The Caretaker (Infidelity #3), page 2
“Are you a local?” I asked.
“Ah, yeah, you can say that.”
“I was involved in an accident that left me unable to recall some important details of my life,” I said, keeping it simple. “I was here before. In this town, this tavern. Nine months ago, to be exact. It’s likely that I was here for more than just one night. I know you said you don’t recognize me, but I would have looked different then. Would you mind stopping by my table and looking at a few photos? It’s right over there.” I pointed out my booth just as my waitress dropped off my food. My drink had likely gone warm by now.
“And what if I still don’t recognize you? Or better yet, what if I do? What happens then?” he asked, his expression concerned.
“I…don’t know.” I’d assumed I would show up and my memories would magically return. They hadn’t, and so what good would someone recognizing me do? Where would I go from there?
“I know I was here, and not only because I have the receipt to prove it. I can feel it. I guess if someone recognizes me it might spark a memory for them of a conversation we might have had, things I might have said. Things that could help me remember or lead me to my next destination out here. It’s a long shot, but it’s the only shot I’ve got right now. This town matters to me, and I need to know why. Why was I here the night before losing the best thing that’s ever happened to me?” I’d asked that more to myself, and felt the odd need to apologize for it when he braced a hand on the wall next to him. Had he lost someone too?
“Okay.” He swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” I led the way to my table.
Pushing my food and beer aside, I reached into my satchel again. “How long have you lived in Haley Cove?” I asked as he settled in across from me. Living in Haley Cove didn’t mean he’d have been in this tavern on the day I visited. I’d honestly have better luck badgering the rest of the staff. But maybe he’d seen me somewhere else in town. I doubted I’d come all this way just to eat.
“Permanently? Almost a year. I used to live in New Jersey. Willowbrook to be exact.”
“Willowbrook,” I repeated, hand stalling on the folder.
“Have you been there before?” His tone was careful.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, unsure of why the town name caught my attention in the first place. I lined the pictures up in front of him. He took his time looking at mine, which I appreciated. It showed he was taking this seriously, and not brushing me off the way Trisha had.
My optimism flared when his finger traced my smile, like maybe it had triggered a memory for him. He barely glanced at Stacey’s photo before shoving both back in my direction.
“Sorry, I’ve never seen either of you.”
“Are you sure?” I implored.
“I’m positive. Who is she?”
“My wife.” I closed the folder, exhaustion taking its toll on me. “She didn’t survive the accident.” I gripped the two wedding bands and the diamond engagement ring dangling from the gold chain I wore. My band was a replica. The original was absent from my finger when I woke up in the hospital. Likely removed before I’d been rushed into surgery. No one could account for it. They’d had to sedate me after I’d noticed it was missing. Stacey’s rings were sitting on her bedside table when I got home. She hated sleeping in jewelry and had probably forgotten to put them back on before leaving. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
I let go of the rings that hung close to my heart and glanced up to find him staring at them, a broken expression overtaking his face. Did he lose his wife? Or husband? He didn’t wear a ring on his hand, so maybe a lover?
“Sorry for your loss.”
It was a sentiment I’d heard one too many times, but I didn’t hate it when he said it. Our gazes locked and held, and a senseless sort of longing filled me. I attributed it to Stacey, to missing her.
“She was pregnant,” I whispered.
“Did you say pregnant?” he breathed, like maybe he hadn’t heard me correctly. He’d leaned forward in his seat.
“Yeah. I had my wife and my opportunity at being a father taken from me in one fell swoop.”
“H-how far along was she?”
“Roughly twelve weeks is what I was told.”
He fell back as if the news were a blow, mouth slightly agape. I took his shock as sympathy. My gaze fell to his hands, which now gripped the edge of the table so tight they’d paled. I hadn’t wanted to invade his privacy with intrusive questions, even though I seemed to have no issue revealing my own problems to him. I couldn’t sit there and not care, though. Not ask. Not when it was clear that I wasn’t the only one at the table suffering.
“Hey,” I whispered, laying a hand on top of his. At the contact, his eyes snapped to mine, the devastation there matched the reflection I saw in the mirror every day.
“Did you lose someone?” I asked, pulling my hand back, the air around me becoming easier to breathe with the action.
“Yes.” He’d said it so low it was no more than a hiss. “Someone who made me feel like I could do anything, be anything. So I understand what it’s like to wish you could get back the person you loved and lost.”
“Did your person die too?”
“No, he didn’t, but it feels like it sometimes.”
“Maybe you should try and find him.” I would’ve given anything to have an opportunity to find Stacey. I would’ve paid any price to know she was alive and well, and that the only thing keeping us apart was the physical distance between us. I would’ve hunted her down and never let her go again.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “Maybe.”
We gazed at each other, that string of familiarity at the back of my skull tugging wildly.
“Are the last couple years before the accident all you’ve lost?”
“No, but it’s the only part of my life I’ve lost so completely. It’s the only part of my life with her that I’ve lost at all.”
“Oh,” was all he said.
I leaned my forearms on the table, my fingers pressing into my forehead. “My estranged childhood friend Leland came back into my life during that time, and he brought with him his partner, Franklin, and Franklin’s sons, Jasper and Cole. Apparently, we’d all become one big happy family, except I don’t remember reconnecting with Leland, and I don’t remember Franklin or his sons at all. Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember Franklin. I lived in Seattle up until a decade ago. We’d met a couple times before I left for New York, but not under the best of circumstances, and we definitely weren’t friends. But now I’m supposed to care about him.”
I looked up, expecting to find him bored, to get some indication that he was ready to escape me. The opposite held true. He was listening, truly listening like he had nowhere else to be but right there with me, and I didn’t even know his name.
“Keep going,” he said, and so I did, because God knew I needed to. Needed to not feel so alone. And maybe he needed the distraction that listening to my problems provided. It helped to know that I may be helping him in return.
“My childhood years aren’t forgotten completely. Best way to describe it is waking up after a night of excessive drinking. Most of what happened is a blur. You have to rely on the people around you to recount the events. Some of what they say you remember clearly, some of it’s a distorted haze that you kind of remember. The rest is news to me. Thankfully, I have the years spent with my wife. All but those last two.”
He nodded as though he understood me. “And that’s the missing time you want back.”
“It’s the priority, yes. My wife is the priority.”
“Not to minimize what you lost,” he started, “or who you lost…” His voice gave out then, and he turned away, only turning back once he’d regained his composure. “Not to minimize any of it,” he began again, “but shouldn’t the time spent with the people still here be your priority?”
The question didn’t offend me. Not when his tone was gentle and searching, like perhaps he’d had to ask himself the same question a time or two and hadn’t known how to answer it. Did he have friends or family that he’d neglected because he couldn’t get over the person he’d lost? Could we really be that similar?
“Not when it feels like my heart is still out there somewhere,” I said. Because it wasn’t with me, not really. It was with Stacey, with the time I’d get back, come hell or high water. Hopefully, my answer inspired him to not give up on his person too.
“I think my wife led me here, and I need to know why. I need to remember. Nothing else matters until I do.”
“Do your friends know you’re here?”
“No. Most days I don’t even answer their calls. I avoid my sister as well. It’s easier with her. We live on opposite coasts. I’m angry and resentful and confused, and I want to be left alone to wallow in that. They all want me to be the person I used to be for them, but all I want to be is who I used to be for her,” I stressed, emotion clogging my throat.
“I’ve got this well of love in my chest, robbing me of breath most days, and sustaining me on the other days. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want my memories returned to me because I can’t live without them. I want every second of what I lost back because I can’t live without her, and I want to remember every moment of the life we had together. Even the last seven hundred and thirty days of it. It’s what my heart wants.”
“That can’t be easy,” he said, voice strained.
I scoffed. “Which part? The having to fend off the people in my life? The people whose eyes fill with hope every time I walk through their door, or every time they barge through mine, only for that hope to be snuffed out when they realize I’m still not the happy-go-lucky version of myself. Not the man they once knew. Or the never-ending obsession with someone who’s no longer here? An obsession that I’m sometimes not even sure belongs to her—” I shut myself up, wishing I could take the words back. I’d never voiced that last part out loud. To be honest, I’d never had words for the feeling until then. There was a vast and all-consuming hole inside of me that I attributed to her being gone because…what else could it be? “Which part is the hard part?” I asked him, anger and shame now replacing dejection.
“All of it,” he said, his big blue eyes filled with compassion. The validation took my breath away, leaving me deflated and having to reinforce my forearms against the table to keep from crashing face-first onto it.
I returned to the topic of my friends and family, leaving my bewildering admission behind. “I’m just so sick of everyone trying to remind me of everything like it’s their goddamned duty to fix me,” I said, and he nodded again, as if he understood that too. I believed that nod. It had been a while since I believed anything, but I believed that. I believed…him.
“It confuses me, makes me defensive. It doesn’t help, even though it should. I just want to remember. I want to feel something other than lost.”
“That sounds reasonable to me.”
“Thank you,” I breathed, because he was the first person to tell me that since I woke up in this new reality of mine. “Sorry to dump all this on you. You’re obviously going through something of your own.”
“It’s fine,” he said, dismissing my apology.
“I’m Noon, by the way. Noon Waters.”
He hesitated before saying, “My name’s Solace.” He watched me from beneath lowered lashes, as if waiting for something.
“Solace,” I said, tasting it, thinking about the comfort he’d given me without even knowing it. “It suits you.”
Twin crimson blotches appeared on his pale cheeks, and he pointed one long, elegant finger to the camera on the table. “Photographer?”
“Not my official job title, but it feels right.” I shrugged, holding up the bulky piece of equipment. “It was on display in the window of an electronics store I passed on a morning walk. Had a panic attack after spotting it. Figured it must have meant something. A clue, maybe. So I bought it. Turns out I’m good at it.”
Solace smiled, this half grin that was both shy and alluring. Everything in me said he was oblivious to the latter. It registered in me as a fact, one that made me uncomfortable because of how vehemently I knew it. I wanted to stay in the presence of this seemingly guileless man. My own smile shook from the force it took to maintain it.
“What’s your official job title?” he asked, those shimmering eyes lighter now that we’d moved on to a simpler topic.
“I freelance in property and estate management. Or at least I used to. I haven’t worked since the accident.” I hadn’t done much but grieve and lock myself away from the world. Thankfully, I could financially afford to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
“What if you never figure out why you were here? What if you never get all your memories back? Is that a possibility?” Solace asked.
“Yes,” I said with a defeated sigh. “It’s a strong possibility. The head trauma I suffered was that severe.” I unconsciously sought out the scar tissue hidden by my hair.
“What then?” he asked for the second time, a hint of his melancholy returning. I found myself wanting to do anything I could to make it vanish again, because while he was lovely like this, sad and broken and in desperate need of care, he looked otherworldly when happy, even if I’d only caught a glimpse of it through his boyish grin.
I gave him an answer I’d never contemplated before because I’d never looked that far into the future. Not when so much darkness had blinded me to the road ahead. “Then I’ll have to settle for making new memories. I’ll have to try to,” I corrected, because it wouldn’t be easy, if at all possible. A sudden spark ignited behind those majestic eyes of his. “I booked a room at an inn across town.”
That surprised him. “How long will you be in Haley Cove for?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks. As long as it takes.”
Liz returned, noting the untouched food with a frown. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”
She turned to Solace. “How about you?”
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m heading out.”
“I’ll take the check and a to-go box,” I told her, seeing no reason to linger any longer now that he’d be leaving. I snapped a few more photos of the tavern while he watched me, his expression thoughtful.
He pulled a pen from his pocket, stealing a napkin from the small stack near my plate. “Here’s my address and phone number in case you need a tour guide. Or someone to talk to,” he added.
“Your address? I could be a serial killer.”
Solace chuckled, the sound throaty and warm. “Well, you certainly look like one,” he joked. “But I have a feeling you’re harmless.” He stood, gaze going to the coat rack near the entrance. “Cell service can be spotty up here, especially when the snow is this bad.” He jerked his chin to the napkin I now held. “Use either to find me, if you want or need to.”
There was nothing duplicitous about him that I could sense or see. It was clear he had demons he wasn’t willing to share, but his intentions felt pure.
“Okay,” I said, already planning to take him up on his offer. And for the first time in nine months, I felt like maybe there was something to live for.
And with that, Solace was gone, but he’d left something behind.
Hope. Solace had given me hope.
Solace
Twelve Months Ago
Then
PATRICK HATED MY sentimental nature. He said I used nostalgia as an excuse to not move past traumatic events, so maybe today wasn’t the best day to dig through Gavin’s vinyl collection—the one I couldn’t seem to part with for sentimental reasons—in search of one of his favorites. Patrick was sure to see my actions as passive aggressive, but it wasn’t. It was Gavin’s birthday, and I had every right to miss him.
I powered up the old record player, dusting off the needle before setting it on the most important album ever created in the history of creating albums—per Gavin. Lowering the volume, I peered toward the stairs, waiting for my husband to come charging down in annoyance…or outright fury.
Sighing with relief when that didn’t happen, I dragged myself over to the media console to run fingers over the framed photo of my older brother Gavin—Gav as we preferred to call him. I couldn’t bear to look at the photo next to his, so I flipped it face down, then retook my seat on the bay window bench, tucking my feet under me.
Gavin’s favorite song from the album came on, and the irony of it never failed to take my breath away. He would bellow the lyrics at the top of his lungs, and wouldn’t stop until everyone else joined in. Well, until I joined in. The song had always made Patrick uncomfortable.
I allowed myself a few tears, then brushed them away with the sleeve of my sweater as I glanced toward the stairs again. Patrick said I cried too much, that I felt too much. He used to love that about me. He’d said it made me emotionally open and mature. Now he slung around terms like “too sensitive” and “too dramatic,” using them as weapons to hurt me. If only I could manage being cold and distant, an artform he’d mastered.
I traced a G into the condensation building on the window, then used a flattened palm to wipe it away. Leaving it there wouldn’t have gone over well.
The snow flurries coming down barely accumulated along the front yard, but the weatherman predicted we’d be hit with a storm soon. I’d have to stock up on supplies before then, since I’d be here alone while Patrick spent the next three months on a humanitarian mission with Doctors Beyond Borders. He’d be gone by morning.
“You’re not dressed,” he snapped, startling me. I twisted around to see him waiting at the bottom of the landing, mask in hand.
“Dressed?” I eyed his tuxedo in confusion, setting my feet on the floor.
“I assumed you were using the guest bedroom when I didn’t see you getting ready upstairs.” He stormed over to the record player and ripped the plug from the outlet. The music stopped abruptly, leaving me alone with his enduring anger.
