Ten Minutes, Then Back

"Who told you about me?"

My voice came out thin. Leo stirred, and I made myself loosen my grip.

Moretti looked at the scar beneath my ear.

"Nobody."

"Then how do you know that?"

He opened his mouth, but the little boy lifted his head.

"Don't go."

Two words. Barely any sound.

His father closed his eyes for a moment.

Whatever was happening between us, the child was real. His terror was real, and he had somehow decided I was the answer to it.

"I need to take my apron off," I told him. "It's covered in coffee. Then we can talk."

"Stay."

"I'll be behind that counter. You can watch me."

His fingers released one at a time.

Moretti stood aside while I got up. He didn't touch me, although I had the impression it took all his concentration.

At the service station, Marco was waiting with my coat.

"Go home."

"Am I fired?"

"No. You're off the floor."

"Those sound expensive in different ways."

"Clara. Please."

He looked honestly frightened. I stopped arguing.

When I returned, a bald man in a charcoal jacket was kneeling beside Leo. The boy had one hand hooked in his father's coat and the other around the milk cup.

"Dante," the man introduced himself. "I handle security."

"That sounds busy."

"Tonight it is."

Moretti offered to have someone drive me home. I declined so quickly that Dante glanced at him.

"I can take a cab," I said.

I couldn't, actually. I could take two buses, walk eleven blocks, and pray the rain eased.

Moretti looked down at my damp shoes. He said nothing about them.

"Then I'll wait until it gets here."

The offer was so plainly an order dressed in better clothes that I almost laughed.

Instead, I took out my phone and called Marcus.

My uncle answered on the fourth ring.

"Clara? What's wrong?"

"Something strange happened at work. A man thinks he knows me."

Across the room, Moretti went still.

"What man?" Marcus asked.

"Rico Moretti."

Silence.

Then my uncle said, "Get away from him."

I turned toward the rain-dark window.

"Do you know him?"

"Everyone knows him. He's dangerous. Go home, lock the door, and don't agree to anything. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Marcus, he knew when I lost my memory."

"You have a scar. People guess."

That explanation should have comforted me. Instead, it made the room feel smaller.

"Please," he said. "You don't understand what that family does to people."

After he hung up, I stood holding the phone.

Moretti approached, stopping beyond arm's reach.

"Was that Marcus Vance?"

I felt cold all over.

"How do you know my uncle?"

"I knew a man by that name. I don't know whether it's the same one."

"What else aren't you telling me?"

He looked at his son.

"More than I can explain here."

I hated that answer. I hated that it made sense.

He took a card from his wallet and wrote a number on the back.

"My house is in Brooklyn Heights. Come tomorrow if you want answers. Bring someone you trust. You can leave whenever you choose."

"And if I don't come?"

His eyes returned to mine.

"Then I'll ask again. I won't pretend otherwise."

Dante drove me home after all. I sat in the front, sent his license plate to a coworker, and made him stop at the curb rather than follow me inside.

"For the record," he said, "that's sensible."

"Your employer makes sensible feel inadequate."

He almost smiled.

My apartment smelled of radiator dust and the orange I had forgotten in the fruit bowl. There was a photograph of Marcus and me on the refrigerator, taken seventeen months earlier. I had a bandage across my temple and a smile that looked painfully obedient.

My first photograph, as far as I knew.

He had told me the others were lost in the fire after the crash. My parents were dead. I had no siblings. My headaches would improve if I stopped forcing memories.

I had accepted all of it because I woke in a bed with a man who knew my name, and I had known nothing.

That night, I didn't sleep.

By ten the next morning, I was standing outside Moretti's house with a coworker named Rosa waiting in a coffee shop two streets away.

Dante opened the gate.

"You came."

"I have questions."

"I gathered. There are six messages on my phone."

"Seven. I wanted to know whether your boss was armed."

"Usually."

"I appreciate the terrible honesty."

Inside, Leo stood halfway down the hall in dinosaur pajamas. When he saw me, his face opened with such relief that my throat tightened.

He ran into my knees.

I caught him, and a picture flashed through me: bare feet on cool tile, a yellow towel, this same small body slippery against my chest.

Then it was gone.

I swayed.

Moretti was beside me immediately. "Clara?"

"I'm fine. I stood up too fast."

We both knew I hadn't been standing up.

He didn't contradict me.

For the next hour, we built a crooked garage out of blocks. Leo corrected my terrible parking. Rico sat on the rug in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, looking as though no one had ever invited him onto the floor before.

"Your car won't fit," he told me.

"That's because your son runs an exclusive establishment."

Leo pushed one wall outward.

"Thank you," I told him. "Excellent customer service."

He smiled.

Rico looked down at the blocks. His hand covered his mouth.

Later, I needed the bathroom. Leo gripped my sleeve.

"I'll be ten minutes," I said, showing him the kitchen timer. "When this rings, I'll be back."

"What if you're not?" Rico asked quietly.

I looked at him. "Then don't promise it."

I returned in seven minutes.

Leo was watching the hallway. When I appeared, he put down the timer and leaned against my leg without a word.

We ate toast at the kitchen island. I hummed while cutting his into strips, a little four-note tune that had been stuck in my head since morning.

Rico's knife struck the plate.

"Where did you hear that?"

I stopped.

"I don't know. Why?"

He looked at Leo, who was humming the next four notes.

"My wife made it up," he said. "She used to sing it when he couldn't sleep."