She swirled back around to the fridge and retrieved two eggs. Continuing to talk, she cracked them on the edge of the bowl and added them to her mixture. “And who knows. Maybe there are a ton of other investment avenues out there that won’t require as much time and effort. I guess that’s what I’m really asking.”
I started to open my mouth, but she lifted a finger and said, “Hold that thought. This is going to be noisy for a second.”
She grabbed the softened butter from the microwave, scraped it into the bowl, and then turned on the hand mixer. A loud hum filled the room.
I blinked as she carefully combined the ingredients—not a single drop of batter splashed from the bowl. In disbelief and utter confusion, I studied her.
After Remi had been kidnapped, it was rare that she’d leave the house. At the urging of her therapist to find a hobby, she’d taken up baking. The first few weeks had been a literal smoke show. My house had smelled like scorched sugar no matter how many windows I’d opened. But eventually, she’d gotten there. Loaded ooey-gooey brownies were her favorite. They were also the reason I’d had to take up running on Sunday mornings.
I’d seen her bake those morsels of chocolate heaven no fewer than two dozen times. And the woman in front of me, talking up a storm and measuring with her heart, was not the novice she’d claimed. She’d never even looked at the recipe.
My chest got tight and a weight settled on my shoulders. However, I couldn’t decide why.
Maybe it was from fear that she was starting to remember, and thus it would be the beginning of her spiral down.
Or maybe it was from the excitement at witnessing a piece of the woman I so fiercely loved reemerge from the abyss of nothingness.
She clicked off the mixer, leaned it against the bowl, and then looked up at me. “All right, what were you about to say?”
I cleared my throat, but it was all I could get out. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t noticed how she’d instinctively put it all together. It must have been something akin to muscle memory. A place in her brain that, through repetition, had consolidated the process of making those brownies into a specific task.
Like driving home on the same monotonous route while your mind wandered, only to snap out of it as you pulled into your driveway, confused how you’d made it that far.
While her mind had been elsewhere, her body had taken over, knowing exactly what to do.
What did it mean?
Were all of her memories in there somewhere? Locked up in a mental safe? Only accessible to her subconscious?
Had being in my kitchen, like old times, triggered something?
Over time, would it trigger more and more until she remembered everything?
Panic built like a summer storm inside me.
I was terrified that it was all happening so soon, when everything was falling into place for us. What if with this memory some of her more nightmarish ones came back to haunt her too? I’d known the risks of seeing her again and possibly setting off this type of chain reaction, and I’d selfishly taken them anyway.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked. “Do I have some on my face?” Her eyes got wide. “Oh God, it’s the chicken, isn’t it? Are you going to puke?”
“No,” I forced past the knot in my throat.
I sucked in a deep breath, holding it until my lungs burned. Okay, maybe I was overreacting. It didn’t have to be bad. This was also kind of what I’d secretly wanted all along. To ease her into the past, create an environment where everything wasn’t so fucking traumatic and frightening all at once. So what if she remembered how to make loaded ooey-gooey brownies? Her baking was one of the few positive memories that had existed during that time of our lives.
If I took a step back and looked at it objectively, this was a good thing.
There were no quiet sobs coming through the bedroom door.
Nor was she faking a smile for my sake alone.
She wasn’t reliving any of the hell she’d been through.
Remi was baking, plain and simple.
I stood and walked around the bar. Wrapping my arms around her waist from behind, I pulled her against my front. “It’s nothing. You just reminded me of something I forgot to do at work.”
“Phew. You scared me for a minute.”
No more than she’d scared me.
I kissed her neck. “If you hurry up and get those in the oven, we can take the dogs for a walk before it gets too late.”
“Ohhh, that sounds fun. Dibs on Sugar.”
“You’re going to give poor Clyde a complex.”
“The dog’s as big as I am! He could take me on a walk.”
