I Don't Know Who I am. It's the Truth

Matthew became painfully aware that he lay face-first in the dirt. He felt no motion of being in a sailing vessel, which relieved him. He tried to move, but a sharp shooting pain in his right shoulder made him cringe in agony. Someone behind him grabbed firm hold of his shoulder and turned him over to face the light of day.

“Ow!” He both gasped and shrieked, imagining it was either Olivia, his wife, or Penny, his sister, or maybe Uncle Albert.

“Are you alright, Gaby?” was the question asked by the young woman who knelt beside him. He didn’t gasp in pain, but in surprise. He looked into a pair of worried green eyes and noticed her other features. A wide-brimmed hat sat on her head, secured under her chin with a leather cord. Wisps of her hair escaped and the rest of her long strawberry blond hair fell over her shoulders as she bent closer and studied him carefully.

He knew this face. “Is that you, Tatsinda?” he asked, though uncertain why it would be, under the circumstances. Her face appeared more mature. The young woman looked troubled, but she didn’t respond. She felt his pockets and seemed satisfied when she felt the bulge in his right-hand jacket pocket. If he hadn’t been in quite so much pain, he would have objected when she was undoing what he thought was the belt around his middle.

“I don’t know how you did it, Gaby, but you fell off your horse. I thought it may have been foul play when your horse came trotting home without you, but here you are! Your pistol is still in your holster, and the money you took is still in your jacket. But you seem to have dislocated your shoulder or broken your arm. That’ll teach you! Here, let me take your holster off you.” Once the pistol and holster had been retrieved from his person and he realised that she was not trying to undress him, he relaxed a little. “Do you actually want to come home, Gaby?”

“You mean that you would leave me here lying on the road?” he asked, frowning.

She had a faint smile on her lips as she stood up and looked down at him. “Seems to me, if you want, you can come home, or you can head off into town as you were doing before you fell off your horse. It doesn’t matter to me, except that you’ll be walking if you decide to leave us still!”

“Please help me,” he begged, “I don’t even know who you are.”

Matthew concluded that he might manage and gain more sympathy from the young woman if he spoke the truth and didn’t try to pretend to be Gaby.

He heard no answer, though her expression softened a little. She extended a hand, and he held onto it with the arm that wasn’t in pain. Carefully, he raised himself.

“I suggest that I mount my horse first,” she said, “Then I will leave the stirrup free for you to use and mount behind me. Try not to hurt your sore arm any more than you already have. Use your left hand to hold on while you mount.”

With the gun and holster across the top of the saddle, she effortlessly mounted her horse. Wearing pants made it easy for her to sit on the saddle. Matthew had never seen a woman in pants before. He obediently followed her instructions and meekly sat behind her as she headed the horse down a road occasionally bordered with a tree or two, with no houses in sight. Everything looked parched. Hopefully, ‘home’ wasn’t too far away because every movement hurt his shoulder considerably.

They had been riding along the road at a walking pace for almost half an hour before he could see what looked like a house emerging on the horizon. It was up on a rise, surrounded by other buildings and several trees. They lived in an isolated part of the country. Finally, they turned off the road, and though they looked at the house far in the distance, they travelled closer with every step of the horse’s hooves. He studied the house. It was a large home supported by what looked like thick wooden posts, in a rustic style. These beams projected from the top corners of the dwelling. The walls, however, were relatively smooth. It had a covered verandah at the front, dividing the lower and upper floors, and serving as the vertical continuation of the lower floor. He saw no roof. What he would realise later is that a parapet around it formed a perfect lookout for miles around. A high tower provided a small third floor with an even higher lookout. All of the walls appeared to have been plastered in an orangey fawn, just like the earth. A spacious home built in a style Matthew had never seen before.

When they arrived, a little girl stood on the wooden steps, leading up to the verandah, close to an older woman who had long black braided hair and darker skin than he had ever seen in his life. These new faces seemed both relieved and concerned to see them both. He slid to the ground, and the young woman called out, “Maria, help Gaby inside. I will take Blackie to the stable.”

Matthew wondered how long he could simply say that he didn’t know anything. It seemed a fortunate thing to have fallen off his horse. Maybe he could say that he had bumped his head, which was the last thing he remembered. Maria led him into the house and helped him take his jacket off.

“Here, señor, follow me.” She led him across the hallway into a room that resembled a library, with a large couch positioned against one of the walls, just inside the doorway. “Perhaps you had better lie down,” she said. He had no objections to that as he felt rather dizzy. Maria put his jacket tidily over the back of a chair. “Laurena, Señorita, sit here with your father until your mother returns. I will bring a drink.”

Matthew looked into the face of the little girl, Laurena, and she looked back solemnly. She had seated herself on a chair a short space from the couch. He went over in his mind what he had learned thus far. His name was Gaby, and the dark-haired woman, Maria, could be a servant. He had a wife, but he wasn’t entirely sure if the young woman he had already met was she. This little girl sitting near him was his daughter, Laurena. Laurena looked nothing like Evelyn. Evelyn had been a sweet little daughter with blue eyes, curly red hair, and her face sparkled with life - so easy to adore. This little girl, before him, had a serious expression on her face, long fair hair, not a curl in sight; her eyes were a nondescript grey, her face had a sprinkle of freckles. The hem of her ragged and dirty dress and her worn shoes suggested poverty. Maybe this was what she wore to play in. All the same, he couldn’t imagine a child like his Evelyn going out to play outdoors in anything that would ever get as old and shabby. Laurena, for her short stature, did not appear childlike. She had an astute expression that defied anyone trying to deceive her. The little girl spoke to him, and what she said was very surprising. “Who are you?”

“I ... I am your father,” he replied.

“No, you are not. My father left here this morning and told us that he would never return, ever! So, who are you?”

Matthew remembered he had been asked if he wanted to be brought home or if he wanted to continue walking into town. Suddenly, the question he had been asked made perfect sense. Still, the young lady had come out to look for him, after he had fallen off his horse and his horse had trotted back here to the house. He felt grateful for the assistance. It was beginning to sound as if he didn’t deserve it.

“I promise, that if you don’t tell anyone that I am not your father, I will never ever leave like that again.”

“Maybe we don’t care if you leave,” Laurena said petulantly with a defiant toss of her head.

Matthew swallowed hard. Once again, he seemed to have entered the life of a complete cad. “I promise that if you help me, I will not only stay but I will make sure that you are all happy about it.”

“I would be happy if you were not mean to Mother.”

“I promise that I will not be mean to Mother,” he said.

“Cross your heart and hope to die if you should ever tell a lie.”

“What?” questioned Matthew.

“Say it!” said Laurena, emphatically.

Matthew tried to remember the phrase. “I cross my heart and hope to die if I should ever tell a lie.”

“You didn’t cross your heart!” said Laurena with disgust.

“I have a very sore arm at the moment, dear, but I mean what I said with my whole heart.”

Laurena seemed satisfied.

Maria entered with a drink of water, and Matthew raised himself. Presently, the young woman returned. “I have seen to both our horses, but I will actually ride into town to get the doctor to see you. He may come tonight, or he may leave it until tomorrow, but I think he should see you. That arm and shoulder need some attention, and maybe you have a concussion. The only reason that I brought you back is because you are clearly not yourself.”

Gaby smiled. He hoped she didn’t mean that, as it sounded.

Maria excused herself, saying that she had a meal to prepare. Laurena was asked to watch over her father while the young woman left to fetch the doctor to see ‘Gaby’.

“Will you be alright?” asked Matthew, as she left. She turned and looked at him, puzzled.

“Of course,” she said, “I don’t plan to fall off my horse and I do intend coming back!”

Matthew wondered; if this is Laurena’s mother; just who has been mean to who in the past?

After she left, Laurena spoke, “Don’t worry. She's probably still mad ’coz you left.”

It was at this point that Matthew deduced, without a doubt, that the young woman had been none other than his wife and the mother of Laurena.

“Maybe I just pretended to fall off my horse so that I'd have to come back?”

“No,” said Laurena, after thinking for a few moments, “You are not the same, and father was very positive that he would not return. Besides, it is silly to fall off your horse and get a broken arm to come back and make us sorry for you! What if mother was so mad that she didn’t let you come back?”

“I must have been very bad.”

“Mother thought so. She was very angry.”

“Do you know what I did to upset her?”

“I don’t know. She is often angry at you.”

“Well, that sounds a bit mean to me!”

“My mother is the best mother in the world. She sings to me, tells me stories, and teaches me to read and write. She is never mean to anyone except you, and you started it. We are happier when you are away.”

Matthew's mouth hung open. “I promise I'll never ever be mean to her again. She sounds like a wonderful mother.”

“Well, she let you come here today, and I don’t know you at all!”

Later, Maria returned and prepared the desk in front of the window for his evening meal. She instructed Laurena to come to the kitchen to eat and returned later with a plate of food for Gaby.

“Come and eat at the desk, Señor. I have cut up your meat and vittles so that you can eat it with a fork in the hand of your good arm.”

“Thank you, Maria, that is very kind of you. When do you think your mistress will return?”

“The Senora should be back within a few hours. If it is dark before she returns, I will come here to light the lamp for you. Señorita Laurena will come to say goodnight to you before she goes to bed.”

They both left, and Matthew walked over to the desk and moved out the chair with one arm. With extra effort, he managed to sit and start eating his meal. Did he usually eat alone or with his family? He finished eating his meal of meat and vegetables, then sat back in the hard chair and looked around the room. The sun's bright rays shone through the panes of glass in the window behind him, still bright enough to warm his back a little. He could see the contents of the small room easily. One wall had shelves from floor to ceiling and contained hundreds and hundreds of books, another wall had a hearth and an unlit fireplace. Had he spent much time in this room in the past? His jacket had been placed on the chair near the fire. A homemade, striped woollen rug adorned the floor, and the only other furniture in the room was the couch on which he had lain. The air smelled musty, possibly emanating from the books, some of which looked very old.

The temperature outside, earlier in the day, had been stifling, and it hadn't cooled inside the home yet. Maybe this was the season of summer? He looked over at his jacket and decided to investigate the pockets. He remembered there had been a bulge in one of them. When he examined them, however, he found nothing in either of the pockets, which seemed strange considering he hadn’t noticed the young woman or Maria removing anything. Afterwards, he stood in front of the books and studied the spines to try to read their titles. He resolved to eventually examine and read each one of them. While he was thus occupied, Laurena had completed her meal, and she returned before retiring upstairs. She stood in the doorway with Maria.

“Goodnight, Father.” She curtseyed politely. Matthew wondered if she was a less affectionate child than Evelyn had been, or if he was a father who preferred more formality.

“Goodnight, my dear,” he said, “Sleep well.” There was warmth in his tone. He detected wide-eyed surprise, after which she smiled and winked. It was the first smile he had seen on her face. They exchanged knowing looks before Maria hurried her upstairs.