Elizabeth Harbison - Wife Without a Past

She turned back to the stranger before her. Something about his expression was compelling, but she figured that under the circumstances she would be safer just getting away from him. She gave a polite smile and said, “Excuse me.”

She started to brush past, when he grasped her upper arm and spun her around to face him.

They were inches apart. His eyes were lined faintly with red, making him look more tragic than threatening. Mary’s breath caught in her throat, but for some reason the terror she expected didn’t reach her.

A small muscle twitched on the side of his clenched jaw, as if he were keeping some emotion in close check.

She stood frozen, mesmerized by his eyes, as he lifted his other hand to her shoulder and slowly pulled her toward him. Why wasn’t she afraid? Any reasonable person would be hightailing it out of there, but she didn’t move. The pounding of her heart felt more like excitement than fear.

His hand slipped around to her shoulder blade. The movement was hypnotic, almost as if it were familiar to her. She knew exactly what was next. She saw it coming like a locomotive but was powerless to stop it.

She didn’t want to stop it.

He pulled her to him and his mouth descended onto hers. The touch of his lips was a spark. When he deepened his kiss and she felt his tongue probe her mouth, the spark became a raging flame. With an instinct wholly unfamiliar to her, she closed her eyes and raised her hands to the back of his head, tangling her fingers in his thick, dark hair.

This was a dance her body knew, even if her mind didn’t.

She felt his shuddering breath on her skin, and her body echoed it. He ran his hands down her sides, slipped them around to her lower back and crushed her to him. Their bodies pressed together like palms in a handshake. Mary drew in a breath and released it in a sigh. His powerful embrace made her feel as if she was finally in exactly the right place.

Which was crazy, she knew, but it was also too comfortable to fight.

His mouth moved over hers, reacting to her movements in a practiced way. Everything felt right. Like the last piece clicking easily, triumphantly, into a puzzle.

Except that it wasn’t right, it was wrong. This was a stranger! She had to stop.

“Stop!” Mary pulled back with some effort “What do you think you’re doing?” Her voice was too breathy to be commanding. “That’s assault!” Maybe, but on whose part? Why did I do that?

“I thought I’d lost it when I saw you yesterday,” the man said in a husky voice that made her insides quiver. “I thought I was nuts, but it was you.”

Yesterday. What was yesterday? Had they met before? Was that why he seemed familiar? Mary concentrated and remembered. This was the man who watched her drive past in the cab. The only reason she remembered was because the way he’d looked at her had made her feel so peculiar. She’d had a crazy impulse to tell the driver to take her back so she could talk to the man. But she had nothing to say to him. Then or now.

Her eyes returned to the man before her and she found her voice. “I think you must have me confused with someone else.” There. That was a nice comfortable explanation. He wasn’t a maniac—maniacs didn’t kiss like that

Of course that didn’t explain why she’d indulged so thoroughly in the kiss.

All the emotions fell from his face except onesadness. Anyone could have identified it. His eyelids dipped and he shook his head and uttered a single low word. A name. “Laura.”

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Why?

“I—I’m sorry—”

“Are you real?”

“Am I real?” Where was the fear she should have felt at this strange and intense exchange? Why wasn’t she running by now? “I’m as real as you are.” She considered. “Maybe more.”

“But—the body. I saw the body.”

This was getting creepy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I see my friend waiting for me over there.” She gestured vaguely toward a group of people. Her voice, which was supposed to be confident, was as weak as a child’s. She looked into his eyes to see if he’d noticed her lack of conviction.

“Laura…How can this be happening?” He looked lost, she thought. Lost. Utterly defenseless. She knew how that felt.

“My name is Mary Shepherd,” she said, like that would clear up all the confusion. “I’m visiting from Connecticut.”

“Mary Shepherd?” He repeated the name as if repeating a foreign language on an audiotape. He gave a humorless spike of laughter. “No, you’re not. You’re home.”

The simplicity with which he stated it almost made her laugh. Almost. Instead, she felt her breath catch in her throat. Home, he’d said. You’re home. A slow tingle moved down the back of her neck.

“I’m…not Mary Shepherd?” She tried to smile but it was tremulous at best. “And who do you think I am, then?” It was meant to sound light, as though of course she knew who she was and this man was a fool if he thought she was someone else. But the possibility that he knew more than she did was just too real. A thin vibration ran through her chest, like a single violin note strung out to a trembling finish.

Maybe he knew who she was.

“Is this a joke?” he asked, his tone rising.

Ridiculous, she thought. He doesn’t know who I am. He’s just a madman. Evidently Nantucket is full of them.

“Are you kidding?” he prodded. His brown eyes searched hers desperately.

It was the desperation that spooked her the most She had to get away. “Am I laughing?” She took a step back.

He laid a hand on her shoulder and she could feel it shaking. It was like fifty thousand volts running through him to her. “Laura! What the hell is going on?”

She looked around for help—a policeman, anything. A psychiatrist.

“Laura!”

His pleading exclamation turned her attention back to him. She straightened her back. “I told you, I’m not—”

“Good Lord, do you think I don’t know my own wife when I see her?”

A blow to the gut couldn’t have impacted her more.

He continued in a softer voice. “My God, Laura, it really is you.”

She stood frozen, looking at him. “You’re mistaken.”

“Do you think I could possibly forget? Your hair.” His fingers tickled through the shoulder-length ends of her hair. “It’s shorter but the same color.”

A tickle skirted her neck and, for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand, she imagined him kissing her there.

“And your face.” His thumb traced a burning line across her cheekbone. “My God, do you think I could forget that face? It’s been over a year, but there wasn’t a day I didn’t think about it—”

Over a year. Her eyes closed and she fought the urge to lean into his touch.

“Your mouth.” He traced the line of her lips with his finger.

Without thinking, she parted her lips and his finger nearly touched the tip of her tongue. A lightning bolt shot straight into the pit of her stomach. He caught her eye and cocked his head slightly. The movement was small, but meaningful. Familiar? No. But electrifying.

He put his finger to his own lips, then dropped his hand as if he’d touched something white-hot. “I thought I would die without you.”

She swallowed but a hard lump remained in her throat. When her voice came out it was barely more than a whisper. “What—what happened to your wife?”

He lowered his brow and a hardness returned to his eyes. “Great question. Why the hell did you let me believe—let all of us believe—that you were dead?”

Suddenly she remembered coining to at St. Joseph’s. The thundering head injury. The doctors had said that someone had hit her. It had taken a full year to grow the hair back to a decent length after the surgery. And the rope burns on her wrists and.ankles, burns that had burrowed right through her flesh and left scars she could see to this day. She couldn’t ignore the obvious question.

Had Laura wanted this man to find her? Or had she fled him to save herself—only to end up losing herself completely?

The thought was terrifying in its blindness. She pressed past the man whom, only a moment ago, she’d felt desire for. “I think you’ve got the wrong person,” she said. She had to find a place to be alone and think. “I’m really sorry you lost your wife, but I’m not her.”

He made no move to follow her, as far as she could tell, but his voice rang clearly behind her. “Okay, you’re not her. You just have her face, her eyes, her hair, her voice, and her scar on your chin.”

She stopped, but didn’t turn back. Her heart was banging so ferociously, she was sure he could hear it eight feet away. She did have a scar on her chin; it had always been there. She’d wondered a million times where it came from. Without really thinking, she raised her fingers.to the small bumpy spot

He spoke again, but he hadn’t made a move toward, her. “Laura, why did you come back if you were going to hide from me?” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Never mind that, why did you leave?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t

“Okay, forget me.” She heard him take two or three steps toward her on the pavement. “Forget me altogether. How could you leave your child?”

Child!

Her knees went weak. It had never occurred to her that she might have children. That seemed like something a mother couldn’t forget no matter what happened to her. Her heart twisted inside out and she thought for a moment she might get sick. Then she turned, very slowly, to face him.

“Child?” she repeated faintly.

He gave a curt nod, his eyes mere slits. “Or had you forgotten—”

“As a matter of fact I had.”

“That, along with the rest of your family?” He stopped and frowned. “What did you say?”

“I said…” She swallowed. She didn’t know who she was but she believed she never would have left a child behind with a physically abusive man. “Well, anyway, I meant that if I am this Laura you’re talking about, then I have forgotten. I’ve forgotten everything. There was…an accident.” She smiled but it felt like baring her teeth.

His featured hardened. “And you’ve forgotten Sam as well as me?”

Sam! The word hit her like a slap across the face. Could this be the Sam she’d been trying to recall? It had to be. Her heart raced. “Sam? Do I—do you— have a little boy?”

“What are you talking about? Sam? Samantha is your daughter.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Daughter. Sam was her daughter.

“Laura? What’s going on here?”

She returned her gaze to him, still barely able to breathe. “That name…I’ve…” She stopped, realizing how difficult it would be to explain when she herself understood so little. “I’m afraid I don’t remember you, either.”

He lowered his chin, considering, then seemed to dismiss the thought. “What are you talking about? Amnesia?” he scoffed. Then he muttered, “That’s a hell of an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse” she said. Why would she need an excuse to not find her identity? Her eyes began to burn. Sam. Finally one fact in the months of confusion was starting to make sense. She wanted to spill her whole story and have him fill in all the missing pieces. She wanted to remember. But she didn’t know this man from…from any other and, without really knowing anything about him, she would have to be an idiot to tell him she was a woman, alone, with no real identity.