After Losing My Memory Don Begins A Good Husband. Chapter 09
After I was discharged, Ricardo brought me home.
He’d purged every trace of Valentina from the house.
He’d even had the master bedroom completely redecorated—repainted in the warm golden tones I loved best.
Every day he cooked me something new, watched movies with me, and even went to a pet shop to buy a Ragdoll cat identical to Oscar.
“Elina, look—his name’s Oscar. Your favorite.”
He placed the kitten in my arms, his eyes brimming with eagerness to please.
I stroked the cat’s soft fur, but felt nothing stir inside me.
“Thank you. He’s lovely.”
Ricardo’s days became a tightrope walk.
He cut off all contact with Giada and Massimo. He barely took his own parents’ calls.
Valentina tried to find him at the estate once.
Down in the garden, she wept and begged.
“Ricardo, are you really going to throw away everything we had—for her?”
I happened to be standing on the balcony, watching the scene unfold.
Ricardo shook off her hand without an ounce of mercy, his gaze ice-cold.
“Valentina, if it weren’t for you, my child would still be alive, and Elina wouldn’t be like this.”
“I’m warning you—don’t ever show your face here again. Or I won’t be sentimental about it.”
Valentina crumpled to the ground, sobbing inconsolably.
Ricardo turned on his heel—and looked up to see me on the balcony. The color drained from his face.
He bolted upstairs like a madman, bursting through the door, breathless.
“Elina, let me explain—there’s nothing between her and me—”
I regarded him calmly and pointed at the plate of sliced fruit on the table.
“Come eat some fruit. It’ll oxidize if you wait.”
He looked into my eyes—placid, undisturbed—and let out a breath of pure relief.
This went on for an entire year.
Ricardo burrowed so deeply into the false happiness he’d constructed that he nearly believed we could grow old together like this.
Until the first snowfall of that winter.
I stood by the window watching the snow. The little cat named Oscar tumbled playfully at my feet.
A flash of imagery tore across my mind.
A rain-drenched road. Blinding headlights. The soul-crushing shriek of brakes.
And then, as if someone had broken the seal on a locked gate, the memories came flooding back in a torrent.
The half-eaten shrimp dumpling. The group chat called “The Real Family.”
The specialist appointment swapped out from under me at the hospital. And a small, mangled body on a cold steel table.
I remembered.
All of it.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t fall apart.
I only felt a bone-deep exhaustion radiating outward from somewhere unreachable.
That evening, Ricardo pushed through the door carrying the chestnut cake I loved.
“Elina, look what I got! The line was outrageous.”
He walked over smiling and set the cake on the table.
I sat on the couch, watching him in silence.
“Ricardo.”
His hands paused on his apron strings. Something in my tone must have registered, because the smile froze on his lips.
I hadn’t called him by his full name in a very long time.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?” He approached cautiously.
I took the marital dissolution agreement—prepared a year ago—from the drawer and placed it on the table.
“Sign it.”
Ricardo’s eyes landed on those words, and it was as though every drop of blood had been siphoned from his body.
He lurched backward, staring at the document like it was something monstrous.
“Elina, what… what are you saying?”
“Did you remember something? Listen to me—that’s all in the past—”