In This Life (24 page)

I wondered what journey was intended for me.

“I think Paul wanted retribution for my choosing you over him,” I said. “At first, I thought he was only trying to get back at me for Deborah’s death, but Casey said he was still in love with me even though he was in a relationship with her. I think Paul used her on many levels, David, to try to ruin me. She loved him and he took advantage.”

David stroked a thumb over my fingers. “Love is a powerful motivator, Lottie. It’ll drive people to do some really crazy things.”

“Like stalking.”

David gave me a questioning look.

“Casey had been stalking me. I’m sure of it now.”

“You think Paul put her up to it?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. Logan made it sound like Casey was unstable, and she probably was, which means she was capable of doing a lot more than I gave her credit for. The fact that she abused antidepressants certainly didn’t help.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of this,” David said.

I thought about the final moments I experienced as Shemei, and wondered why Kemnebi offered his life in exchange for mine. I remembered Bakari’s forgiveness in the end and, in that moment, understood David in a way I’d never understood him before.

With a sigh, I understood exactly who Galen was, too.

“So, you want to tell me what happened to you?” David asked. “The version you’re not going to tell the cops?”

It was a question I was expecting that I knew I couldn’t answer. I looked at David and my heart sank as all the years we’d shared together slipped away. All the trust, all the joy, all the heartache and love, all the effort we made to keep our relationship alive and honest, disintegrated like the fragile pages of a centuries-old book.

I shook my head, feeling disappointment and sadness settle inside my heavy heart.

“I can’t, David. I just don’t think you’ll understand.”

Officer Jim McKarren took my statement while David and Officer Llewellyn listened. I kept my answers simple and to the point, and shortly after one o’clock, when they left the hospital to continue their investigation, I was discharged.

David drove me home in his SUV but we didn’t speak along the way. Despite his outer appearance of calm, I knew he felt restless on the inside. And I did, too. It felt as if a huge chasm had surfaced between us, distant and gaping and that would never close unless one of us made the first move to heal it.

Neither of us tried.

I closed my eyes and thought about how much had changed in the past week. My life felt surreal now, and nothing like it used to be. I thought about how much David didn’t, or couldn’t, understand about my past, and I wanted to believe that his inability to accept that part of me was the reason for the rift between us. But I couldn’t lie to myself any longer. I’d learned something important about Kemnebi and me before I’d almost died at Casey’s house, and it needed to be addressed. If it wasn’t, I didn’t think I’d ever fully understand or appreciate who I was right now.

We pulled into the garage and David killed the engine. I noticed that someone had already brought my Jeep back home.

“David,” I said, stopping him before he got out of the SUV. “There’s something I need to take care of.”

He pulled back into his seat and appraised me. “And that means what, exactly?” he asked, though I had a strong suspicion he already knew the answer.

“It’s something I need to do alone.”

His jaw clenched and he nodded, but with little enthusiasm. “We have to talk, Lottie.”

“I know.” But that wasn’t going to happen now.

I went inside and found my handbag and the Jeep’s keys next to it. David tugged my cell phone from his back jeans pocket and handed it over without a word. I took it and returned to the garage, admitting that I’d spent too many years keeping him at emotional arm’s length, realizing that I’d never really let him completely into my heart and asking for far too much from him without giving the same in return. David had put up a good fight for us, even after Galen entered the picture. Now it seemed the fight in him had died. If it hadn’t, maybe he wouldn’t have been so willing to let me go.

For the second time in days, I ended up on Galen’s doorstep. I rang the bell with as much reservation as I felt the first time though for very different reasons. This time, I understood exactly what we were to each other.

Galen answered the door and our gazes locked and held. “You have seen what you needed to see,” he said.

I nodded. “Can I talk to you?”

He motioned that I should step inside.

We both entered the living area and I stood near the sofa, not because I needed physical distance from Galen but because I now saw his condo’s décor with new appreciation. The framed Egyptian artwork and faience pottery. The beveled mirrors edged with coral and lapis and ebony.

The vase filled with fresh blue lotus flowers.

Those furnishings were no longer a visual link to my past but to an emotional one instead.

I turned to him and asked the one question that burned inside my brain. The one I didn’t ask thousands of years ago when Kemnebi, kneeling before Bakari, offered his life for mine.

“Why?”

For a moment, Galen looked confused, then he smiled and regarded me with equally new appreciation. “That has been the question that has concerned you throughout most of your regression, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes,” I said, “but this time I ask it because, right now, there’s only one answer I’m looking for.”

“Is it important for you to know that answer?”

I moved in closer so that we stood only inches apart. I felt his warmth. Sensed his tranquility and calm. Smelled the rich, spiced scent that I recognized as the two of us. I inhaled and let the scent settle deep inside me, where it felt like it belonged.

“Yes, it’s important,” I finally said, unable to hide the huskiness in my voice. “I need to know because this is important to me, Galen. Did Bakari kill me like he had been ordered to do? Or did something else happen that I can’t see?”

Galen’s gaze traced my face, moved lower, and then returned to hold mine. His mouth softened with a wistfulness I hadn’t seen in him before. “I wish I could tell you but I can’t.”

“But I need to know, Galen. I remember Bakari forgiving me in the end but I still remember his sword sweeping down to strike me. Not you, even when you bartered for my life.
Me
.”

He cupped my face in his hands. “What Bakari did that night, because of what you and I had done together, changed our lives forever. That is all I can and will say. You must find your own truth on this, Shemei. You must let the memory play out for you on its own, when the time is right.”

“But when will that be? Tomorrow? Next week? In five years?”

“If it is to happen, it will take however long it needs to take.”

“But you know.”

“Yes.”

In my heart I knew that whatever Bakari had done that night, and the days and nights leading up to it since he discovered my infidelity, explained a lot of who David was now. On a subconscious level, David must have known that he’d done something to me so long ago. Something he never recovered from, that he refused to see, and that made him overly protective of me now. Maybe it was his inability to forgive me until it was too late. Maybe it was my believing Kemnebi’s lie too easily that Bakari had died, just so I could sleep with him. Maybe it was something else that I still didn’t know. Whatever it was, it had affected him. Just as it had affected me.

“You know,” Galen said, “I think that Bakari’s actions that night may be the very reason that Bellotti cannot come to terms with what you have learned about yourself. I believe he, on a subconscious level, still carries guilt even after thousands of years have passed and he simply cannot face it.”

“I also believe that’s why David won’t consent to your joining his team,” I added. “I think he’s transferred that guilt onto you as suspicion and mistrust.”

I took the time to more deeply consider the implications of what that meant. And there were many. So much of what we’d done as Shemei, Bakari, and Kemnebi affected our decisions now. Even our relationships and thoughts and emotions. It was as if unfinished business still lingered, waiting and needing to be resolved.

“But this all leads me back to the one question you refuse to answer, Galen. I heard your appeal in those moments before I was supposed to die. Why did you trade your soul for mine?”

“I did not trade my soul, Shemei.”

“But I heard what you said. You bargained for my life.”

“No.” Galen shook his head and his mouth eased up into a knowing smile. “I bargained for your afterlife. Your
second
life.”

I stopped breathing, not completely understanding.

“You are important to me, Shemei. You always have been. It is as simple as that.”

“But our relationship was physical, Galen,” I said. “Nothing more.”

“Was it? Can you look back and truly believe that?”

I couldn’t. I wanted to, as much for my sake as David’s, but couldn’t. Galen and I were as bound as Kemnebi and Shemei had been, and in a way I might never fully appreciate.

“Who knows why any of us received a second chance, Shemei. Yet we all managed to get it, didn’t we?”

Galen’s voice, so deep and rich and lilting, moved through me like honeyed wine, warming my blood and soothing my soul. I felt drawn to him, as I had always been drawn to him, and the long dormant fire from a lifetime past, the one I’d worked so hard to control, flickered and ignited.

I slipped out from under his hold and distanced myself from his consuming touch. It was too much too fast, and the harder I tried ignoring the emotional grasp Galen had on me, the stronger it intensified. Eventually, something was going to give and any decision I made, either way, was going to have considerable consequences.

“You know that we have a connection,” Galen went on. “It is there and it is not something we can deny.”

I remembered the time we spent together and the way he made me feel. I remembered the forbidden things we had done and the short-sighted decision I’d made, the lie I’d told myself, to do it.

“It was one night, Galen. Only one. That’s not something I’d label as a connection.”

“And yet you came to me. You chose me.”

“And you lied to me.”

“Yes. I did.” Galen leaned against the sofa beside me and sighed. “It is a regret I live with every day. But yet, you chose to believe that lie. And for a very specific reason.”

He was right. There was no point in denying it.

“So now it is my turn to ask.” Galen cupped my chin again. “Why?”

I thought of every reason I used to justify my choice that night. Thought of all the years I knew Bakari and the few short months I knew Kemnebi. I thought of how contented and complete Bakari made me feel, and how Kemnebi lit a fire inside me.

“It’s as if we are two parts of a whole,” I said. “It’s as if I’ve known you forever, and yet I know you so very little.”

“And so here you are, faced with another decision similar to the one you made before, Shemei.”

“I’m not Shemei, Galen.”

His thumb caressed my bottom lip. “You are more Shemei than you realize.”

“This situation is different. Or rather, it can be different. We are different people living in a different time.”

“With a shared past. And if you truly believe that we are so different, then perhaps you have not been looking hard enough.” Galen rested his hands on my shoulders. “Like before, you have your choices of either doing or not doing. Things happened for a reason, and will happen again for a reason.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

I brushed my hair from my face and swept my hands over my eyes. I was so tired. Tired of thinking, tired of analyzing, tired of trying too hard to find answers for decisions I couldn’t make.

Galen pressed in closer. “We do not remember days, Shemei, we remember moments, and the richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”

“I can’t forget my past, Galen. Not now.”

“I am not asking you to.” He pulled me to him. “I instead ask you to look to your future. A new and different one.”

He kissed me then, and in his arms I found my answer.

It was long past dinnertime when I pulled up my driveway and into the garage. David’s SUV was parked inside and uncertainty surged through me at the sight of it. He was still home and that meant there was no turning back now.

After cutting the engine, I walked through the laundry room and kitchen, not sure what to expect when I told David what needed to be said. We’d been through a lot over the years but even more during the past week, and though our relationship was already hanging by a thin, fragile thread, this had to be done. The big question was how he would handle my news.

I dropped my keys on the desk next to David’s and, seeing an empty den and kitchen, decided to head upstairs to find him. Each step I took felt heavy and tentative. I had no idea what would greet me once I found him.

I stopped just outside our bedroom and took a few moments to collect my thoughts. I reminded myself that David and I relied on honesty since we’d moved in together, and there was no reason for that honesty to have changed now. If he would open his mind and just listen, maybe that would be enough. In my heart, I hoped and prayed that it was.

With one final deep breath, I stepped over the threshold and found David sitting on the edge of our bed, hands clasped, head down. He looked up when I walked in and held me with a sharp, insightful gaze. The bags under his eyes confirmed his fatigue and the set of his jaw showed that he wasn’t in the mood for games. In his drawn features, I saw the stress he was trying hard to hide.

“Have a minute?” I asked him. “I need to talk to you.”

He paused, too long for my comfort, and patted the spot on the bed beside him.

He didn’t look at me as I sat down, nor did he touch me. He kept a safe distance, for emotional protection I realized, and said nothing. He was giving me the opportunity to say it all, and maybe decide it all as well.