“Get away from me!” Thea screamed. “Fuck off. I don’t want it. Where is Jimmy?”
A clattering crash as I entered. Thea knocked a tray to the ground, wrestling against a nurse with a syringe in her hand. All the while Rita tried to calm Thea’s flailing arms.
“She doesn’t want to be drugged,” I barked at the nurse, then bent to take Thea in my arms. “Hey. Hey, I’m here. It’s all right.”
She looked up at me, full of suspicion.
“It’s me,” I said. “I’m here now.”
Recognition dawned in her eyes and then she collapsed into sobs and clutched me. “It’s happening. I can’t hold on to anything. It’s slipping away.”
“I know,” I said. “I know, baby.”
“Come here,” she pleaded.
As I climbed onto the narrow bed, the two nurses left the room, shutting the door softly behind.
Thea sobbed into my chest. My tears dampened her hair. I held her so tight, trying to keep her with me. She was in my arms and slipping away at the same time. And she knew it. She was sliding down a steep, unforgiving slope into the blackness of amnesia; desperately scrabbling for purchase, her fingers clutching my shirt.
“Thea,” I whispered. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”
“Yes,” she said in a faint voice. Sleep was taking her and when she woke up, the amnesia would too.
“I promise,” I said, my voice cracking. “I promise.”
She pulled away and her smile broke my goddamn heart. “You do?” Then her smile crumpled to confusion. “I wrote… something. Did I? I can’t remember…?”
“It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to.”
Her face relaxed into a smile of relief. She kissed me and I savored the taste of her tears and her soft lips before she laid her head down again. “I love you. Jimmy with the kind eyes.”
I held her close, struggled to keep my sobs from shuddering through me.
“I love you, Thea,” I said. “Sleep now. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? And every day after. I promise.”
I blinked awake and the hospital room materialized around me. Thea lay in my arms. Morning light slanted over the bed.
Slowly she stirred and woke. Studied me for a second. Then her face lit up with recognition, heartbreakingly beautiful. “Jimmy.”
“Hi, baby,” I said, holding back the tears.
The words were barely out of my mouth when an absence seizure paralyzed her. She trembled a few moments, then blinked back into focus.
I saw her.
Beneath the confusion, beneath the amnesia, down in the clear blue depths of her eyes, I saw my Thea.
Her head cocked to the side and her smile faltered.
“How long has it been?”
Epilogue I
Jim
Open mic night was crowded at Haven, as if all of Boones Mill had crammed into the small tavern that Saturday.
Maybe they have, I thought from behind the bar. The town’s small enough.
Or maybe it was to keep warm. Winter was brutally cold this year, and weathermen said Christmas—a few weeks away—was going to be white.
I poured beers for a couple of regulars, Stan and Kevin. Two middle-aged guys who wore baseball caps and T-shirts no matter what the weather.
“Big night tonight,” Kevin said. “You gonna play, Jim?”
“He sure as hell is,” Laura said, sidling up to the bar with a tray full of empties. “Gotta give ’em what they want, right, Jim?” She gave me a wink.
I smiled. “We’ll see.”
“Oh, we will,” Laura said. “Guess who’s in charge of the playlist tonight?” She jerked two thumbs at herself. “This gal right here. Now I need two shots of Fireball, two Buds and a glass of water. The water’s for you. Get your pipes ready.”
The guys chuckled as Laura vanished into the crowd.
“Looks like you’re playing,” Stan said.
“Guess so,” I said. “And here I thought this was a bartending gig.”
It started out that way. I needed to work nights, and Haven’s owner had just lost his best bartender and was desperate. I worked my way up from the shit gigs on Sunday thru Wednesday, to the more lucrative shifts on Thursday through Saturday. It was Laura who caught me singing Pearl Jam’s “Black” while taking inventory one day. Despite the poor first impression I’d made on her all those months ago, she demanded I play at the next open mic.
And I’d been playing most open mic nights since.
Laura took the stage. “Heya! How y’all doing tonight? You ready for some music?”
A roll of enthusiastic applause and cheers.
“We’re going to start things off with our own secret weapon, Haven’s own, Jim Whelan!”