The Wife He Couldn't Forget

by Yvonne Lindsay

  Later, after they’d had fluffy omelets with chopped fresh chives and bacon, hot coffee and toast, Xander helped her carry the last of her canvases out to her car.

  “Thanks,” Olivia said as she closed the back on her station wagon. “I’m not sure what time I’ll be home, but I’ll probably be late, after dinner anyway.”

  “I can look after myself.”

  “And you promise that if you get a headache, you’ll take your pills and rest?”

  “You don’t need to babysit me, remember?”

  “I know.” She pressed her hand against his cheek. “But I worry about you.”

  “I’ll take care, I promise,” he said solemnly before turning his head to kiss the inside of her palm.

  Across the street Olivia caught a glimpse of one of their neighbors putting Christmas lights up in the eaves of their house. It reminded her again that the holiday was less than four weeks away. It gave her an idea.

  “Maybe when I get home—or if I’m too late, maybe tomorrow—we can put up the Christmas tree. I didn’t bother when...” Her voice trailed off for a moment before she took a deep breath. She had to get over her reluctance to talk about the past. “When we were separated. It brought back too many memories of the fun we used to have. Anyway, I’ll go up to the attic and get the stuff down for us when I get back, okay?”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Xander agreed. “I’d like that. Now, you’d better get going. I thought you didn’t want to be late?”

  Olivia glanced at her wristwatch and exclaimed in shock. “Oh, is that the time already? You’re such a distraction!”

  He laughed and swooped in for another kiss, this time a lingering caress full of promise. “Hurry back—I’ll be waiting.”

  Olivia drove away with a last glance in the rearview mirror. Xander stood in the driveway, hands resting on his hips, watching her go. He made it so hard to leave him behind, for more reasons than she cared to examine. The shadow of a passing cloud suddenly obscured the sun, darkening the road before her and making her push her sunglasses up onto her head. A shiver traveled down her spine. Olivia shook off the sensation, not wanting to examine the sudden sense of unease that gripped her.

  It was just because she was leaving Xander for several hours on his own, she rationalized. Since he’d been home again, the longest she’d left him was a couple of hours while she ran errands or went shopping. It was natural to feel uneasy, but there was no cause for alarm. Nothing would go wrong.

  * * *

  Xander watched her car turn out the drive and the automatic gates swing shut behind it. The gate. There was something about the gate, some memory attached to it that was just out of reach. A sharp stab of pain made its presence felt behind his eye, and he closed his eyes and shook his head slightly to rid himself of the pain.

  Take your pills. It was as if Olivia’s voice were stuck in his head, he thought with a smile as he headed back into the house. Well, he’d promised her he’d look after himself. And, he had to admit, he had no desire for a repeat of the headache that had struck him yesterday. Inside, he found the painkillers and took the required dose, then retired to the hammock for a while until the nagging pain eased off. It didn’t take long.

  While he rested, he thought about what he should do to fill the hours until Olivia returned. The Christmas tree! Of course. He knew she’d mentioned putting it up together, but he also knew she’d love the surprise of seeing it decorated and lit in the large front bay window to welcome her home.

  They’d always stored the tree in the attic, and, since she’d said she hadn’t even put it up the past couple of years, he shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it. Motivated by the idea of her pleasure in seeing the tree finished, he went inside and upstairs. The stairs to the attic were as narrow as he remembered them, and he fought back an odd sense of light-headedness as he placed his foot on the first tread.

  At the top of the stairs, he pushed open the door into the attic, taking a bit of time to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Light streamed in from the small diamond-paned windows at each end of the attic and dust motes danced on the beams. Xander sneezed and cursed under his breath.

  Moving farther into the attic, he got his bearings and looked around at the boxes and shrouded pieces of furniture they’d stored there. He shifted a few cartons in an attempt to get to where he last remembered seeing the tree and decorations. If Olivia had told the truth, they’d be exactly where he himself had put them.

  He straightened for a moment. If Olivia had told the truth? Why would he think she’d lie about something like this? Why would she lie to him about anything? Maybe because she lied to you about your separation, a voice echoed in the back of his head. He pushed the thought down. She’d explained why she’d withheld that piece of information. Sure, he didn’t agree with her choice, but if they were to move forward, he had to be willing to get past it. She’d accepted some of the blame for what had gone wrong between them. Considering what he knew of himself along with what she had told him, he could see how easily they could have drifted apart.

  Born the youngest of two boys, he’d pretty much always been treated as an only child after his older brother died in a drowning accident when Xander was only about three years old. Looking back, he could see how his parents had each coped in their own ways. His mother by becoming a distant workaholic and his father, sadly, by retreating into himself and becoming unable to work at all.

  Xander still remembered coming home from school and letting himself into their home, knowing his mother would still be at work and wondering if that particular day would be one where his father would be happy to come outside and kick a football with him or whether Xander would end up sitting on the floor outside his parents’ bedroom, listening to his father sob quietly as he remained locked in grief for the son he’d never see grow up.

  There was probably more of his mother’s influence in him than his father’s, Xander acknowledged. If nothing else, he’d always fought hard to live by his mother’s example. Never letting life get him down, dealing with his grief privately and always striving hard for the future.

  While he’d never seen his father as weak, because even as a child he’d understood what his father was going through had little to do with strength or weakness, he hadn’t wanted to feel as overwhelmingly as his father had either. As a result, he’d always controlled his emotions strictly, keeping them on a tight rein. Xander hadn’t dared to experience extreme highs or extreme lows in his personal life; he had, instead, poured himself into work and achievement. Now he wondered if that driven part of him had also been a part of what had put a wedge between him and Olivia? He couldn’t remember, no matter how hard he tried.

  What he did know was that he was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt and to give their marriage another chance. Perhaps the accident and his amnesia were a good thing after all. He knew he could be stubborn and move on if he thought something wasn’t working. Rather than work on their marriage, he would have rejected any overtures she’d made to work things out.

  Even so, he couldn’t deny the niggling feeling that there was more to their separation than the brief explanation she’d given him yesterday. And then there was the matter of Rachelle and the fact she had a key to his apartment. Something really didn’t feel right about that, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He would, though. He felt so much better. Stronger both mentally and physically, except for these bloody headaches, he thought as he shifted a few more cartons, then squatted down to read the lettering on a box shoved to the back.

  He recognized the writing—it was his own. The box was ignominiously labeled “Stuff.” He tugged it toward him and opened the flaps. In it were framed certificates and some old photo albums. A surge of excitement filled him. Maybe the contents would cast some light over his lost years. He pulled out the first album and absently thumbed through it
. It dated back to his years in university, before he’d met Olivia. No, there was nothing there that he didn’t know well already.

  He shoved the albums and certificates back in the box and pushed it back against the wall. With the digital age it was more than likely there were no physical albums of his more recent years. Maybe he needed to look harder at his computer files. See what was there that dated back from when he could last remember and up until now.

  But before he could do that, he needed to find the Christmas decorations. Xander dug around a few more boxes but ended up with nothing more than a sneezing fit. He was just about to give up completely when he spotted two more boxes in a dark corner. Maybe this was what he’d been looking for.

  He dragged the boxes under the remaining light. They weren’t labeled like all the others were. Neither looked like the long narrow carton he knew had always stored the tree, but maybe one held the decorations. There was definitely something familiar about them.

  A weird sensation swept through him, making him feel a little dizzy again as he rocked back on his heels. He shrugged it off, thinking that he probably just needed some fresh air. The tiny ventilation holes in the eaves near the windows weren’t the most efficient. He’d been up there awhile already, and, with the sun beating down on the iron roof, it was getting pretty hot.

  Xander tugged at the tape binding the first box with a grunt of determination. It came away with a satisfying sound. Once again that feeling of being off balance assailed him. Xander closed his eyes for a brief moment and waited for the sensation to pass. This one was worse than the last and left him sick to his stomach. He swallowed and forced his eyes open.

  “Just this one,” he said aloud as he lifted the flaps. “Then I’m heading back downstairs. What the—?”

  His voice trailed off into silence as he pulled out the first of the items inside. A child’s clothing, precisely folded in layers—a little boy’s things, to be more precise. Xander put them to one side and reached in again. Toys this time. A teddy, a few die-cast trains and cars.

  His stomach lurched, and Xander fought back the bile that crept up his throat. He knew these things. These pieces of another life, another time. The frustrating sense of limbo he’d been living in since waking up in the hospital began to peel away from him, layer after layer. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on full alert, and an icy shiver traced down his spine.

  Without another thought he tore open the second box. Cold sweat drenched his body. More clothes, more toys and, near the bottom, photo albums. He lifted them from the box. Even in the muted light of the attic he could see the dates on the albums. He picked up the oldest of them and slowly opened the cover. There on the first page was a grainy sonogram picture. He traced the edges of the tiny blur on the picture with the tip of one finger as a powerful wave of déjà vu swept over him. And with it, a memory. A sense of excitement and fear and love, all in one massive bundle of emotion. And then loss. Aching, wrenching, tearing loss.

  Xander turned the page of the album to a photo of Olivia, a younger and more carefree Olivia than the one he’d seen off today. There was a series of photos of her, first with a big smile and flat tummy, all the way through to a photo of her with her belly swollen with pregnancy and a finger pointing to a date circled on the calendar.

  The next page saw him staring at himself, proudly holding a squalling newborn infant.

  His son.

  Fourteen

  A sob tore from Xander’s throat and his chest tightened, making every breath a struggle. He remembered. He remembered everything, all the way back to the day that Olivia told him she was pregnant—and the fight they’d had that night over her news.

  He’d been furious with her for taking that step without his knowledge. It hadn’t been an accident. It had been a calculated decision she’d made without him. He hadn’t been ready. He could still recall the heady rush of their relationship, their haste to marry and build a life together. Hell, he’d barely come to terms with their closeness before she was telling him they had to make room for another person in their lives. A person who’d depend on them for everything.

  Xander hadn’t known if he had it in him to love even more than he already loved Olivia—at least not until he’d experienced the joy of Parker’s birth. Tears ran unchecked down Xander’s cheeks as he turned more pages, then reached for the next album and the next. Each one cataloguing their beautiful little boy’s life, until there was no more. The last photos were of Parker’s third birthday in the backyard. A pirate theme had been the order of the day, and even Xander had dressed in kind.

  They’d been so happy. So complete. And then, with one stupid forgetful moment on his part, it had all ended.

  The devastation of Parker’s death, along with the certainty that he could have prevented it, had left Xander crushed by guilt. He wiped at his face, trying to stem the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. This was what he’d forgotten. This was what he’d built walls around his heart and his mind for. To stem the searing, clawing pain that now threatened to tear him into tiny pieces.

  Xander staggered to his feet, leaving the albums and the toys and clothes scattered around the cartons on the floor. He wobbled toward the doorway and stumbled down the stairs, as uncoordinated and clumsy as he’d been in those early days back in the hospital. At the bottom of the stairs he turned right and went straight to the bedroom next to his old home office.

  Now he understood why his office had always been here. He’d hated every second he had to spend away from home when Parker had been alive. With this home office, he’d had the best of both worlds. Able to watch his son grow and learn every day, and meet the demands of his career and provide for his family at the same time.

  His family. Their little unit of three. Xander could never have believed that the power of their triangle could ever have been torn apart. Hadn’t understood that when you ripped away one edge of the triangle that the other two sides would collapse. Not together. No. But apart. In their grief, he and Olivia had inexorably turned away from each other.

  He pushed open the bedroom door and looked around the bare walls and floor. The only thing that remained was a bureau that had stored Parker’s clothes. Olivia had gotten rid of everything else. She’d wiped their son’s existence from their home, in fact, from their very lives with clinical precision—just like his mother had when Xander’s brother had died.

  Xander dropped to his knees. Grief crashed over him with the power of a tidal wave. It felt as raw and as painfully fresh as if it had been only yesterday that he’d been forced to say goodbye to his son. The child of his body, of his heart. He roared in frustration and anger and sorrow, the sounds coming from deep inside him. Sounds he’d never allowed out, ever, but now it was as if he couldn’t stop them.

  He had no idea what the time was when he pulled himself back to his feet and made his way to his bedroom. No, not his bedroom anymore. Olivia’s. He’d made his home elsewhere, and now he knew why. He went into the bathroom and showered again, all the while attempting to block out the memory of the last time, only hours ago, that he’d shared this same space with Olivia, and what they’d done.

  The memory wouldn’t be suppressed. His body, traitor that it was, stirred to life at the images running through his mind. He turned the mixer to cold, standing beneath the spray until the pain of the icy water was almost equal to the pain that pulsed in the region of his heart.

  He leaned his forearms on the shower wall and let his head drop between his shoulders, allowing the water to pound on the back of his neck and down his back. Questions whirled in his mind. Why had she kept this from him? What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she told him everything when she’d had the chance to yesterday?

  By the time he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower to dry himself he was no closer to finding any answers. She’d tricked him into coming here and she�
��d tricked him into staying—just as she’d tricked him into parenthood. Why?

  Xander studied his reflection in the mirror, hardly recognizing the man whose tortured gray eyes stared back at him. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t listen to another lie from Olivia’s lips. The betrayal of what she’d done was as excruciatingly painful now as the words she’d flung at him after Parker had died had been.

  They’d still been in the emergency room. Pushed to one side while the doctors and nurses had worked frantically to save Parker’s life. Until they accepted that nothing they did made any difference. Until the frenetic busyness fell silent and Olivia had turned to him and said it was all his fault. He hadn’t wanted Parker and now her precious child was gone. Oh, she’d apologized afterward, but once spoken, the words couldn’t be unsaid. Their hurt had spread in him like a voracious disease. Eating away at him until he had nothing left to give.

  She’d blamed him for their son’s death, but no more than he’d blamed himself. It had driven a wedge between them, creating a void that might possibly have been repaired had he needed her less and she’d needed him more. And he had needed her. The depth of his grief terrified him, made him afraid he would sink into the abyss of misery that had claimed his father. So he’d made a tactical withdrawal from his emotions, and, along with that decision, Xander had pulled away from his wife. And she’d done nothing to pull him back again—not until she’d shown up at his hospital room with a smile and a lie.

  Xander picked his clothes up from the floor and bundled them up into a ball. They stank of his fear for what he’d discovered upstairs in the attic and of his grief and anger. He never wanted to see them again. He grabbed clean clothes from the bureau and the wardrobe, then yanked everything else he owned off its hanger and from its drawer and piled it all onto the bed.