Page 10 of The Fates We Tame

We walk to the restaurant in silence. While the paintings and window dressings and flowers are fancy, the easy-to-clean tables are industrial, and the setting is sterile. Eating with unstable limbs can be messy. Some people choose to eat in their rooms with their carers. I did for the first month I was here. After a while, the embarrassment I felt at being seen eating in public came second to feeling trapped in my room.

There are all kinds of special seats depending on needs, but Theo leads us to a table by the window without asking me where I want to sit.

A man who takes charge.

I secretly like it.

He takes a second to pull out my chair before sitting in his own.

“So, tell me more about what happened to you,” I insist.

Because now that I have his attention, it’s suddenly imperative I know more about him.

3

SWITCH

Idon’t know why I said yes to eating lunch with Sophia. The only thing on my mind is to get the fuck out of here at the earliest possible moment. My focus is on my physio, regaining my strength, and figuring out how to string two words together properly.

And trying not to question why my mom looks so tired, only to be met with instant dismissals that the bed in my house isn’t comfortable. That she’s gotten so used to the warm weather in Florida that the damp Jersey fall air is no good for her lungs and she’s under the weather.

I’m not buying any of it.

So, I think, maybe, that I took one look at Sophia with her long dark hair and pretty lips and thought perhaps I just wanted to be around someone who understood for a change. That I could escape the sympathetic glances.

“We could always start with the basics. Spastic hand paralysis or flaccid paralysis?” Sophia asks, glancing down at my hand.

Not exactly the understanding I was looking for. I slide my hand off the table and rest it in my lap. “That’s a pretty…forward question.”

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” She laughs, and it’s a pretty sound.

I shake my head as the food I ordered at breakfast this morning appears in front of me without my having to ask. I pick up the fork and firmly press the tines into my finger until they leave a row of four tiny yet imperfect divots.

The sharp pain of them centers me.

“Mine was spastic,” she says, flexing her fingers in front of her.

She has no idea how reassuring hearing that is as she uses her napkin and holds a water glass like it’s a crystal ball. “I see orthotic devices, mobilization exercises, and grip and pinch strengthening in your future.”

“Funny. How long did…it take?”

“My hand? Four months, but I’m going home soon, not that I remember home.”

“Amnesia?” I ask.

Sophia nods.

“I’ve lost about a decade,” I say. “I remember enlisting but nothing beyond basic training. I remember some of my brothers, but not all of them. Some of them look so different to the last time I remember them. I don’t remember any of their old ladies except one because I knew Gwen when we were kids.”

“It sucks, doesn’t it?” Sophia pauses for a moment and looks out of the window. “All of mine is gone. Every single memory. I don’t even remember my family. It’s like living in this other world where you once existed but don’t anymore. Or like someone set you down as a blank canvas in the world.”

There’s a wistfulness. She comes across as so funny and confident and irreverent, but I think back to seeing her panic when I saw her missing eye.

Then I pause for a minute. I remember something that actually happened from two days ago. Maybe that’s progress.

Neither of us eats our food.

“I’m sorry, Sparrow,” I say.