Life as I Know It (21 page)

“And it never happened before Saturday?”

I shook my head. Saturday. Only five days had passed since then, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

“Do you think I should stay with you tonight?”

I hesitated, not knowing what to say. Much as I was tempted to have Dan stay with me, I knew he would simply be lying next to my comatose body all night long.

“No, I’ll be all right,” I said at last, shaking my head.

“Hey, you can always come over to my place if she doesn’t want you,” Clara joked flirtatiously to Dan.

Dan smiled, then glanced at the clock. Clara seemed to get the message and picked up her coat, which was hanging over the back of the chair.

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds together then, if you’re sure you’re all right, Jess?”

“I’m fine now. Thanks so much for coming over, Clara. You did the right thing. I really didn’t want to end up in the hospital again.”

“Just be careful!” she admonished, waving a long, red-varnished fingernail in my face. “You’re supposed to be resting, remember.”

As the front door closed behind her, we calmed the dogs and went through to the kitchen, where I turned the kettle on and stood facing Dan anxiously. As far as he was concerned we’d been about to make love when I’d collapsed. I, however, had just experienced what felt like a near rape and had no desire to continue where we’d left off.

He came to stand close to me and, taking my hand in his,
studied my face with a concerned expression. It was almost as though he sensed the change in me and was being considerate and cautious.

“You’re not all right, are you?” he said slowly. “Something’s different about you.”

I pulled my hand away and turned to pour water over the tea bags.

“I need a while to recover after… what happened.”

“You should see a doctor, Jessica. It can’t be normal to fall unconscious like that without reason.”

The boiling water missed the mugs and slopped over the counter, splashing my hand. I felt tears prickling not far away again. The memory of Grant’s probing fingers made me feel sick. I knew it had been Lauren’s body he had been molesting, not mine, but I’d been there, experiencing everything he’d been doing, and I felt violated.

Dan reached out to touch me and I stiffened. He stepped back at once and stood looking at me, confusion in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Dan,” I whispered. “It’s not you.”

“Maybe I should go.”

I nodded, hardly able to raise my eyes to his face. He turned and called Bessie to him, then he gathered up his jacket and car keys and headed for the front door. He stopped and looked back, his hand resting on the door handle.

“Will you be all right?”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine now, honestly.”

“Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I’d like that.”

He gave me a half smile, and then he was gone.

After clearing up the slopped tea, I took Frankie for another stroll around the block, relishing the chilly freshness of the
evening air. As soon as we returned I made us both an early supper and went back to bed with my book. After about fifteen minutes I threw the book down and ran myself a hot bath. It was impossible to concentrate on anything when all I could see in my mind’s eye was Grant’s red-rimmed eyes, the smell of drink on his breath, and the pressure of his hands on my thighs.

I sat in the hot soapy water, glad to be away not only from Grant but also from the children. Here I had no one to worry about but myself, and at the moment I needed to concentrate on me. I scrubbed at my body until my skin was red and stinging. But I knew it wasn’t my body that needed healing, it was my soul.

I wondered if there was somewhere people went to have their soul cleansed, then remembered that was what church was supposed to be for. Church. I lay back in the bubbles, remembering the church my parents had taken me to as a child. It had smelled stale and musty inside, the vicar had been busy and distant, and it had been so cold I’d been able to see my breath when I exhaled. I’d had to sit quietly until my fingers and toes were frozen. As soon as I’d been old enough to make my own decisions I’d refused to go back.

Recalling those Sunday mornings spent in communal prayer and exultation, I wondered if perhaps I should give worship another try. Maybe, I thought desperately, if I prayed hard enough, my soul might be made whole again. The trouble was, I realized ruefully, while I believed in God, I imagined Him as some huge, powerful force, an energy source so great that everything came from it and was a constant part of it. I wasn’t sure my views would be welcome in a regular church.

I remembered the vicar of my childhood telling us that Jesus
was in every one of us. Okay, I reasoned, blowing a pile of bubbles gently to one side. If Jesus was part of that force, then maybe the vicar had been right. If all living things were part of it, returning to the main collective energy source when they died, to be reborn as the life force of another living being, we were all connected, all part of the same energy, all part of one another and God. But according to some intricate, sublime design or accident that I didn’t understand, I was now not only a part of Lauren, I actually was Lauren.

“I don’t want to be her!” I shouted defiantly, closing my eyes as I slid down under the bubbles. “Lauren’s dead. I don’t want to do this anymore!”

Even from under the water I could hear Frankie whining and pawing at the bathroom door. She didn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed in, and she seemed to have sensed my despairing mood. I felt a deep warmth rush through my body and I pushed myself upward, the water streaming from my hair. This wasn’t something I could run away from, I told myself severely. I was made of stronger stuff than this. The flow of time and space might be fluid, but that didn’t mean there was no pattern to our earthly lives.

Suppose somewhere in the electrical crackling of the universe, the Almighty had wanted Lauren’s children saved from the anguish of losing her? Who was I to question why she had died and why I was there instead? The children needed a mother, and I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I might need them.

Climbing out of the bath, I wrapped myself in a soft towel hot from the radiator and opened the door to Frankie, who bounded in sniffing at my clean legs and whining as the water growled down the drain. I patted her silky head and felt much
more positive about things. I didn’t feel quite so alone. Not only had I reminded myself that I was part of a much bigger picture, but I could see that on a practical level I had a newfound ally in Karen. Between us, we would handle Grant and I would learn how to be a mother to his children, if not his wife. It seemed to me that this was to be my destiny.

Sleep came more easily to me that evening than I had imagined, and soon I was waking in Lauren’s bed to the sound of Elsie vacuuming the carpet outside the bedroom door on Friday morning.

A quick, invigorating shower washed every trace of Grant’s touch from Lauren’s body. I peeled off the wet bandages and decided to forget the doctor’s appointment I’d promised myself because, as Karen had noticed yesterday, the injury seemed to have healed miraculously quickly on its own. All that was left of the burn was a patch of inflamed, angry-looking skin, and there was no sign of blisters or infection.

I dressed and made my way downstairs to find Karen and the children in the kitchen making pancakes.

“Mummy!” Nicole cried, flinging her arms around me and burying her head against the soft material of my skirt. “Can we take down the table thing you bought for Ginny and Blackie’s hutch? Can we put them in the shed today?”

“I’m sure we can,” I laughed, bending to kiss the top of her shining head.

“Auntie Karen has put up the board you bought yesterday for our pictures,” Sophie told me with a smile. “Come and see.” I gave her my hand and allowed her to drag me into the playroom, where the large board now hung on the center of the wall.

“Can we put our pictures on it?” she asked, watching me as if she thought I might suddenly change my mind.

“Of course. What happened to the pins we bought? Ah, thank you, Toby. Right, Teddy’s picture first, I think!”

I soon had the children’s drawings pinned up and immediately the playroom took on a more cheerful air. “Now, let’s finish those pancakes,” I said, chasing the girls and Toby back to the kitchen.

Teddy was already sitting at the breakfast bar pouring syrup on his pancake. He looked up when I ruffled his hair and grinned lopsidedly at me. I noticed that his ball was on the floor beside him rather than on his lap. It was the first time I’d seen it out of his grasp.

Karen had noticed, too, and we smiled at each other, acknowledging the change.

I was feeling happy and more comfortable being Lauren this morning, despite what had happened last night, and was about to suggest that we set up the new playroom table with the paints when Grant appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Lauren, would you come here a minute?”

I must have looked frightened, because he was immediately contrite.

“I’m not going to hurt you, for goodness’ sake!”

I glanced at Karen and she nodded, so I followed him reluctantly out into the hallway.

“I had a chat with your sister this morning,” he began hesitantly. I noticed he was cracking his knuckles nervously, but he saw me watching and thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “She has explained to me what it must be like for you, losing your memory and everything. I don’t think I realized how difficult it has been for you. To me, you’re just the wife I’ve been married to for the last ten years. And I’ve been reluctant to believe you’ve really lost all your memories…”

“You’ve made that patently clear,” I retorted before I could stop myself.

He held up his hand. “But Karen has made me understand that I really am like a complete stranger to you, and that we need to get to know each other all over again.”

He stared at one of the paintings on the wall as if he’d never seen it before, then dragged his gaze back to me. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry for the way I’ve behaved. I drank much too much, which was inexcusable, and I’ve been clumsy and insensitive. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me? I want you to know that until your memory comes back, or we get to know each other again, I won’t be bothering you… in that way.”

“Well, it’s a start,” I said woodenly, trying to keep the relief out of my voice.

“I thought, maybe, we could try again. Perhaps we could go somewhere today, just the two of us?”

I reminded myself I had resolved to make a commitment to this family for the sake of the children and decided not to throw the olive branch back in his face. “It would be good for the children if we spent the day as a family,” I said carefully.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple working up and down.

“That wasn’t really what I had in mind. I mean, where could we go that the whole family would be happy with?”

“What about a farm, you know, one that’s open to the public? The girls seem to like animals and these places usually have play equipment and things.”

Grant paled.

“I’m not sure I can cope with animals, Lauren. They’re so dirty and smelly.”

“What do you suggest then?”

“I hadn’t thought that far. I thought it might be just the two of us.”

“I want to go to a farm,” Sophie said from the kitchen doorway.

Grant turned to look at his daughter and raised an eyebrow. “Someone’s been eavesdropping, I think.”

“I want to go where Mummy said,” Sophie replied stubbornly.

“I think we should let Daddy decide,” I said.

Sophie scowled at her father, turned her back, and flounced away into the kitchen.

“Look, you and Karen can take them to the farm,” Grant said wearily, turning away as if it were all too much for him. “I’ve got work to catch up on.”

“I think we should all have that day out,” I said, warming to the notion. “It was a good idea, Grant. And it doesn’t have to be a farm. Sophie can’t always have her own way, and she shouldn’t have been eavesdropping anyway.”

Grant appeared somewhat surprised and mildly pleased by my support. But then he looked pointedly at his watch. “I said I might pop into the practice again today anyway. The locum isn’t working out too well. You and Karen go ahead and take them to the farm.”

He leaned over to kiss me, and I forced myself to stand my ground and accept the peck on my cheek despite the feelings of panic I felt at his closeness. He was a good-looking man, and in different circumstances I might have been attracted to him. I quelled a pang of guilt about not having accepted the offer of a day out with him. I knew he had been trying to make amends for his behavior the previous night, but the thought of being alone with him filled me with trepidation.

I leaned against the wall when he had gone, drained by all the emotional upheaval. What he’d done the night before was unforgivable, but then he had thought I was his wife, after all. And he was the father of the children. Closing my eyes, I allowed my mind to touch on the question of how far I would be prepared to go to make this family work. Could Grant ever mean anything to me in the romantic sense? At the moment I certainly didn’t think so, but these were early days. Perhaps I had hardly given him a fair chance.

There wasn’t much time to dwell on my shortcomings as a wife, however, as Karen was calling from the kitchen and I was sucked swiftly back into the daily whirlwind that had been Lauren’s life. At home all I had to think about were Frankie and myself, I thought ruefully, as I wiped syrup off the counters and loaded the dishwasher. As Jessica I cooked simple meals for one, did my washing once a week, and visited my parents once a month. And I went to the cinema or the theater with Clara or clubbing with the rest of our group of friends whenever I wanted, whereas as Lauren I’d have to fit any sort of social life around the children’s bath and bedtime story.

I thought again of how intolerant I’d been of some of my friends’ domestic problems and groaned. I supposed now I’d be at the mercy of babysitters who might or might not show up. I fell to wondering how Lauren had ever helped out at Grant’s dental practice, when one of the children might be ill, or couldn’t go to school for any reason. If I stayed here as Lauren indefinitely, and refused to employ a full-time nanny, I didn’t see how I could ever leave this house again.