My heart gave a tiny kick. “Sure.”
He pointed toward the road. “Want to walk to the stables? Can you go that far?”
For a moment, I considered the risk of getting to know him at all. I wasn’t here to pose as Althea in her old life. I wanted to get well enough to go find Rosie, and Tom could only be a complication. Still, there was something bluntly compelling about him.
I smiled. “Let’s find out,” I said.
I glanced back toward the house, expecting Diego to still be armed on the porch, but he had gone inside with everyone except Grampa, who was settled in a wicker chair. He tipped his hat and shook out a newspaper. I waved back.
Tom and I soon left the road for a dirt lane that was bordered by laurel, and each tiny bell of blue petals was a perfect witness to our awkwardness. He said politely that he was glad I was back. I thanked him. I felt self-conscious with my cane. Tom’s stride, matched to mine, was hardly less stilted. An empty paddock beside the barn was fenced in white. A muted clanking came from inside the barn. Above, a greenish copper vane of a running horse pointed west into the breeze, and I breathed deep. After months of confinement, it was heaven.
“It’s so pretty,” I said.
“Yes.”
In the open door of the barn, I paused at the smell of horseflesh. I held my breath and gazed down a row of horses, huge and dark in their stalls. When I breathed again, the scent magnified into a noxious mix of sweat, hay, and manure. I turned instead for the paddock.
“Are you okay?” Tom asked, following me.
“The smell’s too strong in there,” I said, unzipping my sweatshirt.
“Can I get you anything?” Tom asked. “Do you want to sit?”
“No,” I said. “I’m totally fine. My sense of smell’s just sharper than it used to be.” I took a few more steps toward the white fence and focused on the pure air. The riding ring inside the fence was carpeted with overturned clods of rich, dark earth.
“I feel like I should do something for you,” he said.
I smiled. “You can’t, really.”
“This is weird,” he said. “Isn’t it weird to be back here together?”
“It’s weird period,” I said.
“What’s it like to be pregnant?”
I laughed. “It’s like having a whole new body. It’s like being taken over by an alien who loves to kick your bladder. Sometimes it’s actually kind of wonderful, but more often it’s terrifying.”
He nodded, watching me closely. “I want you to know I plan to be a good father,” he said. “That’s why I came. To tell you that. And I’ll do whatever it takes to support the baby.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“Yeah, but I do. And I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything. Fighting with you, and then signing off on the baby. I only did it because I thought it would help. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Help how?” I asked. “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
He braced a hand on the top rail of the fence and frowned toward the valley. When he looked over at me again, his eyes were deeply troubled. “Okay. You have to know what bad shape you were in after the accident. I couldn’t stand to see you suffer anymore. I thought signing off as the baby’s father was a technicality I had to agree to before the doctors would pull the plug on you. Then your parents claimed guardianship of the baby and used your pregnancy to justify keeping you alive.”
“They never told me this,” I said. “Is that even legal?”
“They were already calling the shots for you,” he said. “The baby just made their position stronger. I wasn’t going to fight them at that point.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You wanted me to die?”
“You were already dead, Thea,” he said. “You were just a body barely breathing. For weeks you were like that, and you weren’t getting better. The only sound you ever made was a tiny, guttural whimpering sometimes. It was the most heartbreaking sound. That’s when I wanted to let you die. Was I wrong?”
I had to see the irony of him asking me this, except I wasn’t Althea who had survived. In the end, her consciousness was gone. “I don’t know,” I said. “If I had died, the baby would have died, too.”
“I know. That ripped me up. Believe me,” Tom said. “But it was cruel to keep you alive and suffering for the baby’s sake, especially when you’d never even wanted it.”
“I didn’t want the baby?”
He tilted his head, and then his voice dropped low. “They didn’t tell you.”
Althea didn’t want this baby. The idea blew my mind. I’d thought since she was Catholic, she had wanted her baby.
I was only alive now, standing by this fence, because Althea had been pregnant when she went into a coma. However bizarrely I’d come to exist in Althea’s body, I owed this baby my latest life. I didn’t know why this news shifted the debt I felt, but it infused it with sadness, and somehow, it gave me a different ownership of this fetus within me. We needed each other more than ever.
Tom was watching me thoughtfully. “You look confused.”
“I am. It’s a lot to take in,” I said. “Are you Catholic, too?”
“Yes,” he said. “How much do you remember from your life before?”
“Nothing,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “But you can talk and everything just fine. Your mind’s working like normal.”
“Not exactly normal,” I said. “I don’t remember any details from my life before.”
“Are you saying you don’t remember me?”
Nerves swirled in my gut. “I’m sorry,” I said slowly. “I don’t.”
He let out a snort. “You might be mad at me or whatever, but you couldn’t forget about us.”
“Don’t try to tell me what I know,” I said.
“Then don’t talk crap,” he said.
I braced my cane and faced him directly. “I don’t think you get it. I have a brain injury.”
“Forget brains,” he said. “I know about this.”
I half expected him to grab me like some macho dude, and I was ready to shove him off, but instead, he skimmed a finger over the back of my hand. I gripped my cane harder, stunned by the feathered tingling that ran along my skin. With a shock, I found his lips close to mine. I caught my breath.
“Remember me now?” he whispered.
I shook my head slightly.
“Not now?” he asked, and dovetailed his fingers lightly over mine.
My cane dropped away. My body, which had been a sluggish, uncooperative partner in my existence ever since I’d woken up in it, now electrified with sensitivity.
“Still no,” I said.
He laughed softly. “Yeah, right.” And then he kissed me.
I locked my knees. His pressure was tender and light. Different. A tiny desperate flag in the back of my mind warned me this was a mistake, but I ignored it. When I almost closed my eyes, he held back slightly, and it took me a sec to realize he was waiting for me to lean in, like this was a dance and I had a choice. I leaned in, touching a hand to his chest for balance. It turned out he knew exactly how to match his lips to my new ones. I tilted into him even more, riding instinct, and Tom’s mouth moved easily with mine.