Father Found

But he had a feeling she wasn’t buying it.

“How can you be so sure,” he asked, pushing the cookie plate her way, “when you can’t even remember us?”

“It’s something I feel now,” she said, choosing a cookie and taking a dainty bite out of it. She chewed and swallowed. “I feel as though it’s me. There’s something about me that you’re upset with, or displeased with. Did I do something awful?” She studied the cookie in her hand then looked up at him again, her expression reluctant. “Did I have an affair, or something?”

Even a hesitation before he answered the question would have given him a break, but he couldn’t do that to her. “No, you haven’t had an affair. You’ve been a wonderful wife.”

She looked somewhat relieved, though not entirely convinced that there wasn’t a problem between them. “You’re not just saying that because I can’t remember anything?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I’m saying it because it’s true. We have a good, strong marriage. We’re in love.”

“Okay,” she said finally, then finished off her cookie. “You told me you have one sister.”

He nodded. “Lisa. She’s in Kansas where her husband’s a doctor.”

“Is she older than you?”

“Younger by a year and a half. I have three little nieces.”

She spooned ice cream into her mouth. He took advantage of her distraction to eat some of his own before her interrogation began again. She seemed to be marshaling every detail from their conversations over the past three weeks in a new attempt to force the data to help her remember what had gone before. He managed two bites before she continued.

“And your parents are gone?”

“My father died in jail,” he replied briefly, trying not to sound bitter or flip. But it was difficult. He was bitter about them, and he always sounded flip when he tried to pretend that it didn’t matter. “My mother was an alcoholic and finally died of liver failure about ten years ago.”

She looked stunned. He hated that. Then her eyes filled and he was torn between being touched by her sympathy, when she didn’t even remember him, and annoyed with himself for upsetting her.

He reached across the table to catch her hand. “It’s all right. Lisa and I adjusted to it long ago. She got married at sixteen, but to a great guy and they managed to make it work. He got a scholarship, she got a job and they both worked day and night until he finally graduated from medical school. He joined a clinic, and then they had their family.”

“And you joined the army after she got married?”

“I was a cop first, then joined the army.”

She smiled at that, then frowned again, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry about your parents. I can’t remember mine, but I don’t think I went through anything that awful. You said that I told you they’ve been gone for some time.”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “That’s right. You liked your father, but didn’t get along well with your mother. She was sort of a prima donna, I gather.”

She frowned over that and drew her hand back. It occurred to him for the first time that since she had no memories of them, knowing they were gone closed a door she’d never have a chance to reopen.

She drew a deep breath, clearly regretful. “I don’t remember anything about them, and it makes me feel a little like an orphan.”

He felt a desperate need to cheer her up. “You still have your sisters.”

She straightened in her chair, suddenly smiling. “Yes. I’m a triplet. That’s different, isn’t it? In the photos on my bedside table in Pansy Junction, they look like two clones of me, yet I don’t remember them. Where are they again?”

“Athena lives in D.C.,” he replied. “She’s a lawyer. And Alexis, the artist, lives in Rome.”

She turned the names over on her tongue, saying them over and over, closing her eyes as though that could form an image in her mind. When she opened them again, her eyes were troubled, her bottom lip shaky. “I don’t remember them. Neither of them. And they’re probably wondering where I am.”

He hated to tell her the truth here, but he knew he had to. “I’m sure they are,” he answered. “You were all over the news when you were pulled out of the water and didn’t know who you were or where you’d come from.”

“That’s cruel, isn’t it?” she said urgently. “They don’t know that I’m safe.”

He nodded. “That was the choice we had to make to keep you safe. Any attempt to call either one could result in our being tracked.”

She settled down, apparently accepting that that made sense.

“I like knowing I have somebody.” The statement was plaintively made, as though she desperately needed someone—besides him.

It was interesting, he thought clinically, that no one had been able to hurt him since his mother’s ugly drunkenness when he’d come home from school, anxious to tell her about a success only to find her passed out on the sofa. No one, that was, until now.

He’d die without question or hesitation for Gusty and their baby, but she couldn’t remember their relationship, was certain there was something wrong with it, and that she needed something more than he could give her.

On some intelligent level, he knew it was foolish to be jealous of her sisters. He loved his own sister very much. They’d sustained each other through the worst times in their lives.

Gusty had turned him inside out over the past eight months, but her safety and the safe arrival of their baby into the world was all he dreamed of, was the reason he’d abandoned everything to hide away with her and keep her from harm.

It was selfish and egotistical, he knew, to want to be her everything, but knowing that and changing how he felt were two very different things.

“You ready for that shower?” he asked, pointing to her abandoned bowl of ice cream. “You can even turn the head now to adjust the spray.”

She ignored his question and nibbled on another cookie, looking more composed.

“Am I a good teacher?” she asked.

“There’s a Teacher of the Year plaque in your office at home. I pointed it out to you, remember?”

She frowned and gave one nod. “I do, sort of. But home was kind of overwhelming. All those things I’d hoped I’d remember when I saw them, and didn’t.”

“I think you’re good at everything you do,” he assured her. “You seem to know all about gardens and cooking.” He held up his cookie. “And you’re thoughtful. Always trying to help someone, or comfort someone.”

She frowned over that. “Am I wimpy?”

He laughed. “As the man who’s had to argue with you over just about everything, I can say no to that with authority.”

She pushed away from the table. “I guess I’ll clean up and have that shower.”

He went around the table to help her up. “I’ll clean up, you go ahead.”

SHE SHOULD HAVE ARGUED, but the prospect of a stream of hot water beating on her sore back was too delicious to delay. She went to her bedroom for the flannel nightgown Bram had bought her in town, then doffed her clothes in the bathroom.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she stepped into the shower stall and was a little startled by her size. It was one thing to see herself clothed, and quite another to see her naked, pregnant self.

She stepped into the shower stall, closed the door on the mirror, modulated the water temperature carefully to hot but not too hot, then turned the water on full force. She groaned at the instant relief provided when she turned her back to the spray.

She let it beat for long moments, then got serious about washing. With that accomplished she took the shampoo from the shower caddy and set about the major production of washing her hair. She scrubbed at her scalp, then brought her hair over her shoulder and, starting with the bottom few inches, slowly scrubbed her way up.

She rinsed slowly and carefully, combing her fingers through it to make sure she was rid of all the shampoo. After giving her body one more rinse, she turned off the water.