Chapter 2 - Shadows of the Past
The silence in the bathroom was deafening, broken only by the sound of my ragged breathing and the soft drip of water from the faucet. I sat on the marble floor, my expensive clothes soaked with dirty water, clutching the woman’s hands as tears streamed down my face. She looked at me not with hostility, but with a gentle, agonizing detachments. To her, I was merely a strange, wealthy woman weeping in a luxurious bathroom. To me, she was the missing anchor of my childhood.
Twenty years ago, when I was sixteen, my mother, Eleanor Vance, walked out of our suburban home to buy groceries and simply vanished into thin air. There was no ransom demand, no vehicle left abandoned on the highway, and no note. The police conducted a brief investigation before the case went cold. My father, devastated and overwhelmed, eventually passed away five years later, believing until his final breath that his wife had been murdered or had abandoned us.
I dragged my feet downstairs, my face pale and streaked with mascara. Alejandro was sitting in the study, reviewing blueprints. When he saw my condition, he immediately dropped his pen and stood up.
"Mariana? What happened? Did she..."
"She's my mother, Alejandro," I choked out, collapsing into the nearest armchair.
Alejandro froze. "What did you say?"
"The crescent birthmark on her shoulder... the voice... it's her. It's Eleanor."
He rushed to my side, kneeling beside my chair. "Mariana, are you sure? It's been twenty years. You were so young—"
"Look at the locket!" I shoved the open silver casing toward his face. "Look at the photograph! Look at her shoulder! It is her, Alejandro. But she doesn't know who I am. She doesn't know who she is."
Alejandro sat back on his heels, a heavy silence falling over the room. His initial shock slowly gave way to a complex expression that I couldn't quite decipher—a mixture of profound sorrow and a strange, subtle tension that tightened his jaw.
"If she truly is your mother," Alejandro said slowly, choosing his words with immense care, "then we need to handle this with extreme caution. A sudden shock could damage her fragile mental state."
"I don't care about caution, Alejandro! I want to know what happened to her! Where has she been for twenty years? Why did she wake up in a construction site with trauma?"
Alejandro reached out, taking my cold hands in his warm ones. "We will find out. I promise you, Mariana. I will hire the best private investigators and the top neurologists in the country. But for tonight, let her rest. She has spent two decades running on survival instincts."
I agreed, though sleep was impossible that night. I stayed up in the guest room, watching the faint rhythm of my mother's chest rising and falling as she slept on crisp linen sheets.
The next morning, Dr. Harrison, a renowned neurologist from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, arrived at our residence. After a thorough three-hour examination involving cognitive assessments and a portable brain scan setup, he met us in the library.
"Your mother suffers from a severe form of retrograde amnesia brought on by profound physical and psychological trauma," Dr. Harrison explained, placing the scans on the table. "There are traces of old skull fractures—healed, but indicative of a catastrophic blow to the head twenty years ago. It appears she completely lost access to her autobiographical memory. Her brain created a blank slate as a coping mechanism."
"Can she regain her memories?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"It is possible, but delicate," Dr. Harrison replied. "Trauma-induced amnesia is like a locked door. Forcing it open with aggressive interrogation can cause severe psychological distress or permanent regression. You must allow her to trigger her own memories through familiar environments, smells, and objects."
After the doctor left, I decided to take my mother for a walk in our private estate garden. She wore a soft silk sweater and tailored trousers—clothes that belonged to her before her life fell apart. As we walked past the blooming white hydrangeas, she stopped suddenly, her breath hitching.
"White hydrangeas," she whispered, her eyes fixing on the petals.
"Do you remember them, Mom?" I asked eagerly, taking a step closer.
"I... I used to cut them," she murmured, touching a stem with delicate fingers. "For the blue vase by the window. But... someone was angry with me. Someone told me to stop."
"Who was angry, Mom? Father?"
May you like
She winced, bringing her hands to her temples as a look of intense panic washed over her face. "No... not him. The man with the golden ring. He said... he said the land was worth more than the flowers."
Before I could ask her what she meant, Alejandro appeared at the end of the garden path, his footsteps heavy against the gravel. The moment my mother caught sight of him, she winced again, stepping behind me as if seeking protection.
