August Unknown (10 page)

“Look, I’m not moving in on your girl,” Derek muttered.

“She isn’t
my girl
.”

He turned in to the driveway and brought the SUV to a stop
under the oleander tree again. He shut off the motor and turned toward his
brother. Derek wisely stayed put. He stared forward, as if afraid to turn and
look at Geoffrey.

“August is hurt. Do you understand the situation? She needs a
place to rest, heal, and feel safe. Can we pretend to be a normal family for
the short time she’s here?”

“Sure.” Derek gave a flippant toss of one hand. “Whatever.”

“Thank you.” Geoffrey slipped out of the car and headed back
toward the house without waiting for his brother.

* * *

“It wasn’t so much a dream as it was a memory,” August told
Geoffrey on the fifteen-minute drive to town. “I’m sure it was something I
experienced. I was laughing and having fun with my friends, and this burger
joint, or whatever it was, was a place we went often.”

“But you couldn’t see anyone else’s faces?” He glanced over at
her when the road straightened out.

“Not yet, but it was like they were right there, at the edge
of my memory.” The landscape opened up, showing a breathtaking view of the
ocean. “Now I can’t even remember much of it, but I wrote it down as soon as I
woke up. It was one of those old-fashioned diners meant to look like a 1950s
sock hop. Maybe Jocelyn’s bedroom spurred the memory.”

“I remember them. I don’t think there are any left, though.
There’s never been one here. Do you want me to have Mike check on it while
you’re with Dr. Lohman?”

“Definitely.” She looked over, memorizing his profile as he
drove. From this view, she admired the length and thickness of his eyelashes.
He had a straight, clean profile. “There’s something else.”

They passed the Mirthful Mermaid. Geoffrey stopped at the
first red light leading into town and he swiveled toward her in the seat.

“The night we came down to dinner at the Mirthful Mermaid, I got
scared when I saw the marina.” She glanced out the passenger window and looked
at it, now at a different angle as they were level with it. The same jolt of
uncertain fear hit the pit of her stomach. “Like the person who...might be
there.”

“The person who what, August?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to say ‘the
person who’s after me,’ or ‘the person who’s trying to hurt me,’ because I’m
not sure either is true. It’s just this feeling I have.”

The light turned green and he drove on.

“Right now your instincts are all you have. You need to trust
them.”

She reached across herself with her right hand and placed it on
his forearm. “I knew you would understand.” She smiled at him when he glanced
over. “Thank you.”

He swallowed, as though her touch made him uncomfortable.
August worried she’d crossed a line she shouldn’t have. She drew her hand away
and adjusted herself more comfortably in the plush leather seat.

“You don’t have to thank me, August. I told you I would help
you as much as you needed.”

“No, I mean, thank you for being so nice to me.”

He glanced over and returned her smile, a touch of pink in his
cheeks. She wanted to kick herself. She
had
made him uncomfortable.

“I enjoy helping you. You’re nice to be around.”

The rest of the short ride was spent in silence. Geoffrey dropped
her at the hospital’s main doors, and then left to find his brother-in-law.

Though Dr. Lohman’s office was plush, with comfy leather
furniture and artistically textured paint in warm rust and beige, still the room
had a sterile, laboratory-like feel.

“Hello, August. How’s your arm today?” The doctor pulled two
delicate china cups from a cabinet and made herbal tea from the hot water
spigot of a watercooler.

Dr. Lohman was a pleasant enough woman who wore fashionable
street clothes, but she was still a virtual stranger. August had to force
herself to remember the doctor was trying to help, but something about seeing a
psychiatrist seemed ridiculous. She felt guilty, knowing she was only
pretending to believe the visit would help.

August read her observations from the notebook and relayed the
incidents since the last time she’d seen her. “Geoffrey is having his
brother-in-law, Sheriff Mike, check on the burger joints that look like a 1950s
sock hop right now.”

Dr. Lohman scribbled something in her notes. “You’re the first
amnesia case I’ve had,” she said when she looked up. “Right now, I’d like to
focus on the fear you’re experiencing.”

“Do you think it’s real?”

“If you’re feeling it, it’s very real,” she answered.

The uncomfortable tension in August’s shoulders eased. It felt
good to have another supporter in her corner, at the very least. Her guilt
increased for having doubted the woman’s profession.

“Most cases of amnesia aren’t caused by the actual injury to
the head, but by a trauma that the patient can’t bear to remember.”

“Like if my husband tried to hurt me.”

The doctor nodded, though noncommittally. “It’s possible. Do
you think you were married?”

“I don’t know. I do have the tan line.” She looked down at her
finger. Geoffrey’s handsome face flashed across her mind’s eye. In her heart,
she hoped she wasn’t married, that she had just moved her peridot ring from one
hand to the other. The fingers on her left hand were still too swollen to test
the theory.

“It’s possible you’ve confused one type of memory for another:
for instance, the memory of a movie you’d seen, or a story someone else told
you.”

“So you don’t think it was really me with the other kids?”

“No, I’m not saying that,” Dr. Lohman answered carefully.
“It’s promising that you remember your own reflection in the mirror. I’m just
saying you shouldn’t struggle too hard for things, let them come naturally.
Amnesia is almost never a permanent condition.”

By the time the hour wound down, August was feeling less
confident about the fading dream.

Dr. Lohman scheduled her for another visit in two days, and
August smiled and took the reminder card while secretly not sure if she would
keep the appointment. At the very least, she owed Geoffrey to explore any means
necessary, and the doctor did seem genuine about wanting to help.

Even if I am just one gigantic Guinea pig to her
.

August headed to her physical therapy appointment on the
second floor, hoping it would pass quickly, eager to see Geoffrey again. The exercises
she could do with her arm were minimal due to the bend in the cast, so the
therapist set her on a lifecycle.

By the time she returned to the waiting area in front of the
hospital, her mind was the clearest it had been since the night of the
accident.

Geoffrey pulled up in a black BMW sedan and reached over to
push the door open for her. “You’re looking rejuvenated.”

“I’m feeling it,” she said, sliding in next to him. “Though no
clearer on the memories. This is your car?”

“Yep.” He helped her draw the seatbelt before pulling out of
the hospital’s circular driveway. “Just got it back from the shop.”

“Did I dent the bumper?”

He glanced over with alarm in his eyes.

August laughed. “I’m kidding. No, really, did I?”

“No, thank God. I wouldn’t have kept it if you had.” He
clenched his jaw. “How did the appointments go?”

“The physical therapy was good. What did Mike have to say?”

“He’s checking on the burger joints.” He glanced over. “Dr.
Lohman wasn’t good?”

August sighed. Was she that easy to read? “I feel like a lab
rat. Every time I ask her a question, she answers it with one for me.”

Geoffrey pulled the car into the Mirthful Mermaid’s parking
lot. He turned off the engine and faced her.

“We talked awhile and did some more tests with numbers and
names, but nothing much came of it.” She sighed. “It’s frustrating. It’s like
my memory has been wiped clean. I can’t believe I don’t even know my own name.”

“Maybe it was really awful, like Grizelda, or Prunella.”

She laughed. “Would I be less attractive if it was?”

He shook his head and his expression grew somber. Those deep
brown eyes were as soft as velvet. “I don’t think there’s anything that could
make you less attractive.”

She blushed and turned her gaze out the front. So she hadn’t
imagined the tiny hints that he was growing attracted to her. That was okay,
because she was growing attracted to him, too, and was sure she’d slipped tiny
hints as well.

But what if I have a husband
, she wanted to ask.
What
if I’m running away? What if I did something really awful in my past, so
horrible I can’t even face it in my own memory?

“You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to,” he told her.
After her last thought, his innocent words took on a deeper connotation.

But August knew he was talking about the therapist. She
shrugged. If she didn’t continue the sessions, it would almost be like
quitting. “I’ll try one more, how about that?”

“Deal.” He offered his hand. August reached around with her
right hand and accepted his shake.

He held her hand tenderly, and in his gentle grip August could
feel the magnitude of his caring. Their relationship had changed. They’d gone
from being two people who had been in an accident, to friends whose lives had
been forever changed by the events. She would never forget him, she was sure of
that.

“Hungry?”

She smiled. “Starved. I rode eight miles on the lifecycle.”

The Mirthful Mermaid was crowded with lunch-hour patrons.
Millie saw them and motioned to them to come to the bar. She popped open two
bottles of beer and served them to two men in fishery uniforms, and then poured
two glasses of water for Geoffrey and August and slipped a slice of lemon in
each.

“Jenny’s popping early. I’m on bar duty. Pull up a stool.” She
smiled and gave August a wink. August could see where the rest of the family,
all the way down to Jocelyn, got their friendly eyes. “You must really like my
chowder.”

“Actually, that looks delicious,” she said as one of the
waiters served a crab salad sandwich on toasted sourdough slices to one of the
patrons next to her. “And we already established I like crab.”

“Two crab sandwiches, coming up.” After Millie moved off,
August swiveled her stool toward Geoffrey.

“I told Dr. Lohman about all the feelings I’ve been having,
and I want to tell you, too.”

Geoffrey set down his water glass and gave her his full
attention. That was one of the things she loved about him. He really listened
when she talked.

“I didn’t tell you this before, but I had some incidents of
fear. Maybe, technically, they were panic attacks. I’m not sure, because I’ve
never had one before.” She shrugged. “Or I don’t remember if I did.”

He leaned closer, concern filling his eyes. “Panic attacks?
August, when?”

“I told you about the sensation I had when we first drove past
the marina. It also happened here, the other night. I got short of breath when
I saw this scary man looking at me. He seemed so...purposeful. But now I
realize I was probably triggered by the terror I felt when I saw the docks.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He touched her hand where her
cast ended, gently curling his fingers around hers. She opened her grasp to
receive his, and squeezed.

“I realized right away I’d imagined it, and I thought you
would think it was ridiculous. Dr. Lohman said it was possible I had the panic
attack because everything is so unfamiliar to me.”

Geoffrey frowned. “Did she dismiss your fears?”

Now August felt guilty. She shouldn’t have voiced her
reservations about the doctor. “Not exactly. She thinks something bad happened
to me, and my amnesia isn’t so much from my head injury, but from a terrible
incident I won’t let myself remember. When I told her you were looking into the
sock-hops, she said it was a good idea if I go to them.”

His eyebrows rose. “And to the marina?”

She nodded. “What do you think?”

He took a deep breath, and August sensed he didn’t want to
answer. “Not to be like Dr. Lohman, but what do you think?”

“I’m not ready.” She traced the wet spot on the bar left from
her glass into a flower shape with her fingertip. “Not yet.”

“Then I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Gran Millie sashayed toward them with two plates in her hand.
“Here you go, Millie’s famous baked crab sandwiches and a side of our equally
if not more famous coleslaw. Sweetheart, yours is cut into four pieces to make
it easier on you.”

“Thank you, Millie.”

“That’s Gran Millie to you, missy.”

August blushed and cast a secret smile at Geoffrey. His
wonderful family had made her feel so at home she wanted to cry. Even Derek
didn’t seem so bad anymore.

Millie served them tall glasses of iced tea with lemon, and
brought a side of delicious three-bean salad in a tangy Italian dressing.

“Sorry I can’t gab more,” she said, rushing to pop open four
bottles of beer. “I’m shorthanded without Jenny behind the bar.”

“I’ll send Derek down. He needs something to occupy his time.”

His grandmother stopped and gave him what August suspected was
the tried and true
don’t-even-think-about-it
eye.

“No you won’t. He’s clumsy enough as it is. And the last thing
I want to do is put a mouse to work in the cheese factory, if you get my
drift.” She hurried away to serve the beers.

“She has a point,” Geoffrey said over a sigh. “I guess we’re
stuck with him.”

August dug into her sandwich, wondering if he was ever going
to divulge the history between them.

* * *

She paused outside the brick building. Her stomach turned as
those last six months at University of the Pacific came rushing back. She’d
tried to put it out of her mind. That part of her life was over, and she would
never sink that low again.