memory and swelling in my head.
After that, 6 months ago, I woke up at my father's, after supposedly having run away from the hospital.
Thandeka claims I did but I don't remember ever leaving the hospital after the doctor told me the reason for my admission

The smell of rust and salt lingers lightly as I try to find the source of the voice.

"Stop dicking around I know you're not asleep, maybe you did kill Thabo, since when are you like this"