And then she listened to the crunch of his boots on ice again as he disappeared around the corner where the garage blocked her view of his car. She heard him drive away into the dusk.
•
“Welcome back to the late edition of the evening news here on KBOI,” she heard come over the TV. One delivery pizza later, and they were still up.
“Want to put in a DVD?” she asked Regan.
“Frog and princess one!” the girl squealed, and ran to the cabinet to find it.
“You really ought to be in bed by now,” Anna chided. She knew the video would lull the child to sleep quickly.
The broadcast continued in the background. “A deadly collision on I-84 earlier tonight has shut down both eastbound lanes. The driver of a Honda Accord, Kermit Schmidt of Meridian, was pronounced dead at the scene of a head-on collision after the elderly man entered the freeway through the off-ramp and drove into oncoming traffic near the airport. The driver of the second vehicle was transported to St. Al’s, and is in critical condition. Witnesses say …”
Regan handed her the DVD, and it slipped through Anna’s fingers onto the floor.
“Mommy, you dropped it.”
The DVD rolled on its edge and settled with a clink onto the tile.
“Oh no.” She watched footage of first responders sliding that second victim into the ambulance. “No, no, no, no.”
“Mommy?”
“Just a sec, honey bug.” She pressed the numbers on the phone. “Come on, come on.” Five hours ago. He’d left the house five hours ago.
Voicemail kicked in.
“Ok,” she said aloud. “He’s on a plane. Plane mode on a cell phone. That has to be it.”
And yet somehow she knew it wasn’t.
She dialed again. “Jess? Can you come get Regan again? I have to go to the hospital. It’s John—”
She sped like a demon onto the freeway for an exit or two, then through back streets across the city.
The hospital parking lot was huge, but at that time of night, not nearly as full as usual. She slammed the car door and ran.
“John Leaven’s room. I need to know which room he’s in,” she gasped out.
“Are you family?” asked the lady at the front desk.
“Yes,” she said. “No. I mean, I’m his girlfriend.”
“Name please?”
“Anna Anderson.”
“I’ll check.”
She walked to the row of blue and gray chairs that lined the sterile waiting room. She paced and counted the burgundy checks on the carpet, counted the rocks that covered the water fountain that spanned the adjacent wall.
Minutes passed and the tears began to flow.
“Ma’am?” A man she took for a doctor rounded the corner. “Are you media?”
She stood quickly, nearly losing her balance. “No. I’m Anna Anderson.” His future.
“He’s in the ICU, but awake. Lucid,” the man said.
She lost her footing entirely and sank back into the chair. “Thank God.”
The doctor sat down beside her. “The problem is, he has paperwork in place. Everything from a living will to instructions detailing next of kin to who’s allowed in an emergency. His celebrity status dictates a lot of that, I imagine. You aren’t on record with his management company, either.”
“William. Get William. He knows me. Or at least about me.”
“We don’t know how to reach William tonight.”
“Are you telling me I can’t even see him?”
The doctor sighed. “Mr. Leaven’s ex-wife and son arrived an hour ago. They’re listed as the only people allowed in the room with him. And the thing is, he doesn’t remember much. He does, however, remember them.”
We made love five hours ago. We were planning a life together.
“I’m sorry, but until he says otherwise, our hands are tied. His record label has already sent security for outside the ICU doors.”
TEN.
January – March
John Leaven stayed behind closed doors the night of the accident and then was transported to Los Angeles where a highly specialized trauma care team awaited him.
The media gave her snippets of information only, and nothing more. The band’s Facebook page was overrun with fan well-wishes.
No one from his life reached out to her—likely they didn’t know how and couldn’t. Her calls to his handlers were never relayed, she was certain.
Security that night tipped off the local police department for assistance as soon as a small group of fans began milling around the automatic glass doors at the main front entrance of the hospital.
Everyone involved was motivated to transport John out of the facility quickly—and he was taken through some back hallway before Anna even knew.
In one heartbreaking instant, it was as if the two of them had never been.
Then the weeks began to pass, and the snow melted with no word. Winter left no trace of itself or of John.
Off and on for that first month, Anna and Regan had driven past the house he had rented not far from their own home. After those weeks went by with no sign of anyone coming or going, a for-rent sign popped back up in the front yard. A month later, new tenants moved in.
The wrapped gift, still done up impeccably in reds and golds, sat untouched, dimmed by dust on the cabinet in the hall. She couldn’t bring herself to open it—as if the moment she did, all hope of the future would be lost. Not even Regan suggested they take a look inside.
Does he remember me? At all?
For some reason she seemed to miss him the most around four PM, and the longing carried into the evening. By then she got by hour to hour, relying on every coping mechanism she knew for handling grief.
On the band’s Facebook page sometime in March, the photos began to appear. John giving the thumbs up sign from his hospital bed. The band gathered in the studio down in Los Angeles—John visibly thinner but looking well otherwise. From the shadows on his face as he bent his head down over his guitar she couldn’t get a read on him really.
She took another perfume contract and started formulating a plan to help the failing scent, which came across sickly sweet to her. Everything came across sick in some way these days, she mused.
She heard her ex-husband had moved to Brazil. Did it even matter?
And Jess was scheduled for a C-section for those twin boys she carried large and low with no small amount of trouble.
“They’re tying the tubes when they’re in there,” she declared. “No more of this for me!”
One of the cable stations was going to run a documentary on Leaven in the summer, and they’d started running commercials for it already.
Anna Anderson was on the outside looking in, and could see no way to change her situation. So little by little she pulled herself upward, albeit in a daze, and started trying to move ahead with her life.
ELEVEN.
April
That’s when the knock caught her off guard.
Spring had begun a little early, and so had a thorough cleaning of the house.
Anna opened the front door cautiously and squinted out into the sun, and when her eyes focused, John Leaven stood on the doorstep in front of her, a baseball cap down low over his eyes, both hands shoved into his pockets.
He toed the edge of the mat with his boot and looked up at her.
Behind him, the flowers she’d just planted in the bed showed their colors brilliantly, and warmth radiated off the cement beside them.
Anna’s breath caught, and she opened her mouth to ask something inane—What are you doing here?—or something similar, but the words dried up and blew away.
He cleared his throat, letting his accent roll over his words. “I remembered everything. We can make this work. I know we can. If you’ll forgive me for my absence?”
Anna turned and looked back inside the house, her hand still grasping the glossy black door as if she might shut it. For the life of her, she wasn’t sure if she wa
s asleep or awake.
“Mommy! Who is it?” Regan pushed around her and peeked past her leg out the door.
“Honey bug, it’s—”
“Oh!” Regan giggled. “It’s him. He looks better in blue though.”
Anna’s head swam. Her eyes filled with tears unbidden, tears created from a touch of fear, a bit of hope and a sudden burst of faith that filled her to the brim and overflowed.
“South Carolina,” she whispered. “And a burger and bottle of water at the bar.” Her hand flew to her mouth. Goosebumps rose on her arms to match the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.
“Excuse me?” he said, shifting his weight. The sunlight struck his eyes and turned them to liquid chocolate.
“I remember when you called me from South Carolina,” she said. “And I think you ‘d had a bottle of water and a burger. But you didn’t tell me that, did you?”
The tears broke loose.
“This makes you cry?” he asked. He smiled in spite of her and looked down at Regan for the first time.
Anna glanced up and the heavens and prayed a silent thank you both for him and whatever mystical magic lurked inside her beautiful little girl.
Then she opened the door—and let him inside.
• • •
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