Chapter 14
For a man with no history, it seemed he had a lot of things to do. His final call for now was to Evelyn Emerson, who had already heard from Wilcox that he'd been found. He thanked her again and promised to drop by sometime soon to return her C.A.R.E. package so that someone else could make use of the things he hadn't needed.
Then he opened the blinds of the front window in the living room for the morning light, and turned on the lamp by the couch. He opened the album to the first pages of photos. These must be his family when he was young. There was a handsome young blond woman in a shirtwaist dress smiling for the camera and holding up a fat baby who was squinting in the sunlight. Another picture of the same woman with a towheaded toddler on her lap and a tall, serious-faced man with glasses and a shock of dark hair, sitting on a couch, his arm around her. They could have been anyone's family, but of course they had to be his, and that baby was himself. In the next picture he had sprouted up and was holding the hand of a chubby blond girl with her finger up her nose. This would be his sister Elaine. He wondered if she knew this picture existed. A few photos traced his childhood and teen years, including a prom night snapshot of him with a grinning blond girl, a corsage at her shoulder, the two of them wearing matching braces on their teeth. His gawky awkwardness and those braces probably meant some time earlier than the senior prom.
There were only a few more pictures here. The last was a picture of his parents, not so young now, his father's hairline receded, sitting at a table in a restaurant with highball glasses in front of them, both smiling with their heads tipped towards each other for the camera, and a banner behind them that said "Happy Twenty-Fifth Anniversary!" There were cigarettes in an ashtray on the table with smoke curling up between them.
He studied all the faces, looking for a hint of familiarity, but he struck out.
Carrie hadn't mentioned there were pictures from her childhood as well, but when he turned the page the first thing he saw was a studio photograph of a serious-faced little girl with plump knees and elbows in a pink pinafore, a mop of dark curls around her delicate face, and two older boys who were probably her brothers. In a snapshot, she was slouched, crossways, in an upholstered chair, her legs dangling over one arm and her feet twisted together, her head inclined to a book.
The rest of the album was a record of Brian and Carrie, often along with people who were no doubt their friends, but strangers to him now. There were parties, ski trips, and gatherings around campfires among sleeping bags and duffels. In the pictures they were all young, carefree and laughing. He had a pang of longing to have been part of it. He was there in the pictures, but now it seemed as if he had missed the best part of his life.
The pictures dwindled after college life. There were only a few pages of photos after one of him and Carrie standing side by side, posed in their caps and gowns in front of a campus fountain. There was one snapshot of the two of from their wedding. Carrie's hair was piled on top of her head with a crown of flowers and ribbons, and her dress was soft and clung to her curves. He was grinning, his hand at her waist pulling her close to him. There was probably a wedding album somewhere devoted to the occasion.
Some of the photos were from the years he was in law school, judging from the length of his hair. Later it was neatly trimmed, the haircut of a professional man. There was a shot of Carrie sitting hunched over a book open on a kitchen table, in shorts and bare feet, a pencil in her teeth; another of him lounging in a chair, intent on the pages of a book in his lap. It looked as if the serious life had begun. Had the fun ended by then?
There were two of the earlier pictures he kept coming back to. One was among a series at a party in someone's living room, people drinking and mugging for the camera. In this one, Carrie was stretched out on a couch, laughing, with a bottle of beer balanced on her stomach, her hands poised to catch if it fell. He was sitting at the other end of the couch, raising a bottle to her, holding her feet in his lap with his other hand, and their eyes were on each other. His broad smile was for her, hers for him. Her socks were bright pink with green polka dots.
The other photo was outdoors, on a rocky ridge overlooking a wooded valley, big trees standing tall around them. The younger version of her already familiar face was grinning. She stood with her hands on her hips, feet planted wide and one hip cocked to the side, wearing low riding cargo pants that exposed her smooth flat stomach and belly button; above that a cropped t-shirt. Her dark hair curled out around a backwards baseball cap. He stood behind her grinning, with both of his hands in front of her full breasts, as if hiding them from the camera. You could tell she wasn't wearing a bra. Oh Carrie, look at you.
One thing was coming clear to him. It could be purely lust, but he was probably falling in love, for the second time, with Carrie Edwards.
Nothing in any of the pictures had looked familiar beyond recognizing his and Carrie's faces, none had twanged at the place his missing memory was hiding. But they had told him something. They told him that their beginning had been full of joy.
He felt his chin and remembered he hadn't shaved yet. Probably not since two days ago, judging from the stubble. In front of the bathroom mirror he lathered up and while he shaved, noticed that he was no longer surprised to discover his own face. He had a little conversation with his reflection. Hello stranger. What kind of man are you? Can I trust you? What's important to you? What are you going to do now?
If Carrie didn't already know about Katherine, if he was sleeping in the guest room for some other reason, what would she do if the truth came out? That's what he wanted to plan for. How could he explain that woman? He didn't understand himself. How did it happen? Did he start it? He'd already guessed he was a ladies' man. Carrie had implied it, acknowledging his charm when he told her she was beautiful, back in the motel room. It could have been her, Katherine, who initiated it and he just followed her invitation. But he loved Carrie. His life was with Carrie, he was sure of it. It was hard to imagine not loving her. Why would he stray? He wondered what she looked like, Katherine. The name was regal, but she'd sounded almost coarse in the message. "And other things," she'd said. Her tone of voice didn't leave much doubt about her meaning.
He decided the best thing to do was wait and see if she would give up on him if he didn't call back right away. Maybe when the word got out at the office about his condition, she would back off. And he would need to know more than he knew now before he spoke to her.
Clean Slate Page 14
