“Did he find his wife?” She had felt sort of sorry for the man as she’d watched him in the hallway, taking the news that she wasn’t the person he thought. He’d clutched the grimy hat, shaken his head, shot another look toward her. She’d closed her eyes and pretended to be sleeping.
Anne shook her head. “Not . . . yet. He’d like to talk to you.”
Perfect. She sighed, braced herself. “What does he want?”
As Anne came in, she held open the door. “I’ll let him tell you.”
She recognized him—what was his name again? He hadn’t changed clothes—still wore those hideous brown coveralls, the filthy cap, but now had a heavy, old-man grizzle on his chin. Two younger men followed him in. The shorter one looked about sixteen, cute with curly brown hair poking out of a blue baseball cap. He wore a stained letter jacket, his hands shoved into his pockets. He looked at her with such longing that she had to turn away. The other was taller than the older man, well-built, with short bronze hair, hazel eyes. He looked like a younger replica of the older man except for the scowl.
He walked toward her. “Hey, Mom,”
Hey . . . what?
“What did you call me?”
He froze, glanced at the older man. Back to her. Reached for her hand. “Mom—”
Noelle yanked her hand away before he could touch her. “What kind of joke is this?” When she looked at Anne, she saw pain on her face. “This isn’t funny. I told you last night that he was mistaken. What did he say to you?”
“Noelle, please, listen to us. He’s not lying—we’re not lying to you. You fell and you lost your memory. This is your husband, Eli, and your sons, Kirby—” she pointed to the younger one, who looked like he might cry, his jaw so tight she could pluck it and shatter glass—“and Kyle.” She nodded toward the older one, whose piercing gaze could nearly impale her.
Anne pulled out a bag from her lab coat. “Here are your personal effects—your wedding ring, a necklace. Your clothes are in a hanging bag in the bathroom.”
She gave Noelle the baggie, and she stared at the ring. Not a big diamond, and the gold wedding band fit against it, welded tight. The setting looked worn, even dirty. The necklace, tangled at the bottom, held a gold charm, a loop with two “heads” at the top. It bore the hint of tarnish.
“I don’t recognize these. Or . . . them.” She swept her gaze quickly across the three men, then held out the bag to Anne. “I don’t know why you think I could be the mother to two grown men, but . . . I mean, really, how old do I look?”
Anne pursed her lips in a tight line.
“I’m twenty-one. I’ve never had children.” She lowered her voice, leaned over to Anne. “I’m not even dating anyone.” She held up her hands. “There’s been a terrible mistake here. I would appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.”
Eli had shoved his hands into his pockets, and he seemed to be wincing.
Kyle glanced at Anne, then at his father.
But the younger boy—Kirby?—was staring at her, shaking his head. “Mom, stop it. Just stop it. You can’t be like this!” The pain in the boy’s voice almost made Noelle want to believe them. He appeared so wretched standing there, his eyes glistening. “Don’t you remember me—or Kyle? What about—?”
“That’s enough, Kirby.” The man grabbed his shoulder, a tight clamp of authority. “Just calm down. Your mother had a terrible fall. She’s hurt, and she needs time.”
“I don’t need time. I’m fine. I just need you all to leave.” She gave Kirby a sad smile. “You look like a nice kid. I hope you find your mother.”
“Noelle, it’s time you got up. I have to show you something.” Anne reached for her, started to remove her blanket.
“Hey! Not with them here. Tell them to leave.”
Kyle wore a strange, grim expression. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She frowned at him. Of course it was.
“Okay, men, everyone out. Just for a moment,” Anne ordered.
“I’m her husband!”
“Eli . . . please.”
Kirby had already turned as if he might be fleeing.
“C’mon, Dad. We’ll wait in the hall.” Kyle had turned away also, reaching out for his father. Eli yanked his arm away from his son’s grasp.
Noelle glared at him. This Eli person seemed downright nasty, rude, even violent. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
Maybe his wife had run away from him—or maybe he’d hurt her, put her in the hospital.
She’d request that he not be allowed in her room.
Noelle waited until they left before she let Anne help her from the bed. “I don’t like him. He’s so . . . gruff.”
“He’s actually a very compassionate man,” Anne said as she helped Noelle stand. Noelle reached for the bed rail, the room taking a wild spin. “He was the sheriff in Deep Haven for the past ten years.”
“No wonder he’s so hard and dark-looking.”
Anne said nothing as she helped Noelle around the bed, toward the bathroom. “Listen, here’s the deal. You should know that it’s common for someone with your injuries to lose a little memory. Although your vitals seem nearly normal, your brain is still healing from the fall. It might take a few days, even a month or so.”
“I don’t have any memory loss—”
Anne flicked on the light to the bathroom.
Noelle stared at the image of the woman in the mirror. Same blue-green eyes, but the skin around them sagged, tiny wrinkles carved into the corners. Her blonde hair was smashed to her head around a bandage, patches on one side shaved off. She took a step closer, her chest tightening. Thin lines etched her mouth, her lips, and her skin appeared sallow, even sagging. She had jowls.
Noelle ran a hand along her chin, her breath knotting in her chest. She opened her mouth, but something like a whimper emerged.
Oh. No.
“Noelle, you had a C-section with Kirby. You . . . could check that out if you need more confirmation.” Anne turned her, took her hands.
Noelle’s breaths started to tumble over each other. No, no—
“It’s true. Eli Hueston is your husband. You’ve been married twenty-five years. And Kirby and Kyle are your sons. You live in Deep Haven.”
Deep Haven? She’d visited there with her family a few times, summer vacations. But she would never have wanted to live in such a dark and remote place, so far from civilization.
“This can’t be true. I . . . no . . . I want my parents.”
Anne sighed. “They passed away. Your father died about ten years ago, your mother more recently.”
Noelle backed away from her, pressing herself against the cold tile wall of the bathroom. “No . . . that’s not right.” She began to shake, could feel herself coming apart on the inside. “This isn’t funny. This is not right. I . . . I don’t remember any of this.” Her voice had begun to pitch high, her breaths shaggy, in and out, as she closed her eyes and tried to grab at anything that made sense.
She’d just talked to her dad yesterday. Asked him to go with her to look at a car.
Her mother had promised to make her lasagna if she came home for the weekend.
Noelle wound her arms around herself, slid down to the floor. Opened her eyes and stared at Anne, who crouched before her, her own eyes glossy.
“Please, please don’t tell me that I’ve lost twenty-five years of my life.”
Eli had never been a man for emotion. Sure, when Kyle slipped into the doctor’s hands, a bubble of warmth filled his chest, and likewise with the births of Kelsey and Kirby.
And of course, nothing could describe the way Kelsey’s death destroyed him, turned everything in his life gray and bleak. Other men—men who didn’t have an occupation built around the lousy choices of others—might have starting hiding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the glove compartment or the desk drawer. He’d had his work to help him forget, and besides, a cop knew how to control his emotions.
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br /> But he’d never wanted to hit anything, lash out, hurt someone like he did when he heard Noelle scream. Not a high-pitched sound of fear, but one wrenched from deep inside, places only he knew now, places she’d forgotten.
And then, the sobs. Deep and heartbreaking, they snuck out into the hallway as he stared at his two lost sons.
They lingered in the hall, not sure what to do.
He’d made a mistake bringing Kirby into the room with him. He’d thought, maybe, that seeing her son would jolt Noelle out of any residual amnesia.
Instead, it jolted Kirby into a blank stare as he listened to his mother cry.
“Kirby—”
He held up a hand, met his father’s eyes, shook his head.
“I thought she would remember us when she saw you.”
“You should have let me tell her about Kelsey. She’d remember her daughter,” Kirby said.
“Oh, that’s a great idea,” Eli said, his voice low. An elderly man, tall and gaunt, held a bouquet of flowers, a tiny boy trotting along behind as he shuffled past them down the hall. “Tell her about how she had a daughter, and then what, tell her how that daughter was murdered? You don’t think that might do more damage?”
He shouldn’t use that tone on his seventeen-year-old son—he knew it even as the boy flinched. But the kid had to grow up, face the truth.
Compassion only made people weak. It tore down defenses and made them too trusting. Vulnerable.
Sometimes it even destroyed lives.
“No, we’re not telling your mother about Kelsey. Not until she remembers herself.”
“And when might that be, Dad?” Kyle, now coming to life from where he’d wandered down the hall. “Never? What, are we supposed to just wipe Kelsey out of her life?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Eli’s voice thundered, and he cranked it back down to something he recognized. “I think you’re jumping to conclusions here, Kyle. The doctor doesn’t know how long this might—”
“My own mother didn’t know me. She thought she was in college, Dad. College. In her brain, she’s my age.” He held up his hands as if trying to push the thought away. “This can’t be happening.”
Eli thought he might be turning away but—
“You know, I don’t blame her brain for shutting down. For forgetting us. I mean, who wants to remember the last three years? Or more? If I could, I’d wipe it away too.” Kyle’s voice echoed down the hall.
“Really, Kyle? You’d forget everything?” Kirby’s voice shook. “You’d want to wake up thinking Kelsey was still here? Only to be told she’d died?”
Eli hiked a hand around Kirby’s neck and drew him down the hall with more force than necessary. “Do you suppose we could refrain from yelling? Because I’m not sure if she heard everything yet.”
Kyle followed them. “She’s still crying in there, Dad. I don’t think she’s really listening to three strangers argue about her.”
“Kyle—”
He seemed brewing for a fight, something more than frustration on his face even as he shoved his hands into his pockets, turned away from them.
“I just think that if we talk about Kelsey, it’s going to raise questions that your mother can’t hear the answers to until she’s more emotionally stable. We will tell her. But only when she’s ready.”
Except the fact was, it was only devastating if she could actually remember Kelsey in the first place. To Noelle, they were strangers—unkempt, angry, unruly strangers.
She wouldn’t even allow him in the room to see her in her hospital gown.
Oh, she’d love the next part . . . when they discharged her and she had nowhere to go but home with him.
Eli ran a hand down his face, then opened his eyes to see Kyle before him, his own eyes red-rimmed.
“What?” Eli said, his lack of sleep in his tone.
“I just think that maybe you could have stopped this. You should have gone with her to Duluth. Should have been there, instead of her, during the robbery. Protected her like a husband should.” Kyle’s low voice slid through him like a knife.
Eli drew a breath. “Fine. Yes, I should have gone with her. But I didn’t even know she was going!”
“And that alone should tell you something.”
“What was she doing here, anyway?” This from Kirby, his voice very small.
“I don’t know.” Eli glanced at him, his heart wringing. “Shopping, probably. Does it matter? We can’t turn back time.”
“Mom has. She’s turned it all the way back to before she knew any of us.” Kirby wiped his eye with the meat of his hand. A curse word emerged, something Eli had never heard him use. He didn’t chastise his son.
“She’ll come back to us. We have to believe it.”
“Why?” Now Kyle rounded on him. “Why should we listen to you? You never came back after Kelsey died.”
“What are you talking about, Kyle? I never left your mother.”
“You didn’t move out. You just moved down to the den.” Kyle stared at him. “No wonder Mom wants to forget you. I wanted to forget you.”
Eli couldn’t help it. Something inside him just snapped, something angry and frustrated and—
He slapped Kyle across the face.
Kyle jerked, gasped.
Kirby stepped back, shock—or maybe fear—in his eyes.
Kyle wore an expression Eli didn’t recognize.
He barely braced himself before Kyle tackled him. Around the waist, like he’d been taught in Husky football, and slamming Eli into the ground. Eli hit the ground like an old man, the impact jarring through his bones, his head. But he rebounded like a cop, ramming his elbow into Kyle’s jaw, feeling sick as the kid rolled off him.
He’d never hit his children.
Eli scooted back on the floor, held up his hands. “Kyle! Knock it off.”
Blood dribbled down the corner of Kyle’s mouth. His eyes burned through Eli, his voice rife with vitriol. “You make me sick. First Kelsey and now Mom. She might have forgotten us, but you forgot us first. You lost this family, Dad. You blew it. You know, Emma was right—there’s nothing to go back to in Deep Haven. Nothing but scars. Nothing but pain. Thanks for that.”
Then Kyle got up and strode past Eli.
Kirby had a hand over his face, his shoulders shaking.
Eli dropped his head into his hands, wishing that he, too, could find the courage to weep.
Especially since he feared that every word Kyle spoke might be painfully, brutally correct.
Kirby finally sat down beside him. Eli felt his son’s hand on his shoulder, and the gesture made him shake.
“What do we do now, Dad?” he whispered.
Eli sighed. “I guess we take this woman home and try to help her get her life back.”
Kyle’s mother had nearly lost her life beneath a three-way blinking stoplight, in front of a used-car dealership, a dry cleaner, and a coffee shop that shared strip mall space with a gift shop specializing in slippers and candles.
Her SUV sat, still parked, in front of Mocha Moose, buried under a crusty layer of snow.
Kyle stared at the yellow-taped doors of the crime scene and wanted to retch. He’d peeked inside the locked doors. The place still betrayed the chaos of the burglary—a cash register with the drawer open, the candies on the front counter spilled, some of them littering the floor. He’d called the Duluth Police Department, and one of the assistant deputies agreed to meet him here at the scene.
A courtesy to his father, whom he’d had to mention to get any face time with the investigators.
Kyle’s jaw hurt. The bleeding had stopped somewhere between Duluth and here, but the incident replayed in his mind like a slap—shock, then a flash flood of anger, indignation, shame, all spurting out of him.
He’d tackled his father to the ground. Wanted to hit him, to put his fist in his face in an explosion of fury, of desperation. Anything to expel the roil of hurt inside. The thought now caught him up, sent a tremble through
him.
He almost wanted to thank his old man for the elbow shot in the jaw. It probably saved them from an all-out brawl in the middle of the hallway.
Yeah, like his mother needed to see that. Not that it would jolt her memory—sure, Kyle and his father had rounded on each other a few times during his growing-up years, but his father had never, not once, hit him.
And he’d never, in all of his teenage angst, considered turning on his dad.
Even when his father had left them at Kelsey’s graveside, the rain sloughing mud onto her casket.
Even when Eli started sleeping at his office, on a little cot he shoved next to his file cabinets.
Even when he bought himself the Taj Mahal of fish houses to hide inside.
Even that day when Kirby called, his voice shaking, saying Dad had come home, emptied out Kelsey’s room, and gotten rid of everything, while their mother watched, knees drawn up as she sat on the floor of the living room, her eyes haunting all of them.
Not long after, Kyle had transferred to Alexandria, where he started the program in law enforcement. It simply made sense. Someone had to protect his family.
Still, it wrecked him just a little for his dad when his mother looked at her husband and didn’t know him.
Or didn’t want to.
“Are you Kyle?”
The voice startled him; he hadn’t heard the officer drive up. Kyle turned and met his hand. “Yes, thanks for meeting me. Kyle Hueston. I’m with the Deep Haven sheriff’s office. I was hoping you could walk me through the scene here.”
“Marc Wrenshall.” Wearing a pair of brown pants, his weapon under an insulated black jacket, and his dark hair shorn tight to his head, he had gray eyes that seemed, if not old, at least seasoned. The deputy nodded. “I’m sorry about your mother. Your father and I had a couple cases we worked on a few years ago. How is she?”
Kyle followed him to the door. “She’s . . . still recovering.”
“I’ll be glad when we can get a statement from her, sort out what happened.” He unlocked the door. Despite the chill and the embedded smells of coffee and woodsmoke, the tinny, rancid odor of blood tinged the room.
The Shadow of Your Smile Page 6