Storm Surge

by Celia Ashley

  The door closed again.

  Caleb moved to another chair and sat down. He leaned forward, elbows on thighs, hands folded together between his knees. The shifting of his body renewed pain in every muscle and tendon. Reaching up, he fingered the back of his head to trace again the contours of the vicious lump. He remembered a flurry of fists, grunting blows, and male voices raised in harsh invective, but he didn’t recall the words. Was one of those voices his? Could have been. Yes, it could have been his voice. He remembered…nothing. Nothing else.

  Damn it.

  Once more, the door opened. The woman stepped onto the porch holding out a T-shirt. Gratefully, he took it, then slipped the garment over his head. It smelled as if it had been left sitting in a drawer. Not that it mattered.

  “Your husband’s?” he asked, not certain from what part of his brain such a question came.

  She nodded.

  “Is he here?”

  “He’s dead,” she said.

  “Oh.” Caleb ran his hand through his salt-encrusted hair. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  She moved to the chair where her shawl lay and bent to pick up the items he had deposited there. Brushing the sand and crushed shell from the seat into her hand as well, she walked to the porch railing and sprinkled them into the garden below, permitting them to flow through a loose fist. Her eyes closed as she did this, as if something ritualistic existed in the execution of her action. He wondered what had happened to her husband, if maybe she did this in his memory.

  “His ship went down in a storm.”

  He started, meeting her eyes. Her direct gaze made him shiver.

  “That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?” she said, brushing her hands clean. “You were wondering how he died.”

  Caleb shivered again within the confines of a dead man’s shirt. “Yes,” he admitted, “I was.”

  She nodded, her longs bangs swinging forward. “A year ago today,” she told him quietly.

  Today. Caleb said nothing.

  She moved back across the porch, stopping before the chair opposite him where she gathered up the shawl and sat, holding the garment balled against her stomach. With her feet tucked around the outside of the legs of the chair, knees angled together, she appeared innocent and vulnerable. Caleb’s stomach churned. He shoved a fist against his abdomen in an effort to control the response.

  “I dream about him most nights,” she confided in a voice barely above a whisper, her eyes intent on his own. “But not always. This morning, though, on the anniversary of his death, I dreamed about someone else. I didn’t realize it until I saw you on the beach. I’m fairly certain I dreamed of you.”

  Stunned by her speech, Caleb sat back hard against the chair frame. His breath exploded as the knot at the base of his skull met wood, causing him to jerk forward again, bright pinpoints of light dancing before his eyes.

  He couldn’t remember the fundamental particulars about himself and his life, but he knew what dreams were without requiring an explanation. What she said made no sense to him. None at all. Unless—

  “What do you mean? Do you know me?” he asked again. Perhaps she didn’t know his name, but she might recall having seen him somewhere. Something. Anything.

  She raised her eyes from a fierce contemplation of the air between them. After a moment of consideration, she shook her head. He licked his dry, salty lips as he shifted on the seat, frowning at the pain wracking his body. Observing his movements, she reached into her pocket and drew out a narrow black object, holding it on her palm. From somewhere in the recesses of murky recognition, he recognized a cell phone. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling the police,” she said.

  Don’t let her. Don’t let her. Don’t let her.

  The force of the voice in his head caused him to gasp, recognizing without understanding that an instinct for preservation spoke to him. “Don’t,” he said and added “please” more sedately at the widening of her eyes.

  She displayed no further consternation at his command, just cocked her head to the side, her gaze turning contemplative as if studying him. Even so, he could see the pulse beating beneath her jaw, the momentary suspension of her respiration.

  “Why not?” she asked after a moment, still holding the phone at the ready in her hand.

  He tried to dredge up a reply she would find suitable. He couldn’t imagine where to begin. “God, I don’t know,” he answered, lowering his head into his hand, shoving fingers deep into his tangled hair. “I don’t. I don’t know. I…I don’t know.”

  He heard a short, decisive inhalation and looked up in time to witness her returning the phone to her pocket. Fingers curled loosely, she lowered her right hand into her left across her stomach. “Don’t you want to go to the hospital?”

  “Why?”

  “Aren’t you hurt?”

  She waited for his reply. Caleb didn’t believe he’d ever seen eyes so green, though he couldn’t recall for certain. He straightened in the chair, folding his hands in his lap. “What makes you think I’m hurt?”

  Blowing out a breath, she stood, tucking the sand-spattered shawl against her abdomen. “You can hardly move,” she said. “And the wound to your head—”

  “How do you know I have a head wound?”

  Her mouth twisted in wry amusement. “I could say I dreamed it, but I didn’t. You told me you thought you’d been hit on the head. Even if you hadn’t, you wince every time you touch the back of your skull. That and the fact you can’t remember who you are are fairly good indicators of some sort of head trauma. Which,” she added, “is why you should have a doctor check you out. Even if you don’t want the police involved, I could call an ambulance or, well, I suppose I could drive you to the hospital myself.”

  Possessing a certain amount of defiance in her expression, she did not look away from him. Her stance shifted, and her hand lifted to assist him in rising. He wondered at her trust in a stranger, standing so close to him with her hand extended, as if she had no idea how easily he could overpower her if he had the inclination. He could remember nothing about his past life. For all he knew, he could be a nasty sort of person, a dangerous man. After all, someone had tried to kill him, hadn’t they? Somebody must have had good reason for that.

  “Not yet,” he whispered. His aversion to the possibility of questions, of a need for answers he could not provide, worried him. Was he taking a foolish risk, not getting medical help? Still, he didn’t think his injuries were life threatening. He felt no weakness, no disorientation beyond his inability to recall.

  “You could be bleeding internally. You could have a skull fracture.”

  He rubbed his eyes, sand grating across his lids. “Are you suggesting I might die?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not a doctor.”

  Through the slats of the porch railing, he saw the sea, the fog lifting above the waves. Possibly, he’d walked to the beach from somewhere else and collapsed here, but that didn’t seem likely. In fact, he knew better. The sensation of plunging into the ocean, tumbling through the cold, salty tides, though not quite memory, had the resonation of truth.

  “I know a doctor who will come to the house. I’ve had him here before. He is…well, discreet. At least he can check you out, and if he feels you need to go to a hospital, you will. If not, well, that’s up to you then.”

  Up to him. What would he do if this doctor pronounced him well enough to avoid treatment? How would he even begin to know what steps to take next? Avoiding thought of all the unimaginable possibilities, he nodded at her. “Fine,” he said. “Let him come.”

  She walked to the far side of the porch, talking into the instrument she’d pulled back out of her pocket, glancing at him over her shoulder as she spoke. After a few minutes, she returned. “He’ll be here shortly. You may as well wait inside.”

  He eyed her with bewilderment. “You’re not afraid to have me in your
house?”

  “Should I be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do.” She held out her hand again. Swallowing, he slipped his fingers into hers and allowed her to pull him up from his seat with surprising strength. Standing before her, he smelled the sea in her hair, the fresh air, and a faint suffusion of citrus. The top of her head barely came up to his collarbone. A feeling of protectiveness stole over him, making him frown.

  “Are you sure you don’t know me?” Because it sure as hell feels like I know you.

  “Positive,” she said. “And by the way, my name is Meg. Meg Donovan.” Clutching the shawl in her fist, she headed inside, leaving the door standing wide. Confounded, Caleb followed her into the house, the inside of his borrowed pants chafing like sandpaper over thighs and calves and along the tender flesh of his testicles. He trailed her from the back door into the kitchen, where she indicated he should sit in a chair she slid from the table. She pulled back the curtains to allow more light into the room and walked behind him across worn linoleum to take a glass down from a cabinet. Outside the window, he saw the sun had broken through the fog, golden light reflecting in a shimmer on the pale blue ceiling of the porch. She opened the refrigerator and rummaged around inside before returning to stand beside him.

  “Here,” Meg said, handing him a glass of something orange. Orange juice. Yes, he remembered that. “Drink it slowly. Are you warm enough? I can get you a blanket if you need one. Sometimes shock—”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Hardly.”

  Circling around the table, she pulled out a chair on the opposite side and sat, folding her hands on the scarred painted surface. “So you know your name.”

  He nodded.

  “Amnesia is a fascinating condition,” she went on. “Not to you, I’m sure, but it’s odd what the brain might pick and choose in terms of recollection. I’m thinking in the most severe cases, you wouldn’t be able to walk or communicate or even pick up that glass, but I could be wrong.”

  Mulling over her words as he took several sips from the glass, he welcomed the slightly acidic burn in his throat. He set the glass down. “So you’re saying I’m not too bad off, even though I can’t remember a single goddamn thing except my name?”

  “But that’s not exactly true, is it?” Her gaze held his until she rose and stepped away from the table, leaving to answer a distant knock on another door. He clutched the glass of juice in both hands on the tabletop, staring past to a series of lines scratched into the table’s wooden surface. Not random, but seeming to spell out a word, a word he couldn’t focus on as he thought about what she had said. How did she know? How did she know about the jumble of thoughts he held inside this fragile bubble in his mind?

  “Caleb Hunter?” a deep voice said. “I’m Dr. Redecker, and I hear you may need my help.”

  Caleb spun on the chair to face the man standing between him and the interior kitchen door with a vague hope the man’s face would be familiar. The gray hair, heavy countenance, and steady blue gaze meant nothing to him. This total lack of recollection made him understand something else, something he hadn’t understood earlier. When looking into the eyes of the woman in whose kitchen he sat, he didn’t see a stranger.