Her Perfect Life

by Hinze, Vicki

  “Nothing.” He looked down at his desk, then back at her. “What you’re not considering is that in your absence changes have taken place. They need information you can provide.”

  After all she’d given, they wanted more. Always, someone wanted more. What about her? Sam and the kids? What about what they all wanted? She paused and looked deeply into his eyes. “Dr. Green, are you a father?”

  He nodded, clearly aware of where she was about to go with this. “Yes, I am.”

  “Then for the love of Pete, put yourself in my place. I want my husband and children. I need to see them. How can you not realize that?”

  “I do realize it.”

  “Then how can you ignore it and deny me? That’s unconscionable.”

  Worry wrinkled his brow. He paused a moment, clearly thinking, then went on. “All right,” he said, dread lacing his tone. “All right.” He held up a hand. “But you need to realize and accept facts, too. Things are not now what they were when you were last home. Things are very… different… now.”

  “Excuse me?” What did he mean by that? Cryptic, almost a warning…

  “Your family mourned you, Katie. They buried and mourned you, and then they went on with their lives.”

  Fear buckled her knees. She slid down onto a chair. That sounded ominous; pregnant with chilling things left unsaid. “What are you telling me?”

  His chin quivered and he looked down at her open file on his desk. “You’ll be flown to Paxton Air Force Base tomorrow. Sam will be there—I spoke with him personally again this morning. He’ll explain.”

  Were the kids dead? Injured? What was wrong with them? Were they safe? Oh God, she couldn’t have endured and conquered only to come home to that? She couldn’t stand it. “Dr. Green, please.” She risked letting him see her fear, her raw pain. “Don’t you torture me, too. Tell me what’s wrong with my children.”

  “No. No, nothing is wrong with them, Katie,” he said quickly, reassuring her. “But they aren’t the same as when you left them. Children change significantly in six years, you know?”

  Shocked, Katie went still. Good grief, how had she missed that? She’d thought of little else but getting back to the children and yet she had seen them in her mind exactly as they had been the last time she had seen them. Not once had she imagined Molly or Jake a day older, a bit different…

  Trembling from the impact of that, she leaned forward, supported her head with her hands, elbows on her knees. Molly had been three. She was nine now. And Jake had been six. Good grief, he was twelve. Twelve! Nearly a teenager!

  She tried hard but just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Sifting through the years and her own changes, she forced the facts into her mind and tried to imagine the kids at the ages they were now. She couldn’t do it. Tried again, and again, and the truth slammed into her with the force of a head-on collision with a brick wall.

  Nothing was the same.

  Would the kids even know her? Would they remember anything about her being in their lives? Would they want her back in their lives now?

  Panic seized her stomach. Fear set in. But blissfully merciful, logic intervened. Surely Sam had told them all about her. Molly had been awfully small. She might not remember much about Katie. But Jake would remember the songs she sang to him, the games they’d played. Surely they would both remember her love.

  How could either of them not remember her love?

  “Katie?” Dr. Green stood to look into her eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m, um, fine.” She cleared her throat, lowered her hands and stood up, trying hard not to let the shaking inside her show on the outside. “I don’t expect we’ll be seeing each other again. Thank you for your candor, Dr. Green.”

  Resigned, he stretched out a hand. “It’s been a privilege, Colonel. I hope things go smoothly for you, and you find peace. I really do.”

  She shook his hand, then went to the door. Pausing, she looked back over her shoulder at him. “I am angry, but I’m not ungrateful to you, Doctor. I’m sure you’re very good at what you do and your intentions are good. Thank you.”

  In a moment of total honesty, he admitted, “In your position, I’d be angry, too.”

  “I appreciate your admitting that,” she said and meant it, then reassured him because his concern seemed genuine. “I do know what I need.”

  “Sometimes we think we know, but we really don’t.”

  “I’m a wife and a mother. I love them.” Her voice gave away a slight tremble. Still, she forced herself not to back off, to speak plainly and from the heart. “I need my family more than anything but air.”

  “You need to feel loved more than you need anything but air.” Regret shone deep in his eyes. “Six years is a long time to be deprived of anyone who loves you.” His voice caught. He seemingly aged a decade in a single moment. “I really do understand, Katie, and I’m very sorry for what’s happened to you.”

  She nodded, let him glimpse her sadness. “Aren’t we all?” She walked out the door.

  * * *

  Dr. Green watched her go. She was so fragile, clinging to control by a thread, and, God forgive him, he was grateful he wasn’t the one who was going to have to give her the bad news that was going to snap and break it.

  His nurse, Helen, came around the corner. “How did her talk go with the President? Was she surprised to hear from him?”

  “She didn’t have much to say to him.”

  “Awe-struck?”

  “Not in the least,” he said, wishing that were the case. “Preoccupied. She’s totally focused on seeing her family.” A sigh he couldn’t withhold heaved his shoulders. “She was badly abused, Helen. Very badly abused.”

  “I figured.”

  “But she has worked through it—at least far enough to know she needs to feel loved to heal.”

  “That’s a long way to come on her own.”

  “Yes, it is.” He waited until the colonel stepped into the elevator and the door closed then looked at Helen. “Knowing how hard she’s worked makes what’s to come all the more tragic.”

  Sadness filled his nurse’s eyes, then surprise. “Oh, no. You didn’t tell her? How could you not tell her?”

  “Forbidden. Direct orders,” he said, more than a little disgusted. “She’s very bright. She picked up right away that the honchos want a pass from her with the press.”

  Helen frowned. “Of course she did. She stayed alive. The woman has to be brilliant to still be breathing.” Helen huffed and shook her head. “Direct orders. Forbidden.” She sighed again. “You should have told her anyway. This is just not right. It’s just not.” Helen tugged on the stethoscope dangling around her neck. “She’ll be crushed.”

  “I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t,” Dr. Green repeated. “It’s not just the brass issuing orders. Her husband insisted he tell her himself.”

  ”That poor woman.” The nurse sighed, then swallowed hard. “She lived through all that horror for all those years solely on the hope of getting home.”

  “Yeah.” Dr. Green blinked hard and fast. “Now, when she finally gets there, she’s going to find out there’s not much ahead of her except more horrors.”

  “Heartbreaking.” Helen looked up at him, her eyes shining overly bright. “You know, Doc, sometimes life sucks rotten apples—and that’s the nicest way I can say it.”

  “Sometimes it does.” He nodded. “And sometimes it’s even worse.”

  * * *

  “Colonel Katie Slater.” Dr. Muldoon, the physician she’d been assigned on returning to Paxton Air Force Base in Florida, entered the room with an entourage of five fresh-faced doctors on his heels.

  It had been six days since her rescue and a frustrated Katie sat in a chair beside the hospital bed completely annoyed and looking for a place to erupt. “Dr. Muldoon, I will not agree to one more vial of blood being drawn or one more test. I’ve had it.”

  He smiled, his blond hair short and styled in a typical military cut. “We
’re done with all that. While you’re a little undernourished, I’m happy to report that you’re relatively healthy.”

  “Finally.” She stood up. “I’ll see my family now, then.” She’d arrived at Paxton night before last. Nine days since the rescue, and still, no Sam. No children. No phone call to her mother. And the longer the honchos delayed her reunions with medical tests and intelligence debriefings, the angrier she got.

  He frowned. “I’m afraid that we’re pushing you to reorient too fast, Colonel. You need time—”

  “Don’t you dare presume to know what I need. I need my family.” She caught herself, squeezed her eyes shut and forced her temper down. “Listen to me. I’ve cooperated with all of you. I’ve been debriefed by every intelligence organization in the U.S. arsenal. Now I’m done with cooperating and debriefing, Doctor. I’ve said my last word on this. I insist on seeing my family. Either you bring them to me, or I will escape from this facility and go to them.”

  Feet shuffled on the tile; the student doctors behind him were uneasy and backing away, clearly afraid of her. Unfortunately, they had just cause to be afraid. She truly had reached the proverbial end of her patience rope.

  Muldoon stood his ground, but lifted a staying hand. “Sam will be here this afternoon around four.”

  Her heart beat hard and fast and it was all she could manage not to burst into tears. “And my children?”

  “First see Sam. Then the two of you can discuss how to make your reintroduction easiest for the children.” Muldoon’s frown deepened. “I don’t mean to minimize how difficult this is, or how challenging it has been for you, Katie. You’re my primary concern, but you aren’t the only person impacted by your return. Remember, your death and sudden reappearance after six years has significant consequences for your loved ones, too. Sam and the children—especially the children—have a great deal of adjusting to do.”

  It was true. She blinked hard. They all had a lot of adjusting to do. “Of course.” That she hadn’t considered the difficulty of reintegrating into the lives of the kids shamed her. But the need to see them gnawed at her bones, obliterating all other thoughts. Green had been right about the emotional deprivation. She wanted. She needed. So desperately that it made her slow to consider the wants and needs of anyone else. Her neck burned and the heat crept up to her face. Ashamed, she cringed. “Four o’clock,” she said, then turned away.

  Muldoon and his students left, and Katie leaned against the window and looked down on yet another hospital parking lot. What if the kids didn’t want to see her? Didn’t want to adjust? What if they liked their lives without her so much they wished she’d stayed dead?

  At this point, C.D. would have told her to knock it off. To quit borrowing trouble, and imagining things at their worst. He’d have told her that she was wrong, letting fear drive her over the edge and off the deep end. He’d have reminded her that they all loved her, and of course they would be happy to have her home. He would have said all that and more. But knowing it and hearing it from his lips were two different things.

  “Oh, C.D., why do you have to be dead? I need you here.” Nearly two weeks and no one to support her. No one. She was as alone as she’d been in her cell. Fingering her chilled glass, she followed a rivulet down its side until it soaked her hand. “Even dead, I’d support you.”

  “I’m glad to hear you two were that close,” her nurse, a young and bright redhead named Ashley, said from behind her.

  She’d said that aloud? She must have. Careless, Katie. Considering, crazy and careless. Katie turned, her heart in her throat. “Why are you glad to hear that?” Curious woman. “He was my best friend and he’s dead. How can you be glad to hear that even dead, I’d support him?”

  Ashley came closer, her expression wary but unlike the rookie docs, she didn’t fear Katie. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

  “Trust me, I’m beyond the point of anything shocking me.”

  “Okay.” Ashley walked around the edge of the bed, then stopped a few feet away. “I’m glad to hear your feelings on C.D. because he’s not dead. He’s alive, Katie. He’s here and he wants to see you.”

  So many emotions swamped her at once, Katie didn’t know where one stopped and the next started. Disbelief. Mistrust—but why would Ashley lie to her? Relief. Joy. And anger.

  He’d left her.

  So much anger…

  “Katie?” Ashley stepped closer still. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a nurse for ten years and there is no easy way to break news like that, but I thought you’d be happy…” Now she seemed unsure.

  “I am happy. It’s a big adjustment. I need . . .” Katie swallowed. “Excuse me just a minute.” She rushed into the bathroom, burst into tears and threw up. C.D. was alive. Alive! Gratitude swelled in her heart, filled it and overflowed. But he’d left her. Left her to rot in a prison cell in the sweltering desert, to be tortured and tormented for six long years. Her heart shattered and she slid to the floor and just sat there. How could he do that to her? After all they’d been through together, how could he—

  “Katie?” Ashley rapped on the door. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” Resigned, she got to her feet then rinsed her mouth at the sink and splashed her face. “I’m fine.” She dried off then opened the door. “Where is he?”

  “In the waiting room, but Dr. Muldoon says Sam must see you first.” She gave Katie a little shrug. “C.D. says he was your co-pilot.”

  “Yes.” Katie swallowed hard. “Yes, he was. I thought—”

  “He was dead. I know. He told me. But he’s not. You’re glad about that, right? I mean, you do want to see him, don’t you? Because if you don’t—”

  “Oh, you bet I want to see him.”

  Ashley clearly mistook that response for eagerness; she smiled. “He’s very handsome.”

  “Yeah.” Katie nodded, not at all surprised that C.D. still had the ability to turn heads and flip hearts. In an odd circle, her thoughts whirled around to her appearance. She didn’t want Sam to see her like this—or C.D. She wanted to look great when she killed him. “Ashley,” she turned to the nurse. “I look like a hag.” Katie couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I—I don’t want them to see me like this.”

  “Well.” Ashley smiled, genuinely pleased. “That’s something I can fix.”

  “How?” Katie lifted a hand to her raggedly cut hair. “Short of putting a Stepford body in my place?”

  “How do you know about Stepford Wives? That movie came out while you were captured. Did you get to watch movies over there?”

  “No, no movies,” Katie said, not caring to recall what she did get to do over there. “It was a book and then a movie in the 70s.” She and Sam had seen it three times. He’d teased her about his becoming that kind of doctor and replacing her with a homebody who didn’t have to fly missions all over the world.

  “Really?” Ashley asked, and when Katie nodded, she laughed. “I had no idea.” A grunt and then, “Well,” she walked around Katie looking at her hair, “I think you’ll be amazed at what can be done with a pair of scissors.”

  “I didn’t have any.” In the bathroom mirror, it looked chopped, like it had been hacked at with a knife. Had she had a knife? How had her hair been cut, and by whom? Odd, but she couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t she remember? Had she shuttered that, too?

  That she might have scared her. She should know what was locked away in the closet inside her mind, shouldn’t she? She should know it, just not think about it. Had she locked away so much she’d just forgotten it? If so, why didn’t she recall it now? Odd. That’d never happened to her before. Had it?

  “Well, you have some now.” Ashley smiled. “I’m going on my lunch hour. I’ll run over to the base exchange and pick up a few things. Do you have a favorite color?”

  “Purple,” Katie said, rattled by the memory gap. Uneasy, she grabbed for her mug of water and sipped strongly through the straw. Her throat felt parched, raw. Maybe it was fatigue? The sho
ck of being rescued? The grueling transport back to the States, all the medical tests and exams, and all the questions being thrown at her from every direction? That had to be it. With so much going on, who wouldn’t be forgetting things? “But I don’t have any money. They have to get my pay straightened out.”

  “I’ll float you a loan. You’ve got six years’ worth of money coming. I’d say you’re good for whatever I spend.”

  “Can you spare the cash?”

  “Uh, cash, no.” Ashley smiled. “But not to worry. I have plastic.”

  Credit cards. Oh, yes. “I can’t believe you’re willing to do this. Thank you.”

  “Katie, you did a lot more. This is nothing.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Let’s see.” She checked Katie’s bedside table. “I refilled your spare water mug, so you’re set there. Need anything else?”

  “No,” she said without thinking. “As long as I have water, I’m fine.”

  Ashley paused. “Did they deprive you of water?”

  Katie stilled, looked at her.

  Ashley lightly shrugged. “I brought in the second mug because you were so upset about running out of water.”

  “I was?” Katie didn’t remember that, either. This was getting weird. “Sorry, if I worried you.” Fatigue. Had to be fatigue playing games with her mind and memory.