Husbands and Other Strangers

“We live here,” she finally said, looking at him. It wasn’t so much a question as a statement rimmed in disbelief.

“Yes.” It was a work in progress and because of another job he’d taken on, progress had been slow and limited. The shoemaker’s children went barefoot, he thought cryptically. “Why don’t you come away from the doorway, Gayle?”

She gave no indication that she heard him. Instead Gayle looked up at the unfinished ceiling.

Squinting, she could see that it had been recently scraped and then textured. The surface seemed brighter than the rest of the room, even though it was obviously waiting for a final coat of paint.

Gayle’s eyes shifted to his. “I’m afraid something might fall on me if I come in.”

Taylor looked around, trying to see through her eyes. It wasn’t easy. What he usually saw even when he looked at a place that was crumbling was potential. Always potential. He supposed that was where he channeled whatever optimism he possessed.

“Don’t be. The house is rock solid. I thoroughly checked out the foundations before we signed the mortgage papers.”

Mortgage papers. For some reason she’d just assumed they were renting the house. It was more in keeping with this temporary feeling that nibbled away at her.

She looked at him. Why in heaven’s name would they have wanted to buy such a place? “We own this.”

“Yes,” he answered evenly. He knew her well enough to know that he should be bracing himself for the onslaught of something.

Gayle moved away from the doorway. Proximity did not improve on her impression. This was a disaster area. All it needed was to be declared so by the governor.

“Why?” she asked. “Did we lose a bet?” Gayle crossed to the ventilated wall. The gaping holes where sledgehammer had met plywood gave her a view of another room. The latter was decorated in colors and styles that had been popular roughly thirty years ago. She did her best to stifle a shiver and succeeded only marginally. “This place is falling apart.”

“No,” he corrected, following her as she conducted her inspection. “I’m taking it apart.”

When she was growing up, her father had considered hammering a nail into the wall to hang a picture major construction. For anything else he always hired help, laborers. Physical labor was something to be avoided. “Why?”

He could remember Gayle taking an interest, not only in this house, but in the ones he worked on. Had she feigned that? Or was she now just trying to find the path back and, once there, her interest, her enthusiasm would return? “Because it’s what I do for a living.”

Gayle looked around again, then back at him. She’d always assumed that when she did get married, it would either be to a professional athlete or a professional something, like a doctor or a lawyer. But apparently she was supposed to have tied the knot with a laborer. “You destroy houses for a living?”

“Renovate,” Taylor corrected evenly, “the word is renovate.”

He thought he saw her frown slightly. Before he could tell himself that it was his imagination, impatience bit into him. He’d been pushed to the edge today and wasn’t sure just how much more he could take before he was on overload. He’d been half-terrified out of his mind when he thought that he’d lost Gayle, then relieved when he’d found her.

But now he was faced with the same situation, only in a different form. He had lost Gayle, at least temporarily. Because she couldn’t remember him. Couldn’t react to him the way only a wife could to the man she entrusted all her secret hopes and dreams to. A man who’d been privy to all the private moments that went into making Gayle who and what she was.

Or had been, he amended silently.

Frustrated, Taylor wanted to shout “Game over!” and have her the way she’d been just this morning, before they’d taken off for Jake’s sloop.

Damn, he wished they’d never stepped foot on that stupid hunk of overpriced, floating ballast. More than anything in the world, he wanted her to look at him the way she did when it was just the two of them, and the world was fading away.

Instead it seemed as if he was the one who had apparently faded away for her.

“You don’t remember this?” He asked the question even though he already knew what her answer would be.

Gayle turned on her heel to face him. “I don’t remember you,” she needlessly reminded him.

She pressed her lips together, trying desperately to keep the sharp edge of panic from growing into unmanageable proportions the way it had earlier.

She needed to keep moving. If this man looking at her so intently really was who he said he was, well, he had to prove it to her, to make her remember him. He had all the cards. She had nothing to draw on. No special place to retreat to in order to start all over again, rebuilding memories.

She had no memories, at least none of him. He had to do something that would change that, not her.

It suddenly occurred to Gayle that she was lacking the most basic form of information. She tried to remember if one of her brothers had called out to her would-be husband and failed to come up with anything. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Taylor. Taylor Conway.” He shoved his hands into his back pockets. This felt so stupid, introducing himself to his wife of eighteen months.

“And I’m Gayle Conway?” She rolled the name over on her tongue, testing it out. Tasting it. Listening to the way it sounded. No sense of the familiar came washing over her, yet she did recognize the name as belonging to her.

“Privately,” he told her. “Professionally you’re still Gayle Elliott. You work at—”

“KTOC, yes, I know.” She had a very clear image of her small dressing room. Her section of the desk on the set, beneath glaring lights. She loved the life.

He felt as if a paring knife had slipped in beneath his third rib. And he had to wait awhile before this stopped bothering him so much. Maybe they’d get lucky and she’d regain her memory by then. “You remember your job.”

“I like referring to it as a career.”

There were times when she thought it was somehow unethical, being paid for doing something she loved so much. She would have paid the station to allow her to mingle with professional athletes, follow certain teams when they went on the road to play in other cities, reporting it all back to hungry viewers who weren’t as lucky as she was.

He felt as if something was about to snap inside of him. What if she never remembered him? Never remembered the past eighteen months?

Taylor grasped her by the shoulders. “Damn it, Gayle, if you’re putting me on—”

She watched him unflinchingly, the strength of his fingers registering as they pressed hard against her biceps. “Why would I put you on about that?”

Belatedly he realized he must be holding her too tightly, that he was channeling his frustration through his fingers.

Taylor dropped his hands to his sides. “You know what I mean.” Taking a breath, he got himself under control again and muttered, “Sorry.” It was the fear that had made him behave this way. Fear of losing what they’d had.

“That wasn’t easy for you, was it?” When he gave her a slow, puzzled look, she said to clarify, “You don’t like apologizing.”

Hope sprang up like toast out of an overly eager toaster. “You remembered that?”

He’d looked so hopeful that she’d almost lied. But this was about getting down to the truth, not lying. “Sorry, no. Instinct,” she explained. “I’m pretty good at reading people.”

He should have realized it wasn’t going to be that easy. Still, he couldn’t help being resentful. “So how come you erased me out of your book?”