Almost Remembered

by Marilyn Tracy

  She consulted her list:

  November 15—Start vacation.

  November?—Quit smoking.

  November 28—Some difficulty on the set. Memory

  loss? First known occurrence of spot amnesia?

  November 28-30—Nightmares.

  December 20—My birthday. Went out somewhere.

  Can’t remember where.

  December 21—Car accident. What really caused it?

  Who was driving the car behind me?

  December 26—Lost time. Spot amnesia.

  December 27—Lost time.

  December 30—Run/panic. Spot amnesia.

  The list continued through her release from the hospital on January 10 up, more than two dozen other incidents of lost time or spot amnesia, until the final entry:

  February 23—Panic during Taylor’s wedding. Later. nightmare/harassment? Dogs drugged. Hand in window. Discovered pointing hand to be a trigger for panic. Note: hand in window wasn’t pointing.

  She made a second list, this one comprised of questions only.

  When and how did I really quit smoking?

  Why does the sight of someone pointing make me panic? Posthypnotic suggestion?

  What’s the name of the psychologist I interviewed on the love story? Why can’t I remember? When was that story aired?

  Have I been given a drug of some kind?

  What was the significance of the hand in the window last night? Who would know about Susie’s hand?

  Why was my father a clock in my dream? Why was he telling me to bury the past? Why were the hands on November—because that’s when my troubles really began? Or is my unconscious mind trying to let me know when things really started to get wacky?

  Was I hypnotized against my will? If so, by whom and why?

  Are the children in danger if they stay with me?

  Allison only knew the answer to the last of her long list of questions: Yes.

  If something happened to the boys, it would be her fault and hers alone.

  Just as it had been with Susie.

  Chas realized he’d been listening for them with an acute tension only during the moment he exhaled a pent-up breath of abject relief when he heard the boys’ voices approaching the clinic.

  He stripped the long plastic gloves from his arms, dropped them into the dispenser and washed his hands before going out to greet them. He needed the time to get his hands to stop their high-school trembling.

  He’d been analyzing the blood samples he’d taken from the dogs. He was relieved to discover it was only a mild sleeping narcotic he would administer to any animal prior to an anesthetic for surgery.

  But it wasn’t a drug anyone could buy over the counter, and one very unlikely to be found anywhere but in a veterinary clinic. With sudden suspicion, he checked his own supply of the drug. And found at least six vials missing.

  The bastard had been in his clinic. Had stolen from him. When, how?

  Taylor’s wedding. Everyone in town had been there. Everyone but one stranger who had been rifling through the clinic, stealing drugs to knock out children’s dogs. So he could frighten Allison.

  Where would he draw the line between frightening and physically harming?

  “Hey, Doc!”

  “We’re here!”

  “Come on, Aunt Allison!”

  Chas stepped outside to greet them.

  Having seen her only a scant two hours before, he thought he should have been inured to her powerful allure. Instead, all the old enchantment he’d felt not two hours earlier—and all those fifteen years ago—came flooding back and in its wake seemed to grow and magnify in the renewed exposure.

  As a veterinarian, he’d never studied plants all that intensely, except those that affected domesticated animals. But in a quick flash of understanding, he now understood the fascination so many biologists felt for the greenery. Allison was like the sun that made his blood flow, the magic that made him feel alive.

  And every time he saw her, he was thrown back to a decision made so long ago, a decision he could never allow himself to regret, and he ached for what she’d said to him that long-ago afternoon, and hurt for the bitterness in her tone and the hurt in her eyes.

  But it wasn’t the past anymore. This was a gorgeous morning, and Allison was walking toward him just as she had in a thousand unfulfilled dreams. Troubled, in possible danger, but still Allison. His Allison.

  And despite the deep emotion he felt in her pliant body against his, in her kisses, he’d stepped back from her, not because he didn’t want her, but because she needed him to simply be there for her, not need anything from her.

  All this and more was clear on her face now. He detected a new resolve in her, something different from the frightened, tearful woman he’d held in his arms that morning. Her limp was scarcely detectable now, her stride more certain, her shoulders squared as if prepared to go into battle.

  Even from his distance from her this morning, he could see the strain that had settled on her like a pall was slightly mitigated by some newfound strength. She gave him a short, businesslike wave and was careful not to meet his gaze. He glanced at Billy, trailing just a few steps behind her.

  Billy nodded a little, his face solemn and manlike. The official escort. The boy who was transforming into a man turned his watchful gaze back toward Allison, as if prepared to catch her if she so much as appeared to stumble.

  The triplets, unaware of anything at all unusual, bounded forward with their normal enthusiasm. “If we do all your cleaning and stuff, can we ride one of the horses?”

  “Is Charlie Hampton’s horse here this week?”

  “Did you fix his leg?”

  “Doofus, of course Doc fixed it. He’s a vet.”

  “Has everyone had breakfast?” Chas asked the group at large, but looked at Allison.

  She nodded, but the boys all exchanged rueful glances.

  “We had cereal,” Josh said. His expression said that Allison had fed them rhinoceros liver.

  Chas couldn’t hide his grin and he tried sharing it with Allison, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring out at a group of farm workers breaking the soil in the nearest Hampton field. A heavy frown scored her forehead.

  “Allison?”

  She started slightly and turned to face him, squinting a little in the bright February sun. Her eyes seemed slightly unfocused, as if her mind were a thousand miles away.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “It was like in my dream last night,” she said cryptically.

  One of the triplets looked up. “What was? Did you see another hand in the window?”

  “Like, way cool.”

  “Ah, it was only a dream,” Jonah said.

  Chas was proud of Billy for keeping the boys in the dark about their pets. Knowing them as well as he did, he was fairly certain if they thought there was any danger, they’d find a surefire way of getting right in the center of it.

  At the boys’ questions and as her surroundings once again centered in her thoughts, a cautious, guarded look replaced that lost-in-time expression. She nodded a second time, with more definition, a slight smile curving her lips. But there was none of the terror-induced intensity he’d glimpsed on her face the night before—this morning.

  He’d been so right. She needed the big brother now. Some part of him knew it was all she was willing to accept from him. He told himself he could do that. He could serve that role...as long as he didn’t look at her, stand anywhere near her or think about the way her skin felt beneath his roughened hands.

  “You’re sure?” he asked, wondering if he was pushing her because he wanted her to lean on him, to let a spark of that passion for him peek through again.

  She shot him a quick frown and gave the boys a swift glance that let him know she didn’t want them to know about her curious malady—or torment.

  He thought the shadows beneath her eyes were accentuated by the extreme pallor of her fair skin. Had something
else happened since he’d left her at the house?

  He dug in his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He fished a twenty-dollar bill out and handed it to Billy. “Why don’t you take the boys down to the café and get them something a bit more substantial than cereal. I plan to work ’em hard today.”

  He gave the boys a wink before they dashed away, and within seconds they were a good thirty yards ahead of Billy, whooping loudly over the biscuits-and-gravy treat in store for them.

  “What is it?” he asked Allison the moment they were all out of earshot. “Has something else happened?”

  She gave him a wry look that told him clearly that what had already happened was certainly enough. “No. It just occurred to me after you left that whatever is wrong with me, hypnotized, going nuts...I brought it home. I brought it right back here to Almost. To my sister’s children.”

  He drew a deep breath. “Allison, that’s where you’re supposed to go when you have trouble...home. To your loved ones. That’s what family is for.”

  He wanted to add that was what he was for, but didn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet. Not until the haunted expression was totally erased from Allison’s face. And even then there were no guarantees she would want to hear him out.

  “But not the children,” Allison said. “I want them safe.”

  “Let’s call Carolyn,” he suggested. “They can stay out there with her. Maybe you should, too.”

  “No!” Allison said. “Just them. I don’t want anyone near me until whatever is going on is over.”

  “You’re going to play hell with that game, Allison.”

  She looked at him questioningly, frowningly.

  “You’re not leaving my sight from now on.”

  She gave a tremulous smile, her frown fading. But she shook her head. “Not even you.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Allison,” he said, and grinned at her.

  She smiled back, a little wistfully, he thought. He wondered if she had the mistaken idea he wasn’t arguing with her because he’d been even remotely persuaded by her refusal to have him stand by her every minute of the day. As Sammie Jo would say, she’d catch cold with that thought.

  He reached out and took her arm, linking it through his. “Come on and see the critters.”

  She moved with him easily, not looking behind her as she’d done just two days before. He kept his hand covering hers and tried not to feel gratified that she maintained a steady pressure on his forearm.

  She very nearly seemed the old Allison as she made the rounds of his small clinic with him. She still remembered most of the simpler ailments and cures. As was common in the harsh days of winter, he had several animals housed at the moment.

  Most were regular patients—a pig who ingested something that didn’t agree with her, a rarity among pigs; a collie in for spaying; a pup he had isolated, suspecting parvo virus.

  Some were strays he’d picked up while making his rounds to the outlying areas or the large-animal visits—a cat missing one front paw and soon to deliver a litter of kittens. He’d surmised her injury resulted from a skirmish with a coyote or an owl and was amazed at the cat’s survival. And there was a male pup not two months old, as well as a five-year-old spayed shepherd cross with big, sad eyes.

  The strays had probably been abandoned by some city dweller who mistakenly believed that turning an animal loose in the country would give it a fighting chance at survival. Instead of which, it was a slow and painful death of starvation that usually claimed the unwary pet, that or their wilder cousins, hungry and predatory.

  “What’ll you do with her?” Allison asked, cocking her head at the shepherd cross.

  “I don’t know yet,” Chas said honestly. “She’s too scared to be of much use to any rancher. She’s okay with Billy, but he’s been around her for about a week now. All she did the first three days was huddle in the corner of the cage and shiver and snap. Her pads were bloody—”

  “From running or from hunger?”

  “A little of both, I think. She had cuts in addition to the tenderness that comes of dehydration. Billy and I started leaving the cage door open whenever we were inside here, thinking she might be less fearful if she knew she could move around.”

  “And that didn’t help?”

  “No. She’s had too rough a time of it.”

  Allison knelt down before the cage. Chas could see it was a difficult task, one that caused her hurt leg some additional stress. He wanted to warn Allison to be careful of the dog, but sensed that a part of her needed to reach out to the stray.

  The dog flattened her ears as Allison held out her hand to let the dog take in her scent. The stray bared her teeth for a brief second, then whimpered as if in apology or expressing that deep sense of empathy she felt emanating from Allison.

  “Poor, poor girl,” Allison said in a low, soothing voice. “You’ve been through such a bad time of it, haven’t you, girl?”

  The dog whimpered again and lowered her head submissively.

  “You’ve been so scared, didn’t know what was happening to you, didn’t know who to trust...isn’t that right, pretty girl?”

  Chas felt his heart constrict when he saw that tears had filmed Allison’s eyes. He thought she might have been talking of herself. And perhaps, in a way, she was. Perhaps, on some level, she needed the absolution from herself, the permission to feel shaken and hurt, fearful and mistrusting.

  He wasn’t surprised when, at Allison’s gentle touch behind the dog’s ears, the tail that had never wavered once softly beat against the concrete floor and a pink-and-black tongue darted out to swiftly taste Allison’s skin.

  “But you’re going to be fine, aren’t you, girl?” Allison continued. A tear spilled onto her cheek. “We just need to get you better, then everything’s going to be all right. You’re not going to just sit back and take this anymore, are you? You’re going to be just fine.”

  The hesitant beating of the shepherd’s tail on the floor steadied and intensified. She gave a soft whine as if acknowledging Allison’s promise. Or maybe giving one in return.

  Chas thought he had never loved Allison quite as much as he did at that precise moment. Whatever had gone on between them in the past, whatever obstacles remained in the future, he would always remember this moment, the exact second Allison acknowledged her vulnerability and chose to fight back at the demons haunting her.

  If she had any idea how wistful she looked, how fragile and yet how valiant, she would never have turned to gaze up at him. He knew her well enough to know she would hate being thought of as vulnerable. And yet every fiber of his being responded to that evidence of vulnerability... and inner strength.

  “You told me some of those things this morning,” she said. “The things I just said. I knew how they made me feel.”

  “I love you, Allison,” he said, and was never so sorry over having opened his mouth and speaking in his entire life.

  Shutters dropped immediately, locking him out, closing him off. She looked away, her face a perfect example of a mask, hiding whatever she was feeling inside.

  If he could have taken the words back, he would have. If he could have thought of anything that would smooth them over, blur them somehow, pass them off as something an old friend might say, he would have done that, too. As it was, he could only stand there over her, unable to lie to her or take the words back, frozen by the truth he’d incautiously spoken, afraid that in speaking them he’d destroyed whatever small bridge they’d created in the couple of days since her return to Almost.

  But the look on her face, the softness, the luminous sparkle of tears in her eyes, the extreme vulnerability combined with that tensile strength, had all combined and out the words had come. A tiny package of pure, undiluted dynamite. And in speaking them, he’d blown his big-brother role to smithereens.

  “Chas, I don’t want you to misunderstand this morning.”

  Yes, he thought, he’d set fire to that tiny bridge, blasted it with four little words that
should have created the finest span in the universe, but instead had destroyed it. He remained silent, waiting for her to speak, dreading the words she might say.

  Because he couldn’t take his back.

  “You can’t love me, Chas. You don’t know me. Not the real me, the me I am now. You’re in love with a girl in the past.”

  Was he? He didn’t think so. “I held the woman of the present this morning. Held you in my arms. Kissed you.”

  “Yes, you did. And I kissed you back. And you, of all people, should know that a kiss—or more—certainly doesn’t constitute a commitment.”

  Her bitter words sliced through him with the sure cut of a well-honed knife. He felt a flicker of anger work through him. Anger at her unfairness. “You were the one that didn’t want a commitment, Allison.”

  She pushed her way up from her crouch beside the stray shepherd. The dog whimpered and edged toward the opened door of the cage.

  Though slightly ungainly because of her injured leg, she managed to convey a stateliness, a regality he’d seen surrounding her on television but never in real life, and she turned to him with the coldest eyes he’d ever seen.

  “But then I wasn’t the one sleeping with two women at the same time, was I?”

  Chas frowned, thoroughly rocked by her statement. “What—?”

  “What kind of a commitment did you have in mind? I’ll marry the cake and have the icing on the side?”

  “What in the hell—?”

  “I may not be able to remember things that happened a month ago, but I remember every detail of the past, Chas.”

  “So do I.”

  She didn’t say anything to that. She was busy patting her pockets, nervously looking into her handbag.

  “You don’t smoke anymore,” he said through clenched teeth.

  He’d never once imagined that she’d think he’d been with Thelma Bean while loving her. While loving her. He’d naturally assumed she’d heard the, talk he had, that she’d known Thelma had been seeing one of the Wannamacher brothers, both wild in those days, both in prison now.