by Don Prichard
No one would tell her anything about herself. Not the chaplain, nor the doctor who hurried in to examine her, nor the nurse who brought a paltry meal of orange gelatin and ice water with a straw. She was a floating soap bubble in an empty universe, and no one seemed to care.
“You awake?”
She followed the trail of the deep voice to a tall, craggy man in a blue suit and striped yellow tie, standing in the doorway. He crossed to the side of her bed and nodded at her.
“Eve. How are you doing?”
Her heart thumped against her chest. Eve. Was that her name?
The man folded himself into the chair the chaplain had used and scooted back a few feet so he could extend his long legs in front of him.
“Eve?” she whispered.
He pursed his lips and tapped them with a long, slender forefinger. “Evedene Eriksson. You don’t remember?”
“No.”
His lips thinned into a grimace “Nor where you’ve been this past year.”
Her breath left her. Year? She shook her head. How about a lifetime?
She waited for more questions, more information, but the man fixed his eyes on the floor and tapped his fingers on the edge of his chair. He doesn’t know what to say, and he’s going to leave. She clutched the bed sheets and blurted, “Who are you?”
His eyebrows shot up and he looked at her with eyes sparking. “Your boss—Bradley Henshaw, District Attorney at the Everett Dirksen Courthouse in Chicago. You flew to Guam last year as Eva Gray to get information on Danny Romero’s drug trade, and when you vanished”—he slapped his hands together in a loud pop—“the case against Romero vanished.”
She jutted her jaw out and flashed narrowed eyes at him. “Thanks for caring.”
He laughed. “You may have lost your memory, Eve, but you haven’t changed a bit.” He stood and tugged his suit coat into place. “You’re going to be okay. We just need to give this some time.”
“Please!” She had so many questions. She grabbed at his coat sleeve. “I don’t remember anything. I don’t know what year it is, what my job is, nothing about myself. No one will tell me anything.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “The doctor says your memory will come back in bits and flashes. Your father is flying in tomorrow; let’s wait and see if his visit prompts anything. Then we’ll talk.”
She inhaled sharply. Her father. She had forgotten him along with everything else in the tsunami that had swept away her memory. Yet left behind, uncovered by the waves like a buried treasure chest, lay an intense yearning to see him. Talk to him. Be with him.
Why? Why such a fierce longing?
She exhaled and drew a long, slow breath into the hollow space in her chest. Tomorrow she would find out.
Chapter 6
Eve’s hospital window greeted her in pastel sunlight the morning after her boss’s visit. It matched the tiny ember of hope warming the empty space inside her. She reviewed what she’d learned: her name, Evedene Eriksson, alias Eva Gray. Her location, Chicago. Her boss, District Attorney Bradley Henshaw. And today her father was coming.
She noticed with a silly sense of delight that the contents of her breakfast tray had been upped a notch from gelatin and ice water to oatmeal and orange juice. Why was it she could remember the identity of food and other items but not her own name?
A new nurse introduced herself as Susan. She removed Eve’s breakfast tray and turned to leave. Eve arched her left eyebrow. Why wait for her father’s visit for a memory prompt?
“Susan, do you think I could have a cup of coffee and a newspaper?”
Dear Susan complied, and Eve glanced at the date before shoving the newspaper out of sight between her bed sheets. Her hands shook with the deliciousness of her audacity. Today was Saturday, June 19, 1982. And just like that, she knew her date of birth and that she was thirty-four years old. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Susan dashed back into the room. “Where’s that newspaper?”
For a second, Eve considered fighting to the death for it. But of course that was foolish. She meekly handed the paper over. The Chicago Tribune stood out in bold letters across the top. “Is there a problem?”
“Orders.” The previously friendly voice was now cold and clipped.
Eve stiffened. Was she a prisoner? Anger burned her face like a flame hitting gasoline, but just as quickly it dissipated and she sank listlessly into her pillow. A hammer thudded dully inside her head. She closed her eyes, just for a minute …
She awoke to the sound of a distant rumble. She knew even as she opened her eyes that it was the chaplain. He had pulled the chair closer to her bed, and she could see his eyebrows were thick and white and that tiny tufts of white hair poked out of his nose and ears.
Inanely she said, “I’m thirty-four years old.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Top priority information for a woman to know.”
She grinned, giddy with her knowledge and a friend with whom to share it. “My name is Eve, Evedene Eriksson; today is June 19, 1982; and I’m in Chicago.”
“You remembered all that?”
“Just my birthday.” She told him about her boss’s visit last night, the newspaper this morning, and her father’s impending visit today. “Why is no one telling me anything?” she grumbled.
“Orders. We’ve been told not to help you.”
“Why? Whose orders?”
Peterman lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “To tell you would be helping you. But you said your father is coming.” He winked at her. “I suspect he doesn’t share those marching orders.”
“He’d better not.” She glared at him. “Fathers look out for daughters, unlike bosses and chaplains who won’t say anything.”
“Everyone here wants to help you, Eve. You can’t take big leaps when your legs don’t work. Focus on getting well. That’s what you need first.”
“There’s no reason I can’t do both.” She folded her arms over her chest.
Peterman stood. “I’m not involved with these orders except to cooperate with them.” He reached over and patted her hand. “Invest some trust in them, Eve. Everyone is on your side.”
He excused himself to continue on his hospital rounds, and she mulled over his advice. Invest trust in whom? And in what? If there was a plan, why wasn’t she privy to it?
Fatigue grabbed her thoughts and melted them into sticky syrup. She dozed off, waking with a start to find herself still alone. Where was her father? Had her boss told her the wrong day?
Unbidden, a memory of her mother materialized, young but faded like an old sepia photograph, and she knew without a doubt that her mother was dead. Dad held me and we cried together. She tried, but she couldn’t remember her father’s face. A sob shook her chest. That was what she wanted—his arms around her, telling her everything would be okay.
***
She jumped every time someone entered her room, but it was always hospital staff. Chaplain Peterman brought her a crossword puzzle book and she distracted herself with it, filling in page after page of little boxes with letters. Why could she answer the downs and acrosses of these puzzles but not remember the details of her own life? They’d come in “bits and flashes,” the doctor had said. She threw the puzzle book across the room. Where was her father?
Lunch and dinner were a series of soups and crackers, juice and more gelatin, this time red. She barely touched them.
Evening brought a new nurse on duty, Roxanne. She greeted Eve, left the room, then poked her head back in a minute later. “Your father is here.”
Eve froze.
A man stepped into the doorway. Nordic, wearing a white dress shirt and pleated black trousers, no tie or jacket. Huge hands reached for her as he rushed across the room. He grabbed her and held her tightly. A whiff of cologne tugged at her memory.
“Eve! I thought I’d never see you again.” His voice caught on the words, and his chest jerked against hers as he caught his br
eath.
She had wanted this, longed for it, but she stiffened into cardboard at his embrace. She didn’t know these arms. Didn’t know this man. She drew her head back and pushed him away.
He let go of her with a sigh and sat in the chair next to her bed. “Do you remember me, Evie?”
She shook her head. Nothing about him was familiar, from his fading blond hair to the spit and polish of his shoes. His cologne lingered in the air, and she blinked. Yes—Ralph Lauren. The fragrance tingled on the outer edges of her mind.
“No memories of anything?”
She swallowed back tears and pressed her lips together. In spite of her efforts, a jagged moan escaped.
He reached over and caressed her cheek. “You never could talk when you were emotional, Evie. Do you remember that?”
He knows me, better than I do. She ached to grab his hand and press her face into his big, strong palm, but she couldn’t move. She watched him put his hand back into his lap.
He started talking about their family. She took another breath and leaned back into her pillow, studying him, looking for a button to spring open her memory. Late fifties or early sixties, tall and a bit stoop-shouldered, a slight paunch rounding out his shirt above his belt.
Nothing.
He told her about her mother, and tears welled in her eyes. Her mom had died in a car accident when Eve was five. Was that when he’d held her on his lap and cried? She looked at his hands again. He wore a class ring on his right hand and a massive black jewel on his left. No wedding ring.
“You have an older brother, Dax. He lives in New York with me.” He paused. “Do you remember Dax?”
“No, I don’t.” The hammer started tapping inside her skull and she winced. Her eyelids fell to half-mast. “I’m sorry, I need to rest. Can you stay, or come back tomorrow …?”
“Eve, come home with me.”
He grabbed her hand, but her eyelids were too heavy to keep open. She sank into darkness …
She awoke to a night-blackened window. Light from the hallway seeped in between the door and wall to reveal her father asleep in the chair. He stayed! Her heart percolated. She wanted to jump out of bed and fling her arms around him.
Was she crazy? He was a stranger. She didn’t know him.
His head was tilted back against the chair, his nose pointed at the ceiling, his mouth wide open. She laughed when a horrific noise of half-gasping, half-snarling emitted from his throat.
“Hey, wake up, you’re snoring.”
His eyes popped open and he sat up and looked at his watch. “Eve?”
“I’m awake. I’m sorry I—”
He rubbed his eyes. “Listen, honey, I have an overseas flight to catch, but I want you to come home with me when I get back. Please, let Dax and me take care of you until you’re back on your feet.”
Leaving already? She choked back her disappointment. “I … I don’t know.”
He moved to sit on the edge of her bed and hold her hand. “I have something difficult to tell you first.”
A thousand possibilities swept into her brain like autumn leaves caught in a whirlwind. But there was no landscape in an empty mind on which to land, and just as quickly they blew away. She stared at him, her heart pounding in her ears.
“I was a bad father, Eve. I didn’t stand up for you when I should have.” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “You haven’t spoken to me in years. That would be important to you—to know that before you say yes and come.”
She darted her eyes in bewilderment over his face. “What happened?”
“You and Dax and his friend … there was trouble.” He shook his head and tried several times to speak. He avoided her eyes. “I didn’t look out for you when you needed me. I failed you, Eve. You never forgave me, and when I heard that you’d died …” His voice trailed off and his chest heaved in gasps, shaking the bed.
“I don’t remember. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please, give me another chance. Give us another chance.”
No! She didn’t know this man. Didn’t know what bad thing had happened. Didn’t want to take chances.
But she couldn’t make herself yank away her hand. She needed to know. An ache strangling her heart told her his apology was a treasure chest buried long ago, long before her memory loss. Maybe it was time to uncover it, to open it up.
She squeezed his hand and forced herself to say the words. “I will, Dad. I want that chance too.”
Chapter 7
Jake exited the Indianapolis Express taxi and stood immobile as the cab disappeared into the dark. Across the street, his house was the only one in the neighborhood with no lights on. Exactly the homecoming he had dreaded. Empty house, kids unable to meet him, memories of Ginny everywhere.
And no idea where Eve was. Detective Lee’s office had run into a dead end.
A dog barked inside a fenced yard nearby, and within minutes every dog on the block was yapping. A door opened three houses down, and light and the evening news spilled into the dark. Jake crossed the street. Last thing he needed was a neighbor sending the police to check on things before Jake got the word out that he was alive and well. And home.
He started across the lawn but stopped when his overnight bag caught on something. A lawnmower. He looked closer. The grass between the curb and the mower was cut; the grass between the mower and the house stood at eight inches. His left cheek twitched. Young Toby Miller, hired to mow their lawn, would be getting a phone call tomorrow.
He retrieved the spare key from the crack in the bottom of the fence post and entered through the back door to the kitchen. The odor of mice and mildew hit him like a two by four. Wasn’t someone supposed to be cleaning the place while his kids were gone? The house had only been vacant since Brett and Dana returned to West Point two months ago.
He checked the refrigerator—empty, but the light was on. Good, electricity was working. Water on at the kitchen faucet too. He wouldn’t use the lights because of the neighbors, but a shower would be a welcome relief. He might even work on his beard.
He ran his fingers through the eight-inch tangle of hair on his cheeks and head. A disgrace. Why had he let Crystal talk him out of a haircut and shave? He’d asked himself that every time someone had looked at him with wary eyes. A Marine was a Marine from the inside out, but wild and crazy hair did not communicate “Marine within.”
Of course, no one had known on the trip back to the United States that he was a Marine. But the real answer, the one that came from his heart, was always the same: Crystal didn’t need any more stress than what she already faced going home—no parents, only grandparents whom Crystal didn’t think loved her. And so the razor had stayed at bay.
He missed her.
And Betty.
And most of all, Eve.
Today was June 20, 1982, and for the first time in over a year he was utterly and completely alone. His shoulders slumped.
He was home.
Within minutes his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he walked through the kitchen to the living room. Everything was tidy and in order, exactly as he remembered it a year ago. Almost as if the kids had preserved it as a memorial to their parents. No, he corrected himself, not a memorial but an expression of hope.
“Dana and I never gave up, Dad.” Brett, who even as a child had seldom cried, had wept on the phone yesterday.
Jake walked down the hall toward the four bedrooms. The guest bedroom and Brett’s room were spotless. Dana’s was a wreck. Bed unmade, clothes tossed everywhere, cola bottle on the dresser. Jake smiled. Evidently a year at West Point Military Academy hadn’t spoiled her nesting skills.
He stopped at the door to the master bedroom and took a deep breath. He’d had to tell Brett only half their hope had been realized. “I survived, son. Your mother didn’t.”
He gasped in fresh grief and walked into the bedroom.
Ginny was everywhere. Annual photos of the family on the wall, a stack of favorite cas
settes next to a boom box, her mother’s worn Bible on the nightstand. He opened the closet door. Her clothes were still there. He grabbed an armful and buried his face in them. Ginny. Her fragrance clung faintly to them.
She had died a year ago. He needed to say goodbye.
But not tonight.
Tonight he would see her strawberry blond hair pulled back in a ponytail on their first day at Sherman High. He would be bold and steal a kiss from her at the county fair and not get another for six years. He’d watch, heart pounding, as she walked down the aisle in her mother’s satin-and-lace wedding gown, never to stop kissing him again.
Until a year ago.
But tonight … tonight Ginny was alive. Tonight he was not alone.
***
He awoke the next morning flattened by a steamroller. He dragged himself to the shower and stood in the hot water far longer than was decent for a man of economy. He made a mental list to get himself going. Find the source of the mildew odor—best bet, a leak beneath the kitchen sink. Set mousetraps. Call Toby Miller about the lawn.
He’d be flying out to see the kids while Betty contacted a private eye she trusted to search for Eve. Check credit card account, buy a ticket to West Point. By all means, get a haircut and shave.
He toweled off and stood naked in front of the mirror. Arm and chest muscles lookin’ good, man; ribs sticking out, not so good. He ran his fingers over the two jagged scars on his right cheek that continued down the right side of his chest. Pit bull. Bullet holes on the left side formed contrasting circular scars. Nam. He turned to examine the reflection of four sets of claw marks on his backside. Clouded leopard.
Pit bull, Nam sniper, clouded leopard. There was no room on his body for additions to the list.
He put on clean briefs and plaid shorts from his dresser. The shorts were way too loose. He got out a belt and cinched it at the tightest notch.
The mirror reflected a wild man. He just couldn’t walk into a barbershop looking like this. He found a pair of scissors and attacked his beard over the bathroom sink.
