Chapter 64 - A New Life

Recovery took too long in Maisey's opinion. It had been frustrating, and often she'd taken her anger out on Kyle or the staff that were helping her. It had been a month after she woke that they took the casts of her legs. They were mottled color, and the muscles that had once made up her legs were weak.

Physio had been ongoing for her upper body while she'd healed but her lower body had taken a lot longer. They'd started with in bed strengthening, and after a month took her to a special whirl tub where she could be immersed without putting weight on t the legs. They'd let her return home after five months but that was in a wheelchair and with the user of a walker. She didn't fully walk again for almost a year.

Kyle had taken her to her first gaming tournament two weeks after. She'd lost but she'd love the energy and environment. It had been a single day event but soon after they went to a multi-day. She won some games and lost others, but she was hooked.

Sometimes it bothered her that she couldn't remember her past, but she'd decided to move forward and deal with it when the time came. She'd been able to resume writing, though she avoided reading the books of her past. She didn't want to know, even though she told Terri-Lee otherwise. The lawyer had been thrilled that she was able to continue the young adult books, and had resumed looking after that side of life.

She traveled and invested, but never really felt at home anywhere. Henry, still wearing his service vest, traveled with her everywhere though she never had any issues with the anxiety Terri-Lee told her had once consumed her life. Terri-Lee told her about the day they'd gone shopping to furnish the penthouse apartment she rented. The sparse furnishings made sense after that, but Maisey didn't waste money on more, only adding necessary things-- like a desk and display cabinets for the models she'd become obsessed with.

"What about opening a store?" she asked Kyle one afternoon while they were driving up to see Kyle's dad after a trip "You and your dad live and breath games, you are always complaining there's no truly over the top great stores in the province. You need to go back to work soon anyway, why not make it doing something you love."

"Everything we had has gone into dad's care. I can't look after him by myself and I honestly didn't expect him to live this long, I'll probably go back to labor work."

"Then I'll invest: you can run the place. I can see it now with big spaces for gaming, put it in place nearby a hotel so we can draw people from all over and they don't have to travel far from lodging and food."

"Right," Kyle scoffed, "that would cost millions."

"So?" Maisey countered, "I'm an author remember, and I invested well during the year I was bedridden. I'm sure I can get a business loan if we had the right business plan."

"You're not serious?" Terri-Lee gapped at lunch, looking over the pages of notes and sketches Kyle and Maisey had put together, "Oh my goodness, you are. Please tell me you haven't done anything yet."

"There's property in Medicine Hat that would be perfect." Maisey grinned. Terri-Lee wanted to groan, she didn't understand the person Maisey had become. After the accident she'd gone from being the scared woman full of anxiety to a complete extrovert who travelled around the world. In the past two months Maisey had been to the US, Germany and England just to go to to a couple tournaments. It seemed like a huge waste of money, but it was the one thing that kept Maisey moving forward with her life. She certainly had not expected the proposal to invest money into a business.

"There are a lot of hoops you have to jump through to make something like this happen, and that's a big 'if' you can get a business license and the city to agree to it. You'll need contractors and blue prints and, yes, a bank loan. Aside from cash you have no assets so I'm not sure what you're going to use for collateral, but yes I'll help you with all of the legal side of things."

Maisey squealed with excitement. She and Kyle had spent hours working on details, she knew there was a lot of work ahead of them but she wanted to make it happen: for herself as much as anyone else--or at least that's what she told herself. It was something that was a part of her new life. The writing she was doing was awesome, but she'd never felt like it was her own, always an extension of who she used to be. This project--this business, she corrected--was part of her new life.

"Want to do something tomorrow?" Maisey asked her friend.

"I'm headed down to see Tony," Terri-Lee smiled, "It still seems strange that someone like me can be into a cowboy but we've got something special going and I'm going to ride it out. West Ridge is gorgeous and the way he works with the animals is beautiful to watch."

Maisey nodded, "I'm sure you'll have a good time." Terri-Lee had offered to take her with her in the past but Maisey had turned her down--she told Terri-Lee it was because she was not interested in getting her shoes dirty but if she was being truthful it was more because she was scared of the memories it would bring back. Terri-Lee still tiptoed around her past, and she figured it was best to leave all of the memories forgotten if it was that bad. She understood that Dr Andy was from that community and had been her doctor for a while, but she didn't remember him or the things that took her there and she was okay with that. "I might head out of town or something then--I will have to see if there's any good event happening anywhere."

She didn't really want to go to another tournament but the thought of sitting alone in the penthouse was depressing. She excused herself as Terri-Lee's secretary announced her next client had arrived and waved as she went.

She wandered through downtown for a while, poking her head in shops and looking at displays in the windows. She wasn't really looking for anything but she was getting bored. Being an author and having so much time to travel and be alone was sometimes hard. Knowing that Terri-Lee was going away meant she needed something to fill her time--Kyle was going to see his dad to tell him all about England. She supposed she could unpack, but there wasn't really much to do since all of her clothes had already been dropped at the laundromat.

There was a sporting goods store with canoes and kayaks on sale, she figured she must have done some outdoor stuff in her previously life because she vaguely remembered being out on the water somewhere. Sometimes not remembering was frustrating-- she didn't know if she'd had a favorite food, color or place to visit, no memories of childhood or, she reminded herself, of an abusive past. Though grateful for the last, she wondered if the pain of that was worth remembering the rest.

She'd researched everything she could on amnesia but nothing could tell her how to trigger her memories. Terri-Lee kept telling her to live her new life and be grateful for it, Maisey tried but sometimes she just couldn't feel glad.