The car that picked us up from the hospital was black and sleek and probably cost more than most people would earn in several lifetimes. I knew this because Lucas told me when I asked, his voice perfectly neutral as he listed the specifications.
I sat in the back seat and watched the city blur past the tinted windows. Tall buildings of glass and steel. Tiny people hurrying along sidewalks with coffee cups. Somewhere out there was a version of me who belonged in this city, who had built an empire here, who probably never once looked out a car window and wondered who she was.
Lucas sat across from me with his tablet in hand and his back perfectly straight. The car had seats that faced each other like a mobile boardroom. His ears had faded from the burgundy of the hospital to a manageable pink, though they twitched every time I shifted in my seat.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Your penthouse in Chen Tower. It occupies the top three floors and offers panoramic views of the city skyline, the river, and on clear days, the mountains."
"Three floors."
"Yes."
"I live in three floors."
"Yes."
"And I cannot remember what any of them look like."
His fingers paused over his tablet for just a heartbeat. "The penthouse has been maintained in your absence by your housekeeper, Mrs. Nguyen. She has been with you for eight years. Everything is prepared for your arrival."
"Mrs. Nguyen," I repeated. "Another person I do not remember who apparently knows everything about me."
"Mrs. Nguyen is very loyal and very discreet. She does not discuss your private matters with anyone. It is why she has remained in your employ despite your tendency to fire people who disappoint you."
I filed that away. A housekeeper who kept secrets. An assistant who counted the exact days of his employment. A life full of people I did not know but who knew me very well.
"What about family?" I asked. My voice came out quieter than I intended. "Do I have family?"
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Your parents are both deceased. Your mother passed when you were seventeen after a prolonged illness. Your father died five years ago from complications following a cardiac event."
"Oh."
I waited for the grief to hit. I waited for some echo of loss to surface from the blank void. Nothing came. Just emptiness where my mother and father used to be. The worst kind of emptiness, the kind where you know you should feel something but cannot find the door to let it in.
"You have a grandmother," Lucas continued. His voice softened. "Eleanor Chen. She lives in the countryside and visits occasionally. She prefers to stay at a nearby hotel because she says the smart home system judges her. You also have an aunt, Elaine Chen, your mother's younger sister. She lives abroad."
"A grandmother and an aunt."
"Yes."
"Do they know about the amnesia?"
"I informed them both. Your grandmother was concerned and asked if you still remembered her dumpling recipe. When I said I did not know, she replied that if you could not remember the dumplings, there was no point in remembering anything else."
I laughed before I could stop myself. The sound came out rough and surprised and a little bit broken. Lucas's ears went pink.
"Your grandmother is a very practical woman," he added.
"I think I like her already."
"She is difficult not to like, though she has a tendency to forget names. Yours included. During her last visit, she called you Violet for three days, and you did not correct her."
I stared at him. "She forgot my name and I just let her."
"I asked you about it at the time. You said that it made her happy, and that love was letting people be wrong about you if it made them smile."
The words hung in the air between us. The old Vivian, the cold and efficient billionaire who fired people for suggesting beef tartare, had let her grandmother call her by the wrong name for three days because it made her happy. Somewhere underneath all those walls, she had been capable of tenderness.
"The old Vivian said that," I said slowly. "That love was letting people be wrong about you if it made them smile."
"She did."
"And you remembered. Word for word."
His ears went from pink to crimson. He stared at his tablet as if it contained the secrets to the universe. "I have an excellent memory. It is one of the reasons you hired me."
"That is not why you remembered."
He did not answer. His ears were glowing now, and I was beginning to understand that he remembered everything about me. Every small kindness, every rare moment of softness. He had been watching me for six years and waiting for me to become someone who could be reached.
The car began to slow. I looked out the window at a tower that scraped the sky like it belonged there. All glass and steel and sharp angles, reflecting the afternoon light in a thousand directions.
"Chen Tower," Lucas said. His voice was steady again. "Your home."
I looked up at the building, at the top three floors where a version of me was waiting. A woman who owned three floors and a private island and a vintage Porsche she never drove. She had built an empire and worn only black and gray and fired people for suggesting she try something new. Somewhere underneath all that, she had let her grandmother call her Violet because it made her smile.
"What if I do not like her?" I asked quietly. "The woman I was. What if I meet her and I do not like her at all?"
Lucas was quiet for a long moment. When he finally looked at me, really looked at me instead of that point above my shoulder, his eyes were dark and serious and completely unguarded.
"Then do not become her again," he said.
Simple words, quietly spoken, but they landed somewhere deep in my chest where the amnesia had not reached. Somewhere that still remembered how to feel.
The car door opened. Lucas stepped out first and offered his hand to help me. I took it, and his fingers were warm and steady and wrapped around mine for just a moment longer than necessary. His ears were still pink, and the afternoon light caught the edges of them.
"Welcome home, Ms. Chen," he said.
"Vivian."
A pause. "Welcome home, Vivian."
I looked up at the tower one more time. At the life waiting for me behind all that glass and steel. At the woman I used to be and the woman I might become. Home. What a strange word for a place I did not remember.
But standing there with Lucas's hand still warm in mine and his ears still pink and the city glittering around us, I thought maybe I could learn to remember it. Or if not remember, at least build something new in its place.
I did not know yet that my penthouse had a smart home system that only obeyed Lucas. I did not know that I would spend my first night getting lost in my own hallways. I did not know that I would find a pair of unicorn pajamas hidden in my closet, a gift from a best friend I could not remember.
I did not know any of that yet. All I knew was that I had forgotten everything, and the man with the tell-tale ears was still holding my hand.
And somehow, impossibly, that was enough.