Chapter 12

Matt’s dreams as he tossed and turned in Michael’s bed, were vivid and full of emotional memories.

He flitted from scene to scene, and each time he left the last it was with a sense of urgent frustration, as he tried to stop, and look around to see where he was and who was with him.

On one occasion he actually managed to do it, and he found himself standing over a petite woman with green eyes and honey coloured hair, and with the sweetest smile he had ever seen.

She held out her hands to him and he took them easily marvelling at how tiny and soft they felt in his oversized, overworked paws.

“Who are you?” he shouted out in his dreams.

She laughed at him and her eyes sparkled emeralds at him. “Silly thing – you know me!”

Matt awoke and sat up abruptly, putting his head in his hands as waves of nausea rushed through him.

“Uncle Mathew?”

Michael’s concern was obvious, as were the weary lines around his eyes – and the dark shadows beneath them, and Matt’s nausea twisted into knots of guilt.

“I’m sorry Michael, I have caused you a lot of trouble.” his raw voice was full of genuine remorse, but also pain and frustration.

That his uncle was suffering was plain to see, and suddenly Michael felt a need to help him.

He had known of his uncle’s attack – all those years ago; and the years of relapses and consequences of that attack – such as the migraines and other things. But this was the first time that Michael had seen it first-hand, and his heart went out to his uncle’s suffering.

He sat back in the chair and looked at his uncle.

“There is water by the side of you, so take your time, but then I want you to tell me everything.”

“Tell you everything about what?”

“About the attack – the pain the ... whatever else it is that haunts you so very much.”

Matt pulled himself up against the pillows and reached for the glass, which he gratefully drained.

Then he put it back slowly and sighed wearily.

“There is not anything to tell really, nothing that you don’t already know - I think.”

“I know what I have heard, from father and others probably ... but now I should like to hear it from you, I should like to understand what it is that you are suffering from.”

Matt sighed again and closed his eyes briefly as he tried to gather his thoughts. “It was so long ago, and I remember nothing of the attack and what preceded it, but what we both know comes from the same general source and so I don’t doubt that we know the same thing.”

“You were abducted, brutally beaten, your head was damaged – you scalp and undoubtedly brain damage of some sort?”

“That pretty much sums it up.” Matt nodded.

“You were in a coma for weeks, I believe, and when you did finally regain consciousness, your memory was not intact.”

“Correct.”

“So, when you were released from the hospital ... what happened?”

“I went away to the cottage by the sea, I spent a long time there, just walking, and then running and gradually healing.”

“Do you remember your first migraine attack, or whatever it was?”

He gave a short bitter laugh. “Oh yes ... I had never felt pain like that before and I was not prepared for it, after that first I learned to anticipate and deal with it but yes, I will never forget that first time.”

Michael stood up and refilled his uncle’s glass from the jug beside it, and then sat back down to wait whilst he drank the fluid.

“Do you remember what set it off?”

Matt nursed his glass and stared into it thoughtfully.

“I had been out running, had really pushed myself, and felt drained by the time I got back to the cottage. There was a car parked on the road close by and a woman was sitting in it.” he frowned as the memory formed.

“She climbed out the car and came towards me ... it was ... it was Seline!”

“Seline?”

He could clearly see her in his mind’s eye, in that grey two-piece suit, and her dark hair shining down her back and her breath showing on that cold winter day.

She looked sombre, she looked sad ... she gave him a long searching look and then sighed as though accepting something that she had not wished to accept.

“Matt,” she had said sadly.

Before that day no one ever called him Matt, his name had always been Mathew.

The next thing he knew was the searing pain, it drove him to his knees as he gave a guttural groan of raw agony and the world around him turn black.

“Matt ... Matt!”

“When I came too, I was in my bed, and my assistant, and my doctor were both hovering over me.”

“And Seline?”

“Seline was nowhere to be seen, and in truth I never even remembered her visit until now.”

“So, was it the over exertion that caught you – or something about Seline, that disturbed something in you?”

“I don’t know ... but I have seen her over the years and nothing like that has ever happened since?”