My wife smelled of sunscreen, and she wore an oversized straw hat with a black ribbon and thick-framed cat-eye sunglasses with red rims that matched her red sarong. I can picture it clearer than anything in this damn room.
I can hear her laugh, bubbly and contagious.
If I close my eyes, I can see her heart-shaped smile—the one that takes up half her face and can turn the worst of days completely upside down.
“We’re going to let you rest, Mr. James, and then we’ll order a few tests.” The doctor digs in a deep pocket of his jacket, and then he sneaks a glance at his phone. “I’ll be here for the next eight hours, if you have any additional questions. The nurses will ensure you’re comfortable in the meantime. We’ll discuss your treatment plan as soon as you’re feeling up to it.”
He tells the nurse with the dark hair to order a CT scan, mumbles something else I can’t discern, and then he’s gone. A moment later, the room clears save for myself and the third nurse—the one who’s done nothing but stare at me with despondent eyes this entire time.
“There must be a mistake. Someone needs to call my wife immediately.” I try to sit up, but an electric intensity unlike anything I’ve ever experienced shoots up my arm and settles along my back and shoulders.
The thought of her not knowing where I am sends a squeeze to my chest. What if she thinks I left her? What if she thinks I disappeared? What if she has no idea what happened? And what was I doing in Hoboken when our life is in Manhattan?
“What’s her name?” Her question comes soft and low, almost like she’s trying to ensure no one hears her. “Your wife?”
I open my mouth to speak … only nothing comes out.
I can picture her as vivid as still blue waters on a windless day—but it’s the strangest thing because her name escapes me.
Nothing but blank after infuriating blank.
“I … I can’t remember.” I lean back, staring into the reflective void of a black TV screen on the opposite wall.
The nurse’s gaze grows sadder, if that’s possible. “It’s okay. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”
She doesn’t believe me.
“Would you like me to call your sister?” she asks.
My sister … Claire.
If I can remember my sister’s name, why can’t I remember my own wife’s?
“Yes,” I say. “Call Claire. Immediately.”
She’ll be able to sort this out, I’m sure of it.
“Would you like me to adjust your bed?” The nurse straightens the covers over my legs. “I’m Miranda, by the way. I’ve been assigned to you since you arrived. I can tell you just about anything you need to know.”
“Just … call my sister.”
“Of course, Mr. James. Can I grab you anything while I make that call?”
I lift my hand—the one without the IV—to my forehead. “Head’s pounding like a goddamned jackhammer. Got anything for that?”
“Absolutely. Be right back …”
Miranda hurries out the door, and I’m alone.
If I close my eyes, the room spins, but I can picture my wife with impeccable lucidity—the square line of her jaw, her heart-shaped lips that flip up in the corners, the candy-apple green of her eyes.
My heart aches, though it isn’t a physical pain, it’s deeper.
More profound.
Like the drowning of a human soul.
I remind myself that the doctor said it’s normal to be disoriented, and I promise myself everything will come back to me once I get my bearings.
The clock on the wall reads eight minutes past seven. The sky beyond the windows is half-lit. I haven’t the slightest clue if it’s AM or PM. I couldn’t tell you what day it is or what month it is for that matter.
“Mr. James, your sister is on her way,” the nurse says when she returns.
She hands me a white paper cup with two white pills.
So much fucking white.
If I never see white again after this, I’ll die a happy man.
***
“Oh my God …” Claire stands in the doorway of my hospital room, her hands forming a peak over her nose and mouth. From here, she’s nothing more than a mess of dark waves and shiny, tear-brimmed eyes.
She looks like shit, but I’m in no place to judge. Nor would I tell her that. She’d kick my ass, hospital bed or not. Claire may be pixie-sized, but she’s scrappy.
Her neon green sneakers graze against the tile floor with muted shuffles as she hurries to my side, and she wastes no time sliding her cold hand into mine. Her hands are always cold, but in this moment, they’re icy—a staunch reminder that I’m far from the warmth of the beach and the place I existed mere moments earlier.
“Of course you’d wake up the one time I stepped out.” She forces a smile, but she looks at me the way a person looks at a ghost—uncertain if what they’re seeing is real.
“How long have I been here?”
Her brows meet as she shrugs out of her jacket and drops her bag on the floor. “Thirty-three days. Thirty-three terrifying days …”
“What the fuck happened?”
She retrieves a guest chair and pulls it next to me, only in true Claire fashion, she opts to perch on the side of the bed instead.
“You were on one of your weird little weekend rental car drives where you go God knows where … and we think you were maybe driving back to the Enterprise in Newark on a Sunday night.” She gathers a long, slow breath. “Someone crossed the median on the 495 and hit you head-on—a drunk driver.”
“Jesus.”
“They didn’t live … in case you’re wondering.” Her voice is pillow soft. “Luke is working on getting a settlement from their insurance company for you, but these things take time.”
We wallow in silence, and I let the gravity of the situation take hold. The settlement is the least of my worries at this point.
“It’s a miracle you survived after all of your injuries.” Her lower lip trembles, and she picks at a hangnail. “You lost a lot of blood … your brain was so swollen... they had to put you into a coma … I called Mom and Dad … but I haven’t heard back …”
I place my hand over hers, pain shooting up my shoulder.
Her dark eyes are marred with sadness and relief, but she forces a tight half-smile.
“Have you talked to my wife yet?” I ask.
Claire’s smile fades, and her expression morphs into the same one plastered on the faces of the nurses earlier.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I sniff. “Is she okay? What … was she with me in the car when that happened?”
My stomach sinks as her eyes search mine.
My God.
That’s it.
She was with me and she didn’t survive …
“Cainan, you don’t have a wife.” Her words are careful and deliberate, and her head tilts and her gaze narrows as she surveys me.
“Of course I do.” My hands ball into fists, though the grip is weak, pathetic.
“You’re confused.” She lifts her hand to my forehead, brushing away a strand of hair like a mother comforting her child.
I push her away.
She rises and takes a step back. “You had a head injury …”
“I saw her, Claire. I was just with her.” My jaw is locked, and I speak through clenched teeth. The more I recall being with her, the more it begins to slip away like an elusive dream that fades with each waking minute.
“You saw her where?”
“At our summer home in Calypso Harbor.”
My sister stifles a laugh. “Cain, it’s March. Your accident was in February. And you don’t have a summer home in Calypso Harbor—you make fun of people with summer homes. Like all those assholes at your firm. You always say you’re never going to be like them. Plus, where even is Calypso Harbor? I’ve never heard of it … have you? Whatever you’re remembering … was probably a dream.”
No.
It was too tangible, too sensory-rich to be a dream. As r
eal as this moment, here, in the hospital, as real as the fire-poker pain searing down my back and the salty droplets leaving mascara-colored tracks down my sister’s red cheeks.
“What about my kids? The boy and the girl?” I’ll be damned—I can’t remember their names either.
“You don’t have a wife and you definitely don’t have kids, at least none that I know about …” She perches on the side of my bed once more. “You once told me … and I quote … I’d rather stick my manhood in a vise grip than lock myself down with a wife and kids. Granted, you were drunk when you said that, but you said it. And hell, Cain, you’re a freaking divorce attorney. You make money on the fact that more often than not, marriages are a joke. Mine excluded, of course.”
She winks despite her serious tone.
“Mr. James?” Nurse Miranda clears her throat in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to take you down to imaging. Claire, you can wait here. It shouldn’t be too long.”
“Yeah. Let’s check out that head of his.” Claire squeezes my hand before I’m wheeled away. “Apparently my brother ran off and got married while he was out of it …”
My sister would never mislead me—and yet a part of me refuses to believe her.
I lie on my back as the muted fluorescent hall lights pass above me, one after another, alternating with stark white ceiling tiles.
More fucking white.
The instant I close my eyes, her face is the first thing I see—and in full detail, from the starry, Northern-Lights glow of her green eyes to the single freckle on the side of her nose.
Fullness invades my chest and warmth courses through my veins when I imagine her smile.
Maybe I’m dreaming now. Maybe, if I close my eyes one more time, I’ll wake up in our bed, her soft skin hot against mine as she kicks off the covers and laughs in her sleep.
If none of that was real, how do I know she gets teary during happy movies? How do I know she sponsors orphans in Third World countries and donates to no-kill shelters? How do I know her favorite author is Toni Morrison, with Stephen King coming in as an unexpected close second? Her favorite vacation spot is this hole-in-the-wall place we found in Greece on our honeymoon. She glows when she’s pregnant. Pure radiance. And she’s a phenomenal singer, even though she’ll insist she isn’t. Her thick, chocolate-brown hair gets frizzy in the summer and flat in the winter, but she’d be just as gorgeous if she sheared the whole thing off. She chipped her front tooth when she was twelve, though it’s hardly noticeable unless she points it out. She loves Christmas more than a person should. Loves those disgusting hot dogs from the carts on the street, too. She’s seen Chicago on Broadway more than anyone else I know. But more than anything, I know that I’m her whole world. The kids too. We only work when we’re all together. And right now, I’d do anything to get back to them.
And I will.
I’ll do anything.
“All right, Mr. James.” The nurse brings my bed to a halt outside a set of double doors. “We’re here.”
This is all a dream.
No—a nightmare.
It has to be.
CHAPTER THREE
Brie
“I hope you weren’t waiting long. There was a stalled semi on 15.” His name is Grant Forsythe, and I met him in a hospital waiting room in Hoboken a month ago. He noticed my ASU sweatshirt and after a couple of minutes of small talk, we discovered we both live in the Roosevelt Row section of Phoenix, never miss the opening Cardinals game, belong to hiking clubs, and enjoy many of the same dive bars and local musicians.
He’s also the best friend of the man whose life I helped save.
As an actuary and hobbyist statistician, I should be able to calculate the odds of such a chance encounter, but I’m trying not to overthink this. While I’ve never been the girl with the adventurous spirit and a go-anywhere-anytime attitude, something about witnessing a man cling onto his life last month has sparked something in me.
Life is short.
And it can be gone in the blink of an eye—zero warning.
I was on my way to catch a late flight out of Newark when I witnessed the accident happen in real-time—a red Ford truck crossing the interstate median, only to barrel into a black sedan head-on. The truck skidded into the ditch and proceeded to burst into flames, but the sedan came to a rolling stop upside down beneath an overpass. The screech of tires, the burn of rubber, the metallic crunch that followed—I’ll never forget them as long as I live.
It all happened so fast. Blink-and-you-might-miss-it fast. Did-that-actually-just-happen fast.
But I slammed on the brakes of my rented Prius and pulled to the side, dialing 9-1-1 as I checked on the driver—a man, bloody and incoherent, fading in and out of consciousness.
I stayed with him until help arrived.
I held his blood-covered hand.
I begged him to hang on just a little bit longer …
And when I saw him begin to lose consciousness, begin to let go, I squeezed his hand tighter and rambled on about anything and everything—myself mostly. A ridiculous little one-sided introduction. But I wanted him to focus on my voice.
To cling to the present.
To not succumb.
After all of that, it seemed wrong to head on to the airport, to carry on with my life like nothing happened, so I followed the ambulance to the hospital, and I waited in the waiting room—the scene from the accident replaying in my head over and over and over like a traumatic movie my head refused to turn off.
I couldn’t visit the man, of course, since I wasn’t family. But I stayed at the hospital, waiting until the nurses assured me that his family was there.
I didn’t want him to be alone.
And if he died, I didn’t want him to die alone either … like my twin sister, Kari, five years ago. If only someone had been there when she rolled her Jeep down a steep embankment at one o’clock in the morning, maybe she’d still be here.
To this day, we don’t know if she was distracted or if she’d fallen asleep at the wheel. We also don’t know what would’ve happened had help arrived sooner. The authorities said she’d been gone at least four hours before the sun came up and a passing driver noticed the garish red of her car contrasting against the muted tans of the desert landscape.
I’ve been thinking a lot these last few weeks, about chance and probability, about the likelihood of me being on that stretch of New Jersey interstate at that exact moment, of me camping out in the waiting room and running into an attractive stranger who happened to be visiting from my hometown—a stranger who just so happened to be the best friend of the victim.
“Not long at all.” I lift my martini glass and give him a gracious smile. I don’t tell him that if it were any other night, I’d be putting in a few more hours at the office. I find that sometimes men get put off by a driven woman. If he likes me enough to stick around after the first date, he’ll figure it out on his own anyway. “So sorry it’s taken this long for us to get together. My travel schedule has been crazy.”
“You fly a lot for work?” He flags down a server and orders a beer.
“At least once a month, lately it’s been more often than that. They’ve been sending me to our HQ in Hoboken and sometimes into one of our satellites in Manhattan, which I don’t mind.”
“Grew up in Jersey City,” Grant says. “Not far from there.”
He’s handsome.
More handsome than I remember.
Broad-shouldered. Tall. Dark eyes. Darker hair. Deep-set eyes. Even deeper dimples.
A flash of a smile that plays on his lips when our eyes catch.
I’m no expert in menswear, but I’m willing to wager that his suit cost a pretty penny.
Also, I saw him pull up to the valet stand in a freshly-washed silver Maserati.
Not that any of those things matter.
They don’t.
I do just fine on my own, and material things have never impressed me.
But if a girl
’s going to be approached by a stranger and asked on a date, it isn’t the worst thing in the world if he’s dashing, confident, and clearly unafraid to work his ass off for the things he wants.
The last guy I dated was respectably average in all areas, and I was beginning to think about introducing him to my family … but eight dates in, he dropped a bombshell that sent me packing. Not only was he in the middle of a messy divorce, he was living with his mother and paying for our dates with funds from his weekly unemployment checks—which were about to run out (hence the confession).
Crazy enough, he was a step above the guy who came before him—a man who claimed he was a doctor when he was actually a “holistic animal chiropractor” and got bent out of shape when I would refer to him as “Liam” and not as “Dr. Jeppesen” in conversation.
I’d resigned myself to a much-needed dating sabbatical in the months leading up to my chance encounter with Grant.
“What brought you all the way out here?” I ask. Seems like anymore, Phoenix contains more transplants than locals, and everyone has a story. Most of them are along the lines of wanting to trade gray midwestern winters for sunshine and palm trees or ‘just wanting a change,’ but every once in a while, someone throws a curveball of a story my way.
“A job.”
I don’t love the vagueness, but I give him a chance to elaborate before lobbing questions at him like darts. I do that to people. I fact-gather. I can’t help it. I’ve always been curious, always wanted to have all the information possible before I make my assessment.
He continues, “I graduated from Montclair State with a degree in Finance. My uncle knew a guy who wanted to hire someone fresh out of college, someone he could shape into the right fit for his company. Jumped at the chance and haven’t looked back since. Best decision of my life. Bar none.”
“You don’t miss the hustle and bustle of the East Coast? Or the seasons?”
Grant shakes his head and makes a face.
“Think you’ll ever move back?” I stir my drink with a skinny metal straw.
“Not a chance.” His beer arrives and he takes a sip, eyes locked on me. “The views out here are … breathtaking.”
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