One Tuesday Morning (31 page)

“A guest room?” He was talking about sleeping arrangements. Something Jamie hadn't considered once since she'd known about Jake's memory loss. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Yes … Jake's dad is sleeping there.”

“Have him go home. Jake needs to relax and heal.
The fewer people around him the better. His memory will return more quickly that way.”

“And …” Jamie couldn't fathom the direction the conversation was headed. “Have Jake sleep in the guest room?”

“For now.” The doctor put his hand on Jamie's shoulder. “Remember, he doesn't know you, Mrs. Bryan. He won't expect physical contact between the two of you, and I have to ask you not to initiate it. Not even something simple like a hug or kiss. These actions must come from him.”

The heat became a full-fledged blush, one that worked its way down her neck and onto her chest. She felt like a schoolgirl getting a lecture from her father. “Wouldn't … wouldn't that
help
him remember?”

“It'll mess with his mind and confuse him.” The doctor stuffed both his hands in the pockets of his white jacket. “You'll know his memory is starting to return when those actions come from him, when he initiates them.”

Jamie's shoulders slumped forward some, and a heaviness settled across her shoulders. Pretend she wasn't married to Jake Bryan? The idea was insane. She would have to take Jake home and make him comfortable, but never be anything more to him than a friend? All in the hopes that somehow, someday his memory would return? “Okay …” She exhaled and lifted her eyes to the doctor's once more. “You've told me what I can't do. But what can I do … how do I help him remember?”

“Think back to when you and Jake first fell in love, back before you were dating. If you can interact with him like that, it'll put him at ease and speed his recovery.”

Jamie blinked back tears and leaned against the wall for support. “I was twelve when I fell in love with Jake Bryan, Doctor. Twelve years old.” Her voice was strained, aching from the ocean of tears she was holding in. “How could acting like I did back then help him remember the love we shared last month? What healing could that possibly bring about?”

“The best part of all, Mrs. Bryan.” The doctor spoke straight to her heart. “When a person loses memory of his learned behavior, he has to be taught basic skills again. Yes, eventually he'll remember. But in the meantime he has to be taught. How to sit and stand and feed himself. How to walk.”

Jamie listened, desperate to understand, hanging on every word. “But you're asking me to be Jake's friend and nothing more. What would that possibly teach him?”

“Very simple, Mrs. Bryan.” The doctor narrowed his eyes. “It would teach him to love you.”

That last line was almost more than Jamie could bear. She wanted to break down, collapse in the doctor's arms, and weep for the mountain that lay ahead of them. Jake had always been her support, the one who loved her as easily as he moved. Now, instead of lying in his arms at night, making love to him, or getting lost in his embrace, she would have to be his friend. And, in the process, hope that somehow they'd find the same connection they'd found a lifetime ago, back when they were just kids. And that connection would have to carry them up over the mountain, at least until Jake's memory started to return.

Jamie steeled herself against the hard times still ahead and thanked the doctor. Then she turned and with slow steps made her way back to Jake's room. Sierra was at home with Jake's father. Jim Bryan had continued to be wonderful, but now—if she wanted to follow the doctor's orders—she would need to send the man away. The idea of bringing Jake home and handling his recovery by herself was daunting, but at least she had another week before it would happen.

She sucked in a slow breath and straightened herself. Act as if she were twelve again? How could she when Jake had shown not even a modicum of interest in her since he'd woken from his coma? Jamie tucked her fears into the back pocket of her heart and entered the room. She didn't have to have all the answers today.

The room whirred with the sound of hospital machines, and the closer Jamie drew to Jake, the stronger the smell of antiseptic got. Jake was asleep, lying on his side facing the window, his face and body utterly still beneath the bandages and sheets.

Jamie sat down and exhaled hard.

As she did she glanced at the table a few feet away and saw Jake's chart. Maybe there was something in it the doctor hadn't told her. She reached for it and let her eyes drift past her husband's name and address, down to the place where Dr. Cleary had written notations about Jake's prognosis. Amnesia … second-degree burns … broken ankle.

Suddenly, Jamie's eyes fell on a place in the notes where the doctor had written something about a blood transfusion not being necessary. Next to that he had jotted down Jake's blood type.

O-negative.

Warning bells screamed their alarm through the hallways of Jamie's soul. O-negative wasn't Jake's blood type. He was AB-positive—one of the rarest blood types of all, the type most in need at blood drives. The clipboard in her hands might as well have been coiled and hissing. She dropped it and took four careful steps backwards. Jake's voice—the one he'd had before he was hurt—played in her mind.

“Of course I have rare blood.” He'd told her that a hundred times. He'd lift his chin high, make a fist, and pound it gently against his heart. “When God made me He broke the mold.”

The subject came up often throughout the year, whenever Jake dropped by the Red Cross and donated blood. “What can I say,” he'd tell her when he got home. “I'm a precious commodity.”

It was true. The Red Cross sent him requests often, reminding him that AB-positive was a rare type of blood and virtually begging him to come back in and donate. But now …

Jamie was grabbing short, quick breaths, and she felt herself fainting. She grabbed the nearest chair and fell into it, dropping her head between her knees to stave off a complete collapse. What could it possibly mean? If the man sleeping in the bed a few feet away had O-negative blood, then he wasn't Jake. And that would explain why he didn't recognize her, why his eyes didn't flash with love the way they always had, as far back as she could remember.

A thin layer of sweat broke out across her forehead, and her mind raced with the possibilities. Maybe Captain Hisel or one of the other guys had said something about Sierra to the man … maybe that's why he remembered her name.

Or maybe the strain of all that had happened since Tuesday was making her delusional. Maybe she hadn't seen O-negative on the chart, after all. She wanted to stand up, grab the clipboard, and prove herself wrong. Let her eyes find that place on his chart and see once and for all that it actually held the truth. That his blood type was AB-positive.

But she was suddenly paralyzed by a single thought.

If the man in the hospital bed wasn't Jake, if he was someone else with O-negative blood, who by some strange mix-up knew Sierra's name, then that could only mean one thing.

Jake was dead.

And that was a possibility Jamie simply couldn't fathom. So instead of reaching for the clipboard, she stood and staggered out the door to the nurse's station. Somehow—regardless of what she would find out—she had to know the truth. And since she didn't want to go near the chart, this time she would have a nurse read it.

The moment she walked up to the counter, a nurse stared at her. “Ma'am, are you okay?”

Jamie opened her mouth, but at first nothing came out. Her heart was lodged so high in her throat she couldn't speak. But finally, slowly, the words tumbled from her, words that in all her life were the hardest ones she'd ever spoken.

“I think …” She leaned on the counter for support. “I think the man in that room might not be my husband.”

T
WENTY
-O
NE

S
EPTEMBER
17, 2001

The nurse gave Jamie a strange look, one that quickly became a confused smile.

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“Look …” Every word was a struggle. “I feel like I'm losing my mind.” Jamie could feel her heart racing, and she pointed across the hall toward the bedroom where the man lay. “I need … I need you to check his chart. Please …” The last word was more of a cry, and in that instant compassion cracked the woman's expression.

“First … are you sure you're okay?”

“No!” Jamie's voice was louder now. “I'm not okay. I need you to tell me that the man in that room is my husband!” Her voice softened, and she gripped the counter to keep from falling. “Please.”

This time the nurse didn't hesitate. She came out from behind the nurse's station and led the way back to the hospital room. “What gave you the idea he might not be your husband?”

“His blood type. It's written on his chart.” That was all Jamie could manage. She followed the nurse back to the room, her body shaking with the fear of what might lie ahead.

The nurse picked up the clipboard while Jamie's eyes found him in the hospital bed. The woman's eyebrows knit together as she held it up and looked at the information it contained. What if all this time he'd been merely a confused stranger … and what if Jake had been halfway up the building with Larry and the others? She held her breath while the nurse scanned the information on the chart.

What the woman was about to say would change Jamie's life forever.

She looked up, the confusion gone from her expression, and pointed to a spot halfway down the first page. “You mean here? Where it says O-negative?”

Jamie couldn't speak. She could barely breathe. Instead, she leaned against the chair and nodded.

A pleasant look filled the woman's face. “In the wake of a big accident, someone from the emergency room staff does a blood check and writes down the type that person should get if a transfusion is needed. O-negative works for every blood type.”

“But …” Jamie's teeth rattled, and she hugged herself to ward off the sudden chill. “But my husband's blood is AB-positive.”

“Well, then”—this time the nurse smiled—“that would explain it.”

Jamie was baffled, but she felt better. If only there was an explanation for the error, then everything was okay. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“AB-positive is a very rare blood type.”

“Yes.” Hope lit a candle in the pitch-black part of her soul.

“Most likely they drew his blood in the emergency room and realized his type was rare. With a disaster like what happened Tuesday, they would've written down simply O-negative, meaning if he needs blood, give him the universal donor type because his is so rare.”

Jamie stared at the woman, and her heart skittered back into a normal rhythm. “So you don't think there's been a mix-up?”

“No, of course not. I've never heard of such a thing.” The woman looked over her shoulder at Jake and then back at Jamie. “But you would know better than any of us.”

Jamie nodded, and the nurse gave her one more smile before returning Jake's clipboard back to the hook at the end of his bed. When she was gone, Jamie sat motionless and straight, watching Jake with an uncertainty that hadn't been there before. Was there no end to the wild emotions she'd suffered since the terrorist attacks? First thinking Jake was dead, and then getting the call that he was in the hospital. The race to be by his side, only to have him wake up not knowing her or anything about his life. Never in the midst of the whirlwind of tragedy and sorrow did she ever consider there might've been a mix-up.

That the man lying there beneath the hospital sheets was anyone other than her husband.

She studied him and tried to remember the strapping, jovial man who'd walked out of their bedroom early Tuesday morning. The man in the hospital bed had Jake's size, the right length and body structure, from what she could see. The muscled arms and shoulders were his, the narrow feet. Certainly his eyes were the right color, though without the benefit of memories there was nothing familiar about them.

The nurse's words ran in Jamie's mind again.
No, of course there hadn't been a mix-up … something like that had never happened before
.

But it could, couldn't it? Wasn't it possible?

Suddenly, Jamie remembered something she'd seen on television that morning while she was getting ready to come to the hospital. Grieving family members were flocking to the V.A. Hospital on First Avenue, taping photos and flyers of their loved ones to the hospital's red brick wall. Hundreds were being added each day as desperate people held out a fraction of hope that maybe … just maybe … their son or daughter or husband or wife was not among the thousands feared dead.

“Missing …” the flyers read. As though perhaps one of those who went to work at the World Trade Center Tuesday morning might have found his or her way out alive only to lie unidentified in a hospital or to wander the streets, the victim of a traumatic head injury.

Or mistaken identify.

A shudder worked its way down Jamie's spine. There was only one way to know for sure, to be certain there wasn't some desperate soul roaming Manhattan looking for a man who had Jake's build and appearance. She left without saying good-bye and took a cab to the area near the hospital where the flyers were posted.
If she'd been a praying woman, this would have been her direst hour, the moment when she would've begged God to let this be the craziest thing she'd ever done, to assure her that not one missing person pictured on the wall looked even remotely like Jake.

But she wasn't someone who prayed, and she was hardly going to start now. Especially in light of all that had happened.

Jamie paid the driver and stumbled from the cab, her feet and head moving at frantic but different paces. She'd once watched a scene from a movie where the main character's child was missing. The actress darted first in one direction, then another and another, her eyes shining with raw fear.

That was how Jamie felt now.

She wore brown loafers, tailored jeans, a turtleneck, and a navy pullover sweater, the type of tailored outfit Staten Island mothers wore to do their grocery shopping. But there was nothing conservative about how she worked her way through the crowd, darting and weaving herself closer to the place where the flyers were posted.