I sigh. "So I have a picture of cat fur, a quote from some guy I've never heard of, and a fortune that Donna might have just dropped into her desk by mistake. Somehow I don't think I'm any further ahead."
He downs the last of his coffee and says, "I have to agree, I'm afraid. Whatever she used to lock that word game won't be easy to understand or find. She was so smart."
I raise my head. "No smarter than me."
He looks like he wants to protest this but wisely keeps his mouth shut.
"Seriously, though, she can't be. How could she be? Yeah, I've lost the memories, but Doctor Ferraro says my other functioning hasn't changed. If Donna hid it, I can find it."
Ryan again doesn't speak.
An awful thought occurs to me. "Unless you don't want me to."
He looks up, surprised.
"You and Donna had problems, right? Dealing with your affair, with her depression. Maybe you wish I'd go away so you can forget the whole thing. No more me, no more Donna. No more problems."
He stares at me, his face entirely blank. When he opens his mouth, I have no idea what he's about to say.
Neither does he, apparently, since he closes his mouth again. Then he looks me in the eye and says, "I don't want that."
"Which part? No more me or no more Donna?"
He holds my gaze for a long moment then says softly, "I love you both."
I can't believe what I heard but I know I didn't misunderstand. His eyes tell me so. "You... love..."
He swallows hard. "I made mistakes with Donna. I can't tell you how many. But she's my wife, and I love her. But you... I think you're who Donna would have been without all the mistakes. And... yeah. Yes, Kate, I love you."
I can't breathe for a second, then I say what I now realize I've wanted to tell him since he kissed me outside the restaurant in Toronto. "I love you too."
He looks at me, his eyes so sad.
I'm about to ask him why but then I know. "It doesn't change anything for you, does it?" It's not really a question. "You love me but..."
He nods. "But I am married to Donna."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I'm stunned, both by how our relationship has changed in just a few moments and by how adamant he is. I love him. He loves me. But he won't do anything about it because he promised to be faithful to someone else.
I try to make him see that I am the person who received that promise, but he won't budge. I don't remember Donna's life, so I'm not Donna. I'm Kate.
He has a point. And yet, if we love each other...
Finally, frustrated, I say, "Do you want me to pretend to remember?"
I expect a sharp retort back, but to my surprise he considers it.
I stare at him, and he says, "No, of course not."
"Then why'd you think about it for so long?"
He shakes his head. "I don't know. I just want what's best for you."
Loving a man who's committed to someone else can't be what's best for me, but it's where I am. "If I did pretend..."
He shakes his head again. "No. You surprised me, that's all. Besides, it couldn't work. You'd never be able to fake every last detail of her life and that's what it'd take to be her."
"Yeah."
We sit silently for a moment, then he says, "Hungry?"
I nod. Hungry and sad and still a little turned on by our kiss. But one thing at a time.
We leave the office and head down the street to a small coffee shop. Since we're having a late lunch the place is nearly empty, so we're quickly handed our sandwiches and coffee by the cheerful black lady behind the counter. She gives me a friendly smile and says, "Haven't seen you for a while. I'm glad you're all right."
I smile back. "I've been... out of town. But everything's great."
"Good stuff," she says, and slips two free cookies onto our tray with a grin. "This'll make sure you come back."
We thank her and Ryan takes the tray to a table at the back. Once we're settled and the cashier's back at work, I say softly, "I feel like I'm visiting. Everywhere I go. I hate it."
He gives my hand a squeeze. "I have tried, but I can't imagine what you're going through. I wish I could make it all better."
"I know." Of course, for him 'all better' is probably having me wake up tomorrow as Donna, and that thought scares me. Where does Kate go if Donna comes back?
"Donna!"
I look up to see a dark-haired woman, thin as a diet cracker, waving at me.
"Karen, from your charity group," Ryan mutters as I wave back. "She knows you've been in Toronto."
I glance at him, surprised since I thought he wasn't telling anyone where I was or what had happened, but don't have time to ask since she's hurrying over.
"Donna, how are you?" Without waiting for an answer, she says, "Everything worked out okay with that client, I hope?"
I nod, glad she was clear enough I could tell Ryan had used the same cover story with my charity friends as with my employees and clients. "It was tough for a while, but it's straightened out."
She pulls over a chair and sits at our table. "Glad to hear it. Now, who was it?" She nudges Ryan. "This guy was so secretive I know it must have been someone majorly famous. I have to know."
I make myself grin at her. "Won't be in business long if I name people who need my help that badly."
We all laugh and she says, "I suppose not. Are you back in Ottawa for good now?"
Interesting question, Karen. More interesting than you know. "I'm heading back to Toronto tomorrow night."
She pouts, then brightens and says, "Well, we have to have coffee first. How about three o'clock at the Starbucks by the mall?"
I freeze. Donna would have no reason to say no to this, from what I can tell, but I certainly do. I'll have to pretend to be Donna, and how am I going to do that? But how can I say no?
Ryan says, "I need to go shopping anyhow so I can drop you off there if you like."
Relieved that he knows where she means and that he obviously thinks it's okay if I go, I say, "Then it's a plan."
Karen stands up. "Perfect. I have to run, but I'll see you there. Have a great day, you two."
Ryan and I say goodbye and chat about nothing while she gets her coffee. Once she's safely gone, I say, "So you told everyone the cover story about some big client?"
He nods.
I wait for more explanation. When it doesn't seem to be forthcoming, I say, "Even my friends? You couldn't tell them the truth?"
He shakes his head. "I had no idea how you'd be coming back, if you'd be coming back, and I wanted to do whatever I could to protect you. You'd had to take off with no notice before, so it's not a big shock to anyone. You can see Karen believed it."
Indeed. And tomorrow, I'll see whether I can make her believe I'm Donna. I don't think I want to pretend forever, but this will be a good test of whether it's even possible.
*****
I walk nervously into Starbucks at three the next afternoon, trying to remember the little Ryan was able to tell me last night about Karen.
"She's worked with Donna on the abstinence stuff for the last two years or so. She had an ugly divorce last year and she and her son Devin, he's eight or so, stayed in Ottawa because her parents live not too far away. Other than that, she's a little hyper but Donna seemed to like her."
Not much to have learned after his wife had seen the woman regularly for two years, but when I pushed he hadn't been able to recall anything else, and his "Donna didn't tell me much about her" was so sad I couldn't make myself keep trying. It seemed like Donna hadn't told him much of anything.
I gave up then, and asked him why he thought I should have coffee with Karen. He shrugged. "Maybe she'll bring back your memories somehow." His shoulders sagged. "Since nothing else has."
Thanks for reminding me.
"Over here, Donna."
I turn and wave. "I'll just grab a coffee. Need anything?"
She doesn't, so I fetch my drink then take a deep breath and go to her
table. "How are you?"
She smiles. "Just fine, thanks. But what's the deal with you?"
Damn. I didn't even fool her for one minute? "No deal," I try. "Why?"
She taps my right hand. My be-ringed hand. "Last time I saw you these big diamonds lived on your other hand."
Ryan said that when I could say I loved him he'd put the rings back on my left. Well, I can say it now but I'm not sure he wants them over there any more. And if they are going to move, I'd rather he do it and I don't want Karen there. I force a laugh, trying to think fast. "Oh, they still do. It's just, I had a bit of a rash," I say, remembering that happening to my mother once. "The doctor said it'd heal up better without the rings."
She looks down at my perfectly 'healed' finger. "You could move them back now, couldn't you?"
"Sure, but..." I smile, trying to look a little sheepish. "I'd rather let Ryan do it and he's waiting for the right moment." The irony of this widens my smile.
She shakes her head. "You guys. You're still the mushiest couple I've ever seen."
We're more of a trio now, but I don't want to get into that. Instead I giggle, then change the subject with, "So, what's new with you? How's Devin?"
She launches into a story about her son being coerced into drinking hand sanitizer by the big boys at his school and how he'd managed to convince those same boys to drink it too. "His teacher was horrified but also impressed he got them all to drink it even though he admitted it was disgusting. He's a persuasive little monster."
I laugh at the right places, because it's funny, but I'm also on edge the entire time. It would be so easy to slip and let her know I'm not Donna. One wrong word, a blank look when I should understand what she's talking about, and the game will be up.
She freezes partway through a sentence. "God, it's her."
I turn and she hisses, "She'll see you, don't look."
Too late. A short curvy woman with deep brown hair halfway down her back meets my eyes and her face stiffens. She leaves her place in line and moves toward us.
"Damn it," Karen mutters.
I'm frantically begging whatever parts of Donna are still inside me to tell me who this woman is before I ruin everything, but she's not answering and the woman keeps coming and reaches our table before I can do anything.
"Donna," she says, her voice colder than Karen's iced tea.
We are clearly not friends, so I give her a stiff nod and say, "Hello," then nothing more.
She's obviously expecting more; her face clouds and a frown flickers over her forehead.
She looks at Karen, who twists in her chair so her back's to the newcomer.
The blatant rudeness surprises me, but the woman just tosses back her hair and turns back to me. Her chin's up and she's glaring at me, but there's a strange look in her eyes, a combination of embarrassment and humiliation and defiance. "Say hi to your husbands for me," she says, emphasizing the plural, and walks out of the store without buying a drink.
"Bitch," Karen says after her. "Bitch bitch bitch." She turns to me, her eyes wide. "And you! There are penguins in Antarctica standing up to their eyeballs in snow who aren't as cool as that. She wanted you to get mad, you know. She's always wanted that. I heard through the grapevine that it killed her that you never confronted her."
An awful suspicion is growing in me but I don't want to face it. "She's not worth it," I say. "Right?"
Karen laughs. "So right." Her laughter fades and her eyes flash with anger. "'Say hi to your husbands.' That whore! I know who Ed cheated with and it wasn't her. Probably because she was too busy with Ryan."
I flinch, hating having my suspicion confirmed, and she claps a hand over her mouth then says through it, "God, I'm as stupid as she is. I'm so sorry."
I sigh. "It's not your fault."
"No, it's hers. And his, I guess." She leans forward. "That's the first time you've seen her since it all came out, right?"
Ryan said nobody else knew. "I..." I have to say it even if it wrecks everything. "It all came out? I thought..."
She shakes her head. "I said that wrong. No, only a few people know, of course. Colleen's got a big fat mouth to go with her ass, but most people don't get close enough to let her talk. I meant, you haven't seen her since Ryan ended it."
"No, I haven't." I make myself smile, relieved that not everyone knew. At least poor Donna hadn't suffered that level of humiliation. "Not that I wanted to."
"Oh, I know." She shakes her head. "But I still can't believe how calm you were. I'd have wanted to rip her head off."
"I do," I admit, realizing as I say it how much I do. I don't know exactly how Donna felt finding out her husband cheated, but seeing the woman has stirred feelings in me that must be pretty damn similar. I'm certain now he didn't sleep with her, since that odd look in her eyes tells me she suspects I know he bolted right before having sex with her and she hates that I have that knowledge. But just the thought of him touching her, kissing her, sends a rage through me I've never felt before. "Of course I do. I hate her."
Karen tips her head to one side, her eyes wide.
"Are you surprised?"
She laughs. "Not at that. I seriously considered running Ed's floozy over with the car until I thought about how hard it'd be to get skank out of the tire treads. No, it's just you admitting it. You've never opened up even that much."
Two years of friendship with this woman and Donna hadn't felt able to admit she wasn't a big fan of the woman who'd cheated with her husband? Why on earth not? I shrug. "Well, I guess I thought it was obvious."
"Yeah, true." She shakes her head again. "I guess it's good that you can be cool about it. I wish I could. You were able to forgive Ryan and I just couldn't get there with Ed."
Before I can speak, she adds, "Of course, Ed never stopped cheating. So that makes it a little harder to forgive and forget, I guess."
I've got the forget part down pat. But did Donna really forgive Ryan? Or did she go with 'forge a ticket and flee' instead of 'forgive and forget'?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I've already missed two possible trains and have less than an hour until the last one of the night, but I can't leave until Ryan and I have things straightened out.
So far they're still far too twisty.
"I need to understand," I say yet again, "why Donna didn't tell anyone anything. Nobody would be surprised she didn't like Colleen after what happened, and from what I hear of Colleen nobody much likes her anyhow." The pain of seeing my husband's other woman rips through me again and I add, "Except for you."
He sighs. "I don't, trust me. I don't think I really knew her until I told her I wouldn't see her any more. She always seemed so sweet, but her nastiness when I ended it... But that's not the point."
"No, it's not. Why was Donna so secretive?"
Ryan shakes his head. "She just was, Kate. I don't know what you want me to say."
"Why am I not secretive then? I admit how I feel, I talk to people more openly than it seems like she ever did. Why? We're the same person on the inside. We lived the exact same life until we were seventeen, so why are we so different?"
He sighs, looking suddenly so old. "I can't help you. There's nothing I can say."
We've been dancing around this for hours and I think we both know it's time to say it. So I do. "Ryan, what about us? You say you love me, and I know I love you." Even meeting his mistress didn't change that. "So what are we going to do?"
His eyes fill with such pain and such love that I can barely breathe. "I don't know," he says softly, then looks down at his hands.
I look down too, at the diamonds on my right hand. I really believed, at the beginning, that I'd eventually become Donna again and move my husband's rings back to my wedding finger. It doesn't look like either of those things is going to happen.
"Ryan, you do love me, right?" I whisper.
He doesn't look up. "Yes."
It's what I want to hear, but oh, does it sound final. Like a door slamming, not one
opening. "It's not enough, though, is it?"
We sit without speaking for a long time. The silence answers my question, and it's just salt in the wound when he looks up at me and says, "No."
My eyes fill with tears at the sadness and finality in his face. "But..."
He shakes his head. "I hurt Donna so badly. Over and over. If I can save you from that..." He stops and stares down at his hands again.
"You think sending me away will save me from pain?"
His fingers brush his wedding ring. "Donna thought it would. That's why she left."
"You don't know that."
His shoulders slump and he says, "Come on. Why else would she have gone?"
I have no answer and he knows it. I've seen nothing to make Donna leave except her relationship with Ryan.
"Kate, I can't do it. I loved Donna and I broke her heart. I love you too much to do it to you as well."
Fighting to keep from crying, I say, "So, what then? I should just walk away? Do I go back to Toronto or stay in Ottawa? Do you even care where I go?"
His head snaps up and he grabs my hand in a painful grip. "I care. Don't ever think I don't. I'll always care. I love you."
I pull my hand away. "Not enough to stay with me."
"If it makes it easier to think that, then do it."
"Don't you dare," I say, fury tearing through me. "Don't put it off on me. What would make it easier would be to have my husband by my side helping me figure out who I am."
"I'm not your husband because you're not my wife!"
The pain and anger in his voice are mixed with something like fear but I can't figure out why and I don't have time to try because he goes on. "Kate, you're not her. I love you now but I loved her first and I still do. And I have to keep her safe, keep you both safe, and the only way I know to do that is to let you go."
"Go to what? My life is here. My job, my home, the acquaintances that seem to be all Donna had for friends. It's all here. I have nowhere else to be."
Ryan closes his eyes. "I don't want you here just because you have nowhere else to be."
I don't want that either. I want him to reach for me and hold me and kiss me and make love to me, and he's clearly not going to do any of that.
Toronto Collection Volume 2 (Toronto Series #6-9) Page 40
