He should have loved her

*Zac*
Her hands are shaking, the delicate china beating out a soft clinking tattoo that irritates the devil out of me, as she pours us tea. The answer to everything. A nice cuppa tea.

Me and Calliope are sitting in the chairs by the window. I take the cup she offers me, then set it on the table between us.

I know she simply needed something to occupy her while she considered all I had just said, so I had accepted her offer for tea. In truth, it doesn’t appeal to me in the least. I am tempted to stalk to my brother’s library and snatch a bottle of whiskey. That has been my answer to everything since I returned home. Create a fog within the fog.

The sun has nearly disappeared beyond the horizon. We will have to join the others for supper soon. Or perhaps I should have it delivered here. Having admitted my deficiencies, I am not certain I am up to presenting a polite facade. The Gods know my family has been forced to endure my irascible temperament since I had returned home. Calliope's arrival has granted them a bit of a reprieve. But now she knows the truth and I no longer have a reason to pretend nothing is amiss.

I study her delicate profile as she blows softly on her tea. I notice the freckles now, where the sun has kissed her cheeks, her nose and her chin. Often, from the looks of it. I want to do the same: to kiss her briefly, softly. To kiss her deeply and lingeringly. “For what it is worth, if there is anything from that time that I should remember, it would be you."

Finally, she looks at me. She gives me the soft smile that I have already come to adore, but compassion and pity in her eyes accompanies it. Compassion, I know she can no more withhold it than the darkness can hold back the sun. But the
pity angers me. I do not want it. It is the very reason I had hesitated to tell her.

“I can’t comprehend … the magnitude of this. You recall nothing?” She asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing. No battles, no hospitals. The men I fought beside are complete strangers to me.”

“I remember one occasion when a soldier awoke, terribly confused, seemingly lost, and remembered nothing of the battle in which he was injured, but not to remember anything that occurred during two years … it’s inconceivable. How could it have happened?” She looks lost.

“That is a question for the ages. The physicians speculated that I had taken a powerful blow to the head that knocked me senseless literally. Apparently, I was comatose for several days. I had other wounds. Severe wounds. I have scars and no earthly clue what caused them. It's not only the war and my service that I don't remember. I remember nothing. I was, apparently, told of my nephew's birth, but I was stunned to discover I had a nephew when my brother and his family came to visit me here. I don’t think it was until that moment that the full extent of my aflliction hit my family. Anything they had told me in letters might as well have never been written." I admit.

She chews on her lip. “Why didn’t you tell me that first afternoon when we were in the garden? Or later? After my father left. Or ….”

“I was ashamed, Calliope. I am ashamed. Good God, what sort of man am I to forget something that is so significant in my life? I went off to a bloody war!” I shove myself out of the chair, take three painful steps to the window, and raise my hand to the cold glass. At least my leg can support me somewhat now. In time, it might support me completely. “I have only a gaping, black hole, filled with nothingness, that is two years of my life. I do not know if I am a man of honor. I do not know if I stood my ground on the battlefield or if I showed the enemy my back. I don't know how many vampires I may have killed or what they looked like. Did I feel remorse upon killing or did I celebrate? Did I become the man of character that my family wished I would be? I haven't a clue regarding what sort of soldier I was. What sort of man. Am I a man to be revered or one to be reviled?"

“I can’t even imagine the horror of all that, of not remembering, but I can assure you that you were not reviled. Those who speak of you speak highly. You were an accomplished soldier.” She says softly.

Spinning around, I capture her gaze. “You and I were intimate. I got you with child, for the Gods’ sake. But I have no memory of ever having kissed you before I did so in the library. I thought it would help me remember, the taste of you, your scent, the texture of your skin, the echo of your sigh … but there is nothing. You accuse me of staring at you. I'm searching for an inkling of recognition. I can’t remember what you look like beneath your clothes. The Gods forgive me if I gave you no more care than a rutting stallion."

“No!” She comes up out of the chair with a force that propels her into my arms. She touches my cheek and searches my eyes. “No, you mustn't torment yourself with what you can't remember of me. The one night we shared … it was the most
remarkable night of my life." She caresses my cheek, my chin, and trails her fingers over the dead flesh of my scar. I know she is touching me there only because the tips of her fingers tease the living skin around it. Why can’t she tease the dead memories? Why can’t she somehow resurrect them?

“I fell in love with you that night,” She says quietly. “That’s the reason I kept Zane. I subjected myself to shame and mortification. Because he is yours, part of you, and you are part of him. I could not abandon him. I could not let go of the one person who could still connect me to you."

But had I loved her? Or had she simply been one of many? What were my feelings where she is concerned? Even after having confessed my affliction, I can’t ask her that, I can’t humiliate her further by confirming that I haven’t got a clue regarding what she might have meant to me.

“It’s all right," She says, as though reading my mind. “I understand that you don't know what I may have meant to you. But that doesn't mean that we can't begin anew, does it?”

I had expected her to be horrified by me, and instead she is horrified for me. I had expected her to rebuff me. Instead she accepts me. I had thought she would be frightened by what I have become, a man uncertain of my past. Instead she embraces me.

If I had not loved her, I think to myself, I damned well should have.