Chapter 2
Mary did not hug me tightly.
She did not cry tears of joy or scream.
She just held the photograph with trembling hands while staring at it.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured softly, “but I don’t remember that little girl.”
I felt like something precious had just been ripped directly out of my chest.
For twenty years I had been told that my mother had died in the horrible fire that destroyed our house in Flagstaff. The firefighters never found her body, but the entire place was reduced to ashes, so everyone assumed that no one could have survived that blaze.
I was only ten years old back then.
After that terrible night, I was raised entirely by my aunt.
I met Lucas when I was twenty years old, and I never stopped wondering what had really happened on that night long ago.
Now my mother was standing directly in front of me, alive and breathing.
Yet to her, I was nothing more than a complete stranger.
When we went downstairs together, Lucas was waiting anxiously in the hallway.
“You knew something about this, didn’t you?” I accused him with tears in my eyes.
He shook his head gently.
“I wasn’t sure at all,” he answered.
Then he confessed that, while serving food in the dining hall, he had noticed two specific things, which were Mary’s approximate age and a faint scar on her left wrist. Years before, I had told him that my mother had burned that hand while cooking when she was young.
“I thought it might just be a strange coincidence,” Lucas explained softly. “That’s why I brought her here, because I wanted you to see her before you got your hopes up.”
I hugged him tightly while crying on his shoulder.
The very next day, we took Mary to see a private neurologist in town.
After conducting several detailed studies, the doctor explained that the extreme trauma suffered twenty years ago could have caused severe long-term amnesia.
“Don’t pressure her too hard,” the doctor warned us carefully. “Photographs, familiar places, smells, or old songs can act as a stimulus related to her past life to open a door.”
For several weeks after that, I turned our house into a living museum of my childhood.
I looked for old photo albums in the attic.
I prepared the exact homemade pancakes that she used to make for me every Sunday morning.
I played the smooth jazz songs she always listened to while cleaning the house.
I even took her to the small public park where she used to buy me fruit popsicles after school.
However, nothing seemed to work at all.
Mary smiled politely at everything, but she simply did not remember her past.
One afternoon, she pointed her finger to a photograph where she appeared standing next to a handsome man.
“Who is this man?” she asked curiously.
I felt a massive lump form in my throat instantly.
“That’s my dad,” I answered quietly.
“Where is he now?” she inquired further.
I couldn’t answer her right away.
“Sabrina,” she insisted firmly, “what happened to him?”
“That can wait for another time,” I said as I quickly brushed the question aside.
Her gentle expression changed into a serious look.
“Everyone talks to me about my past except him,” she said, “so why is everyone hiding him from me?”
I stood up immediately and put the photograph far away in a drawer.
I honestly did not want her to remember him.
Because my father had died entirely because of me.
At least, that was the tragic truth I had believed ever since I was a ten-year-old child.
A few days later, I decided to take Mary to the piece of land where our old home had once stood. Now there was a busy pharmacy and several commercial shops sitting on top of the ground.
She observed everything around her without recognizing a single detail.
“Maybe I will never remember anything,” she whispered sadly.
“Don’t say that, Mom,” I pleaded gently.
We walked slowly towards the nearby park across the street.
Suddenly, I heard a loud horn blare and a brutal screeching sound of tires tearing across the asphalt.
A massive pickup truck had suddenly lost control and driven straight onto the sidewalk.
I froze in absolute horror as the vehicle sped toward us.
Mary reacted instantly, running towards me and pushing me away with all her strength.
I fell hard onto the rough pavement.
The heavy truck passed inches from us before crashing violently into a metal utility pole.
When I looked up through the dust, my mother was kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily in shock.
Then she started to cry uncontrollably.
However, it was not because of the terrifying accident that had almost killed us.
She looked at me in a way I had never seen since she came back into my life.
“Sabrinita,” she wept softly.
My heart stopped beating for a moment.
Nobody had called me by that affectionate childhood nickname for twenty full years.
Mary put both of her hands to her head as tears streamed down her cheeks.
May you like
“I know what happened to your dad now,” she cried out.
And the truth that was about to be revealed had been buried deep underground for two decades.
