Rachel in Retrograde

Prologue-2

“This is not uncommon,” he stated when she said as much. “We lose some memories, especially what we were doing before we hit our heads. Tell me, do you remember what you were doing before you stepped outside, perhaps? Why were you outside?”

Rachel opened her mouth to answer, but her confidence was premature. She drew a blank. She looked at her hands. Her fingers were swollen. Her thumb had been broken and the rest of her fingertips were in a state of healing after being scraped with pavement. She could not remember what she was doing before she walked out onto the road. She could not remember a damn thing.

“That’s okay,” the doctor said, clearly noticing her fear. “Tell me the first thing you do remember, then? What is your latest—rather than earliest—memory of that day?”

Rachel struggled. She saw a flash of mimosas, but it seemed too distant. Then a flash of gold and purple. That was better, stronger, than before. She gasped as it came back to her. “My sister’s wedding. She believed me.”

“That’s good. Believed you about what?”

“The date,” Rachel said, still struggling. “She moved the date. The invitation. I got it in the mail.”

The doctor nodded and murmured some encouraging words. He took down the chart from her bed and read a few lines. “You were found close to a mailbox. Were you mailing the invitation?”

The flashes of gold and purple, now sheathed in an envelope, came back into clearer focus. She saw the bent corner of the invitation. The plus one, and then her phone messages announcing her date. Then there was nothing else. “Where is my phone?”

“It was destroyed, I’m afraid.”

“I was supposed to take someone to the wedding. I was mailing the plus one. But I don’t know who.”

“We can figure that all out later. Is there anything else you can remember from that day?”

Rachel shook her head. It hurt less this time around. Was she getting better? How far back did this feeling of forgetfulness really go? She tried to explain to him that she did remember things, but that it only felt like a shape of something else.

“Interesting,” he said. “Can you explain more?”

“It’s like shadows. Like I remember the placements, but not what’s inside. Shapes, like I said. Shadows. Colors, gemstones and…” Rachel smiled. She saw the astrological sign for Gemini in the skyline. It was June, after all. The season of the twins, the season of the lovers. She never understood why the astrological year started with Aries. It should always be Gemini.

“That’s okay. That’s great.” The doctor wrote a few words down before he folded his hands in front of his body. “Amnesia cases are rarely like what we see in soap operas. People don’t just forget who they are. There is often something there, but hard to reach, as you describe.”

“Amnesia,” Rachel repeated, fully comprehending the term. She looked down at her hands again, her heart in her throat. “Is it…Will I be like this forever?”

“No,” he said, but was not as enthusiastic as she needed to hear. “That trope, once again, is another something civilians have picked up from movies. It just doesn’t happen like that in real life. I assure you, you will remember things, but it might be slow. Very slow, given the kind of trauma you had.”

“Can I still go to the wedding?” Rachel had no idea what possessed her to ask this question, when she clearly had more pressing matters to contend with, but it seemed connected. She’d been mailing the invitation when this happened—so if she could go, then maybe she’d magically get better there, too. Maybe when her sister said I do, she would remember everything.

Venus, she remembered. Venus would be out of retrograde then. Rachel sat up straighter, realizing more than ever before that she needed to go to that wedding. She needed to see who would show up as her date. She needed to know who she had been talking to, and where this would all lead, once the planet of love in the sky had gone back on course.

“Perhaps,” the doctor said, hedging his tone. “When is the wedding?”

Rachel closed her eyes and saw the date on the invitation. “End of June. That Saturday.”

“Perhaps,” the doctor said again. “We have to play this by how you feel.”

“I feel…tired.”

“That’s expected, too. Tell you what. We can test some of your memory. Most likely, this is not the future loss of short term—which would worry us—but a retro-amnesia.”

“What?”

“Retro-amnesia,” he repeated, his voice more formal. “It’s not the forgetting of the self or the present day, like the president or prime minister or what year it is, but the forgetting of the past.”

“Like a retrograde?” Rachel smiled. The first genuine one since she was here. “Like in astrology?”

The doctor chuckled, but soon stopped when he realized she was serious. “Sort of, I suppose. Definitely makes your sense of communication go awry. Tell me, though. Do you know much about astrology?”

“Yes. I like it.” She was about to tell him about her business—she had a business?—when he cut her off, clearly excited that they’d latched onto something familiar.

“Good, good. You can maybe use it to help you get back what you lost. If it’s the shadow of what you’re seeing, then maybe it will lead you back toward the light.” He smiled and nodded, his face so young but so comforting, before moved on to give her some basic tests and memory tasks. He asked her to recite a list of words; he asked her which were related to animals; then he went back and asked her what his name was.

She answered everything well enough, but balked on the last one. “I…I have no idea.”

“Nor should you. I never told you my name. It’s Doctor Browne, though. Doctor Martin Browne.” He gave her his hand. She shook it, but still felt a slow weight in her stomach.

“Am I…am I going to be okay?”

“Yes,” Dr. Browne said. “I really do think so. But you’re going to need to keep practicing, to keep remembering everything you lost.”

“Practice how?”

Dr. Browne looked around for a moment, and not seeing what he needed, held up a finger to declare that he’d be right back. He was gone for ten minutes exactly. Rachel counted it out on the digital clock close to her hospital bed. When he stepped back into the room, he held something behind his back.

“Hello Rachel,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”

“Dr. Browne. I don’t remember your first name, though.” Rachel bit her lip. “Is that bad?”

“Most people forget names, so for now, let’s not worry about it. But it’s Martin, in case you were curious.”

“Martin.” She repeated his name as he handed her a notebook, a pen, and a couple magazines. They were all Cosmos with bright colors and lines about How to Please Your Man brandished on the cover. She dismissed the magazine out of hand. “I’m gay. I don’t need to please a man.”

“Interesting. It’s good that part of you is strong, and that you remember,” Dr. Browne said quickly, “but I was hoping you’d appreciate the horoscope information in them.”

Rachel felt something inside of her bloom. Yes, that was useful. Yes, she liked this very much. She thanked him again and flicked open one of the magazines. It was older, from more than a couple months ago now, but its astrology section declared a series of retrogrades happening that summer. Everything from Mercury to Venus to the comet Chiron seemed to be going backward in the sky. So everything from communication to healing and our love life is a mess, the writer said. But that’s okay, because here’s your go-to clean-up guide.

Rachel’s gaze drifted immediately to the write-up for Venus in retrograde. The words felt so familiar, though she knew she’d never read them before.

Happening from May to the end of June this year, this Venus in retrograde will shake up your love life. Chances are, you’ve already been feeling pressured to make a decision about your love life. Our advice is—don’t. Not during this time period. It will only lead to accidents and misfortune.

Rachel let out a long laugh. “You can say that again.”

Dr. Browne cleared his throat. She’d forgotten he was even in the room. “I will leave you be for now, Rachel. Call the nurses if you have any issues. We should get you out of here in a little while.”

“When?” Rachel asked. She touched her head as pain migrated. “Have I asked this already?”

“No. But let’s aim to get you back in ship shape for that wedding,” he said.

“So I can be better by then?”

When Dr. Browne didn’t answer right away, Rachel understood. She may not remember everything by the wedding, but she could go. She would be healthy enough to stand on her own two feet and get dressed and do her makeup. What was she wearing to the wedding? She had a faint memory of a dress, but it was gone before she could cling to it.

“Okay,” Rachel said again. “Sounds like a plan.”

When Dr. Browne left, it was after another word of good luck and a professional nod. Rachel turned back to the magazine’s write-up of Venus in retrograde. It was supposed to end on the last Saturday of June, just when her sister’s wedding was. That day celebrating with her sister came back to her, all over again, in a rush of feelings and wonder. The mimosas. Being slightly drunk. Being always horny, and getting what she wanted without caring about the consequences or how it fit into her sister’s plan. Then the wedding invite, Alexa finally listening to her. Pride. Her business with Priya. Her complicated feelings about Priya, especially when she reminded her just how well they got along, right down to their birth charts. She remembered the astrological placements in the sky, the entire zodiac laid out in front of her, and all the women that fit into each one—and who somehow also fit into her. She remembered being right, and always right about astrology, over and over again, and she remembered being in love, until suddenly she wasn’t anymore.

Then, all of a sudden, she was alone.

Rachel was always in love, but she was also always alone.

Rachel shuddered. She set down the magazine and picked up the notebook the doctor had also given her. She held the pen in her hand for a long time before she knew exactly where to begin again.