Finding Carrie

by C. E. Snyder

  “I must love pictures, or maybe it is Isaac who loves pictures,” she said to herself.

  She went over to a bookshelf that held books and more pictures. She saw a picture of Isaac down on one knee, and her hand was in his. He had a guitar around him and he was looking up at her. She wondered if that was when he proposed to her. They were on the beach with water on the other side of them. She went through the kitchen to walk down the hall, and there were more pictures lining the walls. She noticed a plaque of some sort on the door to her daughter’s room. She tilted her head at it and studied it.

  “I wonder what this is?” she asked. She looked toward the room she shared with Isaac. There was another plaque hanging on the door there. “I wonder what they mean,” she said as she traced the symbol with her fingers. She dismissed it for now. When Isaac got home, she would ask. She then went to the pictures on the wall. There were many pictures of her all dolled up. One in particular caught her eye. She was wearing a light purple dress, and she was standing up on a stage, smiling and waving. She sighed and wondered what she was doing. She returned to the living room and back to the bookcase. She touched all the books with the name that Isaac said she wrote under. There were at least five books with that name on it. She picked up the first one on the left.

  “Her Undying Love,” she read the title out loud. She opened it and went over to the couch. She sat down, curled her legs under her, and began to read it. It was about a girl who loved a man so much that she had to let him go to survive. Carrie only read a few pages and yawned. She laid the book over her chest, lay down on the couch with her legs crossed, and stretched out so she was fully lying on the couch. She fell asleep almost immediately but was somehow still alert, listening to the silence around her until she was fully asleep.

  Chapter 13

  Isaac and the girls came through the door. None of them noticed that Carrie was asleep on the couch until Isaac looked up and saw her. “Take your things to your room, girls,” Isaac said, walking over to her. She had been reading. One of the books she had written lay upon her chest. The sight of her took his breath away. He sat down next to her legs because it was the only place with room. She had her legs crossed and her arm across her stomach. He reached for the book and lifted it gently from where it laid. He closed it and placed it on the glass coffee table. He gazed back at her beautiful face then down to the necklace that she had been wearing around her neck since he gave it to her. He shifted his eyes to her hand with the beautiful wedding ring on it.

  He reached with his hand and picked up her hand. She stirred. He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it as she opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes half-closed, she peered at him through her lashes. He kissed her wedding ring, and she smiled. He turned her hand over and placed a kiss in the exact center of her palm. The kiss sent tingles down her arms. “How was your lunch with Amy?” he asked. He closed her fingers around the kiss and placed it over her heart.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “But she is crazy, you know,” Carrie said as she removed her hand from where he had placed it, to stretch her arms over her head.

  “Do you remember her?” he asked hopefully. She shook her head.

  “No, but she is very nice,” she said, pushing herself up in a sitting position. She suddenly became aware of how close he was. Her first instinct was to move away, but she didn’t. Instead, she leaned in close as if she was going to kiss him. She couldn’t help but meet his eyes with hers. She was lost in those brown-hazel eyes. She leaned closer, as he did, and she tilted her head slightly. Excitement was surrounding him. He hadn’t kissed her since before the attack. He leaned in to kiss her, and then the stomping of feet came into the living room, and they both jumped to look at the girls.

  “Are we going to dinner with you?” Sabrina asked. She clearly knew she interrupted something, but she really didn’t care because she was getting hungry.

  “Aw, yes you are. If you want, you can have a snack. We aren’t meeting anyone until six,” Isaac said. Carrie pulled her legs up and swung around to get up and disappeared down the hall.

  “Okay,” Sabrina said, and the girls went to the kitchen. Isaac missed the chance to kiss his wife, but he wouldn’t give up.

  Carrie came back not too long later. “Isaac, I have some questions for you,” she announced when she sat next to him on the couch. He shifted himself so he could look at her more fully.

  “Oh, what is that?” he asked.

  “I was wondering what the symbols on the bedroom doors are,” she said as she brushed her hair with her fingers. He tilted his head slightly because, for a brief moment, he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “What symbols?” He paused for a second. “Oh, those are protection symbols. My mother believes that if you want the spirits to protect your loved ones, you have to put a protection request on the doors of the ones you love,” he explained.

  “Oh, then your mom loves my girls. What do the symbols say?” she asked.

  “The symbol on the door of the girls’ room says ‘protect my granddaughters’,” he told her.

  “And the one on our door?” she asked. It was the first time since the attack that she referred to something as ours.

  “It says ‘protect my children,’” he said, choking up. She turned to look at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen.

  “She loved me,” she said, her voice low. Something in her heart started to ache.

  “Yes, she does,” Isaac said. Carrie was starting to hyperventilate.

  “She was taken, and I didn’t help her,” she said, grabbing onto his shirt. “You told me, I didn’t do anything to help her.”

  “No, no, calm down. You did what you could. That is why you have the bruises and cuts on you. Don’t blame yourself; you took on a horrible attack. No, you were not successful, but you did try to stop whoever took my mother,” he said, holding her face so she would give him her attention. She didn’t say anything; she just took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Have they found her?” she managed to get out.

  “Not yet. I called Sam today, and there isn’t any more word,” he said, dropping his hands to his lap.

  “They have to find her, Isaac. They have to,” she said, leaning into him. He wrapped her in his arms. He was puzzled for a second. Could she be remembering something?

  “Are you remembering something?” he asked as he bent his head to look at her face. She looked up at him.

  “No, I just have this unbelievable pain in my heart like I did something wrong,” she said with tears streaming down her face now.

  “No, you didn’t do anything wrong.” He tried to reassure her. They sat there for a little while longer, and then he leaned back. “As much as I like holding you and I have missed it so much, we have to get ready for dinner. We are going to the place where we met,” he told her, reminding her of where they were going. With her memory loss, he didn’t know what she could remember, so he kept reminding her.

  “Okay,” she said as they both got up.

  Sitting at the computer desk, Isaac went through all of Carrie’s e-mails. He was waiting for all of his girls to get ready to go to dinner. There were several e-mails from her agent. Isaac was e-mailing him back when the phone rang. He got up off the chair and went for the phone.

  “Hello,” Isaac said into the phone.

  “Hi Isaac, its David Andrews. Is Carrie in? She hasn’t been responding to my e-mails, and I’m getting worried,” David said.

  “Oh yeah, I was just about to e-mail you back. Carrie was attacked in California, and she has amnesia and can’t remember anything. I’m sorry I haven’t called you sooner, but my mother was kidnapped, and I have been trying to get Carrie’s memory back,” Isaac said, now leaning against the wall facing the living room.

  “Oh gosh. I heard about the accident, but when she didn’t call, I figured she was all right. I’m sorry,” David said regretfully.

  “She’s fine. Her emotions are
still there, but it frightens her,” Isaac said. He heard someone coming into the kitchen and stop. He didn’t look around. He just kept talking to David.

  “Well, she has some charity work to do next week. You know, at the orphanage,” he said.

  “Oh no, I remember now. I don’t know if she will be able to make it,” Isaac said, standing straight up.

  “Well, I could cancel or postpone, but she wouldn’t want that,” David said.

  “No, she wouldn’t. Could you just push back the date?” Isaac asked. Carrie was watching with great interest. She knew that Isaac was talking about her to whoever was on the phone. And it worried her.

  “I’ll try to do that, but keep me posted on her progress. I will take care of things on this end,” David said.

  “Thank you. Send some money on her behalf. She would want that,” Isaac said.

  “Oh yes, of course,” Dave said in agreement. “Okay, I’ll wait for your call then.”

  “Okay then, bye,” Isaac said.

  “Bye,” David said and hung up the phone. Isaac put the phone back and turned around to face whoever was in the kitchen with him. He saw his wife. She had her head down and slowly raised it as he locked his gaze on her. She took his breath away. She had her hair swept up, and she had on his favorite blue shirt that went with the necklace he had given her. She had on her black skirt and her knee high boots with black tights. He loved the way she looked when she dressed up. Not that every other time he didn’t. She was just so beautiful that he couldn’t help but stare at her. She looked back down at what she was wearing and then looked back up at him again.

  “The girls helped me get ready. If you don’t like it, I’ll change,” she said and turned to walk away. Isaac caught her by the hand and swung her around into his arms. She had her arms up, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  “No, I’m just blown away. You’re so beautiful, I just can’t help myself sometimes,” Isaac said.

  “Oh, I see,” she said, staring into his eyes. She was lost in those eyes. They were brown with a hit of hazel. She loved them. He bent his head to kiss her. He was coming down toward her. She wanted him to kiss her, but at the moment it overwhelmed her. She turned her face just as he pressed his lips on her face. He kissed her on the cheek and raised his head. He just smiled. She hung her head, ashamed. She found the courage from somewhere to remove her arm from his hold. She brushed her hand from his cheek to the back of his neck, pulled down his head, and kissed him on the cheek.

  Overwhelmed by the gesture, he smiled and said, “It’s time to go.” Then he let her go and went to check on the girls. She was slowly coming around. She just couldn’t remember. She stood there wondering if she had done something wrong. Did he reject her, or was he trying to not push her too far. Worried, she followed him down the hall and stood there waiting for him to turn around. When he did, he said. “You know how beautiful you are? Inside and out, I can’t help but love you.” That confirmed it. He hadn’t rejected her. He was simply giving her time.

  Chapter 14

  Carrie walked into the restaurant and stopped to look around. One of the girls bumped into her as she stood there but didn’t say anything. The restaurant had a bar; it was a beautiful place. It was, as everything else, familiar to her, but she didn’t recognize anything. She saw a table in about the center of the room, where she recognized Amy and her brother, Chris. There were also three more males and two females. One of the females she didn’t recognize waved at her. Carrie just nodded, and Isaac slipped his hand in around her arm. “Girls, go sit with your aunt and uncle as I talk to your mother at the bar,” he said as he tugged her slightly toward the bar. “Sit here,” he said as he pointed to a particular barstool. She climbed up on it and turned to look in his direction.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “This is the place where we met. In fact, you’re sitting on the very stool where I first saw you,” he explained as he tucked a stray hair behind her ear. She looked around her and then back down at her lap.

  “We met here? How?” she asked.

  “Well, I was working one Friday morning, and I had just unlocked the door and went to the back to get some more glasses when I heard the bell on the front door ring and I heard a thud from up front. When I ran out to see what happened, I saw a sea of brown hair lying on the bar. I walked over, and I saw you crying silently. I put my hand over your hand, and your head snapped up. There were black tears running down your face, and my heart broke. I took a napkin, and I wiped those black tears from your face. I asked you what was wrong, and you said that you were being cheated. I didn’t understand quite what you meant, so I asked you if I could get you something to drink. You were like; Get me something that is red, so I gave you a cherry 7up. You drank, and I asked you how you were being cheated. You told me that your manager wasn’t doing his job and was deliberately keeping you from people that you wanted to meet,” he said as he remembered the day that changed his life for all time.

  “Oh, here comes the Calvary,” Carrie said as she looked out the window. Four men came running into the restaurant and over to where Carrie sat. Isaac just stood at the bar and watched.

  “Carrie, you just can’t run off like that,” one of the big men with an accent said as he reached her.

  “Sasha, I didn’t just run out,” Carrie tried to explain.

  “You did, and you can’t do that. I’m supposed to protect you at all costs,” Sasha said. The man was huge standing next to Carrie; it made her look dwarfed. The man spoke with an accent. Isaac guessed that he was Russian.

  “Protect me.” She paused. “Protect me? Why didn’t you protect me from him?” She asked, standing up to face him with her hands on her hips. He was a good two feet taller than her, but she was holding her ground with her head bent back.

  “We had no idea of what he was doing,” another man said. He was standing behind Sasha and stepped in front of him to calm Carrie.

  “Seth, you did too,” she said, looking at him now.

  “None of us knew,” the other big man said. He was now sitting at the end of the bar.

  “Chuck, you are all here to protect me, but none of you did,” she said, going back to sit at the bar.

  “I’ll fix this for you,” a man in a suit said with his hand on her back.

  “How are you going to fix it, David? The damage is done and everyone has to think I’m a rotten person,” she said, crying again.

  “No one thinks of you that way. You are going to have a successful ball tonight, and everyone will be there.” David was trying to soothe her.

  “Oh my God, the ball. David, no one is going to be there,” she said, shaking him a little by holding on to his suit jacket.

  “No, that is not true,” he said as the door to the restaurant swung open. The three men who were clearly her bodyguards stood in between her and the newcomer. She got off the stool and was clearly raging.

  “How dare you face me after what you did,” she said with her hands on her hips, standing behind the three huge men.

  “Carrie, I have come to explain,” the man said. Carrie put her hand up in the air and shook her head.

  “I don’t want to hear anymore,” she said, “but answer me this, who else have you kept me from?”

  “I haven’t kept you from anyone,” he said, her hand went back up and then she pointed at him with her index finger.

  “You kept me from Nancy Taylor; you knew how important it was to me to meet her. David made the arrangements, and you didn’t like that, so you told me that she didn’t have any interest in meeting me after all. How could you do that? And what about Isaac Walsch? You knew how much I wanted him to play the part in my book trailer, and you didn’t even call him, did you?” she asked. Isaac looked on this scene with pure puzzlement because he was the Isaac Walsch that she was talking about and Nancy Taylor was a friend of his family’s.

  “Carrie, no I did not. They really didn’t want to meet you—” he tried to say.


  “Liar!” she screamed with her arms held out. “I guess you didn’t count on the fact that I would find out, did you? I had invited Nancy Taylor to come to my ball, and she responded by saying that she wished me well and hoped to get another chance at meeting me. So I called her—oh yeah I did—and she told me that you told her that I wasn’t available at that time. And you’d told me that she had no interest in meeting me! I will not take your lies any longer. You’re fired! Get out while you still can,” she said and then went back to her stool to drink her drink. She looked up at Isaac, who was looking at her with a puzzled look on his face. “I’m sorry for the display I just made,” she said as her bodyguards escorted the man out of the restaurant.

  “No, that is quite all right, but I couldn’t help but overhear,” he started to say.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “But I’m Isaac Walsch,” he said. As she processed the words, she looked at him, really looked at him.

  “You are, aren’t you?” she responded, her eyes wide. She suddenly got embarrassed. “I’m sorry again,” she said and tilted her head to the side to ask a question. “Did you happen to get a call from a Mark Black, asking if you were interested in playing a part in a book trailer, by chance?” She was hoping he would say no.

  “Actually, I didn’t. I’m Isaac,” he introduced himself again, this time more formally as he reached out his hand.

  “I’m Carrie Shay. I’m a writer. I write under the name C.A. Shay,” she said, shaking his hand with a smile her face. “I wanted you to play a part in my book trailer. I played my female character. I saw you in a book trailer for another author, and I wanted to play it with you, but instead I had to kiss some… Whatever that was that Mark hired.” She shook her head, disgusted at the thought.

  “Well, he didn’t call. I would have done it too,” Isaac said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Carrie, you’re going to have to go back to the ballroom. You still have a lot to do,” David said.