

The Life I Left Behind The Life I Left Behind

by L.Thornhill Crane

Copyright © 2012 L.Thornhill Crane

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Characters, places and incidents used are fictitious and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Any actual names used have been used with permission.

Cover photo image by Donna Padgett Photography © 2012

Cover model Destin Padgett © 2012

To Dawn-

Because you believed in me from day one- even when I didn't believe in myself.

Special Thanks:

To God first of all who gave me His most precious Gift and then gave me stories to tell.

To my husband, my children, family and friends who support my crazy dreams.

To the Sand Mountain Girls: Dawn, Gabi, Hannah, Autum and of course, Momma. Without your encouragement I would still be writing stories and sticking them under my bed instead of sharing them with others.

To Mara, Chance and the YWC who've inspired me.

To Destin and Donna for the photo.

To Joanne Lewis for giving me pointers in writing and helping me with my grammar.

To my church and community friends who prayed and encouraged me.

Prologue

I wonder how many people have wished for a fresh start, a new beginning. The night I ran away I woke up with a clean slate and all I want is to find out what was written on it before. The life I left behind is gone now and all that remains are a few remnant memories of the accident that took it all away.

I remember flashes and sounds; bits and pieces of thoughts and emotions flood through me, leaving me out of breath.

I remember topping the mountain, the lights of houses twinkling on the steep sides and reflecting off the water below.

Tears sting my eyes and run down my cheeks. I wipe away messy mascara with the back of my hand as I navigate the little car past the first curve.

My heart beats wildly as I scan the rearview for headlights following me.

I'm running from something. For the life of me I can't remember what.

Headlights from a large vehicle illuminate the inside of the car and my heart seems to stop beating. My breath catches in my throat.

Someone is coming for me. I know it with dead certainty.

I know I cannot look behind again. The mountain is treacherous in the daytime, much less in the dark. I force a breath between my clenched teeth and grip the steering wheel.

The first curve was the most dangerous but now I am nearing the third hairpin curve. A small drop and up a little hill and I will be upon it.

The headlights are gone, turned off on another road somewhere behind me. I breathe out and take my eyes off the road for a second to glance in my rearview. When I look back I scream and smash both feet on the brakes.

A figure in white stands unmoving in the beam of my headlights.

It seems to me that many people have lost their lives on this road. Is it a ghost? An angel? Some unfortunate traveler stranded on this isolated mountain road?

I turn the wheel but it is too late. There is only blackness where the road once was.

Then I only remember flashes.

Sounds.

Tires sliding on gravel.

The series of bangs, groans and breaking glass as the car crashes through the treetops.

The sound of someone screaming.

A sickening silence for seconds that seem to tick into eternity.

Golden dots twinkling below me like Christmas lights; tiny beacons of warmth from houses snuggled cozily in the side of the mountain.

Falling, feeling my body come up out of the seat.

Weightlessness.

That is where I always wake up.

But this time I don't. Could this be real?

More glass breaking, a thump and the groan of bending metal. My head jerks forward and then back. Like riding on bumper cars at the fair.

Darkness.

Coldness.

Wetness on the side of my face; my feet and legs are wrapped in a cold wet embrace.

Water seeps in slowly, for a second I imagine I am in an aquarium and my eyes close of their own volition.

I fight my way back into consciousness.

I gag and spit a thick dark liquid; the unmistakable taste of blood fills my mouth.

The lights are above me, as I sink into the inky water.

I fumble for my seat belt. My hands are wet with something; they slide over the seat belt lock.

I reach for the handle and push against the door.

It won't budge.

This was the way it was ending?

My life? How could it be?

I refuse to believe that it could end like this.

Someone will rescue me... Someone had to see the car when it went off the road.

Someone will come...

Then I am floating. I don't know how I escaped from the car.

Big hands jerk me. Air escapes from my lungs in big bubbles, I see it floating over my head in the light from above. I try to follow it up but I am being pulled up and down at the same time. Someone is with me; a dark figure silhouetted by the twinkling lights above pulls me. A voice in my head urges me to move or I will die. I am pulled along by the unknown stranger- swimming, pulling, swimming... I fight to keep my mouth closed; if I breathe in I will drown.

My body is awash in pain and my lungs cry out for air but I am moving toward the surface. My lungs feel like they are going to burst; it is unbearable, this agony. One breath and it will be over, but my mind fights me and the breath will not come. Only a few more seconds. I tell myself but seconds seem like hours as I hover toward the surface. I will be safe in a few seconds. The light from the full moon dances over me, refracted by the rippling waves above my head.

I feel myself break through; I remember this was what it felt like to be born. The light is bright above me and I gulp air greedily but then I fall into darkness.

I am nothing, only a vapor floating like a cloud pushed by angry winds. There is nothing- the absence of everything. Not even darkness because darkness would be something; something to fear, something to fight against. I wonder if this is death. Some people say when you die then there's nothing...it never sounded this awful. This, I decided could be Hell. Because where I am... God isn't. There is no light, no happiness, and no contentment. Only longing remains; hunger for something I don't have or know.

Please God... If you can hear me... Give me one more chance.

Darkness is my only reply.

But then...

Voices... far away. Am I hearing voices or could it only be my imagination?

Darkness and nothing covers everything.

It isn't until then that I realize that I am sleeping; I don't know how long.

People float in and out of my consciousness like ghosts; disembodied spirits that flit in and then flit out in the twinkling of an eye. They lean over me. They say things I don't understand.

I am here and then I am gone again.

A man is here. He is vaguely familiar.

He is crying, but I don't know why. His tough hands are calloused but gentle as they touch mine. I know this can't be a doctor. Doctors don't have rough hands like this one. He talks to me. He tells me to wake up.

I wonder if this is the man that saved me.

I remember the big hands jerking me out of the car, the dark silhouette pulling me towards the light.

Yes. This must be him. My hero.

Poor guy. I want to tell him that he did okay. He can go home now but I'm too tired. Too tired to talk or move so I sleep and dream.

I dream of Paris. The city sparkles underneath me like a jewel. I can see my breath from up here and I smile down on my adopted city. A man to my left gets down on one knee. The woman with him starts to cry as he holds out a ring to her. I don't understand any of it. They're clearly German- there are no French people on the Eiffel Tower. Just tourists like us. We get into the elevator and ride back down. My stomach grumbles as I fight my way through the souvenir hawkers. The metro is warm at least. A man passes me. I am struck by what a beautiful man he is and though I was brought up never to stare, I do from under my lashes when he thinks I am not looking. He is the kind of man I thought only existed in the movies; well built, blonde hair, blue eyes and sharp features. He has that typical French cockiness and sex appeal that I find both irresistible and somewhat intimidating. His eyes catch mine and though I know French people don't smile at strangers on the subway so I'm not offended when my smile is not returned, but being American, I can't help it.

It's been years of saving to bring me here. Right now, I don't care if he thinks I'm a stupid American. I don't care if he looks down his French nose at me- bumming around in my blue jeans and white sneakers and my camera flopping against my chest as the train screeches to a halt. Nothing can get me down. I'm here. In Paris and I'm happy. I see him again, when I get on the train and I take my seat. His blue eyes hold on to mine. This time the corners of his lips turn up and he doesn't take his eyes off me until I look away, embarrassed by his attention. I have a fiancé back home; I know I shouldn't be flirting with strangers on the metro. I know I shouldn't even be looking at another man but I look up again. He is still looking at me as if he knows me, almost as if he can see right into my soul. I feel a connection with him, something I can't explain and don't quite understand. His eyes are a striking shade of blue- almost violet. They speak to me. Come with me. Come with me and leave everything behind. Come with me and I will make your dreams come true... The Metro train grinds to a stop and we both stand but he never takes his eyes off of me... I know it's wrong but I smile at him again and he follows me out.

"Hello pretty American girl." He says in English. He isn't French, perhaps German. He has only a slight accent which I can't place. "It is a cold night and a cup of coffee would be perfect. However I hate to sit in a café alone. As I see you have no escort, would you care to allow me to buy you a cup?"

My heart thumps wildly in my chest. Men like this don't even acknowledge me back home; much less invite me for coffee. I know I should say no. I have a fiancé back home, but tonight I am in Paris- the city of love- with a handsome stranger. I know it's wrong but I also know I will never have this chance again. I slip my engagement ring in my jean pocket and when he extends his arm; I take it.

That dream fades. The voices come back.

A man's voice: "You have to wake up." He is saying: "You've got to come back to me....Please... for the children..." Is the talking to me? Surely not, I don't recognize him; perhaps he is speaking to someone else. Yes. That must be it, because I'm only sleeping.

A woman's voice: "If she does come back, she'll have brain damage."

Somewhere that man is crying like his heart is broken and I feel bad for him.

"I can't. She's my wife. I can't leave her." The same man says.

Another voice: An older man this time. "She's basically a vegetable." He tells someone in a hushed tone. "The best thing would be to pull the plug. Let her go in peace."

I open my eyes. I'm in a little cubicle and somehow I know it's the ICU. I wonder if this is a dream or real.

I hear bits and pieces of conversations from around me before I fall asleep again.

I wonder where the man is who was crying. He seems so close but far away at the same time. Like we're on opposite sides of a very tall wall and I can hear him but I can't reach him.

"Wake up and come back to me." He is begging but it is from somewhere else, I realize, he's in the next cubicle. I wish I could get out of this bed. I'd give him a hug at least...

I drift off again... sleep is good...

I see a man in white, a large, strong looking man with olive skin and dark curls. He holds out his hand to me. Tan, rough fingers reach out for my small hand as it hovers over his, my sleeve falling in folds of delicate lace but I never take it. All I have to do is take it, and I will be his. Part of me wants it but another part wants something else... some one else. I back away, leaving the man reaching for me. I cannot see his face, but I hear the anguish in his voice as he calls out for me.

"Please don't go; I love you! Come back, my beloved, come back..."

The sadness in his voice threatens to tear me apart but I run from him nonetheless. I cannot turn around; I run blindly, tears obscuring my vision.

I drift away again... I want to leave. I cannot stand it.

"You know you love only me..." A silky voice says and I feel an overwhelming rush of desire. I know that voice! "Come with me and I'll make all your dreams come true..." That's what he said... I remember. That's what he said...

I want to slip away with him. Just like I did on the metro... that was so many years ago. A lifetime ago...

"Just squeeze my hand." The man is begging in the next cubicle. "Just let me know you hear me. Please, baby. I love you."

"She can't hear you. She's... not there any more... the person you loved is gone... you should think about ending it."

I hear him wail pitifully and my gut wrenches. I want to leave. Why won't they let me out of this bed?

Another nurse leans over me. More medicine, more sleep. Sleep is good.

"Come away with me my love. Come to me..."

"Come back baby. I need you. Please, please, open your eyes!"

I want more than anything to be away from this man's pain.

"Come to me and leave the world behind. It's only you and I, my beloved. Come to me and leave everything..."

"Yes." I tell him. I'll go with that voice. I'll do anything to get away from this place. I'll do whatever it takes to escape the sounds of hopelessness and sadness from this man next to me and the pain that he carries with him. He threatens to tear my very soul asunder with his pain. Get me out of here. Please. "I will go with you."

"Good...The choice is made..."

The nurses are moving me again. They're always pestering me. They're always poking and prodding, trying to get me to wake up. Don't they know that I'm just sleeping? I'm sleeping, if only they will let me alone... Go bother someone else....someone who needs help. I'm fine. Just leave me alone... No, I don't want to wake up. Oh, won't they let me sleep just a bit longer? I'm so tired...

Morning.

Night.

Nurses.

White lights.

Bare walls.

Bleeps and alarms.

I close my eyes and float in darkness until a voice calls me into the light.

Chapter 1

"Andrea."

Not the same voice but familiar just the same.

"Andrea."

That's when I remember my name.

Until then I was just a cloud with no name. Only a dream.

"Andrea. Wake up."

Where am I?

I open my eyes.

People are crowded around me. People I don't know; all looking at me in amazement like I've done something astounding. I'm on center stage. I wonder if this is how a baby feels being born.

A good looking doctor sits right in front of me. Blonde hair, blue eyes, looks to be in his mid-thirties. I am drawn to his eyes. They are the weirdest kind of blue – almost violet. I've seen eyes like those once before...where have I seen them? I know him, but I can't remember from where... Oh, I had it just a moment ago! I crumple my face and try to remember but everything is a fog. I feel as if I open my mouth I can speak his name, but nothing comes. The doctor with the blue eyes calls my name again and I try to refocus. This time I let my gaze drift over his shoulders to the others in the room. Over his left shoulder I see two nurses- a blonde and a redhead and peering anxiously over his right shoulder is another, older doctor with a beard.

"Andrea." The doctor with the weird blue eyes says and I look up at him. I like the way he says my name; the European way, not the American way. It sounds like 'Ondrea'.

"Can you speak to us, honey?"

My mouth is dry and my throat is on fire. I feel like I've swallowed a porcupine.

I manage to mumble something and they all seem to get very excited though I can't really understand why. Don't they know I've only been sleeping?

"Andrea. Do you know where you are?" The handsome young doctor asks.

I'm not Einstein, but I'm guessing a hospital Doc. I think to myself. Might have said it too, but it hurts too much. "Disney Land." I say finally.

My audience's eyes grow wide and I realize that they think I'm serious. I can almost read their thoughts.

They think I have brain damage or something.

"Hah..." I groan. "Just kidding Doc." I say and just to prove I have some sense I tell them I'm in the hospital.

They act like I've just told them the winning lottery numbers and I wonder what's the big deal. Anyone with half a brain could tell this was a hospital.

"Disney Land." The older bearded doctor chuckles and pats my hand. "What a fine joke."

Like he knew I was joking. I saw that look on his face. It would have curdled milk.

The handsome one in front hasn't taken his eyes off me. It's unnerving and I'd try to squirm away if it didn't hurt to move. He smiles triumphantly at me and I wonder what the big deal is. I was only asleep. "Not Disneyland, but you can go there as soon as you leave." He chuckles and pats my hand. "There's that sense of humor I love!"

Who in the heck is this? I wonder to myself. I know him but then again I don't. It's like we met a lifetime ago. I start to drift off but he brings me back with a question.

"Do you know what happened?" He asks and this time I don't have a cute answer. My face crumples up as I try to remember.

"Do you remember anything?"

"No." I croak. I sound like a bullfrog. Real attractive.

"It's okay, honey." The doctor says. "Don't worry. You're safe and I'm here. That's all you need to know."

This guy has the best bedside manner I've ever heard of calling me honey and telling me he's here, not to worry- where did he come from? I look back into those strange blue eyes and think that he needs a raise.

I'm going to feel like an idiot I think to myself. I know but I ask anyway. I've seen him before. I should know him but the memory flirts on the edge of my consciousness, just far enough that I cannot reach it. I can feel it there but I can't make myself remember. I know this man.

"Who-" I croak. "Are you?"

They look at each other like I've just asked them what planet I'm on. The redhead and the blonde exchange nervous glances and the good looking doctor turns a little pale.

"Andrea." Dr. Blue eyes says. "Honey...I'm your husband."

Now it's his turn to joke. "Hahahaha..." I manage until I notice that the stricken faces around me tell me it's the truth.

My husband? No. He can't be my husband. I'd know my husband right?

The room spins and my eyes roll back in my head. I'm out. I fight to regain composure but I'm down for the count.

I wake up later. I don't know what time it is or how long I've been asleep.

Dr. Blue eyes is here, holding my hand. I resist the urge to take it away from him because it's not normal for a doctor to act this way with his patient. It's a little lifetime movie of the week if you ask me...

"Andrea." He says when he sees me looking at him and he gives me a shy smile.

"What's up Doc?" I say. He looks at me like I've lost my mind but then he recovers.

"Ah yes. I remember. Bugs Bunny."

Where did he come from? The moon? Come to think of it, he does have a slight accent. Maybe they don't have Bugs Bunny where he's from.

I look at him and try to think of something to say. When I can't he takes my hand.

"Hi, honey."

There he goes again calling me honey and holding my hand. I start to pull my hand away from him but then I remember. Oh, yeah. He's supposed to be my husband.

I don't know how to explain it. He doesn't feel right. I close my eyes and try to imagine my husband. Images come to my mind but not complete images. Impressions and feelings come to me more than pictures in my mind. I can feel him... my husband, but I can't see him.

I close my eyes for a minute and try to bring into focus all the scattered feelings and fleeting images in my brain but it is like trying to arrange a jigsaw puzzle when you don't have the box to look at. I feel myself reaching up to wrap my arms around strong muscular shoulders; my fingers entwined what I imagine to be dark hair. I feel rough fingers on my face and the taste of tender, knowing kisses. I seem to remember the feeling of being enveloped in a tight embrace, listening to a steady beating heart and the warmth of another body wrapped around mine like so many blankets.

Yes, that is my husband! The feeling is warm and soft and familiar; the feeling of home. The thing is, when I look at this stranger in front of me I feel none of those things.

This is some kind of joke.

I've never seen him before in my life.

No... I have... where had I seen him?

"It's me." He says nervously. "Your husband."

What am I supposed to say to that?

"Glad to meet you." I tell him. It was the best I could do given the present circumstances.

He laughs. The skin around his eyes crinkles when he does.

"You're confused." I say pitifully. "I think you have the wrong person. I can't be... your wife."

He laughs again but his face is sad.

"But you are." The words make him sound like a lost little boy.

"I don't even know your name. I've never seen you before."

That's when he starts crying. A little, not miserably like the guy in the next cubicle, but his eyes get misty and he wipes the tears away with the back of his hand before I can really see them.

"I—." He starts and doesn't finish. He looks away and swallows. "My name is Doyle."

"Doyle." I repeat. The name sounds unfamiliar in my mouth. "Doyle." I say again but it doesn't ring a bell. I swallow hard. "Why don't I remember you?"

"You have amnesia." He tells me. "Do you know what that means?"

Amnesia? Did I wake up in a soap opera? Yes, that's it. I'm an actress in a soap opera or I'm asleep in front of the television and I can hear one. None of this can be real. Things like this don't happen to normal people.

"Amnesia." I repeat when there's no commercial break. My brow crinkles and I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think. How did I get amnesia? I can remember the accident... and then... nothing else. This is ridiculous. I'm going nuts. "What?" I ask but am unable to even verbalize the questions that buzz in my head like a swarm of angry bees.

He shifts in his seat and leans in. "Amnesia. You suffered an injury to your head." He starts into doctor mode but I stop him with a wave of my taped up hand. It pulls at the IV and I wince.

I'm irritated by all of this. I know what amnesia is and I tell him so! He looks impressed or shocked; I'm not quite sure which.

I know. I return his nod of disbelief; I can't believe it either.

"Do you know how you got amnesia?" He asks. "Do you remember anything about the accident?"

The mountain...the car...the dark...falling...water. Yeah, I have a vague recollection of what happened.

"I—was in an automobile accident." I say and he looks dubious but waits for me to finish.

"I think... I went off the mountain... into the water." I guess and from the horrified look on Dr. Blue Eye's face I was either dead right or terribly wrong. I couldn't tell which.

He leans in to me and shakes his head. The color drains from his face. He's already pale; now he looks like a ghost.

"Andrea. You were hit by a car." He points out the window. "Crossing the street."

I shake my head and it hurts. "No! I remember the water." I tell him I remember what it felt like... the burning in my lungs. I was there. I remember water; I am quite sure of it.

He leans closer and puts his hand over my lips.

"Andrea. Not too loud." He looks around like he's trying to keep something secret. "Listen honey, you were crossing the street right here. You were leaving with Marilyn and Jackie to get some lunch. Some guy ran the red light and hit you. You were thrown thirty feet into another car."

"No." I tell him. "I remember water! I remember the mountain!"

"Honey, we're half a mile from the river! You see water every day! Of course you remember water; but you weren't in it!

But I do remember water! I remember more than seeing it! I remember what it felt like! How it was so cold it squeezed my lungs and it hurt to breathe. I remember the mountain, the headlights behind me... How it felt to fall. The sound that the water made as it seeped into the car. I remember being pulled out... the big hands pulling me upward...I try to convince him but he just shakes his head like I'm a silly little girl.

It infuriates me and I raise my voice.

"I remember!" I tell him and he puts his fingers over my lips and I push his hand away with my free arm. My eyes flash in anger. How dare he try to silence me like that? If I wasn't all hooked up I'd get out of this bed and show him a thing or two. I struggle to sit up, but his hands hold me down. He is either unbelievably strong or I am as weak as a kitten; but I fight him nonetheless.

"Listen to me!" His fingers bite into my shoulders and he shakes me a little as he raises his voice and I jump. There is something in his expression that scares me a little. Is it the way his face twists with barely concealed anger or the fact that his eyes seem to take on a fire of their own? He breathes out and regains his composure. His voice is calm now and he forces me to look into his eyes. "We live on Lookout and have to drive to this hospital every day, dearest. You could drive up and down that mountain it in your sleep. You never fell. You've dreamed it."

I am stung by his outburst, not really sure what I should do or say now.

"Darling." He purrs as his eyes look up at the next cubicle like he can see through it. "Beloved, listen. The woman in the next cube was on the mountain. She's the one that fell in the water. You—you must have heard everything and dreamed it. You were brought in around the same time... Be quiet please. Her family is... distraught... She's – dying."

Then it dawns on me.

The man I've heard crying!

Can you hear in a coma? I wonder to myself. Yes, I think so. I look up at him and my eyes well up with tears of my own. The woman next to me may lose her life and the only memories I that I have left... the one thing I've been clinging to... those fractured remnants of a life I thought I had... aren't mine at all...

They belong to her!

I'm angry and sad and I feel betrayed by my own mind. I can't remember my parents, my childhood, my wedding. This man in front of me who claims to be my husband is a stranger. I want to go home and crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head and make this whole crazy dream go away, but I don't know where my house is.

That's when I lose it. For the first time since the accident- I cry.

Doyle leans over me and puts his head on my shoulder. I think if he were able he would have crawled in the bed with me. He comforts me as best he can and cries with me.

When there are no tears left he looks at me. His violet blue eyes draw me in and I wonder how I could have forgotten them.

"We will work it out honey. I'm... just glad you're back to me." He offers me a small, shy smile. "Can I kiss you?" He asks sheepishly, almost like a nervous teenager and I'm not sure if I should be comforted or scandalized by it.

I don't know what to tell him. He's a stranger to me but at the same time, he's my husband.

I nod. On television they say doing normal things might help bring one's memory back. I'm willing to give it a try but I wonder if I will know what to do. I close my eyes and hope that this is the kiss that brings all my memories back to life!

It works that way in fairy tales.

He leans in, and his lips touch mine and I feel the fireworks instantly.

I've done this before! I know I have, even if I don't remember- my body seems to and responds to his kiss.

But that's all. No sudden surge of memories, no life flashing before my eyes. I sigh - a little disappointed that my memory hasn't magically returned but my body tingles and my body seems to remember his touch. The kiss deepens, and for an instant I am swept up in a torrent of longing and desire and I know I could lose myself... or what's left of myself in this man.

Instead of comforting me, it scares me. My hair seems to stand up and it feels like cold water has just been poured over my body. I pull in a shaky breath as he moves away from me.

He smiles almost triumphantly at me, like he has won some battle that I didn't even know we were having. The look is both sinister and sensual and it unnerves me for the most part. If you give in to him, you will lose yourself. Something in the far corner of my mind warns me. My heart pounds in my ears and I take an unsteady breath.

"I have rounds." He informs me, very much the doctor again. "I'll be back soon." He promises as he picks up a chart. "You will rest now."

It was not a request and I should be offended but I find I am suddenly too tired to fight. I feel like I'm too tired to even speak. I nod and lean my head back. I cut my eyes to the window and I notice that is night again. I never wake in the daylight. I want to open my mouth and ask why it's never daylight but he seems to sense I have questions and he moves toward me quickly.

"You will rest now." He says again as he leans over me to place a kiss on my forehead. I feel a strange tingly sensation in my body, almost like an electric shock. I look up at him in surprise but suddenly feel like all the energy has been drained. I never get a chance to say anything else.

Chapter 2

I have lost all track of time. I don't know if it's day or night or how long I've been in the hospital.

The same two nurses come to me and move me to another room because I'm better they say. I am glad of it. Selfish, I tell myself. I don't want to hear that man in the other cubicle begging his wife to return.

I still dream about him though. I still hear him talking to her, trying to get her to wake up. Sometimes I think I'm still in the ICU. I see strangers leaning over me but I can't hear what they say. I don't know who they are. Faces in a dream, people I knew in my former life I suppose. I spend a lot of time sleeping. It seems unreal.

The nurses help me out of bed and help me to walk up and down the halls. They chat with me and tell me I'm doing a good job and I'll be going home soon.

Home. Yay! A strange place with a stranger who is my husband. I stop walking long enough to look out the row of windows that looks out into the hospital parking lot. It's dark and I see my reflection for the first time.

You know, you would think that you would recognize your own reflection when you see it. Even if you do have amnesia.

I look at a stranger in the dark glass.

There goes that theory. I look back at myself and wave my hand at my reflection just to make sure it's me.

She's pretty at least. Or I should say I'm pretty.

It's weird though, because I never felt like I thought I was pretty before. It's almost like this really isn't me and through some freakish accident I am in someone else's body.

For perhaps the hundredth time I wonder why it's always dark. I go to sleep and it's dark and I wake up and its dark and I do my rehab and its dark and... it doesn't seem normal to me. At least once, it seems I should open my eyes to sunlight filtering through the windows to the side of my bed. I open my mouth to ask but three people round the corner, and seem oblivious to myself and the nurse. She has to step out of the way to let them pass, and she harrumphs about the 'rudeness of some people'. The two ladies seem to neither acknowledge our presence or my nurses' comment. They continue chatting about American Idol (whatever that is) but the child in the hospital gown between them gives me a conciliatory smile. Our eyes meet and she seems to tell me that she knows how I feel and for a moment camaraderie exists between the two of us as she walks past. Her grey eyes leave mine and she stares daggers through my nurse. I find it both strange and amusing. She, like me, had been on the pointy end of too many needles lately and she glares at my nurse like she would bite her if she came any closer.

The nurse doesn't seem to notice. It's close to her break time so she encourages me to finish my walk.

We walk several times over the next few days or nights I should say... and I wonder again why it's always dark. Perhaps I don't wake up in the daytime or perhaps I do but my mind is so shredded and I'm on so much medication that I can't remember. The nurses and the doctor who claims to be my husband tell me that I'm doing much better but I don't really know because I can't keep things straight in my head.

Dr. Doyle comes by often and I begin to feel a little more comfortable with him. He brings out his iPhone and shows me pictures. "This is us a couple weeks ago. This is our dog. This is your friend Marilyn..." I look at the pictures and try to be interested but it's like getting the wrong person's vacation photos from the developer. I know Doyle and I am used to seeing my reflection enough now that I do at least recognize myself but nothing more. He finally tires of pictures and he tells me to rest.

He leans over to kiss me but I stiffen, half expecting that zap when we touch. I wonder if it has something to do with static electricity or all the gizmos here in the hospital. No one else does that to me. I don't mean to, it's more of a reflex than anything else. I try to relax and he places his lips to my forehead before he leaves. I see the slump in his shoulders as he walks out the door and I am bothered by my inability to respond to him.

I can't make him understand what it feels like in my head. There is nothing before I opened my eyes except the nonsensical dreams from tidbits overheard from my coma in the ICU. My memory is gone other than that. No, not gone. I know it's there somewhere. I know it is, I can feel it, but I can't get to it. It's almost as though my mind is like a jail and the jailer has everything that was me before locked away where I can't reach it. The cell door is barred and the jailer holds the key and isn't about to let anyone in, especially not me.

I feel so frustrated that I want to scream, but then I remind myself that he must feel the same way as well.

He brings me supper and tells me he has an hour off work. We talk as we eat. I try to catch up with a lifetime of memories over supper and he barely gets a bite for my questions. I ask him things like: Do we have children? (No. We have decided not to because of Doyle's "condition" which I never ask about and I don't really know why.) What about my family? (My family and I are estranged. Something to do with my marriage to him... it seems they didn't approve of him.) I wonder why, but he doesn't go into it. He says something about them being narrow minded religious nuts...

I tell him that I don't remember them and he says that is a good thing. I'm a little offended by that statement. I don't remember but I seem to believe that you shouldn't talk about other people's families. It seems to be a sort of unwritten law in the south. You can say anything you want about your own family but other folk's folks are off limits.

I change the topic because I feel my blood pressure rising and I can see that he is getting agitated. I ask him more questions: So what kind of doctor am I married to? (A surgeon, but he works ER because it's exciting. Wow. I'm impressed.) And what do I do for a living? (A hospital social worker. I help people who have loved ones here.) Where do we live? (On the mountain in a large stone house that overlooks the city. We have a pool and a dog- a German Spitz. )

I ask him where we met and as soon as the question comes out of my mouth the answer comes as well.

Paris. I met him on the subway and he got off at my stop so he could talk to me.

Doyle smiles like I've just given him a million dollars. He nods and kisses my hand. I don't remember anything else but that's a start. I ask him if he's French and he says no. His Grandmother Helen was German and married an American GI after WWII. They lived in Germany and moved to England after he retired from the military. His father was a doctor and he grew up in Germany, France and England. We met in France when he was visiting his relatives. He was totally smitten with my smile and followed me off the subway.

I like that story.

He tells me that we lost contact with each other after that, but he remembered I had told him I was from Tennessee. After he finished his studies he came to look for me and found me here in Chattanooga.

"And that..." He says with a smile. "Is where I've been ever since."

Chattanooga. The name is right. It sounds like home. I wonder how I didn't know it before- why I never put two and two together. The hospital name is on everything, but up until now I didn't even know what town we were in and I hadn't even thought to ask.

I suppose, in my defense I had other things on my mind.

He spends the night in the chair next to my bed. This is the first time I notice and I wonder how many nights he's spent there. My heart feels like crumpling every time I see him. I want so badly to remember him. Poor sweet man, I think to myself as I listen to the sound of his steady breathing. I find his hand and intertwine my fingers with his. His hands are cold, but this is a hospital, it's freezing here most of the time. I wonder if he needs a blanket but he doesn't seem to notice the chill. I turn myself so I can see the outline of his face until I fall asleep.

I dream about the other man again - the one with the wife in the ICU. He's crying and talking to her. I feel so badly for him. He's always praying for her to wake up and come back to him. Then there is a flash of light as the beam illuminates the ghostly figure of a man in front of me. I thrash in the bed and suck in my breath, my heart is beating wildly.

My left hand has struck the edge of the hospital bed and is throbbing angrily. The room comes into focus and I know I am safe but my body still trembles.

My husband is gone. I wonder where he is gone and I remind myself he is a doctor here. Perhaps he's been called away on an emergency or maybe he's got patients to see. I have no idea. Nobody else visits me so I doze off or spend time aimlessly flipping channels on the TV. I wonder what kind of shrew I was before this accident- to have practically no friends to visit me. Looks like I'd see someone else besides Doyle and my other doctors and a handful of nurses.

What about my family? Doyle had said that my parents and I were estranged. They didn't agree with our marriage. But still, I want to talk to someone from my old life... even if I don't know what to say. Even if I just listen to them talk about their day. Anything to make me feel connected with what and who I was before. I think surely my parents would say a couple of words to me- given my present situation. I would apologize and beg their forgiveness for whatever I've done. I want my mother. I want my mother, I want my mother! It's almost a primal need for me.

I start in on Doyle about calling them as soon as he walks through the door. He tries to dissuade me but I pester him until he gives me a cell phone and a number. He tells me he is doing it under duress.

I dial in the number. My breathing is shaky and I don't know if I could talk. A woman's voice says "Hello?" and familiarity washes over me like a warm shower. I say "Mom." And that is as far as I get before the woman's voice interrupts me. "Andrea?" She asks and when I say "Yes." There is a click before I can say anything else.

For several shocked seconds I hold the phone to my ear, not wanting to believe that she just hung up on me. I swallow hard and hand over the phone to Doyle who has been staring daggers through me.

"I'm sorry Andrea." He says but the tone of his voice is angry as he tucks the phone into the pocket on his jacket. "But I did try to warn you. I hope next time you will believe me."

I have a hard time believing that anyone's mother would flat out hang up on their child.

"Do they know about the accident?" I ask him.

He doesn't speak for several seconds. His jaw is set firmly and he stares across the room at nothing in particular. "Yes." He says finally. "I had a nurse notify them." He laughs ruefully. "I knew better than to try to talk to them myself. I left them my cell number. They never tried to call."

"What..." I choke on the words before I can get out the question. "What did I do to them?"

He laughs dryly. "What did you do my dear?" He shakes his head, and I can tell he is having a very hard time with the next sentence. "You married me."

I only manage a strangled "Oh." I can't say any more than that. My throat is thick and tears sting the corners of my eyes. Doyle tells me that I need to rest. He kisses me before he leaves and promises soon we can go home. I try to pretend that makes me feel better, and I lay my head back. I pretend to be asleep until he leaves. When I am alone I cry a little, though I don't know why. My mind tells me I've lost nothing, I don't remember my parents anyway, but my heart doesn't see it that way. There's a deep aching hole in the middle of me, and I was hoping that contacting my parents would help to fill in this void.

He comes back later and tells me he's taking me home tomorrow as he pulls the chair out beside my bed but I scold him. This is his night off and he's spending it with me. I tell him to go home, sleep in a real bed and get a good night's rest for a change. He argues with me but I win him over. I tease him that the house is probably a mess and suddenly he is interested in going home. I figured I hit the nail on the head with that one. Reluctantly he kisses my forehead and tells me to call him if I need him. He tells me he loves me before he leaves my room. I'd like to tell him the same thing, he seems to be aching to hear it but right now it would be a lie. I like him very much but in a lot of ways he's still a stranger to me. I order him to go home and rest and he ducks out of my room.

I sleep and dream of the man in white. His anguished cry startles me and I wake. I feel like cold water has been poured over me, my heart wildly thumping against my ribcage. I take a steadying breath, it seems almost like I can still feel the echo of his cry in my room.

I look around. I am alone. The sun is setting and I know I've slept through another day. Doyle will be here soon. I drag myself out of bed and try to make myself presentable.

Finally he comes for me with a wheelchair. When he sees me he smiles brilliantly. He takes me by the hand and helps me into it even though I insist that I can do it on my own. I have walked laps around this hospital and I'm fairly sure I can make it to the car without the wheelchair but he waves his finger in my face and tells me its hospital policy.

You don't mess with hospital policy.

He pushes me down the hall and doctors and nurses I don't remember speak to me. I nod and smile and feel a little like I'm on display.

Doyle leaves me with a nurse who waits patiently with me at the front door. She looks out into the rainy night and otherwise does not acknowledge me. Her silence is strange and unnerving. Nurses were supposed to chit chat and carry on with their patients. I feel conspicuous here in this wheelchair; people walk past me and pretend not to notice me. Perhaps they wonder what is wrong with me and instead of staring; it is more polite to pretend I just don't exist. A janitor pushes a blue plastic cart loaded with buckets and cleaning supplies. He carries a mop and pauses long enough to give me a friendly smile. I smile in return and he busies himself with the wet footprints around the door while I wait.

He moves closer to me with his mop and I feel myself drawn to him. I drop my eyes, but they keep moving to him, seemingly of their own accord. I am attracted to him, not because he is overly handsome or anything of a sexual nature. He seems...familiar... achingly familiar in a world where everything is foreign. My eyes settle on him at last and I decide not to fight it. Perhaps I knew him in my other life.

I am about to open my mouth to ask him if I know him when he speaks.

"Getting out of here, huh?" He says without ever looking up from the wet floor.

'Going home." I offer, but my stomach does flip flops. Is it really home if you don't remember it?

"Not your real home." He says quietly and I look up at him in surprise, my eyes narrowing. I am sure I have misunderstood.

"Excuse me?"

"You don't have to go." He says to the floor. "You have a choice."

I'm hearing things now. I lean up in my wheel chair.

"Do I know you?" I ask him and he smiles shyly. He hasn't looked up at me yet.

"You used to." He says.

At last! Someone from my past! I want to get up out of the wheelchair but I am a little afraid the nurse will attack me. "Please tell me who you are. I can't remember..."

The man stops mopping just long enough to look up at me. He wears muted blue scrubs over a long sleeved white tee shirt. I know the color denotes he is an orderly. Doctors usually wear a hunter green here if not wearing suits, and nurses I've noticed- come in a myriad of colors but seem to prefer a maroon. I know I've met him before- I know I know him but I can't think of his name so I search for his name tag. Josue Mendez.

Josue. I haven't said the name since I've awakened but surprisingly I know how to pronounce it. HO-SUE-WAY. The Spanish equivalent of Joshua and I wonder how I know that and how to pronounce it correctly. It feels 'right' in my mouth. I can't explain it but I know I've said this name many a time in my former life.

I notice that his eyes are strange, like Doyle's except his are blue - clear blue. I've never seen blue eyes like his before...like the middle of the ocean, which are strikingly offset by his dark features. I study his face when he turns back to his work. He is dark but not too dark. Pleasantly brown but not the kind of brown one gets from working out in the sun all day. His hair is dark and his loose curls hang carelessly around his forehead and brush the back of his collar as he works. His closely trimmed goatee gives him a somewhat rugged appearance and it makes me think that he looks like he would be more at home stepping out of a beat up old Ford pick up truck than in hospital scrubs. He doesn't stand out in any way- he could be any one of a million good ol' boys. This is Tennessee after all, and he is from the area- his accent tells me that much. He's got that soft Tennessee twang that someone from somewhere else can't fake.

How does a guy named Josue Mendez get such blue eyes and an accent like that anyway?

And how do I know him? The question chews at me like a dog chewing a bone and I'm struck by the irony of it all. I didn't recognize my drop dead gorgeous husband but I seem to know this woolly hillbilly. Life is strange right now.

I laugh at the absurdity of it all and he gives me a knowing look- as if he can read my mind and is equally amused.

I throw up my hands, "Okay, I give up. I have amnesia. Will you please tell me who you are?"

"How can I tell you who I am when you don't even know who you are?" He says pleasantly and leans closer to me. 'I'm not here to tell you all the answers. You have to figure it all out on your own." He pretends to be disappointed when I frown. "You are a smart girl." He says playfully and shakes his finger at me. "But I can tell you just one thing..."

"What one thing?" I respond as I shoot an uneasy glance at my guard dog nurse who has not, thus far, noticed my conversation with Josue the crazy orderly.

"To guard your heart. You belong to another." He's mopping again. "Not to rely on your own understanding. All around you is deception. Listen to your heart. That's all I can tell you, the rest you'll have to figure out on your own."

That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I want to ask if the man is crazy, but I know he's not. Somewhere between the twilight zone that is my life right now and the black hole that is my memory it makes sense. It niggles at the edge of my consciousness, and I feel as if I could just catch it, everything would make sense at last.

He had said "You belong to another." A feeling of unease ripples through me as a silver BMW pulls under the canopy outside. I know it's the husband I don't remember. Perhaps my gut is right and he's not really my husband. What if he is a serial killer that kidnaps girls who have lost their memory and... I lunge at him as he mops and he looks at me with a smile on his face that could very easily be pity or amusement- I'm not sure which it is. I have to know before it's too late! Before he guts me and hides my body in the freezer!

"Belong to another!" I hiss as I see the silver door open and I grab his arm. "Who do I belong to?"

"God of course. We all belong to God first." He says kindly and pulls a slip of paper out of the chest pocket of his scrubs and he holds it out to me. My hand hovers over his tan one, something in my now absent memory nudging me. I stare at what appears to be a business card held by those strong, lean fingers until he tires of holding it and at last tucks it in my hand. "Seek and you shall find. Have a nice night, Mrs. Bradley."

I look down at the paper and see it is a gospel tract. On the back is a label with a telephone number. I stare at it, not really knowing what to do with it.

Josue starts to move away from me as the door opens outside. He stops like he has forgotten to tell me something very important and leans close enough to whisper.

"And..." He sounds almost sad as he whispers to me. "As long as you have breath... as long as your heart is beating... you have a choice."

What choice? "What are you talking about?" I ask incredulously and he smiles dejectedly and moves further away from me.

"Oh, you'll figure it out." He winks at me and tries to make his voice sound playful and upbeat, but the sadness in his eyes gives away his true emotion. "Like I said before: you're a smart girl." There is a fleeting sensation of longing and loss as he whispers: "But don't wait too long."

Doyle steps into the waiting area and my nurse wanders away without even saying goodbye. All I get is a disinterested look. I'm a little taken aback. Not that I expected much but she could at least have said "Have a nice night." Or "Take care of yourself." So much for bedside manner. I think to myself. The orderly almost gave me a heart attack but he at least took the time to acknowledge my existence. I resolve to write a strongly worded letter to... my mind blanks... whoever is in charge of the nurses at this hospital...when I get home and I can keep my thoughts straight. Maybe I just need to rest.

I tuck the tract inside my purse as Doyle approaches. I don't know why, but I don't feel comfortable having it out.

"You ready?" Doyle asks as he claps his hands together and rubs them like he's trying to warm himself. His voice is too chipper and excited for this weather.

I nod; eager to get away from the stoic nurse and the cryptic orderly.

Dr. Blue Eyes almost trips over himself in the rush to push me out the door. I tease him about being in a rush. Are they going to charge me for another night if he waits around too long?

He laughs and says something like "I just want to get you back home where you belong, honey."

A voice in the back of my mind whispers. So he can stick you in the freezer. Nice job Josue.

I turn to give Josue a second look but he's gone.

Somehow, I am not surprised. Perhaps I'm getting to the point in my life where nothing surprises me.

"Well let's go Mrs. Connelly." He says pleasantly and my eyebrows knit themselves together in dismay.

"I thought he said my name was Mrs. Bradley." I say before I catch myself. I thought I had only thought that but obviously it just came out my mouth. Connelly sounds strange but Bradley had fit like an old shoe.

Doctor Blue Eyes looks at me like I've just slapped him. "Who?" He demands a little too forcefully. "Told you that?"

I shrug. "That orderly. Josue. " I nod behind me as if he was still there, but I know he's not. "Surely you've seen him. Dark hair. Strange blue eyes."

He whips around like I've just told him I saw a snake in the lobby- his neck craning, his blue eyes startled. He looks around the almost empty lobby for several seconds before he turns back to me. His face shows the nearest thing to panic that I have seen since I've awakened and didn't remember him.

"So why did he call me Mrs. Bradley?" I muse as if I'm clueless. Which I'm not. Well, not entirely.

"Bradley was—" He seems to be searching for an answer. I can almost see the wheels turning inside his head. "Your old name. Before—"

I stop him. "My maiden name?" I finish for him and he seems relieved.

"Yes. Yes your maiden name. Sometimes I still get words mixed up. You know."

I chewed my bottom lip. So whoever Josue is- I know him and he knows me. Not as Mrs. Doyle Connelly- but as Andrea Bradley. He knows me from before I married Dr. Tall, handsome and mysterious.

"Do we know him?" I ask. "Josue?"

Doyle looks flabbergasted. "No. No you don't know him!" He spits too readily; and of one thing I'm sure as he pushes me out through the double glass hospital doors.

He's lying to me.

I don't know why.

I don't know what about either; but I know Dr. Doyle Connelly is lying about something.

He scolds me as he helps me into the BMW. "You should never, never talk to strangers!" He warns me as he climbs in beside me. "Especially that one! He is crazy! I don't even know how he got that job!"

This angers me a bit because as of this moment- the whole world is comprised of strangers and "crazy" and I are well on our way to becoming bosom buddies. I feel as though I am never more than five inches from being declared "certifiably crazy" and at any moment I could topple over the edge. I glare at him.

"In that case I should have never spoken to you Doc!" I almost spit the words at him.

He sighs angrily and I feel a little bad for provoking him as he drives me out of the hospital parking lot and into the heart of a city I no longer remember.

We drive through streets that are totally foreign, I peer out the window but am unable to recognize any of the buildings as being the least bit familiar.

It's as though I've woken up on Mars. I have a husband I no longer know, in a city I don't recognize. I have no memory of my home or family or life before a couple days ago. Nothing around me feels familiar or comforting in the least.

Nothing, that is, except for a woolly redneck orderly named Josue who talks in riddles.

C'est la vie. I tell myself and wonder where I learned French.

Chapter 3

We are driving up- that's all I can tell. I've given up looking out the window because I it's too dark and rainy and curvy. I'm starting to get carsick so I lie my head back and try to breathe through my nose. It seems to help but I wonder what Doc thinks over there driving while I'm snorting like a bull. He says we're almost home and pats my knee comfortingly. Yay, I think to myself and I crack my eyes open a little. The lights are brighter here. I can't make out much about the neighborhood besides the landscaping is perfect and the houses are expensive. Where else would I think a doctor would live- a trailer park? I ask myself. Really.

The car turns onto a circular drive way. The house is made of stone with a many gabled roof and a multitude of windows staring blankly out of odd corners like cold, dead eyes. There is a tower in the corner covered by ivy and the other corner is almost hidden by huge oaks.

I stare at it; waiting for the words to come but they don't. It looks like something out of a movie. I gulp and think of one of those dark, scary movies where someone almost always winds up being chased by a madman with an axe by the end of the film. I'm both drawn to it and repelled by it all at the same time. A chill creeps up my back and cold fingers wrap around the back of my neck.

I've seen this house. I know this house- but it's not my house.

"It over looks the river." He says. "What do you think?" Doyle asks me and I'm flabbergasted. I had imagined lots of homes but this one... not even in the stretch of my imaginings could I have imagined this one.

"It's..." There is no way I can verbalize what I feel, but I try clumsily. "Something."

"Something, yes." He laughs. "Something would describe it. Rock City Gardens are nearby." He says as he waits for the garage door. "I suppose someone thought building a house like this would be cute. I don't know." He muttered. "All the streets are named after fairy tales. The old coot who built this...I think surely he liked the idea of living in a fairy tale castle. I guess you did too though. I wanted something old- I was ready to lay down big bucks for an antebellum home near the battlefield but you swore it was haunted so ... " He smiled over at me. "You and your ghosts. You won. This time."

A garage door opens and we drive inside. It seems surreal. The garage is sparse. A couple boxes populate one corner and that's it. I can't help but thinking that there should be some clutter. A lawn mower, a couple of chainsaws or something other than boxes. Don't we do yard work on the weekends? I wonder to myself as I look around.

This is some kind of joke. I turn to Doyle as he removes the keys from the ignition. "Well, are you going to get out?"

I nod and unclip the seatbelt. I had hoped my arrival at my home would bring back some memories, or at the very least some warm fuzzy feelings.

No such luck. He helps me out and reaches back inside for my hospital bag.

"We had a hard time reconciling our tastes. I like modern, utilitarian, straight lines, sharp colors... You like...."

"Cozy." I finish for him and he smiles at me.

"Cozy is one way to put it. You like comfort, clutter, frilly, girly, country..." He says with a hint of mock disgust in his tone as he flips through the mass of keys in his right hand. "We had many heated arguments over the furnishings so we compromised.

"How's that?" I ask and he grins stupidly.

"I hired a decorator." He turns the key and then pushes the door open. "This is the kitchen."

The indoors are much more impressive than the outside. I find myself inside a massive kitchen. The appliances are all stainless steel and there isn't an item out of place. It doesn't seem a bit comfortable or cozy. It looks much more like a hotel than a home but perhaps it is just because I don't remember anything.

Doyle smiles mischievously. "So beautiful, do you want the grand tour?"

"Yes!" I bark and he takes my hand in his. His fingers are strong and long next to mine. His hands are cold and I wonder if he's just a bit nervous. I hope so. I feel like a schoolgirl on her first date, and I look over at him and he smiles sweetly.

I feel rushed as he shows me through the house. The dining room dominated by a large modern table set as though we were expecting guests at any minute. Doyle leads me by the door quickly and across the hall into another large room.

"The sitting room." He announces and tells me this is where we have guests over from time to time for cocktails. The furniture is utilitarian and modern looking. There isn't a chair or a sofa that looks comfortable enough to curl up in. Abstract art adorns the walls. There is no television. Only chairs, sofas and tables of various sizes, several metal sculptures that don't look like anything recognizable and tasteful groupings of flowers.

"Downstairs." He leads me to a wooden stair case. "This is the informal area."

Well thank goodness. I think to myself, but I don't say it. I don't think I could ever find myself feeling comfortable enough to stay long in the sitting room or elegant enough for the formal dining room.

Downstairs I find myself in a large room filled with books. "This is our living area." He tells me. "This is your favorite room." He sweeps his hand out. "I let you decorate it. Go. See if anything feels familiar."

I step into the room and my heels click off the hardwood floors. I run my fingers over the back of an overstuffed cream colored sofa. Several brightly patterned pillows sit at both ends and match the patterns on the two arm chairs close by. There is a rock fireplace along the opposite wall holding a large flat screen television. I turn and peer out the windows to my left side that overlooks the city below. I feel my eyes widen as I see the sparkling city lights below me. I can't believe that this is my house. It just doesn't feel like my home. I can't explain it. It just doesn't feel... right.

"Well?" He asks and regretfully I pull my gaze away from the golden twinkling lights below me. I shake my head. Nothing seems familiar.

"Come along then." He says nonchalantly. "Perhaps there is something else that will inspire you." He steps through the double doors and points. "You always loved the pool. But the bedroom is my favorite room of the house." He gives me a mischievous wink. "For obvious reasons."

Pool? I feel like I've won the lottery! We have a pool? Yes, I do think I remember him talking about a pool earlier. He said we have a dog too.

I ask him what about the dog. He laughs and tells me he's being kept in a kennel and he had made arrangements for the dog sitter to bring him home tomorrow.

I shrug. I suppose he's had other things on his mind besides feeding the dog.

He flicks on lights in a huge room. The outer wall is nothing but glass. In the center there is a gurgling pool and a hot tub, surrounded by white tile.

I stare at it, sort of surprised that we have an indoor pool.

I suppose he sees the look on my face and his eyebrows tilt up in a question.

"Wow. Indoor pool." I say because I can't think of anything else to say. Nothing so far has rung any of my bells, but I try to sound upbeat. "Not going to get much of a tan in here am I?"

That same blank look. "It had to be inside, dear." He says. "I can't be in the sun. My condition you know."

I look at him with probably the same blank as he had given me just a few minutes earlier. He had mentioned a 'condition' several days ago during our lunch together but I never asked. I supposed it seemed a little too personal. Now I was going to be living with the man, I might as well know. Just in case it was life threatening.

Or contagious.

"If you don't mind my asking—what is your condition?"

He laughs. "I thought you'd have figured it out by now. My light skin and hair. My violet eyes... can't go out in the sun, stay up all night..."

He waits for me to finish like I'm playing some sort of game with him. I blurt the first thing and somehow I know I've never been good at guessing games.

"You're... a vampire!" I tease, but to my surprise he turns to me and smiles eerily. His almost violet eyes take on a darker hue, almost red.

"Congratulations on your astute observation Mrs. Connelly. You are far more clever than I considered earlier." He says much in the same way as I'd imagine a crazed serial killer would say "I'm going to kill you now."

I think my eyes must have gotten as big as hubcaps before he could get out the part that it was only a joke. I wait for a laugh or a slap across the back but I get neither. The room starts to sway a little. I feel like a goldfish whose bowl had just been upset.

"Andrea?" His voice rising in panic a little as the lights in my head flicker and dim. The walls move away from me as I reach out for them but only feel blackness. I'm fairly sure I'm about to end up in the freezer or buried in the back yard and I'd rather not be awake for that. I plunge into darkness and I am thankful for it.

Chapter 4

I feel like I've been asleep for days. My mouth is as dry as a piece of cotton. I feel like I've been drugged, thoughts slip through my mind before I can identify them. A thousand thoughts buzzing in my head like angry bees, I want to swat them away but I can't move. My body feels sluggish. The voices whisper to me, like a room full of people talking at once. I can't understand any of them, but they press in on me, unseen hands pull at me. I try to scream, to tell them to stop but I can't make any noise. I try to move but I can't. The man in white reaches for me but dissipates as my dream dissolves into a wakeful reality. I feel myself being pulled away from him. At last I manage to open my eyes.

Everything around me is blurry, and I blink several times before the world comes into focus properly.

I'm on a large bed in an unfamiliar room.

It appears to be a sleigh bed, made of some kind of very dark wood. There's not a lot else in this room besides the bed. Two night tables sit on each side. Two lamps hang from the ceiling down low near the head of the bed just above the night stands. There is a full length oval mirror standing in one corner. At the foot of the bed is some sort of chest or trunk. There is a blanket folded on top. Two sets of double doors hide the closets. I imagine them to be quite large, because there are neither dressers nor any other furnishing to store clothing in this room. The room is painted in a shade slightly darker than eggshell. The color makes me think of banana pudding for whatever reason and that makes my stomach rumble, reminding me that I haven't had supper yet and I'm starving.

I hear Doyle's footsteps sounding in the hall and my pulse speeds up, my memory of our last conversation flooding back over me.

He had been talking about his 'condition' which made him unable to go out in the sun.

"You're a vampire." I had joked and he had turned to me with an almost deadly look and congratulated me on my diagnosis and very politely told me I wasn't as dumb as he thought.

And that... I believe... is when I passed out.

In retrospect I've noticed I've been passing out a lot lately. I think to myself as I feel myself coming back into full consciousness. I wonder if this is a new thing or if it is something that I lived with. Or if it was just the shock over Doyle's unnerving behavior, I can't tell.

Fear climbs from the pit of my stomach and up into my throat, as the footsteps get ever nearer. I think my heart will stop when he pops into the room.

"Hello there, beautiful lady! Awake now?" He says pleasantly, his voice showing a hint of accent. He smiles seductively as he walks toward me. I know I surely must be looking at him like I've seen a ghost but he doesn't seem to notice. I wait for him to turn into a bat but when that doesn't happen I wonder if it was all a joke. Perhaps it was all in my imagination since nothing seems to be amiss.

I notice that he has changed clothes and is now wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and a muted blue polo shirt and a pair of dark brown leather casual oxfords. It feels a little weird seeing him in 'normal' clothes since I've only seen him in dress slacks, long sleeved shirts and ties. For a second I feel almost scandalized by this lack of formality. I hardly know him and seeing him minus his 'doctor garb' is almost like seeing him barely clothed. He sits down on the bed beside me and I stiffen as I feel the bed shift under his weight. This doesn't feel right. None of it is right.

"So, feeling better?"

I nod but am unable to make the slightest bit of noise.

"I'm sorry; I suppose I pushed you too hard. I should have insisted that you come straight up to bed, but you seemed so excited about seeing the house and I had hoped it would help you remember something." He dropped his eyes and traced the pattern on the comforter with his fingertip. "I've ordered from that Thai place you like so much. Just some soup and some of those spring rolls you are so fond of. Do you think you could eat?"

I am starving but suddenly the thought of food makes my stomach heave. I shake my head weakly.

"You must keep your strength up. Just try some of the chicken soup then."

I don't say anything. My mouth tastes bitter and I feel like I'm going to urp. But he stares at me with those weird blue eyes so I ask him if he feels like eating some soup.

Or does he only drink blood? My mind whispers and I swallow back another wave of nausea.

I knew this whole thing was too good to be true. The beautiful devoted doctor husband, the house over looking the city... if it seems too good to be true it probably is. Case in point- he's sitting on the bed with me. Probably been lounging in his coffin while I've been sleeping off my... whatever... I wonder if I have bite marks on my neck.

"I suppose I could eat." He says offhandedly. "I do like those egg rolls quite a bit." He stands and stretches to his full height. He seems to tower over me. "I'll go down and bring something up to you. Quick as a jiff."

I try to gather my thoughts before he returns. Surely, that was just a joke. Maybe I just passed out before the 'I'm kidding - hahahahaha' part... I mean... there's no such thing. Right?

I feel unsteady on my feet and find my way to the window. The city sparkles below me. I wonder if I could climb out this window and survive... if I ever need to. There's a tiny bit of grass before a sheer drop off.

I hear footsteps again and turn only to see a shadow dart by the door.

Now the house is haunted. Great! My husband is a vampire; there are ghosts in the hall. What next? I eye a closet door nervously and wonder if the boogie man is in there. I raise a shaky hand to my head to feel if I have a fever. I don't but I'm pretty sure I'm losing my marbles.

I return to bed just as my vampire husband enters the room with a tray.

"I think I put it in the microwave for too long." He says as he puts the tray down on the bedside table. He picks an egg roll up in his long fingers and holds it out to me. "Have one while the soup cools. It's boiling,"

I take it from him and look at it like it could be poison. What am I supposed to do? Throw it in his face and run for the door? I wouldn't make it out. This place is straight down. This is stupid. My husband is not a vampire. My house is not haunted. I have amnesia. Not an everyday occurrence but it could happen. I'm just letting the drugs and my imagination take control.

I hold the egg roll to the point of embarrassment. He's watching me in expectation with one eyebrow arched up.

He thinks I'm crazy. Maybe I am.

I take a deep breath and bite into it and am surprised at how good it tastes. He sits beside me and stretches out gingerly as if he's afraid the bed would break if he moves too carelessly.

"What time is it?" I ask him trying my best to seem normal.

He pulls his iPhone out of one of the various pockets and checks it.

"Oh, it's very early. It's not even midnight yet." He lies back on the bed and lets out an exhausted sigh. Guilt twinges me. I know he must be exhausted.

"Midnight." I squeak and try not to choke on my egg roll. 'That's early?"

"For us it is. Night people that we are." He rolls onto his side beside me and props up on his elbow to look at me. He is so handsome, it is unnerving for him to look at me this way.

"Because of your condition." I manage before I choke and he leans back and hands me a Styrofoam cup with a straw. I look at it and wonder what's inside but I'm afraid of what he might say.

"Sweet tea." He answers my unasked question. "With enough sugar to send you into a diabetic coma. Just like you like it." He laughs and watches me drink it until he suddenly remembers our prior conversation and picks it back up. "Yes, because of my condition."

I take a swig of my sweet tea as if it would bolster my courage.

"How does that work exactly?" I ask and he shrugs.

"Albinism?" He picks another egg roll out and hands it over and I almost choke again.

"What?" I ask just to be sure. "You have what?"

"Albinism." He repeats and relief runs through me.

He starts to say something else but I interrupt him.

"Albinism." I say- "Did you say albinism?" I stammer. He can't be albino. Aren't they like sickly white with white hair and red eyes...

Red eyes.

Ohhhh...

I'm an idiot.

"Yes. Surely you know what that is." He cocks his head to one side and gives me a knowing look. "I mean, you didn't think I was actually a vampire did you?"

What? A vampire? Heck no! I laugh nervously and wave my hand at him and tell him I was just making a joke. He gives me that same look- like he knows I'm lying and it hurts his feelings a little.

That was exactly what I thought.

He holds up his phone so the blank screen can show his reflection. "See? Here's my reflection. I don't sleep in a coffin. I can't turn into a bat. I don't sparkle, suck blood or fight werewolves. Yes, I can go in the sun but not without sleeves and lots of sun block. Otherwise, I would blister within a few minutes. I actually don't prefer it. It makes me nauseated. I work third shift just because it's easier. Oh, and yes a stake through the heart will probably kill me. But it would probably kill you too." He looks at me with a sly smile. "It's okay; it's not the first time someone's called me a vampire." His voice is almost a whisper but it conveys an underlying disappointment in my assumptions. "I've—had to live with that sort of teasing my whole life. I'm—I'm used to it. Really."

What he doesn't say is "But not from you." I can hear it in his voice. Someone else might be able to say that without it hurting him but not the woman he had slept in a chair beside for the last month. Not from his wife.

He laughs, but I don't find any of it funny right now. "Look. It's rare, but other than that I'm normal." He grins. "Mortal."

I feel like a slug. If there were a rug, I could crawl under it.

"An albino with a wife who has amnesia." He laughs at the absurdity that has become our lives.

"Aren't we a pair?" He comments as he hands me the mug with the soup inside and I drink it because I don't know what else to say.

"Feeling better now?"

"Sort of." I breathe in relief. Albinism. Okay I can handle this. Much better that the undead alternative. "Could you tell me about it then?" I offer and he seems satisfied.

"Well I have oculocutaneous albinism and photo phobia. Which is why I don't like the sun so much. It's not that I can't go out in the sun. I have to take precautions or else I'll fry, and I have to wear sunglasses in bright light. Which is why I prefer working at night...My vision is pretty good though- which is a medical oddity in itself. Most people like me are very nearly blind."

I sip the soup thoughtfully and try not to look at him as he continues. I feel like such a fool.

"In the summer, I don't go out much here. If it were a cooler climate I probably would but Tennessee is hot in the summer time. I have to wear long sleeves and a hat and sunglasses. People always ask me questions. In the winter it is not so bad. It does get cold here in the winter and people don't pester me about my choice of attire."

"So why did you come to Tennessee? Why not go someplace where you could have a more normal life?" Like Alaska. Don't they have night for like six months or something? I place the soup on the bedside table and look over at him and he puts his hand over mine then brings it to his lips.

"Because my dear. Tennessee was where you were."

My heart melts. Right then. I can feel it running all over my bed. Right in that moment, I know I could very well fall in love with this man.

The fuzzy feeling remains until the soup is finished and the stack of egg rolls is nothing but flaky crumbs stuck to the plate.

I yawn and he reluctantly sits up.

"I think it's time to get you ready for bed."

Bed.

With him. This stranger. My husband.

I suddenly feel very awkward. My stomach twists itself into knots.

"Come, I will show you where you keep your things."

He pulls me from the bed and strides across the room. He flings open the left closet door revealing a massive walk in closet.

He looks back at me and then holds out his hands in a ta-da gesture. "Here's where you keep all your things." He says proudly but then looks at me unsurely. "As to the exact location of your sleeping clothes... I have no idea." He looks back at the closet hopelessly then back at me and his expression lights up. "You could always sleep nude."

I feel the heat in my face and he apologizes for being so crude.

We stand there awkwardly. Well, at least I do. He doesn't have any reason to feel awkward. To him, I'm the same woman he married. He knows everything about me. He's completely comfortable with me.

But to me – he's a first date. Maybe not even a first date. I've only just seen him in his casual clothes for the first time just a few minutes earlier. I'm not ready to sleep with him in the nude. I'm not ready to sleep in the same bed with him, clothed, unclothed or otherwise.

I twist my hands in embarrassment and he finally gets the hint.

"Oh, well, I'll leave you alone." He says and pushes a door open to the left of me. "There's the restroom. You can... whatever. I think I'll go for a swim."

He leans close to me, but stops. "May I kiss you?"

I chew my lip but nod. As nervous as he makes me, my mind continually reminds me that he's my husband. He slept in a chair by my bed for a month not knowing if I would live or die. I could at least let him kiss me.

He gives me a quick peck on the cheek and then goes to retrieve a towel.

"I want you in bed within 30 minutes." He mock orders me. "You need your rest."

I salute. "Yes sir!" I play along and he saunters out of the room.

"Just call out if you need anything." He looks over his shoulder and gives me a smile. "What is that you country girls say? Just holler?"

Just holler. That sounds so familiar.

I say okay and step into the closet. I run my fingers over clothes I've never seen. I open up several drawers until I find what looks to be lingerie. I hold the frilly, lacy things up to the light and my face turns red and my stomach twists in apprehension. Finally I find a pair of too short knit shorts and a v neck tee shirt but it is the most decent thing in the sleepwear department.

I dig my toothbrush out of my travel bag and ready myself for bed. When I finally climb under the covers my eyes are drooping and I feel like I've climbed a mountain.

The sheets are crisp and clean; like it hasn't been slept in for a while. I wonder when Doyle slept here last. I had asked him to come home last night and get some rest but I wonder if he slept somewhere else besides our bed. I yawn and decide it is not too bad; the bed is comfortable and I fall asleep almost instantly.

I doze in and out and float on dreams until I feel a presence near me. I turn to see Doyle moving the pillow.

He is wearing a pair of blue flannel pajama pants and a white tee shirt. Even in his sleeping clothes he looks great. I wonder what on Earth I'm doing with a man like this.

"Don't worry honey. I'll sleep on the couch. I know you're not comfortable..."

But despite my earlier worries, I don't want him to go.

I grab his arm.

"No. Stay. I need you... to be close to me." I stammer not really able to give words to how I feel. Perhaps not completely comprehending how I feel. Somewhere inside me are all the memories of our lives together. I can almost feel them but not quite.

Reluctantly or not quite as reluctantly as he acts, he pulls the covers back and crawls in beside me. He clicks the lights off as I lay huddled in my far corner, my back to him.

He sighs, and I know what he means. This doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel natural. I don't remember with my mind but it seems my body remembers being close to my husband's body. I turn to face him.

"How do we sleep, usually?" I ask him.

I can hear the playfulness in his voice. "Nude usually."

I fling my arm at him in the darkness and he laughs. "What? We do!"

"Well." I can feel my embarrassment in my face. "It ain't gonna happen tonight!" I growl and he laughs again. I like the sound of his laughter, though; it makes me feel like there's something good still left in my otherwise screwed up life.

"Turn your back to me." He instructs me and then spoons behind me. I can feel his warmth through my thin tee shirt. He puts one arm under my head and the other he drapes across my waist, just at my hips. "This." He whispers in my ear. "Is how we usually start off."

And where do we end up? I wonder to myself as a small shiver runs up my spine.

I feel him comb my hair away from my neck and I feel his breath as he whispers.

"I won't rush you. You are safe with me. Not until you are ready. You will ask when you're ready. Not until then."

I smile to myself drowsily and an errant thought passes through my consciousness before I sleep.

A vampire has to be invited in you know.

I push the thought away as so much silliness.

"Go to sleep honey." He purrs from behind me and pulls me closer to his body. For a second, I doubt that will ever happen but I slip into darkness nonetheless.

Chapter 5

The next thing I am aware of the sun is peeking in a bright yellow line through the blackout curtain. I stare at it in all of its lemony yellowness and I know it's mid-morning at least. A curious thought runs through my head.

Yellow sunshine. Time to get up.

I grunt and wonder where that thought came from. Maybe if I concentrate a little harder it will come to me. I focus on the thin band of yellow light spilling into the opposite wall. The thought is slippery, it moves when I try to catch it. I know it's there, somewhere at the back of my mind, hiding in that place where my memories used to be. I sigh and decide to give up. I'm still drowsy and I drift off.

Gray sunshine. The errant thought teases me. I don't have the energy to rouse myself.

Yellow sunshine. Gray sunshine. It calls out like a kid on the playground. You can't figure me out can you? You can't catch me— and that's when I wake up, pounce on it before it can escape back into the shadows of my mind.

You can only wake mom and dad up on Saturdays if it's yellow sunshine. If it's gray sunshine then you have to let them sleep...

A thrill rushes through my body! I've remembered something! I don't know what it is. I have no idea where it came from or what it means, but it's something. Perhaps something from my childhood. My absent memory pouts like a child that has lost a game and so I get nothing more from it. I gloat at my accomplishment nonetheless.

I file the fragment of memory in my mind as I listen to the sound of Doyle's breathing beside me. His hand rests on my abdomen protectively and his head is next to my shoulder. It feels familiar in some ways, but there is something else that just... doesn't feel... right. It's almost as if I have done something wrong. What could be wrong about it? He is my husband isn't he?

I feel tired as I pull myself out of bed. More tired now after a long night's sleep in my own bed than I did when I was in the hospital and nurses woke me up every five minutes. I feel like I can hardly make it to the restroom, and if my bladder wasn't urging me so, I would just lie here and try to sleep some more.

I drag to the restroom and relieve my full bladder. I look at myself in the mirror. There is a large garden Jacuzzi tub beside a shower. It is all glass and the walls around the Jacuzzi are mirrored. I groan. The last thing I want to see in the morning is myself... naked... but the Jacuzzi looks tempting nonetheless. Perhaps a hot bath would do me some good.

I creep inside the closet and bring out a fresh pair of underwear as I cast a furtive look over my shoulder at the man sleeping in the bed behind me. He hasn't stirred since I awoke. I decide to let him sleep and take these few moments to myself. I turn on the water in the tub and run my fingers under the stream as I wait for it to get hot. When it's hot enough I turn the cold up a smidgeon and allow the tub to fill up above the jets. It takes several minutes- during which I shrug a robe over my shoulders and wander to the kitchen.

A coffee maker beckons me and I start a pot. I wonder how I know how to do things- like make coffee, and speak French but I've forgotten everything else. I shake my head as the coffee pot gurgles and hisses and I return to the bathroom to my steaming Jacuzzi.

Doyle is still sleeping and I close the door quietly. I slip my clothes off and slip into the water. I cringe because it is almost too hot, and quickly turn the cold up a little. It doesn't take long before its hot enough to suit me without causing third degree burns. I wonder if the sounds from the jets will wake Doyle, but as I push the button on the top right corner of the tub I find that they are surprisingly quiet. The water soothes my sore muscles, and for the first time I am at leisure to inspect myself. I can see the faintest traces of bruising on my arms and legs- evidence of the trauma that I suffered but no longer remember. There is a large ugly scar on my left knee and I wince at the pain that must have been but that memory has been taken from me as well. I rest my arms on the top of the tub and lay my head back. The water swirls around me and the hum of the jets lulls me and my eyes droop. I suppose it would not hurt, to close my eyes for a second and let the water work its magic.

"Psssttt." The voice whispers. Just in my ear. "Wake up."

I turn to see a pair of green eyes looking into mine framed by a halo of golden curls. "Momma, wake up!"

I jump and the sound of my own scream wakes me. Doyle is leaning against the counter with a satisfied smile on his face and my scream makes him jump. I scream again and he covers his face and laughs behind his hand.

"What are you doing?" I cower lower in the churning water. I'm not sure why since I'm fairly convinced he's seen me naked before.

"What?" He growls playfully. "You're my wife!"

I don't know if it's the heat from the water or if it's embarrassment I feel in my cheeks.

"Why are you being so shy?" He turns his back to me and looks at my reflection in the mirror over the twin sinks. "After all you slept with me last night."

"But we didn't do anything." I remind him and a smile creeps over his face. He looks at me seductively out of the corners of his eyes. "Oh, but in my fantasies, my dear...In my fantasies you were fantastic!"

I slip below the water until only my face is above the surface. "You promised you wouldn't rush me."

"I'm not. Andrea, I want to be with you. I can't help it. You are my wife. And I am only just a man."

That last statement makes me feel a little ashamed. He is my husband. He has taken care of me while I was hurt, slept in the chair by my bed for goodness knows how long. There's a part of me that thinks that I should show him a little more appreciation but another part of me that is repelled by the thought of intimacy with a near stranger.

"Oh, if only I hadn't wakened you." He lamented. "I could have enjoyed the view for a little longer." He said more to his reflection in the mirror than to me.

But he didn't wake me.

The child did.

I look up at him, almost forgetting to cover myself as I lean forward.

"Doyle. Do we have children?" I ask but I know the answer. I can't remember, but something inside me knows already.

I am a mother.

I've had children.

"Children?" He laughs as he washes his face. "No. No children. We decided not to remember?" Then he laughs at himself. "No, of course you don't. What am I saying?"

He turns to me, wiping his hands on a towel.

"We decided not to. You were tested after we married. You are a carrier, and I have albinism so our children could be blind... or worse. That's why we don't have any children."

"Have I ever been pregnant?" I ask, not convinced.

He laughs at me and turns back to the mirror. He speaks to me through his reflection as he finishes his shave. "Not that I know of, and I think I know you pretty well. You were a ... what's the English word? Unsullied... the first time we...You know."

"Unsullied?" I ask him and lower my head to give his reflection a questioning look. Who talks like that? What planet is he from?

"Never been with a man. Before me."

"Oh." I say. A virgin. I'm not sure when that became a bad word but it makes me squirm. "I understand." I will stick with unsullied I suppose.

"So I've never had children." I say again just to be sure.

"No, honey."

No. Something in my gut screams. I know. I have children.

"Why do you ask?" There is an edge to his voice. A tone, I haven't heard before and it makes me feel a bit uneasy in the pit of my stomach.

"Just a dream. I dreamed of a little girl." I told him as I lay back in the bubbling water.

"Jackie has a little girl." He suggests and shrugs like he doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Not one that calls me momma. I think to myself but I don't dare say it. The tone of his voice earlier had a warning edge to it that made me uneasy. I'm not sure why but for right now I will trust my intuition.

I tell him I'll be right out. He insists that I return to bed and inwardly I groan. The last thing I want to do is go back to bed but I know he's right. I feel so tired.

"You're still not completely healed, honey." He insists.

"I've started coffee." I tell him- hoping for a reprieve as he pulls the covers back for me.

"Ah, and you have read my mind. I would love some! Thank you. Especially, since we are up so early. Three pm? Really?" He pretends to yawn and he stretches his arms above his head and his tee shirt rides up, slightly revealing his six pack abs. I blush and look away, hoping that he didn't see me looking. The triumphant expression on his face tells me that he did see me and he knows I like what I've seen. But he wisely decides to not say anything to that effect and instead tells me he will bring me some coffee and something for breakfast.

Breakfast is frozen waffles with some strawberries in a bowl to one side and some mummified looking bacon on the other. He brings it in on a tray with a cup of coffee and various condiments.

"Frozen waffles and turkey bacon!" He announces proudly and I act like he's just brought out filet mignon.

"I know how to use the toaster and the microwave." He grins shyly. "And the coffee maker of course. I know how you used to like your coffee... but I've read that sometimes taste preferences change when a person has amnesia." He sits the tray beside me on the bed. "So I brought some sugar and cream. You can mix it yourself and we'll see."

I drown it with cream until it's slightly darker than my eggshell colored walls and then put several spoons of sugar in it. He watches me bemusedly with one eyebrow higher than the other and I blush.

I taste it and smile at him. He returns my smile with one of his own.

"Well, Sweetheart, your taste in coffee is still the same."

It makes me feel good. It's like the other me is still in here somewhere, just hanging out and maybe I'll run into her one day.

I eat the frozen waffles like I haven't eaten in days as he watches me. He tells me that he had some toast earlier and refuses my offer for a bite.

After the last bite is safely tucked in my stomach he takes my plate away and orders me back to sleep. I groan. I feel like all I've done is sleep. My life thus far has been sleeping. Doyle places the tray to the side table and stretches out beside me. He's still wearing casual clothes. I wonder if he will go to work tonight.

"I'm taking two weeks off to be with my wife." He informs me. "We both need to rest... and heal." He waits for a moment before he says the next words, as if gauging the right words to say. "Reconnect."

Reconnect, right. That's one way to put it. I nod and settle back in the bed next to him. Despite the fact that I've slept all night I feel myself slipping away again. Tomorrow...I tell myself. Tomorrow I will get out of bed and try to live.

But I feel much the same way when I awake this morning as I did yesterday. I'm over tired, almost like I've been drugged. The more I sleep the more I feel like I need to sleep. It's a vicious cycle. I have little desire to do anything except sleep.

I tell Doyle it isn't normal and he laughs at me.

"You were in a coma. You don't really rest while you're in a coma, it's not like you are sleeping. Your body was trying to heal itself- it's still trying to heal itself. You need your rest!" He assures me quietly. "Don't worry so, Dr. Doyle will take care of you."

I fall asleep and when I awaken he announces that he's brought the dog from the sitter and proudly ushers him into our room. I squeal in delight at the giant ball of black fluff as he lopes into the room. I tell Doyle that he is the most adorable dog I've ever seen. I ask if he's a Pomeranian but Doyle is somewhat appalled at that comparison.

"This is a Giant German Spitz. His name is Vladimir." He says with a flourish.

I stare at him.

Vladimir...I know...That's not a dog name. It's a vampire's name, not a dog's name but interestingly, his personality matches his name; if you can believe that. I call him and slap my thighs but he gives me a rather perturbed glare in return. It's almost like he's bothered by me. He appears to like Doyle a little better, but not much. He seems to tolerate us for dog treats, but there is no love there. Doyle says he's pedigreed and I look down at him and say in a fake German accent. "Let me see your papers." Which I find funny, but both Doyle and the dog look at each other questioningly. Perhaps he's never seen Hogan's Heroes. As a matter of fact- I know so.

I decide to throw him a strip of that fake bacon left over from breakfast but Doyle catches my hand. He tells me not to feed him table food because he's very expensive. I wonder why anyone would want such a singularly unfriendly dog. Perhaps dogs with pedigrees are a lot like humans with them. I ask if we could go to the shelter and get a dog with a little personality but Doyle is horrified and tells me again how much this dog cost.

I slink back to bed, stung a little. God forbid Mr. Pedigree would have to tolerate the company of an inferior dog without papers.

Days pass and I do little more than sit around in my room and sleep. Doyle is with me, and the dog- both seemingly bored. He had hoped the dog would bring back some memories but it only serves to heighten my suspicion that I'm in the wrong body. Or I'm dreaming- this very long, very realistic dream and I'll wake up soon. But that doesn't happen. It only seems like a couple days before he announces that he will be returning to work soon. This is our last full weekend together and Monday he says, he will be back to the grind.

I've done research on amnesia while Doyle was picking up take out and I found that some people remember very little- while I- medical oddity that I am- seem to have come through my ordeal relatively unscathed. Until you take into account my appalling lack of any personal memories.

Collective memories I have out the wazoo. I seem to be a repository of useless information. I suppose if I can't do anything else I still could be on jeopardy. I know that Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, 1941, and I know the state bird of Alabama is the yellowhammer. I know that the battle was fought over there at Chickamauga Creek in September, 1863 but the Yankees held Chattanooga. Somehow I know the Cherokee word for mountain is a-ta-la .I can tell you exactly how people around here fiddle for worms- though I can't imagine how I ever came into the possession of that knowledge. I can remember how to make crepes and speak French with a sweet Tennessee twang.

Much to my own surprise and my husband's utter amazement just today I have found that I can still drive and I can tell you all the traffic rules.

I just can't tell you where I'm going. Even after almost two weeks I feel lost. We've driven around the neighborhood a couple times and he seems almost amused that every time we go to the market I can't remember the way back.

Doyle doesn't trust me enough to leave me with the keys. Perhaps next week he says... when I'm more at home with things. I wonder what I am supposed to do while he's away during this week.

Sleep. He tells me. Rest.

Chapter 6

Doyle says he's going in for just a couple of hours to catch up on work. It's Thursday evening and tomorrow- he promises- we will do something fun. It's just starting to get cool here on the mountain. The weather is perfect for football games and harvest festivals. October means it's getting dark by seven and Doyle seems a little happier that his days of indoor exile are coming to an end. In the winter, he tells me, he can go out more.

I research things to do in Chattanooga after dark. I have no idea if we are dance club kind of people but somehow I don't think so. I wonder if I was, but I find myself doubting that either I or my doctor husband like to hang out in a dimly lit bar full of drunks. I want to go downtown, so I ask him if we can go to the aquarium but he says it closes at six. I silently mourn, because for some reason nothing seems as appealing to me as watching a bunch of fish swim around. He lifts my mood by telling me that he knows people. He can get us in after hours. I feel my heart race with excitement. The aquarium might not seem like much to some people, but to me it's the first normal thing we've done. He shrugs and gives me a look that tells me he's been there, done that several times but doesn't say so.

"Aquarium it is." He tells me. "We'll go get us a cheeseburger after and then stroll around downtown."

But I've also read the warnings about the dangers of walking around the city after dark. I tell him so and he laughs at me.

"But Doyle! What if we get mugged?"

"Are you kidding? It's Chattanooga Tennessee, not some sleazy third world city!"

I start to protest but he kisses me.

"Nobody's going to mug us Darling." He whispers. "Don't worry. Don't you think I can protect you?"

I smile and tell him of course.

"Trust me." He purrs in my ear before he steps out the door. "I'll be back in a couple hours."

I hear the car start up in the garage and I am left alone in the house. I walk outside and watch the sunset paint the sky and the city twinkle to life below me. I wonder what to do while I'm alone so I prowl through my closet. Surely I have something in there, tucked away in some forgotten box somewhere- a photo book or journal or a box of trinkets from my childhood. I end the evening finding several pairs of shoes and a great leather jacket that I didn't know I had but no closer to finding out who I once was. I groan and wander into my study where I prowl through the books in my bookshelves. Most of them are history or biography- things I have no interest in, and I wonder if I liked them in my other life. I open the cabinets below the shelves and find a trove of pink and purple romance paperbacks. I chuckle. I have found the secret stash of paperbacks, and I know these are the ones I would read but never have admitted it!

I pull out an especially dilapidated and dog-eared Little House book and I open it to the first page.

Spidery handwriting declares that this was read by Lois Anderson on March 9 1993.

My name is scrawled below in the same handwriting.

Given by Andrea Bradley Christmas 1992.

Loved it.

The woman wrote. I looked up at the handwriting. I wonder who this woman could be.

Lois Anderson. The name seems so familiar. It gives me a fuzzy, warm feeling- like I've just sipped hot coco. I lay the book aside on the floor and pull out more titles, flipping through more books in search of names. I find none until I pull a couple college textbooks aside and discover a shoebox behind them. I pull it out and open it.

I find a Bible inside and I frown, my face crinkles up. This is a funny place for a Bible. I think to myself. It's almost like I was hiding it away. I pull it out and open the first page.

It reads- "Presented to: Andrea Marie Bradley upon the confession of faith. June 14, 1990 by Bethany Baptist Church." I wonder how old I was at this point in my life and I laugh aloud. I don't know how old I am now for that matter. I flip to the second page where I find the Family Record. I gasp when I realize that this is what I have been looking for!

At the top it says "Lois Anderson married to Bill Anderson." The date is smudged and all I can make out is the 1935.

The next entry is newer. "Gail Anderson Bradley to David Bradley. December 7, 1973."

The last one is my name. "Andrea Marie Bradley to ______________." There is no name or date. I wonder why I've gone to the effort of filling out everyone else's names but not my own. Perhaps I lost my Bible... or my faith.

Nonetheless, I pull it out of its cardboard tomb and dust it off. A couple pictures are tucked away underneath. A plump old lady with a sweet face and a skinny old man looking at the camera as if he doesn't really want his picture taken. On the back I see an adolescent handwriting that I assume was my own- "Meemaw and Peepaw Anderson."

I smile at them. "Glad to meet you." I tell the picture as tears run down my cheeks. "Meemaw and Peepaw Anderson."

I wonder how you can miss people you can't remember, but I find I do.

The next picture is a family portrait of sorts. I scan the photograph and find I only recognize my two grandparents. The three other couples, I guess are the married children of my grandparents. I wonder which one of these faces are my own parents, but they all are strangers looking back at me.

On the back it reads "Christmas 1988."

I sniff and place the books back in the shelf, except for the Bible and the Little House book with my Grandmother's writing inside the front cover. I'll keep those out, I decide. I don't know why but I do. Perhaps it makes me feel closer to this family I no longer know. I tuck them both into the drawer of my bedside table. For some reason I don't want Doyle to know about them- just yet.

He's going to be back around ten. I should do something for my hardworking man. I'll make him a nice dinner and when he returns he will be so pleased.

I wonder if I can cook. I go into the kitchen and stare in the fridge.

Slim pickings there. The fridge is so empty there's an echo. What in the world do we eat?

I then go to the freezer where I find frozen foods but nothing homemade. I decide to make a casserole. There are some canned vegetables and some canned chunk chicken. I'll do a pot pie sort of thing. I scrounge in the pantry until I find a couple cans of cream of mushroom and I pull the ingredients out.

I've made this before! I know what to do! I think as I pull a frozen pie crust out of the freezer and start on my job. I'm busy pouring the ingredients into a casserole dish when my eye catches my left hand.

This is the first time I've ever noticed: I'm not wearing my wedding ring.

I took it off when I made meatloaf that time. The sudden recollection sweeps over me and my heart seems to skip a beat. I didn't want to get it messy. I put it... That's where my memory fades. I feel myself reaching up and putting it on a shelf of some sort.

I turn around and look for the shelf but I can't remember what it looked like. I remember the feeling of putting my ring- up. My mind doesn't remember- my body does. It felt the same way the first time I tried to type. I couldn't tell you were the letter c was but my fingers knew and had little trouble finding it.

I set the timer on the oven for half an hour and I go to search for the shelf and my ring. I spend the rest of the time scouring the house for the phantom shelf but am not successful. I end up with an almost burnt pot pie and no wedding ring. I am at the point of tears when I hear Doyle's BMW in the garage.

He looks at me in surprise as he walks into the kitchen.

"Cooking something?" He asks and I try to smile even though I don't feel like it.

"Yes. Chicken pot pie. I thought I'd make you dinner since you were working." I tell him.

He lifts an eyebrow. "How very domestic of you." He says pleasantly but his tone conveys the idea that he's not much impressed by my domestic skills. He sniffs at it as he comes to inspect my work. "It certainly does smell nice."

I urge him to sit down but he tells me he has to change. The hospital is full of sickness and germs he reminds me and e goes straight away to wash up. I set the table and wait for him. He returns in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. It looks good on him, accustomed as I am to seeing him dressed up- I like the casual look very much.

We eat until he breaks the silence with his question.

"Are you going to tell me what's gotten you so upset?"

Am I that transparent? I sigh. I guess I am.

"I—can't find my wedding ring." I tell him finally.

He looks at me like I've lost my ever loving mind.

He's been doing that a lot lately. I wonder what it's like to be married to an amnesiac. It's not much fun from this side- I seriously doubt he's having the time of his life either.

"Your wedding ring?" He asks.

"I remember feeling it. I mean- I sort of remember putting it up because I was making meatloaf and I didn't want to get it all messy--" I start but he interrupts me.

"Darling. You've never made meatloaf in your life." He tells me. "You don't even cook."

I feel my mouth drop open of its own accord and I snap it closed quickly. I most certainly have! I feel like I have anyway. "I do too!" I snap.

"Not to my recollection. Cook? Well perhaps a couple times, but meatloaf?" he makes a disgusted face." It sounds horrible!"

Yeah, like German food is all that much to brag about. I think to myself and my scalp prickles with irritation at his last statement. I have made meatloaf and it was great!

I cross my arms over my chest and stare him down.

"Well where is it then?" I demand.

"What? The meatloaf?" He seems utterly confused. "What are we talking about?"

"My wedding ring!" I growl.

He looks down at his plate and I can see the wheels turning in his head. He looks up at me and shrugs.

"You had it before the accident. I have no idea. Perhaps you lost it—"He starts but I know he's just fishing for answers

"No. I put it up. I remember putting it up."

He wipes his hand over his face irritatedly and stares at me, not knowing how to respond.

"I don't know honey. We'll look for it." He assures me but I know it's only to placate me.

I nod, knowing I'm not getting anywhere. He turns the conversation to our date tomorrow night. I file the wedding ring conversation away in my head. I've remembered something more- even if it is more of a feeling than an actual memory.

It's something at least.

Chapter 7

It takes me hours to decide what to wear for our first date. I'm excited and nervous. I don't really know why. I mean- I'm married to this guy. Perhaps it's the sheer fact that we're going somewhere (more than to the market or to run for takeout) with this man. Just the two of us; I don't know. I can't explain the gnawing feeling of uneasiness in my stomach. I wonder if I felt this way on our actual first date and I'd give anything just to know.

We get to the Aquarium just as the sun is setting and though I relish being out in the world of daylight I can tell that Doyle is less than comfortable. He wears dark glasses that wrap around his face and he is wearing a long sleeved shirt. It's chilly so no one notices as we crawl out of car. There are not a lot of cars in the small parking lot near the visitor's center. I suppose it being almost closing time we have missed the crowds. He tells me he will get the tickets and asks if I would like to wander around outside while there is still light.

I smile at him and we hold hands as we walk toward the visitor center. He leaves me to go inside and I meander with the remaining crowds around the outside area. I marvel at the half road sculpture and watch kids playing around the wading pool.

We enter the aquarium and ride the escalator to the top followed closely by a group of children wearing blue and white tee shirts with the name of a neighborhood after school program. The children are boisterous and lively. I notice Doyle's expression and I know even without being told that the children are driving him crazy before we even make it out of the otter exhibit.

I watch them, enjoying their exuberance but Doyle seems perturbed and tries to rush ahead. I laugh and shame him. "Doyle, they're just excited!" I tell him that for some of these children this is their first outing like this. I don't know how I know that, and I don't ask him. I try to act like this isn't the first time I've ever been anywhere, but I give up and join my shorter counterparts with my face smashed up against the glass. The other adults give me strange looks out of the corners of their eyes when they thought I wasn't looking.

They all think I'm retarded.

Oh, who am I kidding? Maybe I am.

I drag him from exhibit to exhibit and he walks behind me with a semi-amused look on his face, as if he's just tolerating the fish and the kids and the crazy wife and I feel a little ashamed of myself for making him go through this.

When we at last see the gift shop and it's apparent that our adventure has at last come to an end, I hear an audible groan from the other children and I feel like doing the same. The children zip around the gift shop touching everything in sight. A few are lined up with their selections in hand and I notice a small little girl looking longingly at a stuffed otter. I know without asking that she doesn't have the money, and I can see the longing in her eyes.

My heart breaks. I don't remember it but I know that feeling...that longing...that wanting something so badly that you could taste it. Maybe we all have. Maybe that's one thing that we all share.

I suppose Doyle notices my expression. He hands me a twenty and rolls his eyes like he knows I'm going to ask or beg and he's just making his life easier. I smile at him and then approach the girl.

"Did you drop this?" I ask her as I hold out the bill.

Her eyes grow wide and for a moment I can see that she considers telling me yes. But then a cloud covers her face and she shakes her head slowly.

"Are you sure. Because... you're the only one here."

"No'm. Granny says I ain't to take money from folks."

I wasn't expecting that answer. I try again.

"Okay. I'll confess. It was me. I'm sorry. It's just that that little guy there looks awful lonely and I can't stand to leave him here. He needs a little girl to love."

"Why don't you just buy him?"

"Oh, he would only be lonely at my house. I don't have a little girl. So I was thinking... perhaps I could give you this money and you could take him home with you. You'd be doing me a favor really. Unless I find him a family I'm afraid I won't sleep a wink tonight for worrying about him. You look like you would take real good care of him now, wouldn't you?"

A sly smile spreads across her face and at last we see eye to eye. She nods as she takes the bill in one hand and the plush otter in the other.

Doyle slips his hand around my waist and shakes his head at me. I can almost read his mind. I'm married to a big kid. We see her several minutes later boarding the bus with her new friend. She waves at us and makes the otter wave to us too.

I smile and feel warm and tingly inside. Doyle gives me that same strange smile as before. It is a smile that tells me he wouldn't have done the same thing but since it made me happy he will tolerate it.

It is getting dark and we walk to a burger joint with fifties style decor and order a couple cheeseburgers and fries. I get a strawberry milkshake and we enjoy being out of the house. Sort of like any other married couple. Except every other couple have a history together. Memories. Something I don't have and it eats at me and I try to push it to the back of my mind. This is a stranger. You're not married to him. Something about this isn't right.

Our cheese burgers arrive and I am sure this is the most amazing thing I have ever put in my mouth. Doyle's is almost raw and it gives me the willies. He is a vampire. The thought blind sides me again but I dare not tease Him about it.

Later we walk down by the river to the steps at Ross' Landing and sit watch the lights from Walnut Bridge reflect off the water. It's nice and a little chilly and I snuggle against him. It feels... almost natural...and against my better judgment, I kiss him. His reaction is instantaneous and overly aggressive for such a public place. He literally smothers me with his kisses and I gasp for breath and I before I know it he is pushing me down against the steps. He's so intense that for a second I imagine that he plans to have his way right there and fear shoots through my body. I feebly attempt to fight back, but it only makes him more aggressive. Finally I manage to push him away and tell him to stop.

"Damn." He curses. "What's wrong?"

"Doyle! What's wrong?" I gasp. "Stop. We can't do this... here...there are people!"

"I don't care." He says huskily in my ear. "I need you now!"

"Well! You're not going to get me now! Stop!" I spit out and he pushes away from me angrily.

"You never should have kissed me." He growled. I cannot see his face in the darkness but I can feel the anger emanating from him.

I try to placate him, unsure what to do about his outburst. The other couples on the steps do not seem to notice our spat and I am thankful.

"You don't think I'm the kind of girl that will sleep with a man on her first date do you?" I ask playfully, hoping that will abate his anger.

Instead he turns to me; I can see half his face illuminated by the light.

"Of course you are." He says icily and he moves over me much like a large animal would tower over its prey. He presses in and I lean back until I'm lying back on the steps and he puts his hands over mine and holds me there. "You slept with me the first time you ever saw me, you little slut. You've conveniently forgotten, but I remember. We were strangers. I asked you to coffee and you asked me to your room afterwards. You never mentioned you were engaged to be married at the time, so don't play coy with me little girl!" He warns. "I know all about you, and there are a few things you should know about me...First off: You don't ever... play with me... or lie to me... ever!" He makes the last sentence sound like a death threat.

I lay there dumbfounded at this new revelation but I couldn't deny it. I know as soon as he says it that it is true. I had dreamed it while I was in the hospital, but at the time, I thought it was only a dream. I saw myself meeting the handsome man on the subway and slipping my engagement ring into my jeans pocket. I wanted to misbehave that night. I was in Paris, the city of love, and it was my last night before I would have to come back to my real life.

I opened my mouth and tried to defend myself. "I didn't...I..." I tried to tell him, but Doyle finished for me. "You left me without as much as a goodbye! After I'd given myself to you- you left! I thought it was like they say: Love at first sight- I was bound to you and then... you were gone. It took me months to find you and when I did, you were about to walk down the aisle with another man!"

I gulp down air. I know it is true, even though I couldn't remember it. He was livid but he spoke slowly. "You don't invite me then tell me to stop. Understand?"

I trembled and tried to find my voice. "Yes...Yes. I understand. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

He sits up then, releasing me from the iron hold he had upon me. I roll over to my side and then sit up, pulling my hair out of my face. I look around to see if anyone else noticed our little spat.

The other couples sit huddled together talking or under blankets. If anyone noticed our little tiff, they are not letting on.

That's when the tears come. Unexpected and unwanted, I turn my face away and wipe my eyes.

He sits silently for several long minutes while I wonder what I had gotten myself into. What kind of man had I married? He had never acted this way since I'd awakened- had the devoted husband only been an act? I didn't know what to do. Where could I go? I knew no one. I had no family. I didn't even know anyone who had known me before when I was Andrea Bradley...

"Seek and you shall find. Have a nice night Mrs. Bradley..."

Except one.

He had given me a gospel tract with a church name on back. I could find him and perhaps get some answers!

"Let's go home." Doyle orders and I obey blindly. I'm too afraid to rock the boat any more.

Chapter 8

We walk in silence back toward the aquarium, me not sure what to say and him- too angry with me to say anymore.

Finally he stops walking and turns to me. "I'm sorry."

"Okay." I tell him. Not willing to let him off the hook that easily.

"I was just..."

Acting like a psycho? I wanted to ask.

"Frustrated." He finishes. I wait for him to further explain but his words come out in a jumble of emotion. "I didn't know if you'd live at first. Then you were in a coma. I didn't know if you would wake up. Then you did... and you didn't know me... You didn't love me anymore." He takes a step away. " When you kissed me like that..." He turns away from me and paces away several feet and then back. "And then you pulled away... it was like... you were playing with me... teasing me... I know you weren't. You don't remember what it was like... before. I'm sorry, Andrea. I was mean."

"Terrible." I correct him. Like a psycho wife abusing husband. Mean doesn't cut it.

"Terrible. There's no excuse. You don't know about—." He stops. "What happened before."

What happened before?

"We were getting better when the accident happened." His voice rises a little like he's trying to convince himself more than me. "We were happy." His voice trembles a little and he pushes the hair out of my face. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I...have needs... I'm just a man...All I want is my wife back."

He knows how to flip my emotions, this man. Just a few minutes ago I was ready to head for the hills and now I catch myself feeling sorry for him.

"I'm sorry too." I tell him though, for the life of me I don't know why.

He holds out his hand and I take it. We walk back to the aquarium hand in hand. It is late. There are very few people out at this time.

"Hey, fella, can you spare a couple dollars?" A voice asks from the darkness.

"No!" Doyle snaps and we keep walking. The man follows behind us- only an outline in the darkness. I feel my hair stand on end. This is what I was afraid of when he suggested going out after dark! This is how people get killed- being in the wrong place at the wrong time! We are parked around the corner from the visitor center. I can't even see the car from here. I start to walk faster.

"Oh, comon' man." The man continues to follow us. "Just a couple dollars? You look like you could spare it."

Doyle turns, suddenly. "Did you misunderstand me? I said no! You need money. Get a Job!" He growls and my eyes grow wider. What in the world is he thinking?

There is a glint of metal from the streetlight but the rest of the man is just a shadow.

"How about your wallet then?"

Doyle stops and just stands there, and I am ready to run for my life. "Go get in the car." He instructs me and pushes the keys into my hand.

"Awww," The man purrs and rubs the front of his jeans suggestively. "Stay. I'll take care of you after I finish with your boyfriend here."

I feel a cold wave of fear and disgust wash over me and despite my first inclination to run; I am rooted in my place. The man takes a step forward and waves the knife menacingly.

"Andrea. Go to the car."

I don't move. "Go to the car now!" Doyle screams and pushes me away. I obey, too afraid of either men to put up any kind of fight.

The last thing I hear besides the sound of my frantic flight was my husband's very calm response to the man in the darkness.

"You've made a very bad mistake my friend. You have no idea who you're dealing with."

Oh, gosh! He's going to try to impress him with his credentials? This thug isn't going to be impressed with the fact he's a surgeon and he knows people! He's going to get killed! I couldn't help but think as I rush toward the BMW. There had to be a tire iron or something in there. I can help him! I need to call the police, but I don't have a cell phone. I had left mine at home; Doyle had his own in his pocket. I'm crying by the time I get to the BMW, I fumble with the keys and then drop them. In the dark I can't tell one key from another. I wonder why Doyle needs this many keys. One more and he'd be a janitor! I try the keypad but in my lessened state of mind I type in the wrong code. I can't get my fingers to move! I'm hyperventilating, I can't think straight and Doyle's going to be dead before I get help! Finally the key slips into the lock and turns. I look behind me and see no one. I pull the trunk release and find the tire iron but about the same time hands pull me away from the car!

I scream bloody murder and swing the tire iron at the assailant. The metal hits ribcage and there is a satisfying "oomph" before I'm tackled and pinned against the car.

"What the hell, Andrea? Are you trying to kill me?"

"Doyle!" I cry out and he releases me and tries to take a breath. "You're okay!"

"I was!" An asthmatic wheeze escapes from the doubled over form in front of me. "Until you hit me with a tire iron! Get in the car! We have to go! Now!"

"What? What happened?" I gasp as he pushes me around to my side and that's when I spot the blood. His long sleeved formerly white shirt is covered in blood! "Oh, Crap, Doyle!"

"GET IN NOW!" He screams at me. "Do you want him to come back?"

I try to get in my door but everything seems to be going in slow motion. "Get in, get in, GET IN!" He rushes me and as soon as my door slams we tear out of the parking lot and into the darkened city.

"Lock your seat belt." He tells me and my hands are trembling so badly that it takes minutes before I get it locked. He reprimands me while I struggle with the lock.

"Do you realize you left the door open with the keys inside?" He snaps like I'm a child. "If I were the attacker I could have thrown you in the trunk, stolen the car and done who knows what with you!"

"You're bleeding!" I wheeze and ignore him. "We have to go to the hospital!"

"It's not mine." He says matter-of-factually. "I took the knife away, but he fought me. I cut him. He ran away."

"What? How? Doyle! You have to call the police!"

"Why? I'm the one who was attacked!"

"You have to call them! He could be out there somewhere! What if he hurts someone else?"

"Baby." There is a menacing chuckle. "He won't hurt anyone else."

What? My mind can't get around all the blood on his shirt. It looks like he cut the man's throat. My stomach turns. How would he know he won't hurt someone else? How badly did he cut the man? I feel like I'm going to be sick.

"Doyle. Did—did—you-- kill him?"

"Of course not." He says too hastily, as if he's making this up on the fly.

"Then you have to call the police!" My voice hits a fevered pitch and he groans, pulls the cell phone from his pocket and speaks into it.

"John Murphy." He says to the phone and waits a moment while it dials. I turn and frantically look out the window behind me like I'm afraid the attacker might somehow manage to run our car down.

"Hey, it's Doctor Connelly." He says. "Yeah, no. Listen. My wife and I were out on Ross' Landing and someone tried to mug us. No. No, we're fine. But as you can imagine, she's rather upset. I'm taking her home. Can you send an officer around to our house in about 20 minutes?" He gives me a withering look. "Thanks, buddy. I will." He tosses the phone into the seat beside me. "You happy?"

No! I'm not happy! I have a mental conversation with myself. I'm freaking out! I've been on my first date in months, had a fight, almost got mugged, my husband is covered in someone else's blood while giving me a lecture and arguing with me about reporting this to the police!

I start to cry and I cry until my nose is completely closed up and I can't breathe. I hear him groan but he keeps driving.

"There's tissue in the glove compartment." He says flatly, like he is not impressed nor moved by my hysterics.

It seems like hours before we drive into our garage. He has to let me out because it seems that I have forgotten how 1) a seat belt and 2) a door handle works. He takes both my hands and pulls me to my feet. I spot his bloody shirt and I feel my knees give way as a feral sounding moan escapes me. The tears come back and I teeter on the edge of consciousness. Exasperated, he rips the shirt off, popping buttons left and right and throws it behind him. There is blood on his chest, and I check him just to make sure he hasn't been hurt and wasn't telling me.

"I told you I wasn't cut." He says and wraps his arms around me. For the first time it feels right. And wrong at the same time. It's almost like I'm caught in some sort of duplicity. I don't understand it.

"I thought you'd be killed." I confess and he kisses my hair.

"It'll take a lot more than some two bit thug to kill me." He informs me. Sounds macho but he must be stronger than he looks because the guy that tried to mug us was huge.

"Come on." He tells me. "An officer will be here in a bit. Lets get you in bed and I'll wash this off me."

Against my protests, he gives me my sleeping pills and instructs me to go to bed and I hear the shower running. He steps out wearing jeans and a tee shirt and tells me that he is going downstairs to speak with the officer.

I hear muffled men's voices speaking softly downstairs. I can barely keep my eyes open. I don't know when the officer leaves. I wake up sometime in the night and Doyle isn't in the bed with me.

I pull myself out of my cocoon and go in search of him. I hear water and I know he's in the pool.

He doesn't see me as he slices through the water. I walk to the edge and sit down, allowing my feet to dangle in the warm water. I watch him swim underwater. He must have incredible lung capacity; he hasn't come up for a breath since I walked in. Finally he surfaces and flings his head back, water droplets showering me. He smiles at me.

"Feeling better?" He asks and I nod. He motions to me. "Whyn't you come in?"

I giggle. Who uses words like "Whyn't?" I want to ask what century he's from but I giggle again. The sleeping pills make me giddy and I notice that he's waiting for my response.

"Oh, I'm not wearing my bathing suit." I tell him and he gives a shake of his head like I'm crazy.

"Clothing is optional here unless we have guests, which we do not."

He's got a point but I don't feel comfortable undressing in front of him yet. I shrug my robe away and slip into the warm water wearing only a pair of soft cotton sleep shorts and a tank top.

We swim around each other for a few minutes like children at play, splashing and playing an improvised game like Marco Polo. He pushes me under when he catches me and I suddenly discover that I'm more competitive than I had earlier imagined and I try to retaliate. I am never completely successful in dunking him on my own and I end up under water more times than I can count. My one success was a hollow victory as I am fairly sure he allowed me to win out of pity. We even have a race to the end of the pool, which he wins, of course. Finally the conversation turns back to what took place earlier.

"You sure you're okay?" He moves closer to me.

"Just a little shaken." I reassure him.

"Me too." He admits and he reaches out for me and pulls me close to him. This time, I don't flinch or pull away. "I could have lost you again." He says in my ear. I feel drawn to him, our bodies touching, I realize that I want more of him.

I move to kiss him but he stops me.

"No. Don't. Don't play with me like that. I can't handle it. Not until you're ready."

I kiss him. He's my husband. This is the way it should be. I tell myself. Part of me wants to believe it's true. The other part feels like I'm about to give myself to a stranger which in some way makes it more exciting and alluring.

"I am."

There is a seductive yet sinister look in his eyes as he moves closer to me and he kisses me passionately. At that moment I feel like I have no energy. No strength of my own as he lifts me out of the pool. I feel him lay me on the tile floor next to the pool, and he is over me, his mouth on mine and I am powerless to resist him. I feel completely helpless, almost as if I have been paralyzed. He is all around me, smothering me, draining me. I don't know where I end and he begins. This... is not right... I think to myself but it is too late. This is how an insect feels before the spider kills it... The thought scares me but I cannot move or breathe. The darkness comes next.

Chapter 9

I hear that annoying sound again. It makes me want to grind my teeth. I want to scream. I would know it anywhere. It seems permanently etched on my brain. The Super Mario Brother's Theme song. How many times have I told him not to wake us?

"Jesse, I've told you not to play that thing in my room!" I mumble and then there is a reply, but I don't know if it's in my dream or if it's real.

"Comon... wake up and play with me..." He whines, but I'm so tired! I try to wave him away

"Leave me alone." I manage and when I do, I wake myself fully.

My mouth feels thick and I find it hard to speak, like I've been taking some sort of drug. A shadow darts away from me. Groggily I lift my head and see the shadow crossing in front of my bedroom door. For several seconds the room spins and I groan. I am lost. Where am I? The yellow sunlight is streaming through the crack in the black out curtain and I am in my bedroom. Doyle is not here. There is not even an indentation in his side of the bed to suggest that he's slept there. I jump at the sudden realization that I have just seen an unexplained shadow dart by my door. I had been awake when I saw it and I know I had heard the Mario Brothers music. I wonder if it was all a dream or if it was just part of my disjointed memory. My hair stands on end and I push the thought away. I will not even allow myself to wonder if it had been real.

There are no such things as ghosts. I tell myself but the air still feels electric, like someone else is in the room with me, like someone or something is watching me. I try to ignore it for several seconds; fighting with myself about whether or not I am losing my sanity. The feeling of unease grows until I have to leave.

Now!

I roll out of bed and realize that my whole body feels bruised. I try to think about the night before. I remember being in the pool and Doyle kissing me. That was all. I take one step and my body screams in pain.

"What the heck?" I wonder to myself aloud. I'm wearing the same outfit from the night before. I remember getting into the pool with it on but it's not the least bit damp. I pull the terrycloth bathrobe over my aching body and hobble down the stairs.

Mr. Pedigree is lying in the hallway. He gives me a disinterested look and one flop of his tail. Apparently, I'm not interesting enough for even a complete wag. I call him 'Lucifer or Devil Dog' behind Doyle's back but the dog seems to like that name more than his real one. Figures. I pass an empty bed room and for an instant I see a silhouette outlined in the semi-darkness. I feel coldness envelop me and I freeze in place. My heart seems to stop for a second but when I blink it's gone. "Nothing." I say aloud as much to the unseen entity as to myself. "It's nothing." I try to calm my heart. My imagination is working overtime and I walk quickly down the stairs.

I find Doyle in the kitchen working on a cup of coffee. He's not wearing a shirt and for a second I am struck by how beautiful he is. I wonder if he ever looks at me and wonders why he's with me.

He lifts his arms up to replace the coffee tin and I see the dark blue bruise on his left side. I wince when I see it and feel badly that I hurt him. I watch him for several seconds from the darkened hallway. Other than the bruise he seems to be feeling good. In fact, he looks more awake and energetic than normal. I wonder if it had something to do with what we did last night, but I pat my not damp clothes and wonder if we were really together or if it was all a dream.

I step into the kitchen and he beams at me. "Good morning beautiful!" He pushes a cup of coffee my way. "I was just about to bring this to you."

I hobble into the kitchen, my muscles and joints screaming with every step. I step close to him and inspect his wound. He winces when I touch his ribcage.

"I'm sorry." I whisper and he shakes his head and chuckles at me like I am a silly child.

"It's not your fault. I should not have grabbed you from behind. I wasn't thinking clearly." He smiles at me and pulls me into his arms. "By now I should know better than to underestimate you mountain girls." Another chuckle that makes me blush. "I'm just glad no one got hurt."

Besides that poor fool who tried to rob us. I think don't say that though.

"The officer who came to take my statement told me that there have been a lot of muggings around that area in the last few weeks. Tourists mostly. I gave him a pretty good description. He had a deep wound so if he goes to either of the hospitals he'll be in jail."

I nod into his chest and his arms tighten around me and I wonder how something can feel so right and so wrong at the same time. This is not right. He is not your husband. My conscience cries but I push the thought out of my head and focus on the leanness of his body next to mine, the strength of his arms around me.

"You were already asleep by the time he left so I didn't wake you."

"You didn't wake me?" I ask, somewhat disappointed. "We didn't swim together last night?"

He gives me a dumb grin. "No. You were out when I came back to the room."

I shrug. "Oh, I dreamed it." I'm sore all over. That was some kind of dream... or some really good medicine. I'm not sure which.

"We can go swimming after breakfast if you wish." He tells me and I consider it until I try to move. I groan and shake my head. "I'm sore all over."

"Well. You had an exciting night."

No kidding Doc.

"You walked more yesterday than you have since your accident, plus you climbed stairs, ran a couple blocks and almost killed your husband with a tire iron!" He shoots me a charming smile and a playful wink. I feel my heart skip a beat. "You probably need to rest."

It seems like all I do is rest but I'm so tired still. I nod and wander up to my room to run a hot bath, hoping it will help sooth my sore muscles.

It's not until I am in the water that I notice the bruises on my wrists and arms. I wonder what in the heck I could have done to get those. I nap in the steaming water then pull myself out and crawl into bed. I have no idea where Doyle is, nor do I care at the moment. It's dark and that doesn't make any sense. I had checked the clock and it was three when I awoke. I suppose that's three am - not pm. Doyle says I will be right on schedule when I go back to work.

If I ever go back, I wonder if I'll ever remember enough to go back to work.

He goes back tomorrow and I will be on my own. I wonder how it will feel in this big, unfamiliar old house all by myself. Well, except for Lucifer the mutt from Hell, whom I can already tell is not going to be much company at all. German Spitz are supposed to be very protective and loyal dogs according to the web pages I've looked at. Obviously he hasn't read those blurbs about he is supposed to be loyal and protective because I don't get that vibe from Lucifer even a little bit. I think he'd probably let a robber right in as long as they didn't try to take his food dish.

Doyle wakes me and tells me it's almost six. I am still in a fog and it almost sends me for a loop when I realize I've slept through another day. I can't seem to keep time straight anymore. He hints that we are going out later and I need to dress nicely. As it is his last night alone with me before he starts work tomorrow night - we are going on another date. I groan remembering how the last one turned out, and I'm not really sure if I can live through another date with Doyle. He pulls me into his arms and nuzzles my neck and tells me he wants to make it up to me. "The last date- wasn't so good." He says and I stifle a sarcastic laugh.

Not so good? You think Doc? We were almost knifed in the parking lot. I want to tell him but I decide to take the high road. He's trying and I need to give him a little credit and show some appreciation to the man who has cared for me when I couldn't lift a finger for myself. He could have pulled the plug on me when I was lying in that coma but he didn't. The least I could do is try to act excited about dinner. I excuse myself to go search through my closet and find something that would make me look somewhat attractive.

I suppose I am attractive enough on my own but standing beside Doyle who could easily pass as a male model always makes me feel like a sympathy date. He's almost too gorgeous to be real and it would be nice to know that he finds me attractive as well. He says he does but every time I look in the mirror I doubt it. In the back of my mind I wonder if he married me more for my personality than my looks anyway. If so he lost that when that car ran the red light. I think to myself and sigh. There's nothing I can do about that now so I flip through the dresses in my closet and try to figure out what that other me would wear.

I find a classic black tango style dress with a cowl neckline and strappy heels and I am thankful the other me had great fashion taste. I worry with my hair but it seems to have a mind of its own and I've never really tried making it look nice since the accident. A pony tail holder so far has done the trick, but this night needs to be special. I do several different things but almost end up in tears. Finally I give up, wet it, slather it with mousse and scrunch my curls. I open a drawer of make-up and wonder if I was a cosmetologist in my last life. There's every shade of eye shadow and lipstick imaginable and I have no idea what to do with it. Luckily I've learned a few things from Doyle about how to put an IPhone to work. I download a video on how to do "smoky seductive eyes" from YouTube while I wait for my nails to dry. I check my appearance over in the mirror one last time before I leave. It's not perfect but I'm satisfied that I don't look like a clown.

I emerge from my cave and I'm somewhat afraid he'll laugh at me. I wonder what he'll think of my new look. His mouth drops when he sees me and he stares at me for several heart stopping seconds. I feel like crawling under a rug until he speaks. "I've booked the wrong place." He stammers and I really don't know what to make of that statement. "It's more casual." He pulls out his phone. "I'll make reservations somewhere else." But I stop him.

"I'll just change clothes." I tell him. No big deal. Jeans are more comfortable anyway.

He practically leaps over the couch to stop me. "NO!" He yells and grabs my arm. I'm a little taken aback by his roughness- which he apologizes for. "I like it." He laughs like a little kid who has just been given that Christmas present he has dreamed of. "I like it very much." His eyes wander over me like he could eat me and for the first time- I feel pretty. "I'll just—put on a jacket and a tie. We'll both look out of place."

As he drives I notice him looking at my legs on more than one occasion and I worry he may be in an accident on my account.

We have a nice supper at the Brew house. I suppose it is one of Doyle's favorites because it stays open late and he can get outdoor seating. Something we can't enjoy during the day. We chitchat and he holds my hand from across the table. He's so handsome that other women look at him longingly and the men cut jealous glances his way. I notice, but he doesn't. His eyes are on mine, like we are having our first date. Well second, really. He's assured me that the first one didn't count since we almost got killed.

I feel out of place, with all the happy young couples laughing and chatting. He tells me that we come often but I don't know what to order from the menu. I play it safe and order a burger. Doyle laughs at me. I'm the only person on the planet who would even consider coming to a place like this dressed like I am and order a burger. My face turns red and I drop my head to hide my embarrassment. When the waiter looks away I tell him I don't remember what I like. He looks a little ashamed for teasing me but I really don't mind. I figure if the burger's good I will try something else next time. Can anyone mess up a burger? I'm pretty sure that's impossible but then they ask me if I want Bison or lamb. I want to gag. Doyle takes over for me and says bison- that's what I liked the last time. He pats my hand reassuringly. "They are just very large cows, sweetheart."

He orders the beer sampler - for me - he says and I try a few sips which tastes to me like...beer. The next - he promises will be better. He waits expectantly and I tell him it ... tastes like beer. He urges me to try another - it's a different kind of beer and I'll like it better. He looks disheartened when I tell him it tastes the same as the previous two. Perhaps the crash affected my taste buds. I figure he's wasted his money on this experience - seeing as how I'd just as soon drink sweet tea.

The waiter brings our meal, and Doyle has Salmon. He offers me a bite and I chew it up and manage to swallow but if I had a choice I would have spat it out. He asks if I like it and I say "Uh huh." And tell him it's "interesting." I wonder if he can tell I'm lying. Obviously I'm not a seafood person.

We talk more than we eat though. He tells me about how we fell in love with each other at first sight and we spent two glorious days in Paris together until he woke to find me gone. Heartless, I know. I'm ashamed and I don't even remember it. It's only a story to me- like it's someone else and not me. He says he used the internet to find me and we chatted a few times on ICQ. (I have no idea. I suppose that was what they used before Facebook.) He says I had no idea that he would come to find me. I had never told him I had a fiancé and was planning on getting married but it did not happen once he stepped onto the scene. I was madly in love with him from the time we set eyes on each other in Paris and I was only settling for the poor bloke who gave me the ring. Doyle said he did us a favor, really. We would have only ended up in divorce court in two years. I laughed dryly.

"Was that when my family disowned me?" I ask and he looks away- like he feels bad about it for whatever reason.

"They never liked me. They liked the dumb mechanic you were engaged to. They said he was a decent, hardworking, God-fearing man and they'd never speak to you again for breaking his poor redneck heart and leaving him for the snooty, foreign, atheist-doctor."

That last sentence catches my attention and I look up sharply. "I never knew you were an atheist." I say. I did know that he never talked about God - he was hostile towards religion- or religious people any way. Am I an atheist? I wonder to myself. I don't feel like one. I think of the Bible I found hidden in the cabinet. At one time I had faith. I don't know where it went- or if it went anywhere at all. I haven't really considered God in this whole scenario- though I sort of always felt He was there... somewhere... waiting.

"Oh, your parents- like most people around here are religious nuts!" he stabs his food with his fork to punctuate that thought. "Your dad's a xenophobe!" He tells me between bites. I frown as I push my fries around on my plate trying to figure out what a xenophobe is. I wonder if that's a contagious disease but luckily he tells me before I show my stupidity. "He thinks if people don't come from here- they're the enemy. Seriously, I think he's stuck in the civil war."

His demeanor changes when he notices my frown and he looks forlorn. "I'm sorry honey." He says as he places his hand on mine. "I didn't come to berate your family. I just hate the way they've treated you since I came. They didn't even come to the hospital when you had the accident."

"Oh, well. Maybe it's best I don't remember them." I lie and give him a fake smile. It doesn't matter what he says. I don't know them- but I miss having them in my life. There's a hole there that can't be filled with anything else and I know he doesn't want to hear that.

After our meal I excuse myself to go to the restroom and Doyle waits for me just outside. I prep myself for the event that will inevitably happen once we get home. He's your husband. I tell myself as I look in the mirror. This is natural. I fight the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. Stage fright. That's what it feels like; though I don't remember ever being on stage myself. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. I suppose I should be nervous a little - our first time together. I don't really know what to expect...or do for that matter.

I wade out through the tables and chairs and happy patrons and spot Doyle outside and he waves me over.

"You ready?" He asks and I nod.

The ride home is nice though, compared to the night before. Uneventful. Just the way I like it, though I am worried that Doyle is paying more attention to my legs than the road ahead. I tell him to watch where he is driving and if we make it home in one piece he will see more than my legs. He smiles from ear to ear and asks if I really mean it. I rub his upper thigh in response and he presses the accelerator harder.

We arrive home in record time and runs around the car to open the door for me. He pulls me into his arms and I am swept up in the heady aroma of his cologne and the tingling sensation of his body pressing close to mine. He looks into my eyes and asks if I'm sure. I take in a steadying breath. "I am. I love you and want to be with you."

He kisses me hungrily and I 'm not sure how we make it into the kitchen. I suppose I've had enough of his beer sampler to make me lose some inhibitions. He lifts me onto the counter top and we kiss passionately until I manage to open the buttons on his shirt and. I feel confident enough for the next phase. The bedroom.

Doyle is tender and careful with me because I'm unsure of what to do; he leads me gently and expertly as I clumsily try to satisfy him. He whispers sweet and encouraging things to me. Perhaps he senses my trepidation or perhaps he has always been this way. We spend the night in each other's arms and it is everything I hoped it would be -passionate, beautiful and satisfying- but still; something is not quite right. He thanks me and tells me how much I pleased him but still I wonder if he is comparing me to the other me and I am fairly sure the other me was better.

I tell myself I did the right thing; that he had waited and wanted long enough. He is my husband. I tell myself this but the heavy burning feeling in my heart tells me otherwise. Why does my conscience burn like I've just committed a crime?

A snip-it of a poem comes to mind. It flits on the edge of my memory. Le coeur a ses raisons...que le raison.... something... something... something... I can't recall it but its something like the heart has its reasons ...that reason knows nothing about...or something like that. I wrestle with it until the first streaks of dawn tint the sky and at last; I fall asleep.

I hear a man's voice close to my ear. In my semi- conscious state I think I can feel the puff of his breath as he speaks to me and it startles me a little. I know that deep gentle voice that comes to me just on the edge of my dreams.

"Where are you Andrea? Where have you gone?" My heart swells with sadness. "Darling little girl. Please come back to us..." I've heard the voice before. I know it with the all the assurance that I've ever known anything. I know without being told that it belongs to my father.

Chapter 10

The next day we sleep until late afternoon and spend our remaining time together in preparation for his return to work. He seems worried to leave me alone. Like he's a little afraid I'll burn the house down while he's away. It offends me a little- and he makes me promise I'll phone him if I need anything. I assure him I'll be fine as I walk him to the car. He rolls down his window and gives me a charming smile. "OK kiddo. No wild parties." I lean through the driver's window and kiss him and wave as he backs out of the driveway.

Despite my assurances that I'll be fine; I find myself feeling a little lonely and out of place when he does leave. I go into the den and watch a little TV but nothing interests me. I watch the weather channel and then find a news broadcast. The first segment contains a story on a homeless man found killed in Red Bank. They say they think he's been responsible for several muggings around the tourist center of town. I stop and watch it, concerned that this could have been the man that mugged Doyle and I. They say his throat was cut and he was drained of blood and they think some sort of cult is to blame. I mentally calculate the distance between Ross' Landing and Red Bank. No way could it be the same guy. If it was then at least Doyle didn't kill him. I shiver and change the channel. I know I've spent two hours flipping channels but when I look at the clock over the mantle it's been 15 minutes.

Then I decide to do some laundry. I turn on the radio in the main room and search for a channel I can listen to through the intercom system. I flip through several stations before I hear a song that pleases me. I know I have heard it before but I don't remember the words. It is comforting so I leave it and trek to the laundry. I half expect a mountain of clothing but I find that there are relatively few clothes and all of them are mine.

I shuffle through the clothes and realize that there are none belonging to my husband. No dirty underwear, no sweaty socks, not even a crumpled tee shirt hiding in the bottom of the hamper. He's not human. If I needed more proof here it is. I shake my head and wonder if Doyle does his own laundry. How could I have ended up with the only man on the planet who does his own laundry? It seems too good to be true. Perhaps he was accustomed to doing his own while I was in the hospital. I don't know.

The song ends while I am pushing my clothes into the washer and I am surprised to learn that the song I recognized was on a Christian station. I listen to the blurb about spreading the good news. Another starts up and I stop to listen to it. It feels so familiar- like a well-loved blanket. I have heard this before! Not just that... I open my mouth and the words come out seemingly of their own volition. It gives me chills because I know I've sung this before. I get a fleeting impression of having my head thrown back singing with all my heart. I know that Doyle claims to be an atheist but I know - I'm not.

I leave the laundry and head to the kitchen where I rinse a few plates and cups and place them in the dishwasher and meander aimlessly around the empty house. Its only midnight and I wonder what I will do to keep myself busy tonight.

I decide on the Internet. I am sure this is a wonderful way to waste a couple hours. I don't know how I end up there but I find myself on a webpage about albinism. I look at the pictures on the screen in front of me and a creepy, strange feeling washes over me when I realize that not one of these people look like Doyle.

Not in the least.

I read a heartbreaking article on the plight of albinos in Africa. I am shocked to discover that they are hunted and killed because witch doctors believe their bones hold magic properties. I am so moved that I donate to that charity using my credit card. Good deed done for the day!

I hear a familiar strain. "Amazing Grace how sweet the sound ...that saved a wretch like me...I once was lost but now I'm found...was blind but now I see..." I find myself humming along. This is a strange song to have on the radio. I think to myself. There is no music. Just the wavering voice of what I assume is an elderly lady.

I stop and listen. It's strangely compelling and comforting to me. I like it so much that I walk to the console to see if it displays the performer who recorded it. My smile drops away when I discover that the display is turned off. I turn it on and only hear static. My face crumples and I try to understand. I hear the last few strains of the song even though the radio is switched off.

I stare at the controls for several seconds and the logical part of my brain says it's some sort of interference or something... like when people used to claim that they could get radio programs through their dental work. Nothing to be concerned about.

Right?

The not logical part wants to run. The shadows. The voices. The demon possessed dog. The lack of Doyle's laundry. Things are not what they seem in this house; what more proof do I need? My house is haunted and I am married to the undead! I need to leave NOW!

I listen; straining my ears for the music. It has disappeared as quickly as it occurred.

Later I hear the same voice- though far away. I can't make out any of the words; only a jumble of sounds and tones. It reminds me of that cartoon... I don't remember what it was called but it was the one where the adult's voices were only "wonk wonk wonk wonk".

It sends shivers throughout my body and a part of me wants to run.

But where?

No. I'm just over reacting. I tell myself. First night alone and your imagination is working overtime. Just chill, Andrea.

Surely our neighbors are having a party and I can hear the voices. I step onto the patio and listen. The night is dark and cold and the house lights are out next door. I shiver and step back inside. I hear the voice again and my breath catches in my throat. I pull a knife form the cutting block as I suck in a wavering breath and follow the sound downstairs.

"Wonk wonk wonk-wonk -wonk." The voice continues from somewhere in front of me. My heart knocks against my chest. It seems louder in the living room. My knuckles turn white from holding the knife so tightly. I slip my arm inside the room and slide it along the wall until I feel the switch. I flick the light on and hold the knife out in a defensive stance.

I'm not surprised but overwhelmingly relieved to find the room is empty.

I can breathe again and I try to calm my heart rate before I have a heart attack. There is no one here. I tell myself.

Except...

My eyes are drawn to an end table. On it sits a small white Teddy bear holding a rose. I tremble as I reach for it; knowing full well it wasn't here a few hours ago when I was watching TV. There is a tag. I can see it was bought at the hospital gift shop. It reads: "Love you. Get well soon." I don't recognize the handwriting. I've seen Doyle's enough to know it is not his. Where did it come from? Fear sweeps over my body - it's a sensation like somewhat like being shocked by a faulty plug. Someone has been in this room! I swallow hard just as I hear "wonk wonk wonk" and footsteps in the hall above my head.

There is someone in my house! I am ready to run for the hills but I look over at Lucifer and notice that he hasn't even lifted his head. I had heard sometime or other that dogs can hear for like- a mile or something- but he hasn't even rolled over. This leads me to believe that A) he's the worst dog ever (a distinct possibility) or B) he's deaf (which could explain a lot) or C) I really didn't hear what I thought I just heard.

"Hey you." I say to him and he rolls his eyes around so he can look up at me without lifting his head.

Not deaf. I decide. There goes that theory.

"Devil-dog. You hear anything?" He raises his head as if to contemplate my question but then flops to his side facing the opposite direction and sighs loudly as if to express his annoyance with me for interrupting his nap.

I wonder what to do. I could call the police. Hello officer, I think there's someone in my house... I heard an old lady singing and someone wonk wonk wonking in the hall... I can imagine them going through this monster of a house only to find it's an alarm radio that has been left on somewhere. There will be lights and sirens and the neighbors will think I'm crazy.

Or... I can call Doyle on his first night back- possibly while he's up to his elbows in a gunshot wound to tell him that I'm hearing disembodied voices and I'm scared to stay by myself. I'll be on my way to a mental institution then. No thanks. I'll handle this on my own. I decide to screw up my courage and figure out what's going on by myself. I search the house from top to bottom and find nothing.

Why am I not surprised?

Chapter 11

Doyle wakes me by asking why every light in the house is on and why the TV is turned up so loud.

It's easy to explain. See, Doc, I've been seeing shadows and listening to some old lady's disembodied voice wonk wonk wonk all night so rather than call you and make a fool of myself; I came up with this solution. I'll just leave all the lights on. Kinda hard to have shadows when your house is brighter than the surface of the sun. Oh, the TV? Well, the TV doesn't stop the wonk wonk wonking it just drowns her out. Yeah. I'd like to say that but I don't. I just tell him it was a little lonely without him and he smiles.

I get the feeling its best to make the good doctor think he's the center of the world.

I ask him if he is hungry and he replies by kissing me.

"Ravenously." He purrs and my heart knocks against my chest and he runs his hand up my thigh.

"That wasn't what I meant." I tell him but he scoops me into his arms and carries me into the bedroom.

"You are all the sustenance I need." He tells me. "I will dine on you alone." I wonder if it's just me or if any one else would have found that a little creepy as well.

I sleep for hours; a paralyzed, dreamless sleep. When I wake its almost dark. He tells me again that it was wonderful but urges me to "give myself fully." I have no idea what that means. He tells me that I'm "holding back." which in my head means "you could do better" but to be honest, I don't really remember much about the act. Completely unremarkable, yep, that's me. I think to myself. I crawl out of bed and feel like I've been hit by a car.

Again.

If this is what it feels like to "hold back" I wonder if I can survive "giving fully".

I try to remember what we did that would make me so sore. My joints hurt. Pain shoots through my arms and legs. I'm burning up one minute, freezing the next. My stomach does flip- flops. But try as I might... I don't remember being intimate with him. I remember him kissing me and carrying me to the bedroom then saying that creepy thing about me being sustenance for him.

I get chills and I wonder if I'm losing my mind.

Tonight he looks up from his News Free Press and tells me I "look under the weather."

I stare at the mug shot of the homeless man whose body was found mutilated and bloodless in Red Bank and a wave of nausea sweeps over me.

"Perhaps you need to rest." He says and asks if I've eaten.

I tear my eyes away from the front page and tell him that I haven't eaten all day. Every time I think of food I get nauseated.

We were together once that I remember- after our second date which was... Gee whiz...last night. How could I possibly...be pregnant?

I ask him if he feels queasy, just to cover the bases. He says no, feels my forehead, pulls my eyelids back, makes me say "ahhhh" and rubs under my neck with his fingertips.

"It's probably just a stomach thing." He says nonchalantly. "Perhaps you got some bad bison."

I want to gag at the mere mention of it.

"Besides. I'd know if it were anything serious."

I wonder how he knows that. Doctor's intuition? I have no idea.

Now time for that uncomfortable question. "Doyle. Do you think...I could be... Pregnant?"

He looks up at me like I'm a five year old asking where babies come from. "Honey. It was only last night."

"No. I mean from before." I mean I'm sure we did it... before the accident, even if I can't remember it.

He looks down at the paper. "No. We don't have children."

I look at him and let that last statement soak in. "We don't have children?" I think to myself and I have to get away for a few minutes.

"No. We don't have children."

That is possibly the weirdest thing I've heard since I awoke and I don't know why. It seems downright... bizarre... to say that sentence. Rational Andrea says he meant to say 'can't and it's a translation thing. Un-rational Andrea screams that my house is haunted, my dog is possessed and I am married to the undead ... I need to leave... now!

Rational Andrea wins this argument because there's just no way that any of this could be true. There's no such thing as ghosts, my dog needs therapy and my husband is poor at word choice. I'm making a mountain out of a molehill and I send un-rational Andrea to the corner to pout.

The good doctor prescribes me something with a name ten miles long. We magically have them in our house... the perks of being married to a doctor I suppose. He kisses my forehead before he leaves and tells me when I get ready for bed to take two. I watch him back out the driveway. I walk back up the three steps and feel like I've climbed a mountain.

Devil dog is in the kitchen. I try to change my approach and pretend to act upbeat. "Hey! You wanna watch some TV?" I offer in an overly perky voice that sounds like I just asked a little kid if they want to go to the circus. Surely he won't turn me down.

He snorts and walks into the other room.

"Yeah. Well. You too." I grumble and wait to hear the wonk wonk wonk again.

To my surprise I don't hear Wonk-Wonk Lady (that's what I named her) tonight. All the same with me. I flip through a few channels and find of course- A horror movie. It's almost Halloween after all. What did I expect? I know I can't watch it without going off the deep end so I dig in the book cabinet for my romance books.

I choose one about Vikings mostly because the cover artist drew a guy who resembled my husband. He has bodacious abs and long curly Blonde hair and the woman in the illustration is hardly wearing any clothes and her dark hair is fanned out in the salt air breeze. Behind the two lovers is a sunset with lots of red and orange hues reflecting off the water. A Vikings ship with a sea serpent head stands behind them. I suppose just in case you couldn't read the title and understand this is a Viking romance. I flip it over and read the back and squirm a little. I think this must be pornography but I open it anyway under the excuse that Doyle isn't exactly happy with my performance in the bedroom and maybe this could give me some pointers. I imagine Doyle's face on the hero. That's easy. Now I don't feel like I'm cheating on him; so I begin to read.

There are several times I laugh out loud. It's like the invasion of the friendly Vikings. I think a teenage girl must have written this from the over exaggerated descriptions of the male physique. Ah, but its fantasy, right? It certainly won't rank up there with Steinbeck or ...crap... what was that author who lived in Key West? The one with all the cats...you know who I'm thinking about... I know. I'm not stupid. It's in there somewhere... oh... I'll remember it when I'm not trying... anyway. It's no Steinbeck or... that other guy... but it's easy to read and its fun.

And I was right about getting a few pointers. By chapter three they were doing... things... that I didn't even know you could do...I need to take notes. I think to myself and the grown up me tells myself it's ridiculous but the dirty minded teenager in me wins the argument and keeps reading. I get so into the Viking romance that I almost don't notice it.

Not Wonk-Wonk Lady because she scares the crap out of me; but the Super Mario brothers theme song. That was our first video game...the thought flashes across my consciousness. I've just remembered something! I almost jump up off the couch in celebration! I wish there were someone here- I'd give them a high five but it's only me... and devil dog and he's not very supportive.

Our first video game. I feel like I've just figured out the meaning to life! Now, the question is - did I really hear the music or was it just a memory in my head? I wait to see if I hear it again. I don't. I write it down and go back to my book.

Hemingway. There. Told you it would come when I wasn't looking.

I read to chapter 7 and I hear it again and out of the blue a name comes to me:

Jesse.

I swallow hard as the video game music plays. I wonder if it's in my memory or if I'm really hearing it.

I look around the room again and the name comes to me, almost like a prayer.

Jesse.

What the heck, what will it hurt?

"Jesse? Could you stop that please?" I ask an empty room. It does no good to feel embarrassed since there's no one here but me.

To my surprise- It stops.

And so does my heart for a second.

Maybe there are ghosts here! Maybe I'm psychic. I think that happens sometimes when people have near death experiences. Don't they?

I hear a quick wonk wonk wonk in rather a scolding tone. But the voice is different.

This one sounds like a man.

Goodness! How many people are here?

About three too many. I decide and pop two of Doyle's pills in my mouth. I turn the TV to a preschool channel (because I know I won't wake up to a scary movie) and make sure all the lights are on. Oh. I also tuck the butcher knife under the couch.

Just to be safe.

Chapter 12

I have weird dreams.

I hear a man's voice. "Andrea. Wake up honey. Open your eyes." I feel a hand on my cheek.

Not Doyle's hand. His fingers are always cold. These are rough and warm. Someone strokes my hair gently.

I sit straight up and gulp in air! There is no one near me and a show consisting of little furry puppets is playing on the TV. I shake my head and tell myself I was just dreaming. I think about the rough fingers on my cheek- it was so real!

I check my watch. It's 4:30. Wow. Doyle's pills sure did do the trick! I'm cold. I think I'm really sick. I watch TV. They're doing sand art on one of those light tables. It' so relaxing that I close my eyes.

I hear the voice again- I've heard that voice... recently. It feels so familiar that it envelopes me like a warm blanket. "Andrea. Please come back to me. There isn't much time."

Much time for what?

I feel a nudge. My hand slips under the couch and my fingers close around the edge of the knife.

I jump up. Doyle looks at me in horror- like he's on the verge of a heart attack.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" He asks with his hands on his hips. "This is two nights in a row. And this time you've got a knife." He glares at me. "What's next? Sleeping with the gun?"

My head jerks up and my eyes narrow. "We have a gun?" I blurt and feel a little betrayed- he's been holding out on me!

An icy glare is my only reply along with some muffled comments in German. I hate it that I can't speak German. He could be talking about me all the time.

"Just... it's creepy being alone here at night." I tell him as I wring my hands. His eyes narrow and I can tell he's not convinced.

"Uh- huh." He says, but in a tone that is not affirmation.

I rub my neck. "Is there a walk in clinic nearby? I think I'm sick. I might to need to go to the doctor."

"You're married to a doctor." He points out irritatedly.

Oh, yeah. I forgot.

He sits beside me on the couch. "What's the problem?"

"Stuffy, sore throat." I tell him.

"Allergies." He says. "You get this way every fall." He motions for me to follow. "In the restroom. You should have some medicines." He plunders through the medicine cabinet and finds an empty pill bottle. He shows it to me. "The pharmacies don't open until nine." I can see the prospect of his going out in full sunlight is unappealing. "I'll have to stop by and get you some tonight."

"Or I could go."

He looks at me warily. Like he's trying to decide if he should leave me with the keys to the car or not. Finally he relents.

"Okay. Only to the closest one. I don't want you driving all over town by yourself."

"You don't trust me?" I ask and bat my eyelashes.

"You can never find your way home without help." He reminds me.

"But we have GPS."

He runs his fingers through his hair and finally gives in. "Okay." He tells me. "To the closest one."

Yes!

Freedom!

I want to jump up and down but I'm supposed to be sick so I follow him dumbly.

He stalks back to the kitchen where he rifles through our mail. I make him a glass of this vitamin juice drink that he likes and I hear him call me.

"Andrea. What the hell is this?" He holds up a piece of mail.

I bring him his vitamin drink and look over his shoulder. I see the envelope from the charity that I donated to.

"Oh!" I exclaim. "It's a charity that helps people with albinism in Africa."

"I see that." He says as he opens the envelope. "Wait. You donated to this charity?" He asks incredulously.

"Yes!" I tell him. "You see--People with Albinism in Africa are often mistreated and killed..." I never get to finish because he interrupts me.

"You gave money without asking me?" He crumples the paper in his hand then turns to glare at me. "Number one: Do you have a job?"

My mouth hangs open. I never considered he could be so attached to fifty bucks before.

He steps closer. He looks almost dangerous. "Number two: Have you not noticed that this is a Christian charity?"

"Well--yes but-- it was the only one I could find." I stammer. I thought he'd be pleased.

"Don't you ever." He makes these words sound like a threat. "Throw away my hard earned money to trash like this!"

"But Doyle!" I stammer. "It's to help people--like you!"

He regards the pictures on the letter and his face shows near disgust. It is almost like he is looking at pictures of amoebas or something. He turns to me then and shoves the paper in my face. "These are not my people!" He shouts and I don't know if it's my imagination or if his eyes really do turn that strange color of red again. He stalks closer to me until I back against the wall. He seems... bigger suddenly. Definitely more dangerous. "You--" He hisses. I don't like the way he says 'you' like he's dumping all of human kind in a rather unlovely heap. "You know nothing about my kind!" He growls. "And you don't ever spend my money without asking!"

He throws the papers on the kitchen floor and stalks away. I take an unsteady breath and bend down to pick up the crumpled papers from the floor. I am struck again with how little these other people with albinism look like Doyle. One photograph shows children with their arms wrapped around each other; one without albinism and the other with albinism. The caption says they are brothers.

Then I notice.

They are outside.

In the sun.

Something Doyle claims he cannot do.

"These are not my people!" He had hissed. "You know nothing about my kind!"

But I never said anything about "His kind." I said "People with Albinism." A chill creeps up my back and neck. My hairs stand on end. I had assumed "His kind." was my kind. The same as everyone else.

Perhaps not.

"Andrea!" He shouts. "Come upstairs. Lie with me until I fall asleep."

It is not a request. I tremble a little as I throw the papers in the garbage. The last thing I want to do is spend time with him but I don't want to anger him further.

"I had a rough night." He informs me.

No duh, Sherlock. I want to tell him.

"Come, lie next to me." He pulls the covers back for me. "Just until I sleep, and when the pharmacy opens you can get your meds." I oblige him and he spoons against me, his stomach against my back.

"I lost someone." He says. "A child. Killed in a drive by shooting."

I can feel the tension and I turn to him. The look in his eyes scares me a little. "You." He pronounces carefully. "Will never have anything to do with God...or religion... or church. You want to know why I do not believe in a loving God, Andrea? The fact that children die every day proves that He does not care." His face twists like he is trying to compose himself. "I want no part of Him. Do you understand?"

I swallow and turn my back to him again.

"I'm sorry. I should have asked." I say and he kisses my shoulder but doesn't reply. I suddenly feel like I'm being pulled into a vacuum and fall into a deep sleep almost instantly.

I wake around ten thirty and pull myself out of bed. Doyle doesn't seem to notice that I am gone so I take a shower and dress. The prescription bottle is still in the kitchen where we had our earlier argument. The pictures of the children with albinism stare up at me from the garbage can and I cover the picture with another sheet of paper, lest they remind him.

"These are not my people. You know nothing of my kind." His words echo in my mind.

I slip the prescription bottle in my purse, grab my keys and take off. I can't spend a minute longer in this house with him.

The late October sun is bright as I back out of the garage. I slip on a pair of sunglasses and roll the window down. It's been so long since I've seen bright sunlight I'd almost forgotten what it looked and felt like. I kind of like it so despite my promises I decide not to hurry back to Doyle and our dark house.

There's a Walgreen's down on the corner. I drop my prescription off and am told it will be a forty five minute wait. I look around. It's almost empty. I tell her fine and go back to the car.

I slump down in the front seat with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Now what? On impulse I start the car. It buzzes to life and I pull out into traffic. I have no idea where I'm going.

No. Wait. I do.

Almost like drawn, I know where to pull off the street, and what side street to take. I pull out in front of a large church. I blink a couple times. Did I go to this church? It doesn't seem especially familiar. Instead, I feel drawn to a simple frame house on a hill next to the church. There is a sign out front. I squint in the sunlight. It reads "Heavenly Joe" written in loopy blue font. Down below it reads "Coffee and Christian bookstore."

I laugh to myself. Leave it to me to find a coffee shop, even with amnesia.

I stop for a second before I take my keys out of the ignition. This is a Christian bookstore. What would Doyle say if he found out I was here? He would not like it, not even a little bit. I know that, but my deep and urgent need for coffee is much worse than my fear.

Besides. If I want to believe in God, how can he stop me? I mean, this is America. We have freedom of religion. Right? So... I suck in my breath and set my jaw. My eyes narrow in defiance. I'm going to get some Heavenly Joe and there ain't a dang thing he can do about it!

I check my watch. Half an hour before my prescription is ready. I pull my purse out of the passenger seat and head inside.

The door jingles and people look up from bookshelves and coffees to give me polite smiles.

I wander around for a few minutes. It's just an old house that has refurbished in this kind of artsy/hippie/ thrift store/ retro-cool interior. The walls are lined with row after row of books. There are several sets of cafe tables and chairs and a counter in the first room and in the second there is a shaggy couch and some comfortable chairs around a fireplace.

"Of all the Joe joints in all the towns, in all the world, you had to walk into mine." A strangely familiar voice quotes a famous line from a movie I no longer remember the name to.

The sound of it runs over me like warm honey and leaves me with the feeling of snuggled on a warm blanket on a cold day. I know that voice! I heard it the other night!

I spin quickly to see who this mystery man is and smile.

"Josue Mendez!" I say happily and he returns my smile with one of his own. He steps around the corner and holds out his hands in welcome.

Instead of wearing hospital garb, this time he's wearing a crisp white shirt rolled up at the elbows, a pair of jeans and some kind of hiking boots. He looks rugged and clean and outdoorsy and strikingly masculine in spite of the half size white apron hangs at his waist.

He is beautiful and familiar and he feels like home! My heart speeds up and I don't understand why I want so badly to run to him and throw myself into his arms! I can almost feel myself, at some other time, being embraced by him. I don't remember it but my body seems to. I know I must have felt those arms around me in my past life. I remind myself I don't know this man, so I hold back and he catches my hands in his.

He looks into my eyes and smiles like he's been expecting me.

"I was wondering when you'd find your way back here, Andrea Bradley." He says and holds out his hand to a table. "Have a seat. I've been waiting for you."

I take a seat at a café style table and he sits across from me.

"I thought you worked at the hospital." I say, flabbergasted by the fact that I've just met him here.

"Yeah, well. I have a lot of jobs." He says nonchalantly. He leans his elbows on the table and clasps his hands. His dark skin and white shirt contrast each other. "You know. I'm good at cleaning up messes, fixing things, making coffee and listening to people talk about their problems." His dark curls bob as he talks. He is absolutely adorable and I can't stop smiling at him. Why can't I stop? It's embarrassing. I look away and act like I'm interested in the décor.

"So? How have you been?"

I want to lie to him and just say fine. I'm fine Josue, how are you? But I can't. I look up into those clear blue eyes and I find I can't lie to him. I can't make the words come out of my mouth.

I sigh in desperation. What are you supposed to say when you can't lie and tell them everything's fine? What am I supposed to do tell the truth? My life is a wreck. I have no family to speak of. My house is haunted. My husband is a vampire. I can't tell him that!

And I just can't lie to the man.

A squeak comes out but that's all. I cover my face with my hands to hide the tears.

"I figured as much. Tell me about it then." He says and gives my shoulder a comforting pat.

"I don't know where to start." I tell him.

"At the beginning always helps." He says but then gets a sudden idea. "I'll make you a cup of your favorite. French vanilla cappuccino with extra fluff and then we'll talk."

I smile. "Is that my favorite?" I ask him as he disappears around the counter. The machine is too loud for me to hear anything but directly he appears with a dark frothy paper cup and a glass of ice water.

I sip it and it's just the right temperature. Not lava but just hot enough to not scald me. I wonder how he could have got it just right. I close my eyes.

"This is—" There aren't words to describe.

"Heavenly?" He asks and raises his dark eyebrows. "Hence the name. Heavenly Joe."

"And you're Joe." I say and he laughs.

"Josue." He pronounces it slowly and gives me a wink. "I think it's a play on words. Actually." He says and smiles at me. I feel my heart flutter. I look away quickly and remind myself I'm married and my husband has told me once never to speak to this man. I'm in enough trouble this morning without adding flirting to the list.

"Joe's easier to pronounce and well, people call me a lot of things, but we'll get back to you."

"Have you known me my whole life?" I ask him.

"Since you were a baby." He says matter-of-factly. "We've known each other for a long time, yes."

"What was I like before?" I want to know.

He sighs and leans forward. "That's a lot to describe. You were what you are now. Except now you don't remember. But you're still you."

That helps. I think to myself but I'd really like to get to know myself again. "Tell me about me." I must sound pitiful. "Please?"

He smiles, perfect teeth flashing, he sits back and runs his fingers through his curls. "Well okay. When you were little, you had the most amazing imagination. You were always making up stories. Oh, the adventures we had!" He laughs and continues as he reaches out for my hand and catches it in his own. "And you had such a tender heart. You always stood up for the underdog. You were even afraid that you would hurt your doll's feelings if you played with one over the others.

You were stubborn too, if anyone told you that you couldn't do something- you'd do your best to show them that you could. I'm guessing that you are for the most part- the same person you were."

Somehow I know the stubborn part is true. The fact that I'm sitting here in a Christian coffee shop with a man I've been forbidden to speak to would confirm the accuracy of that statement. To have some assurance that the real me is still in here...somewhere makes me feel better but I stifle a sob when I try to speak.

"Oh, come on now. Tell me what's the matter."

Oh, Josue, where could I start? I had no idea so I just started talking. I don't know if any of it made sense or if it was in complete sentences, I was sure some of the time I didn't even use actual words. I just babbled incoherently, for the most part, dispersed by fits of sobbing, lots of tissues, sips of coffee and gentle pats on the back from my friend.

Finally I look up at him, half expecting to see two attendants from Moccasin bend waiting with him. He crosses his arms and sits back and studies me quietly for several seconds as if he could see right through me. I squirm uncomfortably under his uncompromising stare and wish I had just told him 'fine.'

"I really think you should read some passages from the Bible." He says at last and pulls a memo book and a small pen from the apron at his waist. He scribbles several passages on a paper and then pulls it off and passes it to me.

"No." I say remembering how upset Doyle got when I gave to the charity. Anything Christian is unwelcome at our house and I'm afraid to anger him further. "I don't think the Bible would help me."

Josue laughs loudly. It's one of those "I can't believe you just said that" laughs and shakes his head from side to side. He leans back in his chair and continues to laugh at me. People look up from their books or coffee to stare at him questioningly and I squirm uncomfortably in my seat. I am such an idiot. I should never have told him that. I wish I could leave.

I wonder what's so funny but he leans toward me, resting his elbows on the table and clasping his rough hands he looks at me with a smile. "Lady, you take the cake! You are as stubborn as they come. I see that certainly hasn't changed about you."

What? I wonder.

"You just told me that A)". He counts out on his fingers. "You think you might have swapped brains with someone in the emergency room while you were in a coma. B) Your house is haunted by a kid that plays Mario Brothers and a couple people who say 'Wonk, wonk wonk.' And C) You might or might not be married to a vampire." He gives me a triumphant smile. "And you DON'T think the Bible will help you?"

I smile into my cappuccino. Of course he's right. He hasn't told me I was crazy, he hasn't called the mental hospital to come and get me. He didn't even laugh at me. All he did is offer scriptures and I told him no.

"It's not that..." I start and then squirm uncomfortably. I don't know if I should say this or not. I drop my voice to barely a whisper. "It's just... I'm afraid."

His smile disappears and is replaced with a severe look, almost angry, as he leans toward me over the table toward me. "You're what?" He asks forcefully and I look away from him and wished I'd just taken the scriptures and thanked him.

"Doyle." I say more to my coffee than to anyone else. "Doesn't like anything that has to with –God."

Josue sits back, crosses his arms across his chest and gives me an icy look. "Of course not," He says flatly. "He's the devil."

"Well." I say a little taken aback by his bluntness. "That's a little harsh, Josue."

"Okay. Not THE Devil. A devil. How about that?" He says.

"I get it you don't like him." I observe over a sip of my cappuccino.

"Don't like him?" Josue raises his voice, and I look around the coffee shop to see if anyone else is listening to our conversation. "He ruined you! You went to church; you had a family that loved you before he came and took it all away!" He leans toward me and I see the almost same color blue eyes as Doyle has- except his are- clearer. "You have no idea what you lost when you chose him!"

I shudder and wonder if perhaps there wasn't something more between Josue and I than friendship as he claims.

"Josue. Will you tell me the truth?"

"I always tell the truth."

"Were we ever..." How do I phrase this without making it seem creepy? Doyle had mentioned in his fit of rage that night that my family had preferred that dumb mechanic over him. Perhaps this was Josue. "In a relationship?"

I look up at him when he doesn't reply and my breath catches in my throat when I see the sadness written across his face. I can clearly see regret and deep hurt, like I'd just cut to the quick with that question. I feel tears sting my eyes and nose and I want to cry for knowledge that I could have caused that.

He puts his hand over mine and pats it lightly. "We almost were." He says sadly. "But you chose him instead of me."

That's when I think I almost see tears in those blue eyes and I am overwhelmed with sadness. I wonder how can I feel this much regret for a man I don't remember. It's crazy, but crazy or not, I do. I want to fall down at his feet and beg his forgiveness. Was he "dumb mechanic?" the one I'd left for Doyle? Was it Josue that I had- in Doyle's words- "broken his poor redneck heart and left him for the snooty, foreign, atheist doctor?" Was that what I had done? I cover my mouth with my hand and try to remember! I want to scream in frustration! Oh, if only I could remember! I look back up at Josue and despite the last few weeks of trying my best to fall in love with Doyle, I know the two of them were no comparison.

"I'm so sorry." I choke out.

He squeezes my hand. "There's still time."

I look up and blink my tears away. "What do you mean? Still time? I'm married—"

"You're not. You never married. Marriage is an institution ordained by God Himself. Doyle hates all things from God."

Not married?

I stare at him as seconds tick by and my mind tries to wrap itself around this new revelation.

"Wait!" I yelp and my voice rises to a pitch that makes people around me look up from their books. "We're not MARRIED?"

"No."

No explanation. No dramatic back story. Just no.

Not married.

It can't be! I mean I wouldn't just shack up with some guy! I—we have to be married!

I look back up at Josue and remember what he said earlier. He always tells the truth, and though I do not remember him, I know deep in my soul that he's telling the truth.

"Not married?" I whisper, this time, only audible to Josue and he looks at me sorrowfully.

"No." He repeats. "You didn't marry him. You just ran off with him. That's why you don't have a wedding ring."

That's also why my parents refuse to talk to me. Did I turn my back on them just like Josue? If he's right, I could just leave. I chew my lip and consider it. Josue says if I had a family until Doyle came...They loved me. Perhaps they would take me back. The rational side of me tries to calm me. I don't know my parents; they could be alcoholics, weirdoes, freaks.

Vampires? It could be worse.

Not married? How can this be? Somehow, in the depths of my heart I know it's true. All this time I've been telling myself he's not really my husband. I've been living with...I gulp down air in horror. Sleeping with... a man I'm not married to!

"What am I supposed to do?" I gulp.

"Walk away from him. Come to me." He reaches toward my hand and his fingers brush mine. "Choose me."

Part of me wants to do just that. The part of me that's been shouting that I'm not married, my house is haunted, my dog is possessed, my husband is a vampire... that part of me is ready to pack my bags and leave. Maybe not even stop for bags. Just run. Just run to him Andrea! That part of me urges.

But I'm afraid that part of me might need some Xanax and it is overruled by the other part. That part of me stands stubbornly rooted in my disbelief.

Just run? Just like that? Leave everything: my husband, my house, what little of my life that wasn't taken away by that drunk driver? Leave the only person I know and follow this... stranger from a coffee shop?

"I can see you need a little convincing." He says softly. "If you confront him he will only tell you his version of the truth. He's a born liar. He's very good at turning things around. Don't be afraid of him; he can't hurt you until he gets what he wants. "

I nod and reach into my purse.

"No. It's on me." He says with a wave of his hand. "Your prescription is probably ready by now."

How did he know about my prescription? Had I mentioned it earlier?

I don't want to leave! I find I never want to leave. But I know I can't hang out at a coffee shop all day. Eventually I have to get back to... earlier I would have said "My husband" but now I'm not so sure.

"I don't want to leave. Its- nice here." I confess.

He looks at me. The sadness in those clear blue eyes threatens to tear my heart out. "You feel God here. That's why the Church opened it." He points across the parking lot. "Not for coffee. For people who would never set foot inside that building over there. For people like you. You can come here. You can stay as long as you want and you are welcome anytime. But God can go with you. He's not trapped in a building. He wants to take up residence in your heart, Andrea. He loves you more than you could ever imagine but He won't force you to accept Him or His love. He gave his children free will. You each have a choice."

I nod and wipe my eyes as Josue stands. To my surprise he touches my cheek lovingly. "Don't wait too long Andrea. You know where to find me."

Chapter 13.

I find a place on the top of the mountain and pull the car over and I cry. I don't want to go home. I feel dread at the prospect of going back to that dark house and that man...

If he is a man.

The "You know nothing of my kind." Comment has really gotten me worried. I have a conversation with myself in the car.

Come on Andrea. He's foreign. Maybe he just got his words mixed up. I mean people do it all the time and you don't think they're the walking undead.

What if Josue is right and you're not married? You've been feeling funny about this whole thing from the beginning.

You've had amnesia. You don't remember anything. Much less your husband.

If he is your husband.

"OKAY!" I say aloud to settle the argument in my head. Rational and Un-rational Andrea are about to come to blows but the argument isn't resolved. I sit until the sun is over my shoulder and we don't get much farther than that. When I return home I creep into the kitchen and hope that Doyle hasn't awakened.

"Where have you been? It's been hours!"

Busted.

I smile weakly. "I just liked being out in the sunshine, Doyle. Really."

He looks at me and knows I'm lying. I think of our earlier argument on the steps at Ross' Landing.

"I'm not Doyle. I went to get my prescription. They said it would take 45 minutes I went to get a coffee. You can smell my breath."

"Don't lie to me." He warns with one finger raised in the air menacingly.

But you can lie to me. I think to myself and lift my chin defiantly. The stubbornness that Josue reminded me of runs through my veins like a fire and I set my jaw and square my shoulders.

He moves closer to me. "Now you're my wife and I want to know where you have been. And with whom."

'Now you're my wife.' Did he just say that? Oh, no you didn't! That had me. I felt my temper flare beyond what I felt capable of controlling. If this was going to be my last stand so be it! By hook or crook; I decide as my eyes narrow and I glare at him. I am getting answers – today!

"If I'm your wife, then where's our wedding rings Doc?"

He stops mid-thought and blinks several times, as if completely dumbstruck.

"What?" It was the rhetorical what. The kind of 'what' that doesn't so much ask a question as make the statement about the believability of the preceding statement.

"Our wedding rings." I repeat as if he's deaf- not quite catching on to the afore mentioned rhetorical 'what'. "Where are they? Do we even have any? Are we even married?"

He tilts his head to one side and smiles. It's not a nice smile; it's the kind of smile that went hand in hand with the earlier rhetorical what.

"Who have you been talking to?"

"A friend. Now. Tell me the truth."

"A friend? Who?" He growls and walks toward me. His hand is around my neck before I can breathe and he pins me to the wall. Amazingly, I'm more angry than afraid.

"With eyes like yours." I say between my teeth. "He said you're lying to me. Are you?"

His face twists with rage. "Eyes like mine." He looks away as if to consider what to say or do next. "Damn. I knew I shouldn't let you go out in the day light." He lowers his eyes to mine but he is still holding me against the wall. "They are not like us, you know, they hate our kind."

"Why don't you tell me about you, Doyle. Your kind."

His eyes flicker almost red again. "Ah, sweetie. You're too smart for me." He purrs as he moves around me, almost like a predator with his prey. "You've had it figured out since the first night, remember?"

"Vampire." I say weakly.

"Or "vrykolakas" as the Greeks would say or "aptrganga" if you prefer the Old Norse word." He smiles and it sends chills throughout my body. "Those are a few of the name Humans have for us- though none of them fully describe what we are. Yes, sweet one, Vampire, and you've invited me in: Remember? That night. At the pool." He pushes his body against mine, pinning me.

"You lied to me about that." I choke. "You said we didn't do anything."

"Of course I did. It had been so long...aince I'd truly fed off you..." He laughs ruefully as he moves my face very close to mine and I am frozen in place. "I almost killed you that night." He laughs and kisses me. "You enjoyed it, baby." His hands grip me. "Until you passed out. In retrospect, I think we might have over done it."

I fight blackness. It's like this every time he's around me and I was too stupid or blind to see it. He's feeding off of me! I don't know how, but he's draining me. I have to keep talking. I have to figure this out.

"Tell me what you want Doyle!" I hiss at him. "If your name really is Doyle!"

"Darling... of course it's not Doyle. You'd never be able to pronounce it in our language if you tried!"

"What do you want with me?" I swallow and try to focus on him.

"Only to love you." He kisses me over and over all the while holding me with his iron grip. "For you to love me. To be my host again. Like we were before."

My host. I don't know what that is but it sends chills through me. I push away from him with all my strength and try to run. His laughter follows me. In desperation I find the knife block and pull the largest one out. I'm shaking so badly that I can barely hold it up.

Doyle crosses his arms and mocks me. "Honey, you don't really think you can hurt me now do you?"

I don't know. All I know is I want answers. He's going to give them before he kills me...or whatever.

"You've been feeding off me." I say weakly. The darkness is closing in. I feel it creeping around the corners of my eyes. "That's why..." I try to make a coherent thought. "That's why I'm so tired all the time."

"Well if you'd become my host that wouldn't happen." He steps closer to me with that same sinister smile and purrs seductively.

"I don't know. Would it?"

"Of course not. I take care of my hosts. I could never hurt my host."

Hosts. How many have there been? Hundreds of women he's fed off of? The room is spinning. Things around me are losing their definition.

"Whattya..." My words are slurring and things are blurring all around me. I try to focus. "Drink my blood?" I demand and he laughs.

"You watch too many movies. Do you feel any bite marks on you?" He shakes his head.

Come to think of it. I don't. There goes that theory.

"Drink blood? How simply barbaric." He chuckles to himself and shakes his head at the absurdity of it.

"How then?" I want to know. Before I pass out or die or whatever.

"Just by touch, honey." He says softly and reaches for me. I blindly slice with the butcher knife. I feel contact with something but at this point I can no longer see.

"Ow! You little heifer! You cut me!" He chuckles and it sends fear sweeping through me. "I will punish you for that, you naughty girl!" He leaps for me and I scream and fight in the darkness. The last thing I remember is the sound of his laughter.

Chapter 14.

I wake and it's completely dark. I'm not sure where I am and I struggle to sit up.

"Drink this." A voice says. It takes a couple of seconds to realize it belongs to Doyle. Then another or two before our last conversation dawns on me.

A light flips on and I shield my eyes. We are in our bedroom. I blink a couple times. The sun has not set; I can see sunlight peeking through the blackout curtain.

I look down at a red liquid in a clear plastic glass.

"What is it?" I sputter. "Blood?"

He sighs loudly as if exasperated. "No, of course not. It's red wine. You're a little anemic; I think that's why you keep passing out all the time."

How can he tell that? But then I don't have to ask do I?

"And I'm not putting it in a glass because you've already cut me once today."

I look at the glass and wonder what if it's poison.

"You know." He says in an irritated tone when I hesitate. "If I'd wanted to kill you; I wouldn't have spent months trying to get you better."

Good point. I take a drink.

"Good girl. Now lie down. It's been a rough night and a rough morning. During which I haven't gotten any sleep." He flicks off the light. "I'll pick you up some iron pills when I'm out."

He pulls me close to him. He's not wearing a shirt. He had said it only takes touch for him to feed off of me. He strokes my hair back like any husband would and his skin is cold next to mine, almost like a reptile's. I had wondered why he was always clammy and now I know. He whispers that he loves me like we're married and this whole morning never happened. Like he didn't just tell me that he was a vampire and was feeding off my energy. I stiffen at his touch and I hear him sigh again.

"You know..." He says in the dark. "You're looking at this all the wrong way. There are some good things about being a host." He plays with my curls. "Some very good things."

"Like?" I growl. I know it's probably best to placate him but I can't help goading him. I'm so angry with him for all the lies. I know the minute he turns his back I'm out of here. "What? Becoming the living dead? An eternity of creeping around in the shadows and drinking blood?" I spit back at him.

"We don't drink blood. Well, we could... but that's just... deviant. And no. If you become my host you won't be like me." He assures me with a quick rub on my shoulder. I move away from him. "We can't make others like us. We are what we are."

"Don't touch me Doyle! You lied to me! Our whole life thus far has been a lie!"

"Well what was I supposed to do?" He sits up in the bed; I can feel it move under his weight. I don't turn to him. "Say: "welcome home honey, would you like to see the house? Oh and another thing: you're married to a vampire." He flicks on his light. "Sit up and talk to me!" He barks.

Reluctantly I sit up but I won't look at him.

"We're not married. Remember?" I spit the words out.

"We're bound." He says. "You're my mate. Isn't that the same thing?"

I turn to him, finally. "I don't know what that means. Bound together. What is that?"

"When we met in Paris. We slept together that first night. You'd never been with anyone before. Therefore we were bound."

I stare at him like he's crazy. He throws his hands out like it's no big deal. "My last host had died." He looked away. "I was lonely. I saw you on the metro and I couldn't take my eyes off you. You had this..." He puts his fingers together as if trying to find the right word. "'Joie de vivre" as the French say. You were - you were so happy... you exuded happiness... I wanted to be with you... I hadn't felt that in so long. I—just wanted to drink a coffee. Perhaps—touch you; drink in a little bit of your energy. And I did but... I couldn't get enough. I touched you and then I wanted to kiss you. One thing led to another. You invited me to your room. I had no idea—you were... I mean who would have thought that in this millennium I would have found an innocent? In Paris of all places? By then it was too late. I was bound to you."

I can't be getting this right. "Because I slept with you. You were bound to me? You and I are stuck together till kingdom come."

He shakes his head. "Because you gave me your virtue. The act itself is binding to us- it is a blood covenant. It's been like that for all eternity. Even for Humans." He says simply in a tone that implies that everybody knows this. "You should know this."

"Sorry." I shoot back at him. "I didn't receive the memo."

"What?" This time completely confused. "Memo?" His eyes narrow. I can see that he's having trouble with this bit of slang.

"Nobody told me!" I spit back at him.

"Yes they did. You've been told all your life. 'Save yourself for marriage. True love waits...' You never thought there was a reason you should not give yourself away so cheaply? No, of course not. You --Americans-have made it into nothing. Your purity is something to be ashamed of- to be discarded at the earliest convenience. You have cheapened it. You have made it into—mere recreation. " He says disgustedly. He lifts his violet eyes at me. "Like it or not. We take it seriously. We are bound together."

I can't believe I'm getting a purity lecture from the king of liars. There are a thousand and one excuses I could make. I was young. I was stupid. I was in Paris. I had a fight with my fiancé. A thousand and one excuses but I knew when it boiled down to it- they were just excuses. It was wrong. I had promised myself to another man. I broke that promise. Had I not, I wouldn't be in this situation today. Married to a vampire.

Or not married, as the case may be.

"Where do you come from?" I ask him.

"Germany." He replies. "For the last couple centuries anyway."

"No. Who made you?"

"Ah, I understand. You want to know where we come from."

Wasn't that what I just asked?

"We are older than mankind but we are created beings just as Humans are. We were the first ones, there when the Creator hung the heavens in place. However, we had a 'falling outs' of sorts. We were not unlike our younger, human cousins. We wanted to be in charge of our own destinies, and so we came to this world."

My head spins; I feel like I am lost in a fog trying to comprehend all I've just learned. "So..." I say carefully. "You're saying you are... an... Angel?"

He grimaces, like I have just said something disgusting. "No. Not as you understand them, no- not anymore. We once were like them. They are but unthinking slaves- their whole of existence is spent blindly serving and following their Creator." He leans in to me, his eyes showing a near red hue. "We are free! Just as you are! We call ourselves the 'Nephilim'. The Sons of God who sinned by having relations with Human women." He laughs at the surprise that shows on my face. "Genesis 6: 4. You can look it up in your Bible; I know you have one hidden around here." He looks around as if he's searching for it.

"My grandmother gave it to me." I squeak. How did he know about the Bible?

He takes a drink of what I hope is red wine. "Best keep it hidden then. If I find it. I'll destroy it."

This possibly scares me more than all the other things he's said.

"Why?"

"Because." Another deep drink as he stands and pulls himself to his full height. "Our Creator is vengeful and cruel. The killer of children." When I try to argue he silences me with a deadly look. "Do not speak of things you do not understand, woman! I had children once!" He shouts and I snap my mouth closed. "I fathered children! We all did! That's why we did it. Why we left. To create something in our own image- to have offspring as the Humans did!" He looks at me fiercely. "We loved them! Just like your kind love your children! They were beautiful, strong, intelligent; they were like gods. They could have ruled this world! But He—"Doyle's voice strengthens and he points angrily at the ceiling. "He is a jealous God and they were not part of His plan. Only he has the right to create offspring in his image. He flooded the Earth then—to kill them all and we were cursed after that... never again allowed to father children. We left Him and so we were confined to this world. We are bound to the women we so desired. If we do not have hosts we cannot survive."

I shake my head. That was not the God I knew. Not the Good Shepherd I remembered. Not the same God I had felt today in Heavenly Joe's.

"What will happen to you? If I refuse to become your host?"

"Darkness." Is his only reply. From the tone of his voice I can tell that it is not a good possibility for him. "What happens to all of us when we die."

"What will happen to me? To my soul?"

"What?" He asks and puts his hands on his hips. "I don't know what you've been told Andrea but darkness is all that's waiting for all of us."

"I refuse to believe that!" I shoot back. There had to be something.

"Did you see any bright lights or tunnels when you were out Andrea? Did you? Because you were gone- for a whole two minutes before we could get you back."

I don't answer that. I can't remember any lights or music. All I remember was being alone- utterly and totally alone- but then just because I didn't see it- or don't remember it- doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe I wasn't completely dead. Maybe I just can't remember- I don't know what to believe but I know I'm not ready to believe that a human exists and then is gone. Completely. But I don't have an answer for Doyle.

"That's right sweetheart." He smiles sinisterly. "You get this one chance at things. Then it's lights out." He laughs. "You've been given an opportunity beyond your imagining, and yet you falter. To live for hundreds of years perhaps- such a gift is beyond measure."

"How do you do it?" I snap. I have to know what he plans to do to me. "How do you make me a host?"

"Well, that part is like the legend. I do have to bite you."

My heart hammers in my chest. Oh, my gosh! This cannot be real! I cannot be having this conversation! I think to myself and will myself to wake. When I do not I find my voice and ask: "What then?"

"There is a fluid exchange. It... does hurt quite a bit at first, or so I've been told. But nothing good comes without pain and in a few days you will have a lump at the base of your neck. That... for lack of a better word... is like an implant. It's a part of me that lives and grows inside you but it is a symbiotic relationship. It allows me to gain the sustenance I need without harming you."

Like a parasite. I can't help but think.

"Gross." I observe from my side of the bed.

"On the contrary." He says softly and rubs my shoulder. "I have always thought it a beautiful thing. To have a part of myself carried within another; it is as near to having a child as we are allowed now." He sighs wistfully.

I make a hacking noise to show my displeasure. "Ugh!" I grunt and that only makes him angry.

"No more so than having silicone put in one's breasts or twenty years' worth of fast food sucked out of one's gut! Or any of the myriad of things you "Humans" do for pleasure!" He shoots back and I lift my eyebrows in acquiescence.

He sits behind me and pulls my hair away from my neck. I squirm uncomfortably, wondering if he is planning on doing just what he had discussed.

"It is beautiful to us." He purrs in my ear and strokes my arm lovingly. "We hold our hosts in the highest regard, you cannot even imagine. You will be like a queen to me. I will do everything for you, be devoted only to you, and desire none but you. You will live a life free of disease, sickness, or worry. I can give you all the riches I have amassed, all the pleasures you could possible desire. You will be one of but a few like you; revered by mortals, held in the highest regard by my kind, worshiped by your mate..." He allows those last words to sink in but when I do not respond he sighs and moves away from me. "But you are not ready for that yet. Becoming a host is something you must choose. Freely. I can't make you choose me."

I almost want to laugh. Free will is a kick in the pants ain't it doc? Somehow he's got women before me to succumb to him and his cockamamie story. How many women have been stupid enough? I wonder.

"How many hosts have you had?" I ask and he chuckles.

"I'm not answering that. I did once before and you were jealous." He laughs. "I've been around since creation, dear. There's been more than a few." He tells me. "Don't ask things you really don't want the answer to. Understand?"

I nod and make a mental note never to ask what happened to the man who tried to mug us. If it's all the same, I'd rather not know what he did to him.

"So what's in it for me?" I want to know.

"You're in fantastic shape. You hosted me when you were twenty two, and though it's been almost ten years you've not aged since then. Until the accident and the bond was broken- that is. Your immune system will be boosted, your stamina, energy, everything will be heightened."

"So... Let me get this straight." I say. "Eternal youth and good health."

"I never said 'eternal youth'. I said your aging would be slowed considerably. And you can kill yourself- as my last host did."

"What's that?" I shout and leap away. His last host killed herself? What the heck?

"She was always melancholy, but she was beautiful. She had a gentle kind heart that was easily broken. I met her in 1805 when she was sixteen years old. She died in 1999. She so wanted to see the Millennium in Paris... But..." He sighs again and his shoulders slump. "My love wasn't enough to keep her heart from being broken by the cruelty of this world. Living through the pain and suffering of the two world wars was too much for her and she chose death over life in this place."

He looks away and we sit silently for a while. I have no words say. I'm not sure if I should comfort him or if I should laugh in his face.

"You are happy, and full of life." He whispers. "So unlike her. You make me remember that there are good things in this world." He smiles up at me. "That is why I chose you."

"Well, what about your other hosts?" I ask.

"I try not to think about them or I shall drown in grief. You may not believe me, but I loved them all. As I love you." I feel his lips on my neck.

Good answer, Doc. But I'm afraid this is a crock. Wasn't it PT Barnum that said if it sounds too good to be true it probably is? No. PT Barnum said there's a fool born every minute. Probably both apply to me.

"I don't get it." I say. "If you got all these things going for you - why bother with me? Why not go to a Goth bar and ask around. It will be easy. Just look for any girl wearing black lipstick and too much eye make-up. Tell them you're a vampire. They'll be lined up around the corner."

"You infuriate me." He tells me. We sit in silence for several minutes. I can tell he's trying to calm himself. Or figure out what to say next. Or try to keep from wringing my neck. I'm not sure which- maybe all of them. At last he speaks: "I'm bound to you and so I will be until you pass on or host me."

"Great." I say. "So if I say no then you'll kill me." Talk about stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Another long agonized sigh from his side of the bed. "No. I can't hurt you. It's forbidden."

Well thank God. Otherwise, he'd go out, sleep around then knock her off if she didn't please him. Sort of like a fail-safe plan for the woman involved.

"Face it baby. We're stuck with each other." He flicks the light off. "Better get some sleep: seeing as how tonight's your first night back on the job."

"What? How can I go back to work? I remember nothing about my job!" Damn him! I was planning on packing my bags and heading for the hills. I remembered what Josue said about coming back to him. I figure, if anyone can help- he can. Especially if he's an Un-fallen One like Doyle says- then at least he's playing for the right team.

"Well. I can't leave you alone. Least you meet with your new, blue eyed friend." He shoots me a sideways glance that oozes of pure jealousy. "So, the only option is to go with me. You have several months of case files to go through." He pulls me down in the bed beside him and I try to get away from him but to no avail.

"You. Can't. Make. Me. You can't feed. Off me." I tell him and struggle to get away.

"You can't stop me."

"This. Isn't over." I promise him as blackness swirls around me.

"Not yet." He purrs. "Soon." I am still aware of him as he pulls my hair away from my neck and kisses me. "You'll host me, darling. Or you'll suffer the consequences. "

That last sentence was meant as a threat, and I should be afraid, but it only serves to stoke my stubbornness. "I am not one to be trifled with." He whispers in my ear.

Neither am I, Doc. Neither am I. I promise myself. He should know better than to mess with a Mountain girl.

Chapter 15

It's nine pm when I wake again. Doyle is already dressed. He tells me to get a shower and he's laid out my clothes for me.

I grumble as I step into the shower. What can I do? Pitch a fit and he'll zap me again. I could be in a coma all night.

I decide to dress. Perhaps I can get away from him at the hospital.

I mean, he can't watch me every minute can he?

He chit-chats with me in the car like we're any married couple in love. Like he's not a vampire trying to feed off me and I'm not having it. I cross my arms over my chest and ignore him as I stare out the window.

Doyle shows me to my office. It's a glorified broom cabinet with my name on the door. Inside is a desk with a rather old looking computer on top, some cabinets, some fake plants and an extra chair. Just in case I have a guest. I suppose.

"Others have been covering your case load since you've been out of commission. You are the only social worker who works third shift so you will be all over the hospital."

I look at Doyle and hiss. "I don't know what to do!"

"Of course you do. Just help people." He hands me a stack of file folders. "Start with these. Just do what comes naturally."

"Sure. Fine." I tell him. The minute he leaves I'm gone.

"Just to be sure you can find your way around here." He shoves a blonde nurse at me. She looks like a living Barbie Doll. "This is Candi. She'll be helping you tonight."

I look up at what seems to be a Barbie doll in a nurse's outfit. One of those old timey kind – the all-white dress- complete with the little hat. I've seen them, but didn't think anyone wore them anymore. This one has a skirt that comes far above the knees. She's wearing bright red heels and bright red lipstick and looks more like a stripper than a nurse.

Blondie looks up at me and smiles a fake smile. I can tell that being with me is the last thing she wants to do. She has the same color eyes as Doyle.

"Candi." I repeat. AKA your watchdog. "It's so very nice to meet you."

She sneers in reply.

I hear him mutter "Watch her." Under his breath as he leaves.

She gives him a lustful look as he walks away and I feel my scalp prickle. I don't know why I'm suddenly jealous. I mean... we're not even married... not to mention he's not...Human... But nonetheless I feel the green eyed monster spring up within me.

He may not be Human but he's mine... I find myself thinking fiercely as I shoot her a look that implies murder.

I'm completely off my nut.

But she looks away first.

Good.

"Well. Candi. What do we do first?" I say brightly. She shrugs. Not much help here. I decide to look through the files Doyle handed me.

"Nick and Caroline McGee" I read. "NICU". I look up at her. "What does that mean?"

"Neonatal intensive care." She pops her gum loudly and shrugs. "Sick baby. Or a preemie."

"Lead the way." I tell her and follow her around uncomprehendingly. We go down in an elevator, down hallways, around corners. I'm pretty sure we'll meet ourselves and I keep waiting to do that. We never do though.

She clicks ahead of me in those heels. I wonder how she walks in them. Finally I ask her. She gives me an annoyed look. "I'm Dr. Rickenbaugh's personal assistant." She puts emphasis on the word personal and she looks down her nose at me like she just announced she's the queen of England. "That means I have a nice, big office and I don't have to traipse around all over this hospital. When I'm not babysitting, that is!" She storms ahead of me, red heels clicking on the tile. I breathe in a calming breath. Okay, point taken. I tell her in my mind. You're not thrilled about this arrangement. Well neither am I Blondie!

She points at the entrance. "NICU. I don't go in there." She tells me disgustedly. "I don't do little kids."

A nurse holds the door open for me but otherwise doesn't acknowledge me. Why is it that everyone seems to act as if I'm not here? I mean, I have amnesia, but it seems that if I work here then someone should at least say hello. I give her a friendly nod and a huge smile but she walks by me as if I'm invisible. I shake my head and don't know if she recognizes me or not but the first thing I see is a washing station. I wash up following the guidelines on the poster then head to the nurses' station.

When not one of them can be bothered to direct me I find the name on a clipboard, with the pod number.

"Pod one." I tell myself.

I don't even know what a pod is but I find out that they're like little rooms with tiny beds all around.

One lady sits at the end by herself in a rocking chair looking into a incubator with a tiny baby inside.

"Mrs. McGee." I say softly and when she looks up at me I introduce myself. She nods like she's had too many nurses and staff come and go and I'm just another name. Her eyes are red rimmed and she looks tired beyond words.

"Do you have a place at the Ronald McDonald House?" I ask her- I don't even know why I ask her that but it 'feels' like the right thing to say and she nods.

"My husband had to go back to work. I'm here alone." She says.

I feel for her. I tell her I'll sit with her for a while if she wants company. I really have no idea what to do for her. I tell her the doctors are really good here. I was a patient myself a couple weeks ago. We chit chat about the baby and her family to pass the time; I don't know what else to do. She has two others at home and this one was born early. She's torn between the two at home with their grandparents and this one. I tell her it's okay to miss the other two but this one needs her and she shouldn't feel guilty. I urge her to go back to her room. I tell her this will be the safest the baby could possibly be. He's surrounded by doctors and nurses. She can go back and get a little sleep and not feel like she's deserting him. Finally she agrees to go rest after the next feeding. I smile and pat her hand and ask if there's anything else I can do for her tonight. She tells me no and thanks me.

Okay. Maybe I was helpful a little. At least I got the poor lady to go and get a couple hours of sleep.

Next is Genevive Abernathy. Wow what a name. Room 425. I motion for Candi to show me the way. Which she does with an exceptional amount of sighing and rolling of eyes.

We stop short of the door. "Old lady." She snaps before we even enter and shakes herself disgustedly- as if she was contaminated by just being here. "I don't do old people."

Okay. You don't do kids, you don't do old people. My eyes narrow. This is the worst nurse I've ever seen.

"Who do you do?" I ask her.

"Rich. Good looking. Men!" She barks at me and leaves me for a nurses station where there is a handsome young nurse checking his paperwork.

I shrug and walk inside because I hear the television blaring.

"You're new." The woman says as soon as I walk in. "Ain't seen you here before." She grins at me through toothless gums. Her face is weathered and she is very thin.

"First night." I tell her as I introduce myself. She tells me to turn the TV down and "sit a spell".

"Most ever'body calls me granny." She tells me. I don't feel comfortable with that but she insists each time I call her Mrs. Abernathy. Finally I succumb to her pleas and call her Granny. She asks me if I could find the 'preachin' channel' on the television. I tell her I'll try and we flip channels until something comes on that she recognizes and she nods for me to stop.

I don't know the preacher, but he's soft spoken, not one of those hell and brimstone kind. I sit with her a few minutes until he finishes the sermon.

"Ye a believer?" She asks me and I don't exactly know how to answer that. I tell her I'm undecided.

"I went to church when I was little." I tell her.

"Train up a child in the way they should go and when they're old they will not depart from it." She quotes. I clap my hands and tell her the only verse I know by heart is John 3:16.

"Can you get me that Bible?" She asks me. I open her nightstand and pull a well-worn leather bound bible from the drawer.

"I like First John. Can ye read it?" She says. I shrug and flip the book open. To my surprise I know how to find First John without looking in the table of contents. It's in the new testament- further evidence that I went to church before, and I knew my way around the Bible at one time in my life.

"What would you like me to read to you?" I ask her.

"The whole book. It's purty short. Ye don't mind do ye?"

What else do I have to do? Hang out with Candi the world's worst nurse? I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing on this job. At least I can read. There's not much way I can mess this up. I tell her I'd be delighted.

We read the whole of first John. Granny Abernathy loves the part where it says "What manner of love is this? That we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!" I'm pretty sure if she could get up out of that bed she would.

She grips my hand. "Think. Poor ol' Granny. Born in a sharecropper's cabin. Didn't have two dimes to rub together most my life. A child of God! And when I see Him, I'll be able to run to Him. To God. The creator of the universe. I'll run to him and he'll hold his arms open to me just like I used to run to my daddy when he got home from workin' the fields."

I smile at her faith; she seems so sure, so at peace with what is going to happen when she passes on. I wonder what will happen to me. Doyle said when you die, you're gone. But there's this something- deep in my heart that bugs me and tells me it's not true. I'm more than just bone and tissue and blood that will disintegrate and become nothing when I die. I have a soul. I can feel it pressing down inside me. What will become of me when I die - especially if I become a host? Doyle had pretty much said he hated God. Not in so many words, but I got the point. Josue had said Doyle was a devil, and what if helping Doyle meant cutting myself off from God? Sure, Doyle has promised that I will live a long time but what's to stop another car from hitting me? It happened once. Fact was, if this whole story Doyle had fed me was true- and he could give me good health and a long life – still all the other hosts were dead and I would be one day too.

Maybe I needed to consider that.

"Read me some more. Don't matter what."

I remember the verses Josue scribbled on the slip of paper. I had tucked them in my wallet and had never had the courage to look them up for fear Doyle would find my granny's bible and destroy it as he promised. I open my briefcase and pull out the now crumpled piece of paper. "As a matter of fact; a friend gave me some verses to look up. Do you mind?"

"Go ahead." She waves her hand at me.

The first is Hebrews 9: 27. It gives me chills when I read it.

"For it is appointed for man once to die but after that the judgment."

The next is Luke 9:25. "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?"

I look over at Granny. It felt like someone took my heart and stomped it flat. How could Josue know what I was thinking just now? How could he know the thoughts that were going through my head?

She shakes her head and chuckles. "Sounds like your friend is concerned with your soul."

"Yeah. I guess." I say unsteadily. Maybe he should be.

I turn to the next one. John 1: 1-5. I read it aloud for Granny. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

I breathe out unsteadily. "Okay." I tell her "That wasn't too bad."

"What's the next one?" She asks me and I look on the paper. "John 3:17." I smile. "Hey, I know John 3:16. I didn't even know there was a 17!"

She laughs at me and gives me time to look it up but I don't have to read it. "John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3;17- For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but through His Son the world might be saved."

She points a gnarled finger at me. "That second one is just as beautiful as the first, but most people couldn't even tell you what it is." She shakes her head. "I had five children."

"Really? Five?" I ask pleasantly though I wonder why she went off on this tangent.

"Two of em boys. But I don't think I'd give one of my sons- or daughters for that case- to save someone else." She shakes her head. "God is a good God. He loves us more than we know to send his only son to save the world."

I feel tears sting my eyes, though I am not sure why. I know Josue was trying to tell me that God loves me. I know deep in my heart that I should do what he says and leave Doyle.

But what then? I don't have anything else. At least with Doyle I have a home, money, each other. What if I leave him and I have... nothing?

"Last one." I breathe. "Matthew 4:10 "And Jesus said "Away with you Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve."

Granny lays her head back in the hospital bed. "Whew. Sounds like ya got some hard decisions to make Mizz. Andrea. I'm all wore out. I believe I'm going to take a nap now, but I'll pray for ye, Mizz. Andrea. I'll pray. I cain't do much from this ol' bed but I sure can pray." She squeezes my hand before I leave and tells me to leave the TV on the preachin' channel. I nod and turn the volume up enough that she can hear. Before I leave she's asleep.

Candi the world's worst nurse is waiting to pounce on me outside.

"You've been in there like... an hour!" She hisses. "Your husband has called my phone twice! Why don't you turn yours on?"

I reach in my pocket and press the on button. "Sure." I tell her. It just didn't seem professional to have my phone going.

"I saw you in there." She says as if she knows a secret no one else knows. "Reading the Bible to her."

"She asked me to." I say innocently. "I was just doing my job."

"You know your husband will be angry if he knows!"

"Ah, well." He's not my husband anyway. I think to myself and smile sweetly. "Who's going to tell?" I ask her. She turns to me, without batting an eyelash says:

"I will of course. He has a right to know you've betrayed him." She tells me. "No one can serve two masters."

Is that what he is? Or wants to be? My master?

"So are you like Doyle?" I ask her.

She walks ahead of me. "What? A doctor?

There is no way she can be this dumb. "No." I start "A va--" Then I catch myself. "Never mind."

"No." She says. "Women are hosts."

"So you're a host?" I ask nonchalantly but I scurry to catch up with her long legs and six inch heels. "What's that like?"

She turns quickly and eyes me from head to foot. "Do you know how old I am?" She demands and then poses like a runway model. I'm afraid to reply.

"Twenty..." I drag the word out. I know she has to be older than she looks but if I guess a high number I'm pretty sure she'll flip out. "four?" I guess.

She gives me a look that could curdle milk. "I'm over sixty Human years." She says. "Becoming his host was the best decision of my life. I'm beautiful, we're rich and the sex is out of this world."

"Wow." I observe. That last part was a little more information than I needed thank you very much. "Sounds like you got it all." She rolls her eyes as if to acknowledge that fact.

But then I throw a monkey wrench in her whole argument.

"So why are you so unhappy?"

She grits her teeth and storms away in a huff of blonde hair and red clicking high heels.

I find my way to the ER with a smirk on my face. She's beat me there. I don't know how in those heels but she's with Doyle and she's not happy. She points disgustedly in my direction and stalks away.

He glares at me as he approaches.

"What did you do to make her so angry?" He demands.

"Didn't take much." I observe. "She doesn't seem to be a very pleasant person to begin with."

"She said you were with a patient. Reading the Bible. For over an hour." He growls. "You know how I feel about religion."

I shrug. "The lady asked me to. What was I supposed to say? Anyway, you told me to do what came naturally."

He chews his lip and I know he wants to pursue the matter but drops it. "We'll talk about this later." He promises. God, I pray silently. If you're there like Josue says you are. You've got to get me away from this... whatever he is.

"So how's life in the ER?" I change the subject. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"Only two shootings and a drunk driving accident." He tells me. "And a domestic dispute. That's why I called you." He pulls me by my arm through the ER. "There's someone I need you to talk to. We've already had one person in here with her. She didn't respond to him, so I thought I'd call you." He says and points to a room with a closed door. "Work your magic."

"What?" I ask and he lowers his voice.

"Barbara Raft. Third time she's been here in two months. I need you to convince her to leave her husband."

How am I supposed to do that? I ask him. He shrugs. "You're the one with the degree in counseling. You tell me."

Yeah, right. A degree I can't remember.

"Just do what you do. This one's easy. What do you say 'a no brainer?" He smiles at me. "So easy a Human with amnesia could do it? See if you can't convince her that she should get out of this relationship. He's beating her."

I enter a darkened room. A woman is sitting on the bed in a hospital gown. One eye is swelled shut. There is a gash on her face that has been stitched and covered with a bandage.

I sit beside her. She takes no notice of me.

"I'm Andrea." I tell her. "I work here. My husband is an ER doctor here. Dr. Connelly."

"Good looking blonde." The woman says through busted lips. "Lucky you."

Yeah, if you only knew chick. I think to myself.

"He said you'd been here three times in two months."

"I trip a lot." She says. "I'm clumsy."

"So am I." I confess. "But not enough to be in the ER three times in a month. So, who is it? Your boyfriend, husband, significant other?"

She twists a wedding ring and I breathe out. "Husband..." I say. "You know that's not love."

She ignores me.

"Love is..." God, I pray. Help me here, please. I search for the word but then it comes to me almost as if by magic - or miracle. "Patient." I tell her. It seems like I know this. It's a poem or something. It flits on the edge of my memory. I reach deep within myself. "Love is...kind."

"He just gets jealous. He saw me talking to a man at the market." She tries to convince me but the words keep coming.

"Love is... not envious... or boastful...or conceited."

I look over at Mrs. Raft. She stares straight ahead. "He doesn't mean to do it. I do things... make him so angry."

"Love does not act improperly.... It is not selfish, is not provoked.... Love does not keep a record of wrongs..." She says nothing, but tears stream down her face. I decide to try to finish.

I blow out an unsteady breath. I don't know the words. I don't know the rest, but I open my mouth and these words come out, seemingly of their own accord.

"Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth."

She's crying now. I have no idea what to do. I continue- though I don't mean to. The words just come- like a song you can't get out of your head.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I am breathless. I don't know where the words came from.

"Love never fails." I finish unsteadily.

She looks over at me. "How'd you know?" She says through her tears. "How'd you know that was in my head? My Granny taught me that scripture. It's been going around and around in my head..."

I'm as surprised as she that it is a scripture. I thought it was a poem or a song.

Then she breaks down and cries like she's never cried before. I get her some tissue and do my best to console her.

"I know it isn't love. But he's my husband."

"Being your husband doesn't give him the right hurt you. Or do things against your will." Are you listening to this, Andrea? Josue's voice echoes in my head. Are you listening to what you're saying?

"But what will I do?" She asks me. "I'll have to leave my home. I have nowhere to go." She wails. "He's all I got!"

"There are people who will help you." I tell her but I wonder if I'm talking to myself as much as her.

I think of the card that Josue gave me. "Go here." I tell her. I don't know why. "They will help you."

She holds the card in shaky fingers and nods to herself.

"You have to take the first step." I tell her -and myself.

After a few minutes more I leave her. She's called a cab and says she's going to her mother's. I sigh uneasily. Perhaps she will make the right choice.

"Maybe you will too." That familiar voice says from behind me.

"Josue!" I say and turn quickly. I don't see him, but I know he was there. I can't shake the feeling that he was there the whole time.

Doyle catches up with me several moments later. "I hear she's going to her mother's." He says with a smile. "That's better than I was able to do. Perhaps it had to be a woman." He leans close and kisses me. My body reacts to him, even though I'm still angry with him.

He senses my trepidation and strokes my hair gently. "We are not what you have been led to believe, darling. Some of our kind are bad. Very bad- and they get all the press. Just as some Humans are bad. But some of us are trying to help the world rather than hurt it."

"What kind are you?" I ask breathlessly.

He smiles. "Would I help people here if I only wanted to hurt them? Would I do this every night if I didn't want to do good?" He looks around and shrugs his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. "Perhaps... at the end... if my good outweighs the evil I've done... there will be hope for me."

I nod. I didn't know who to believe. Josue who said Doyle was a devil and promised me that God still loved me. Doyle who says he's fallen but not all that bad. Do I leave everything and follow a janitor or do I stay with Doyle who has promised me long life and to meet every need?

It seems like there are two of me- each pulling in opposite directions.

"One more stop before we leave." He promises. I didn't notice, but it's almost six. "This may be difficult for you, but I want you to talk to them. I don't think anyone else could."

"Who's that?' I ask.

"Mr. Smith. His wife was beside you in the ICU. She's not doing well."

I stop dead in my tracks. The man I heard crying! I still have dreams about him! I don't know if I want to go in there.

"He stays each night." Doyle leads me by my elbow. "He will leave for work soon; I just wanted you to speak to him first."

"Why?" I hiss through my teeth.

"To establish a relationship with them. You've been where she is. See if you can help them make the next decision."

Doyle goes with me and we enter into a room. A heavy set man is sleeping in a chair beside a woman in a bed. I don't turn on any lights. Doyle touches the man on the shoulder and introduces us. The man doesn't take his eyes off the woman in the bed.

Doyle pulls a chair to him and motions for me to sit.

"I was there." I point at the bed. "A couple weeks ago. In a coma. In the cubicle next to your wife."

"Hit by a car." He mumbles. "I heard about you. Looks like you're better."

"Um... yes... better." If you call losing your memory and being married to the undead better. Then yes, I'm better.

"Can she hear me? I mean, could you hear when you were uh—?"

"Yes. I think she probably can hear you. I mean—" I cut my eyes at Doyle. I don't know how to talk to this man. "Sir—I could hear you. You were praying for her."

He smiles but tears roll down his cheeks. "You could?"

I want to cry. I want to wrap my arms around this man and give him a huge hug. He seems so familiar. I know it's only because I could hear him in my cubicle, but I wish I could do something to help him.

"I could hear everything. Doctors, nurses, you, my—" do I call him my husband? "My husband. I could hear everything. I thought I was just dreaming."

"So she's just dreaming?" He asks unsurely. "She's not—you weren't—in any pain?"

"No. I just wanted the nurses to leave me alone so I could sleep."

He seems to be satisfied with that explanation. "Do you think she likes us talking to her?"

"I'm sure she does. You should say encouraging things to her, play her favorite music. I think she'd like that. Keep praying for her, read from her favorite books." I cut my eyes at Doyle who is staring at me like he could rip my head off. "Whatever brought her comfort in her past life."

"Thank you Miss." He tells me. Doyle touches his shoulder again and tells him we have to leave. The man lays his head back warily and seems to be asleep again.

We make our way quietly out of the darkened room.

"Why did you tell him that?" Doyle pounces on me when we are out of earshot. "To pray for her? Why did you give that man false hope?"

"I didn't give him false hope." I say and lift my chin defiantly. "There is always hope."

"She's got an infection and she's not getting better. If things don't change that family is going to have to make some very difficult decisions in the next few days." He tells me and storms off. "He can do all the praying he wants. It's not going to make a difference. People in that kind of shape don't get better and God's not going to hear him." He turns and looks at me with an angry, sad look. "I won't lie to you to make you feel better. God's up there, He's in his Heaven and all is definitely not right with the world but he doesn't care."

I refuse to believe that and he knows it. He stalks away angrily and we do not speak for the rest of the night.

Chapter 16

We stop at a Denny's where Doyle has already phoned in for take-out for breakfast. He runs inside to pick up the take out and I stay in the car. We haven't spoken to each other since our earlier tiff about the lady in the coma.

Maybe it's the doctor in him that tells him that the worst is going to happen. Maybe it's whatever that makes him not human. I don't know.

He plops in the seat next to me. It's raining. It's been raining all night. Everything looks gloomy.

"Smile. You have two days off." He tells me as he starts the car. "We work the same shift. Two on, three off. Three on, two off." He sighs. "After last night we need a rest, don't you think?"

I look out the window and pretend to not hear him.

"I know you're not sleeping. What did you say to make Nurse Candi Rickenbaugh so angry?" He chuckles. "I have to know."

"She told me that she was a host."

"Yes."

"She said she had beauty, money and unbelievable sex. That being a host was the best thing she ever did."

"Okay." He waits for me to finish.

"I asked her if she had everything she wanted, why on earth she was so unhappy." I tell him.

To my surprise he laughs heartily. I probably haven't ever heard him laugh this much. "You told her that? What did she say?"

"She just stomped away." I say unhappily. "Really, if she was the one you were hoping to talk me into this gig. She wasn't very convincing."

"No. She is most—" He seemed to be considering the words. "Disagreeable." He laughs. "Dietrich Rickenbaugh is my closest friend, but I have to admit that he was not careful when he chose her. She is beautiful, yes, but he chose her too young and she has never matured, I'm afraid. All she wants are parties and men. Lots of men. That's why he brought her here after I came. He was well respected up north, but she was too much trouble and too many people started talking. I suppose he thought the change in scenery would calm her down." He sighs loudly. "She's still man crazy."

"Doesn't she have a good looking vampire in her bed?" I see him wince at the word 'vampire' but I ask anyway, still stuck on the previous statement. "What does she need men for?"

"Ah, she likes to flirt, make them want her, perhaps even have a fling then break their heart. She's had many lovers. Too many- and he is quite liberal compared with me. It is too much – too many lovers even for him to tolerate. Dietrich makes her come to the hospital with him- to keep her out of trouble."

"Same reason you brought me." I remind him.

"You will get into trouble no matter where you are; I'm afraid." He says sadly. "Always have. Except now you don't remember who are friends and who are enemies." He looks at me with genuine sadness. "There are others...like me. You've met one of the un-fallen already." He says darkly. "Your new friend from your outing yesterday, but they are of little concern to me. They hate us but will not harm our hosts. However there are a few..." He swallows and shakes his head. "Very bad ones. They will know you when you become my host and you will recognize them then. You need to stay far away from those."

"So..." I say "There are un-fallen, fallen, and what are the others called?"

"The dark ones. We don't speak of those." He tells me quickly. "Those are where the name comes from and why we hate it so. We are Nephilim. We are simply fallen. They are the Dark Ones- the Vampires of legend. They are deviant, completely given over to evil. They take life without regard. Most of us are not like them."

"You're just- fallen." I say. "And they're really, really fallen." This makes perfect sense. I can't believe we're having this conversation.

"They are worse than anything you can imagine!" He shouts over at me, suddenly angered by my skepticism. His eyes glow that eerie red hue again and his voice echoes in the relative small space of our car until I can feel the reverberations in my chest. I gulp a breath and wonder why I continue to provoke him knowing what he could do to me with little more than a touch. "And, before you start with the attitude again do I need to remind you, Humans are fallen creatures as well?" He snorts as we enter our driveway.

"A little matter concerning fruit if you recall?"

He waits for my argument but there is none. I'm sure I went to Sunday school a couple times when I was little and the story sounds spot on. "Your kind disobeyed God just as we did, so don't go acting like something you are not!" He growls as he steps out of the BMW and leaves me there alone with my thoughts.

He's right. I tell myself. We are fallen creatures. What's the difference between the two of us?

We talk little during our breakfast, which I figure is just as well. I have too many questions and he seems miffed at having to answer them.

One has been dogging me all night though.

"How many are there of you Doc?" I ask him over a bite of biscuit. "Is the medical center populated with...?" My voice trails off as I catch myself before I say vampire. "Your kind?" I finish.

"No. Only Dr. Rickenbaugh and I. Hospitals are a good place for us. We can work at night. We can help people. We feed on emotions. There are too many emotions in a hospital. People are upset, or worried. We can calm them by pulling away some of that extra energy. You saw how calm Mrs. Raft was when you went in to her. She was a screaming basket case when she came in. All I had to do was touch her and she calmed enough for us to stitch her up. The other doctors just think I have a way with people."

"Though to answer your question: there are several in this city, ten perhaps- besides us." He chews thoughtfully. "In a large city there could be more- especially in the North. We don't prefer hot or sunny climates naturally. The Old World has a greater population of our kind. Only a few with a thirst for adventure came to these savage lands during exploration and colonization. There are fewer of us in the Americas, but still a great number."

"Do you have like conventions or reunions or something? So you can keep up with each other?"

He gives me a dark look and slaps down his napkin. "You are especially exasperating this morning. I think I will go for a swim before I am tempted to kill you this fine day!"

I look at the wall hook where the keys are hanging. He stops before he leaves the dining room.

"If you are thinking about escaping: don't. I can catch up with you before you are out of the driveway and since it is now daylight- I will not be in a good mood when I do. I do not like to do it, but if you disobey me -you will be punished. Severely. Humans do not heal quickly and the bruises will be hard to explain."

My food tastes like ash in my mouth. Suddenly I have no appetite. What had I told Mrs. Raft last night? "Love does not act improperly.... It is not selfish, is not provoked.... Love does not keep a record of wrongs..." Did I listen to any of my words?

I don't know what else to do. I'm stuck here with him for two days. I suppose if he goes to sleep I could slip away. I have to be smart. I'll bide my time until I decide what to do.

I meet him with a towel in hand, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks.

"Would you like to take a swim?" He asks me as if he hadn't just threatened to kill me.

"Nope. I'm afraid you'll be too tempted to drown me." I growl as I walk past him. "Besides, I remember what happened the last time I swam with you."

He smiles and pins me to the wall with a short playful growl. "Really, now. I was only joking about killing you. You know I could never hurt you. I love you, really I do." He strokes my face with his fingers.

He's draining me. I have to get him away.

"What about punishing me? You said you would do that. Isn't that hurting me?"

"Don't do anything to get punished for, sweet one." He purrs in my ear and strokes my hair. "Obey me and all will be well with you. I will give you anything you want."

What if I want my freedom? I wonder but I don't dare say it.

"You look tired, child. Go upstairs and take a nap. I'll be up in a bit."

In my bedroom I look around. No way of escape here. I could crawl out the window if it wasn't a straight drop down the side of the mountain. I curl up in my bed and wonder what I can do.

In several minutes Doyle enters and crawls into the bed beside me.

"Come now, little one." He purrs as he stretches out beside me. "It can be pleasant for both of us."

"No." I mumble but there is no fight behind my words. I know I cannot stop him.

"Relax." He tells me, and spoons against me. I can feel the muscles of his abdomen and chest against my back. "Let me show you how beautiful it can be."

I feel like he is pulling me up, like I am rising up from the bed. My body tingles as we rise up together; warmness covers me, soothing me and lifting me higher and higher until I feel that my spirit cannot be contained by this body. I cry out in ecstasy and in that moment I know that I could give anything, promise anything to him. I want to be with him, I want to become a part of him, anything to stay in this place with him. I shudder and something deep in my spirit tells me that this is wrong. "No." I mumble then again, louder. "NO!" I scream at him. "Stop! Stop!"

I feel him release me and I know I'm still in the bed beside him. I haven't moved, my body trembles like someone with fever and chills.

"Stop!" I tell him breathlessly.

I hear him laugh at me. "Oh, come now, dear one. We weren't even finished. It can be so much better than that. That was only a taste of the pleasure we could have if only you will give yourself to me."

"No." I gasp. "I'm. Not. Ready." I don't want him to touch me and yet at the same time I do. I hunger for him and it scares me. "You. Promised you'd wait."

"I did." He assures me. "I can if I want, though. You belong to me. You opened yourself to me... but since I want you to come to me of your own free will... I will wait." I hear him breathe heavily behind me as if disappointed. "Sleep then." He purrs and I feel myself slipping into darkness. His touch is a drug. He controls me like a puppet on a string. I cannot fight him. "When you awake you will want... more. You can't help it. Ask Eve. Once you taste the forbidden fruit, you can never stop wanting it."

I dream about the man in the hospital.

In my dream I see through someone else's eyes. It's funny how you can be yourself and someone else at the same time in dreams.

"I don't even know why you even go to work!" I spit at him. "Why do you do work for people who can't pay you?"

"But honey." The man says. "They have no way to work right now and three kids and their only car broke down. They said they'll pay me back."

"Yeah, right." I snap- but then I realize it's not me who's talking. It's her. His wife. "If you hadn't noticed we have kids and bills to pay too."

"We'll be fine, honey." He assures me/ her. I feel her anger. She's so angry she could kill him.

"Stupid redneck." She mumbles but loud enough for him to hear her. "I should have never married you. You have no aspirations. We're living in your grandparent's house..."

"It's fine. It's paid for. One day we'll have better."

"One day?" She explodes. "You've been saying that since we graduated from high school. One day... one day... one day! I'm tired of waiting on one day." She/ I throw something down in exasperation.

Wow, I think to myself. What a shrew. I see her on the cellphone. She's texting someone.

D. Cell:

What's the matter?

Me:

Had a fight.

D. Cell:

Again? You 2 fight a lot.

Me:

I K all the time.

D. Cell:

Do you ever think of us? That night...

Me:

Every night.

D. Cell:

U know u should have been with me all along. When r u going 2 leave him?

Me:

I can't. What about the kids?

D. Cell:

Everybody will be happier. They'll be okay.

Me:

I gotta go. I work 2morro.

D. Cell:

C u 2morro. Goodnight.

Me:

Goodnight Doyle. C u 2 morro.

Doyle.

I wonder how he ended up in my dream as the dream changes. Still the same people. I'm still looking through her eyes.

"I don't want to go. " I scream at someone. "You can go. Take the kids. Have a fine night."

"I told your mother you'd come. You can't back out. It's just one night."

Dang! He had me, I want to cuss. He told momma I'd come. If I didn't; I'd hear about it forever. I'd never live it down if I didn't go to that sermon after he told her I would.  
"It's important. Your cousin is preaching." He reminds me.

"I have to work tomorrow!" The last place I want to go is church. I hate it there. Those people are all up in your business, always talking about you behind your back. We went there for years and were never good enough. I'm tired of trying to impress people who think I'm not good enough.

At this point I'm ready to live like the devil and give them something to talk about.

I throw on an outfit for church. I don't want to be there but I smile and tell them "I'm fine" when they ask.

I don't dream about the sermon. Perhaps there was a sermon in my dream but I don't listen. Inside I'm stewing. How dare he make me come here against my will? It is the end of the sermon when I look around. The pianist is playing "Just as I am" and I want to get out. I grip the pew. I didn't want to come in the first place. My heart feels like lead. I know God is calling. I know what God wants me to do. God wants me to go to Him. Give my life to Him and stay with my husband. I wanted the baby to live. People said if I had more faith I'd have a living baby in my arms instead of a tombstone to visit. I thought I had faith and it wasn't enough or God didn't care. I prayed for it to live. It didn't and I don't know if I believe anymore.

Matt whispers in my ear. "Come with me. We don't have to do this. We can start over."

That was what I wanted to do. Start over.

Without him.

He moves toward the altar and I follow, but instead of going forward I leave out the back of the church.

He catches me in the parking lot. He is crying, begging me to come back inside. "We will talk to the preacher. We can get counseling. We can work this out."

"I'm leaving you Matt." I tell him when he catches up with me. "There's no counseling. I'm done."

He reaches for me, to stop me. I don't want him to stop me. I say something that I know will knock the breath out of him, even if it's not true. "I don't love you anymore. I've been having an affair with a doctor at the hospital."

He stares at me. The hurt on his face... Oh, God, the hurt. It squeezes me until I don't think I can stand it.

I get in the car and speed out of the parking lot; leaving him standing there alone. I'm not going home. I'm going to meet him. I'm going to leave everything and go away with him. Everyone will be happier once I leave and I'm going at last; like I should have done years ago.

I drive recklessly, wiping my tears away with my fingertips. I cut to the left and head down the mountain. It's hard to see, I'm crying so hard and it's so dark. Headlights illuminate the inside of the car for a second and I grip the steering wheel in fear. I am afraid it's Matt and I wonder what he will do to me if he catches me. I hurt him so badly; I have never seen such hurt on someone's face. He will kill me if he catches me. I think to myself and I breathe a sigh of relief when the headlights disappear. For a second I take my eyes off the road to glance in my rearview. When I turn back I see a figure in white illuminated by the high beams. For a second I think it's a ghost or an angel and it doesn't move as I barrel toward it. I scream when I realize it's a person... a man in white! I slam on the brakes with both of my feet and I feel the gravel slide under my tires before I feel the car go off the road.

I rise up in my seat. I feel myself weightless. I'm falling.

That's when I wake up in a cold sweat. I'm trembling and shaking.

Doyle flicks on the lights. "What's wrong?"

I can't stop shaking.

"Are you okay?" He touches my shoulder and I wrench away.

"Just a nightmare." I say quickly.

"What about?" He wants to know. "We don't dream. The whole thing is fascinating."

"About the man in the hospital. The one whose wife was in the coma. I dreamed about her. They were having a fight."

"You must have heard them talking while you were in the ICU. I seem to remember they were having some problems before her accident." He sighs and stretches out. "You hear all kinds of things in the ER, the ICU. People come in distraught. They don't think about what they say. Don't worry about it. Go to sleep."

"You were in the dream."

"Oh, how very interesting, you can tell me about it tonight when we wake. Now, if you don't mind, I would like to get some more rest."

I lie down but I can't get my mind off the dream. It seemed so real. Could I really have overheard all of that in the ICU?

"I can help you sleep you know." He tells me.

"No!" I say too quickly and he laughs and wraps his arms around me nonetheless. I feel my energy drain from me like water from a tub and I try to fight him but I can't.

I close my eyes and dread what he can do to me but suddenly I hear music. No, it's not actual music- it's in my head. There's a song stuck in my head but it seems so real. I've heard it before. It was the song from the other night; the one on the Christian station.

I don't dare tell Doyle. I close my eyes and rest. The song continues to play in my mind and it lulls me to sleep.

Chapter 17

I wake and it's dark. I feel shaky. I climb out of bed and I tremble. It's almost like I can't control my body. I have a throbbing headache. I stumble into the bathroom and flick on the light. It hurts my eyes and I groan. I open the medicine cabinet and search for Tylenol. Several bottles of various pills fall out and I curse aloud.

I pull a Dixie cup from the bathroom dispenser and I turn on the water and fill it. I work at opening the Tylenol bottle for several seconds before I can take the lid off. My hands shake so badly I almost lose the two white pills down the drain. I swallow them and wash them down with the water. I sink down beside the sink and hold my head in my hands. For a few seconds I consider lying on the tile floor.

There is something wrong with me.

I don't know how long I sit there like that before Doyle lifts me into his arms as if I weigh nothing and deposits me on the bed. I groan and grit my teeth together against the wave of nausea that sweeps over me.

"What's wrong honey?" He purrs as he stretches out behind me. "Not feeling well?"

"No." I moan. I can't say anything else. I turn away from him, as if that could keep him from me. I bend double with pain and shiver uncontrollably.

"I can help you; if you let me. It's me you crave."

I feel my body respond to him. Yes, I crave him, his touch. Whatever he does to me...it's like a drug. I need it. I want it. It feels like a wild animal inside my body clawing to get out; to get to him. My skin seems drawn to him like a magnet, how badly I want him to touch me, to take me where I was last night.

"No." I mumble, more to myself than him. I know this is not right. Although I've never taken a drug in my recollection I know this is how an addict must feel. If he does that again... I'll lose myself. I'm not in control, and I know I'd do or say anything.

"Please, no." I whimper as he rubs his hand down my arm. Instantly my aches are soothed.

"Your mind says no but your body says something else." He whispers. "I can help you; just by touching you. Let me take this away."

He rubs my arms and kisses my neck.

"It's so easy." He whispers in my ear.

I want the pain to stop. I want this feeling that he can give more than anything.

"What do I have to do?" I whimper and he kisses me. I feel myself spiraling upwards.

"Love me." He pleads.

"Yes." Right now. I love him.

"Commit yourself to be my mate. You will have no other except for me."

That's basically marriage, I think to myself. Just yesterday I was angry because we weren't married. Now...If I do this... maybe we will be. "Yes." I whisper. I could stay with him forever. I cry for the joy of it. I feel like a girl who has just been given an engagement ring. I laugh aloud and he laughs with me. "Yes!" I tell him. "I will be yours!"

His lips move along the base of my neck. I wait for him to bite me. I want him to do it.

"One more thing." He teases me as he moves me to face him. "Only one."

"Anything!" I beg him. I want it to be over with, this struggle. I don't care if it's painful, I don't care about anything at this second, all I want is for him to make the longing go away.

"Worship me." He whispers in my ear. "Worship me."

I feel like cold water has been thrown over me. My eyes fly open and I wrench away, breaking his hold on me.

"Worship you?" I can barely form the words.

"Yes. Say that I will be your god. Give yourself to me. Body, mind and soul. It is the only way to make you mine."

As much as my body wants whatever it is he is doing to me, my mind and spirit rebel against him. No. There is only One God. I don't know how much of a believer I was before this, but I know this to the core of my being.

There is ONLY ONE GOD. And this thing that is with me is not HIM.

"No." It takes all the strength I have to form the word.

"No?" He seems as surprised as I am. Suddenly the pleasure stops. The pain crashes back on me with such ferocity that it takes my breath.

Josue's scripture comes to my mind and before I can stop it, it comes out of my mouth.

"Love the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve!"

Doyle's face shows shock and then horror. His eyes glow like the very fires of hell. His mouth opens to show a mouth full of pointed teeth. I don't know if this is real or imaginary. I try to get away from him.

"NEVER!" He screams at me "NEVER QUOTE SCRIPTURES TO ME!" He pulls away from me now, suddenly fully human and he hits me with all his might. He screams at me and hits me over and over.

"YOU WILL WORSHIP ME!" I hear him scream from over me. It sounds like he's still hitting me but I don't feel it. He screams in some language I don't understand. "YOU'RE MINE! DO YOU HEAR ME?" He says but he seems very far away.

I won't worship you. I say in my mind. "Away with you Satan!" I manage to say to him. "Love the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve!"

He screams like he's been shot.

Before this I couldn't imagine such pain. I pray that God will take my spirit. I ask forgiveness for whatever sins I've committed. Though I can't remember them I know they were great. I had given myself to this monster. This thing. I don't even know what he was. I ask God to take me. I was at the end of my life, surely. If you want me God. I pray. Forgive me and take me.

I quote the only scriptures that I can remember. I don't even know how I remember them.

"The Lord is my Shepherd. He maketh me to lie down in Green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters...."

I hear the sound of a fight, things breaking. Other noises I can't identify. I fade away and think that this time I'm dead for sure but I'm not afraid.

Chapter 18

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,  
That saved a wretch like me.  
I once was lost but now am found,  
Was blind, but now I see.

I hear the song that the old lady sang to me. Somewhere in the darkness I feel whisperings. Many voices speaking at once, a confusing mixture of tones and sounds. I can't make out what any of them say but I know it is good. They soothe me; I float away on the strains of music.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.  
And Grace, my fears relieved.  
How precious did that Grace appear  
The hour I first believed.

I hear Doyle talking to someone. "Call Dr. Chambley. I don't care. We're losing her. Do what you have to do before it's too late."

He wakes me. Not politely, he shakes me roughly and tells me to get dressed. I'm needed at the hospital.

I crawl out of bed and dress. I feel like I've been beaten and then I remember that I have been. I hurt all over but I don't feel the cravings like I did last night. I don't want him. Something in me has broken. Something has changed. Could it be that God heard my prayers?

Doyle meets me in the kitchen. He looks terrible and he glares at me like he could kill me. I remember Josue's words. He can't hurt you until he gets what he wants. Perhaps he is angry because he didn't get what he wanted. Perhaps it's because he can't kill me. I don't know.

He looks a little worse for the wear too; a little like he'd been in a bar room brawl. I don't remember fighting back. I wonder how he got this way.

"Let's go." He growls and slaps on a pair of wraparound sunglasses. It's late in the afternoon but not dark yet. It must be important if he wants me to go this early.

I follow him meekly to the car. He doesn't speak to me until we are down the mountain.

"The woman in the coma is extremely sick." He says flatly. "They want you to talk to the family."

I look out the window and feel like maybe she's the lucky one. I close my eyes and rest my head against the passenger side window glass.

I hear the words of the song again. They come from somewhere deep inside me.

Through many dangers, toils and snares  
I have already come;  
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far  
and Grace will lead me home

We get to the hospital and there are several doctors and nurses and multiple members of the family in the room. The husband is there along with two little blonde haired children. Probably five or six years old, I don't know. The little boy has a cowlick that stands straight up on the back of his head and he looks scared. The little girl is younger and has a head full of short corkscrew curls. She doesn't seem to know what's going on.

"Why do you want me here?" I hiss at Doyle.

"Dr. Chambley wants you to talk to them. They need you to convince them to turn off the machines." He says with little emotion in his voice like he's not talking about someone's life.  
"I can't do that." I say as I look inside at the miserable husband.

"You have to." Another doctor I don't recognize says gently. "She's already gone, but they keep hoping for a miracle."

Doyle stares at me like he could kill me. I remember what he said about my encouraging them.

I ignore him. I don't care what he thinks or does anymore. Whatever connection, whatever feelings I had for him are gone at this point. "You caused this Andrea! You and your unrestrained optimism and blind faith! You should have been honest with them before. I told you that you gave them false hope. Don't you think I know what's best? I'm a doctor. "

You're a devil. I want to retort but I keep my mouth shut.

"Don't be so hard on her Doyle." The other doctor says. He's a large man with a salt and pepper beard. He has a kind face and he touches my shoulder reassuringly. "She was trying to help them." I give him a grateful look but he is not finished. "But as much as I hate it, he's right. You can help this family and this woman by being honest. This could drag on for days, weeks. They already have depleted their savings and this is going to ruin them financially. The husband is talking about selling their house to pay the medical bills. I hate to see those children lose their home as well as their mother."

I look inside. The children pull at my heart and I can't imagine what they must be going through. "Are you sure there's no hope?" I ask the other doctor. I've lost all trust for the man I'd once called my husband. "Wouldn't taking her off the machines be the same as killing her?"

"No." The doctor says gently. "It is only removing the artificial support. That's all that is keeping her alive. There is no brain activity. In reality she is already dead; the family doesn't want to acknowledge that. Go speak to them. Tell them she's gone, that she's not in pain and that they can let go."

I watch them, listening to the song on the CD player.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,  
And mortal life shall cease,  
I shall possess within the veil,  
A life of joy and peace.

A life of joy and peace. I think to myself and that bolsters my courage enough to step inside.

Matt, the husband is standing by her bed. His shoulders are slumped and he looks like he hasn't slept since the accident. His eyes are red, his hair is disheveled, his clothes wrinkled and I know that he has not been home since she came here. He wipes his hand over several days' growth of beard but he holds her hand gently.

"They say she has no brain activity." He says dully as if he is in a dream.

I swallow back tears and place my hand on his arm gently. "I'm sorry Mr. Smith."

"They want me to pull the plug." He whispers. "But I can't. How can I? She's my wife... I love her." He looks down at her and pleads. "Please wake up honey."

I blink tears away and find my voice. "She can't hear you." I tell him just what the other doctor instructed me to say. "She's... not there anymore. The person you love is gone... you should think about ending it."

I get chills. This sounds vaguely familiar. I have a feeling not unlike Déjà vu.

He breaks down then and an older woman moves to his side to comfort him. I back away, my throat almost completely closed off from unshed tears. I pray that I did the right thing.

Doyle meets me in the hall and I want to run away. He is obviously still angry with me, but he tries very hard to conceal his emotion. He falls into step beside me as I exit and he points angrily at the room. "This is you one day if you don't host me! One day, you'll die like this!"

I stop walking and turn to him. "I'll die either way Doyle." I tell him. "My answer is no. What profit it a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" I quote the second verse Josue gave me.

Doyle flinches in anger. He seems barely able to control himself but I am not afraid of him.

I hear the song playing softly in the room. He grimaces like the very words hurt him, like he'd like to throw the CD player out a window in a fit of rage. I find it comforting and somewhat fitting for them to play this particular song.

The Lord has promised good to me.

His word my hopes secures.

He will my shield and portion be,

As long as life endures.

I hear muffled cries from inside. "Let's walk." He tells me and I nod. Let this family grieve in peace. We find a secluded corner in a waiting room and I fall into the first empty chair. He sits across from me and leans forward, holding his head in his hands for several minutes before he looks up at me. "Is this what you want to happen? Do you think this is what I want?"

I shrug. The choice has been made. I will not make him my god, even if it means putting off the inevitable for a hundred or more years.

"I don't want to lose you." He whispers. "I love you."

Yes, I think to myself. It felt like you loved me last night when you hit me.

"I'm so sorry about last night. Andrea, you're only Human, you're so weak and delicate. You don't know what's best for you."

"And you do?" I retort.

He blinks several times and seems genuinely saddened by my distrust. "Yes, dear one. You have no idea the gift I offer... what some people would pay; and I would give it to you freely."

At what price, this free gift? My very soul. I remind myself, lest I be swayed again.

"I have free will. I have made my choice." I lift my chin defiantly. "Not even God will force us to love him."

"So...I'm just supposed to... watch you die?" He chokes out.

"Yes. I suppose you will."

He wipes his eyes with his fingertips and at that moment his cell phone vibrates.

"It's time." He tells me quietly.

"Time for what?" I ask him but he doesn't answer. He strides ahead of me back in the direction we came from, never once looking back. I follow him and find myself outside the door we just came from.

"She's dying." He says unemotionally, almost like he's angry. I can hear the people inside crying.

"You need to go inside." He tells me and despite my protests he pushes me through the door and into the midst of the room.

"Why, Doyle?" I hiss. They're in enough pain, I think to myself as he drags me inside. "Why are we here?" I whisper.

"You need to say goodbye to your family, Andrea."

"What?" I breathe and he laughs wickedly. I try to shush him, incredulous at his lack of decorum. How could a doctor act like this? How could anyone? I look around the room but the family is far too distraught to notice us.

"Your blue eyed friend was right, Andrea Bradley." He laughs maniacally. "You're not my wife..." He points at the man by the bed. "You're his."

They all look at the lady in the bed. Her husband- Matt holds her hand and tells her good bye. He tells her he will take care of the kids. They'll miss her but they'll be all right. I feel tears spring to my eyes.

"This isn't funny." I tell Doyle.

"You stupid girl! Are you still so blind?" Doyle laughs at me. "Don't you know I am? Can't you see who's in that bed? Go look!"

Unsteadily I walk toward the bed. I look down at the lady, now freed from the lines and tubes and bandages. My own unseeing eyes stare back at me.

I gasp and stumble back. No one looks at me. And it is at that moment that the curtain is pulled, or a light is turned on. I see my husband, Matt standing by the bed. He's holding someone's hand. No, not someone's hand, he's holding my hand! It can't be! I look around at them. I scream at them. "I'm right here!" Can't they see me? My mother and father are on the other side. My children are at the end by my feet.

The monitor bleeps... Slows down.... Bleeps again....

There isn't another one. I hold my breath and wait for the next, willing her heart- my heart to beat again.

Nothing.

Matt howls in anguish, like a dying animal. It is the most gut wrenching cry I've ever heard. The children run from the chairs and wrap their hands around his waist, crying. The three of them collapse on the floor, hugging and crying.

Behind me Doyle is laughing. "It's not often one gets to witness their own death. Quite touching. Look at how much he loved you. Must make you feel good."

He wipes tears of laughter. "You've been right all along about not belonging to me." He pauses and looks at the weeping family with a smile on his face. "You were right, I couldn't hurt you. We are spirit, but we can suggest... The funny thing is that you did it. Poor ignorant girl. The irony. You convinced your husband to pull the plug...on yourself!"

He laughs as I fall to the floor. My legs cannot hold me up.

"Humans. So pitifully frail, and yet... He loves you so." He spits at me as he pulls me to my feet. "That the very creator and sustainer of the universe would put his spirit inside such filth," He marvels. "It is beyond me."

He kisses me, and I try to wrench away. "How we want you, desire you... Humans... weak and pitiful... so easy to deceive... so easy to destroy."

I become aware of my family crying, screaming and I try to run to them but he holds me back. "Say goodbye Andrea." He pulls me by my arm and I struggle to get away from him.

"You wouldn't worship me. If I could have deceived you perhaps I would have let you live a while longer." He growls and his voice doesn't even sound human anymore. "It doesn't matter. It was all a lie anyway. Every word of it. It was just a story I wove in your mind." I look back at him and there is a hint of familiarity. My skin crawls. I know him; I've heard his voice before.

Who is he?

He laughs. "Don't you know me my love?" He asks at my confused expression. "You don't? I've been with you... since you took your first breath."

I pull from him but he holds me and I cannot move. "My name is Deception and I've watched over you, guided you. I was there when you took your first breath, your first step...I was there when you ate of the fruit and how sweet it was..."

"Fruit?" What was he talking about?

"The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. You thought we left that in the Garden but every human must eat of it. We are here to ensure that you do.

"I was there with you when you listened to me instead of Him. When you took the candy from the counter and nobody was looking. You knew it was wrong, and your mother called it stealing. But you wanted it and you took it and that was when you became mine. You became my lover, I lied to you, told you stories, fed your desires and you loved me more than Him...He gave you free will, and He will wait for you, woo you, pursue you, love you. He is foolish. We are wise. We know that the human heart is selfish and all we have to do is deceive. So, my little one, I led you, whispered in your ear, tempted you and you listened to me. I was the one who told you to gossip about your friend in high school. She never forgave you. I convinced you that you hated your mother and your relationship was never the same. I told you to give in to your passion for a complete stranger on the Metro and I laughed when Matt found out."

I looked down at Matt, shaking and crying on the floor. My heart squeezed painfully at the knowledge of how I'd hurt him.

"It hurt him so badly. Poor, stupid oaf, but that was nothing compared to when he found out you were unfaithful again... and you left him there at that church parking lot... You want to change it but you can't." He smiles in triumph, savoring my pain as though he can taste it. "He'll never know you're sorry now; you're dying." He points at the three on the floor and I want to run to them, to apologize, to beg forgiveness. "Oh, no you don't!" Doyle shakes his finger at me like a naughty child. "You chose this. You chose me. You've caused enough problems. I could lie to you like Matt, but I don't have to. The truth is so much more satisfying! No matter what he just told you -Matt will never really recover. The children, poor children will have to live with the fact that their mother died on her way to meet her lover. They're too young to understand now of course, but you know how 'good Christian' people love to talk. They'll be haunted for the rest of their lives by your abandonment. You'll be tormented by what you've done and therefore I will feast on that torment for a thousand generations!"

His fingers grip my arm. I look down at his hand. It resembles a reptile's claw more than a human hand. I look back up at Doyle and the handsome man that I walked in with has been replaced by something I can't even describe. He looks more reptilian than human; there are horns all over his face, poking out through a tattered black robe. His eyes glow like they did last night; his teeth are pointed like a wolf's.

"Don't be dismayed, my beloved. This is my true form. Do you find it pleasing?" He laughs as he pulls me close to him and I gag and fight to get away. He smells like death, sulfur, and more foul things than I can describe. "Don't worry, little one, you will have an eternity to become accustomed to my true form. "No!" I hiss but he only laughs.

"You have chosen me. I will find great pleasure in your pain! "

Amazingly, I'm not afraid. I know it's not true. I look up and in the hall I see a familiar figure step into my line of sight.

Josue! My heart leaps in my chest. He has come for me! I pull away and try to reach for him. Doyle... the thing that I thought was Doyle howls and claws at me. "What are you doing? You're mine!"

"No!" I breathe. "I choose God. I still have a choice."

"Not anymore. You're dead. "

But that's not exactly true. There are still sporadic bleeps on the screen. I'm alive. Maybe for only seconds but I am alive.

I choose God. I asked him to forgive me last night. No. Wait. I remember. I chose God when I was ten years old. At Bethany Baptist Church.

But I slipped away.

Why did I ever slip away?

"I chose God!" I tell him, this time with force.  
"That's not true!" Doyle howls behind me. "You left that behind! It didn't take!" His claws cut my arm but at that moment another hand holds on to mine. Things seem to swirl around me, like things going down a bathtub drain. I hear screams, cries and howls that words are powerless to describe.

"Don't let me go!" I cry out to Josue.

He laughs. "No one can pull you from my hand." He says calmly, like he does this every day. Like he does this every day and I'm not about to be pulled into the depths of hell itself.

I struggle to look up at him but can see nothing but my whipping curls and some sort of strange mist. My other arm feels like it is going to be torn away but Josue's hand holds me like it is made of rock.

The combined forces of death and destruction heave and strain but they cannot pull me down. I hold to his hand as the world swirls away behind me like I am caught in a whirlpool but I am not swayed. His hand is steady; I am not dropped and it is then that I begin to realize that the thing that holds me there is more powerful than evil. It is older than death, more terrifying than the grave. It is fearsome and beautiful, the single most powerful force in the universe. I know that it is the same force that holds the planets in place; the same force that kept the incorruptible on a cross; the very same force that is holding my hand. It is the very power of creation that holds me in place.

It is Love.

Before this I thought love was a feeling. It was butterflies in my stomach, sweet words whispered in the dark and night-night kisses before bed. Love was fluffy and warm and sweet and wonderful.

I never thought it was strong.

Love. I know now that it is the strongest force in the universe- it is God. It was, it is and it always will be the very essence of God himself. It is more powerful than a hurricane, more consuming than a raging fire. It sweeps over me with the ferocity of a deluge but I am neither harmed nor afraid. It washes everything away and nothing I have ever experienced compares with this.

Love.

I realize for the first time that the stories I've always heard were true. The times they said the Christians sang praises as lions tore at them or flames consumed their bodies. They did not feel it because they were holding to the same hand that holds mine.

Death and Hell pass beneath me with a fury that I cannot feel- I am held steadfastly in this cocoon of love until with one final horrific cry I feel myself released. I reach up with my other hand, not fully expecting to have an arm at all. Instead I see three deep red cuts where the monster's nails cut me.

I feel that hand lift me up as things around me dissipate and everything fades except for brightness. There is nothing around me but whiteness, like a blank sheet of paper. It reminds me of the cartoons where the characters are alone on an un-illustrated page.

I look up and I see the strong brown hand and my eyes rest on the ugly red and white puckered scar that identifies Him as who He is. I fall to my feet and I bow before love personified; God in the form of a man. I cannot move, I cannot speak, and I cannot lift my head because I realize how unworthy I am. I cover my face and I am filled with sadness and fear. That scar is there because of me.

I put it there.

And then I ran from him.

All along I thought that the man in white was my husband. I know He is the One I left behind. Now I know that the man in white; the one who has been reaching for me isn't a man at all. I know that He has been pursuing me, reaching out for me and I have run from Him at every turn. He has been holding out His Hand to me this whole time, and finally, finally I have reached for Him. His Hand now holds mine and I know how much my rebellion cost Him: His very life. I want to weep, my soul is filled with more sorrow than I ever thought possible. I could flood the world with my tears but a gentle voice speaks my name and causes my heart to soar.

"Come child." The voice that spoke the worlds into existence calms me and His Hand gently pulls mine away from my face. I look down because I know what I am and I fear Him. I am astonished to see that I am wearing all white. It is reminiscent of that lacy Sunday dress I wore as a girl. He gently helps me to my feet and wipes my cheeks with his fingers. "Come now, my beloved. There are no tears here."

I am almost afraid to lift my eyes to his. I know I am not worthy ever to look upon Him, but he knows my every thought and he leans close to me and whispers: "My love has made you worthy." He bids me look into His Face and at last I smile. It is the face I have longed to see my whole life. I know this face, but then I forgot it. He is the same, but different. It is a face I have been longing to see my whole life and He is so different from what I had imagined. He is so much better, so much more than what I thought He was. He had told me he had many names. I had called him Josue, my friend. He was also the Firstborn of Creation, the Bright and Morning Star. He is the One who saw me and reached out for me. The one who Saved me.

The Man in White.

He is everything good. Everything pure. Everything right. He is my heart, my very existence in this place. He is my very breath, my every thought. Everything I hold dear to my soul.

He is love.

And He loves me. I cannot explain it nor does it make any sense; I cannot fathom the love of One who would die for someone as worthless as I.

He smiles at me. "Well done. I knew you would make the right choice." He laughs again and that laughter makes me want to soar, to dance, to run free like a little child. It is the sound of a million children laughing, the sound of sunlight and wind and a tender touch. He shakes his head like he did that day at the coffee shop and his curls bob gently. "But you certainly took your time."

He guides me by my hand. He is leading me. Somewhere. I can't tell where, nor do I care. I'll go with Him anywhere. Anywhere He is- will be my home. I want to go with Him. I want to stay with Him. I never want to leave Him. All of my self-absorption has been shucked away like an old coat, and for once I can feel his love for me.

He looks at me with such love. After everything I have done, I would have never have believed it was possible. I never want to stop looking at him. He is beautiful and just like the day at the coffee shop, I can't stop smiling.

Why couldn't I see who He was? How was I that blind? I laugh at my stupidity, now that everything has been revealed it was so easy... why didn't I realize it before?

I look around. We're in a garden, it is familiar, but I know I've never been here before. It's more beautiful here than any artist could paint, or the most skilled storyteller could imagine. Things here seem to glow with their own light. Then I realize that it's His light. It's the place I've always longed for but could never imagine. I smile and I know that I am home.

"Do you understand now?" He asks me gently and I know he meant the accident. "Why I had to do it?"

"Yes." I tell him. If he had not stood in my way that night I might have never come back to Him. "To bring me back to you."

"Yes, my love." He says and my heart thrills at His words.

"I have to ask." I say and I feel foolish. "Why a Janitor? Why not a doctor?"

He laughs at me. "You didn't need a doctor. You needed someone to help you clean up your mess."

In my memory I hear the anguished cries of my family and I am reminded of what I have done to them. It is too difficult for words.

I swallow and I am ashamed again. I remember it all now. There was a Doyle Connelly- though this one had been more fantasy than reality. I had met him in Paris and I was unfaithful to my fiancé with him. I left him and never told anyone what I had done until it came to light on our wedding night. It broke my husband's heart but he forgave me. I lied and said he gave me a drug and then took advantage of me. I didn't tell him it was all my idea. I wanted to have a fling with a handsome stranger. I promised I'd never be unfaithful again; but that wasn't completely true. For a long time I buried it away and pretended it didn't exist but I never dealt with it. I never asked forgiveness from God. That one act was my secret passion- the one I indulged in with every lewd romance novel or dirty movie. I never told Matt because I wasn't really being unfaithful. It spiced up our love live- pretending he was someone else.... He never knew and we were happy.

Then came real life with two children we planned for and another we didn't. He was born too early and he went on to the other life and I felt like I was being punished for my secret sins. I stopped believing in God and I stopped loving my husband because he had faith and I didn't. I wanted to hurt him for being so faithful, so forgiving. I wanted to hurt God because He could have saved the baby but he didn't. I wanted to hurt everyone, so I got on the internet and I looked up Doyle Connelly.

It started with a fantasy and progressed to emails and calls until I had decided I had enough of my old life and I wanted a new one. With Doyle. I was going to meet him that night but I never made it. The car went into the river. I know the apparition I saw in the road that night was meant to stop me. I know He loved me and did what it took to save my soul. I was going to leave my husband, my children. I was going to leave them all broken hearted and alone.

For what?

For excitement? For the thrill of something new? For sex? For money? For the sake of rebellion? Because I was unhappy but too lazy to try to work things out? Because I was angry with God? I have no idea. What was I thinking?

It was like I was someone else.

I suppose, I was. I am different now.

I know the past few weeks were not real at all, only a lie made up by the king of liars. I recalled the house I passed on my way to work each morning; wishing I had some other life. I remember the vampire books Matt scolded me for reading, the fashion model I yearned to look like. The man I held in my secret fantasies all these years. It was all a trick; the sad thing was that it didn't take a very creative lie to suck me in.

I teetered on the edge of giving up my very soul because I was angry at God that night I ran away and left my other life in that parking lot. My family was more faithful than I deserved. I know it was their prayers that pulled me out of the jaws of hell.

Their prayers and a God who loved me enough to stand in the middle of a mountain road that night. A God who loved me enough to continue reaching out even when I turn my back on Him.

"Tell them I'm sorry." I choke out.

He smiles at me sadly.

I've messed up so many things. I want to cry but I know there are no more tears. "I made a very big mess, didn't I?"

"Very big indeed. However, you have someone who can help you clean up."

I laugh, "Josue, the Janitor? But what can we do now? It's all over."

"Not yet. Do you not know that I delight in second chances? It's time to go. But you know where to find me." He kisses my cheek.

Oh, He wants me to leave? But I don't want to go! I love my family, and I want to make things right but... to leave this? No, I do not want to leave Him, the shelter of His Love. This is worse than death, leaving Him. I want to beg Him to stay, but I know I have to make things right.

"Don't worry." He tells me as he holds my hand. "Once you took it, no one can pull you from my hand."

"I know." I tell him as I float away. I still feel the presence of His strong Hand in mine.

I hear someone far away.

"Andrea!"

Not the same voice but familiar just the same.

"Andrea."

That's when I remember my name. I had a different one just a minute ago. Josue called me something... else... oh, I can't remember...

"Andrea! Wake up!"

Where am I?

I open my eyes.

People are crowded around me. For a second, I don't know where I am, or who is talking to me. Where am I? I was just with Josue in a garden...but that was a lifetime ago... no... only seconds... Where am I?

I feel like I've been lost for a very long time and have finally found my way home. I look up and see Matt. Dear sweet Matthew! It seems like a million years since I looked at him last! I want to run my hand through his dark hair, to rub his handsome face and feel the days' worth of stubble on my fingers but he's holding to my hand too tightly. I feel like I've just come home, but I don't know where I've been. I gaze into his brown eyes and I think he's the most handsome man I've ever seen. The last thing I remember is leaving him at the church. I struggle to sit, but I'm held down by something.

"Matt." I croak. My throat feels like I've swallowed a porcupine. "What happened?"

He laughs aloud. "She's okay!" He screams out. Other people gather around. An old bald Doctor leans over me and screams at me like I'm deaf.

"Mrs. Smith! Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital." I croak.

"Do you know how you got here?" They ask me.

"I went in the water." I say.

They are all looking at me in amazement. I'm on center stage. I wonder if this is how a baby feels being born.

"Good Lord have mercy!" Matt wipes his hand over his face in relief. For the first time I realize that he is trembling. "I thought I lost you!" He grips my hand until I think he will break it.

"We did." I hear a Doctor say somewhere in the room. "For a whole two minutes she was gone before we got her back." He chuckles. "Must not have been her time."

The doctor leans over me. "If it hadn't been for your husband, you'd be dead for sure." He gives me a lecturing stare. "If he hadn't gone in after you, you'd have drowned in your car."

I wonder why he thinks now is an appropriate time for a safe driving lecture.

"How?" I whisper. I remember leaving him in the parking lot.

"I followed you." He whispered. "I wasn't about to let you go without a fight."

He followed me after I'd just told him I'd been cheating on him? He pulled me out of the water after that? Oh God, how I love this man!

"But it's been weeks..." I start.

He shakes his head. "No baby. It was two days ago. You've been unconscious but all of a sudden- a few minutes ago..." His voice cracks and he can't talk.

"Your heart stopped. For two minutes." The bald doctor says flatly. Talk about a bedside manner. I will never get used to the way some doctors talk about their patients like they're changing the oil on someone's car.

"Why?" I croak. What had Doyle said in my dream? We lost you for two whole minutes?

"No idea." The doctor says. "We'll be running some tests so you might as well get used to the idea of being here for a few days."

"Where are the kids?" I try to sit up suddenly aware that I have children and I have no idea where they are.

"In the waiting room. They've been here the whole time." He laughs. "Nana and papa too."

"For two days?" I repeat. The two of them in the waiting room for two days? Nana must be a basket case by now. "What have they been doing?"

"No." He waves his hands. "They were good. Really worried about you is all. They'd come see you every chance they got. Um... Nana's been singing to you."

I don't have to be told which song.

"Lucy has been trying to wake you. Jesse... we'll he's been playing his D.S."

Super Mario Brothers. I don't have to be told that either.

"And you've been praying for me." I say.

He grins sheepishly. "I never stopped."

"I know." I whisper and my eyes rest on the teddy bear holding a rose. It looks vaguely familiar; like I've seen it a long time ago. "I heard you. Matt. I want to start over."

"With your doctor friend." He looks dejected and his voice trembles when he speaks.

I shake my head. "No. With you." I whisper and his eyes meet mine. For a second he seems unable to believe me. "If you'll have me. I never loved him. I was just angry... about the baby." I try to wipe the tears that spill down my cheeks. "I'm so sorry. I never meant the things I said. I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to hurt God. I was so angry with Him."

"I know." He says.

"But I'm not anymore. He saved me, Matt. You saved me. I'm different now."

"I know." He says again and he kisses me.

I hear the words to the song again- the third verse. I never much cared for it until now, but at this moment it has a new meaning. The words give me a joy I cannot contain. It wells up within me until I want to soar.

Through many dangers, toils and snares  
I have already come;  
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far  
and Grace will lead me home.

Epilogue

Matt refuses to leave me for a second. I suppose he's afraid something will happen and feels that he needs to protect me. They have promised me that I can go home soon but as soon as we start to believe them; another doctor comes in and orders another test. Tomorrow they tell me and I urge him to go home and sleep but he refuses. He's been sleeping there by my bed for several days now. I ask for a pen and a notebook. I tell him I've had the strangest dream while I've been out. I want to write it before it goes away. I'm no writer, but I'm doing my best to record it before it fades. I can feel some of it leaving already, blurring around the edges of my memory. I am afraid that perhaps I will lose it entirely if I don't write quickly. Matt snores in the bedside chair and I scribble furiously throughout the night because no matter what happens, I must never forget.

The life I left behind when I ran away has been restored to me but it has been forever altered. My eyes have been opened to a world that I never knew existed. It is a world of ghosts and vampires, fallen and un-fallen angels and a God who pursued me even when I ran away from him. My eyes are tired, and finally I have written enough, I lay my notebook down on a recent newspaper. A headline draws my attention. "Pregnant woman injured by drunk driver." The headline blares. Down below that line I read a smaller text that says "Baby delivered prematurely, mother remains in coma." My heart squeezes in my chest and I feel a wave of familiarity wash over me when I see the photograph and the subheading underneath. "Carolyn McGee."

I know that woman. She was in my dream. I think to myself as I slip into sleep.

The nurses wake me before the sun has risen, and I ask them to pull the curtains back so I can watch the sky change from grey to orange. I think it is the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen, but I decide to let Matt sleep. Silently I praise the God who brought me back despite all I'd done. The nurses whisk me away after that. The doctors can't figure why my heart stopped and they've ordered all sorts of tests.

They say it's almost like I was scared to death. I guess I was. When the mouth of Hell opens up beneath your feet, it tends to shock you a bit – even if it is all in a dream. They do every conceivable test on me to try to explain it and I can't tell them what really happened so I let them poke and prod me until they tire of it.

Finally they admit that they don't know what happened and they can't figure it out. The only sign I carry from the accident is on my left arm. Three long cuts that cannot be explained either. I could tell them, but no one would believe me.

The old doctor with no bedside manner meanders into my room and tells us that we need to talk. The kids have gone home with Nana and Papa for some much needed rest.

"All your tests came out positive." He says. "All. Your tests." He stares at me like I've killed someone and I don't have a clue what he's getting at.

"Were the two of you trying to have another child?" He asks at last. "It says here that you had a tubal litigation in 2010."

I stare at him. He stares at me, back at Matt, back at me.

"Sometimes it doesn't work." He says blandly. "This is one of those times, I suppose." He stands. "I'll leave the two of you to discuss it."

My mouth is dry. Is this doctor saying what I think he's saying? I don't know what to think. How could I be pregnant? I had my tubes tied two years ago. I shake my head but then, like someone opening the pages of a book I remember my other life. I think about how I felt nauseated, and had wondered if I could be with child. My eyes open wider as I realize that my body knew I was pregnant even in my short lived coma. I suddenly realize that I'm thrilled and I turn to my husband.

Matt looks down at the floor and I wait for some kind of reaction from him. I mean, shouldn't he be overjoyed? He'd always wanted another child... but that was before. Maybe he doesn't want another child with me after what I've put him through.

"Nobody knows." He swallows hard, and his voice is barely a whisper. "I never told anybody about him. I won't ever ask..." He says carefully. "I love you. I'll love it, you know that. I'll be a good daddy, even if it's not..." His voice breaks and then he doesn't say anything else.

My heart seems to stop beating. He didn't think the baby was his, and yet he was willing to claim it. "Matt." I say quietly and I put my hand on his. "You don't have to ask. Honey, I never..."

His brown eyes plead with mine. "Never?"

I shake my head. "No. Never. It was never physical. I told you that so you wouldn't follow me." I squeeze his hand. "I'm yours. It's yours. Are... you happy?"

His smile is like the rising sun. I've only seen one smile in the world that made me happier.

"Yes." He says and covers his face with his hands and he cries, and I join him. After what I've done... to give me the child that we thought we would never have? It is too much. I cannot contain my tears of joy. The Lord speaks to me. "Don't you know that I delight in second chances?"

The next day they decide to let me go. Matt comes into my room flanked by a nurse with a wheel chair. We're leaving! I thank God that we're leaving this place! I feel good to be going home. I tuck my notebook into my bag and they help me to the wheelchair like I can't walk. I can go out on my own but they say its hospital policy.

You don't mess with hospital policy.

Matt chats nervously with the nurse. Nice weather. Not too much rain. Those kinds of things. I watch the rooms pass by as she pushes me. One stands out and I throw out my hands.

"Who's in there?" I point to a room.

Room 425. I've been here before.

"Genevieve Abernathy." The nurse says. "You know her?"

"Yes. I do. Take me inside."

"Well we can't do that." The nurse starts to say but Matt tells her to wait a minute.

Nascar is blasting as I am wheeled into her room. A man in his mid-thirties sits by the bed watching the race.

He looks over at me. "Can I help you?" He asks.

"How is she?"

"Sleeping." He tells me with one arched eyebrow. "Do you know Granny?"

"Yes. We talked the other day." I tell him.

He looks at me like I'm crazy. "I think you have the wrong person." He bumbles. "Granny can't... talk."

"Born in a sharecropper's cabin? Had five kids? Two of them boys?"

The man looks around like he's on candid camera. "Um... yeah."

"She likes first John. The whole book." I tell him. "Tell her Andrea stopped by. Tell her I'm okay now. She hears you and she prays about everything. She can't do much from that bed, but she does pray."

He nods dumbly and looks at Matt. Matt returns his confused look with one of his own.

"When you go, she wants you to turn it to the preaching channel." I tell him as he pushes me out the door.

We go to the lobby. The sun is bright through the windows. People walk by me. Some look at me and offer a kind smile. Others ignore me, perhaps wondering why I'm here and if I have anything contagious. The nurse isn't overly chatty as we wait for Matt to bring the car around. I lay my head back and close my eyes in the sunlight. I know in reality it's only been two days but it feels like weeks and weeks since I've seen the sun. Despite the warmth of the sun through the windows, I feel a strange sensation, like a chill sweeps over me. I turn and see a familiar figure in the shadows. My breath stops. Those violet eyes show so much hatred that my breath catches and I cannot move. He cannot come any closer but he seems to want me to know he's still around; that I haven't seen the last of my demon lover. He knows that he can't have me; I don't belong to him anymore and I know in his vengeance he will once again try to ruin me. He tries to communicate an unspoken threat but then his focus changes; he looks past me to someone else. His face shows horror, like someone who has just seen a ghost, and then he is gone without so much as a glance in my direction.

I turn to see whom he was staring at, and I see a man in white standing near the window, his arms crossed over his chest in a defiant gesture. The man in white watches Doyle retreat with a satisfied smirk and then looks to me. He turns his head and I see those shining curls, those beautiful eyes and that stunning smile. My heart pounds in my chest and I want to run to him but he shakes his head slightly, indicating that I should stay seated. Suddenly he changes and I see only a janitor who gives me a wave and a wink as he moves closer with his broom. "I see you're getting out of here." He smiles. "With the right man this time."

I find it impossible to speak, but he hears my heart and it is full to bursting with thankfulness. "And a new addition soon." His voice echoes through my being.

A baby! The life inside me leaps in response to those words, almost as if it can understand. Somehow in my heart, I know it's going to be a boy. I also know what I'm going to name him.

Matthew Josue Smith is going to be a mouth full. I think to myself and I hear Matt call my name as he bursts through the door, every bit the proud papa to be. The sound of his voice startles me and I jump. "Asleep already?" He asks in surprise. Reluctantly I look for Josue. He was just here a second ago, I couldn't have been sleeping. I look around for Him but He's gone.

I'm not surprised.

He's not really gone. I know His Love has reached down and pulled me from the mouth of Hell itself, and nothing can pluck me from His Hand.

Besides that... I still need someone to help me clean up my messes.

The Life I Left Behind

© L. Thornhill Crane 2012

Works Cited:

Newton, John. _Amazing Grace_ From Olney Hymns, 1779

About the Author

I'm a Sand Mountain girl by birth but a Georgia peach by divine appointment of God. I am married and have two children (ages 5 and 7) with my husband (I won't tell you his age.) but because I'm a teacher I have lots of other kids who have adopted me. I'm "mom #2" to a beautiful girl we call Mara who adopted us and has changed our lives and blessed us beyond words.

I'm not a writer by trade- as I'm sure you can tell. I teach foreign language in a rural county in South Georgia and though I love teaching; my first love is storytelling. For at least 15 years writing has been my secret passion; it was something that I loved to do for myself but never considered publishing at all. It was my "fan club" consisting of my Momma, my "adopted daughter" Mara, my best friend Dawn, her sister Autum and their nieces Gabi and Hannah who encouraged me to share my stories. Had it not been for their encouragement I don't think I would have ever had the courage to share anything I've written.

The Life I Left Behind is the story of a woman who is recklessly pursued by a loving God; and in a way, it is the story of my life. The Man in white was always present in my life, reaching out to me when I ran from Him. There were times in my life when I blatantly turned from Him but He has continued to love me. Having a relationship with Him has been the best thing that ever happened in my life, and if you don't know Him; He wants to have a relationship with you too! He's waiting and reaching out for you, just like he was with me. Take His hand, I promise you won't regret it. If you want more information on how to start a relationship with God look for a link at my blog at:

www.mycornerlthornhillcrane.blogspot.com

