Blank Slate Kate

Chapter 32

Back at the beginning, Jake told me I could make my amnesia a good thing by recreating myself, and even though he and I aren't friends any more I spend the next month doing just that.

Hannah and I work together nearly every day, and after a few weeks she offers to officially add me to her business as its CEO. I'm tempted, but I tell her I can only be unofficial until I figure out how I'll handle MMC. I'm certainly not able to take back my previous clients, since I know nothing about their lives and issues, but I'm not ready to give up the firm Donna worked so hard to build.

I see Doctor Ferraro twice a week, and while my love for Ryan doesn't fade my anger and pain over his pushing me away begin to. She and I are thrilled that I didn't slide into depression again over the situation; while she won't let me say I'm 'cured' she does think my more stable emotional balance is a good sign that maybe the ECT and the antidepressants I've been taking since Ryan and I first kissed have made a difference.

With the rest of my time, I read every book I can lay my hands on to expand my horizons and see what I like, work through the Starbucks menu as I'd planned, and gradually redecorate my apartment to suit the lovely pink pillow Hannah bought for me.

It's a busy month, and a fun one, but it does nothing to bring back my memories.

Now, at four in the afternoon on a gorgeous late June Thursday, I'm standing at the airport's international arrivals gate hoping I'm about to see someone who will.

People pour out of the gate, and I scan the crowd. What if I don't recognize him?

But when he appears I know him immediately, even though he's so grown up.

I wave, and my six-foot-tall little brother hurries over and grabs me in a hug.

"Ethan!" I wheeze as he squeezes me like he's trying to deflate one of the rubber rafts we used to use at our grandparents' cottage.

He laughs and lets me go. "Sorry. How are you?"

I sigh and he says, "Oops. Never mind."

"No, it's okay. I'll tell you at dinner."

He's tired, of course, after his flight and the time change from Germany, but he gamely takes a taxi with me back to the city, drops off his luggage at my place, and heads out for dinner. We talk for a while at the table about his career and his life overseas and when he got the elaborate tattoos on his forearms and then about what I've been up to, both postponing the inevitable, but eventually we run down and he says, "So, I can't help noticing the absence of Ryan."

"Yeah."

He gives me a sad smile and I gasp.

"What?"

I shake my head. "You just suddenly looked so much like Dad."

"In my teens I'd have punched you for saying that."

I laugh. "You probably punched me all the time in your teens."

He shakes his head. "Not after your trip to England."

"Right, you mentioned that before. What happened with it?"

"Okay. I was thinking about this on the plane. I don't really know as much as I thought, I'm afraid, but I'm sure we can piece together your teen years."

I smile, trying to hide my dismay. He doesn't know everything? He's truly my last hope. "Good idea."

"But first... Ryan?"

I sigh and explain that my husband is not my husband because I am not his wife.

Ethan takes a long sip of his wine, which I felt uncomfortable letting him order since in my mind he's still a kid, then says, "I kind of see his point, I have to admit. You don't remember any part of your marriage so I can understand why he feels weird acting like you're married."