Forgotten Father (6 page)

Shoving the key into the ignition in a panic,
Delanie started the car and made herself focus on driving out of
the lot, away from The Cedars forever.

Away from Mitchell, who she loved. Mitchell who
hated her.

Tears blurring her vision, she just barely saw the
on-coming car, swerving at the last moment.

CHAPTER THREE

The black-topped road stretched before her, a
winding ribbon beneath the shifting sky, blurry gray to her misty
vision.

Delanie drove on, away from The Cedars, away from
Mitchell and his cold, cruel eyes, his harsh angry words. Away from
her own stupidity. How could she have not told him who she was? If
she had done that one thing, then he wouldn’t have felt tricked and
betrayed. Then they could have met on a different footing.

Above her as she drove, the windswept clouds
blocked, then revealed the sun, a bewildering, roiling mix of light
and shadow. A scattering of raindrops cracked against the
windshield like bullets.

Delanie flinched.

If they’d met differently, she could have somehow
made him see that she didn’t have designs on Donovan or his money.
Maybe then, he’d have let himself see what they could mean to each
other.

Only now he thought she was a harlot. A deceiver of
hearts. A golddigger.

A sob tore loose from her throat as a fresh wave of
despair rolled over her. She brushed at the sudden tears in her
eyes with one hand.

A blue van suddenly appeared around the corner
ahead.

Through the riot in her head, Delanie heard the
blare of its horn.

Reacting to the realization that she’d strayed
across the yellow line, she gripped the steering wheel and yanked
the car back into her lane just as the van approached her, sweeping
by with a angry blasting of noise.

Trembling, panic coursing through her, Delanie clung
to the steering wheel and began to cry as she drove. The narrow,
charcoal road rushed beneath her. Everything moved in front of her
gaze—the sky overhead, the road, the gray-green brush along the
road.

Great, heaving sobs shook her, harsh in her throat,
dragging at her breath. Fingers wrapped tightly around the steering
wheel, she stared through the tears in her eyes at a gray and
useless future. As ashen as the asphalt surface beneath her tires.
That was her life.

She’d found him…and lost him.

The aching sobs welling in her chest echoed the
pounding in her head. Consumed in misery, she battled to keep the
road in view, struggled to force herself to keep breathing.

Her world had been fine before, the work
interesting. She had friends. Men who were interested in dating
her. A thousand possibilities everyday…but no one she loved. No one
man who revved her heart and made her homecomings warm.

No one to really love.

Not then and certainly not now.

She’d met him and had bungled the show. How could
she have been so romantic, so consumed in her own awareness of
loving him that she’d missed the doubt in his face.

It must have been there, but she hadn’t seen it.
He’d drawn her into his arms and kissed her as if she were his only
destiny.

If only he’d known her name first. Then it would
have been different. Then he wouldn’t have felt manipulated.
Cheated.

How could she have been so stupid?

Dazed at the tumult consuming her, Delanie dragged
her focus back to the winding, gray road again and again. She had
to get home, had to find a place to huddle, to hide from a misery
so complete it threatened her very existence.

A misery as complete as he’d made her feel for just
that one night. It was as if a piece of her had been torn loose in
that angry denunciation by the lake, a piece wrenched out of her
soul.

Delanie put a hand to her throbbing head. The motion
of the car left her dizzy and disoriented. She closed her eyes
briefly, just a second, to ease their aching.

Opening them again, she gasped, pulling sharply at
the steering wheel to yank the car back into its lane.

Over-corrected violently, the small vehicle skidded
across the road, hit the verge and careened down an embankment
until it came to a jarring halt in a ditch beside the road.

Shaken by the impact, Delanie huddled behind the
wheel, staring sightlessly through the windshield, her hands
clenched on the steering wheel, her entire body shuddering in
shock.

******

She woke slowly to the light, feeling heavy and
stiff. The pillow beneath her head crackled noisily in her ear.

Opening heavy-lidded eyes, she aimlessly noted the
faintly-patterned vinyl wallpaper, typically found in newer
institutional settings. Across the room, a television perched on a
wall mount. Beneath it sat a durable vinyl-upholstered chair that
looked as if it might recline.

Hospital, she thought, her fuzzy brain only mildly
curious.

A bank of windows paraded across the wall to the
left, the curtains pulled back to display a lovely wooded area.

The door to her left suddenly whooshed open, drawing
Delanie’s gaze round.

A diminutive woman with dark curly hair walked
briskly into the room. Even if she hadn’t worn scrubs and a
stethoscope around her neck, the confidence and efficiency in her
bearing would have proclaimed her calling.

Struggling against the lethargic, cob-webby feeling
in her mind, Delanie smiled at the nurse. “…hello.”

The woman stopped, blinking at her in surprise.
“Well, good morning to you! How are you feeling this morning?”

Putting a hand to her neck, Delanie said, “Stiff and
groggy….”

The nurse came forward, clasping Delanie’s wrist
between three fingers as she checked her pulse.

It wasn’t till then that Delanie noticed the I.V. in
her own arm, the plastic tubing taped in place.

“Any pain or discomfort? Nausea?” the other woman
asked.

Delanie shook her head slowly and then stretched out
her free arm. “My wrist aches a little. Other than that, I think
I’m fine.”

Replacing Delanie’s hand on the bed covers, the
nurse said, “Probably a sprain, but we’ll leave it to the doctor to
confirm that.”

Frowning, Delanie fought to clear the mists in her
head. “Why…am I here?”

The nurse shot her a piercing look and, after a
pause, said. “Let me crank up the head of your bed for you so you
can sit up a little, then I’ll get Dr. Gallagher to talk with you.
He’s at the nurses’ station.”

Watching the woman leave the room a moment later,
Delanie let her eyes drift across to the windows while wrestling to
gather her wits. Glancing down at herself, she could see no obvious
injury, no broken bone or bandage other than a cartoon-decorated
Band-Aid where someone had apparently drawn blood from her arm.

Why
was
she here? She couldn’t think…,
couldn’t make sense of it.

In a matter of minutes, the hospital room door
opened again and an attractive, prematurely-balding man who looked
to be in his late thirties, walked in.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile. “How are you
feeling today?”

“I think I’m okay,” she said slowly, a frightened,
frustrated panic starting to flutter in her midsection. “Why am I
here?”

“First, let me introduce myself,” he said, sending
her another version of the nurse’s probing look. “I’m Dr. Larry
Gallagher. I’ve been managing your case since you arrived
here.”

“Where is here?” Delanie asked, more sharply than
she’d intended.

“Conway Community Hospital,” he answered promptly,
still standing beside the bed looking at her with that
faintly-troubled expression.

“Conway?” she echoed without recognition, struggling
against the sense of
déjà vu
.

“Conway, New Hampshire.”

“I don’t know—“ Delanie started, her panic leaking
into the words.

“Shhh,” Dr. Gallagher said, patting her hand. “Let’s
take this slow. Why don’t I ask you a few questions first?”

“Okay,” she agreed, calmed somewhat by his
comforting manner.

“What’s your name?”

“Delanie Carlyle.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven.” Her heart rate slowed a little with
the sensation of being on solid ground.

“Good,” he said encouragingly. “Where do you
live?”

“In Boston,” she replied. “I’m an interior designer
there.”

“Wonderful,” he said, as if she’d performed some
tremendous feat. “Now, have you been vacationing in New Hampshire
recently?”

“No,” Delanie said, wanting to laugh with relief.
She did remember. She hadn’t lost her mind. “Actually, I’ve been
working on a big job here. I’m part of the crew renovating The
Cedars.”

“Oh!” Dr. Gallagher smiled, the worried look
clearing from his eyes. “Of course.”

She put a hand to her head, laughing ruefully. “I’ve
really got to get back there. I’m expecting some installers to come
hang the drapes in the main lobby. We’re set to open next month, on
the first of May, and I have a ton of things to do.”

Larry Gallagher’s smile faded. Turning away from the
bed, he dragged the vinyl armchair closer and sat down next to the
bed.

“Delanie, do you know today’s date?”

She frowned at him. “I’m a little fuzzy and I don’t
know how long I’ve been here, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere
around April the first?”

He stared at her, his eyes somber.

“What?”

“I need to ask you a few more questions.”

The doctor proceeded then to ask her seemingly
random questions. But even though she knew who was the president
and how many days were in a year, Delanie began to feel the cold
clutch of fear in her chest again.

“What’s the matter?” she asked finally, her voice
quavering. “Why are you asking me these questions?
Why
am I
here?”

Dr. Gallagher looked at her a long moment, as if
weighing how much information she could handle. Finally, he said,
“You’re here because you were found wandering along the road, dazed
and incoherent.”

All Delanie could do was stare at him in
disbelief.

“You weren’t able to respond to questions at the
time. You were suffering from cold and exposure. If you’re Delanie
Carlyle, the police found your car abandoned along Highway 22. It
was in a ditch and wasn’t visible from the road, but it hadn’t
sustained more than minor damage. Highway 22 is nearly thirty miles
from here.”

“No,” she whispered. Not again. She’d been a child
the other time. So long ago…and not once since then.

He nodded. “We don’t have any idea how you got from
there to here, but from the looks of your shoes, I’d say you walked
quite a bit of that distance.”

Struggling to assimilate the situation, she just
looked at him.

“Do you remember any of this?”

“No,” she admitted reluctantly.

The doctor made a note on the chart he held in his
hand.

Still grappling with what he was telling her,
Delanie felt numb. Blank. As if parts of her mind had been washed
empty.

“Even for a woman as young and healthy as yourself,
that kind of distance would take a while to walk with our terrain.”
He looked down to where his fingers were fiddling with the piping
on the edge of the vinyl armchair. “You’ve been here two weeks,
Delanie. Today is May seventeenth.”

“Two weeks,” she whispered. “My God.”

“From my brief exam just now,” Dr. Gallagher said,
“you seem to be oriented and aware—“

“Except that I’ve lost…weeks of my life,” Delanie
mumbled. “I can’t remember the last month! You said it’s May
seventeenth? That’s more than a month!”

“When you were brought in we, naturally, examined
you and ran some tests,” he paused as if looking for the right
words. “Although you’ve been asleep most of the time, we could find
no indication of a concussion or brain injury. We thought at first
that you might have been the victim of a crime…but there wasn’t any
clear evidence. No specific injuries.”

“So I’ve just forgotten six weeks of my life for no
reason?” she asked sharply.

He raised his gaze from the arm of the chair where
his fingers still worried at the vinyl piping. “From my research,
talking to colleagues and checking the literature…some people
exhibit symptoms similar to yours when they’ve had a
significant…emotional trauma of some sort.”

Delanie looked back at him helplessly, groping in
her head for some wisp of a memory, some clue to explain why she
sat in the hospital bed.

Nothing. Not a picture or a name. No memory of
anything but normal work stuff at The Cedars. Yesterday, she and
Connie, her assistant, had hung pictures all day.

Only “yesterday” had actually been six weeks
before.

Connie. She had to call Connie. The people she
worked with must have thought she dropped of the face of the
earth.

Why couldn’t she remember?

“An emotional trauma would cause this?” she asked,
the words sounding hollow.

“Yes. The psychiatrist I called in to consult on
your case described it as a tremendous shock or a painful episode
so severe as to trigger a disassociative episode.”

“But I’d have to remember something like that,
wouldn’t I?” she asked desperately. “Surely if something that
emotionally disturbing happened to me, I’d remember it! I mean,
most people
can’t
forget things like that.”

“That’s true,” he said, his voice soothing again.
“But when a shock is so jolting, so painful, the mind sometimes
tries to block it out, like hiding a secret from itself.”

“So,” she said, her hand curling into a fist where
it lay on the covers, “this is a kind of…amnesia?”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes kind.

“And what do I do about it?” she asked in a
desperate flare of frustration.

Dr. Gallagher leaned forward, taking her hand in
his. “You go on back to your life, Delanie. Back to your job and
your friends. I have a psychiatrist I’m referring you to. He’s a
friend of mine who practices in Boston.”