“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“You were in a car accident. Three years ago. Outside North Carolina. You were on your way to your brother’s house. They found your car wrapped around a tree. There was blood—enough to believe you didn’t survive. But they never found your body.”
I stared at her, completely stunned.
“I’ve never been to North Carolina,” I said slowly. “And I don’t have a brother.”
“You do,” she insisted, tears filling her eyes. “His name is Sean. You, Caleb, and I lived in a little house together. You worked as a contractor. You loved sketching blueprints on napkins. Caleb was four when you vanished.”
My eyes drifted to the boy.
Caleb.
“You’re telling me I’ve been missing for three years?” I asked quietly. “That I had a wife and a kid, and somehow I just… forgot?”
“Not forgot,” she said gently. “Amnesia. Trauma-related memory loss. The police closed the case. We assumed the worst.”
I stepped back, my hands shaking.
“I have a life here,” I said. “I live with my girlfriend. I don’t—”
I stopped.
Because the truth was, there were gaps.
Big ones.
I remembered waking up in a hospital with a pounding headache and no wallet. I remembered my name—Lewis—but nothing else.
No childhood.
No family.
A social worker had helped me start over.
And I never asked questions.
Not knowing had felt safer.
Until now.
“Why didn’t you look for me?” I whispered.
