Suddenly, the flashback returned. Him walking down the stairwell and tripping, Jake helping him up, and then … something else. He turned so his chair faced hers. “Jamie …”
“Definitely not.” She was looking at the picture of a balding man ten years his senior. “Way too old.”
“Not the picture, Jamie …” He waited for her to look at him. “I remembered something.”
She blinked, her hands frozen over the keyboard. “What?”
“Something Jake said.” Tension filled the space between them. “He told me Sierra was his little girl.”
Jamie's eyes widened. “You remember that?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“What …” Tears filled her eyes, and her face grew a shade paler. “What else did he say?”
“Jamie …” This was the hard part. His memories were giving her a window to Jake's final minutes.
“Tell me.” She swallowed hard. “I want to know.”
There was a pause. “He said he'd better get moving. His buddies were going up without him.”
She stared at him a moment longer, and her voice was the quietest whisper. “The building was already shaking, right? Isn't that what you said?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Then why?” Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned toward him, letting her head rest on his shoulder. “Why didn't he get out of there?”
“Ah, Jamie …” He took gentle hold of her arms and kissed the top of her head. “Don't. You know he couldn't do that …” He kept his voice low and soothing. She wasn't crying, but she was obviously drained, and she leaned forward as his arms came around her. The familiarity between them had changed since they'd gotten the news about his identity.
But it definitely hadn't disappeared.
“Listen …” He wanted to say something before the moment passed. “I didn't know Jake when he was alive … but I know him now, Jamie. I do. I know his thoughts, and believe me, he would never have gone back down those stairs.”
She sat up, her movements slow and deliberate. Their eyes met and held, and he could see a hint of acceptance, one that hadn't been there before. She shrugged and managed a sad smile. “I know.” For a second it looked like she might say something else, but then she shook her head and gave a soft huff. “I know.”
The days wore on, and Jamie reminded herself every hour that the man living with them wasn't Jake. But some moments it was just about impossible to convince herself.
Once they were at the breakfast table, and Sierra finished her cereal and came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him on his cheek. “Let's go to the library today, Daddy.” Her eyes danced with possibility. “We need more books.”
“More books? What about that bookcase upstairs?” He tapped his finger on the end of her nose and grinned at her. “Let's get through those first.”
“Oh, Daddy. Please …”
Then he tousled her hair and winked at her. “No's a no, sweetheart.”
And Jamie closed her eyes and thought somehow there had to be a mistake. The words, the tone, the expression, as he talked to Sierra. All of it was Jake. It had to be …
Another time she found him in the guest room sitting up in the bed, poring over Jake's Bible. He was so lost in whatever he was reading that once again he didn't hear her enter the room. Jamie had been crying that day and her eyes stung, but she refused to blink, refused to do anything but stare at the image the man made and pretend, just for a heartbeat, that Jake was alive.
She was still looking at him when he glanced up and smiled at her. “Have you read the book of James?” He pointed to the worn pages on his lap. “It's amazing, Jamie. Come look.”
She hesitated, forcing herself to stay calm. Jake did that, didn't he? Asked her to sit beside him while he read James or Ephesians or Romans. Whichever book he was studying that week.
And that was something else she did. When they weren't working to find out his identity, or taking Sierra to the park or cleaning or cooking or shopping—she read Scripture. The pastor at church had given her a Bible, and she would take Jake's journal or his scribbled margin notes and find verses he'd once loved. The exercise made her feel as close to him as anything she could do. Almost as though he were sitting beside her as she worked.
In those times she was more at peace than at any other. Jamie understood why, of course. God was helping her, drawing her close and preparing her for the pain that lay ahead. Because it was coming, no question about it. But not now, not yet. Not as long as the man who looked like Jake still lived with her.
And her imagination was sometimes fierce.
All she had to do was look at him and watch him, talk to him and hug him for the questions to start coming. Could the blood test have been wrong? Were flashbacks sometimes seen in reverse, somehow? The more doubts that came, the more she would wish they'd never find the man's identity. As the days drifted by, there were times when she would've sworn in a court of law that the man living with her was no longer some businessman, a stranger with a blonde wife and a little boy waiting at home for him.
He was Jake Bryan once more, the one she'd fallen in love with back when she was twelve years old.
THIRTY-TWO
DECEMBER 4, 2001
By the end of the second week, Jake had no doubt that he'd been a businessman working in the south tower when the building collapsed. Somehow halfway down the stairwell he'd met up with a man who must've been Jake Bryan.
There, he must've fallen and been helped up by him, and in the process Jake must've lost his helmet. That's when Jake would've seen Sierra's picture and her name. The rest of the way down, he would've known that the firefighter who'd looked so much like him wasn't going to get out of the building alive. And that the little girl, Sierra, wasn't going to have a daddy after that awful morning.
The moment must've been so powerful that it was the only one not erased from his long-term memory when the south tower collapsed and shot him beneath the fire truck.
That much of the story—as wild and crazy as it was—finally made sense both to him and to Jamie. But other details were slow in coming. The blonde woman had appeared in many flashbacks since that first one two weeks earlier. She was his wife; he had no doubt about that.
Some of the scenes he remembered now were so vivid they made him cry. Times when he and his pretty wife had first met, and the two of them would sit outside some small outbuilding, her singing while he played the guitar. The love he felt for her in those moments was overwhelmingly real. But it clashed strongly with memories that felt more recent, memories of him rushing out the door to spend another weekend at the office—wherever he worked.
He had enough pieces of the puzzle now to know that he'd been nothing like Jake Bryan.
Though his memories told him he'd loved the blonde woman at first, though he'd celebrated the birth of the son they apparently shared, he had let everything about their love grow cold. All so that he could get ahead in whatever business he'd been involved in.
And something else hit him. Somehow he remembered having a daughter, but never actually holding her. Nothing about her face or voice flashed in his mind, but her presence was real all the same. He wondered if he was only thinking of Sierra, wishing her to be his, or whether there really had been a little girl in his life, maybe a child he and his wife had lost.
He hoped that someday the memory of her would make sense.
In his quiet moments, when Jamie was playing outside with Sierra and he was able to spend time remembering, he found it sadly ironic that a job might've become more important than his family. A job he couldn't even remember now.
And then there was the matter of his faith. He was fairly sure he'd been a believer before the terrorist attacks, but his faith must've grown cold in recent years. All of that had changed, of course. God had allowed him to become the husband and father he'd never really been, by living in the shoes of a man who no longer was.
The idea was almost more than he could g
rasp.
Many nights since he'd taken the blood test, Jamie would sit up with him after Sierra was in bed and go over a list of the companies that had once been located in the south tower of the World Trade Center. They were both fairly positive that he'd worked in that building, because that was the one Jake would've been in. And his brief meeting with Jake was something they both agreed must've happened.
They'd go down the list of names one at a time. Seabury & Smith…. Harris Beach & Wilcox … Frenkel & Company … Morgan Stanley. Jamie would say the name of the company out loud and then show it to him. He'd ponder it for a moment, repeating it over and over again. When no memory was stirred, they'd go down the list until finally he couldn't take another moment of it. By now they'd been through the various companies two times, and still nothing sounded familiar.
Eventually, he would remember who he was, but how would he ever let go of them? Sierra had claimed a piece of his heart he'd never regain. And what about Jamie? Up until the blood test, he'd been sure he was falling in love with her. But his memories made it clear that somewhere out there—probably only a dozen miles away—a woman was grieving his loss, believing him dead. A woman and a boy he had treated badly for who knew how many years.
A woman and a boy he wanted a second chance with, the second chance he'd prayed for in the moments before the building collapsed.
It was Monday night, and Jamie had just finished giving Sierra a bath. “Daddy … come kiss me good night.” Her little voice sang out through the old house and tugged at Jake's heart.
“Okay, baby. I'll be right there.”
He stood up and headed toward the stairs. They were familiar to him now, and he took them two at a time. The truth was, he had two families. One he knew, but didn't belong to. And one he belonged to, but didn't know. The entire situation was too strange to fathom completely. He reached the last step. God … make it all work out somehow. Please …
He walked through the door and met Jamie's stare in the shadows of Sierra's pink bedroom. Their eyes held for a moment, and then he let his gaze fall to Sierra. She held her arms out. “Daddy …”
“Good night, princess.” He moved to the edge of her bed and ran his fingers through the wispy blonde curls that surrounded her forehead. “Let's pray.”
This was their routine, the one they'd established since Jake had come home from the hospital. It was nothing new to Sierra, because Jake Bryan had been the kind of man who made a point of being home when his daughter went to bed each night. The kind of man who prayed with her and played with her, giggled with her and gave her horsey rides on demand.
And now, because of Jake—because of all that the man had written in his journal and in his Bible—he had become that kind of man too.
Jamie put her hand on his shoulder as the three of them closed their eyes and bowed their heads. “Dear Jesus.” Sierra's voice soothed the anxious places in his heart. “Thank You for a good day, and thank You for my mommy and daddy.” She paused and added the line she'd added ever since finding out about Larry. “Please tell Katy's daddy in heaven hi for us, and when Katy's sad because she misses him, give her a little hug, Jesus. Amen.”
Jake felt the gentle squeeze of Jamie's hand on his shoulder. “Lord, thank You for giving us strength each day, and for the joy to know that Your mercies are new every morning. Please protect us as we sleep. Amen.”
It was his turn. He cleared his throat and began. “Lord, You are faithful and true, and Mommy is right. Your mercies are new every morning. Help us hang on to that all the days of our lives, no matter what tomorrow might bring.” He paused. “And help Sierra know how very much we love her.”
He bent to kiss Sierra, usually a simple kiss on her cheek. But this time she framed his face with her little-girl hands and searched his eyes. “Butterfly kisses, Daddy. Okay?”
Jake knew the routine by now, and he rubbed his nose against hers three times. Next without hesitating, he turned his face just enough so that they could brush their eyelashes against each other's cheeks. When they were done, a smile lit up her face. “You're the best daddy in the whole world.”
As Jake and Jamie held hands and left the room, he thought of the blonde woman and the lonely little boy. The one he hadn't seen nearly enough in the past few years. And that moment he uttered a silent prayer, one that he'd been praying more often lately.
That one day, the words Sierra had just said would be true.
The breakthrough happened an hour later.
Jamie was upstairs brushing her teeth when a commercial came on television. It showed a man walking across the floor of an office building, and then stopping to look at the camera. “Koppel and Grant took a big hit on September 11. We lost two employees and our entire New York City office.” The man leaned against a nearby desk. “While we grieve with all of Manhattan over the losses wrought upon us by the terrorist attacks, we are here today to say that we survived. This month we will open a new office in Manhattan.” The man gazed out a window at the altered skyline of the city. “Koppel and Grant wants the evil people who sought to destroy us to know one thing very clearly. We're still here. And with the help of people here in New York and all across America, we'll be here for many years to come.”
The image faded, and an insignia flashed on the screen while the man's voice repeated. “Koppel and Grant. In Los Angeles and now … again … in New York City. An investment name you could trust then. An investment name you can trust now.”
Jake stood up, his knees trembling. “Jamie!” He hissed her name, careful not to wake Sierra.
He could hear her padded feet running from her room and down the stairs. In the time it took her to reach his side, he was certain beyond any shadow of a doubt.
“I remember something.”
For a single moment, he saw grief and regret mingle in the depth of Jamie's heart, and he understood. They'd talked about it before; how there were times when they wished he would never remember. But just as quickly, the sorrow passed and Jamie swallowed.
“What … tell me?”
He pointed at the television. “I used to work for Koppel and Grant.”
Jamie made the call the next morning.
They'd decided to start with the new office in Manhattan. After all, Jake must've worked in New York, since he was in the building when the terrorist attacks took place. It took Jamie only a few seconds to locate the phone number for the new Koppel and Grant headquarters, and then for a long moment she and the kind man across from her merely stared at each other.
They both knew the score.
If the phone calls Jamie was about to make led them to the man's actual identity … to his family … then their days together would be over. Maybe as soon as the following day. Once more Jamie entertained the wild idea of tossing out the number and begging this man who looked and acted so much like Jake to stay with her and Sierra. But he belonged to someone else, and again the moment passed. Instead, Jamie took his hands in hers, bowed her head and prayed, begging God that this detail about Koppel and Grant might be the answer they'd been looking for.
“We pray that even in the next few minutes You would help—” Jamie had been about to say Jake's name, but she caught herself. “Help my friend find his family.”
Through teary eyes, Jamie leveled a sad smile at the man. “Okay, then …” She drew a deep breath and picked up the receiver. “This is it.”
Sierra was across the street once more, so they had privacy to take as long as they needed to make phone calls. She punched in the numbers, and over the next ten minutes, she was passed from a secretary to a division manager to the department head and finally to the director of personnel.
Each time Jamie explained the situation, how she was trying to help a victim from September 11 find his family, and how the man now thought he'd once worked for Koppel and Grant. But always the person on the other end would fall silent for a moment, and then explain how he or she was new or how they didn't handle those types of matters. Then Jamie
would be connected to someone else, someone who might really be able to help her. By the time the director of personnel answered the line, Jamie's patience and anxiety were both at the breaking point. Next to her, the stranger she'd come to love sat barely breathing, his eyes locked on hers.
“Can I help you?”
The woman on the other end sounded pleasant, but Jamie had to close her eyes for three seconds before she felt calm enough to speak. “Yes … I have a friend here with me who was hurt in the World Trade Center on September 11. He … he's had amnesia.” Jamie met the man's eyes and felt the familiar bond they'd built in the days since the attacks. She looked away so she could concentrate. “The thing is, this man now thinks that maybe he once worked for Koppel and Grant. What I need to have is a list of the people from your company who were killed when the south tower collapsed.”
“Well,” the woman hesitated. “It's a short list. Koppel and Grant lost just two employees.”
That's the information the commercial had provided the night before, but Jamie wanted to make sure. Her heartbeat quickened. If there really were only two names on the dead or missing list, then it should be easy to figure out whether the man sitting across from her was one of them. Jamie rested her forehead in her hand and closed her eyes. Give me strength, God … help me desire what You desire. “Can … can you give me their names, maybe tell me a little bit about them.”
“Ummm.” The woman considered the request, and for a few painful seconds silence filled the line. Then the woman lowered her voice some. “Oh, why not. The guys are dead, anyway.” She drew a slow breath. “Everyone knew them—they were the top people in the company.”
Jamie shot a look at the man beside her. The top men in the company? The man who'd shared her home these past months acted nothing like a business mogul. He smiled and covered her free hand with his. Jamie blinked at the thought. An executive? It wasn't possible. She focused on the matter at hand. “What were their names?”
“One was R. Allen Koppel, and the other was Eric Michaels.”