For The Love

2002, England, Monica (Jean)

Monica and Wendell spent the morning at the General Register’s office, trying to sort out obtaining a birth certificate for a baby girl whose name they did not know, to no avail. Even knowing the birth date down to the time wasn’t helpful, especially since they couldn’t be certain of a surname – had they used Granger or Wilkins? Add to that there was no legal documentation showing they’d changed their names, and well, they were running circles in the agency without any luck. Apparently you couldn’t just order any random official documents you pleased, there needed to be a reason and a proven legal relationship.

Finally, Wendell had the idea of going to the Royal Courts to see if there were any records of a Jean and John Granger changing their names to Wendell and Monica Wilkins.

“I want to head to the courts but by the time we get back into London it’ll be past time for lunch and I’d like to take a step away from this right now. I’d rather just talk to you for a little while,” Monica said as they stepped through the threshold of the building out into the sunlight.

Wendell sighed, “I’d like that too, Mon. Let’s go wander for a bit and see if we can't scrounge something.”

Monica and Wendell clasped hands and leaned on each other. Things were better than they had been in a while, but also worse.

“I thought that everything I felt was just me losing the plot, Wendell. And I – I never thought you were terribly affected apart from perhaps feeling the stress of me being mental.”

“You’re not mental, Mon. And I never thought you were, for the record. I know moving countries – continents – is a big task. It’s natural that it would have affected you. And look, the practice is doing beautifully. We’re not suffering financially. You were getting more rest with the pills for a while. I wasn’t terribly affected by it all.”

Monica hummed. “I’m glad. But I am mental, or at least, I was. Now I’m just convinced this whole thing is a conspiracy to erase us. It’s like we’re both Jason Bourne or something!” She chucked her hands in the air in exasperation and Wendell chuckled. “Well I’d hope we’d have been programmed with better survival skills than dentistry, had that been the case.”

“It’s not a bad set of skills, come to that. It’s lucrative at least.”

They were both laughing mildly through the discomfort of their plight.

Wendell cleared his throat. A nervous habit when he was starting serious conversation. “Mon, you never have really explained this all to me in great detail. I’ve spent all this time thinking that you were just having stress dreams and maybe developing a bit of mid-life anxiety. But the last week it seems as though you’ve known for a while now that you felt there was a missing piece of our lives. When did you think that we were, well, whatever this is that’s going on, when did you first realize it?”

“I knew on the plane to Australia, Wendell.”

His eyes widened in shock and a pained expression took over his face, “that long, my love?”

“Since the day we left I just,” she struggled to explain herself, turning her palms upward and bringing them into her chest, “I felt this pull. Like we were leaving our whole lives, which – yes, yes, we were and all that, but it was more than that. I just knew we’d left something. Something significant. But then, the strangest thing would happen. I would get this, this humming feeling in my veins and suddenly I would be thinking about the seaside in Australia. Waves, and sand, and you would all rush to the front of my mind. It was like my brain was trying to cover these gaps with the promise of a new life. Or something.” She finished rather quietly.

“I assumed it was anxiety, too. And even the dreams – I never could remember what they were about most of the time, but when I would wake up I could feel someone missing from me.”

“You never said.”

“What was there to say? I didn’t know who or what it was. I was just grief stricken over our lives, I thought. Anxious about the new one. Unprepared for the rigors of moving abroad. And then, I don’t know if I ever told you about the dream that prompted me to start taking the meds?”

“No, you’ve only ever said you couldn’t remember them.”

Monica sucked her teeth and clucked her tongue, turning her face away as they walked. She hated thinking about that dream. She counted it as the worst moment of her life, and tried to bury it from the very beginning.

“It was a – a night terror, more so than a dream. It was short but I think I have never felt anything so intensely real in a dream in all my life.” She took a deep breath. “The girl I’ve been seeing again in my more recent, pleasanter dreams was there. She was older than in the dreams of late. Early twenties maybe? I’m not sure. But she looks so much like me, Wendell. But she has brown eyes. And her hair was a wild mess of curls and mattes, an- and blood. She was on a checkered floor in a great room in a, like…like a palace, or some thing like one. There was a crowd of dark figures stood around in the edges of the room and one more stood above her, crouching over top of her and it was,” Monica took a bracing breath and wiped the small tear that had formed in the corner of her eye, “she was hurting my girl. In my dream I knew she was mine. There was so much blood, and then she – my girl looked right at me, and I know it was a dream but it felt like she could really see me. She called me mum.” Monica shuddered a bit, and Wendell stopped her walking, pulling around to rub her shoulders.

Wendell didn’t know what to say. If Monica had told him this dream at the time, he would’ve been keen to support her and help drive the dream away as a terrible nightmare. But with the odd turn of events the last few weeks he was unsure of how to help. It probably was just a dream, but then, his name was only probably Wendell.

“I wish you’d have told me,” was all he could think of.  

“And for what, then? For you to worry even more, before we had even the inkling that I wasn’t insane and had the wherewithal to come track down the documents? No, I’m glad I didn’t.” She shook her head. “For whatever reason it’s happening now, this way, I am glad it is. I’d bear it all again. Right now I just think I want to know her name. But, anyway, that dream was when I thought I’d truly broken with reality. I woke up believing I was this poor girl’s mum.”

“You’ve never wanted to be a mum.” Wendell said it automatically but winced, “I don’t know why I said that.”

Monica hedged, “I think I might.”

He looked stunned for a second. “Why?”

“It just seems like any time we focus on this idea of this girl, or the idea of parentage generally, our minds redirect us instinctively. Like we’re trying to protect ourselves from something. I think that’s also why it’s taken me so long to be able to think about this very much at all. Any time I’d get upset or wonder if I really didn’t want to be a mum, I’d find myself thinking about the Gold Coast and fruity drinks on the shore.” She laughed but it was a mirthless sound. Hollow and bitter. “I’m not sure why both of us have done this, and I suppose in the end it doesn’t really matter. It’s just an idea. But often times my little fugue states were brought about because I’d have seen a mother and daughter somewhere, and I would find myself crying about it. But I would forget why before long.”

“You remember now.”

“I do. I don’t know what it means, but I do.”

Monica looked up just as they were approaching the main throughfare that led to their old street. “Before we go get lunch, do you want to stop by the old house? See if I can’t recall anything else?”

“Sure,” Wendell agreed easily, “oh since we're over this way we can head to Magdala’s after, if you’ll allow it,” he teased.

“I will need a midday pint before we deal with the courts.” Monica did not envy future Monica’s problem; dealing with the court clerks was not her preferred method of spending even half a day.

As they walked, Monica asked Wendell questions about his experiences over the last five years, and he could agree that he felt some low-level anxieties but had chalked it up to concern over her. Nothing so dramatic had happened to him, and he hadn’t ever seen the face of the girl his wife must have memorized by now. He could picture her, though. Younger Monica with wild, curly hair and brown eyes. She sounded lovely.

As they approached their old home, a round faced woman in a squat Peugeot was leaving the gate, turning down the lane with a hurried wave and a broad smile. Monica started, she was almost certain that had been the realtor she and Wendell used to sell the home.

Monica waited until the car was out of sight before turning to walk through the gate, curious to see if it was for sale again. Indeed, the sale sign was still planted deeply into the ground, though the little added “Sold!” on the bottom apparently indicated that the deal was done. She walked toward the front of the home, noticing for the first time the front door was somewhat ajar.

Aloud she mused, “I wonder if the new owners will let us do a walk through if we tell them we have amnesia.” Wendell just shrugged with a smile, “nothing for it but to try, my love.”

As she approached the portico, voices drifted out into the yard. A lilting feminine voice, sharp with good natured reproach and a deep male voice. They were arguing over something Monica didn’t quite understand – sticking charms? And muggles? She heard the man say, “Hermione the pictures don’t even move! I thought you said muggles had better technology than we do.”

Monica didn’t know what a muggle was, but she was buoyed that someone was home and that they sounded generally jovial. Maybe she could just pop round the house for a minute. She raised her fist and tapped lightly on the open door, knocking firmly as she said, “knock knock!”

The house fell quiet with a suddenness that was out of place for how lighthearted the atmosphere seemed. The young woman whose voice had previously been unfocused called, “just a moment,” with a heavily reticent tone and Monica’s heart stopped. She recognized the voice, somewhere. She’d heard it millions of times. The blood was draining from her face, and her finger tips were buzzing as her heart started to pound.

The door opened slowly before swinging wide to reveal the occupants. The woman and the man she'd heard bantering from the yard stood before her. 

Monica froze, hand only halfway back down from where she’d raised it to knock. The upturn in her smile faltered as her mouth went dry. Something inside of her snapped. The world rushed into meet her, swirling hard and fast around her mind. There was nothing, no sound, so sight, no smell beyond the figure of the slight, beautiful, glowing woman in front of her. Monica’s entire body trembled with overwhelm, and her knees began to give out. Wendell slid his hands under her arms to brace her, she was actually falling to the ground. Her stomach was located somewhere beneath her feet, and her heart leapt into her throat. She was a tangle of contradictions and she couldn’t make sense of what she saw. All she could think, all she could manage, was to look into the honey brown eyes of her own younger face, encircled by a halo of wild curls and say,

“It’s you.”