Wife Without a Past

Then he came into view.

A man, perhaps six feet tall, with glossy chestnut hair and piercing eyes of a color she couldn’t see, was walking slowly toward her. For a crazy second, she had an impulse to call out to him. It was an irrational impulse, she mused. Like one you’d follow in a dream.

Something shivered up her spine. This isn’t a dream. He’s not going to turn into a crow and fly away. He’s coming toward me. No, he’s not, she told herself. Why would he be coming to me?

He continued his even stride toward her. As he got closer, she noticed that his deep brown eyes changed from piercing to something else. A combination of emotions mingled in his expression, each with its own unmistakable distinction. She wasn’t sure why she felt she could read them, but she was sure she could.

He stopped directly before her and stared down into her eyes for a long moment.

She pulled her sweater tighter across her shoulders and stood up, looking back at him. She thought she should say something, but she couldn’t think of one word that would have made sense. Her eyes darted to the right, where a woman lay on a blanket on the sand with two small children at her heels. A few yards away from that, a teenage boy and girl were having what looked like a young lovers’ spat.

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.”