Chapter Twenty
Julian sat in the waiting room. He tried to remain calm but couldn’t stop his foot from tapping. There were only two people in the room—him and Stephen—but still it felt airless and crowded. Liam had left a few minutes ago to see Kayla.
He’d spent most of last night trying to figure out how and when to tell her the truth of their past. Now, here it was, nearly noon, and he was no closer to an answer.
Liam walked into the room. He looked … beaten. He pushed a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. Even from this distance, Julian could see that Liam’s hand was shaking.
He looked at Julian. “She wants to see her husband.”
Julian turned to Dr. Penn. “What now? You told her she was thirty-nine years old, and then you bolted. What am I supposed to tell her when she asks where she’s been for fifteen years?”
“Tell her where you’ve been.” It was Liam’s voice.
Julian spun to face him. “Yeah, you’d like that.”
“Like that? I don’t like you even being in the same room with her.” He moved toward Julian. “If she asks you a direct question, I want you to answer truthfully. You can evade—but don’t lie. Steve said that she left him no room to weasel out of her questions.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t go see her.”
“How could they let such a coward play Lizard Man?”
“I was the Green Menace,” he answered automatically, “and a stand-in did all the dangerous stuff.” Julian’s voice fell to a whisper that only Liam could hear. “I’m … afraid of hurting her.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard today.”
Julian waited, but Liam didn’t say anything else. “Well,” he said at last, “I’ll go see her.”
He ducked out of the room and walked slowly down the hallway. Really slowly.
At her door he paused. Forcing a bright smile, he opened the door.
She was asleep.
He shut the door quietly and went to her bedside. She looked so peaceful, so beautiful …
Slowly she blinked awake. “Jules? Is that you?”
He leaned over her. It took an act of pure will to force a smile. “Heya, Kay.”
She worked herself up to a sit, and by the time she was finished, she was breathing heavily. There was a fine sheen of perspiration on her forehead. “Where’s Juliana? I want to see my baby—”
“She’ll be here soon, I promise.”
“I missed you.” She smiled, reaching for him in a jerky, uncontrolled movement. “I knew you’d come back for us.”
He grabbed her hand and held it tightly. “I missed you, too.” It surprised him, the truth of that simple statement. He had missed Kayla; he’d missed the man he’d once been—the man he could have been with her at his side.
Her gaze focused on his face, caressing it with equal measures of wonder and confusion. “You’re older, too.”
“Nice of you to notice. Hey, do you remember—”
“Why are we old?”
He smiled uneasily. “You’re not even forty yet. Young.”
“Julian, no one will tell me the truth. But I know you wouldn’t lie to me. Please … I need to understand.”
He wanted to lie to her, wanted it with a fierce desperation, but there was no way out.
“You have a few gaps in your memory, that’s all. The docs say it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Fifteen years is hardly nothing.”
“It’ll all come back. Don’t rush it.” He leaned down and kissed her. She tasted just like he remembered, all sweet compliance and homecoming. When he kissed her, he felt … complete.
“How could I forget fifteen years of loving you and Juliana? Tell me about us, Jules. Help me remember.”
“Ah, baby …” He would have done anything to erase the sorrow in her eyes. “She’s beautiful, Kay. The spitting image of you.”
She gazed up at him, her pale face as serious as he’d ever seen it. “I remember when I left. Do you remember that, Jules?”
“I remember.”
“I remember packing my bags, buying a car—that green station wagon with the wood-grain side panels—and loading it up. I hardly took anything from our life together, not even your money. I was so sure you’d come for us quickly … I can remember waiting and waiting, but I can’t remember ever seeing you again.”
He actually thought he might cry; that’s how f*cking awful he felt. “I’m sorry, baby. Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“How long, Jules?”
“H-How long what?”
“How long?”
He touched her soft, soft cheek. He was cornered; there was no way out of this except to lie—and that was pointless. She might remember it all in ten seconds. “Now,” he answered in a tired, broken voice. “Just now.”
She frowned. “Just now what? I’m thirty-nine years old, that means my—our baby is sixteen. You don’t mean …”
“Just now,” he repeated quietly.
Tears filled her eyes, magnified her pain until it seemed to suck the air from the room. “You mean … you never came back for me? In all those years, never?”
He felt the sting of tears in his own eyes. “I was young and stupid. I didn’t know how special it was between us. It took me a long time to grow up.”
“Never.” The single word slipped from her mouth, toneless and dead. “Oh, my God.”
“Kayla, I’m sorry.”
“No wonder I forgot.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like … I’ve broken your heart.”
She tried to wipe her eyes, but her effort was a failure; she slapped her own cheek. “I guess you did that a long time ago—and lucky me, I get to experience it twice. Oh, Jules.” She sagged into the pillows. “I love you so much. But it’s not enough, is it?” She turned her head and closed her eyes. “I wish I’d forgotten you.”
“Don’t say that. Please …” He wanted to kiss her tears away, but he had no right. He had hurt her again, as he’d known he would, and he regretted it more deeply than he would have thought possible. Suddenly he saw all the chances he’d lost. For the first time, he wanted the years back, wanted to have become the kind of man who knew how to love.
She rolled awkwardly onto her side. “Go away.”
“Kayla, don’t—”
“Go away, Julian. Please.”
If he’d had Liam’s courage, he would have known what to say, but as it was, he was empty. He turned away from her and headed for the door.
“I want to see my daughter,” she said.
He nodded, saying nothing, not knowing if she even knew he’d answered. Then he left.
She wanted to curl into a small, safe ball and close out the world again.
He never came back.
She couldn’t seem to grasp that. It broke her, pure and simple. For a long, long time, she lay in her lonely bed, trying to wrap her arms around a truth that was too big to hold.
What had she been doing all these years? If things were normal, if she were normal, would she have laughed at him and told him to run along, that her love for him had died a long time ago?
That was the hell of it. She didn’t know who she’d become in the years after their parting. Everything she’d learned or touched or believed in was gone, along with all the memories that, when sewn together, scrap by scrap, made up a life.
And what about her daughter, her baby girl who hadn’t been a baby in years? She remembered a pudgy, brown-eyed toddler with a halo of jet-black curls, a little girl who could go from hysterical sobbing to laughter in a heartbeat. She remembered the feel of that baby in her arms, but after that, nothing. No images came to her of frilly Easter bonnets or lunch boxes or loose teeth. Fifteen blank years, as unknown as tomorrow.
She wished she could be angry; it was so much better than this aching, overwhelming sorrow.
In her heart, she was twenty-four years old and deeply in love with her husband. Only he wasn’t her husband and she’d had fifteen long years to heal the wounds he’d inflicted.
Fifteen years that had been wiped out.
Without memories, there was no passage of time, no change, no growth. There was just this love for Julian, this runaway train of emotion that she could do nothing but ride.
He must have nearly killed her with his betrayal. She knew that because when she’d said the word never, she’d felt it in her heart and soul. She’d loved him too much—and it would destroy her, that bad and dangerous love. But knowing a thing didn’t change it.
The door opened. “Mikita, you are awake?”
“Mama!”
Rosa stood in the doorway, smiling brightly.
Mikaela gasped, brought a shaking hand to her mouth. “Oh, Mama …”
The years had been hard on Rosa. Her hair was snow-white now, her dark skin creased heavily around the eyes and mouth. Mikaela wanted to ask “What happened?” but before the question was even formed, she knew the answer. Bad love.
Rosa came up to her bedside. She touched Mikaela’s cheek, said softly, “A milagro.” Then she bent down and scooped Mikaela into a hug. “I never think to see you smile again, hija.” She drew back.
Mikaela’s throat constricted. “Hola, Mama.”
“I have missed you very much.” Rosa held on to Mikaela’s hand.
“What happened to me, Mama? No one will tell me.”
Rosa picked up a brush from the bedside table and began brushing Mikaela’s short hair. “You fell from a horse.”
“So they tell me. What in the hell was I doing on a horse?”
Rosa smiled. “You remember the bad language, I am not happy to say. In the past years, you have become the good horse rider. It is something you love.”
Mikaela grabbed her mother’s thin wrist. “Tell me about Juliana, Mama.”
Rosa carefully set down the brush. Her bony fingers curled around the bed rail. “We call her Jacey now, and she is everything you would wish for in a daughter.” She gazed down at Mikaela, her eyes glistening. “She is beautiful and gifted and loving and muy intelligente. And popular—I have never heard the phone ring so much. Look around this room, Mikita, and tell me what you see.”
For the first time, Mikaela looked around the room. There were flowers and balloons everywhere; cards lined the tables and the windowsill. “Are they all from Julian?”
Rosa made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Not from that one. They are from your friends. This is your home now, Mikaela. It is a wonderful place, not like Sunville at all. Every shop I go in, someone asks about you. The women, they bring food to the house every day. Here, mi hija, you are much loved.”
Mikaela couldn’t imagine that she’d found a real home, a place to belong, and not to remember that, it wasn’t fair …
She looked up at her mother. “He never came for me, Mama.”
“I know. This was hard on you before. Maybe it is even harder now. Then, you remembered why you left him. Now, I think maybe you forget.”
“I want to see my daughter.”
Rosa didn’t answer for a moment. Then, softly, she said, “It will … wound her heart … this forgetfulness. Dr. Liam wishes for you to have another day to remember, sí? You do not want to hurt her.”
Mikaela didn’t know how she could survive the heartache seeping through her. “I remember how it feels when a parent doesn’t know you. I remember this from … my father.”
“You have never called him this before.”
“I know.” She sighed tiredly. “But calling him something else doesn’t make him someone else, does it?”
“No.” Rosa reached into her pocket, pulling out a photograph. “Here.”
Mikaela’s fingers didn’t work right. It took her several tries to grasp the picture, and even then, Rosa had to gently guide her daughter’s fingers. She stared down at the picture—it was of Mikaela and Rosa and a beautiful young girl. They were standing in an unfamiliar room, beside a gorgeous, wonderfully decorated Christmas tree.
Mikaela’s hungry gaze took in every detail about the girl—the brown eyes, the easy smile, the waist-length black hair. “This is my Juliana … No, my Jacey.”
“Sí. The memories, they are in you, Mikaela. Place this fotografía next to your heart and sleep well. Your heart will remember what your mind forgets.”
Mikaela stared down into the eyes so like her own. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember holding this little girl, or stroking her hair, or kissing her cheek. “Oh, Mama,” she whispered, and at last she cried.