Carole lay on her bed, watching them, and turned her head several times to follow them with her eyes. Anthony kissed her too, and her eyes were filled with questions, and then Jason came to stand beside her and held her hand. Stevie stood back against the wall, smiling at her, but Carole didn't seem to notice her. It was possible that she couldn't focus yet from a distance.

“You've made us very happy today,” Jason said to his ex-wife with a loving smile, as he kept her hand in his own. She looked at him blankly. It took her a long time but she finally formed a single word and said it to him.

“Tii… rr … ed … tired.”

“I know you're tired, sweetheart,” he said gently. “You've been asleep for a long time.”

“I love you, Mom,” Chloe added, and Anthony echoed her words. Carole stared at them as though she didn't know what that meant, and then spoke again.

“Waa … ter.” She pointed to the glass with a weak hand, and the nurse held it to her lips. It reminded Stevie suddenly of Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker. They were starting way back at the beginning. But at least they were headed in the right direction now. Carole said nothing directly to any of them, and said none of their names. She just watched them. They stayed with her till noon, and then they left her. Carole looked exhausted, and her voice, the two times she spoke, didn't sound like her own. Stevie suspected she was still hoarse from the respirator, which had been removed not long before. Her throat sounded sore, and her eyes looked huge in her face. She had lost a lot of weight, and had been thin before. But she was still beautiful, even now. More so than ever, however wan. She looked as though she could have been playing Mimi in La Bohème. She seemed like a tragic heroine as she lay there, but hopefully for all of them, the tragedy was over.

Jason met with the doctor again late that afternoon. Chloe had decided to go shopping again, this time to celebrate. Retail therapy, as Stevie called it. And Anthony was at the gym, working out. They felt a lot better, and less guilty about returning to normal activities and life. They had even eaten a huge lunch at Le Voltaire, which was Carole's favorite restaurant in Paris, as they knew well. Jason said it was a celebration lunch for her.

The doctor in charge said that Carole's MRI and CT scans looked good, as they had for a while. There was no visible damage to her brain, which seemed remarkable. The initial small tears in the nerves had already healed. But there was also no way to assess how much memory loss she'd sustained, or to predict how many of her normal brain functions would return. Only time would tell. She was still acknowledging people when they spoke to her, and had said a few more words that afternoon, most of which related to her physical state and nothing else. She had said “cold” when the nurse opened the window, and “ow” when they took blood from her arm, and again when they readjusted her IV. She was responsive to pain and sensation, but she looked blank when the doctor asked her questions that went beyond yes and no. When they asked her her name, she shook her head. They told her it was Carole, and she shrugged. It was of no apparent interest to her. And the nurse said that when they called her by name, she didn't respond. And since she didn't know her own name, it was unlikely that she remembered theirs. More important, the doctor was fairly certain that for the moment Carole had no recollection of who they were.

Jason refused to be discouraged by it, and when he reported it to Stevie later on, he said it was just a matter of time. He had a firm grip on hope again. Maybe too firm, Stevie thought. She had already acknowledged to herself the possibility that Carole might never be the same again. She was awake, but there was a long way to go before Carole would be herself, if she ever would be again. It was still a question with no answer.

There was a leak to the press at the hospital again that day, and the next morning, the press reported that Carole Barber was out of her coma. She had already been off the critical list for several days. She still remained a hot news item. And it was obvious to Stevie that someone at the hospital was getting paid for news about Carole. It wouldn't have been unusual, even in the States, but it seemed disgusting to her anyway. It came with the territory of being a star, but seemed like a high price to pay. There were allusions in the article to the fact that she might be permanently brain-damaged. But the photograph they ran with the story was gorgeous. It had been taken ten years before, in her prime, although she still looked damn good now, before the bombing anyway. And all things considered, she looked pretty good for a woman with a brain injury and who had survived a bomb at close range.

The police came to visit her, once they knew that she was awake. The doctor let them speak to her briefly but within minutes, it was evident to them that she had no memory of the bombing or anything else. They left with no further information from her.

Jason and the children continued to visit Carole, as did Stevie, and she continued to add words to her repertoire. Book. Blanket. Thirsty. No! She was very emphatic on that one, particularly when they came to take blood, and she pulled her arm away the last time and glared at the nurse and called her “bad,” which made them all smile. They took her blood anyway, she burst into tears, looked surprised, and said “cry.” Stevie talked to her as though she were normal, and sometimes Carole just sat and stared at her for hours, saying nothing. She could sit up now, but she still couldn't put words into a sentence, or say their names. It was clear by the day before Thanksgiving, three days after she'd awakened, that she had no idea whatsoever who they were. She recognized no one, not even her children. They were all upset by it, but Chloe was the most distressed.

“She doesn't even know me!” Chloe said with tears in her eyes when she left the hospital with her father to go back to the hotel.

“She will, sweetheart. Give her time.”

“What if she stays like that?” She voiced their worst fear. No one else had dared to say it.

“We'll take her to the best doctors in the world,” Jason reassured her, and he meant it.

Stevie was worried about it too. She continued to have conversations with Carole, while her friend and employer looked blank. She smiled once in a while at the things Stevie said, but there wasn't even a spark of memory for who Stevie was in her eyes. Smiling was new for her. And laughing was too. It frightened Carole the first time she did it, and she instantly burst into tears. It was like watching a baby. She had a lot of ground to cover, and hard work ahead. The speech therapist was working with her. They had found a British one who pushed Carole hard. She told Carole her name and asked her to repeat it many times. She hoped that the patterning would cause a spark, but thus far nothing did.

On Thanksgiving morning Stevie told her what day it was and what it meant in the States. She told her what they would have at the meal, and Carole looked intrigued. Stevie hoped it had jolted her memory, but it hadn't.

“Turkey. What's that?” She said it like she'd never heard the word before, and Stevie smiled.

“It's a bird we'll eat for lunch.”

“Sounds disgusting,” Carole said, making a face, and Stevie laughed.

“Sometimes it is. It's a tradition.”

“Feathers?” Carole asked with interest. It was down to basics. Birds had feathers. She remembered that much at least.

“No. Stuffing. Yum.” She described the stuffing to her, as Carole listened with interest.

“Hard,” she said then, as tears filled her eyes. “To talk. Words. Can't find them.” She looked frustrated for the first time.

“I know. I'm sorry. They'll come back. Maybe we should start with dirty ones. Maybe that would be more fun. You know, like shit, fuck, ass, asshole, the good ones. Why worry about turkey and stuffing?”

“Bad words?” Stevie nodded, and they both laughed. “Ass,” Carole said proudly. “Fuck.” She clearly had no idea what it meant.

“Excellent,” Stevie said with a loving look. She loved this woman more than her own mother or sister. She truly was her best friend.

“Name?” Carole asked, looking sad again. “Your name,” she corrected. She was trying to stretch herself. The speech therapist wanted her to speak in sentences, and most of the time she couldn't. Not yet.

“Stevie. Stephanie Morrow. I work for you at home in L.A. And we're friends.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it, and then she added, “I love you. A lot. I think you even love me too.”

“Nice,” Carole said. “Stevie.” She tried out the word. “You are my friend.” It was the longest sentence she'd formed so far.

“Yes, I am.”

Jason walked in then to give Carole a kiss before their Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel. The kids were at the Ritz getting dressed, and had gone swimming again that morning. Carole looked up at him and smiled.

“Ass. Fuck,” she said, and he looked startled, and then glanced at Stevie, wondering what had happened, and if Carole was losing it again. “New words.” She smiled broadly.

“Oh. Great. That should be useful.” He laughed and sat down.

“Your name?” she asked. He had told her before, but she had forgotten.

“Jason.” For a moment he looked sad.

“Are you my friend?”

He hesitated for a moment before he answered, and tried to sound normal and somewhat casual when he did. It was a heavy moment, and indicated again that she remembered nothing of her past. “I was your husband. We were married. We have two children, Anthony and Chloe. They were here yesterday.” He sounded tired, but mostly sad.

“Children?” She looked blank, and then he realized why.

“They're big now. Grown-ups. They are our children, but they're twenty-two and twenty-six years old. They've been here to visit you. You saw them with me. Chloe lives in London, and Anthony lives in New York, and works with me. I live in New York too.” It was a lot of information for her all at once.

“Where do I live? With you?”

“No. You live in Los Angeles. We're not married anymore. We haven't been for a long time.”

“Why?” Her eyes dove deep into his as she asked. She needed to know everything now, in order to find out who she was. She was lost.

“That's a long story. Maybe we should talk about that another time.” And neither of them wanted to tell her about Sean. It was too soon. She didn't even know she'd had him, she didn't need to know she had lost him two years before. “We're divorced.”

“That's sad,” she said. She seemed to understand what divorced meant, which Stevie found intriguing. She got some concepts and words, and others seemed to be completely gone. It was odd what was left.

“Yes, it is,” Jason agreed. And then Jason told her about Thanksgiving too, and the meal they were going to have at the hotel.

“Sounds like too much food. Sick.” He nodded and laughed.

“Yeah, you're right, it is. But it's a nice holiday. It's a day to be thankful for good things that have happened, and the blessings we have. Like you sitting here talking to me right now,” he said with a tender look. “I'm grateful for you this year. We all are, Carole,” he said as Stevie started to leave the room discreetly, but he told her she could stay. They had no secrets from each other these days.

“I am thankful for both of you,” she said, looking at the two of them. She wasn't sure who they were, but they were good to her, and she could sense their love for her flowing toward her. It was palpable in the room.

They chatted with her for a while, and a few more words came back to her, most of them related to the holiday. The words mince pie and pumpkin pie sprang out of nowhere, but she had no idea what they were. Stevie had only mentioned apple pie to her, because the hotel couldn't do the others. And then finally, Stevie and Jason got up to leave.

“We're going back to the hotel to have Thanksgiving dinner with Anthony and Chloe,” Jason explained with a gentle look at Carole as he held her hand. “I wish you were coming with us.” She frowned when he mentioned the hotel, as though trying to pull something elusive out of her mental computer but it just wouldn't come.

“What hotel?”

“The Ritz. It's where you always stay in Paris. You love it. It's beautiful. They're making a turkey dinner for us in a private dining room.” They had a lot to be grateful for this year.

“That sounds nice,” Carole said, looking sad. “I can't remember anything, who I am, who you are, where I live… the hotel… I don't even remember Thanksgiving, or the turkey or pies.” There were tears of sorrow and frustration in her eyes, and seeing her that way tore at their hearts.