Nolan

 

THE MOMENT THE plane touched down, I felt myself inhale sharply. Linnzi was talking on and on to Belle about how it was her first airplane ride and how exciting it had all been. How she was going to love Texas and the ranch. I, on the other hand, felt like a fucking basketcase for some reason. The flight out to California hadn’t bothered me, but this one, this one had. Thoughts of that day flooded my memory. Every single time Linnzi talked to Belle, I thought of her holding our daughter after the accident. It took everything I had to keep my hands from shaking as I landed the plane.

As I taxied to the hangar, I reflected on the last two weeks I had spent with Linnzi in California. I’d taken her onto base, showed her where I worked, even let her sit in one of the planes—which she then begged me to take her up in. She got to meet Jack and his girlfriend, and we even went out to dinner. Dancing. It had felt like old times, yet completely different. Linnzi was the same exact woman I had fallen in love with at the age of fourteen. A little older and wiser now, but she was the exact same. A part of me felt angry that she was blocking out our past. Blocking out our history. Another part of me was jealous that she didn’t have the nightmares I had. I’d already woken up twice in the last two weeks with the same fucking nightmare. The sounds of Linnzi screaming. My daughter looking like she was simply asleep, when in reality she had died from the impact of the wreck. It was devastating. And when Linnzi had asked me what was wrong that night, I’d pushed her away, which I knew bothered her.

I parked the plane and helped Linnzi get the dogs and everything out to my truck. Duke was beyond happy. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been up in my plane before. He had. I’d never taken him to Texas, though. Hell, I had hardly been back myself.

“Do you think Duke will like the ranch?” Linnzi asked.

“Yes, he’ll love it. He’s going to be depressed as hell when we head back to California.”

Linnzi pouted.

“Don’t even go there, Linz. He’s my dog, and I’m taking him back with me.”

She sighed and snuggled her face into Belle before reaching back and putting her on the seat next to Duke.

“Have you told your folks about moving into my place?”

She looked out the passenger window and replied, “I did.”

“What’s wrong? Did they not want you to?”

Linnzi glanced back at me with a forced smile. “Oh, they’re fine. I’m sure they’re just a bit sad because they finally got me back and then I jetted off to California with you before I informed them I was moving out.”

I nodded. “You don’t have to move in right away. You’ll have access to the house whenever you want, so just come and go as you please.”

The feel of her eyes was almost burning into me. I looked at her quickly. “Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. You said you had something to take care of today. Is everything okay?”

I gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter than I meant to. “Yeah, just visiting an old friend I haven’t seen in a number of years.”

“Good, you seemed a bit stressed earlier when you mentioned it.”

With a quick shake of my head, I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Nope. All is good.”

She settled back in her seat and let out a contented sigh. “It feels good to be back in Texas. I’m so glad you’re going to be here for a couple of weeks. I’m not ready to be separated yet.”

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it. “Neither am I.”

 

 

A female voice cleared her throat, and I glanced up. “Mr. Byers, Dr. Moore and Dr. Brooks will see you now.”

I stood and followed her down the hall and into a meeting room. A table with six chairs sat in the middle with Western décor lining the walls. A large, leather chair was in one corner, and there was a small table next to it. I shook away the memory of the last time I sat in this room.

Sitting at the end of the table was Dr. Roger Moore, the neurologist who had taken care of Linnzi after the plane accident. To the right of him was Dr. Laura Brooks, the psychologist who had been the one to first diagnose Linnzi with short-term memory loss.

As I sat down, I reached across and shook both of their hands, and I was immediately transported back eight years.

“Why does she remember everyone else but me?” I asked as Amy and Steve sat next to me.

Dr. Brooks sighed. “It’s not that she isn’t remembering you, Nolan. She’s blocking out a certain amount of time in her life.”

“Yeah, the time we were together. She remembers moving here, but she doesn’t remember me.”

Dr. Moore cleared his throat and all eyes swung his way. “Linnzi has suffered not only a head injury, but she’s had a very traumatic experience. When she woke up she saw the firefighter trying to revive her daughter. You said she knew you when she was holding Amanda.”

I nodded, even though I knew he wasn’t asking.

“When Linnzi realized that your child was gone, her mind shut down anything that would allow her to remember Amanda. When you walked into that room, Nolan, her body had already gone into survival mode and shut it all out. In a way, it’s protecting her from the memory of the loss of her daughter.”

I ran my hands down my face. “So if I tell her who I am, will she remember?”

Both doctors looked at one another then at me, Amy, and Steve.

Dr. Brooks spoke first. “She might or she might not. Nolan, she may never remember. Or she could recognize you tomorrow, or you could say something that sparks a memory and she could regain some or all of the memory.”

“And how will that be for her mentally? To suddenly have it all come rushing back?” Amy asked.

Dr. Moore answered. “Everyone responds differently. She may go into shock, may experience the trauma all over again. Her mind could possibly attempt to block it once again. Or, as Dr. Brooks stated, she may not ever get her memory back. We just don’t know enough about short-term memory loss to say what could happen.”

I stood and started to pace. “So, I’m the trigger.”

“Not necessarily,” Dr. Brooks said. “The sound of a baby crying could trigger the memory. The sound of your laughter, simply seeing you. Seeing a picture of Amanda. Anything could trigger it.”

“Could it come back on its own?” Steve asked.

Both doctors nodded, but only Dr. Moore answered. “Yes, it could. She could wake up one day and remember.”

“I don’t want to be the cause of her being hurt again,” I said.

Amy stood. “What are you saying, Nolan?”

I swallowed hard. “Maybe I need to take myself out of the picture for a while. Leave her alone so she finds her own way back. At her own pace.”

Amy’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we need to pretend I wasn’t in her life. Let her memory come back to her when it wants.”

“What about Amanda?” Steve said. “Do we forget about her?”

Tears stung the back of my eyes, and I blinked rapidly. “No,” I whispered. “No, we never forget about her.”

Amy placed her hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze as I wiped my tears away. “But I can’t tell her. I can’t. You didn’t see the way she looked at me when she held Amanda in her arms and she was…”

My voice broke off, and I looked down at the floor.

“You have to ask yourself, are you prepared to hide some truths from her? She’s going to ask questions,” Dr. Brooks said.

I frowned and turned back to Dr. Brooks. “Why hasn’t she asked any questions? She hasn’t even asked what happened.”

Amy nodded. “She hasn’t. Not a single question. We’ve brought up the accident, and she simply says she doesn’t wish to talk about it.”

Dr. Moore replied, “Subconsciously, Linnzi knows what happened. Her mind, her body, whatever we want to call it, is blocking all accounts of the accident. Somewhere deep inside she knows, and she is afraid to remember.”

I turned to Amy and Steve. “You know how much I love your daughter. She’s the other part of me. If I have to walk away and pretend she never existed in my world—at least until she remembers—then that’s what we’ll do.”

“And Amanda?” Amy asked as tears rolled down her cheeks.

All I could do was shake my head.

Dr. Brooks cleared his throat. “I have to warn you, if you withhold this from her and she remembers on her own, or even looks up the accident and reads about it, she may never forgive you for not telling her the truth.”

I looked over at Dr. Brooks and stated, “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“She may never remember you, Nolan.” This came from Dr. Moore.

I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “She will. I know she will.”

My mind came back to the future as quickly as it had gone to the past, and I sat down opposite the two doctors. I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out.

Dr. Brooks still looked the same. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and she wore a genuine smile. Dr. Moore’s dark brown hair had streaks of gray running through it and he wore the same sympathetic expression on his face.

With a smile, Dr. Moore said, “Amy and Steve were in last week—we figured you wouldn’t be far behind.”

“Has Linnzi called you?” I asked Dr. Brooks.

She shook her head. “No. She has not.”

Drawing in a deep breath, I slowly exhaled. “She remembers bits and pieces of me. Me asking her to marry her. She seems to remember her love for me. It’s the strangest thing. She told me she couldn’t remember meeting me, but she knew deep down that she loved me.”

Both of them smiled.

Dr. Brooks said, “Love is a very powerful emotion, Nolan. Amy said that the entire time Linnzi was in France, she never dated.”

I nodded. “Linnzi did tell me she saw a counselor there. She said that they told her she was blocking a memory. Most likely a bad memory.”

Neither said a word.

Clearing my throat, I went on. “She told me she had been having dreams about me, and one time she saw me in France, sitting down at a coffee shop outside her work. Every time I went to Paris to check on her, I sat at the same coffee shop. It gave me a view of where she worked. I could see her come and go. When she saw me there, she said she felt like she knew who I was. I got up to leave, and she followed me until she lost me in the crowd. It was four or five years ago.”

“Really?” Dr. Moore said, his brows lifting in surprise. “Interesting. So she knew from simply seeing you at a distance that you had a connection?”

“Yes. Then I saw her at Truitt and Saryn’s party, since Saryn and Linnzi knew each other in high school. Um, anyway, she saw me and she reacted, though not with a rush of memories. Although, I do believe more and more are coming to her. She mentioned remembering me climbing into her bedroom at night. She remembers the day I asked her to marry me. She remembered us racing to a certain tree on my ranch. She remembers a vacation we took to London once.”

“Do you see the pattern? All happy memories,” Dr. Moore stated.

Dr. Brooks moved around in his seat and asked, “Nothing about the baby?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“When she asked you what happened, what did you tell her?” Dr. Moore asked.

“The truth. I was flying the plane, we were coming back from Colorado, and the landing gear failed. I was about to tell her about Amanda when she told me to stop. She didn’t want to know anything else.”

Dr. Moore nodded. “She knows there’s more.”

“Yes, she does,” I said. “She has even outright said she knows there’s more.”

Both doctors looked at one another.

“But do you think she remembers what the more is?” I asked.

They both shook their head. “No,” said Dr. Brooks. “But she certainly knows there’s something she is missing. I’m going to guess that she can pick up on your sadness as well, but she won’t call you out on it because if she does then she’ll be forced to face her own.”

“She told me she doesn’t care about the past, that she only wants to focus on our future because she feels like we’ve wasted eight years. And now I keep going over and over that decision in my head. If I should have walked away. Should I have just told her we were engaged? Maybe we just didn’t mention Amanda, but did I make the right call by leaving her? I don’t think I did, and now I…now I…”

I pressed my fists to my forehead. “Fuck! I feel like we made the wrong call. We could have been happy. All this time. And now I can’t move on because I can’t keep this secret about Amanda anymore. I’m tired of not talking about my own daughter. I want to remember her. I want to…I want—”

I looked away when my voice cracked and I couldn’t speak anymore.

“Nolan,” Dr. Brooks gently said as she reached for my hand. “I think you already know what you need to do. You haven’t grieved the loss of your daughter because you’ve been too busy grieving the loss of Linnzi. Amy and Steve haven’t grieved, and we all know Linnzi hasn’t. It’s time for you to tell her.”

I could feel the tears wet my cheeks. “She’s going to hate me. I’ve played this scene out in my head over and over again, and that’s the only possible outcome.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think she will. This is a woman who has been putting her love life on hold for eight years because she still felt the love she has for you. Eight years. She’ll be more upset if she stumbles onto the news than she would be if you just told her. She has the right to grieve and let the past go. Just because she can’t remember it doesn’t mean she’s not holding on to it just as tightly.”

I brought my hand up to my mouth and scrubbed at my stubble. Then I shook my head. “I have to tell her.”

The both nodded.

I turned my head and stared out the window, praying I wouldn’t lose her again.

I couldn’t lose her this time. We’d both already lost so much.