Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour

by Hannah, Kristin

  He gave a lopsided, half smile. “Ironically, I think she loves me … but I don’t know now if she was ever in love with me.” Liam paused, then asked, “Have you ever had a family, Julian? I mean, a real family that lasts through good times and bad … the kind that keeps you out of the deep end?”

  The question stung. He’d always wanted a family, but a family was give-and-take. He had always specialized in take-and-take. His only chance had been Kayla; if he’d held on to her, he might have known what it felt like to belong to a group of people who loved you no matter what, who cried when you failed and cheered when you won.

  Julian patted his pocket, looking for a pack of cigarettes, then remembered he was in the hospital. Liam was staring at him now, seeing him. Julian felt as if his insides were splayed out on an operating table for Liam to see, and like a smoker’s lungs, they were black and ruined.

  Julian didn’t answer. Finally, Liam pulled up a chair and sat down. For the next hour, they took turns talking quietly to Kayla.

  After a while, Liam looked up at the clock. “Well, I have to get going. The kids’ll be home soon.” He stood up and stroked Kayla’s cheek. “Heya, babe. I’ll be back tomorrow.” Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead, murmuring a word that Julian couldn’t make out.

  Liam was almost to the door when Julian asked, “How do you do it?”

  Liam glanced back at him, his hand on the door handle. “Do what?”

  “How do you keep believing she’ll wake up?”

  “I love her.”

  Julian frowned. “I know. But how do you do it?”

  Liam’s gaze flicked over to his wife. “I have to.”

  Julian watched Liam leave the room. Without Liam there, the silence felt awkward. He moved closer to the bed, picked up Kayla’s limp hand, and squeezed it hard. “How is it I can remember falling in love with you, and have so little memory of the end? Our love affair is clear as glass, but our marriage, our life is … gone. All I remember is the day you left. I don’t even remember trying to stop you. Did I? Did I ever say, ‘Don’t leave me’? Did I know what I would become without you?” He sighed. “Jesus, Kayla, did I even care?”

  She hears him call her name.

  She tries to reach for him, but there is nothing beside her. She feels the panic building again, swirling around her.

  Pictures twirl through her mind like images in a child’s viewfinder, and when they stop, she is somewhere else. A house.

  She tries to say something, to call out, but there is something wrong with her throat. In the distance she can hear a moan. It is her … or maybe not …

  She is in Hollywood now, in their home, waiting for Julian. She is staring out the window; all she can see is gray. Gray trees, gray flowers, gray sky; the only color is a black crow sitting on a branch, cawing down at her.

  No, it isn’t a crow. It is her baby’s cry. She instinctively turns to go to her daughter, but she hears the nanny’s footsteps. She hesitates, afraid to intrude on the older, sour-faced woman who seems to know everything about taking care of baby girls.

  She is tired of this life filled with laughter and drugs and sex that happens in other people’s beds. Tired of thin, beautiful women with vacant eyes who never carry photos of children in their wallets. She is lonely, more now than ever. Since Jacey’s birth, Julian is distant. He never holds his daughter or talks to her. Instead he hires other women to do the chores that Kayla longs to do herself.

  How can it not have changed him, this bringing of a child into their lives? It has transformed her every cell.

  She stands in the shadows of the living room, beside the ornate gas fireplace that holds the sounds and color of fire, but none of the heat.

  When Julian gets home—late, as usual, and smelling of another woman’s perfume—she sees how old and tired he looks, and she wonders how long he has looked this way, how long she has overlooked his deterioration. The drugs and alcohol have left marks on his skin, on everything, even the way he moves, all slow motion.

  “Jules?”

  He turns to her, smiling before he even sees her. “Hey, baby.”

  As he gets closer, she can see the red cast to his eyes, the way his nose is running from too much cocaine. He moves unsteadily, a marionette with broken strings, and it breaks her heart, seeing this so clearly.

  She takes his hands in hers, trying not to notice the way his fingers are shaking, the dampness in his palms. “We have to talk, Jules.”

  She sees the flash of irritation in his eyes. Even though he tries to hide it, she sees. “Not again, Kay. Jesus, not again … I know I missed the kid’s birthday party. Let’s not rehash it forever.” He pulls free and goes to the bar, making himself a cocktail, drinking it too fast. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Baggie of cocaine.

  She watches him snort the drug, and there is no word to describe the depth of her sadness. She turns away from him. “We have to change our lives, Julian.”

  “I know, baby,” he whispers, kissing her cheeks, her eyelids, cupping her face in his hands. “And we will.”

  It is the answer he’s given her a dozen times, but it’s not good enough anymore.

  “I can’t watch you kill yourself, Jules. I … love you too much for that. And I can’t let Juliana grow up in this world. I want her to know how it feels to be safe.”

  He frowns. “You mean it this time.”

  She turns away from him and goes back to the big picture window. It is funny, she thinks, how fast a life can change. One minute, one set of words that really say nothing at all, and you see what you hadn’t seen before.

  She feels him come up behind her. The window reflects his faded image. “You meant what you said in Sunville,” she says dully. “You didn’t really want to marry me.”

  “I didn’t want to lose you.”

  She wonders if he sees the continent that separates her question from his answer.

  She can’t raise Juliana in this world. No matter how much she loves Julian, she can’t do this to her daughter. If there’s one thing Kayla knows, it’s the pain of a father who can’t be bothered to spend time with his child. “I’m sorry, Julian,” she whispers, feeling the tears fall down her cheeks.

  His arms circle her, holding tightly. “I love you, Kayla, but I can’t give all this up. It’s who I am.”

  She touches his face. “I love you, Julian, more than …” She can’t finish. There is nothing big enough to compare to her love for this man. “I wish we were old and gray and all of this was behind us,” she says at last. “I wish we were sixty years old and we could sit together by the fire with pictures of our grandchildren between us … and laugh about these times. I wish …” Her voice gets caught in the ache spreading through her insides, and she can’t say more.

  It is too much for her, these memories. She closes her eyes and sinks again into the sweet, blessed darkness …

  At dinner that night, Liam tried to smile and make conversation with his beloved children, but all he could really hear were the tinny silences that collected between his sentences. As he helped himself to another serving of rice, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hollowed silver surface of an oversized spoon.

  The fear hit him then; it was like plunging into Angel Lake on winter’s deepest night.

  His hand started shaking. The silver spoon rattled against his pewter plate.

  “Daddy?” Bret said, wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”

  Liam dropped his spoon and held his hands out. If anyone was surprised by the suddenness of his action, there was no sign of it. “Let’s hold hands,” he said.

  Around the table, they reached out for one another. Liam felt Bret’s small hand slip into his; then Jacey took hold of his other hand. Rosa reached out at the other end.

  In their gentle, trusting touch, Liam felt it return, the faith he needed.

  “Let’s pray. Rosa, will you do the honors?”

  Across the table, she was watching him. He could tell that s
he understood. She nodded briefly and closed her eyes, bowing her head. Her lovely, lyrical voice was like music in the silence. “Heavenly Father, we thank You for the four of us at this table, for the love we share and the strength we find in each other. We thank You for Mikaela’s continued life, still as it may be. We know You are watching out for her and protecting her and blessing her with Your presence in the darkness of her sleep. Once again, we offer You our humble prayers that she will soon come back into the loving arms of her family. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

  Liam opened his eyes and looked at his children. “I love you,” he said softly.

  It was like that these days. The best of times were quiet moments like this one, tucked into the corners of what passed for everyday life. They were learning, each of them, to notice the things they’d once taken for granted.

  And to be thankful for the life that was left.

  Part Four

  Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.

  —SØREN KIERKEGAARD

  Chapter Eighteen

  The water is now a beautiful aqua blue. She is at the bottom of a swimming pool, staring up. Her limbs feel heavy; the water resists her movements, but she has learned that if she really concentrates, focuses all of her will, she can lift her fingers and wiggle her toes. She knows that at some time, long ago, this would have been next to nothing, something the tiniest newborn can do, but to her, in this pool of endless clear blue water, it is everything.

  She is floating up through the water, rising, rising, her body weightless. The water moves easily aside for her and buoys her.

  As she reaches the surface, the water slides away from her face. She gasps, breathing in the sweet, pine-scented air, then sucking greedily. Her fingers twitch, and she is reaching for something … the shadow in front of her.

  She opens her eyes and immediately cries out. The light is so bright, she cannot stand the brightness.

  “She opened her eyes. Jesus Christ, Mike … we’re here …”

  She takes a deep, calming breath and opens her eyes again. At first the world is a confusing, jarring mixture of white-hot light and black, slanting shadows. She can feel something warm against her palm. She tries to grasp hold, but her fingers are weighted down again, unresponsive.

  She blinks; it takes all her concentration to turn her head. Something stops the movement, a swell of cottony fabric.

  The shadows spin in front of her, waving like mirages on a desert highway, then, slowly, slowly, they begin to take shape.

  There are three people around her, men.

  Julian. She sees him, sees those beloved blue eyes staring down at her. She reaches out for him, meaning to touch his face in the gentlest caress, but her control is shot, and she slaps him hard across the cheek. She means to laugh at the surprise on his face, but instead she bursts into tears. More water, sliding down her cheeks now, tasting salty, like the black sea that held her captive, and she is afraid. She can’t stop crying.

  She tries to talk. It hurts, burns. Still, she pushes a sound up her cracked, broken throat, and when the word comes out, mangled and unfamiliar, she weeps even harder. “Ju … li … an.”

  “I’m here, baby,” he says in the voice she remembers so well, the voice that seems connected to the tender cords in her heart.

  “Kayla, baby, are you there? Squeeze my hand.”

  She opens her eyes again, blinking slowly.

  It seemed to take her hours to focus, but when she did, she saw him standing beside her, staring down at her, and she felt a rush of joy. “You came … back.”

  Another man leaned toward her. On the front of his white coat, it read Dr. Liam Campbell. “Hi, Mike.”

  She frowned and tried to turn her head to look for Mike. It tired her and she gave up. She tried to remember how she got here, but there was nothing. She remembered every moment of her life up to when she said good-bye to Julian. After that, there was a complete and utter blankness. It terrified her. “I … don’t … where …”

  “You’re in the hospital,” someone says.

  “Juliana,” she croaked. “Where’s my baby?”

  “Baby?” Julian turned to the other man. “What the hell is going on?”

  Something was wrong. She’d been hurt, she realized suddenly. Hurt. And they wouldn’t answer her question about Juliana. Oh, God …

  The other man touched her face, and there was a gentleness in him that calmed her. She blinked up at his watery, out-of-focus face. He blotted her tears with a tissue. “Don’t cry, Mike. Your daughter is fine. She’s okay.”

  She trusted him. Juliana’s okay. “Who …”

  “Don’t rush it, sweetheart. Take it slowly.”

  “Who … are you?” she asked at last.

  Before he answered, she lost interest. Her head felt so heavy, so … broken. All that mattered was that her baby was okay.

  She closed her eyes and sank back into the cool, blue water, back to the place where it was calm and warm and she was unafraid.

  “Retrograde amnesia.”

  Liam and Julian were seated in front of Stephen Penn’s massive oak desk. Stephen looked worn and tired.

  Liam leaned forward, rested his arms on his thighs. “In posttraumatic—”

  “Goddamn it, wait a sec.” Julian shot to his feet. He prowled the small office like a caged lion, repeatedly running his hand through his hair. “I haven’t had twenty years of college and I don’t know what you two are talking about. What in the hell is retrograde amnesia?”

  Stephen removed the small, circular spectacles from his face, carefully setting them down on the cluttered surface of the desk. He didn’t look at Liam as he spoke. “At the moment of serious trauma, the brain stops accumulating memories. That’s why a victim of serious brain injury rarely remembers the actual incident itself. More often than not, the last clear memory is one that happened days or weeks … or even years before. These are often powerful, significant memories—weddings, births, that sort of thing. It appears that Mikaela’s mind is … trapped, if you will, some years ago. She seems to believe that Jacey is still a baby.” He paused. “Clearly she doesn’t remember her life with Liam at all.”

  “How long do you think the amnesia will last?” Liam asked, even though he knew the answer.

  “There is no way of knowing,” Stephen said slowly. “Although chances are that she will remember. Long-term retrograde amnesia is rare.” His voice softened. “But it does happen.”

  “How can we help her?” Liam asked quietly.

  “Right now she’s afraid and confused. We want to tread very, very carefully. The mind is a fragile thing, much more delicate than the brain. We don’t want to overwhelm her with frightening information.” At last he looked at Liam. “I think it’s best if we let it come back naturally.”

  Liam sighed tiredly. “You’re saying that the kids and I should stay away.”

  “I’m sorry, Liam. I can only imagine how hard this is for you. But I think she needs some time to let her mind heal. Can you imagine realizing that you’d lost fifteen years of your life?”

  “Yes,” Liam said, “I can imagine it.” He leaned forward and hung his head, staring down at the Oriental carpet so long, the colors smeared into one big bruise.

  What in God’s name was he going to tell his children?

  Julian went to a pay phone and called Val. “She woke up today,” he said when Val answered.

  “No shit. How is she?”

  “She’s got amnesia. She doesn’t remember anything of the last fifteen years. She thinks we’re still married.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “She’s still in love with me, Val. With none of the bad memories of our breakup.”

  Val made a low, whistling sound. “Jesus Christ, what did you do—script this? It’s a goddamn fairy tale and you’re the prince. The press’ll love this.”

  Julian sagged against the wall. “You don’t get it. How am
I going to tell her that I never came back for her. Val? Val?”

  His answer was a dial tone.

  With a curse, Julian hung up the phone. For the first time since he’d gotten here, he was afraid.

  She was alive. That was the miracle Liam needed to focus on. Over the past weeks, he had asked God to heal her, to help her open her eyes. All the while, he’d prepared himself for the physical impairments that could come with an extended coma. Paralysis, brain damage, even death—these he’d readied himself to handle. He’d never asked God to return her memories.

  Now, as he drove home, he reminded himself that retrograde amnesia was a common short-term side effect of severe brain injury.

  Short term. Those words were the ledge he tried to hold on to, but they kept crumbling beneath the weight of his fear.

  What if she never remembered him or the kids?

  He concentrated on breathing; it didn’t seem like much, but if he didn’t think about it, he stumbled into a place where panic was inches from his face, where he had to draw in great, sucking breaths just to survive.

  Who are you?

  Would he ever forget those words? Forget the pain that knifed through him in that single, horrifying moment when she’d said Julian’s name … and then asked Liam who he was.

  He knew that her condition was purely medical in nature, a lapse in the function of her traumatized brain. But he was a man as well as a doctor, and the man in him felt like any man would feel. As if in twelve years of life together, of moments big and small, of a love that was enacted in errands and dinners and bedtime conversations, Liam had left no mark on her at all.

  As if his love were like the waves that shifted and shaped, but never really changed the shore.

  He was being foolish. She loved her children with every strand of her soul, and she had forgotten them, too—

  No, that wasn’t right. She’d only forgotten Bret; Liam’s son. She remembered Jacey. And Julian.

  He couldn’t shake a terrible, rising panic that in the end, his love would count for nothing. And what would he tell his children? They’d been through so much pain already, so much fear. Poor Bret had courageously visited her day after day, singing her favorite songs to her, waiting for a smile. It would crush him to discover that his mom didn’t remember him. One blank look and Bret would crumble.