Still With Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

ticket, and a few receipts. In the planner was his schedule for the week: executive board meetings, team-building exercises, motivational meetings, meetings in Paris and the surrounding area. On Tuesday, he had had lunch with Pierre. Then again on Thursday. Pierre, his best friend. Other names were written down around the noon hour and often at dinnertime, but they told him nothing. The folders contained his work orders. On a business card he read, “Jeremy Delègue, Sales, Ile-de-France.”
    He leafed through a booklet. It promoted the company he worked for and its products—adhesives designed for some use he couldn’t fathom.
    None of these materials helped him. Quite the opposite: Jeremy felt a strange quiver of guilt, like he was violating someone else’s privacy. I need to see some photos. They’ll tell me something about the past few years and maybe give me some clues .
    He quickly found three albums sitting on a shelf. On the faux leather cover of the first album, the year 2001 was written in gold ink. Elegant handwriting provided captionsfor each of the photos taken in the course of his first year with Victoria. The first shot took him by surprise. He looked tired and wan, with vacant eyes. Victoria sat on his knees with her arms around his shoulders. She wore a big grin. He looked gloomy and sad. The contrast was obvious. According to the date, he was looking at a photo taken a few days after his release from the hospital.
    He flipped through the album. The further along he got, the more life and vitality seemed to return to him. The captions helped him with the timeline. “Monastir, our first vacation,” “Luberon, weekend,” “My birthday,” “New Year’s Day.” He noticed several people who appeared to be friends but were strangers to him now.
    Jeremy stopped on a snapshot of himself where he was alone, looking lost. His expression was hard to place. The longer he looked at it, the more he found it empty and very different from the ones he’d seen in other photos. He went back to the first pages and was surprised to see that in all the photos, even when he looked ecstatic, his eyes never changed. Like two black buttons sewn onto a teddy bear’s face. Then he told himself that everyone who looked closely at his own imagewould feel the same way. A feeling of strangeness. It had happened to him before when he’d played a childhood game, staring at his reflection in the mirror while repeating his own name. After a few minutes, his face became unrecognizable, an amalgamation of someone else’s flesh and unknown features—his name a series of meaningless letters and syllables.
    According to the title, the second album was devoted to his wedding. He and Victoria at the courthouse, she in a stunning white dress, traditional and elegant, and he in a gray suit, white shirt, and charcoal tie. They were both smiling at their guests, hugging them, laughing. He didn’t see his parents, and his heart quaked. He looked for photos of the religious ceremony, but they were nowhere to be found. They must have had a civil union only.
    The third album was titled, “Our Family.” It opened with a few photos of pregnant Victoria. She had a baby bump, and it looked good on her. The world changed, and the people he loved changed with it; his universe altered, and he stayed the same.
    Then came photos of the birth. The first photo of Thomas showed a newborn baby lost in the blue of anoversized bib. The caption read, “Thomas, my prince.” The rest featured Thomas in different settings and outfits. In some, Jeremy played the role of father, baby in his arms or bottle in hand.
    Dizzy, he closed the album. None of these photos brought back any memories. He had looked through them with curiosity and anxiety, like he was violating the intimate secrets of a twin brother he had never known. This life wasn’t his.
    What can I do? Tell Victoria about this new bout of amnesia? Wait and count on a recovery? After all, these