The Tuesday Morning Collection

  But if not …

  The hospital was just around the corner, and still neither she nor Jake had said a word to each other. They pulled into the hospital's front lot and found a place to park. Only then did Jake turn toward her and touch her cheek. “Jamie …”

  She found his damp eyes and allowed herself to get lost in them. His gaze went to the deepest place of her heart.

  “Whatever happens in there, I'm here for you. You have to believe that.”

  Jamie studied him and willed away the tears that blurred her own eyes. He had to be Jake, didn't he? Those were Jake's words, Jake's tenderness. His way of caring for her above himself, especially when she was afraid. She leaned closer, and they came together in an embrace that seemed to last an hour and an instant all at once. As though neither of them wanted to climb out of the car and take the chance that somehow—in the span of half an hour—everything they had believed about their future together would suddenly and swiftly vanish.

  She was the one who pulled back first. “Let's go.” Her eyes met his, soaking in the face she still believed was her husband's. “We have to find out.”

  The test took only twenty minutes. Jamie and Jake were holding hands in the lobby when a nurse approached them. She had a white piece of paper in her hands. “Mr. Bryan?”

  Jake stood up and Jamie joined him, leaning against him for support. The nurse's face was calm and pleasant looking. She has no idea, Jamie thought. One way or another, the information she's about to give us will change our lives forever.

  The woman handed the piece of paper to Jake, and Jamie craned her neck to read the details. Come on, where is it? Her eyes darted across the page. His name … his birth date … his age … lines and lines of information, but not the part they needed. Jamie wanted to scream.

  Where was the blood type?

  After only a few seconds, Jake looked at the nurse and shook his head. “I can't read it.” His voice was urgent, almost impatient. “We're trying to find out my blood type.”

  Jamie closed her eyes. AB-positive … his blood type is AB-positive, God … let her tell us that, please.

  “Let's see …” The nurse took the paper back again and glanced at it for just a moment. “Well, you're one of the lucky ones.” She handed the paper to Jake once more and smiled. “You're O-negative. The most common blood type of all.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  NOVEMBER 12, 2001

  They collapsed together on a bench outside the hospital.

  Jamie had no memory of how they'd gotten there, just that they were. The realization of the blood results hit her in waves. The first nearly knocked her to her knees. The man she'd been living with since the end of September was not Jake Bryan, but someone else, someone who merely looked like him.

  The second realization took a minute to sink in, but by the time they reached the bench and sat down, it hit her full force.

  If that man beside her wasn't her husband, then …

  She buried her face in her hands, her body shaking so badly she could barely stay seated. “No, Jake … No! God, please … not Jake.” Her words were drenched in grief and the quiet, desperate sound of a person in shock. But this time the person wasn't someone on television or someone pasting flyers on a wall in New York City. It wasn't one of the other firefighter wives—it was her.

  Jamie Bryan.

  The thing she had feared all of her life had actually happened, and she hadn't known it until now. Next to her, the man who looked so much like her husband placed his hand on her back and brought his head close to hers. “I'm sorry, Jamie … I'm so sorry.”

  Part of her wanted to fall into his arms, take the slip of white paper he still held in his other hand, rip it into a hundred pieces, and dump it in the nearest trash can—where it belonged. But somewhere in the soil of her conscious, the truth had taken root and there was nothing she could do but watch it grow.

  Of course the man next to her wasn't her husband. He hadn't had a firefighter's uniform on, not even his helmet. Why hadn't that sounded crazy to her before? Jake might've taken his uniform off so he could run faster, but he would've at least kept his helmet. After all, the sky was raining debris from the Twin Towers—bodies, steel beams, broken glass.

  At first—back when they were in the hospital—Captain Hisel had said that Jake's helmet must have fallen off his head in the blast. But if that was true, why hadn't they found it? All of it made sense now.

  Sobs broke free and shook Jamie until she was almost certain she was going to throw up. Of course they hadn't found Jake's helmet. It was still on his head, still buried with him somewhere in the pile of debris. No doubt next to the body of Larry. The irony was as painful as it was sweet. She'd ignored that sign too. The fact that Jake would've been with Larry. The two never would've separated, even if it meant they both had to walk a single victim down the stairs before joining the rest of their men.

  “Jake …” The word was a moan, a cry that came from the depths of her soul. “Why, God … why?”

  In all her recent days of doubting the truth about the identity of the man she'd been living with, she'd never allowed herself to take the possibility this far, never acknowledged the fact that if the man wasn't really Jake, then Jake was dead. She'd never see him again, never kiss him or hold him.

  Hadn't she noticed the same things Captain Hisel had seen? The subtly different shape of the man's face, the differences in his mannerisms? Had it been merely wishful thinking to believe that somehow when the man in the guest room regained his memory he would magically turn into the Jake Bryan she'd loved since sixth grade?

  Jamie cried until she couldn't breathe, mourning the loss of the strapping man who'd been everything to her—her mentor and protector, her lover and friend. The most amazing father a little girl could ever hope to have.

  Thoughts of Sierra made the sobs come twice as fast. What would happen now? And how would she break the news to the carefree child, especially when the little girl had no doubts that the man who came home from the hospital with them was anyone less than her wonderful daddy?

  The entire mess was more complicated than Jamie could begin to work through. And there was something else too. What would happen to the man beside her? Suddenly, it hit her that he had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. For nearly three months he'd been training himself to be Jake Bryan, and even though the blood test told him he was someone else, neither of them had any idea who that person was.

  The tears slowed, and after what felt like a lifetime, Jamie strained back to a sitting position. It was impossible to sit straight, her shoulders bowed as though a mountain had grown across the back of them. After a moment she looked up and found the eyes of the man next to her. His face was wet, his eyes red. Sorrow and confusion, guilt and grief were among the emotions swimming there.

  “I'm sorry … about Jake,” he said, his voice strained and more than a little terrified.

  They came together in a hug then, an embrace that was different from the one they'd shared in the car. This time it was the embrace of two people lost in a world gone mad, a world in which they suddenly had only each other to understand the pain life had dealt them.

  “We still …” She sniffed and pulled back, taking his hand in hers. The touch of his skin felt comfortable, but not sensual, as though even her senses finally realized the truth about his real identity. “We still don't know who you are.”

  “No.”

  “And somewhere you probably have a … a blonde wife and a little boy. Don't you think?”

  He nodded, and fresh tears welled in his eyes. “My memory tells me that, but right now … I still feel like I'm married to you.” His gaze drifted to a distant row of trees and then back to her. “Like I'm still Sierra's daddy.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Jamie sounded like a child herself as she searched the man's face. “Where would you go?”

  For a long while he said nothing, just looked at her. Then he angled his head, his eyes pleading with her. “Ca
n I stay with you, Jamie? Until I remember.”

  Tears blurred her vision once more, and she stared straight up at the sky. A cry came from her, and she shook her head. God … how can You ask this of me? To share my life with someone who looks so much like Jake he takes my breath away?

  A line from the sermon that past week flashed in her mind. Love one another … as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

  Love?

  Jamie closed her eyes and tried to make sense of the notion. Her heart was utterly broken, her life forever changed. In what way would Christ's love help her find the strength to love a stranger? One who looked exactly like her dead husband? And what would be the point?

  Then … as though God was speaking the words directly to her soul … the answer came. Jesus had loved her with His entire being. He had laid down His life so that she might live. And now that's what God wanted her to do for the man beside her. Love him … in a way that meant laying down her own feelings, giving up her own pain. She must ignore the canyon of grief within her and help him find his way home. Even if it killed her.

  All so that someday he might find life again.

  She opened her eyes and found his face once more, studied his eyes, the fear and anticipation there as she considered her answer. Then she took his hands in hers and felt the corners of her mouth inch their way up her swollen cheeks. “Yes … you can stay with me until you remember.” She drew a breath and felt a supernatural presence within her, holding her up and sustaining her, preparing her for the painful times ahead. “I know you're not Jake … and I know our time together will be short.” She grabbed two quick breaths. “You're not my husband and … and you're not Sierra's daddy.” She paused, breathing in the sight of him, doing everything in her power to convince herself that he really wasn't Jake. “I have just one request.”

  “Okay.” The kind man's eyes swam with tears as their eyes held. “Anything.”

  “Please … as long as you're living with us … don't tell Sierra the truth.”

  With each passing hour, the shock echoed more loudly across the arid plains of Jamie's heart. By the end of the first night she knew she was still breathing because of God's strength alone. The nurse's words sounded in her mind at least every minute or so.

  You're one of the lucky ones…. O-negative … the most common blood type of all. You're one of the lucky ones … lucky ones …

  How was it possible?

  Jake had died, and she hadn't even mourned his death, hadn't even known that his body was one of the thousands crushed in the collapse of the towers. Would she have gone to Ground Zero, or maybe stayed at the station waiting for word? She would've been crazy with fear, desperate for news. But eventually she would've known, and then she would've grieved with the other firefighter wives. She and Sue would've sat together at the memorial services, each of them holding the other up when standing was no longer an option.

  But Jamie had missed all of it.

  The next day, morning had the nerve to come, having no respect for her feelings, and bringing with it all the awful reality of her life. That the man in the downstairs guest room, the one who looked and talked and smelled like her husband, the one who even thought like him, wasn't him at all, but a perfect stranger.

  Jamie imagined that in firefighter households across the city a proper time of grieving was taking place. But not here, not now. Absent were the phone calls from friends, the comfort of family. Her public grieving would have to wait until the man downstairs—whoever he was—found his way home. Only then could she admit to Jake's buddies, to Captain Hisel and Jake's father, that the man they'd prayed for and held bedside vigil for was not the man they knew and loved.

  She'd spent the past two months living with another woman's husband. Meanwhile, Jake was gone … he was gone. Lost forever. A part of her wanted to get dressed and head for Ground Zero, the place firefighters were calling “the pile.” Maybe they'd found something—his body or his helmet. His wedding ring.

  The morning sun streamed through the window, and she rolled over onto Jake's side of the bed. His pillowcase didn't smell like him anymore, but she buried her face in it anyway. If she'd known he wasn't coming home, she never would've washed it. She moaned his name into the fibers of the pillow and felt another wave of sobs come over her.

  I'm sorry, Jake … God, let him know I'm sorry … I didn't know. I would've been there looking for him myself, waiting for him. Willing him to live. Oh, God … I'm sorry. I can't do this …

  Daughter, I'm with you always … even now.

  The thought was the faintest breeze in the still, dark place where her heart once lived. They were Jake's words … words she'd seen in his journal. Or maybe the words were from God. Yes … that had to be it. They were highlighted in Jake's Bible. God was with her, and that was at least some comfort.

  But that didn't ease the pain.

  She still clung to Jake's pillowcase. She wanted to stay buried there, but she had to breathe. The pillow was soggy from her tears, and she stared at their wedding photo, the one on Jake's bedside nightstand. “Jake, why …” She ached all over, and her words were muffled and blurred. “You told me God wasn't finished with you … that nothing … nothing would happen to you.”

  A sound made its way up the stairs, and she held her breath for a moment and wiped at her tears. Sierra! She was awake and moving around downstairs in the kitchen. Probably about to find the man in the guest room and wake him up, beg another horsey ride. The man she thought was her daddy.

  It was time to dry her tears and begin pretending.

  “Daddy … where are you? Time to get up.” Her daughter's voice filtered up the stairs, each word a dart to the centermost part of Jamie's soul.

  God … help me …

  She moved like someone who'd aged a hundred years overnight, but she managed to climb out of bed. The covers couldn't hide the truth about her life. Just when she thought it might all go back to normal, now it was unraveling before her eyes. And besides, the man who looked like Jake needed her. Thirty minutes later she had showered and dressed and applied enough makeup to hide her swollen eyes.

  As ready as she'd ever be to face the day, her first day as a widow. Her first day without Jake.

  They had a few things to work out, and Jamie wanted a plan sooner than later.

  After breakfast they agreed she would continue to call him Jake so Sierra wouldn't be confused. In addition, they had to consider the guys at the fire station and people at church.

  “The newspapers will have a field day with this story if we let the truth out now.” Jamie shared that with him over breakfast. She dragged her hand over the air above her head. “‘Mistaken Identity Leaves Man Without a Home.’ We can't do that.”

  “So what's the answer?”

  The only solution that would work for everyone was an obvious one. They would simply have to pretend. Until he remembered enough details to find his way home, they would act as if he were Jake. He would spend every waking moment trying to recall his name, his address … his place of employment. Anything that might help. And in the meantime, he would be Jake Bryan to everyone who knew him.

  Everyone but Jamie.

  Then, when the time finally came for him to go home, he would do so quietly without fanfare. And only then would Jamie tell Sierra that her father had died helping people in a fire. That Jesus had asked him to come home, after all.

  The days that passed were painfully slow. The gentle man living in her home still carried with him dozens of Jake's attitudes and attributes. He still gave Sierra horsey rides and curled her hair before church on Sundays. The three of them shared a quiet Thanksgiving, but several times during the meal his eyes met hers, and the two of them knew.

  It was only a matter of time.

  On Jamie's worst days, when she and Sierra and the man living with them still felt like a family, when her heart simply couldn't be convinced that Jake wasn't alive and well and living among them, Jamie would have the most a
wful thought. She would wish that maybe—just maybe—the man would never find his way home and she and Sierra could keep him forever.

  But that wasn't right, and it wasn't really what she wanted. She wanted Jake, and since she couldn't have him, she could hardly force a stranger to take his place. Even if the man's memory never returned. Always when those thoughts hit her, Jamie would find a quiet place and read Jake's Bible. She'd read over and over again the verses about the strength of God and the plans He had for His people. Plans to give her a hope and a future.

  After an hour with the Lord, Jamie could usually think straight again, straight enough to know that the thing she really wanted was to love the stranger in the guest room enough to help him find his way home. And whatever pain would come after that, she had to believe that somehow God would see them through it.

  Gradually, the flashbacks became more regular, the details within them more fine-tuned. He hated the way they confirmed the truth—that he wasn't Jake Bryan after all. He remembered looking at the helmet of the firefighter, seeing Sierra's picture and name taped inside. The river of people heading down the stairs, and the firefighters going up. When he thought they might help, that they might lend some type of healing to the pain Jamie was going through, he'd share the details of his flashbacks with her.

  They spent nearly every evening at the computer working their way through news articles from September 11, and a photolisting of the thousands of people killed in the World Trade Center, searching for a face that might look like Jake's. The photos were organized in alphabetical order, and by Thursday they were making their way through the Ts. One in ten victims names had no photo attached—so there were no guarantees the exercise would turn up anything.

  Still they had to try.

  Jamie pointed to an image that was blurred. “Can you tell what color his hair is?”

  “Too red.”

  Jamie gave a hard sigh. “You're right.” She moved to the next image.