A Five-Minute Life

I closed my eyes. “I hope so, baby.”

She was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Will you be there?”

I lifted my head. She’d never asked me that before. “Yes. When you wake up, I’ll be right there. I promise.”

She cocked her head at me, a funny smile on her lips.

“What’s that look for?” I asked, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek.

“I’ve heard you say that before. That you promise,” she said. “I remember.”

I stared. “You do?”

She nodded, her eyes impossibly blue, and her smile serene. “It was in a dream.”

“Oh.” My shoulders fell. A dream. Not memory.

But for Thea—trapped in the amnesia—a dream was the only memory she had.

She brushed her fingertips over my chin. “The best dream I ever had. You and I were together, and we were happy.”

I smiled and held her close. “We were,” I murmured into her hair. “We are.”

No matter what happens tomorrow, we were happy.

We had the time of our lives.

Epilogue II

Thea

I open my eyes for the first time…

“I cannot believe this is real,” I said. “It’s a dream and I’m going to wake up at any second.”

“I can believe it,” Jimmy said, slipping his arms around my middle and kissing my neck. “You’re a genius. You deserve this.”

I held the arms holding me and stared around the darkened gallery. It took up an entire wing at the Richmond Museum of Modern Art and was devoted solely to my exhibit. It opened tonight with a gala party thrown by the curator. Art critics called my paintings, “an extraordinary visual journey through the life of the world’s second-worst case of amnesia.”

Recovered case of amnesia.

I’d been on Dr. Milton’s Laparin for the last ten years, and aside from one difficult side-effect, I’d stay on it for the rest of my life. It kept me in my life.

“Are you ready?” Jimmy asked. “They’re opening soon.”

“I want a few more seconds alone with you.”

“That works for me. You look stunning.” He bent to kiss my collarbone, across the scar there. “Was this dress expensive?”

“Why do you ask? Don’t you want your wife to look pretty on her big night?”

“Just determining how careful I have to be when I tear it off you later.”

I leaned into his mouth along my neck. “You always know exactly what to say to turn me into a puddle at your feet. And the tuxedo isn’t fair. Excessive, really.”

I’d hardly grown used to how handsome he was in the suits he wore to work meetings. But a tux?

Have mercy on my ovaries…