by Jewel E. Ann
Yes to weekend trips to ski.
Yes to movie nights or Arnie’s concerts.
Yes to helping me in my shop.
Yes to waffles for dinner and cold pizza for breakfast.
Yes to long baths and quickies in the shower.
Then I made her a crossword puzzle that was a treasure hunt.
“I’ll see you soon, if you’re as smart as you say you are.” I kissed her head and handed her the puzzle and a pencil.
“Where are you going?” she asked when I got to the back door.
“You’ll see.” I left.
It took her just over an hour to solve the puzzle and follow the clues they spelled out which led her to me.
“Really?” She rolled her eyes as she walked toward my table at McDonald’s. “All that for a Happy Meal?” She eyed the sack opposite me.
“It’s probably cold since you took so long.” I sipped my chocolate milk.
“The average person wouldn’t have known half of those words. You’re such a geek.” She pulled out her hamburger and apples. “No fries?” She nodded to my empty burger wrapper.
I shook my empty sack. “I’ve had two orders waiting for you.”
Another eye roll just before she took a bite of her sandwich. “I’m going to make you a puzzle that takes you to the grocery store. A list of the things we need.”
“Sounds fun.” I rested my face in my hands.
“Why are you acting so weird?”
I shrugged. “Am I?”
“Yes.” She chuckled, setting her hamburger down after three bites. That was her ritual whether she realized it or not.
Three bites of her sandwich.
Half of her apple slices.
One big sip of her juice.
And then a fishing expedition for the toy in the bottom of the sack.
She pulled out the toy and frowned. “This is an old one. How on earth did they have this to offer?” She inspected the Sponge Bob treasure chest, cracking it open to reveal a diamond ring. After several blinks she glanced up at me.
I nodded to the small group of kids who volunteered literally fifteen minutes earlier to help me. They yelled at the same time. “Will you marry the fisherman?”
Reese jumped and shot her gaze to them. Most of them fell into goofy fits of giggles with their hands covering their mouths. And the small gathering of parents at nearby tables all looked on with big grins, maybe even a few nervous grins. I mean … what if she said no?
Reese turned back to me, and I was waiting on one knee because that’s what you did when you wanted your girl to say yes more than anything.
“Are you going to say yes?” I asked after she blinked a thousand times.
Lifting one shoulder, she relinquished a grin. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Thinking is overrated.” I took the ring and placed it on her finger just before kissing her. “Say yes,” I mumbled over her lips.
She kissed me while nodding, and when the kiss ended … it was another glorious yes.
As I waited for my bride to make her way down the aisle in the church that would have made her dad proud and did please her dad’s parents, I got a little emotional for reasons that had nothing to do with the stunning woman in white.
She never asked. Not once.
I promised a million answers after that Christmas, but Reese never asked. It was like Angie no longer existed in her mind.
She never asked if I had sex with Angie in Costa Rica. I didn’t.
She never asked about my memories of Angie—our engagement, how I felt about her, or why I said yes when she proposed. And unless Angie told someone, the truth remained buried in the past.
I said yes because she was my friend. I said yes because my family adored her. I said yes because she had just lost her mother. I said yes because we were good enough together. And I said yes because I had already let the one go.
But the most revealing part of my memory returning involved the morning of the day of my accident. While the accident itself still remained a black hole in my mind, and for good reasons probably always would, I recalled the heated argument I had with Angie.
Irritation.
Pressure.
Regret.
She had been moving a hundred miles per hour with wedding plans, and it made it hard to breathe. What should have been a happy time in my life felt like impending doom. So after she showed me tux swatch number eight hundred and fifty and asked my opinion on ten different shades of fucking white for the linens at the reception, I cracked. I said some things I instantly regretted. As tears rolled down her cheeks, she muttered the words, “Do you even want to marry me?”
And I spoke my truth with a whispered, “No.”
I wasn’t engaged when the truck knocked me off my motorcycle. And Angie shared everything about our past that suited her narrative, her desperation to keep me. And given the short amount of time between breaking off our engagement and the accident that afternoon, nobody else knew the truth.
The funny part? I wasn’t mad. People did desperate things for love. Angie didn’t know about my relationship with Reese. She didn’t think her slight omission was hurting anyone. Her actions, although dishonest, were also out of love. She did love me. She did take care of me after my accident as I had taken care of her after her mom died. And maybe she thought I would fall in love with her again. My accident serving as a reset on our relationship.
So what?
It didn’t stop me from falling in love with Reese for a second time.
It didn’t stop her from giving me all the yeses.
And since I never told anyone but Reese and my doctor about my memory returning, it really didn’t matter.
So as Rory and Rose walked Reese down the aisle, I fought the ache in my chest, the feeling that I was undeserving of such perfection. She was about to marry me without the answers to her million questions. Reese loved me like I had always imagined God (if He existed) loved us.
My heart pounded so violently; it was hard to hear past the whooshing sound in my ears. But the second Rory and Rose took their seats, and Reese placed her hand in mine, my heart found its normal rhythm again, and I could hear the final notes of the harp and her whispered, “Hey, handsome,” as she grinned.
I swallowed so hard and fought to keep my shit together. There was no way I was going to cry when my girl showed such control, like marrying me was just the next simple step in her journey.
I made it to the end with dry eyes, but just barely. Reese gave away a tear or two when I said the words “I do.” And my thumbs quickly caught them as the minister gave me permission to kiss my bride.
For a guy who was in no hurry to get married, I walked my wife out of that church with a puffed-out chest and the cheesiest grin.
“It’s likely I won’t be able to answer my phone, but I’ll call you as soon as possible. If things get really sticky, you know my mom and Rose will happily come help. If it’s an actual emergency—”
“Call 9-1-1. Got it,” I said.
Reese frowned. “Of course, but I was going to say, call Holly. She’s not on call, but she lives across the street from the birth center.”
“You know … this isn’t my first rodeo.” I rocked our little girl like the fucking pro I was while our three-year-old son played in his room. It was Reese’s first full day back to work (her first birth) since maternity leave.
I knew how to warm milk and thaw more if needed.
Diapers? No problem.
Crying? I had the best football hold and most soothing gait in the whole damn state, and my wife knew it.
It was the weekend, so there was a one hundred percent chance her family and mine would be popping in nonstop to get their baby fix or take Aiden to the park and to get ice cream.
“Fisher …” She frowned before leaning over to kiss Claire’s tiny cheek as she rested on my chest in the recliner.
“You’ve been spoiled. Most working moms don’t get to wear their babies to work.
You can’t wear her to a birth. So just go before the baby arrives without you.”
Reese had been so spoiled that way. She looked like a woman from Ghana wearing Aiden and now Claire to work … magically tied to her with some long piece of material. And that worked for clinic days when no one was in labor.
After she kissed Claire, she hovered over my face, surrendering enough of her pouty demeanor to offer me a tiny grin because she knew I was right.
“She won’t take a pacifier, so don’t even try.”
“I know.” I smiled. “She’s like her dad … only the real deal will satisfy her.”
I managed to squeeze a bigger smile from her as she rolled her eyes.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
She slowly rubbed her lips together, teasing me as usual. “I’m thinking about it.”
The End
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Fisher
Chapter Sixteen
I caved.
After sufficient pestering from family, I made an appointment with a therapist. It wasn’t overly thrilling, but at least I could say I went. As I entered the office, a younger man started to brush past me. Then he stopped.
“Oh, hi,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied and kept walking because I didn’t recognize him.
“Fisher, right?”
I turned. “Yeah. Do I know you? Sorry …” I shook my head. “I had an accident and my memory of certain things and people isn’t great.”
“Sorry to hear that. I’m Brendon, Reese’s friend. Uh … from church. I’m an attorney.” He shook his head. “Not … that that matters. I’m not her attorney. And maybe we’re no longer friends. I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her since she broke off our engagement.”
What the fuck?
“Engagement?”
Brendon frowned. “Yeah,” he whispered. “In less than twenty-four hours, I got engaged and my heartbroken. Shortest engagement ever.”
Really … what the actual fuck?
“That’s …” I had no idea how to respond. I was glad she didn’t marry that Brendon guy, but he seemed like he wasn’t okay. “That’s rough. She’s uh … actually back here in Denver.”
Brendon nodded, mouth corkscrewed. “Really?”
“Yeah. She’s a nurse. Working to become a midwife. And she’s living with her mom at the moment.”
“A midwife …” Something resembling a small grin replaced his forlorn expression. “She’ll be a wonderful midwife. If you see her, tell her I said hi.”
I continued to study his expression. It transformed into something like pride. “I will.”
That night and most of the following day, since I still had so many things I couldn’t remember, I focused on what I could remember.
Reese was engaged, not for long. But still … engaged. I wondered if Rory knew? She never mentioned it. Or maybe she did. My memory wasn’t exactly reliable.
When I returned home from an evening jog, Reese was standing at the end of my driveway, staring at my house. Maybe waiting to knock on my door? She was probably worried that Angie was there.
“She’s out of town,” I said, removing my earbuds. “She asked me to take her car to get the oil changed if I had time. Seemed like a nice thing to do.”
She grinned at me like she wasn’t listening to me talk about the woman everyone thought I was going to marry. “One in eighty thousand babies are born en caul. That means it comes out of its mother’s body still in the amniotic fluid sac. It’s the most amazing sight. I …” She shook her head.
She was the most amazing sight.
“I can’t even describe it. But I saw it. I. Saw. It!”
Something that could only be described as the perfect feeling, the purest happiness, took over my entire body. “Do you need to kiss somebody?”
Again, she shook her head. “Not somebody. I need to kiss you.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Her giggle did things to me (so many things) as she leaped into my arms and kissed me with her soft hands framing my face. I grabbed her butt. I wanted to grab every inch of her and never let go. At the same time, I thought about Brendon. Did she look at him the way she looked at me? Did she give him the same smile?
“You got your cast off. How does it feel?”
“Better on your ass.” I pulled her closer. “Are you coming inside? Or did you just come here to stare at my house?”
Reese gave me her dramatic eye roll. “Nobody was home at my house. And I had to tell someone, so I ran over here.”
“So I am just somebody?”
She clenched the neck of my hoodie. “I share you, so you have to share me and my enthusiasm. If you must know, I was looking for my mom and Rose first because occasionally I value self-preservation. And I was reminded of that when I got here and saw Angie’s car.”
Reese shared me with nobody. There was no competition. How could she not see that? I so badly wanted to say the words, but nothing in my life had been simple since the accident. I didn’t feel like it was really even my life. I felt like I was trying to live the life everyone thought I was supposed to live, like everyone knew me better than I knew myself.
And maybe that was the case before Reese. She changed that. I knew one thing, the only thing that mattered—I liked me with her, and that was no accident.
“Come trim my beard before I get into the shower.”
“Your cast is off.”
I smiled, taking her hands and returning them to my face. “Come trim my beard before I get into the shower.”
“I have to get home soon. I’m still on call for the next few days.”
“Come trim my beard before I get in the shower.”
Again, she rewarded me with that laugh that I felt in every cell of my body. “Remember what I said about self-preservation?”
Guiding her hand to my lips, I kissed her palm. “I would never hurt you. What do you want for your birthday?”
Stealing her hands from my face, she chuckled. “To not go camping with you and your fiancée. I realize you can’t say you’re sick because you never get sick, but you could make up some excuse.”
“How do you know that I never get sick?”
“Because you told me.” She shrugged.
Why couldn’t I remember her? She was the most unforgettable person I had ever met. “I don’t remember that.”
“I know you don’t. Trust me … I know.”
That bothered me so much more than she knew. Taking her hand, I pulled her away from the front door.
“I’m going home.” She tried to move away from me.
“Eventually,” I said, keeping a tight hold on her hand.
“Fisher …”
“Nurse Capshaw, queen of the veiled birth.”
After I closed the door and tried to release her hand, she squeezed mine like I had just done to hers. “Veiled birth?”
“It’s another term for en caul,” I said.
“I’m aware. But how do you know that?”
With a shrug, I gazed down at my feet for a beat. “Probably a crossword puzzle or something.”
“I haven’t put that in my puzzles.”
As I started to turn away, she tugged my hand again. “Fisher Mann … you like crossword puzzles. You liked them before I made them for you.”
I’d had this feeling for quite some time that Reese was always on the verge of saying more, like every time she spoke, she stopped just short of … something.
“Are you genuinely asking me or are you testing me?”
“What do you mean?” She bit her lower lip.
“I know so much about Angie that there are some days I don’t feel like I’ve lost memories of her. I start to wonder if the events in my head are my memories or things I’ve been told because I’ve been told everything. The only test I have with her is my feelings. I don’t remember how I felt about her. But with you it’s different.
”
“Different how?” She released my hand.
“I feel like you’ve given me bits and pieces, on a need-to-know basis. My story with Angie makes sense in my head. Childhood friends. On and off again relationship when we got older. Me doing my thing. Her doing her thing. Our families keeping us connected. She comes back to town for her mom. We rekindle our romance. Even if I don’t feel it now, it makes sense to me.”
With an uncomfortable grin, she widens her eyes and fiddles with the hem of her shirt. I noticed she did that a lot when she was nervous. “Well, that’s good.”
“From everything my family has told me about who I was, I don’t think I would have taken a part-time employee to my workshop. I wouldn’t have showed her how to sand anything. Yet that’s your story.”
She wouldn’t look at me. “You thought a lot of Rory. I’m sure it was a favor to her. And I was relentless. You probably just did it to shut me up.”
There was something … I couldn’t put my finger on it … just something that she was hiding from me, but I had no clue why.
“Why were you so certain I’d like crossword puzzles?”
“I wasn’t. Why are you being so weird? Have you remembered something? Memories can return slowly, and they can cause confusion as you try to piece them together and make sense of them.”
“Do you know an attorney named Brendon?”
She swallowed so hard I thought she might choke on her tongue. It said everything.
“What? Why?”
“Because I saw him yesterday.”
“Where?”
“At my therapist’s office.”
“You have a therapist?”
I nodded.
“Since when?” she asked.
“Since yesterday.”
“Why?”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“We are. Why?”
“Because I was in an accident. I’m missing part of my memory, and I have a fiancée and maybe a girlfriend.” That sounded so fucking insane. I hated it. “And it’s not my point anyway.”
“What’s your point?”
“Brendon recognized me. He must be a patient at the same office. He was leaving when I arrived. He said hi. Of course, I had to apologize for not knowing him and give him my quick spiel about my accident.”