In This Life (12 page)

When the doorbell rang, David ushered Paul inside while I remained on the couch and out of the way. I had no doubt that the alpha male in David would strike if given even the smallest chance, but I also had no doubt that Paul would fight back. I just didn’t want to get in the middle if it happened.

Both men entered the den in silence, and Paul remained standing just inside the room as David sat down beside me. I watched Paul, feeling a little sorry for him. Not only had I dragged him to my house at almost eleven at night, I’d drawn him into a potentially volatile situation that would once again remind him that he wasn’t the man I’d ultimately chosen.

I smiled at him, more than grateful for what he’d done now and in the past. “Thank you for coming here,” I said. “I know it’s very late.”

Paul’s gaze volleyed between David and me. He was on alert and, it seemed, figuring the quickest route out of the house if he needed it. “It’s okay. It sounded important.”

His hesitation hummed through me. “It’s definitely important and you’re the only person who can help.”

Paul’s eyes shifted to David again, gauging his mood and, like me, probably wondering what was lurking behind his quiet demeanor. “What happened?” he asked.

“You remember the conversation you and I had about memories?”

Paul nodded.

“I had another one today that I need to talk about.”

“What memories?” David asked.

“I’ll explain in a minute,” I told him.

Paul folded his arms over his chest and didn’t budge from the doorway. Though he stood motionless, I could see the strain of tension in his body. He was annoyed that I didn’t tell him that David was home, and he now knew that I had kept the information from him on purpose. We both knew he wouldn’t have come otherwise.

I gestured to the leather chairs but Paul didn’t sit.

“I met with a new client this morning and I think I know him from somewhere.”

“Galen?” David asked.

I nodded.

“Conflict of interest?” Paul asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“How do you know him?” David asked.

I hesitated because the explanation wasn’t going to be easy. “It’s a long story.”

Paul tilted his head in a gesture I knew well. He’d already made the connection. “Galen is a piece of the memories you told me about.”

“Exactly.”

“What memories?” David repeated.

When I turned to David, I carefully considered my words. I didn’t want to patronize him but I didn’t want him to misunderstand either.

“These episodes I’ve been having over the past few days aren’t episodes at all, David. They’re memories and — ”

“How many have you had, Lottie?”

“Several.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t know how to explain what I couldn’t figure out for myself. I needed the time to understand and now I realize that Galen is a key.”

“How can you know Galen or have a memory of him but not remember who he was when you studied his file?”

I shifted on the sofa, uncomfortable, because he’d verbalized a question that nagged at me all day. “That’s why I asked Paul here. Galen’s a trigger and an integral part of these memories. I know him, or knew him, but I can’t figure out how.”

“A repressed memory?” Paul asked.

“It doesn’t feel like one.” I sorted through the dozens of thoughts and images I’d already associated with Galen, but none of them came together in any sort of coherent way. “When I met Galen this morning, we shook hands and when we made contact, I had a very vivid, very strong memory. The strongest out of any of them.”

“Has Galen been a part of all of the memories?”

“It doesn’t seem like it but I’m not completely sure. I didn’t realize it at first because I couldn’t place the face until today. But I still can’t place the time.” I shrugged. “I can only say that the memories feel old.”

“How old?”

I sifted through the images again, trying to peg down at least one that could give me a clue, but I came up empty. “I don’t know. I can’t see them clearly. I see snippets but nothing long enough to give me the information I need.”

“But you said today’s memory was very vivid. What was different about that one that made it more clear to you?”

“It wasn’t that it was clear, Paul. It was more the feelings and sensations that came alive for me that had an impact. And the emotions lingered for a long time after.” Too long, in fact.

“What kind of feelings did you experience?”

I glanced at David, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. “Sexual.”

David’s jaw locked. “You’ve slept with Galen.”

“No. Well, yes, but no.”

“Which is it? Yes or no?”

“David, I understand that this may make you feel upset — ”

“This isn’t about being upset,” he shot back, but his tone betrayed him. David wasn’t just upset. He was bordering on infuriated. “This is important, Lottie. Galen is in line to join my team and you were going to evaluate him today. Now, tonight, I learn that you not only know him but that you’ve slept with him.”

“Whatever past Galen and I had shouldn’t impact his role on your team.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Are these details in your report?”

I swallowed over a dry throat. I’d promised David a complete evaluation and I couldn’t give it to him. Not right away, anyway. “I didn’t complete Galen’s evaluation because a half hour wasn’t enough time to do what I needed to do. I tried to make it work because you wanted a report quickly, but I need to meet with him again to do this properly.”

“I see.”

“You can move ahead without my input,” I reminded him. “You already have the go-ahead from PROs. You don’t need me or my evaluation on this one.”

“That’s not the point and you know it, Lottie.”

“That’s right. I
do
know it. And I also know that I’m going to sort this out with or without you and if you want to be of any help, you’ll find that open mind you promised me earlier.”

David’s eyes fired with impatience but I’d called his bluff and we both knew that he had only two choices. Neither was perfect but one was clearly worse than the other. And it became obvious that David realized that very quickly too, because he let out a long sigh that sounded more from resignation than a need to expel pent-up, restrained hot air.

“Look,” I said, recognizing the subtle shift in David’s mood. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, and I also know that my professional thoughts about Galen are important to you and your decision, but there’s something else going on that’s much bigger than what we anticipated.”

David rubbed his hands over his face but it did little to hide the fatigue that shadowed his eyes and the edginess that threatened to drive us into an argument that might not be settled for days.

“I’m working very hard here,” he said, dropping his hands to his lap.

“I know.”

He let out a long breath, still troubled. “I still don’t understand how you could have slept with Galen and not remember who he is.”

“It’s not what you think. I remember all the men I’ve slept with.” I stopped, quickly catching my slip-up. “You remember who you’ve been with, don’t you? Not necessarily all the details, or maybe even all the names.” One side of David’s mouth quirked with a grin. “But you remember something, right?”

“I remember.”

“That’s my point. I look at Galen and see these memories but I don’t know why I have them.”

Paul leaned in. “I still think this is a repressed memory coming to surface. It’s a very logical and rational explanation. Perhaps you had an experience with Galen that you didn’t want to remember because it was distressing to you.”

“Whatever Galen and I had was very passionate and intense. It doesn’t seem like something I would repress.” Which made me wonder how I could even forget it to begin with. Galen was not a forgettable man.

“That still doesn’t mean it’s not a false memory,” Paul said. “Or that your memory is accurate.”

“True, but what I’m remembering is real, Paul. I know it is because I can feel it. This isn’t something I made up in my head as a substitute for an inadequacy or a shortcoming.”

“And feelings have also been known to be inexact. They’re not always a measure of reality.”

I stilled, unsure of the meaning behind his words and if they belonged in this particular conversation.

“They may be inexact, Paul, but that doesn’t make them any less real.”

“Real feelings can be very different than reality,” he said. “They’re not completely indicative of truth.”

“But they
are
a pathway.”

“If one is honest enough to find that path.”

“Are we all still talking about the same thing?” David asked. “Or have you moved onto a conversation I don’t know about?”

Paul withdrew and folded his arms over his chest again.

“I just want to find out why this is happening to me and what it means,” I said. “I want to find sense in emotions and thoughts that don’t have any right now.”

My thoughts and feelings about Galen felt real, and yet they defied every rational, educated part of my brain. I didn’t know him and yet I did. I’d never been with him, and yet my body told me otherwise. I didn’t know why I felt what I felt and the more I concentrated on Galen, the more confused I became.

I felt tension tighten around my chest and press down, hard, and I was starting to have trouble finding air. I gulped in several breaths, feeling light-headed, and then the room started to sway.

“I don’t feel very good,” I said, sliding down onto a pillow and pulling my legs up onto David’s lap.

The back of David’s hand found my forehead. “She feels clammy.”

“I’ll get her a glass of water,” Paul said.

I closed my eyes and heard cabinets open and shut until Paul found the glass he needed. David stroked my forehead and hushed me into calmer breathing, and when Paul returned I drank as if I hadn’t had water for days.

David put the empty glass on the coffee table and Paul knelt by my side, watching. I concentrated on the feel of David’s warm, sure caress and studied the ceiling, focusing on a tiny imperfection in the white paint.

“Your color’s coming back,” Paul said. “Feeling better?”

“I think so,” I said.

“What happened?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you want more water?” David asked.

I remembered the water again. And I was running now. Running and laughing after a boy named Bakari but he was too fast to follow, and he dove into the river, laughing at me as he disappeared below the surface.

“Bakari!” I screamed. “There are crocodiles!”

I skidded to a stop at the edge of the river, kicking mud up onto my sandals and legs, but I did not care. I did not know where he had gone and that scared me. I watched the water, looking for ripples or bubbles that would tell me he was fine, but nothing moved and I started to panic. What if he had drowned? What if something had happened? What if the crocodiles got to him and — ?

Bakari jumped up, breaking the surface in a large spray of water, and laughed like I had never heard him laugh before.

“You are mad!” I yelled, pretending to be angry but he was laughing too hard and that made me laugh, too.

“Come on in,” he called out, and he splashed me with water that felt cool and smelled like clean, crisp linen.

“We will get in trouble,” I called back.

Bakari held out his arms. “So?”

I laughed even harder. He was so daring and so sure of himself, and no matter how many times he was given extra chores because of his defiance, all meant to teach him a lesson that he did not want to learn, he still did not care. Nothing ever stopped Bakari, and as I watched him dive back down into the river, I thought nothing ever would.

When he came up for air the second time, he grinned at me. “How are we to have any fun, Shemei, if we stay away from all the fun?”

“There are other ways to have fun that will not kill us,” I giggled.

“Ways that are boring. What good is this life if we do not live it?”

“Do not say such things,” I gasped. “We are not only about this life, Bakari, but the one after it as well.”

“And I ask again,” he said with outstretched arms, “what good is this life if we do not live it?”

I could not find the answer. The sun felt hot and the wind off the sands even hotter, and I would have liked nothing more than to cool off even for a little bit. But there were still crocodiles out there and one other small thing that, to me, was not so small.

“I have nothing to wear, Bakari. I have only my sheath and I did not bring a change of clothes.”

“So?”

“It will get wet.”

“So?” Bakari waded toward me, not caring that his own linen kilt was soaked. “That is what water does, Shemei.” He swiped his hands down his arms, half to dry them and half to tease me with another spray of cool water.

“And you wonder why you are always in trouble,” I said. “You cannot seem to help yourself. And I bet your mother would agree.”

I looked past his shoulder and to his mother, Hebeny, who was walking toward us. Hebeny kept a steady, ceremonial gait, and one that I always admired because she truly looked like a goddess from above. Her linen sheath shimmered with threads of fine gold, while the gold bracelets, armlets and anklets she wore reflected the bright sun as if they were suns themselves. Even the gold in her braided wig sparkled and I wondered if I would ever look as beautiful as she did.

“My mother?” Bakari swung around but it was too late for him to get away. His mother grabbed his sidelock and yanked, not too hard but hard enough.

“What do you think you are doing?” she asked. “Why are you not at studies this afternoon?”

“We had a break.”

“Then why are the other students in class?” She yanked harder.

“Hey!” he cried out. “That hurt!”

“Not as much as getting injured or killed on a battlefield,” she scolded. “Is this the way a future general behaves?”

“No,
mawat
,” Bakari said.

“Do you think that every time you get bored or hot, you can just run off and play?”

“No,
mawat
.”

“Do you think that the soldiers you will eventually command will take direction from someone who does not take his role seriously?”