The next morning, Callie, Mom, and Amanda went to breakfast together. It wasn’t something her family normally did. Going out to eat was a huge expense that they weren’t well equipped to handle, but Amanda had insisted, saying it was her treat.
They arrived at the Old Post Cafe in time for breakfast and slid into a booth, Amanda and Mom on one side, Callie on the other. Callie studied them quizzically, wondering how they knew each other, but they had clearly known each other for years, given how comfortable they were around each other. Really good friends somehow, although it seemed strange to Callie that her forty-year-old mother should befriend an eighteen-year-old.
When the waitress came, Amanda ordered coffees for herself and Callie’s mother, knowing that two sugars and one cream was how her mother liked it. Why did Amanda know this?
Callie’s eyes narrowed. There had to be something more to the story. There was something they weren’t telling her. Maybe Amanda had been her nurse or a social worker that she couldn’t remember. She felt torn about it. Were they protecting her from something or just lying to her? It was time to get to the bottom of it.
“How did you two meet?” she demanded.
Mom and Amanda exchanged a glance. “I told you, honey. I’ve known Amanda since the day she was born.”
“That’s not an answer,” Callie said. “That’s a deflection. How? How do you know—”
She stopped mid-sentence and took a sharp intake of breath. “Don’t look,” she said. “But my stalker has just come through the door.”
“Maybe he thinks you’re stalking him,” Amanda offered, giggling.
Callie gave her a bland look. “I’m serious,” she said. “He’s going to walk on by me, not look at me, and then go sit at the other end of the bar, where I can’t see him, and then he’s going to watch me eat.”
“How do you know that?” Mom asked.
“Because I can see his reflection in the napkin holder,” Callie said, as she positioned the stainless steel face to focus on the bar stool where the tall, dark stranger sat down and removed his hat.
She watched him order, knowing exactly what he was going to get: ice water, espresso, toast with grape jam, and a fruit cup. It’s what he ordered every time. After he finished his order, he slyly turned his head to look at her and then returned to watching the cooks move about the kitchen.
“See!” she hissed. “He looked over here.”
“A man looks at a table with three gorgeous women,” Amanda said. “And you think that’s strange?”
“He is quite handsome,” Mom offered. “As stalkers go.”
“Mom!” Callie hissed again. “This is not funny!”
She felt like her mother was teasing her rather than taking it seriously. Yes, the man was a rare specimen, maybe a couple of years older than Callie, no sign of ever having worn a wedding ring, well-groomed, too tan for Maine, wavy dark hair that was almost in need of a haircut that she secretly hoped he wouldn’t get, and possessing cheekbones and a jawline crafted by Michelangelo himself out of the most pristine marble. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a creeper, stalking her around Ashland, Maine.
He finished eating before they did, mostly because Callie spent her time spying on his reflection rather than eating her breakfast.
When he walked by their table, he tipped his hat to them and said, “Buongiorno, signore.”
Callie nearly inhaled her coffee, sending her into a coughing fit. That accent! Italian? He’d spoken in Italian!
But he was a stalker. She was sure of it. She wasn’t quite sure why her mother and her mother’s friend were smirking when it really was a concerning matter. She watched him leave the restaurant and then turned her attention back to her table.
“You’re not taking this seriously, mom. Some creeper is stalking your only daughter, and you think it’s funny or something?”
“Honey,” her mother said. “We live in a small town. There are fewer than 1500 people who live in the whole area. You’re going to run into the same people over and over. That does not make them stalkers.”
“You’re not hearing me, mom!” Callie said, exasperated. “I know we live in a small town. I see the same people all the time. But you’re missing the point. He sees me. He pays attention to me like no one else does.”
Just then a different waitress came by the table, one Callie didn’t recognize.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked. Then she did a double take. “Callie? Oh my goodness. I haven’t seen you since high school! You going to the University of Maine now?”
Callie blinked, not recognizing the girl. Someone she had forgotten from high school? Another memory lost? Rather than admitting her failure, she played along, greeting the girl like they had once been best friends.
Somehow, Amanda sensed her confusion and had the good sense to use Jill’s name, so Callie could hear it. Jill. That was the waitress’s name. But it didn’t bring back any memories. But then Callie wondered, how should Amanda know Jill’s name?
After the greeting, the girl returned to work, and Amanda said, “You had no idea who that was, did you?”
Callie shook her head, looked down at her empty plate, and bit her lip. The doctors had called it retrograde, dissociative, possibly transient. They kept encouraging her that the memories might come back. But names like Jill’s never surfaced, and the clinical labels didn’t make the blankness any less frightening.
“It’s okay, Callie,” Amanda said, reaching across the table to take her hand in a calming, reassuring way, as if they were old friends.
But it did not feel okay. She had lost so much of her memory that no matter how well the physical scars faded, she just knew that some of it wasn’t going to come back with time despite assurances from doctors that in cases like these, memories do come back.
For Callie, nothing had come back. She contemplated this on the ride home. None of her questions were being answered. Instead, all she gained was more questions. Who was the stalker and why wasn’t anyone worried about him? Why did Amanda know the waitress? It’s not like Amanda would have spent any time in this town or Callie should have remembered it, right? And while it was true that her mother had admitted to knowing Amanda since she was born, what did this really mean?
They were like puzzle pieces she couldn’t seem to fit together. Even the car ride presented her with new pieces. She could remember streets and houses. They went by Paulie Smith’s house. Callie had gone there for a few birthday parties when they had been in grade school. But the next street over, that looked just as old, held houses that seemed entirely new to her, as if a forger had painted them as foreign objects in a painting she thought she knew well.
Back at the house, they sat at the kitchen table talking. It was mostly comfortable, aside from Amanda sitting in the chair across from Callie, which felt strange. They played several hands of Rook, taking turns setting the trump color, but losing to Amanda for every hand. After cards, they sat with coffees in hand, chatting.
Callie looked back and forth between the women throughout the conversation and finally gave into her curiosity.
“Are you going to tell me how you two met?” she asked. “It’s like you’re old friends, but you’re barely out of high school, Amanda.”
“It’s complicated,” Mom said.
Callie went wide-eyed in realization. “Wait,” she said. “I’m wondering, since I forgot about my waitress friend. I’m wondering, and I hope it’s not true, but were you one of my friends? Did I forget you? Do I have amnesia about you too? The things I remember, I remember clearly. But the things I don’t remember, I don’t remember at all.”
Mom spoke first. “I told you that I’ve known Amanda since she was born.”
“Yeah,” Callie said. “But how?”
Amanda reached across the table, grasping both of Callie’s hands in hers.
“Not yet. Not now,” Mom said.
“It’s time,” Amanda insisted. “It’s time, Mom.”
“Mom?” Callie asked.
“Callie,” Amanda said. “I am your sister.”
“You’re what?”
“Why do you think there are two beds in your room? That was our room. We grew up together, both of us, in this house. You just don’t remember me.”
Callie pulled her hands free, pushed back her chair, half rising, tears falling from her face, her lips trembling. “No. No. No. That’s impossible! No way. If I had a sister. If I ever had a sister. I would never—could never forget someone like that. No way. No how.”
“Just wait,” Amanda said. She left the table and went into Callie’s room, returning a few seconds later with a journal. She sat down again, opposite Callie, who had slid back into her chair, horror written all over her face.
Amanda opened the journal to the first page, spun the book around, and slid it across the table to Callie, who looked down at it, seeing her own handwriting.
“You wrote this,” Amanda said. “To try to remember. To remind yourself. Before the memories were gone.”
“Before? Why? How would I have known about the accident before it happened?”
“There was no accident,” Amanda said. “Read.”
Callie looked down and placed her trembling hand on the first page, sliding the journal closer.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.
What !!! You gotta me hanging like that!!!