The Lion's Den (Faraway Book 2) (18 page)

“I remembered some things.”

The colonel stayed silent. He sat behind his desk like any normal boss would.

“The only memories that come back to me are about you.” My inspection covered his office, seeking every detail my mind would release. My sight landed on his wedding picture. It was facing me from the credenza to the side of his desk. He and Lynn barely looked old enough to drink in it.

“What did you remember?” He pulled me back to him.

“Nothing you don’t already know about.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was deep, harboring the darkness of the memory of him leaving. I wanted to curl up in my bed and lay there silent with my knees to my chest. “I’m going to have to quit my job here.”

“What?” He was on his feet and circling the desk before I reacted to his question. “Why? Because your husband is making you?”

I couldn’t find the words. I wasn’t sure exactly why, only that if I was going to save my marriage, I had to. “No.”

“Then why? You love it here.” The colonel moved the chair from the corner of the room next to mine and sat down. “And we love having you here.”

“I think it’s wrong for me to be here.” He leaned back and pondered me. It wasn’t fair how much he knew about me. About us. “You seem determined to let me remember everything on my own. I don’t know why, but I trust you enough to know it’s not good. Or maybe we weren’t good.”

“It’s not like that.”

“What is it like then? Tell me everything you know,” I pleaded with him.

“Your memory is coming back. More and more each day. If it comes from me, it won’t give you any more solace than you have now. You won’t know whether to believe me. I need it to come from you.” His eyes mirrored the anguish I felt. The colonel knew what it was like to lose me too, he was the one who’d walked out, and now he needed me to come back on my own.

The way I’d hungered for him on Thanksgiving night returned and solidified what I already knew. “It’s not right for me to come here every day.” I didn’t elaborate. I couldn’t without getting into the dreams that still haunted me. The ones where he touched me. The ones where I cried out and came with his hands on me.

“I know you don’t owe me anything, but do this one thing for me,” he said, taking my hand in his. The warmth spread through me like a drug, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his fingers around my own. “Stay working here until your memory fully returns.” My head shook without me telling it to. “I won’t sleep. I’ll worry about you every day. Just keep the job until you remember, and then, if you want to leave, you don’t even have to give me two weeks’ notice. You can stop the minute you’re ready to.”

“You think he’ll hurt me,” I said, or maybe asked. I watched for the colonel’s expression to change, but he stayed still. “Or you think he already did.”

The statement broke him, and he tightened his grip on my hand. “Only you and he know what happened that day, but I need to know before you quit this job.”

“What if I never remember?”

“You will.”

I took back my hand and walked out of his office.

I FINISHED WRAPPING THEIR GIFTS.
Pink snowman paper for Liv, and silver toy soldiers for James. I’d had to convince Brad to take them to the children’s holiday party at his office to get a few hours alone to finish. I’d told him it would humanize him among his employees who probably hated him as much as they respected him.

I found every scrap of paper on the floor, balled them together, and put them in the trash. I took the bag out to the can in the garage. It might be the last year Liv believed in Santa Claus, and I was determined to hold on to it as long as I could.

I stacked the presents in thick black lawn bags and carried them to the trunk of my car. Later, I’d drive them over and hide them in the new house. I’d spent every waking moment avoiding the colonel in my mind. I locked him out and replaced him with Liv, James, and my husband.

I went to church. I prayed Brad and I could survive this . . . That I could survive this. I wouldn’t let the memories from Thanksgiving and my own dreams own me. It was a battle I lost every night. I dreamed of him. I wanted him, and nothing I did while I was awake could protect my marriage from the way I felt about him.

I put the tape and the scissors back in my desk and looked around, satisfied with the clean-up job. The door to the garage opened, and the house came back to life.

“Mommy!” Liv yelled.

James was the first to see me. He took off his coat and shoes and ran over to hug me. Liv wiggled her way in between us and with the two of them hugging me, we almost fell to the floor. Brad followed with a tote bag with his company’s logo on the front. Liv grabbed it from him and started setting up the crafts she’d made at the party as a display for me. She then proceeded to show me the water bottles, pens, styluses, light-up keychains, and bottle openers they’d received as gifts.

“This is an odd children’s gift,” I said and held up the bottle opener.

“It’s fun for the whole family,” Brad responded and kissed me on the cheek. Liv sat, stoned-faced, watching Brad as he poured himself a glass of water. “I’ve got some work to do,” he said and disappeared into his office, leaving me alone with my children and their cotton ball snow crafts.

“So. Tell me everything. How was it?” I asked James and Liv at the same time.

“It was good,” James said, and I knew that was the whole story I’d get from him. He slipped out of the room as soon as Liv launched into every detail about the event. She was animated, and excited, and shared every minute from the car ride over the bridge to Philadelphia to the elevator ride in the parking garage when the party was over. But I never heard a word to explain why she’d glared at Brad the way she did when he’d kissed me.

I poured her a glass of milk and waited. I didn’t say a word. I just lovingly smiled at her while she took a sip. She was dressed in a turtleneck and faux leather leggings. She’d looked so grown up as I’d braided the sides of her hair and clipped them behind her head that morning. Liv and James had promised Brad they’d act “normal.” A word with a fluid definition in our house.

“Do you know a lot of Daddy’s friends?” Liv finally asked, and I kept the nonchalant, milk-drinking ease in my voice.

“Let’s see. I know Amit. He’s Daddy’s best friend at the office. You would call him Mr. Jogal. Did you meet him?”

“Yes. He was nice.” She took another sip of her milk, and I stayed silent. I could have filled the time. I could have let her off the hook, but I needed to know what was bothering her. Her sad little eyes would keep me awake for days. I didn’t turn away and fill the dishwasher. I let whatever it was linger between us. “Have you ever met Daddy’s friend Dharma?” Liv finally asked.

I kept still, smiling the whole time and hanging on her every tormented word. “I don’t think I have. Is she nice? Did you like her?”

Liv stared at me, and I didn’t know what to do, what she needed from me. She glanced back into the hallway and lowered her voice. It was so slight that if I weren’t glued to her every word, I might not have noticed. She finally said, “When she laughs, she only looks at Daddy,” and stared down into her glass of milk. Such a tremendous burden for a little girl. One who saw more than most adults.

She’d handed the weight to me, and it dragged me under the surface of my marriage. Brad was seeing someone, or at the very least, this woman wanted him to. I’d been lying to myself for so long, I’d started to believe my own version of my fairy tale, but the reality was far away from the storyline.

I held her hand and pulled it up to my mouth to kiss it. “I love you, Liv.”

“I know,” she said and finished her milk.

THE HOLIDAYS CAME AND WENT
. It was the last Christmas we spent in the house that I was now referring to as the “big house” because it felt like a prison to me. Brad took the time between Christmas Eve and New Year’s off. He helped assemble the kids’ toys and watched Christmas movies with us. He drank hot chocolate, he built a snowman, and he opened a bottle of wine for me every night. It was a cozy time. I told myself that whatever Liv had picked up on at the office party was misread. Brad was clearly not having an affair.

But then he went back to work, and I returned to being a single mother. The loneliness set back in. At least I had Jenna. She was my partner, and my favorite member of my team. Of the few words Brad had spoken to me and the kids in the weeks that followed his holiday vacation, none were kind. They were filled with frustration, anxiety, and resentment. I assumed it had something to do with his friend from the office, Dharma. The kids instinctively kept their distance from him. I could barely stand the sight of him.

“If I’m not drinking, I’m going to need some ice cream to survive this,” Jenna said as she hopped out of her car in the Latteria parking lot.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?”

“Sobriety? Or this sleepover?” She laughed as she held the door open and our five kids rushed past us to the counter. We followed them in. I’d never been there, not that I remembered anyway. Jenna and I scanned the chalkboard for the flavors: Sweet Caramel Butterscotch, Banana Crunch, Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl . . . sweet Jesus.

The kids all spoke at once, and somehow, the woman behind the counter got all their orders.

“Are you sure you’re okay with them all sleeping at your house tonight?”

“Only if you’re going to be okay the night they all sleep at yours.” Jenna laughed a devious laugh, and I knew she’d hold me to it. This was a huge waste, since Brad was out of town, but I could use the time to continue the never-ending packing. “What are you getting?”

“I’m not sure. Nothing with nuts,” I said, and almost knocked myself over with the words. They weren’t mine. The colonel had said them to me.

“Since when don’t you like nuts?”

“I don’t know.” I held on to the countertop as “Bourbon Cookies and Cream” came out of my mouth. “A large, please.” I let the sight of our children eating their ice cream mesmerize me, and I paid for our order. It was the least I could do. The woman behind the counter smiled at me like she knew me, but I was getting used to that. Lots of people hinted at things I no longer knew anything about. When she handed me the change, I remembered the colonel in my car slouched over. His hand was between my thighs. The heat rose up between my breasts and flushed both cheeks. My heart was racing with my mind. I remembered the sunset . . . and him in the back of my car making love to me. I knew it wasn’t a dream.

I dropped my head in shame.

“Hey! You okay? You’re acting like you’re the one taking this crew home.”

I tried to breathe. I nodded. “I feel sick all of a sudden. Dizzy.” It wasn’t a lie. I could have fallen over or thrown up right there. “Can you handle these guys?” I faced Jenna with the few answers that gave me only more questions. “I need to get out of here.”

“Yeah. Of course. Call me when you get home.”

“I will. I’ll call in a little bit.” I kissed Liv and James and made them promise to be good.

“Love you, Mommy,” Liv said and waved as I walked out the door.

I set the ice cream in my cup holder, and the wave of nausea returned. “What have we done?” I said to no one and drove to the colonel’s house.