Robert's Memory Loss

When Robert Garrity regained consciousness, he groaned in pain, opening his eyes and gradually sitting up on the couch. Earlier that evening, he was involved in a hit-and-run incident with his former gang member “friends”, with the rest of the neighbors as witnesses. After the lowlives—including the de la Rosa cousins—struck him with their car, Robert went flying into the air and crash-landed headfirst on top of a woman’s Honda Accord, cracking open the windshield.

As a result, he suffered a severe head injury and according to the doctors, post-traumatic amnesia. So unfortunately, he had no recollection of the incident and not only that, but he had also lost memories of the last five years of his life since he was 18.

The woman whose car he landed on top of, and whose house he was staying at for the time being, was Jacquelyn Gorman. She was kind enough to take him in after she looked outside and saw her windshield busted. She was concerned enough to call 911 and medical assistance for him, and more generous enough to visit him at the hospital to see how he was doing. She’d been tremendously scared that he might not survive his injuries, but fortunately, he did.

Robert’s “friends” had run off with his personal effects after striking him and immediately fleeing the scene—his cell phone, wallet and ID, credit card, so he had no form of identification on him when the neighbors tried to revive him with CPR, and even the doctors couldn’t identify him. He was listed as a “John Doe” in their system.

Jacquelyn offered to act as a Good Samaritan by taking him in until he regained his memory, which would take approximately three or four weeks. So for a whole month, Robert was under her care at her house.

Jacquelyn gave him a gentle smile as she helped him sit up. “Are you okay?” she asked softly.

“Wh-where am I?” he asked feebly.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “You’re with me now. Safe and sound in my house.”

Robert stared intently into this stunning brunette’s beautiful green eyes, which complemented his blue eyes. Jacquelyn was a gorgeous young woman of 30, and she had a bright and beautiful smile. “Who are you? Have we ever met before?”

“No, we haven’t met before. I’m the one whose car you fell on top of, after your accident, which I assume you don’t remember.” She smiled gently.

Robert shook his head in response. Due to his amnesia, he wouldn’t remember the accident, or anything that happened beforehand with the de la Rosa cousins and other street thugs. “I’m sorry.” He chuckled.

“No, it’s okay. It’s just a car. I can always get a ride from friends or Uber. It’s no big deal.” She grinned. “By the way, my name is Jacquelyn.”

“Jacquelyn.” He repeated. “That’s a beautiful name.”

“Thank you. You can just call me Jackie, if you want, like everyone else does. I assume you don’t know what your name is?”

Robert shook his head. “If I did, I probably don’t remember.”

“It’s okay.” Jacquelyn ripped out a piece of paper from her notebook and gave it to him, along with a pen. “I find it best to write things down to help restore your memory. The doctors said it’ll take time for you to get your memory back, so in the meantime, you have to be patient and stay here with me until you recover from your injuries.” She wrote her name JACQUELYN on the paper. “There. So you’ll remember my name.”

“Thank you, Jackie,” he said. “I wonder how long it’ll take for me to recover. I’d hate to invade your personal space in your own home.” He glanced around the living room. “Especially if you live alone… Right?”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. Really. I’m the one who found you during your accident, and I was so scared, I wanted to make sure you were safe and able to make it to the hospital.” She sat next to him. “Thank God you woke up when you had the chance. I wouldn’t have been able to rest easily if I didn’t know whether you were going to make it or not.”

Robert nodded in understanding.

“As for your recovery time, the doctors say a good three to four weeks—which is pretty much the whole month. So, for the rest of the time, you’ll be stuck with me.” She moved a little closer and held his hand. “I promise to take great care of you during this time.”

He smiled. “You’ll help me try to get my memory back?”

She shrugged. “Something to that effect, but it’s worth a shot. Anything at all that you remember, just write it down. In the meantime, would you like something to eat or drink?”

He took a moment to think about it. “What do you have around the house?”

“You just reminded me that I need to go grocery shopping, which I will, sometime during the week. In the meantime, how about I make you some tea?” she offered.

“That’s nice of you, thanks. I’d really like that.”

Jacquelyn went to the kitchen to boil some water in preparation for tea. Robert followed her, hoping to make conversation with her while she fixed him something to eat. “What year is it?” he asked.

“It’s 2020,” she replied, “and we’re living through a global pandemic, COVID-19. It’s affecting a lot of businesses here in the country as well as in other countries around the world. We have to wear masks to stay safe from infection. You being here in my house poses a health risk in itself, but it’s not like I have much of a choice. I was very worried about you when I saw how hurt you were.”

“2020,” Robert repeated as he went to the living room to write it down on the paper. He also wrote PANDEMIC and COVID19. “Am I supposed to wear a mask in the house with you?”

Jacquelyn chuckled. “No, of course not! I have some spare masks around the house I can give you, if you want to stay safe. But I doubt you’ll catch anything from me.”

“Thank God.” Robert sighed with relief. “Where do we live, by the way?”

“San Francisco. I’ve been here my whole life, and this is the house I grew up in with my sister and our parents.”

“Nice.” He smiled, glancing around the kitchen as if wondering what he should do to help her. “I’m from San Francisco too, since pretty much my whole life.”

A few minutes later, the tea was ready. Turning off the kettle, she asked him, “That's nice. Do you know your age?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s okay.” She set the cup of hot, steaming tea on the table and took out four pieces of bread from the refrigerator, along with peanut butter and jelly. Fortunately, Robert had no known food allergies, so he’s good with peanut butter. “Would you like to take a guess as to how old you are?”

With a witty smile, he said, “Why don’t you tell me yours?”

“Ha, ha. Fine, I’ll go first. I’m 30. How about you, if you can guess?”

“Eh, probably 23.” He shrugged, and by chance, he’s right—he was 23.

After fixing the sandwich and tea, she put them on a tray and went to the living room, carefully setting the tray on the coffee table. “Follow me,” she said.

Robert followed her to the living room and put the tray on his lap. “Thanks for making this for me, Jackie. You’ve gone above and beyond for me tonight.”

“No problem. It’s the least I can do for you…” She wanted a way to address him somehow, even if he couldn’t remember his own name yet. “Do you want to take a guess as to what your name is—maybe a possible nickname you go by?”

Robert shrugged. “I’ll write it down if I remember, but so far, nothing seems to come to mind.” He took a sip of his tea. “But if you want, I guess you can call me Bobby.” That was his nickname from family, since childhood, so it worked out conveniently well.

“Okay, Bobby it is.” She turned on the TV. “Would you like to watch something?”

“No, thank you.” He smiled politely. “I might need to get more rest after this, and I’m afraid watching TV will keep me up a little longer than I need to be.”

“That’s completely understandable.” She sat next to him on the couch as he ate. “I’m not much of a TV person myself, at least not lately or in the past few years. With COVID on the rise now, it’s pretty much all we’ll ever hear about for the next God knows when. Also, there’s always something bad happening out there somewhere.” She sighed in dismay. “I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around all the craziness of the world around us.”

“I get it. Life is pretty crazy,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” She smiled at him, then glanced over at the photos around the walls and table of her and her late husband, Keith. Sighing poignantly, she said, “God, how much I miss him.”

“Who’s that handsome guy?” Robert pointed to a photo.

“Oh, that was my husband, Keith Rinaldi. He was murdered five years ago at a local convenience store by a group of street hoodlums. He was only 27, and he was a four-year Air Force veteran. He was also the father of my little girl, Jodie, who’s upstairs asleep. It’s been pretty lonely for me without him after all these years.”

Robert placed his tray on the coffee table and put his arm around Jacquelyn as a way to comfort her. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Jackie. I didn’t even know you were married.”

“Thank you for saying that.” She smiled as a tear rolled down her eye. “This is why I don’t mind looking after you until you get better. I need to fulfill that motherly role and take care of someone who needs it the most, and that’s you.”

“Well, thanks. I appreciate it.” Robert smiled. “By the way, do you mind telling me how you two first met?”

Gently wiping a tear from her eye, she said, “Maybe some other time, Bobby. Not now, at this moment. I’m sorry… I’m too emotional,” she added with a chuckle.

“It’s okay.” He nodded in understanding.

“But I promise to introduce you to Jodie tomorrow. She’s fast asleep right now, and tomorrow, she’s got a busy day planned with a playdate at a friend’s house. She might stay for a sleepover tomorrow night, but I’ll just need to confirm all that before doing anything.”

“No problem.” Robert crossed his legs while sitting on the couch. “You take care of all your normal responsibilities, as if I’m not here. Do you think she’ll like me or see me as a friend? How old is she, by the way?”

“She’s five, and I’m sure she’ll see you as the father figure she needs for now.” Jacquelyn reassured him.

Robert considered it important to keep track of these two names, so he took out the pen and paper and wrote down KEITH and JODY?

Jacquelyn chuckled. “Actually, her name is spelled with an I-E. Here, let me write it down.” She took the pen and wrote JODIE down, as a way to show Robert the correct spelling of her daughter’s name. “There you go.”

“Sorry about that.” Robert felt his cheek turning a slight red.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, Bobby. It’s okay. The more notes you take, the more likely you’ll remember things from the past five years of your life. Five years of lost memories don’t automatically come rushing out in one whole night, so it’s important to be patient, just as the doctors said.”

Robert knew it all too well. He needed to follow doctors’ orders, but he also wished there was a way for him to contact someone—anyone at all. Though he’s in the comfort of Jacquelyn Gorman’s home, he knew he couldn’t “invade” her territory forever. These next few weeks would feel like an eternity to him until he regained some of his memories.

An hour or so later, Robert was ready for bed. Jacquelyn, being the kind, generous host, took him up to the room that she and Keith once shared together. It’d be his for now, while Jacquelyn convinced him that she’d be more comfortable on the living room couch instead.

“Are you sure about that?” Robert asked her. In the room, he saw a framed photo of Jacquelyn and Keith on their wedding day, each on the nightstands by their sides. Keith was a good-looking guy with dark hair and blue eyes—similar features to Robert’s. It’s hard to imagine that he’d been in his early 30s now, roughly the same age as Jacquelyn, or older. “This room clearly means something to you, Jackie. I couldn’t impose on that. I’m probably better off on the couch and you stay up here.”

“Nonsense. I insist, Bobby.” She smiled. “Please, for me? Just for tonight, let’s try this out and we’ll probably alternate as time goes on.” She stuck her hand out, as if ready to give him a handshake for a deal. “What do you say?”

Robert knew she could be very persuasive. “Okay, it’s a deal.” He shook hands with her, as if sealing a business deal.

“Awesome.” She grinned, then went to Keith’s closet to find some nightwear for Robert. “Let me get you something to wear tonight.”

Robert definitely needed a change of clothes—his t-shirt and jeans were destroyed, covered in lots of blood that he’d sustained from all the excessive bleeding from the “accident”, when those lowlife de la Rosa cousins and heartless thugs ran him over and left him hanging by the road. He couldn’t possibly sleep in these clothes and risk leaving blood stains all over something as sacred as Keith and Jacquelyn’s bed.

In fact, while here in Jacquelyn’s residence, he’d need more than a dozen new clothes—not to mention, some grooming essentials and the like. He’d need to take great care of himself while here until he eventually recovered from his accident and regained some of his memories.

Jacquelyn found him something to wear—Keith’s black t-shirt which he’d often worn to go to the gym for a nice work-out for a run at the park, along with his blue shorts. Basically, Keith’s work-out clothes. With her eyes closed, she crossed her fingers and whispered to herself, “I’m so sorry to do this to you, Keith” before shutting his closet door and giving them to Robert to wear.

She felt the need to ask for her late husband’s forgiveness to give another male stranger in her house his former clothes. That’s how spiritually close to Keith she felt, in the five years since his gruesome murder. He was only 26—never made it to see 27—nor did he even witness the birth of his beautiful little girl Jodie—which happened a week after the fact. Such a devastating tragedy that was never supposed to happen at all.

“Here you go.” She gave Robert a faint smile, handing him the clothes to change into.

“Thanks, Jackie,” he said softly. “Would you mind helping me take my shirt off?”

“Not a problem.” She smiled, and without hesitation, helped him slowly take his bloodied, dirty shirt off. She knew it’s her responsibility to have his clothes washed and cleaned for him while he’s under her roof for now.

For a brief moment, Robert was shirtless, and Jacquelyn got to see all his scars up-close and personal—all that he’d sustained from the accident, no thanks to his former street “associates.” She noted his slightly muscular figure, his average height of 5’9, and everything about him screamed attractive to her. He might be a couple years younger than her, but she couldn’t deny the pull toward him, merely serving as his caretaker. Now she wanted to be his friend. She’s determined to help him gain back the memories of the last five years of his life, even if the truth eventually turned out to be unappealing to her.

“What is it?” Robert noticed her gazing at his bandaged scars and bruises.

“Nothing, I…” She cleared her throat. “Are you still feeling any pain?”

“Just a little, yeah,” he replied, changing into Keith’s black t-shirt. She looked away when he took off his jeans to put the blue shorts on. “You can turn around now, Jackie.” He smiled.

She turned around and sighed with relief. “Great. Are you comfortable enough for bed now?”

“I am, thank you for asking. You’ve been very kind to me tonight, Jackie, and I appreciate it. I can’t wait to meet your daughter tomorrow.”

“You will, don’t worry.” She smiled, then came over to give him a good night hug. “And it’s no problem at all, Bobby. I just want you to be comfortable first. Jodie will take a great liking to you. For now, let’s all just have a good night and we’ll pick up on this tomorrow.”

“Good night to you, too,” Robert said to her softly.

She watched him get into bed, making himself comfortable on the bed she and Keith once shared together as part of their safe haven. Smiling, she walked out of the room, turned the light off and shut the door.

She quietly opened the door to Jodie’s bedroom, ajar, taking a peek at her now sound-asleep daughter. She sighed in relief before heading down to the living room and making herself comfortable on the couch for the evening.