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THE RELIEF SHE HAD felt drained away in an instant and was replaced by dread. “What do you mean?” she asked. “It’s me, Polly.”
“Polly?”
“Your wife.”
His laugh was quick and loud, like a dog’s bark. “My wife? Johanna, what’s going on here?” he asked, as he turned his gaze away from Polly. “Is this that cousin of yours you were trying to fix me up with that one time?”
Johanna’s eyes grew wide as she looked from Theo to Polly and back again. “Theo, if you’re joking, I don’t think she’s going to appreciate it.”
The grin on his face slowly died, and with an effort he brought his feet to the floor and sat up. “And I don’t appreciate you all joking with me,” he said. “I know I got knocked in the head somehow, but it wasn’t enough to make me believe all of this.” He turned slightly and considered Polly with narrowed eyes. “So who are you, really?”
She felt a tightness in her chest, and it was suddenly hard to breathe, as if all the air had been forced from the room. He may have been the one who was knocked in the head, but he couldn’t have been any dizzier or more disoriented than Polly was at that moment. Johanna must have sensed what she was feeling, for her friend was at her elbow before she knew it, lightly grasping her arm to help steady her.
Polly swallowed hard and tried to keep her voice free of the fear that was coursing through her like a storm-fed river. “I’m Polly Wilson,” she said. “I’m your wife. You and I got married almost a year ago. Ten months, actually.”
His eyebrows bunched up and Polly could see the muscles in his jaw tighten as he looked at her. “Ten months,” he murmured, and then his eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Polly,” he said. “My wife.”
She felt Johanna’s grip tighten on her arm. “Do you remember now?”
“I’m beginning to,” he said. “Did we get married at the justice of the peace, in town?”
“Yes, we did!”
His eyes had come alight now, and he slowly got to his feet. “Did I wear my suit?”
“Yes, you did!”
“And was President Johnson at the reception?”
“What?”
“The President,” Theo said. “He didn’t show up? How rude!”
A smirk replaced his thoughtful expression, and Polly felt her heart break a tiny bit inside. “Theo...” she began, but she couldn’t get any farther than that.
“Don’t get upset. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Johanna murmured to Polly before she raised her voice. “That’s not funny. And it’s President Grant now, by the way.”
“Sure it is. So if I’m your husband, I suppose I’m the one who, uh...who did that to you?” he asked Polly, eyeing her swollen belly.
“Of course,” Polly said. Her hands went to her stomach, as if to shield the baby’s ears from all this nonsense. Her cheeks began to burn at the thought of even having to discuss it. “Who else but my husband would be responsible, do you think?”
He snorted. “Well, there you have it,” he said. “Sorry to say, I don’t remember that.” He paused to give her a longer, lingering look that only inflamed her pink cheeks further. “And I’m pretty sure I would have remembered.”
Polly felt behind her for the arm of the chair and let herself fall heavily to the seat. This can’t be happening, she thought as Johanna came to her side and took her hand. The baby and I need him.
“Now, if you all have seen my hat, I’ve got work to do,” Theo said.
“You came back without it,” Polly said. “It must be out in the fields somewhere.”
“Well, this is turning into quite a day, then,” he muttered. “A bump on the head, you girls fooling with me, and now I’ve lost my hat. Terrific.” He headed for the hall, but paused just before leaving the parlor and turned back to them. “I’d love to stay here joking with the two of you, but there’s planting to be done,” he said, then was on his way. “I have to reseed a patch of winterkill.”
“Winterkill?” Johanna said. “But—”
“Wait,” Polly said quietly. “This could be just what he needs.” They listened to Theo’s footfall as he passed through the kitchen and opened the door. There was a long pause, and then Theo’s voice. The mocking tone had disappeared. Now he just sounded confused.
“What the heck?” he asked.
~ ~ ~
WELL, THIS MAKES NO sense at all, he thought. Just this morning, he had been sowing seed corn in the overturned earth of the winterkill, while surrounded by tender shoots of wheat sprouting all around. Now, however, the fields were empty of everything but stubble, and the crisp air of April had been washed away. The day was warm and humid, and as he glanced down at himself he realized that he was wearing a shirt he’d never seen before. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
“What’s going on?” he muttered, rubbing the bump on his head.
“I told you, you had an accident,” Polly said, emerging from the house behind him. “You went out to fix the fence and came back like this.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the fence,” he said. “I was planting this morning.”
She kept quiet. Theo turned to her slowly, almost unable to tear his eyes away from the emptiness where young plants had been growing only a little while earlier. Polly didn’t need to speak. There was nothing she could say that the cleared fields couldn’t better demonstrate.
Something is very, very wrong, he thought. “What day is it?”
“Twenty-seventh of July.”
Good Lord. I’ve lost three months. He felt something bubbling inside him, like a mixture of fear and disbelief. It felt like something had just taken a big old bite out of him, and the worst part was that he didn’t even know what was missing. A lot can happen in three months...wait a minute. What were those girls saying before?
He swallowed hard as he stared at Polly’s belly. “July twenty-seventh, you said?”
“That’s right.”
“What year?”
“What do you mean? It’s 1869, of course.”
Theo felt dizzy. He managed to slowly lower himself to the ground and he sat there in the dirt, trying to take in a breath, but it was like his body wasn’t cooperating.
“Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Polly said. She bent over and reached for his shoulder, but her touch did nothing to reassure him.
“I feel like a ghost,” he muttered. Theo could only stare at her, this unknown woman who claimed to be his wife—and with child, no less—and who seemed right at home in his house, yet for whom he felt nothing and who he would have sworn he’d never met before. “Who’d Johanna say was president now?”
“Grant.”
“Grant who?”
“Ulysses Grant,” Polly said. “He was elected last year.”
Theo realized that even aside from the bump, his head was pounding. He let his head fall to his hands and he rubbed his temples. It helped neither the pain nor his understanding of what was going on. “Last I remember, I was doing some spring planting,” he said. “From last year. 1868.”
Polly sucked in a breath, and from her expression, she was feeling the same thing he was now. “How is that possible?” she asked. Her voice was shaky and her eyes were wide.
Theo shook his head, struggling to his feet. “I don’t know,” he said, then nodded toward the trail. “Maybe he can tell us.”
Polly turned and saw that a carriage was approaching the farm. Even at a good distance, it was clear that Nelson Deere was driving, with Doc Sterling alongside. The two men were like a before-and-after drawing, with Nelson’s lean form and pitch-black hair set against Sterling’s softer, rounder figure and the white hair poking out from under his hat.
Theo gave them a wave as Nelson steered the carriage to a stop. “Doc, I’m sure glad to see you,” he said.
As he was getting down from the carriage, Sterling gave him a half-smile, as if surprised to see him up and about. “Well, you’re already looking better than I was expecting. I figured you’d be out cold.”
“He just woke up a little while ago,” Polly said.
“Well, that could be a good sign already,” the doctor said. “Upright is good. How’re you feeling, Theo?”
“I’ve got a real bump up here,” Theo said. “But more than that, I’m pretty much confused.”
The doctor shot Polly a look.
“He doesn’t remember me,” she said. “Or anything since spring last year. It’s like a whole year went missing.”
The doctor was getting up there in years; he must have been nearing seventy and Theo imagined that he’d seen a lot in his time. Still, the way his eyebrows shot up didn’t seem to augur well for any hope of a speedy recovery.
“Let’s take a look at you, then,” the doctor said, reaching into the carriage for his bag. He steered Theo back into the house and had him take a seat in the kitchen. Sterling dug a pair of glasses out of his bag and put them on before leaning close to examine Theo’s injury.
“You’ve got the contusion, of course, but also some pretty good scrapes,” he said, as he sifted through Theo’s hair to see the scalp. “A little broken skin here and there. Whatever hit him was blunt, not sharp.”
“But that could be almost anything,” Polly said.
Sterling nodded. “Could have been a rock, a branch....for all I know, he was walking backwards and stepped on a rake.”
Theo snorted. “If that’s what happened, then I’d say I pretty much deserved this.”
“I agree,” the doctor said, clapping him on the shoulder. “In any case, it looks like the bump is only a superficial injury. Keep it clean and dry and these scrapes should heal up nicely.”
“And what about my memory?”
The doctor took a deep breath, as if to stall for time before answering. “It’s difficult to say what’s going to happen,” he finally said. “To be blunt, I’ve had patients who lost memories forever after getting hurt like this.”
Polly took in a sharp breath and clutched Theo’s shoulder. “Oh, my God,” she murmured.
Theo patted her hand and then lifted it away. The woman no doubt meant well, but it was disconcerting to have her touching him like that. “But that’s not necessarily going to be what happens to me, is it, Doc?”
“No, not necessarily. I’ve read about cases in which the memories return and the patient recovers entirely.”
“Have you seen cases like that yourself?”
“Uh, no,” the doctor said, letting his gaze fall away. “That rarely happens.” He took off his glasses and placed them back into his bag. “Still, it’s tough to say. Things might turn out just fine. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Theo sighed and looked around the room. If he didn’t turn too much to the right, things looked entirely normal: Doc Sterling, Nelson, and Johanna were there, all of whom he knew, and all of whom he liked. It was better than normal, in fact; it was like they had come over for one of the barbecues Theo was fond of. Like we’re about to have a party, he thought. Throw a little buffalo on the fire, and we’d be all set.
Then he turned to the other side. The woman was pretty, that much was certain. But he had very particular ideas about what kind of woman he was hoping to marry, and being pretty was far from the only thing on the list. Although he may not have remembered anything about the last year, he did know one thing: he wasn’t about to accept this Polly girl as his wife just because she said so.