Look into My Eyes

by Glenda Sanders

  Tim gave her a wry smile. “Where’s reference?”

  * * *

  HOLLY PULLED ON her lace cover-up and tucked her wadded towel under her elbow. The late-afternoon swim had been refreshing. Now, if she could just get through the evening...

  Following the walk, she turned from the side of her building to the front, then froze when she spied a man standing at her door. Waiting. She recognized him instantly. It was Craig Ford. Or the man who had been Craig Ford. The man she was in love with. The man who’d forgotten her.

  She stepped back, out of sight, and waited for him to leave. Minutes seemed like hours before a peep around the corner revealed that he was finally leaving. His shoulders drooped dejectedly as he walked. If he were still Craig Ford, if they were still lovers, she would wrap her arms around him and whisper sweet sentiments in his ear. But he was a stranger. A stranger who looked so much like Craig Ford that her heart ached when she saw him.

  When he was out of sight, she proceeded to her apartment.

  “Holly?”

  Her heart lodged in her throat at the sound of his voice.

  He rounded the row of tropical shrubs in front of the building at a quick jog. “I thought I saw you. I had just about given up, but I saw you from my car.”

  “Who gave you my address?” she asked, phrasing the question like an accusation. He couldn’t remember her name—how would he know where she lived?

  “I looked it up in the phone book.”

  The lock yielded to a twist of her key. Holly turned the knob, but didn’t push open the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “May I come in?”

  She might have remained strong if he had left it at that, but he didn’t. Soft as dandelion fluff, he added, “Please?”

  Please, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut as her fingers convulsed around the doorknob. Summoning her courage, she nodded and opened the door, letting him in.

  No matter what he calls himself, no matter how bizarre the situation, you’re always letting him in—when are you going to be strong enough to turn him away?

  Inside, she suddenly found herself at a loss for words. Finally, self-consciously looking down at her lace-shielded swimsuit and bare legs, she said, “I need to rinse the chlorine out of my hair. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said, smiling sweetly enough to break her heart all over again.

  Holly dallied in the shower, taking longer than usual to lather her hair and standing under the flow of hot water long after the shower gel was rinsed from her skin. She did not want to face him. She did not want to thank him for the flowers he’d sent or field his questions or listen to him tell her once more how sorry he was that he could not remember the time they’d spent together. Most of all, she didn’t want to face the possibility that he might suggest a cozy little dinner, which he doubtless would hope might lead to a cozy little romp in her bed.

  Trembling, she turned off the water and pressed her forehead against the wall of the shower stall. It was over and done with. Dead. Why couldn’t he just...leave it alone? Leave her alone?

  Her thought process was paralyzed. She couldn’t decide what clothes to put on, or whether to blow her hair dry or just slick it back. Eventually, she selected shorts and a blouse and dried her hair. Then, with her cheeks flushed from the heat of the dryer and her hair hanging loose around her face, she returned to the living room.

  He stood when she entered the room, and she felt his gaze, warm and curious, on her as she walked. Too restless to sit, she stopped behind the armchair facing the one in which he’d been sitting and rested her hands on the back. He was still looking at her, studying her face.

  Shaking his head as though dazed, he said, “I circled the block for almost two hours before I found the courage to stop.”

  She leaned against the chair, glad it was there to support her. “Why did you?” she asked stoically. “What do you want from me?”

  He stepped forward until he just a few feet away from her. “I think I’m losing what’s left of my mind.”

  “There must be someone you could talk to. A doctor, or social worker—” Don’t ask me to help you; I’m hurting too much. I’ve given you all I have to give. I’m falling apart just being this close to you.

  “I think I miss you,” he said.

  “You remember—”

  He raised his hand in a halting gesture. “No. No. But listen. Please. I know it doesn’t seem to make any sense.” His hands balled into fists. “I don’t...remember. Not meeting you. Not the details. But...something Meryl said—”

  “You talked to Meryl? At the library?”

  “Come over here,” he said, leading her to the couch. “Sit down and try to follow me. I’m probably not explaining it well, but—”

  He let his shoulders droop against the back of the couch and exhaled wearily. “I went to the beach,” he said. He lifted his hands, palms up, gesturing for emphasis. “I went to the beach, and I felt...alone. I was looking at the couples and feeling like part of me was missing. I’ve never felt that way before. I didn’t feel that way when I went to the beach the days before my accident.”

  “What does Meryl have to do with this?” Holly said, trying to follow.

  “She said that when I had amnesia—the first time—that I told you I didn’t believe I was married because I didn’t feel married, and that I was sure if there had been someone I cared about that I would know it, even if I didn’t remember.” His chortle held a note of self-derision. “She seemed to think you were gullible to swallow it.”

  “Meryl’s been around the block a few more times than I have.”

  “It makes sense,” he asked, weighting each word with intensity. “I don’t recall the details, but I...emotionally, I must be remembering the...unity. I felt like part of a couple and I missed the other half. I must have been missing you.”

  Afraid to believe, Holly said, “You’re feeling disoriented. You’re grasping at our relationship because you know about it.”

  “I saw the tape, Holly. The Story Hour video. The way we looked at each other—”

  “But you still don’t remember!” she said.

  “I can’t help that!” he said, plunging his hand into his hair again. “Don’t you think I would, if I could?”

  “I know you would,” she whispered hoarsely. But you don’t! She might be able to forgive him with her rational mind, but her irrational heart couldn’t forget the betrayal.

  “But we’re the same people. Inside. In the places we feel affection and attraction. What I felt for you couldn’t have just...dissolved.”

  She was staring down at her hands in her lap. He grabbed her upper arms. “Look at me. Listen to me.” Slowly, she raised her head until her eyes locked with his. “Maybe there are different types of memories,” he said. “Maybe some are like photographs full of detail, but others—others could be more like, I don’t know, electrical impulses or waves, like television signals. Maybe all I have left about us is invisible waves. That doesn’t make us any less real to me inside.”

  He heaved a sigh that revealed his frustration. “I’m not a psychiatrist or a philosopher. I don’t know all the theory. All I know is that when I look into your eyes, I see something calling to me. I see the same loneliness I feel now, a loneliness I didn’t feel before.”

  Holly’s heart lodged in her throat. The same loneliness. Oh, God, he saw it too. Maybe—

  “What do you want?” she asked. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I think there’s something between us. Something too precious to lose. Something we should hold on to or, at least, explore.”

  Explore? In the bedroom, perhaps? She was afraid to let herself believe anything else. “What we had—when we were together—wasn’t something we could explore in a few days.”

  “I want you to come with me,” he said.

  “Come with you?”

  “To Europe.”

  “Europe?” He was rig
ht. He had lost what was left of his mind.

  “I know it sounds crazy. And I know it’s short notice.”

  “Short notice? Europe in...days? That’s not short notice, it’s—”

  “It’s...once-in-a-lifetime,” he said. “The award I won came with a cash endowment, and I decided to take the trip of a lifetime. I’m going to soak in all the old-world architecture while I’m there, but I want to experience it all, especially—”

  He paused for breath. “I could have been killed. For the second time in two years. Now I want to take it all in, every bit of it, everything I can. And I want to share it, all of it, and who better to share it with than a woman who looks at me the way you do?”

  “H-how do I look at you?” she stammered.

  “What’s the line from that old movie? The Sound of Music. ‘Nothing is more irresistible to a man than a woman who’s in love with him.’ When I look into your eyes, I see love, and something in me is answering it.”

  “I don’t...” Her voice trailed off. What could she say? She couldn’t deny that she loved him when her eyes were telling him the truth.

  “Come with me, Holly,” he said, taking her hands in his. “No strings. We could have separate rooms, and you’d be free to come home anytime you want. I’ll let you hold the return ticket.”

  “But my job—”

  “Take a leave of absence,” he said. “Haven’t you ever dreamed about just getting on a plane and taking off? Haven’t you ever read books and thought you’d rather live it than read it? Let’s do it together. Let’s hop from country to country like that English goose and see if we can find our way back to what we had. What would we have to lose?”

  Holly stared at him mutely, unable to think of a single thing they had to lose. Her mind was too busy counting up the things they might gain.

  13

  EVEN BEFORE she forced an eye open to search for the glow-in-the-dark dial of the travel clock, Holly was quite sure that it was not time for any alarm to be going off. A slight twist of her head brought the clock into her field of vision just as a male hand slapped the control. The irritating buzz ceased.

  “W-w-w?” Holly stammered, which was her middle-of-the-night way of asking what time it was and why the alarm was going off. They’d rarely set an alarm clock on the entire trip.

  “Up, sleepyhead,” Tim said, chuckling. He’d turned out to be almost despicably cheerful first thing in the morning, in contrast to Holly, who required a few minutes to adjust to the idea that it was time to wake up.

  “Why? What time—five forty-five? What are you doing getting me out of bed at five forty-five?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, blatantly flaunting good cheer. “It’s a surprise!”

  Holly rolled over, pulling the pillow over her head. “Surprise me at nine.”

  Tim grabbed the pillow and tossed it to the foot of the bed. “It’s now or never, sweetheart.”

  “Never!”

  “If you don’t get up, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what you missed.”

  “Tyrant!” Holly muttered, pushing up on her arms. “Bully.”

  “If you don’t quit calling me names, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap,” he teased. He was already up, pulling on a pair of jeans.

  “You and whose army?” Holly said, dropping her feet to the floor.

  Tim knelt next to her and picked up one of her slippers. “Here, Cinderella. See if this fits. We don’t want your tootsies getting cold.”

  She cooperated while he put the shoes on her feet, and then put her arms into her chenille housecoat when he held it up for her. “I should probably brush my hair,” she said.

  Grinning, he mussed it. “You know I think it looks sexy when you first get out of bed.”

  “Well, I just hope that wherever we’re going, we don’t run into any small children. I’d probably scare them.”

  “There won’t be any children,” he said, grabbing her hand.

  They were in a guest house outside of Bergenz, Austria. Their room was on the second floor. Tim escorted Holly up the uneven wooden steps to the third story and then on to the attic floor, where a tiny door opened onto an observation platform.

  Tim stood behind Holly and wrapped his arms around her, folding them across her shoulders above her breasts. Stars glistened in the deep blue sky like diamonds strewn on velvet.

  “The sky is the same color as your eyes,” Holly said, resting her head against his chest.

  “Not for long,” he said, propping his chin on the top of her head. “This deck faces east.” Already, a streak of white haloed the tops of distant mountains.

  The streak widened with an arrogant lethargy until, finally, the faintest suggestion of a curve emerged over one crest, spilling light over the tree-covered mountains. Under their reverent observation, night yielded gracefully to day, darkness to light, serenity to splendor.

  “It’s breathtaking,” Holly said.

  “People have been watching the sun come up from this platform for over a century,” Tim said. “They used to have a bugler who went through the halls waking the guests, and everyone would come running out wrapped in blankets provided by the proprietor.”

  “Why did they stop?”

  Laughter rumbled through his chest. “I guess today’s tourists don’t appreciate the dawn as much as people did a hundred years ago.”

  “Fools don’t know what they’re missing,” Holly said.

  He chuckled again. “You wouldn’t have said that a few minutes ago.”

  “Morning people!” Holly grumbled.

  For several minutes, they stood without moving or speaking, absorbing the beauty and miracle of nature.

  “Are you glad you came?” Tim asked.

  She turned and slipped her arms around his neck. “Do you have to ask?”

  A smile softened his mouth. “Not when I look into your eyes.”

  He dipped his head to kiss her sweetly, then drew back to look into her eyes again. “When I think how close I came to driving away from your apartment that day without talking to you, it makes my blood run cold.”

  “I saw you at the door and hid until you walked away. I didn’t want to face you.”

  “But I saw you through the palm fronds, wearing your swimsuit. Your legs—”

  Holly grinned. “And I thought you were there because of my eyes.”

  She nestled her cheek against his chest and sighed thoughtfully as she pondered the way split-second decisions and serendipitous encounters could influence whole lives.

  If she’d waited seconds longer to walk back, if he hadn’t looked through the palm fronds, if she hadn’t accepted his invitation to accompany him to Europe...

  So many crossroads. So many places they might have missed each other along the long path that had led them to this rooftop in Austria. So many times either of them could have made rational decisions instead of emotional ones. If she had not trusted Tim’s instincts about the fact that he was not married, she might never have fallen in love with him. If he had not trusted his own instincts about the relationship they could have, he might never have asked her to go with him to Europe.

  “Come with me, Holly.”

  A whirlwind trip to Europe had made so little sense. She had been at a disadvantage loving him, yet not knowing whether Tim Sotherland was the man she’d fallen in love with or just a man who laid legitimate claim to the body borrowed by Craig Ford.

  “Come with me, Holly.”

  Had he fully understood what he’d been asking of her? She’d put her job on hold and turned her life upside down with no justification other than the hope that the people they both were inside could find each other again.

  “Come with me, Holly.”

  She so easily could have said no. She had been on the brink of refusing. Then she’d looked into his eyes and recognized the man she saw there, and she’d said yes—yes to Europe, and yes to hope.

  What a winding path they’d taken to reach this moun
taintop! It seemed like centuries since she’d sat across from him in the café and heard his story of living in a limbo of amnesia, years since she’d stood in his hospital room and realized that he did not recognize her.

  Just weeks ago, they’d boarded the plane together as amiable traveling companions, like tourists thrown together on a package tour, excited and curious and a bit apprehensive, awed by the strangeness of the situation in which they’d found themselves. She’d catnapped on the long flight and awakened with her head on his chest, his arm cradling her and his eyes on her face. They’d exchanged self-conscious smiles and stepped back into their roles of intimate strangers.

  They’d been painfully courteous to each other in London as they visited Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Tim had been solicitously attentive in the Tower of London, walking behind her while their shoulders brushed walls that had been touched by monarchs, cupping her elbow at times, prepared to brace her if she stumbled on the ancient stone steps. Afterward, they’d traded cameras and photographed each other on the spot where royal heads had been severed by an executioner’s ax.

  Like soldiers on a grueling campaign, they’d become allies as they marched through museum after museum, complaining to each other of sore feet and information overload. That evening, at the quaint bed and breakfast they’d chosen over a sleek hotel, they’d been more like old friends as they sat on opposite rims of the huge tub in the community bathroom soaking their feet in hot water and talking about everything and nothing.

  The next day, Tim had insisted they go to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum for a more whimsical perspective on the past and not-so-past. The timbre of their friendship had changed while they stood in front of a macabre exhibit featuring a notorious serial killer. Tim had poked her in the ribs then laughed aloud when she squealed in surprise. At that moment, they’d both known that they had crossed the line between the comfortable familiarity of old friends and the sensual awareness of potential lovers.

  Throughout the rest of England, she had shared her passion for books as they toured the homes of great writers, and he’d shared his passion for architecture as they’d explored cathedrals, country churches, castles and town halls.