Husbands and Other Strangers

Besides, Sam was right. You didn’t just forget a whole person, at least not a significant one and husbands definitely came under the heading of significant people. How could she forget a husband and nothing else?

This had to be a prank. And once she got them to admit it, she was going to make them all pay for it. Sam and Jake and especially the man with the superserious expression.

“We need to take her to the E.R.,” the man was now saying to her brothers, talking again as if she had no more mind than the red cushion against the chair. But at least he was making sense. It was the first thing out of his mouth she agreed with. A doctor would take care of the cut on her forehead, give her something for this awful headache and tell these bozos to quit yanking her chain like this.

“Boat’s already turned around,” Sam assured him. The next moment he returned to the helm and the wheel he’d left on automatic pilot.

“Good,” Gayle declared in a voice she prayed didn’t sound as shaky as she felt. “The faster we get this squared away, the better.” With superhuman will, she forced herself up to her feet again, then mentally defied that woozy feeling to return. For the moment it seemed to remain at bay, hovering just outside the perimeters of her consciousness.

Her hands clenched at her sides, perspiration forming along her forehead, she managed to edge closer to Jake. She glanced back toward her so-called “husband” and saw that the man had taken out a cell phone from somewhere. Suspicion rose immediately. She didn’t trust this guy any further than she could throw him.

“Who are you calling?” she wanted to know.

“Dr. Peter Sullivan. He’s a neurosurgeon at Blair Memorial Hospital.”

Her eyes widened. Without realizing it, she took a step closer to Jake. “I’m not letting anyone operate on me.”

Finished, Taylor closed the cell phone. He was aware that both her brothers seemed really concerned now. That made three of them. He did his best to keep a poker face. One of them had to look as if they weren’t playing pattycake with panic.

“It’s not about an operation,” he told her. As he took a step closer to her, he noticed her flinch. She didn’t even seem to be aware of it. Her involuntary action ate away at his soul. “He’s the best in the area.” Which, he added silently, considering that the area was Southern California, a region of the country generally thought to be overloaded with doctors from every field of specialization imaginable, was saying a great deal.

Her eyes met his. He saw a familiar look of bravado there. It gave him a measure of hope, even if it was getting in his way at the moment. “Or he’s a friend, willing to go along with whatever you tell him to say,” she countered.

Her sense of paranoia was still intact, Taylor thought. Over the course of their courtship and marriage, Gayle had always been prepared for another retaliation. He was always careful to choose his pay-backs wisely. They fought well and made love even better. Lord, he hadn’t known he could feel this happy, this fulfilled until he’d met Gayle.

A cold shiver slithered down his spine. He tried his best to ignore it. She was going to be fine. If this was on the level, she was going to be fine.

If this wasn’t, the woman was dead meat.

“We’ll be there with you,” Jake assured his sister.

Gayle turned to look at him and he saw the fear in her eyes.

So did Taylor. He tried to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Like Rico, Taylor had met Dr. Sullivan while doing renovations on the man’s house just after the surgeon had gotten married. The wedding had made the society page as well as the business section, because the bride was the head of a well-known fashion design company and, along with her younger brother, the owner of the Fortune 500 company that produced the designs.

He saw the man frowning now as he approached him and his brothers-in-law. They’d been cooling their heels in the waiting room, trying to convince one another that this was nothing more than a stupid joke. Getting nowhere.

Peter wore the expression of a man who knew he was not the bearer of good tidings. “The good news is that she checks out fine physically and she can go home.”

“And the bad news?” Taylor pressed.

“The bad news,” Peter told them, trying to phrase it as clinically, as painlessly as possible, “is that Gayle appears to have sustained a blow to the head and while there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of a concussion, it has apparently triggered a bout of amnesia.”

“A bout,” Taylor repeated. Fighters had bouts. They were over after a given amount of rounds. A bout with the flu lasted a while, then was over. He rallied around the word. “Which means that it’ll go away.” Taylor silently willed the surgeon to confirm his conclusion.

Peter took a breath, then said, “Probably.”

“When?” Taylor pressed before either of his brothers-in-law were able to say the word.

Peter shook his head. He sympathized with what he knew the three men had to be going through, especially Taylor. “I’m afraid that I can’t really say. Amnesia is still a very gray area for us.”

Taylor felt as if he was free-falling through space, with a terrain full of nothing but jagged rocks beneath him.

“‘Appears,’ ‘apparently,’ ‘probably,’” he echoed in protest. “There’s nothing definite here, Doc.”

“No,” Peter agreed, “there’s not. Amnesia is such a capricious condition. There are no hard-and-fast rules established yet. This could go away in an hour, a day, a month or…” He let his voice trail off, not wanting to utter the word that he knew Gayle’s husband dreaded.

Never.

“Capricious.” Jake seized on the doctor’s description. “That makes it sound like it’s all a prank.”

Peter slowly moved his head from side to side. “I’m afraid not.”

Taylor had worn a path in the carpet, waiting for the neurosurgeon to emerge. He had to hold himself in check now to keep from pacing again. This just didn’t make any sense to him.

“But Gayle can’t just forget one thing and not everything else,” he protested. And then that sick, sinking feeling had him adding, “Can she?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Peter agreed, “but I’m afraid that she can.”

“Selective amnesia?” Taylor scoffed at the notion even as he fought to keep the panic he felt from crawling up his belly and into his throat. “How is that even possible?”

“More easily than you think, Taylor. Actually, all amnesia is selective in a way. A person with amnesia doesn’t forget how to talk. How to walk. How to get dressed. They remember who’s president or how to make change. They forget other things, things like who they are.”

“Okay, she knows all that. She just claims not to know who I am,” Taylor bit off, frustrated.

“Has she been taking any new medications?” Peter asked, looking at all three men.

“No. She’s as healthy as a horse,” Taylor told him. “Why?”

“There was this man, a former astronaut actually, who forgot who his wife was. They thought it was the onset of Alzheimer’s, but it was a bad reaction to a statin medication he was taking for his cholesterol. It happens.”

“She’s not taking anything for cholesterol.” Taylor took a second to collect himself. “So what you’re saying is that it’s possible to forget just one integral part of her life. Me.”

“Yes, it’s possible.”

“Why?” Taylor demanded. He hated this helpless feeling that was taking over. He was a doer, not someone who just sat back to wait. Waiting had never been very popular with him. “Why would Gayle just forget me and not her brothers?”

“I don’t have the answer to that,” Peter told him honestly.

“Take a guess.” It was a barely suppressed plea.

Peter blew out a breath. “There might be some sort of underlying reason. The mind is still largely a huge mystery to us. It represses certain memories, sometimes so much so that the person forgets they ever had them. Gayle hitting her head triggered a response, allowing her mind to spring into action.”

“And erase me.” The words tasted bitter in Taylor’s mouth.

Peter frowned slightly. “I wouldn’t have put it exactly that way, but yes, erase you.”