He closed his eyes and thought as hard as he could. The action was like looking through a dense cloud of fog. He could make out nothing, absolutely nothing. He concentrated again until …
Something began to take shape in the vast emptiness, but at first he couldn't tell if it was a person or a flower. It was something, and in a few seconds he could see the face of a little girl with long curly hair. A name came to mind with the picture, a name he could practically see scribbled on the inside of his eyelids.
“Yes.” He opened his eyes and stared at the doctor. “When I think hard enough, I can see a little girl, long curly hair.” He bit the inside of his lip and willed away the burning around the outside of his mouth. “I … I can't quite make out her eyes. She isn't old … maybe four or five.”
The doctor seemed happy with this latest bit of information. But his enthusiasm did nothing for Jake, because he had no idea who the child was. Just that she was familiar to him. “I'm not sure if it's her name.” He motioned to the water, and the doctor gave him another sip. The sweaty feeling was going away, but his world was still upside down. “I keep seeing the word ‘Sierra.’ I see it whenever I see her picture in my head.”
“Very good. Your memory isn't completely gone.”
“Am I supposed to know her?”
“Yes.” The doctor gave him a half smile. “She's your daughter.”
Jake blinked twice. His daughter? He had a daughter? Whenever had he become a father? And who was the child's mother? Why couldn't he remember anything about the little girl except her face and her name? The anger was back. “This is crazy.” Tears stung at his eyes, and he pursed his lips, ignoring the pain the action brought. “I have to know who I am.”
“Let's see if this helps.” The doctor's voice was slow and deliberate without a trace of humor. “Your name is Jake Bryan, and you're married to Jamie. The two of you have known each other since middle school, back when you lived in the same Staten Island neighborhood.” He glanced at his clipboard and appeared to be reading some notes. “Your father was a firefighter, a chaplain, and all you've ever wanted to do is fight fires. You joined the FDNY, New York's Fire Department, when you were just out of school, and you married Jamie the year after that. You live in a house given to you by Jamie's parents, who died in a car accident when you were much younger. Four years ago you and Jamie became the parents of Sierra Jane.” The doctor paused, the corners of his mouth lifted just a little more. “The two of you are very close. At least that's what Jamie says.”
Jake's head was spinning.
He was drowning in an ocean of pain and fear, and now he felt like a secret agent. One who'd just been handed a new identity, and for whom only Sierra's name and face were familiar. Nothing else about what the doctor had just told him struck even the simplest chord in his memory. But then, maybe he had no memory. Just an empty shell of a brain, somehow able to function and talk, but without the ability to remember anything worthwhile.
But it wasn't the doctor's fault. And nothing the man could say was going to make the truth any easier to grasp. He looked up at Dr. Cleary. “Thanks, Doc. I … I need some time to myself, if that's okay. In about ten minutes you can send in that wom—” He stopped for three full seconds and cleared his throat. The effort did no good—his voice was still little more than a raspy whisper. “My … my wife. Send her to me later, okay?” His anger was fading now. There was no point being mad at the doctors or the pretty brunette. They were only trying to help him.
“Very well.” The doctor nodded and left his room.
When he was gone, Jake clenched his fists and pressed them over his eyes. Tears tried to build there, but he wouldn't let them. Something like this needed time, not tears. Lots of time all by himself so he could figure out who he was. He'd been robbed of his very self, and he needed hours, days maybe, to sift through his losses and grieve; time to make an inventory of all the empty places in his brain. Something terrible had happened to him, and now every memory, every recognition that had been a thread in the tapestry of his persona, had been stolen from him. Every single memory.
Just to be sure, he did another inventory. For nearly five minutes, he thought as hard as he could about his childhood, his school days, his firefighting history, his life with this … this Jamie woman. His experience as a father. But no matter where he parked his brain, the results were the same.
His house of memories had been robbed blind.
He still had questions, like what were the chances his memories would magically return to him? And how was he supposed to work a job he no longer knew anything about? But those questions could wait. For now there was a bigger question looming among all the others, one that he had asked early in his discussion with the doctor, but had never gotten an answer to.
What had caused this?
Maybe the woman—his wife—would tell him. Whatever it was, the trauma of it must have been very bad, too bad to talk about. The doctors had obviously avoided telling him the details. What if he'd been driving the fire truck and killed someone? The possibilities were too frightening to imagine.
There was a noise at the door, and Jake let his hands relax and fall back to his side. It was the woman. She wasn't tall, but she had long legs and she looked fantastic in her worn-out jeans and red T-shirt. Her face was a creamy white, and her brown eyes took up almost half of it. What was he supposed to say to her? Until this week they'd been friends or lovers since they were in middle school. Wasn't that what the doctor had said?
She crossed the room slowly and set her shaking hands on the rail of his bed. “Jake … I know you don't remember me.”
He swallowed and tried to maintain eye contact with her. There was a depth in her eyes that couldn't be measured, and that's what made the moment so difficult. He couldn't look at her the same way she looked at him; it was impossible. Not without the memories they apparently shared. Jake waited for her to continue.
“Anyway …”
Her voice was thick, and he guessed she was doing everything she could to keep from breaking down. The sight of her made his heart soften. If only he could dredge up one single memory about her. Maybe then the others would come rushing back, and he could take this woman in his arms and love away her sadness. But no matter what they'd told him, for now this Jamie person was nothing more than a stranger.
She shook her head as if she was trying hard to keep her composure. “What I'm trying to say is, I'm here for you, Jake.” She smiled, even as her chin trembled. “As long as it takes, I'll help you remember who you are, what we have together. I promised you that a long time ago at our wedding, and the promise is still true today.” She took hold of his hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed it. “I love you, Jake. I always will.”
The kiss stirred something in him, but it wasn't a memory. His fingers stiffened some. He pulled his hand gently from her and let it fall back onto the hospital bedsheet. “Thank you.”
“Would … would you like me to bring Sierra up tonight?” Jamie looked suddenly awkward, and she took a step backwards. “She's dying to see you.”
Something about the little girl's name brought relief and recognition to him in a way that was priceless. “Please.”
He softened his tone some and managed a partial smile. This woman, this Jamie who was supposed to be his wife, deserved his kindness. Her touch might confuse him, but her heart was easy to read, and it represented no threat. Besides, in a few days he would no doubt go home with her, back to a house he couldn't picture, one that was full of a history that no longer existed for him.
If he was ever going to find his memory, she would have to lead the search. “Jamie …” Her name felt completely foreign on his lips. “Thank you.”
Her eyes welled up with tears as she started to back away. “Dr. Cleary says you need some sleep.”
He nodded. His head hurt worse than when he first woke up, and he was too tired to move. “Yes.”
“Okay, then …” Jamie lifted one hand and gave him
a sad little wave. “See you in a few hours.”
When she left the room, he realized something. She must have been sitting beside him, waiting for him to wake up for most of the past three days. Whatever had happened to him, she was probably glad he was alive, anxious to talk to him. And now he didn't even remember her.
No wonder she was crying.
He felt himself being sucked into a deep sleep again, and as he drifted he realized he hadn't asked Jamie about the accident. Where was it and who was involved? Was anyone else hurt? Darkness clouded in around his eyes, and they fell shut, too heavy to keep open. Whatever it was, he could ask her about it that night. Then at least he'd have answers … answers and something else. A person he could see and hold and hug. A person whose name and face he actually remembered.
His little Sierra.
EIGHTEEN
SEPTEMBER 13, 2001
Clay Michaels wasn't sure how much more he could take.
It was Thursday evening, and he and Laura were helping Josh with his homework. Clay had spent every moment with Laura and Josh since Eric disappeared. That's what they were calling it now, a disappearance. Rescue workers hadn't given up hope, and Laura wasn't going to either, but Clay had long since stopped thinking his brother had simply vanished.
The man he'd looked up to since he was a small boy, the brother he admired and loved like a best friend was dead. And not only that, but Eric's marriage had been in trouble, and Clay hadn't done a thing to help. He hadn't even acknowledged how bad things had gotten. The truth about Eric's life was something Clay was desperate to talk about, but other than the conversation they'd shared that first night after the attack, Laura had said nothing. She was too busy believing Eric would call at any minute. And pretending she was right was wearing on Clay almost as much as it was wearing on Laura. But there was nothing he could do about it, no way he could let his guard down and grieve. Because if he gave up hope, Laura would have no choice but to do the same. And right now she was counting on him to not only be there and to be strong for her as well as for Josh, but to be hopeful.
He'd arranged for vacation time the afternoon of the attacks. He had explained the situation, and his police chief had told him to take as much as he needed.
“If we can do anything, let us know,” the man had told Clay the day before. “The whole country's reeling.”
“Yes, sir. My brother …” His voice broke, and it took a moment before he could continue. “We were very close.”
Josh had gone to school both days since the terrorists' attack, but Laura was barely holding herself together. They'd been visited by the pastor and several others from church. Each person prayed with them and promised to do what they could to help. The church secretary brought a casserole Wednesday night, and a couple from the mission committee had picked up a pizza for them that afternoon.
By Thursday night Clay had called every hospital, Red Cross center, and rescue mission in the New York and New Jersey areas. “I'm calling from Los Angeles,” he'd say. “My brother worked in the World Trade Center south tower, and he's missing. I just wondered if you have any victims not yet identified.”
At that point Clay would launch into a description of Eric: six-foot-three, two hundred pounds, short dark hair, a nice-looking face. Blue eyes. But each time the answer was the same. “I'm sorry, all our patients have been identified.”
Clay reported his lack of findings to Laura after every call. Most of the time she sat in the same chair looking out the window at a world gone mad, nodding her head as though he were giving her a weather report. But there were times when her shock faded some, and usually when it did, she gave way to fury.
“What was he trying to prove?” she'd yelled earlier that day when Josh was at school. “That he was as dedicated as Allen? That he cared more about their clients than about a national disaster?”
Clay had watched her pace the room. There was nothing he could say, no way he could defend his brother's actions if he had, indeed, stayed in the building working while thousands of others had the common sense to flee. And all for the sake of closing one last deal?
No, there was nothing Clay could say to ease Laura's anger.
But that afternoon her bout of temper had ended in tears. “Why didn't I shake him, Clay? I should've told him a long time ago how I felt. He cared more about work than us. I tried to stop him, tried to tell him he was destroying everything we had.” Her eyes held a type of sorrow that was painful to look at. “I keep thinking maybe I could've done something more, something to keep him home.”
Her shoulders trembled, and Clay wanted to go to her, soothe away her sadness. “You didn't know.”
“But maybe he wouldn't have gone … maybe he would've done everything in his power to stay home with us.”
When Laura would exhaust the angles of guilt and sorrow, she'd become strangely normal. She'd make her way through the house visiting with her housekeeper, checking her e-mail, and listening to CeCe Winans on the CD player. Whenever she stepped outside even for a moment—to check the mail or water a plant, she would run back in through the door and find Clay. “Did he call?”
But Clay had noticed how that mood never lasted more than an hour. It must've been too much work, and when the façade had cracked at about three that afternoon, Laura spent the next hour crying quietly in the living room chair, staring out the window, as though somehow Eric might pull up any minute.
“He was supposed to come home today, you know …” She must have repeated the line a dozen times that afternoon. Her denial was so strong that at times Clay was actually afraid for her, not sure if he should take her in for emergency counseling or let her work her way through everything that had happened in the past few days.
Clay watched her now, her face tense as she helped Josh with a math problem at the kitchen table. She's still waiting for the phone to ring, God … how long will this last? He'd been praying for her constantly, as easily as he breathed, but she was acting nothing like herself.
Clay thought he understood why. Losing Eric would just about kill her. He remembered a few things about her past, details she'd shared with him back when they were high school kids together. One memory particularly stood out, a time back then when Laura had given Clay a glimpse of her heart, a glimpse he'd never forgotten.
“All my life, ever since I was taken from my parents, I've felt lucky to have a home.” They had been walking in the hallway after lunch that day, talking about their families. “My adoptive parents are wonderful, but still, I became theirs so late in life that I guess I feel like they're doing me a favor. Like I'm a permanent guest.”
“Come on, Laura.” He kicked at her feet, hoping she would laugh and tell him she was only kidding. “Your family loves you.”
But Laura didn't even smile. “I know that. I love them too. It's not their fault I feel this way. You know what?” She stopped and faced him. “I can't wait to grow up.”
“Why?”
A dreamy look had come over Laura's eyes. “I'll get married and have my own family. My very own.” The corners of her lips had lifted just a bit. “And I'll never feel like a guest again.”
The memory lifted, and Clay leaned back in the kitchen chair, his eyes fixed on Laura. All she'd wanted was a place where she could belong. But she'd gone and fallen in love with Clay's big brother, a man who hadn't had it all together after all. Not if he could choose success and power over being the family man Laura and Josh needed. Before his move to Southern California, he hadn't had any idea that Eric and Laura were having trouble. But after the move the evidence had been hard to miss. The incident at the pizza parlor … the comments from Josh … the pain in Laura's eyes. No doubt Eric had let the most important things in his life fall away. And in the process, Laura had wound up in the very position she'd tried to avoid. Living in a home where she couldn't possibly have felt needed or desired, a marriage where she must have realized she would never be anything but second place to Eric's job. Clay could've kicked himse
lf for not saying something back then. While there had still been time.
Eric's money bought her maid service and luxury, but the life they shared wasn't the one Clay had thought they were living. And it was obviously not the dream Laura had hoped for back in high school. In fact, when Clay listened to Laura spill her heart the other night after Josh had gone to bed, he'd had only one very sad thought.
Married to Eric, she was living in the very role she'd wanted to escape as a teenager. The role of a glorified houseguest.
Clay let his gaze wander, and he took in the lavish surroundings that made up his brother's home. The finest natural stone floors, professionally decorated walls and windows, state-of-the-art lighting. None of it could replace love and companionship. Clay shook his head, but not enough to catch Laura's attention. His brother must've been crazy. All those days and hours and weeks at work when Laura and Josh were right here. What could possibly have been important enough to keep him away?
His eyes fell on a framed photo of Laura and Eric. I thought you ruled the world, big brother. And all the while you thought happiness rested at the top of some ladder. But it didn't. It never did. His eyes found Laura again, her face still angled close to Josh's, still caught up in the job of helping him with his homework. Clay worked the muscles in his jaw, his emotions suddenly exposed and raw. What you were looking for was right here, Eric … right here with them all the time.
Laura looked up and gave him a small, grateful smile. “Maybe Uncle Clay can help with that last problem.” She tousled Josh's hair. “It's got me beat.”
“Sure, buddy.” Clay coughed, clearing the lump in his throat. “Bring it over here.”
Josh jumped up from the table and squeezed into the seat between Laura and Clay. “Mom says it's kinda hard for third grade.” Josh shrugged.
“Well …” Clay looked up and met Laura's eyes. “Moms are usually right.” He pulled the book closer. “Let's see what we can do.”