Page 23 of Forgotten
The feeling in my stomach is… familiar.
And Ash… Ashley belongs right there where he is.
So I tell him. “You know, all of this is quite familiar.”
“I would hope so.”
Still, my mind is blank. There’s nothing. Staring at the crumbles on the baby’s pink dress, I whisper, “Winnie?”
Winnie yelps upon hearing her name. “Me!”
Ash takes a deep breath and I can hear the gears turning, planning the best way of bypassing the doctor’s orders and providing me with the most information.
“We had discussed options, when we got together. We agreed we both wanted a family, and soon. You couldn’t wait to have your own.”
I have known Ash long enough to know how he tells stories: never from the beginning, never linear.
“We looked into a surrogate but it seemed so complicated and then… Winnie came so quickly. And with her birth name, it just seemed too perfect a coincidence.”
“Which was?”
“Sarah.”
“No way I’d let you name your child after that woman.”
As I think of Sarah Bergman, Ash’s mother, I feel overwhelmed with emotions. How many times I’d opened my door to a terrified Ash, how many times I had to live with the silence, with the wincing. I will never understand how a mother can neglect her own children that way.
“That’s what you said back then too. Ashwin was her middle name. Once the adoption is finalised, the names will be switched around.” He pauses for a blink, lost in a memory that I clearly don’t share. “Anyway. You said it was meant to be. Ash three times.”
“Ash is pa!” Winnie slurs.
“You make it seem like this is my fault.”
Ash snaps then—nervous, irritated, almost angry. “You seem to have forgotten something very important alongside, you know, everything else. I’d do anything for you, Ashford. From the moment I’ve met you…”
As quickly as it comes, the frustration is gone. His eyes soften. I’m looking at him now and Ash shrugs, bouncing Winnie in a soothing rhythm.
“I didn’t like it.” He pauses, swallowing once. “But you’re really convincing, especially with two fingers up my arse. And then when we got to meet her, you kept saying she was a mini me. Lots of energy, big personality, obsessed with you. It became an inside joke.”
From his back pocket Ashley extracts a tissue and begins wiping Winnie’s hands. “She’s not my daughter, she’s yours,” he mocks in my voice.
This, I remember: how deeply Ash sucks at impersonations. “You never told me her last name.”
Ash hesitates. I recognise his worry. He’s checking if I’m fine, how my heart and brain are taking this.
So I nod, feeling extremely normal and inexplicably drawn to the baby with huge, sweet eyes. “Sorry. I don’t remember,” I add.
“Do you want to hold her?” Ash asks again, already moving closer. “Today is her birthday.”
Winnie wiggles excitedly, arms stretched out and legs kicked open.
This time, I straighten my back and sit up. “Maybe.” I throw my feet on the floor and stand up, imitating Ash’s posture.
With a swift movement Ash hands Winnie over to me, careful of the brace.
“What if I drop her?”
“You’ve been her father for months, Ford. Don’t be dramatic.”
