Father Found

“I like Margaret.” He remembered a caseworker from some point in his childhood whose name had been Margaret. She’d been middle-aged and a little frumpy, and very kind. “You had talked about using your sisters’ names. But you were afraid it might cause too much confusion in the family to have two people with the same name—particularly if a girl turned out looking just like the three of you.”

“Alexis and Athena,” she thought aloud.

“If we combined them, what would that give us?” she speculated while he brushed. “Athexis?” She laughed.

Her amusement made him smile. She’d had so little to be amused about. “Alena?” he asked. “Lexena?”

“Alena,” she repeated thoughtfully. “That’s not bad, is it?”

“No, I kind of like that. What if we have a boy?”

She sighed. “A boy. Well, we’d have to name him after you, wouldn’t we? Bram…” She stopped, then asked, “What’s your middle name?”

“Bramston is my middle name.” He combed his fingers through her hair to test if he was making progress. Her hair was drying but still damp. “First name, John.”

“John Bramston Bishop Jr., if it’s a boy?”

“No, I think that causes confusion, too. I think he should have a name that’s all his own.”

“Okay. Is there anyone you admire that you’d like to name him after?”

“I have a couple of friends who are very important to me. David Hartford and Trevyn McGinty.”

“Your CIA friends?”

“Yes.”

“David Trevyn Bishop,” she said. “Trevyn David Bishop. Sounds pretty good either way. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Then, let’s nail that one down if it’s a boy. Maybe with the Trevyn first.”

“Works for me. And Alena for a girl? What about a middle name?”

“Alena Marie? Alena Elizabeth? Alena Theresa?” She tried several more combinations that failed to inspire her until she said, “Alena Leanne. Alena…Leanne. Leanne.”

“I take it you like that one?” he asked, drawing the brush along the underside of her hair. It was drying now and growing lighter, the copper highlights against the dark red magnificent.

“Bram!” she exclaimed, snapping him out of his sensual study. She reached a hand back to him. “Help me sit up!”

He moved around her to support her to a sitting position. “Dizzy again?” he asked anxiously. “Pain?”

“No.” She held on to his arm and pulled him down beside her, her eyes focused on something he couldn’t see. “Leanne.”

“What about Leanne?” She was making him nervous. He rubbed her back gently.

“I think…I know one. In my classroom.” She turned to him suddenly, her eyes brightening, a wide smile forming. “I have one in my classroom!”

Oh God. She was remembering. He tried not to panic. “Leanne who?”

She closed her eyes tightly, the smile becoming a frown. “I don’t know. I can’t get that part. I can just see…ooh!”

“What do you see?”

“Just…” She fluttered her fingers around herself. “Lots of blond hair. But no face. She always has her hand up. Leanne. Bram! I remembered something!”

She threw her arms around him, laughing and crying simultaneously. “I remembered something!”

“That’s wonderful.” From somewhere he found the enthusiasm to force into his voice. “It’ll all come back in no time.”

She drew away from him, a frown replacing the smile. “But that’s so little. No face, no last name, just hair and a hand raised in the air.”

He rubbed her shoulder gently. “It is just a little, but if you don’t try to force it, it’ll come when you’re ready.”

She made a face at him. “I’m ready now.”

That was so her. “Your heart is, but your mind apparently isn’t. Let it take the time it needs.”

She slumped unhappily, absently patting the baby as though certain it must share her disappointment. If he hadn’t loved her before, that gesture would have done it for him.

“Am I usually patient?” she asked

“Yes,” he replied. “You teach little children. You have boundless patience.”

“Am I patient with you?”

“You don’t have to be. I’m the perfect husband.” He said it with a straight face.

He thought it might bring a smile to her troubled expression, but it brought a deeper seriousness instead. She studied him closely and he could almost hear her trying to remember something…anything.

“Are you patient with me?” she asked finally.

“Yes. I’m the perfect husband.” He couldn’t deliver that line twice without cracking a smile.

He was relieved when it finally made her smile.

“Okay, you are very patient with me, though we’re basically very different. And I try—”

“How are we different?” she interrupted.

He had to be grateful for at least one question that was easy to answer. “I had a childhood that forced me to grow up with few illusions,” he said. “And then I was a cop, then a soldier and then a spy. I saw the underside and the back of a lot of things that don’t even look good from the front. I’m cynical and hard-nosed with a real preference for things done my way.”

She looked genuinely puzzled. “I haven’t gotten that impression at all. Except for the things-done-your-way part.” She added the last with a grin.

“I’ve been on my best behavior.” That was true. If she caught a glimpse of the real Bram Bishop, it might trigger the return of her memory sooner rather than later and he’d be dead in the water. “You, however, are gentle and kind, trusting, optimistic, a Pollyanna for the new millennium.”

She winced. “It’s generous of you to exaggerate my good qualities. I’m sure I have some bad habits.”