Chapter 2 - FOUR YEARS MISSING
Nora did not lose four entire years of memory.
That would have been simpler.
She remembered:
birthdays,
holidays,
vacations,
work,
arguments,
friends.
What she did not remember clearly was the six-week period surrounding an accident four years earlier.
Everyone told her she had fallen.
From the second-floor landing at the Hale family lake house.
She remembered waking in a hospital.
Graham sitting beside her.
Julian bringing flowers.
Her mother crying.
Doctors using words like:
concussion,
brain swelling,
post-traumatic memory disturbance,
recovery.
Afterward, Nora experienced gaps.
Names occasionally vanished.
Appointments slipped.
She once forgot she had already paid a contractor.
Graham became helpful.
Then indispensable.
“You rest. I’ll handle it.”
At first that was love.
Or looked like it.
Nora had inherited a large investment portfolio from her grandmother six months before the accident.
Not cash sitting in one account.
A family investment structure worth approximately $24 million.
Public equities.
Municipal bonds.
Commercial property interests.
Private credit funds.
And a large block of shares in a regional logistics company her grandmother had helped build.
Nora had always managed it with an independent adviser.
After the accident, that became harder.
Reading long reports exhausted her.
Numbers blurred.
Headaches came fast.
Then Graham suggested:
“Let me coordinate with the advisers until you’re stronger.”
Nora agreed.
Temporarily.
At least, that was what she thought she agreed to.
Then Dr. Stone asked:
“Do you remember the original injury?”
Nora looked at Graham.
He answered for her.
“She fell.”
Nora slowly turned.
May you like
“I didn’t ask you.”
The room went quiet.
