3 days, 18 hours since the officer arrived with a letter at Becca Morgan’s door.

4 days, 7 hours since Becca was checked into the hospital to treat a concussion from sudden collapse.

5 days exactly since Becca possessed a complete memory and all speaking ability.

And so, Rebecca Morgan lay in the sterile, white cot and waited. For her mind and self to return. For her fiancé Phil to return. For her pre-Phil-leaving-for-war life to return. But her mind remained blank and her heart bleak, unsettling even after days of the dull company.

A shift: a woman who Becca no longer recognized as her mother entered bearing a clipboard. The woman smiled encouragingly as Becca, grasping the pencil and paper, tried to express gratitude. Holding the pencil, caressing the paper, a wave of longing washes over Becca, for she still retained the visceral instincts of an artist in her core.

Unhesitatingly, Becca drew, drew, and drew the nameless face that appeared constantly in her thoughts, her dreams. The pencil and mind coalesced, tracing the lines of the enduring face with care. Day became night, and night deepened into dawn. With trembling fingers, Becca shaded her sketch, focusing on each stroke with an intensity rivaling Pygmalion’s. Postremo, a blinding light, a dawning realization. In a voice rough from disuse, Becca wrenches a single word from her throat: “Phil.”

The word brought family and hospital running: Becca was mending! Flinging open the door, they found an eerily composed Rebecca Morgan surrounded by shreds of her sketch and were shocked when she coolly demanded to be taken home. They were absolutely astounded when she insisted on living alone in the home she once shared with her other-no-longer.

But Becca grieved, in moderation of course. The knives in her heart were insistent, and finally she could resist no more. Gingerly, she pulled on her wedding gown and sprayed her fiance’s cologne. And then, she heard Phil’s voice, murmuring for her to meet him at the window near the big oak tree. Becca dashed to the window, threw it open, and found Phil sitting on a branch, handsome as ever. He stretched out a hand to her, laughing.

Her heart burst with joy, and she burned to hold his hand once more, to be with him once more. She leaned far out of the window, but he was just out of reach. She leaned further and caught Phil’s hand just as she began to fall. But it wasn’t falling, but rather flying, soaring wrapped in his arms. When it seemed as if they couldn’t spiral any further, all became blinding with a warm and inviting light. Becca laughed, a sound of unadulterated joy.

4:44 pm Sunday: startled New Yorkers dialed 911, reporting a strange incident. A woman wearing a wedding dress had plunged out of the Morgan penthouse and died on the spot. When the paramedics arrived, they found her left hand clenched.

She was holding a taped pencil drawing of a young man’s face.