One Tuesday Morning (36 page)

Maybe by looking at himself in the mirror, he'd have a sudden awakening, a memory jolt that would break up the logjam of details about his past. He glanced at the clock next to the bed. Jamie would come any minute to help him up, help him into a white robe he didn't recognize, and hand him his crutches. Then she'd lead him into the kitchen where she'd have breakfast ready.

But with an intensity stronger than his desire to breathe, Jake was suddenly desperate to see himself in the mirror. So far he hadn't gotten up without her help—the two times he'd tried, dizziness or nausea would wash over him, and he'd fall back on the bed. But this morning he felt stronger than before. He drew in a slow, deep breath and sat up, easing his legs out from beneath the covers and over the other side of the mattress, the side that had only a narrow pathway between the bed and the wall with the window.

Normally, Jamie helped him get out of the other side of the bed, the one closer to the door. No wonder he'd missed the mirror until now. A thought occurred to him as he caught his breath. Were Jamie and the doctor trying to keep him from a mirror? If so, why?

Jake held his hands out in front of him and examined his skin. The bandaged burns took up a four-inch area on both his upper and lower arms, and what wasn't covered was red and tender. He ran his fingers along the tops of his thighs. His legs seemed to have handled the blast better than any other part of his body. Obviously because they'd been covered. The broken ankle still ached, and it would be another week before he could put weight on it. Eventually, though, his arms and legs would heal.

But what about his face?

He sucked in another huge breath and steeled himself to what he was about to see. Then he stood on his good leg, hopped to turn himself toward the mirror, and stared at the image that met him there. For a few beats he merely looked at the strange face, unblinking, his heart pounding within him.

No wonder Jamie and the doctor hadn't rushed him to a mirror sooner than this.

Every bit of exposed skin was dark red, as though he'd been the victim of a terrible sunburn. His lips were cracked and swollen, and gauze strips remained across most of his forehead and cheeks. If he'd been handsome at one time, it was hard to tell now.

Jake steadied himself against the wall and looked more closely at his reflection, this time at his eyes. They were clear and blue, but that was all. Beyond that there was nothing striking about them. No depth marked the center of them, no flicker of anything familiar. Almost as though the person who once lived inside him had packed his things and taken a permanent leave of absence.

He worked his jaw first one way, then the other, and brought his fingertips up to the bandaged areas. Dr. Cleary had said he wouldn't scar, that sometime in the next year it would be nearly impossible to tell he'd ever been burned. Jake doubted that very much. Not that he was terribly troubled by the fact. If he could remember who he was, he would've gladly settled for a few unsightly scars on his face.

He believed them, of course, Jamie and the fire captain and the man they called his father. Everything they said seemed to line up. His name was Jake Bryan, and he was a firefighter with an apparent deep love for God and his family. That was respectable enough. At least he wasn't a criminal or a heathen, a maniac obsessed with greed or a Casanova carrying on with two women at once. But having the information about his identity on paper wasn't enough. He didn't want a resumé about his background. He needed to feel the facts in his heart, breathe them and speak them and own them in the core of his being. He'd only been home for two days, and so far he'd spent much of his time sleeping, hoping he might wake up and look out the window and everything about his past would suddenly and miraculously come rushing back. Instead, his only true peace came from the moments he spent with Sierra.

The child loved him unconditionally, unaware of even the slightest change in him since September 11. Jake still had no memories of the times he'd shared with his daughter, though her face remained familiar and so did her name. But in the past two days he had remembered something.

He had a daughter.

That much resonated deep in his soul and convinced him that he was where he was supposed to be, that somehow he'd become Jake Bryan again one of these days, and when it happened, everything would fall into place. He was sure with everything inside him, and not because of a doctor's diagnosis.

But because of his little girl.

In fact, the more he thought about her, the more familiar her name became. Sierra wasn't just a word he recognized, it was his daughter's name … a name he'd known for years. Whatever he'd once shared with the little girl, the experience—at least in part—had left an indelible impression written on his heart.

And for now that would have to be enough.

If only he could remember that much about Jamie. She'd been wonderful, making sure his every need was met and careful not to expect anything of him. She'd greeted visitors from his church or fire station at the front door and graciously accepted meals or balloons or flower bouquets.

“Yes … he's doing much better,” Jake would hear her say. “No … not right now. He can't see anyone for a while. Not until he has his strength back.”

Then her voice would drop some, and she'd talk in hushed tones. Jake guessed those conversations were about the missing men, the people who must've been like family to him before the terrorist attacks. Hundreds of firefighter family members had to be devastated over the news, and though Jake had only recently had the strength to read the headlines, he knew enough to understand the enormity of the loss.

When Jake would ask her about the visitors, she'd give him a simple smile and say it wasn't important, just people reaching out to let him know they cared. She tossed no names at him, gave him no memory tests. Nothing that would lead to the disappointing realization that he remembered none of them.

In addition to protecting his privacy, Jamie brought him water and sliced fruit and sandwiches, and tended to his burns with an outpouring of love and patience that awed him. Every now and then they'd be talking about functional things—how his head felt, whether he wanted coffee or lunch—when he'd say something that made her laugh. At first he hadn't known what to make of that, but as the days passed, he found himself laughing along with her. Once when a funny moment had passed, she looked at him, her head cocked.

“Do you remember that?” She'd been sitting on the edge of the guest bed, careful to keep space between them.

“Remember what?” Her eyes had grown soft and thoughtful, and he'd been struck again by how difficult his memory loss had to be for her.

“Laughing. We used to laugh a lot, you and me.”

With everything in his limited understanding, Jake wanted to tell her yes, he remembered laughing with her and sharing happy moments. If he'd spent a lifetime with Jamie, much of it sharing humorous happy times, it only made sense that laughter would trigger his memories. But he could only give a sad shake of his head and tell her the truth. That laughing didn't feel even a little bit familiar.

The recent memory lifted, and Jake's head spun. The dizziness was back, and he dropped to the bed once more. He could hear Jamie working in the kitchen, and he didn't want to be exhausted before breakfast. He stretched out on the bed and remembered his first breakfast with her, just twenty-four hours earlier. Midway through the meal he'd thrown her a handful of tough questions, ones that had been working their way to the surface since he'd come out of his coma. Clearly, she'd been taken aback by the blunt manner in which he'd suddenly voiced his curiosity, but she'd been wonderful, answering him without breaking down, without letting her emotions get too close to the surface.

Sierra had been across the street at a neighbor's house, and he and Jamie had sat at a modest dining room table eating scrambled eggs and wheat toast. For the first five minutes their conversation had been the polite banter of two total strangers.

“Pass the salt, please.” The idea that he'd known how he liked his food was another mystery. Why would his brain remember something like salt, yet shut out memories of his wife?

Jamie had done as he asked, careful not to make eye contact with him for more than a few seconds at a time. “I cooked the eggs too long.”

“No.” Jake took a bite and shook his head. “They're great. Perfect.”

“Thanks.”

Silence.

“The blisters on your forehead are down some.”

“That's good.” Another bite. “The ointment must be working.”

They were five minutes into the meal when Jake set his fork down, pushed his plate aside, and studied her. She took two more bites and then lifted her eyes to his. “You okay?”

That's when the questions came, one after another in no particular order. What mattered was that he held only a few pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of his past, while the tired-looking woman across from him held most of the rest. He couldn't wait another moment for at least some of the answers.

“How did we meet?” Jamie had blinked, and her fork froze in the air. From what he could read in her eyes, she loved him very much, maybe too much. He wasn't sure why he felt that way. A subtle desperation that she was careful not to voice. She set the fork on her plate, and her eyes fell.

Finally, after several seconds, she raised them once more to his. “We were kids, twelve years old.” She moved her plate aside and leaned forward. “Our families lived down the street from each other.”

“Here? On Staten Island?”

“On this street.” Her voice was quiet, tinged with something Jake guessed was sadness. “I grew up in this house.”

“When did I become a fireman?”

“Your dad was a fireman.” Jamie caught his gaze and held it. “You really don't remember that?”

Jake had looked down at the leftover eggs on his plate and shrugged. “I saw a picture of him in the guest room. He was in uniform, so I figured it was some kind of family thing.”

Jamie's mouth had opened a bit, but she said nothing.

“Who's my best friend?” His eyes met hers again and waited.

“At work?”

“Okay, yeah. At work.”

“Larry Henning.”

“He works at the same station, the place where I work?”

Jake had seen deep pain in Jamie's expression then. But she only sat a little straighter and gave a soft exhale. “Larry's missing, Jake. He was with you that Tuesday at the World Trade Center.”

The news had hit Jake hard, not because he felt a connection to the missing man, but because at some point—whenever he began to remember again—he had so much pain yet to work through. After that his questions had stopped. The dialogue had tired him out, and the dark reality of the terrorist attacks and the changes they'd wrought in every aspect of their lives had been a wet blanket on his curiosity.

Jake yawned and let the memory go. He heard footsteps just outside the bedroom door, and Jamie opened it.

“Good morning.” Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. “How long have you been awake?”

“Awhile.” He sat up, glad for the unfamiliar pajamas she'd given him. They gave him a sense of modesty, something he desperately wanted.

She entered the room and sat at the foot of his bed. “How're you feeling today?”

“Better. More energy.” He pointed to the mirror over his left shoulder. “I got my first look a few minutes ago.”

Alarm flickered in Jamie's eyes, but then it passed. “You're … you're okay?”

“I'm burned pretty bad.” He worked his mouth open and closed a few times and gently touched his burns. “I can't believe the scars will ever go away.”

“Did you, you know, feel anything when you looked? Remember anything?”

“About myself? No …” He uttered a sad sound that was more cry than laugh. “It was like looking at a magazine or television screen. Like the person staring back at me wasn't me at all.”

Jamie nodded. Resignation filled in the tiny lines near her eyes. “Breakfast's ready.”

“Thanks.”

“I made oatmeal.”

“Okay … do I like oatmeal?” For some reason, Jake didn't think so.

“Yes.” A smile flickered on the corners of Jamie's mouth. “It's your favorite.”

“Oh.” Jake nodded a few quick times. “Right.”

This dry, factual interchange felt safer to Jake, more enjoyable and familiar than anything else Jamie might've chosen to talk about, and again he was grateful. Not once had she tried to pressure him in any way. She was doing everything in her power to make him feel comfortable. She helped him to his feet and eased his crutches along the sides of his body, under his arms. “Do you want me to help?”

She'd been walking alongside him, acting as a support so he wouldn't lose his balance. But this time he shook his head. “I think I can handle it.”

Jamie took the lead, and as Jake hobbled out of the room, he stopped short, his eyes glued to something he'd missed every other time he'd walked through this door. Down the hall a few feet, hanging on the wall, was a wedding portrait, a beautiful full-size photograph of a younger Jamie. But it wasn't her picture that made a layer of sweat bead up on his forehead.

It was his.

Because even with his burns there was no question that the man looking back at him from the portrait was the same one who'd looked back at him from the mirror that morning. Jake leaned hard on his crutches and took a few shaky steps toward the picture.

Jamie had caught the fact that he was no longer behind her, and she turned around. “What're you doing?”

Jake glanced at her for a moment, then nodded back at the portrait. “That's … that's me.”

“Yes.” Jamie's eyes shone a little brighter as her gaze followed his. “Our wedding picture.”

“It looks familiar … it's the first time anything has.”

Jamie uttered a quiet cry but quickly covered her mouth. She had to be thinking the same thing he was—that it was a start. At the very least it was a start. Jake only hoped that the reason his photo looked familiar was because his memory was returning, and not because he'd seen himself in the mirror for the first time a few minutes earlier.