The Amnesia Game

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When my mom woke up, she had forgotten all about my dad's affair forgotten the mistress with her swollen pregnant belly. Her memory had rolled back ten years, to the time when she and my dad were most in love.

The doctors said she couldn't handle the shock. So my dad and I were forced to play along.

During the day, my dad was the perfect, devoted husband. At night, he'd lock himself in the study and flirt with his mistress over video call.

I watched this absurd performance with cold eyes watched my dad slowly tear himself apart between two women, sinking deeper and deeper.

He thought this was just a game he could walk away from whenever he wanted.

It wasn't until the day my mom died that he finally understood: her amnesia was a hell she had carefully built just for him.

I was standing at the luxury lingerie counter inside SKP, pinching a black lace thong between my fingers barely enough fabric to cover anything.

The salesgirl smiled at me with practiced warmth, her voice dripping with professional flattery. "Madam, this is a limited-edition piece from the current season. Pure silk, with a cutout design. I'm sure your mother would look absolutely elegant in it. Mr. Vance would love it."

I curled the corner of my mouth into a cold smile, tossed the flimsy scrap of fabric onto the glass counter, and said, "It's not for my mom. It's for my dad's mistress. She's three months pregnant and she's into this kind of thing. Wrap it up."

The salesgirl's smile froze on her face like she'd just swallowed something dead. Her eyes went wide. She didn't know what to say.

I reached into my bag without any expression, pulled out the black card, and flicked it across the counter. One beep. Four thousand dollars.

This was my dad Richard Vance's "hush money."

Fifteen thousand dollars a month in allowance in exchange for me playing the role of the perfect, obedient daughter in front of my mom Diane. Covering up the fact that he had women on the side, and was about to have an illegitimate child.

In this rotten family, love had long since been reduced to a transaction. I'd gotten used to the stench of it.

I picked up the elegant paper bag and walked out of the mall. The early winter wind cut across my face like a blade.

That's when my phone started going absolutely insane.

The screen read: City General Hospital.

"Is this Eleanor Vance? Your mother, Diane, has been in a serious car accident on the coastal highway. She's in emergency care right now. Please come immediately."

My mind went blank. The paper bag slipped from my fingers and hit the ground. The black lace lingerie spilled halfway out, fluttering in the cold wind unbearably ironic.

By the time I got to the hospital, the smell of antiseptic in the hallway made my stomach turn. The red light above the emergency room blazed like it was bleeding.

I leaned against the cold wall and called Richard. Once, twice, over and over. No answer straight to voicemail every time. I didn't need to think twice. He was probably in bed with his mistress Mia right now, phone switched off.

Two hours later, the red light finally went dark. The doctor came out, pulled down his mask, and his expression was hard to read. "She's stable. Her head took a severe impact there was a blood clot. But the strange thing is"

"What?" I grabbed his sleeve and held on tight.

"She's conscious, but her perception is severely distorted. The family should be prepared."

I pushed open the door to her room.

Diane was propped against white pillows, her head wrapped in thick bandages. She looked thinner her cheeks hollow. But the eyes that had always been filled with bitterness and hysteria were now glowing with something I didn't recognize at all.

Something pure. Soft. Almost girlish in its hope.

"Ellen," she said when she saw me. Her voice was weak, but light. Her eyes lit up. "Where's your dad? Didn't he say he was going to get me that Bvlgari necklace today? It's our ten-year anniversary gift."

I stood frozen in the doorway like I'd been struck by lightning. My blood went cold.

Ten years?

This was my parents' twentieth wedding anniversary. Ten years ago, Richard's career was just getting off the ground before his first affair, back when the two of them were still genuinely in love.

"Mom you" My throat tightened. I couldn't get the words out.

"Oh, what's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost." Diane pouted playfully. "Is your dad working late again? That man, he promised he'd come home early today." A faint blush rose on her pale cheeks.

Then the door to the room burst open.

Richard stood in the doorway, slightly out of breath. His suit was rumpled, his tie crooked. But the most glaring thing the thing I couldn't look away from was the fresh, vivid red lipstick mark on the collar of his white dress shirt. The air around him carried the faint, sickly-sweet smell of cheap perfume.

Diane's gaze moved past me and landed on him. Her face lit up with pure, overwhelming joy.

"Richard!" She reached out both arms toward him like a young wife waiting for her husband to come home not even caring about the bandages on her head. "You're finally here! Where's my necklace?"

Richard stood frozen, staring blankly at his wife lying in the hospital bed. He instinctively reached up to touch his collar, and the color drained from his face like he'd seen a ghost.

The doctor called both me and Richard into his office and delivered the diagnosis: selective dissociative amnesia.

"Her memories have reset to ten years ago the period she subjectively identifies as the happiest time of her life. It's the brain's way of protecting itself." The doctor adjusted his glasses, his tone firm and serious. "She must not be provoked under any circumstances. If she discovers that reality doesn't match her memories, it could trigger a complete psychological breakdown or even a cerebral hemorrhage. We're talking life-threatening."

Richard sat in the chair with both hands covering his face, his fingers shoved deep into his hair, rubbing his scalp like he was trying to scratch his way out of this mess.

I watched him coldly, my eyes drifting to the Patek Philippe on his wrist. Mia had given it to him for his birthday last month paid for with Richard's own money, of course.

"Richard," I said, my voice flat and cutting, breaking the silence. "So what now? Your precious little girlfriend is waiting for you at home, and your actual wife needs you to play the devoted husband you were ten years ago. Think you can pull that off?"

Richard's head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot. "Ellen!" he snarled through clenched teeth. "I'm your father. Who the hell do you think you're talking to like that?!"

"You're my father so you threw money at me to keep me quiet while I watched my mom get played for five years like an idiot?" I didn't flinch. My eyes locked onto his like a blade. "And now look. The universe did you a favor. She actually is an idiot now. So what's your plan? How are you going to pull this off?"

Richard's chest heaved. He glared at me, and then slowly the fight went out of him, like air leaking from a punctured tire.

"We play along," he said at last, drawing a long breath and forcing his anger down. "We bring her back to the old house. Mia's stuff isn't there."

So we brought Diane home to the old villa the one that had been sitting empty for five years. Ever since their marriage had turned into nothing more than two strangers sharing a last name, Richard had moved into a penthouse downtown, and this place had been left to rot.

The moment we opened the front door, a wave of stale, musty air hit us. The furniture was draped in thick white sheets, the whole place silent as a tomb.

But Diane moved through it like a happy little bird, drifting around the living room, completely oblivious to the suffocating stillness around her.

"Oh my gosh, why does this couch cover look so worn out? I swear I just washed it yesterday!" She ran her hand along the dust-coated coffee table and turned back to look at Richard. "Richard, didn't you say you were going to hire a cleaning service? You are so cheap, I swear."

Richard rubbed his hands together awkwardly, his throat working as he swallowed. "Uh yeah. I'll take care of it tomorrow."

"Ellen, go grab your dad's pajamas, would you? He's had a long day let him get a shower." Diane slipped right back into her old role, giving instructions like no time had passed at all.

I went to the bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe. It was nearly bare just a few old shirts yellowed with age. But at the very bottom drawer, shoved in the back, I found something that made my stomach drop. A pair of red lace underwear. I knew exactly what they were. Two years ago, Richard had brought Mia back to this house while my mom was away. She must have left them behind.

I stood there holding them, my stomach turning.

"Ellen? Did you find them?" Diane's footsteps padded toward the door.

I shoved the underwear into my pocket and grabbed an old pajama shirt I could find, then walked out.

That night, the real torture began.

Diane insisted on sleeping in the same room as Richard.

"We're husband and wife why on earth would you sleep in the guest room?" She looped her arm through his, and the look in her eyes was pure, unguarded that same open longing and dependence she'd had ten years ago.

Richard's body went rigid as a board. He was used to Mia her youth, her energy, the constant novelty she brought. Faced with this woman he hadn't touched in five years, a woman he'd quietly grown to resent, something flickered across his face: unmistakable revulsion and fear.

"Diane, you still have a head injury. The doctor said you shouldn't" He grasped for an excuse, a thin sheen of sweat already forming at his temples.

"I don't care." Diane suddenly wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his chest. Her voice came out soft and small, with a little catch in it, like she was trying not to cry. "Richard, I'm scared. I had this dream this really long, awful dream where you left me. Where you were with someone else. Can you just hold me? Please?"

Richard went completely still.

I stood just outside the door, watching through the crack. I could see his face clearly. It was a complicated expression more complicated than I had words for. There was guilt. There was panic. And underneath all of it, buried but unmistakably there, was something else entirely: a flicker of desire, dredged up from ten years ago, that he clearly hadn't expected to feel.

He slowly raised his arm and wrapped it around Diane's shoulders.

That night, I lay in the room next door, listening to the sounds coming from the master bedroom. Muffled gasps. The creak of the bed frame. And Diane's breathless, tearful moans.

Bold move, I thought bitterly.

A woman who had just survived the brink of death, and a man whose body was filled with the scent of other women. In their memories from ten years ago, they engaged in an extremely absurd sexual encounter. I don't know whether Richard was thinking of the gentle Diane from ten years ago or the young and promiscuous Mia on the bed when he was doing it.

But I knew one thing. This was only the beginning of hell.

The next morning, Richard walked out of the master bedroom with dark circles carved under his eyes and a slight unsteadiness in his step but there was something disturbingly satisfied about him.

He even started whistling in the kitchen and cracked two eggs into a pan.

"Ellen, breakfast," he called out, his voice carrying that long-forgotten, completely fake fatherly authority.

I stared at the burnt, greasy eggs on the plate and laughed. "Quite a workout last night, huh, Richard? Still savoring it?"

His face darkened instantly. He dropped his voice to a furious hiss. "Shut your mouth. She's your mother."

"Oh, now she's my mother?" I shot to my feet and hurled the red lace underwear I'd been keeping in my pocket straight at his face. "Then what the hell is this? When you were rolling around in her bed with your mistress, did you stop for even one second and think about the fact that she's your wife?!"

The underwear floated lightly to the ground, like a glaring bloodstain.

Richard's face cycled through shades of pale and green. He bent down, picked it up, and crushed it in his fist, jaw tight. "That's all in the past. Your mother is sick now. I have to take care of her."

Take care of her? Come on, Richard. Youre just reluctant to let go of the Diane from ten years agothe one who was completely obedient and so enthusiastic in bed, right? I pierced right through his hypocritical facade.

Richard raised his hand to hit me.

"Richard? Ellen? What are you two fighting about?" Diane shuffled out of the bedroom in her old nightgown, rubbing her eyes. Her collar had slipped open, and the marks on her neck were impossible to miss deep red, unmistakable. Evidence of what Richard had done the night before.

Richard's hand froze mid-air. In an instant, his expression melted into something warm and gentle. "Nothing, nothing. Ellen just thinks I overcooked the eggs."

Diane walked over and slipped her arm through his, rising on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "You're hopeless in the kitchen, you know that? Once I'm all healed up, I'll make you pizza every single day. Your favorite."

Richard's body went rigid just for a second, barely noticeable. He'd given up pizza years ago. Doctor's orders high cholesterol, a badly damaged liver. These days, Mia kept him on a strict diet of salads, grilled salmon, and clean eating.

But Diane was looking up at him with so much love in her eyes. He swallowed. Forced out a smile that looked worse than a grimace. "Sure. Sounds great."

For the next two weeks, the old house became a massive, suffocating stage and none of us could leave.

Diane was constantly whipping up all sorts of heavy, rich dishes every day. Pizza, hot dogs, mashed potatoesevery single meal glistened with grease and was terrifyingly high in calories.

At the dinner table, she'd watch Richard with bright, attentive eyes. "Richard, eat more. You've been losing weight lately. You used to finish a whole pizza by yourself, remember?"

Richard stared at the thick, oily slice on his plate, his stomach turning. But he forced it down, bite by mechanical bite, sweat beading on his forehead. After dinner, he'd excuse himself to the bathroom. I'd stand just outside the door and listen clearly, unmistakably to the sound of him gagging, retching, crying and choking until there was nothing left.

But he never said no. Because the moment he showed even a flicker of hesitation, Diane's eyes would fill with tears. "Richard do you not like my cooking anymore? Are you tired of me?"

The doctor's warning hung over him like a leash pulled tight don't upset her.

And then there were the nights.

Diane seemed determined to make up for every moment of intimacy she believed she'd missed over the past "ten years." She dug out her old lingerie. Spritzed on a bottle of perfume Midnight Flight long past its expiration date. And she wrapped herself around Richard like she had all the time in the world and no intention of letting go.

At first, Richard was miserable. Going through the motions. Performing. But slowly, I started to notice something shift. He was changing.

He had actually started to enjoy the feeling of being completely depended on, of being treated as the center of someone's universe. Sure, Mia was young and beautiful, but she was only after his money, constantly scheming to force her way into his life, with a spoiled, arrogant temper. Diane, on the other handthis Diane who seemed to have stepped right out of ten years agowas giving him a love that was absolute and pure.

In that moment, the worst aspects of his male nature were laid bare. He wanted the thrill of a young body, yet he also craved the tender comfort of his wife. He was utterly intoxicated by the taboo thrill and the sense of absolute control this double life provided.

One night, I got up for a glass of water and caught Richard on the balcony, talking on the phone.

"Mia, I really can't get away right now... there's just too much going on at the company. Be a good girl, stop making a fuss. I just transferred another five hundred thousand to your account. Go buy yourself a handbag, and take good care of the pregnancy." His voice was hushed, dripping with obvious impatience and perfunctory indifference.

Hanging up, he turned around and looked through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Diane, who was sitting in the living room knitting a sweater for him. In his eyes, there was actually a faint trace of deep affection and infatuation.

I stood in the shadows, my stomach turning.

He thought he had everything under control. He thought he'd fallen back in love with his wife. What he didn't know was that the blade hanging over his head was already about to drop.

The peace shattered a month later.

Mia showed up at the door five months pregnant, belly and all.

It was a quiet afternoon. Diane was in the garden, trimming the flowers. Richard was in his study, working through paperwork.

The doorbell rang. I answered it. Mia stood on the doorstep in head-to-toe Chanel couture, sunglasses on, a Herms Birkin dangling from her wrist. She looked like she owned the place.

"Where's Richard? Tell him to get his ass out here!" She shoved past me and clicked her heels straight into the house, her sharp voice slicing through the quiet of the old estate.

"Are you out of your mind?!" I grabbed her arm and hissed, "My mom is inside! Don't set her off if something happens to her, that's on you!"

"Set her off? Please. She's been playing dead for a month not showing her face, not picking up calls, not responding to a single message. Does Richard think I'm just going to disappear?" Mia yanked her arm free and screamed, "I'm carrying the Vance family's firstborn!"

The study door flew open. Richard came charging out. The moment he saw Mia, the color drained from his face. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Mia! What are you doing here?! Get out now!" He rushed toward her and clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to drag her back toward the door.

"You dare cover my mouth?! Richard, let's get one thing straight I'm carrying your son! Your wife couldn't give you one, and now you're crawling back to play the devoted husband?!" Mia thrashed wildly against him. Her long nails raked across his cheek, leaving three deep red lines.

Crack.

The sound of a slap rang through the living room.

Richard's palm connected hard with Mia's face. She stumbled backward and crashed onto the sofa.

"I told you to get out! Do you not understand English?!" His eyes were bloodshot, his voice a roar, one finger pointing at the door like a man unraveling.

The room went dead silent. The only sound was Mia's stunned, broken sobbing as she pressed a hand to her cheek.

Then the glass door leading to the garden slid open.

Diane stepped inside, a pair of garden shears in her hand. She stood perfectly still.

She was wearing the white dress the one Richard had loved most on her, ten years ago. Sunlight fell across her shoulders, but it couldn't touch the cold that lived behind her eyes.

"Richard," she said. Her voice was soft. Flat. Not a single note of emotion. "Who is this woman?"

Richard's whole body seized. He dropped to his knees in front of her. Cold sweat soaked through his shirt and ran down his face in streams.

"Diane just let me explain she's she's nobody, she was just at the door trying to sell something" His voice cracked and stumbled over itself. He stared up at Diane in pure terror, convinced that at any second she would collapse that a blood vessel would burst, that she would die right there in front of him.

Mia lowered her hand from her cheek. And then she laughed. A sharp, ugly laugh that shook her whole body, tears streaming down her face.

"Selling something? Really, Richard? That's the best you've got?" She turned to Diane, her voice dripping with venom. "You lost your memory, right? You think it's still ten years ago? Fine let me fill you in. The baby in my stomach? It's your husband's. Every time he was in bed with you, he was thinking about me."

She wanted to tear Diane's world apart. Piece by piece. With the truth.

I lunged forward to cover Mia's mouth, my heart hammering in my throat. I was terrified terrified my mom couldn't take this, terrified she'd have an episode right here on the spot.

But the breakdown she'd expected never came.

Diane didn't scream. She didn't faint. She didn't shed a single tear.

She walked slowly toward the couch and stood over Mia, her gaze dropping to the slight curve of Mia's belly. Then she turned and looked at Richard, still on his knees on the floor.

The corner of her mouth curled into a slow, twisted smile cold, mocking, and utterly unsettling.

"Five months along." Diane's voice was unnervingly calm, almost amused, like she was watching a show. "Richard, that must have been exhausting to hide."

Richard froze.

He stared at her like he was looking at a stranger.

"Diane you you didn't lose your memory?" His voice came out like a broken wheeze, raw with fear.