Tell Me a Truth (The Story Series Book 5) (10 page)

A
month later
, we started the morning as usual at the breakfast table, the image of a happy family.

“You know, I was thinking,” Caleb said, easily slipping a spoonful of scrambled eggs into Charlotte’s mouth, “I’ll take today off so you can pick up your dad at the airport and spend time alone with him. Come to think of it, I was planning on going into the office tomorrow morning, but since it’s Saturday and since it’s Charlotte’s birthday and we’re having a late-afternoon party, I won’t. I’ll be around to help.”

I scowled. “You don’t have to do all that. My dad and I can catch up later in the week. He’s here for ten days.”

“No, I want to. You deserve time with him. And I can help with Charlotte tomorrow if you need to do any last-minute party things. Or if you want to relax and let the party planner take over. That might be hard for you, though. I’ve noticed you don’t like to give up control of stuff when it comes to certain aesthetic things.”

“I want the house to look a certain way. Are you saying I’m a micromanager?” I smiled when I said this.

“Not exactly. But I’ve noticed you have very detailed instructions for how the house should look for the party. And you’ve been pretty specific when it comes to your new bookstore. Don’t get me wrong—I like a decisive woman. I like
your
decisiveness in particular.”

I grinned and gazed at him and Charlotte. He’d been doing this, flirting with me, off and on. He’d also gotten good at feeding the baby over the months. Lately she only wanted Caleb to feed her breakfast. Not me.

“Dada, cooh, cooh.” She pointed at Higgins the cat, who ambled across the concrete floor.

“That’s right baby. Cat. Cat.” Caleb meowed and Charlotte laughed. So did I. She squealed as he made an airplane noise with the forkful of eggs.

“This is what my mom used to do with me and Colin,” he said to me.

I nodded because I knew. Years ago, he’d showed me photos of his mom feeding his brother in a high chair, fork in mid-air.

“Charlotte’s really expanding her vocabulary. I think it’s all the reading you do with her, Emma.”

Charlotte actually spoke about six words, but it was adorable how proud he was of her, of how he thought she was a walking dictionary. I smiled and nodded and sipped my tea.

As I watched him wipe Charlotte’s chin, everything seemed normal. Perfect, in fact, if an outsider were to observe us. We were all gorgeous and healthy, with Charlotte in her little green dress with a pink flamingo on the front; me in my pink-and-white striped pajamas; and Caleb in his cargo shorts, his white T-shirt that stretched over his broad chest, and his Miami Marlins baseball cap. He was still so damned handsome.

And he did truly love Charlotte. It meant more to me than almost anything.

Almost.

Our relationship still wasn’t what it used to be. Oh, sure, he made me laugh. And he was smart and made more money than we’d ever need in three lifetimes.

The sex was good, too. He fucked me every night and made me come. Lately he’d been spanking me, tying me up, and kissing me breathless. But sex wasn’t everything, I’d discovered. Caleb and I used to share an intimacy, a connection, an ethereal love thread. The thread was still there, but it was gossamer-thin. Or maybe it was a different strand, altogether.

I still woke every day with a mixture of hope and fear. Hope that things would return to normal. Fear that they wouldn’t. And then sometimes Caleb would do something amazing and make me melt, make me realize that I was falling in love with this new version of him. Make me realize that he was still the best man I’d ever met and that I needed to stop worrying. After all, he’d taken my revelation about Colin with more grace than most men would have.

I stared at my family as if I didn’t recognize them.

Charlotte pursed her lips and refused to eat more. Caleb finished the last of Charlotte’s eggs himself, then turned to me.

“Yeah, so you pick up your dad, I’ll take Charlotte to that new aquarium. While you’re on your way to the airport, I’ll pull some strings and get tickets to the hockey game in Tampa later this week, since I know your dad is dying to go.”

I tilted my head. “How did you know my dad likes hockey? We haven’t talked about that since you got back from Brazil. Did you and my dad talk on the phone? Email?”

Caleb shook his head. “No. I just knew. It’s true, right? Or am I remembering incorrectly?”

I nodded. This happened occasionally. Caleb would remember some obscure detail—but not something important about me. And so I held hope that Caleb’s memories would continue to return in drips and drops until he was whole again. Anyway, did his memory even matter at this point, now that we were forging a new path together?

“It’s true, he’s crazy about hockey.” I rose and kissed him on the top of his head. “Thank you for doing that. He’ll appreciate it. I love you.” I walked away. I’d been telling him every day for weeks. The words made me feel better, even though he hadn’t returned the sentiment.

“You too, babe,” he said.

I stopped and whirled. He was wiping Charlotte’s mouth with a napkin and didn’t see me gaping at him. As he undid Charlotte’s bib, it was as if everything was normal. Like what he’d said wasn’t monumental.

Maybe to him it wasn’t. But to me, it was everything.

“
Y
ou seem perplexed
, bookworm.”

It was hours after Caleb had almost-kinda-sorta told me he loved me and I was having a difficult time hiding my confusion. Did he love me? Or had he said it out of duty? My father and I were at my favorite vegetarian café downtown, and I was uncharacteristically silent.

“What makes you say that, Dad?”

“Those lines between your eyebrows. They’re deeper than I’ve ever seen them.”

I shrugged and said nothing. My BBQ tofu-topped salad suddenly seemed fascinating. I pushed a leaf of lettuce around, wishing I’d brought Charlotte with us instead of leaving her home with Caleb. She would have acted as a buffer to my dad’s inquisitiveness.

“C’mon, bookworm. What’s wrong? I can tell something’s up.” My dad knew using my childhood nickname would draw the truth out of me. Or a smile.

“I don’t know if Caleb loves me.”

I looked up to see my dad scowling and munching on salad.

“Dad, you’ve got a piece of carrot in your ‘stache.”

“Oh.” He dabbed at his face. “Gone?”

“Yeah.” I hoped that would derail the conversation.

“Emma, Caleb is a different person now.”

Shit. No derailing here. My dad, a longtime pot smoker, no longer indulged when he was in Florida because he said he didn’t want to bring Caleb any potential trouble. Which was kind of him, but his sobriety made him unusually philosophical. Exactly what I’d wanted to avoid. I jabbed a forkful of tomatoes into my mouth and chewed.

“Is he treating you well?”

I nodded, still chewing.

“Is he kind?”

“Yep. Very.” I thought of all the little things he’d done recently: lined up contractors to finally finish my second bookstore, gotten me a gift certificate to my favorite spa, talked about going on a family vacation to Montana in the winter.

“Do you love him?”

I nodded slowly. “I do. I love him for who he used to be, and I’m starting to love the new Caleb, too. It’s not as intense as what we used to have, but I do love him. It’s a different love.”

“So he’s different. And your love is different. Maybe it’s deeper. More meaningful. More mature. Have you considered that? You two have gone through a lot. Is that so bad?”

I shrugged and swallowed. All those kind things he’d done for me in the past couple of months? Maybe he was telling me he loved me, only in a different way than before. “That’s a good question. Maybe not. Maybe we’re finding a new reality.”

“Everything sure seems to look normal. You two were laughing today when we stopped at the condo to drop off my bags. And Caleb was so accommodating about taking care of Charlotte today so we could hang out together. Charlotte’s obviously thriving and he loves her.”

I shifted in my seat and waved my fork in the air. “She is thriving. And he does adore her. He tells her all the time how much he loves her. But I tell him that I love him and he doesn’t say it back. Today, he kind of said it, but not all the way. It hurts, you know? And he’s not the same person. He doesn’t remember anything about us. Our history. I’m not sure he cares. Or that it matters to him.”

My dad sighed and set his fork down. “You’re a smart woman, so you need to figure out what this means to you and how it fits into your life. How much does it matter to you? Can you accept him as he is now? He might regain his memory. He might not.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to, right? I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want Charlotte to grow up without a father in her house. And I do love him. We’re compatible. It’s…I don’t know…different.”

“Remember, honey, everyone changes during a marriage. Your husband changed a little more than most do, and your marriage changed a little earlier than most marriages. There’s an old saying: ‘
Whoever you marry, you’ll wake up the next day with someone else.’
That’s what’s happened to you and Caleb, only on a quicker timetable.”

I sipped my green smoothie and eyed my father warily. “You know, for an old, stoned hippie, you’re pretty smart.”

He dipped a piece of pita in a bowl of edamame hummus and took a giant bite. I waved a napkin in front of him.

“Now you’ve got hummus in your beard.”

He grinned and so did I.

M
y eyes opened
slow and early the next morning. It was that space between darkness and sunrise, and I lay in bed on my side. I had so much to do. Charlotte’s party would dominate the day. Two dozen adults and five children.

I blinked into the bluish morning light. All of my upcoming responsibilities and tasks for the week unfolded in my head. When was the charity auction? Did Charlotte have a pediatrician appointment on Monday? Was Caleb going to New York this week or next?

I felt his arm, heavy on my body. He was spooning me, his arm parallel to my body and his hand on my thigh, his ankle in between my feet. Lately he’d wanted to sleep close to me, as if he needed us to be glued together. I didn’t mind, not one bit. The weight of his body made me feel secure.

With a yawn, I peeled back the Egyptian cotton sheet covering us. Caleb stirred, squeezed my leg, then caressed my side. I picked up his hand and kissed his palm, poised to climb out of bed.

“Emma doll,” he murmured.

Adrenaline shot through me, instantly waking me as if I’d mainlined espresso. Caleb hadn’t called me
Emma doll
since he left for Brazil. I held my breath. The pet name was so foreign to my ears I thought maybe I was dreaming.

“What?” I whispered.

“Emma doll, don’t get up yet. I need you.” His voice was rough, intimate. It was the sound of my husband.

The real one.

He reached out to rake his hands over my breasts and kneaded softly. What was different about his touch? He cupped my ass and felt between my legs.

“Are you wet enough for me?” he murmured.

“Y-yes,” I stammered.

He bent my top leg forward, and I felt him guide his cock inside of me from behind. The shock of his words made my body pliable and boneless.

I twisted my head in his direction. “Caleb?” I asked tentatively.

“Yes, baby?” he whispered, cupping my breast.

“I love you.”

“Mmm. And I love you.”

He said this like it was normal, as if he uttered the words every day. When he hadn’t.

I was conscious of him entering me, moving me any way he wanted. His hand snaked between my legs and found my clit. I felt myself swell and bloom under his fingertips and sighed a moan. His touch was unhurried, welcoming, like
home
.

He made little growly noises and bit my shoulder. He felt more virile this morning, more present, even. Or was that my imagination?

“You’re so hard,” I gasped as he plunged into me.

“That’s right,” he whispered, squeezing my breast. “I woke up wanting you like crazy.” He nuzzled his nose into my neck. “God, you feel so good this morning.”

Then he pulled out and flipped me on my back. He climbed on top of me, and I accommodated his big body by wrapping my legs around him. He dipped to kiss my neck, and the kisses were slow, tender. I turned my head, luxuriating under his lips. Had he really called me
Emma doll
or was I in some parallel dreamland, one that’d I’d longed for and had given up all hope of having? He reached down and guided his cock inside of me.

“Emma doll, I love you. I love
you
.”

I shuddered in a breath. He’d really said it. And it sounded like he meant it.

He trailed his nose down my cheek and kissed behind my ear. Lifting his head, my husband looked at me in the wan, blue morning light. His black-silver hair glinted, his mouth parted.

His beautiful mouth that had told me exactly what I wanted to hear, exactly when I’d needed to hear it.

“What? Why are you crying, Emma?”

“You…your memory. You called me Emma doll. It’s what you used to call me before you went away,” I stammered. “And you said you loved me.”

Still inside of me, he tilted his head and smiled a little.

With a groan, he thrust long and slow, and I drew him close, tears leaking out the corners of my eyes. Then he pulled out and sat up on his knees, his muscular shoulders and arms and chest soaking in the early morning rays coming through the curtains. His erection glistened with my wetness. I whimpered, both from the absence of his body and the blind hope that his memory of me had finally returned.

He knelt in between my legs and ran his hands up my body, pausing to cup my breasts gently. I shivered.

“It’s like I woke up from a long sleep and knew what I was supposed to remember. I feel different, Emma.”

I put my hands over his. “What else do you remember? Do you remember how we met? Where we met? Where you first told me you loved me?”

He smiled wide. “Of course I do. How could I forget?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

A look of sadness crossed Caleb’s face. “I did forget, though, didn’t I?”

I nodded, about to cry.

“I’m sorry. That was the other thing I remembered. That I’ve never said I was sorry for what happened. For losing my memory. For forgetting.”

I cupped his face. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. It wasn’t your fault. And now you remember.”

Propping himself on his forearms, he entered me again, thrusting so slowly and sensually that I gasped.

His mouth found my ear, and his hand reached to sweep the hair out of my face. “You’re in me on a cellular level. Even if my mind didn’t remember you, something in my soul did. I believe that. I think I’ve been trying to tell you this for months, but my messed-up brain stopped me.” He pressed his lips to my forehead as he ground into me. I groaned and bent my knees, wanting him deeper inside. As deep as he could be.

“My soul finally talked to my mind. Finally told the truth, Emma. I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you. Making up for this past year.”

“Oh, Caleb.” My skin shimmered from his words. I dug my nails into his shoulders as he moved his hips in a certain way, with a certain circular rhythm that he hadn’t used since he’d returned from Brazil. I was on the brink.

“You feel fucking incredible this morning. I woke up feeling so much love for you, Emma doll.”

“So much love,” I whispered. The way he was positioned, just so, caused enough friction on my clit, and I writhed under him with a slow and carnal grind.

“You’re going to make me come like this, Caleb.”

“That’s what I want.” In the early morning dawn, his blue eyes pierced me.

He thrust slow and long. Primal and profound. He crushed his face into my neck, and I finally felt the old intimacy, that soul connection, with him. I repeated his name over and over, whispered it into the flesh of his neck, then released into a long, pulsing climax.

One so intense that I could only silently scream.

He came quickly after, groaning softly near my earlobe. “I love you, Emma. You and only you. You’re everything to me, forever.”

L
ater that afternoon
, we packed the condo to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday. We’d hired a jazz band for the adults on the terrace and a magician for the kids inside. Vases of bright pink flowers were everywhere, along with matching pink helium balloons and party favors depicting Rapunzel from the Disney movie
Tangled
.

Charlotte had taken to that movie lately, and I’d learned most of the lines. During the party, I quoted from the movie liberally because I was giddy.

I don’t think I’d ever been so happy. With a huge smile, I circulated and talked to family and friends, babbling about everything from the wine spritzer recipe I’d discovered to the plot of a romance novel I’d been thinking about writing. Sarah pulled me aside on the terrace.

“Did something happen? Are you pregnant?”

“Why?” I beamed. “And no. Not looking to have more babies, that’s for sure. Charlotte’s enough. I have enough, all the way around.”

She shrugged. “Well, you’re glowing. Like radioactively.”

My tone dropped. “Caleb’s back.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Caleb’s…back? From where?”

“He finally told me he loved me. He finally called me Emma doll.”

She nodded slowly. I had refrained from telling her all my worries and frustrations in recent months. I’d put my head down and kept my melancholy to myself.

“I’m really happy, is all. Things are finally back to normal, I think. No, they’re better than before.”

“Wow. Well, I’m glad. I think life is back for us, too. Laura’s ready to begin the IVF process again. We made the decision last night.”

I laughed and threw my arms around her. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, Em.”

I wandered over to Caleb, who was talking to a group of men, mostly guys from his company.

“How did you manage to hit the jackpot with Emma?” one asked.

I stopped and sipped my wine spritzer. What would Caleb say to this question?

“Oh, have I got a story for you,” he responded. “You’ll never imagine where I met her or how.”

I looked up at him, a puzzled frown pulling my brow downward. What if he got some of the details wrong? Would I correct him?

Questions flooded me, floored me, stunned me into silence.

Was this how memory worked? Was this how marriage worked? Did you wake up one morning, in love anew, despite all of the pain and emptiness and heartache between the both of you?

I stared hard at my husband, who was talking about that night we’d met at Story Brothel, with details so vivid it might as well have been a couple of nights ago.

“I didn’t even want to be there that night,” Caleb chuckled. “But my sister Laura had a crush on this girl—who turned out to be Sarah, Emma’s best friend—and she wanted to go there after her birthday dinner. I remember rolling my eyes right before I walked in. It was a funky lounge, and I think it smelled like patchouli incense and hippies. I got a drink from a tattooed bartender with a long beard and saw this gorgeous woman standing next to me.”

I laughed. I’d forgotten the patchouli. Then I stilled, because I suddenly realized I still had no idea who
he
really was.

Was he the man I’d met all those years ago? Or the one who’d lost his memory in Brazil? Or the man standing next to me in our condo, in a black T-shirt and jeans, looking delicious and like every woman’s dream?

Was I the woman I used to be?

And what of the patchouli incense detail the night we’d met? How had I forgotten that? How good was my own memory?

“What did she say to you?” one guy asked Caleb with a mirthful glance. “How did she tell you she was an erotica writer? Were you shocked?"

“Well, first, Emma told me she wanted a dirty martini, and I thought that was so charming and forward. She wore this hot red dress. It was kind of tight, but didn’t show much skin. Like a sexy librarian from the 1950s. And her lips were scarlet, and Jesus, her deep dark eyes,” he groaned, to the chuckles of the others. He glanced down at me, and my cheeks flared from his flirty stare.

I giggled and sipped my wine. But my heart was stuttering, wondering what he’d say next.

“Then she led me outside to a cabana. I was like, my God, this woman is serious about seduction. I was a little intimidated. Me, intimidated.” Caleb chuckled, and some man muttered about how Caleb had once dated a top model.

“Then Emma started to read her story and I was blown away.”

I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. He truly remembered.

When I’d sat with him that night in the cabana, I’d thought love was a fairytale. And ours had certainly started out that way, telling stories under the starry Florida sky.

Maybe everyone’s relationship started as a fairytale, to a certain extent. With luck, it did, anyway. We all have fantasies about what love will become, how it will unfold. We begin fresh with someone, thinking that memory and destiny are immutable and fixed. 

But they weren’t, I’d come to realize. Both were permeable and unforgiving, just like life. We thought we knew our lovers, but really, did we? I looked at Caleb telling his version of how we’d met—oddly, something I’d never heard him do in all the years we’d been together—and wondered if I’d ever really known him at all.

Whoever you marry, you’ll wake up the next day with someone else.

“I thought I’d hit the jackpot and figured she’d read me just some filthy stuff, but it was actually smart and funny. And she smelled incredible. Like—” Caleb leaned over to sniff my hair. “—like caramel candy. Like she does now. And I was in love by the time she was finished reading that night. But I waited to tell her for six months, when we went to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. I wished I hadn’t waited so long."

The corners of his eyes crinkled, and he grinned, a wide, sexy grin like the Caleb I thought I knew well, once upon a time. That Caleb was back, the one I’d fallen in love with. And I had the new Caleb, too. The man who’d become a gentle and loving father.

Tears pricked my eyes, and I stood on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I love you,” I whispered.

“I love you, too, Emma doll.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my temple. “I couldn’t have chosen a better wife if I’d tried."

“I know I couldn’t have chosen a better husband. Want another wine?” I asked quickly, not wanting to weep in front of everyone. He nodded, and I took his empty glass and walked off, my chest churning with emotion.

Once in the kitchen, I turned my back to the group and dabbed tears from my cheeks with a napkin. I popped open a bottle of pinot grigio and poured a glass for Caleb and one for me. I pivoted and saw our daughter playing with the daughter of Jackie, the lawyer who used to work at Caleb’s company, the one he’d dated long before me. They were moving blocks around the floor, and Laura was on her knees, right there with them, making little
vroom-vroom
noises. My dad was watching, laughing.

I looked at my husband. He was still grinning and with the group. Colin had joined them, and Caleb clapped him on the back. Had Caleb kept his word and not said anything to Colin about our time together? I hadn’t asked and didn’t want to know. The two brothers were getting on well, closer than ever, it seemed.

Maybe Caleb was right: the past should stay firmly behind us.

I sipped my wine and, from afar, listened to Colin tell a story in his low, measured voice. Without paying attention to what he was saying, I saw Colin gesture expansively, and all the men laughed hard. Maybe he’d someday find his own happily-ever-after. I truly hoped so.