Memory Lapse

by Kathleen O’Brien

  He reached out blindly. The new dress had no buttons. His wonderful, deft fingers found the zipper in the back, and with one fluid stroke he pulled it down and eased it from her shoulders, down across her hips, over her shivering legs...

  As her clothes fell away and she lay naked in the winter sunlight, without even a sheet to cover her, she felt his silence, breath suspended, waiting. Under her hands she felt the tightening of his shoulders. Below his heart she could see the rippling clench of his abdomen, and she knew the heart-stopping fear that had possessed him.

  But, wondrously, miraculously, she felt no fear of her own. She felt only the deep burning of desire, the aching pulse of need. Slowly, hardly daring to believe that her body would not betray her, she rose to her knees. Drew was as still and silent as a statue, barely allowing himself to breathe. But his deep green eyes followed her every movement as she straddled him, poising herself above him.

  His hands clutched at her hips, his fingers rigid, pressing into her flesh, but still he didn’t speak. He didn’t move. His eyes spoke of a desperate need, but the decision was hers.

  There was no decision left to make. She couldn’t have stopped now if he’d asked her to. Taking one last deep, shaking breath, she slowly lowered herself over him. At the moment of contact, she gasped, low and hard, and with a piercing sensation of melting warmth, of sharp, painful pleasure and of overwhelming joy, she took him into her, where she had always known he belonged. And he did, he did. Hot tears filled her eyes. He did belong inside her. Nothing in her life had ever felt so right.

  He groaned, and his hips bucked once, uncontrollably, sending quivers darting out through all her limbs. She waited, allowing the small, deafening sensations to subside, and then she took him deeper still. She bent low, until the swollen, sun-gold tips of her breasts were only a whisper from his lips.

  And then, although surely the welcoming heat of her eager body was more permission than words could ever convey, she told him one more time. “Love me, Drew.”

  With a groan of sweet release, he lifted his lips hungrily, pulling her into the hot darkness of his mouth. The waiting was over. With an instant shift, every muscle in his body readied itself. He cast away his unnatural quiescence, his desperate, rigid patience, and with a wild and wonderful abandon he took her the way she had always dreamed he would.

  His hard hands held her hips, so that they were as close as two bodies could possibly be, and he drove into her with a need so powerful she thought she would weep, she thought she would scream, she thought she would fly into a million shining, glowing, pulsing bits of sunlight. Again and again he owned her, until his chest was hot and slick under her hands, until his breath was fierce and fast against her breast, until they both cried out from the sheer unbearable beauty of it and fell, still weeping, still wrapped around each other, into a black and bottomless well of perfect peace.

  * * *

  HE CAME BACK to reality before she did. Perhaps, he thought, tightening his arms around her, that was because he needed to experience complete, conscious awareness of every miraculous second. Perhaps, in spite of everything that had happened, he secretly feared it would disappear, feared that it could somehow, even now, be taken away from him.

  But when he touched her, she was reassuringly warm. So marvelously real. Her head lay against his chest, her dark hair spread out like silk over his shoulders. There was something incredibly innocent about the way she had, in her exhaustion, slid with a sigh to the bed beside him. She had murmured a low sound of intense satisfaction, and then she had curled trustingly in the crook of his arm, her knee thrown over his thigh, her hand pressed against his chest, as if she wanted to feel his heart throbbing against her palm while she slept.

  He looked down at the lovely, peaceful profile that nuzzled against him, totally unaware of being observed. Not many people, he thought, could have endured such ordeals and still possess such heartbreaking innocence and beauty.

  Suddenly, foolishly, his eyes stung, and he blinked back the burning wetness angrily. He had never cried for her before. Why now, when her ordeal was finally over, did he find himself unable to bear the thought of how terrible it must have been? He stroked the velvety dampness of her back, marveling at the deceptive fragility of her delicate bones, the childish, rosy pout of her parted lips. No, this was no fragile child. This was a woman of amazing passion, indomitable spirit. How brave she was. How courageously she had struggled against the demons that had threatened to destroy her life.

  And how sweetly she had come to share the fruits of her victory with him. Gratitude was like a physical ache within his chest. He knew himself to be a lucky man. He tightened his arms even more, as if he would physically block any pain that tried to reach her from this moment forward.

  She stirred, and he knew he had awakened her. She sighed softly, her breath warm and tingling against his sensitized skin. She stretched her back, arching in unconscious sensuality, and he felt himself start to want her all over again.

  She ran her foot along the curve of his calf. “That was nice,” she murmured, and he could hear the throaty, teasing understatement in her voice. She hadn’t had enough, either. He could feel it in the slight tension of her thighs.

  “Yes, it was,” he said in a similar tone, letting his hand feather down to the small of her back. “Very.”

  She snuggled closer. “Better, I think, than before.”

  His hand froze, his fingers going abruptly numb. “Before?”

  She had begun to play with the hair on his chest, drawing small, tickling circles around his pebbling nipple. “Yes, well, that tiny cot wasn’t really as comfortable as this big, lovely bed, was it?”

  The cot...

  “Laura...” With one swift, urgent motion, he rotated her onto her back and rose onto his elbows above her. He looked at her soft blue eyes with a gaze full of questioning incredulity. “I thought you didn’t remember that night,” he said. “I thought you weren’t really awake.”

  She smiled up at him. “I wasn’t.”

  Then what—how? He cursed, low and intense, a shock of betrayal coursing through him. “Spencer told you?”

  She frowned slightly. “Did Spencer know?”

  “I went to him,” he said, anger making his voice tight. “Right after it happened. I didn’t know what to do, whether to tell you, whether it would be worse if you realized what you had done. But, damn it, he knew I was talking to him in confidence. He knew I wouldn’t have wanted him to tell you—”

  She hushed him with one soft fingertip. “It wasn’t Spencer,” she said gently. “Spencer would never have said a word, you know that. But you see, the amazing thing about unblocking your memories is that you don’t get just a select few. You don’t call them up by the year you want, or the person you want, or the place or the type, like files from a computer. Apparently you get them all, the little and the big, the good and the bad.” She traced the curve of his lower lip. “At least I did.”

  “Oh, God.” He could hardly meet her eyes. “I'm sorry, Laura,” he said, his heart sinking under its burden of guilt. He should have told her. He shouldn’t have left her to remember on her own, to suffer that new betrayal without any warning, without any explanation.

  “There is no excuse for what I did. All I can say is that I really didn’t know, Laura, I swear I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t. You seemed so normal. Your eyes were open, and you spoke to me, you said my name with all the longing I’d always wanted to hear.”

  He swallowed, his throat catching on something jagged. “I guess that’s the selfish, simple truth of it, Laura. I wanted to believe it was the real you.”

  She smiled again, almost dreamily. “It was the real me. Don’t you see that? It was what I could be when the terror set me free, when it was just you and me and all the love there was between us.” Her eyes shone wetly, and her smile trembled. “Don’t regret it, Drew. That memory got me through the past two months. Knowing love could be so beautiful, even for me, g
ave me the courage to keep trying.”

  He wasn’t sure he could speak. The lump in his throat seemed to be in the way of the words. “But I didn’t tell you, even when I realized what I’d done. Can you ever forgive me for that?”

  She touched his cheek. “Well,” she said softly, “it is a good thing I remembered. It might have been rather awkward....”

  He tilted his head. “Awkward?”

  “Explaining to my doctor.” She lay both hands on her stomach and looked up at him. “Explaining how I could possibly be expecting a baby in the fall.”

  His arms almost gave way under his weight. Just in time he rolled away from her and fell back against the pillows, his heart thudding violently in his chest. He couldn’t believe his ears. He couldn’t believe...

  But then, with a gentle murmur, she took his hand and placed it on the smooth, warm skin of her belly. “It’s true,” she said. “We made a child that night, Drew, that night in the tower. It’s growing now, right here under my heart.”

  His fingers were stiff. “But a baby... Laura, it’s so unfair...to you... You didn’t even know what you were doing.”

  She chuckled softly and began to guide his hands in slow strokes across her stomach. “And still I got it right.” She moved his hand lower. “It must mean I'm a natural, don’t you think?”

  He halted their drifting fingers before she took him too far, past the point at which he knew he could never stop.

  “It means you are a miracle. My miracle.” Leaning over her, he dipped his head to her shoulder, shutting his eyes and brushing his lips across the satin of her skin. His wife. His child. His family. His dream. All rescued from the ashes by one mad night of thoughtless passion, a night he had dared to rue. Joy was like a piercing light, and it brought with it a surge of desire so strong it almost blinded him.

  “We'll start over,” he said suddenly. “I'll build you a new home, Laura, a home for you and the baby.” He tucked her body beneath his and pressed against her, showing her how she made him feel, how thrilling he found her fertile warmth, her gift of new life, new hope, new love. “I'll take you somewhere warm and golden, somewhere without snow or ghosts or winter. I'll find a place where it’s always summer, where miracles always come true.”

  “You don’t have to take me anywhere, Drew,” she said, smiling as she opened for him, body, heart and soul. “We've found that place already.”

  11

  LAURA WOKE UP slowly, gathering a gradual awareness of the peach-colored dawn filtering through the lace curtains. Instinctively, as she did every morning, she wriggled backward until she met the warm strength of Drew’s body. Without waking, Drew murmured and automatically reached for her, wrapping his hand across her stomach. Nestling there, spooned tightly against him, she shut her eyes and smiled. No wonder she never walked in her sleep anymore. Why would she ever willingly leave such a blissful haven? It was a miracle she ever got up at all.

  Of course the twins would have something to say about that. At almost four years old, they had something to say about almost everything. She pictured them now, asleep in their tumbled beds across the hall, their limbs splayed in innocent abandon, their chestnut hair sticking out every which way like tossed straw, their mischievous, darling faces for once peaceful and still. They would be awake soon, the peace shattered by laughter and Indian whoops, by race cars vrooming over hardwood floors, by plastic dinosaurs thundering across prehistoric mountains of Legos.

  Oh, yes, they’d have plenty to say if their parents refused to get out of their cozy bed. I'm hungry. I can’t find my cars. I want to play catch. You promised you’d lift me up to see the birds' nest. You said we could go out on the lake today.

  She smiled, thinking of the din two little boys could create. And what would they say, she wondered, snuggling closer to Drew, when they heard about the new baby? Last night she and Drew had decided that it was time to share the news. They would tell the boys today.

  She put her hand over Drew’s, over the barely perceptible swell that was the baby, and suddenly she knew what had awakened her so early. A tiny flutter moved against her ribs, like a ripple skimming the surface of the lake. Her smile deepened, and she tightened Drew’s hand against her. The baby, Drew, she wanted to say. I felt the baby move.

  But she let him sleep. It was too soon, the movements too subtle for him to share yet. In a couple of months, Drew would marvel in them, just as he had in the rambunctious wrigglings of his twin sons. This time the boys would put their tiny hands on her stomach, too. She could imagine how they would laugh when their little, unseen sister kicked against them. She could hardly wait. For now, though, it was her own private miracle.

  Just one of many miracles. She opened her eyes and gazed lovingly around her beautiful room. Simple and open, bright and sunny now as the dawn gave way to the golden glow of a cloudless summer day. Summerland, they called it, this big, rambling Florida house on Lake Mercy, with a wide porch that ran across the second story. She loved that porch. She and the boys often sat up there on hot afternoons, lazing on the swing, telling stories and singing songs, watching the sun dance across the glittering lake while they waited for Drew to come back from a meeting or a day at the office.

  He was never gone overnight. She knew it required elaborate professional manipulations, but he always managed to get home in time to tuck the boys in bed, in time to hold her as she fell asleep. When she tried to assure him that she’d be okay alone, that she was no longer afraid to face her dreams, he’d merely shake his head.

  “It’s not for you,” he’d lie with a smile. “It’s for me. I can’t sleep without you anymore.”

  And she loved him all the more for the lie, for the constancy with which he guarded her even now that she needed no guarding. And besides, she didn’t want him to stay away. After four and a half years of marriage, they still turned to each other every night, hungry to touch and be touched, to love and be loved.

  That was the most wondrous miracle of all, she thought, spooning herself even closer, so close she could feel the warm exhale of his sleeping breath against her ear. At first Drew had been painfully careful not to push her, to wait until she asked for his touch, always watching for signs of fear, of the old panic and rejection. But those things were gone forever, and finally believing in her recovery, he had begun to reach out freely, without censoring himself, giving in completely to the moment.

  And what moments they were! Sex was sometimes joyous, bubbling over into a silly, frolicking romp; sometimes soapy and hot and languorous as they stood together in the shower. Sometimes he came to her at midnight, wild and wicked, tearing her clothes and taking her on the floor, and sometimes he wakened her before dawn with a sleepy loving that seemed as soft and delicious as a dream.

  Sometimes, though, the past seemed to hang in the room like sad, slow music, and his eyes were dark and desperate. On those nights his lovemaking would be silent, reverent, frightened, grateful, profound. And she would know he was remembering how close their miracle had come to dying.

  She pressed herself against him, as if to reassure herself all this happiness was real.

  “If you don’t stop wiggling your sexy bottom like that,” Drew growled suddenly against her ear, his voice throaty with sleep, “I won’t answer for the consequences.” Grinning into her pillow, she made a slow, deliberate circle with her hips.

  His hands tightened on her belly. “Shameless hussy,” he whispered, nipping at her ear and doing some rather subtle wriggling of his own. Her breath came quickly as he slid his fingers seductively across the cotton nightgown she wore, searching for the hem and pulling it up around her thighs. He tilted her hips, and she sighed happily.

  “Absolutely shameless,” she agreed, her body moving under his hands, her heart pounding in her ears so loudly she almost didn’t hear the muffled voices in the room across the hall.

  “I'm going to tell Daddy you smashed my castle!”

  “I did not! Your dumb castle just fell down 'caus
e you made it wrong!”

  “It was not a dumb castle!”

  “Was too!”

  “I'm telling Daddy!”

  Her heart slowing reluctantly, Laura cast a mournful look over her shoulder at Drew, who dropped his head against the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. “Quick,” he said. “Lock the door.”

  “Too late,” Laura said as the sound of scuffling boys grew louder. “I guess we'll just have to wait.”

  Drew groaned. “I don’t think I can.”

  She sat up, arranging her nightgown demurely. “Of course you can.” She patted his shoulder. “You waited years, remember? You have more patience than any man I know.”

  “That’s just it,” he said morosely, though his eyes twinkled at her. “I used it up. I'm out.”

  Laura didn’t have time to answer. Twin cyclones burst into the room, whirling toward them noisily, their grievances thankfully forgotten somewhere on the way to their parents' bedroom. The boys tumbled onto the bed, kissing and laughing and demanding the loving attention they had always taken for granted. This was what she had wanted for her children, she realized, this boisterous belief that they were always welcome. Watching Drew hug his sons, Laura’s heart felt suddenly full to overflowing.

  “Take us somewhere,” the boys clamored, tugging at the sheets, urging their lazy parents to get up.

  And Drew, winking at Laura, answered dryly, “Okay, you can come with me to the patience store.”

  The boys looked confused and slightly disappointed. “That doesn’t sound like very much fun,” Nolan said, screwing up his mouth.

  And Stephen nodded. “Sounds boring,” he said emphatically.

  “All right, then,” Drew said philosophically, settling a boy on each side of him. “Somewhere else, then.” He smiled at Laura, the smile that always made her melt inside. “I know. Let’s go to the baby store.”