Christian absorbed the moment with a raised brow. “I gotta say, all this comes as quite a shocker, even for me. It’s crazy, right? Of all things…your dad is home, like totally out of the blue.”
“I know.”
“Grace is gonna freak.” He hesitated, minding Lauren. “But I’m sensing you’re not particularly thrilled about it, for some reason.”
“I’m ecstatic.”
“You don’t sound it. Seriously…I would’ve expected a way more cheery reaction from you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Christian shut off the engine. “Hey, did I say something wrong?” he asked, hearing more engines approaching from the road, a look left serving to confirm it. “We’ve got incoming. Looks like the heat on its way to investigate a certain tactically acquired JLTV.” He snorted. “I’m driving it now, but you started this mess. How should we handle it?”
Lauren hung her head. “I-I don’t know. I guess I’ll just explain—”
“That will not be necessary,” Woo Tang broke in. “No explanation is compulsory on your part. You will see to your father now that he is home. I will make this my problem.”
Lauren nodded, biting her lip. “I owe you, again, Jae. Thank you.”
He smiled grimly. “You are welcome, again. And you owe me nothing. Christian, it would be kind of you to return the JLTV once you are finished with it.”
“Consider it done.”
Woo Tang exited from the rear suicide door and approached the pair of oncoming trucks, immediately directing them to halt their advance. Minutes later, he got into one of them, and the pair backed out of the driveway, disappearing onto the road.
Normally, Christian would be the first to offer further comment, even if only serving to fill the silence. But instead, he held back, allowing Lauren to sort through the storm of emotions building inside her.
“I know you and Grace are about to become parents, and who knows what else,” Lauren began in a shaky voice. “You’re family now, and that gives you every right to be here and be a part of this.” She turned to face him, her lips pressing together. “But I would really appreciate some time alone with him.”
Christian leaned into his seat. “Incredible. You can be awfully sincere when you want something bad enough.”
“Christian…”
“I’m kidding. No worries. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thank you, but I also need a favor.”
Christian restarted the engine. “Let’s hear it.”
“I need your help…priming Mom and Grace for this.”
“Priming them? You mean like delivering the news? You trust me to handle that?” Christian chuckled. “How much should I tell them? Everything or next to nothing?”
“Neither,” Lauren said. “Tell them what I did, for the simple fact that rumors spread so quickly around here, and I don’t want them hearing I went crazy, even though I did. And, in the gentlest way you can, which I know won’t be easy for you, tell them I’ll be home soon…and Dad is coming with me.”
“Whoa.” Christian’s eyes widened. “Damn, are you sure about that?”
Lauren laughed uncomfortably. “Hell no. But you and I both know how unstable Grace is. And Mom is prone to lose consciousness at anything over the top. It might be good to give them a little notice before he walks through the door.”
“If you think I can fine-tune that delivery, you really did go crazy.”
Lauren pled with him, “Can you just please help me out? I’m running on emotional fumes here.”
Christian nodded and gave a confident smile. “I’ll take care of it. No promises on the results, though.” He reached for her. “Cheer up, okay? Your dad’s home.”
Lauren opened her door and stepped out, and as she went to close it, he called for her to wait.
Christian pulled his jacket off and tossed it to her. “We’ve…been through this before, I know. But you’re a tad underdressed for the occasion.”
Lauren looked herself over. She was still in her running outfit. She’d completely forgotten.
She thanked him, and Christian pulled out of the driveway and headed for home, leaving Lauren to wait for her father to show his face again, though the postponement was brief. While slipping Christian’s jacket on and zipping it up, Alan appeared on the front porch, the screen door smacking behind him.
The look of uncertainty he’d been casting began to evaporate upon seeing that his daughter was expecting him. He smiled and marched cautiously to her, his hands concealed in his jacket pockets. “I was hoping I’d find you here,” he began delicately. “My day hasn’t been short on surprises, but you were the last person I ever expected to see get out of that truck.” A pause. “For the longest time, it’s like I’ve been wandering aimlessly through a dream. But when I saw you, I knew it was over. Like the dream finally came true.”
“I know what you mean. It feels like I’m dreaming right now.” Lauren hesitated. “Is your friend going to be okay?”
Alan turned his head, regarding the home to his aft momentarily. “The bullet hit him in a bad spot, but he’s tough. I think he’ll pull through all right. The doctor is a little strange…has a peculiar bedside manner, so I’m clueless about his leg. Then again, it might be too soon to tell.”
Lauren’s lower lip began to tremble. She pulled her hands from her pockets and went about cracking her knuckles.
“I bet you have a lot of questions for me,” said Alan.
“Thousands. Only, I don’t know where to start.”
“That makes two of us. I…missed you, Lauren.”
“And I missed you,” she whimpered. “More than I’m capable of expressing.”
Alan beamed at the remark. Maybe this encounter wouldn’t be as daunting as he anticipated.
Lauren evaluated him. “Can you start by telling me why you’re so off?”
Or maybe he wasn’t out of the woods quite yet. “Off?”
“Yeah. I know it’s you. I can see that, but everything about you is…wrong, misaligned. You’re physically here, but everything I remember about you isn’t. It’s like a part of you, a big part of you, is somewhere else.”
Alan sighed. He presumed questions such as these would manifest, but he hadn’t the time to rehearse his answers. All his focus had been shifted to his journey home. Once there, he’d hoped that everything else would harmonize and the pieces would mysteriously fall into place, but they weren’t. He wanted so much to tell her the truth, explain everything that had happened to him, but his story wasn’t going to offer her any pause, bearing in mind the veritable universe of details that lay missing. “I guess that’s…one way of describing it.”
Lauren looked disheartened. “Tell me why.”
“I wish I could.” Alan gritted his teeth. “I wish I could tell you everything, all the way down to the last minute detail. But I can’t. I can’t because…I don’t remember anything. And I hate that I don’t.”
“Dad, why?” Lauren’s eyes flashed. “Why don’t you remember?”
“Because something happened to me,” he admitted, looking away at first, only to have his daughter pursue and lock on to his eyes. “I got hurt. Rather badly.”
“How bad?”
Alan beheld her gravely. “So bad that I almost died.”
Lauren covered her mouth with her hand and shook. The possibility of her father departing this life had crossed her mind scores of times. “What…happened to you?”
“It was the worst scenario imaginable,” Alan said, his lower lip trembling. “I was…on my way home and there was an accident, an explosion. And I was the victim.”
Lauren altered her stance, her distress building. “You?”
“Me.” Alan nodded. “If you were to ask how it happened, I couldn’t begin to tell you, and I can’t recount anything leading up to it…I have no memory of that, either. The only reason I know anything is because I was…told.”
Lauren sniffled and turned away slightly. “This whole
time…ever since I saw you, you’ve been looking at me like you don’t know who I am. Is it…memory loss?”
Alan’s expression went somber. He nodded. “It’s post-traumatic amnesia, resultant of a brain injury.”
“How bad is it? Is there anything you do remember? Anything at all?”
“Some memories have recently begun flashing back…a lot of others have yet to. There’s still a lot missing.”
“So that’s it, then,” Lauren said. “You don’t know me.”
“Lauren, don’t say that. I’m your father—I know who you are.”
She held up a hand. “But you don’t remember me at all. You don’t know anything about me, and you don’t remember any of us…not even Mom or Grace.”
“I know all of your names, but I don’t remember your faces,” Alan began. “And, kid…it kills me to admit that to you. I didn’t even know yours until I saw you again. I’ve been trying to get back to you for months, and coming here was our last stop. Seeing you…it blew my mind, knowing who you were the instant you called for me. And knowing right then that you were still alive. I’m sorry, Lauren. I wish to God things were different, but none of this changes how I feel. I’m overjoyed to be here…home, with you.”
Lauren didn’t know what to think. She knew this man was Alan Russell, a person she hadn’t seen in over fifteen months. He both looked and sounded like the father she knew, but his mannerisms had changed; his demeanor had changed. And the way he looked upon her wasn’t nearly the same as it’d once been. She was on cloud nine over having him back, but she couldn’t help feeling disappointed. “I don’t know what to say to all this…or how to feel about it. I’m sorry.”
“Can you at least tell me if your mother and sister are here with you?” Alan pled. “That they’re just as alive as you are?”
Lauren pressed her lips together. “Mom and Grace are at home, and they’re fine. We’re all fine.”
“Thank God,” he said, exhaling a breath. “Look, maybe I should fill in a few of the blanks for you.”
“By all means.”
“After the accident, I spent four months in a coma,” he began. “I woke up in a strange place, paralyzed, barely able to speak, surrounded by people I didn’t know. Every memory of the life I’d lived, of who I used to be was gone. I didn’t know what day it was or where I was, how I’d gotten there, or what had happened to me, nothing. I didn’t even know who I was. And for almost a month following, I didn’t know I had a family, a wife, and daughters.”
Lauren scowled. “Then how did you get here? How—”
Alan halted her. “Hey, for this to work, I need you to hear me out. Offer me some benefit of the doubt. It’s been forever since we’ve talked, and there’s a mountain of catching up to do. I have a great deal to tell you, but there’s a lot I won’t be able to.”
Jade stepped out onto the porch stoop and sent a thoughtful glance to the reunification taking place in the wintry, rural setting ahead of her.
Lauren’s eyes moved away from her father and tracked her instantly. “Who is she?” She gestured to the brunette. “She hasn’t stopped surveilling us since we met on the road.”
Alan rotated. “That’s Jade. She’s a friend, Lauren. Someone very special to me. I’ll call her over so you two ca—”
“No, wait. Someone special to you?” Lauren interrogated. “What does that mean? You’ve been gone all this time, and when you finally decide to come home, you bring a woman with you who looks at you like that?”
“Lauren, what on earth are you talking about?” Alan grimaced. “In what way is she looking at me?”
“The way a woman looks at a man when she’s in love with him, Dad. I saw it the second I laid eyes on her, and I see it right now. Who the hell is she?”
Alan was taken aback. He’d never anticipated this line of questioning. “Okay, hold on. First off, Jade is a dear friend to me. She and I have been through a lot together, but I’ve never considered her as anything other than a friend. Nothing, not one thing exists between us beyond that affinity, trust me on that. And I didn’t just decide to come home. It’s been the only thing on my mind since I was told I had a family.
“Jade was one of a mere twofold who knew me and knew about me prior to my accident. She was integral in helping me relearn the person I was. And ever since knowing, being home with you, Grace, and your mother became a mission for me, and I’ve been doing everything in my power—everything, short of killing myself—to find you.”
Alan felt a sharp pain rise into his head. “I’m sorry—I’m trying hard to help you make sense of this, and I realize it’s not working. All I want is for you to believe me and not take the things I say out of context.”
Lauren’s first impulse was to hold him in contempt and everything he said as an excuse. She desired to take his account at more than simple face value, but there was no cohesion to any of it. This twist of fate today had taken her completely by surprise and wasn’t becoming any less convoluted. She felt mystified in the moment.
While casting a hard stare at the resolute brunette, Lauren began to recall her encounter with a man in a black uniform in the middle of the national forest several months ago. She’d had no intention whatsoever of believing a word he’d said either. She hadn’t wanted to trust him or know him, and the following day, he’d saved her life. Lauren had injured herself and was helpless, and Christian had taken a stand for her. Something deep within had told her to have faith in him, and she was rewarded for it. He’d protected her selflessly. He had shown up at the right place and time when Lauren had needed someone. Was it unfair for her to believe her father’s situation had been any different? And against that backdrop, was this Jade person any different?
Whether the woman possessed an ulterior motive remained to be seen and, like everything else in life, would manifest in due course. Lauren had confided in someone, shorn of knowing his intentions, and if Jade had been there for her dad when he’d needed someone, the woman deserved the same consideration. Her dad deserved her faith because he was her dad. And maybe Jade did, too.
“I’m not trying to make this difficult for you,” Lauren said. “This is just a lot…harder than I ever imagined it would be.”
“I know what you mean. It shouldn’t be that way, but you’re right. It is,” Alan said. “I met Jade where I was working in Washington, and if it wasn’t for her, I never would’ve made it out of there. Four of us walked out of DC using plans I made up, and we made it about halfway home before my…accident. It happened right around the corner from a compound called Camp Hill, where Harpers Ferry used to be; my friend Valerie runs the place now. Between her and Jade and a few others, they stood by me and nursed me back to health from my deathbed. And that’s no exaggeration. That makes these people very special to me, Jade in particular. She was there for me the whole time when I was helpless, and if it wasn’t for her…” He trailed off in sobs.
“She…saved my life, Lauren. Along with a chosen few whom you’ve yet to meet. My friend Ken”—Alan pointed to the farmhouse behind him—“who might end up losing his leg over all this, was one of them. These people are special to me because they helped give me back my life. I was a goner, I’d lost everything—my life, my family, everything I ever was or knew. Without these people, without their willingness to stick by me, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be dead.”
Lauren nodded her head solemnly, taking everything in. “I believe you, and I’m sorry. But…I’ve been dreaming of this day. I’ve written you off dozens of times, only to hate myself for doing it…only to write you off again and have you appear in my dreams. You protected me there and said things that made me feel strong again, just like you used to. In the last dream I had, you told me you never left. And now you’re here and I don’t know what to make of it.”
She sniffled and her eyes welled up. “You’re right, it is like a dream come true—but you don’t even know me. You don’t remember the hikes we used to take, any of my birthdays, or any of the
talks we had. And you don’t remember how close we were. You’re calling me by my first name now, and you never used to do that. I…miss the emotion and passion in your eyes; I used to see it every time we spoke. And right now, I don’t see anything.”
A cascade of tears slipped down Alan’s cheeks. “I’m trying, okay? And I won’t stop trying. I’m still me, Lauren. I’m still your dad. There’s a good chance my memories will come back, and if they do, the old me might return with them. But I’m here now, and until that happens, I’m going to need your help. Guide me back…to who I was with you.”
The two fell silent a moment and wept together while the cold void of air remained unnaturally between them.
Lauren soon began again in monotone. “After all this time and everything that’s happened, it’s a miracle you came back to us. And it’s good to see your face…it looks a little different, though.” She forced a smile. “There’s some new scratches and dents, and you really need to work on your beard.”
Alan smiled grimly. “Thanks. It’s good to see you, too. Now I can finally put a face to a name.”
Lauren snickered and sniffled and her father inched closer.
“Look, I realize this rendezvous is turning out to be far from perfect,” he said. “I wish there was something I could do to take back all the time we missed, and I’m really sorry about how things went down. By God, if I knew of a way to fix this, I’d be on it…and if I could go back and prevent it from happening, I would in a heartbeat. I never should have left you that day. I know my memory is screwed and it’s going to take time for me to warm up to things, but that doesn’t mean I’m not your dad.”
“I know that.”
“Then you know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten a hug from you,” Alan said. “I’ve come a really long way to be here…if you’re up for it, I think it might be good…for both of us.”
Lauren gazed up at her father as several heavy tears escaped her lower eyelids. “I know it would.” She reached out and fell limply into him, feeling his arms pull her in. Her heartbeat slowed and a feeling of calm began to overtake her. In a world that had turned on her and had taken him from her, he’d somehow found a way back.
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