Page 31 of The Crimson Lily

D octor Gully stares at me, waiting for me to answer her question.

I already forgot about it. I stare out of her window, over a garden powdered with snow, with a frosted apple tree bigger than the garden.

There’s no sun outside, only the dark gray clouds of a Friday winter morning.

It’s cold in Doctor Samantha Gully’s office—my nose is still red from getting here. She’s my new therapist.

“Has the memory of your parents returned?” she asks again, insistent, tapping her pen on her file of wobbly papers.

I shake my head and purse my lips nervously. “I don’t think that’s really possible since they died when I was four years old.”

My fourth birthday, the first birthday I remember, is the day my parents died.

“What about your foster parents?” Samantha insists, seeing through the act that I really don’t want to talk about them .

A little after my trip to Paris, I saw the faces of Jeremy and Delilah Springfield in an old box underneath my bed, on some torn pictures I obviously never checked. I never remembered them. Not even to this day. They’re gone forever.

Samantha relaxes in her seat, her long neck obeying her torso as it merges with the velvet backrest. Her hair, blonder than mine, is strict and smooth. Don’t get me wrong, Samantha is a nice person. I just don’t like lingering too much on a memory I obviously don’t want to remember.

“Are you dating anyone?” she asks out of my silence, her tone implying I definitely am.

Gulp. I swallow my tongue. I don’t know how to answer. I have no wish whatsoever to talk about him, not today. He’s already too much on my mind.

She clears her throat to catch my attention again. “Liliana, you need to let me in. You need to let me help you.”

Enough! I scoff and stand up. “I’m sorry!” I exclaim, not feeling sorry at all. “I just don’t think our hypnosis sessions are going to bring me anything useful since I haven’t remembered anything new in six months!”

Samantha remains unmoved and motions for me to sit down. She waits for me to comply with her demand before addressing me again. “Perhaps we should take a break for a while,” she proposes, understanding of my demeanor. “Are you still in touch with your best friend?”

Béatrice. I haven’t heard from her in about…?fourteen hours. We actually chat via text every day and call every other day. She’s still my bright beacon of light, even now, in this dark winter. I nod furtively to answer Samantha’s question before she asks yet another one.

“Maybe you’re right,” I say, because she actually is. “Maybe I need a break. I feel like I’m exhausting myself over this.”

Here I am, admitting I’m trying too hard.

I’ve been breaking my neck over countless attempts to remember more.

After Paris, I remembered everything about Béatrice, bits of my student life, teaching, those general things.

Yet nothing from before, and nothing from…

?the Syndicate, or whatever that should mean to me.

When I returned to New York, I both expected and dreaded facing William de Loit again, but the bastard is now living in Rome! Or so his secretary says. Other than his disgusting face and the image of him trying to kill me, I have little left of the man in my memory.

For the past six months, I’ve been seeing Doctor Gully, with stubborn hopes that she’ll be able to help. I guess I’m angrier at myself than at her, really. I realized that. My shoulders relax, and I look at her with glazed blue eyes.

“Let’s just take a break,” I request, making her idea mine.

She smiles at me. I assume she saw a glimpse of progress in that moment. She lets me pack my things, shakes my hand, and waves goodbye. I don’t think I’m ever going to see her again.

Priya hands me a cup of hot coffee at my favorite diner, the Mumbai Chai.

I asked for it Indian style, with lots of soymilk and sugar.

I love it that way. It’s not Parisian coffee, but they designed it especially for me after my trip to Paris.

Priya always tells me I should come to India with her.

Maybe I will. I’ve actually never been to India, not even in my previous life.

Rajesh, Priya’s father, is sick today. Nothing bad, just a cold from the harsh winter.

I sit there at the counter, my hands clenching the cup while I stare into it.

I’m thinking of Doctor Gully’s words earlier.

Do you have a boyfriend? The best response would have been…

?maybe? The last time I saw him was five weeks ago.

He left me a mark so big on my thigh that I still see traces of it.

I chuckle at that memory. Maksim was really not careful with his belt…

“You should really get a boyfriend,” Priya remarks while she washes some glasses in the sink on her side of the counter. She’s been observing me for about five minutes while I stared into my cup with a silly smile.

My chuckle turns into a blushing giggle. I bite my lip and look at her with a sly gaze. I can tell her. “Maybe I have one already…” I smirk.

Priya instantly hops on her feet. “Oh. My. God!” she exclaims with a lovely Indian accent.

“Tell me all about him!” She starts getting too excited.

“Is he handsome? Is he nice? Will you marry him? You have to marry him! I have to be invited to the wedding!” She points an assertive finger at the air. “And I have to pick your dress.”

Priya is, without a doubt, my second best friend. We grew quite close after my trip to Paris. We go shopping together, and she supported me when I started working part-time again, handing me takeaway coffees every morning. Priya and her father are the jewels that make New York worth everything.

I fiddle with the spoon in my too sweet coffee. “He’s…?very handsome, yes.” I don’t dare say more.

If it weren’t for all the other customers who require her attention, Priya would have interrogated me right there and squeezed me for more juicy details.

I still fiddle with the spoon when my thoughts hurry to Maksim.

So much time has passed since I last saw him.

Sometimes, he stays with me for days. Other times, it’s once a week or once every two weeks.

He has missions, assignments, whatever tasks he needs to execute under the Russian mafia’s orders.

This is something I need to live with if I want him in my life.

I’ve made my peace with it. After all, I too was involved in one of his criminal escapades.

It’s easy for me to set that detail aside and not think about it.

Plus, it makes it even easier that Maksim always returns with little presents.

I got a silver necklace, the one I’m wearing right now—and never take off, as a matter of fact—under my thick pullover.

I got little trinkets from Russia too, which makes me wonder how often he actually goes there.

His current job, though, has lasted longer than most. Five weeks he’s been gone.

I heard from him once or twice, that’s it.

I won’t lie—I am extremely worried, concerned about him and his safety, which is why I’m desperately trying to keep him off my mind most of the time.

Is he being careful? Is he in danger? Will he come back to me?

I hold my phone in my hand, scrolling endlessly through Twitter to distract myself, stopping at the puppy photos. As if I’m no longer in control, my finger takes me to the last message I received from an unknown phone number.

February 17, 6 p.m. I’ll be there. M

He always signs his texts with M. That’s what makes his messages special.

They’re always so…?precise. No hello or goodbye, and no sweet talk, for that matter.

It’s not Maksim’s style. That’s something else I need to live with.

All of this prods me to ask myself one crucial question: What are we?

I just told Priya I have a boyfriend, which now, after some pondering, I find absolutely foolish to assume.

It’s not like Maksim made it easy, but whenever he’s with me, there’s passion, lust, sex—all elements of heated nights that can get me evicted for domestic nuisance.

But whenever he’s gone, I get a text or two dotted with a beautiful but lonely M.

I need to ask him. That’s it. I decide, here and now, in Priya’s diner, that I’ll ask Maksim tonight what we are and where this is going. I just need to know, and I hope with my whole heart that his answer won’t break it.

A bottle of wine, a nice silver tablecloth, two tall candles, and a large pan of vegan beef bourguignon—a recipe I got from Béatrice.

I’m not the best cook, but she is, so she hung on FaceTime with me, giving me wild instructions and teasing me each time I almost messed up.

It’s late at night for her, but that’s who we are—our friendship doesn’t have a clock.

I never told her whom I’m making this meal for, but she didn’t ask either.

I think she knows the answer but just doesn’t want to hear it. Maksim isn’t really high in her esteem.

It’s 5:30 p.m. when I put the pan on the stove to simmer for the next few hours.

I planned for everything to be ready by 8 p.m. so that Maksim and I can…

?catch up first. I quickly swoosh into the bathroom, shower even quicker, do everything I have to do, and put on a tight crimson satin dress that complements my hips and breasts perfectly.

I slip into a thin black thong, which I find a little too explicit even for me.

I don’t opt for a bra—that’s just an obstacle that won’t last long anyway.

I do my blond hair the best way I can: brushed to the left side while using a hair dryer.

I even put on a little mascara to make my blue eyes look bigger.

I’m so excited for this evening that I feel like a little school girl going to prom with her Prince Charming.

I just want it to be perfect. I want dinner and wine to be perfect. I want to be perfect for him.