“He’s not home right now.”
“Yes, that’s right.” He released a heartfelt sigh and rubbed his forehead as if it were hurting him. He looked truly distressed, but maybe the worst pain wasn’t physical. “I wish I could remember my own kids.”
“Me, too.” She eased the minivan into the garage. “My sister Katherine will be bringing them home in a little while. She was thoughtful enough to offer to take them a bit longer, so you could face things one step at a time.”
“Katherine is the one in college?”
“No, that’s Rebecca. Katherine is my older sister.”
“Oh. Okay.” He gave a wobbly half smile, half frown. The left side of his face still troubled him. “I will get it.”
“You will. Don’t worry.”
She pulled the emergency brake and shut off the engine, deliberately concentrating on each task because it was predictable and familiar. Unlike her marriage. She’d been praying for this day to come for so long, it had begun to feel unreal and impossible.
Now, after a long hospital stay and a longer period in rehabilitation, they were alone together. The garage door slid shut behind them. She was alone with her husband, the man she no longer knew. The man who could not remember the simplest things about their marriage. When he turned his questioning gaze to hers, she knew that he did not know what to expect. He remembered nothing new.
Disappointment sifted through her. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she felt her lungs burn. She had to remember to breathe. She had faith, and it would lift them both up, right?
Right, she told herself, fighting off a world of doubt, despite her strong belief. The journey ahead of her—of them—seemed monumental.
“Let’s go inside, and maybe once you’re in the house things will seem more familiar to you.” She grabbed her keys and her purse and forced a smile.
His dear face, the same in many ways and changed in others, stared back at her. “What if it doesn’t? I’m—” He grimaced. “I don’t know the word. I’m—” Frustrated, he stared down at his gnarled hand.
“It doesn’t matter, Jonas. It’s okay.” She wanted to believe that.
As she stepped from the seat and closed the door behind her, she realized he was still sitting in the minivan, with tension on his face and sadness in his eyes. What must it be like, she wondered, to come home to a place you could not remember? To feel the weight of a wife’s need and expectations?
She took another deep breath and opened his car door. Poor Jonas. She helped him out and unfolded his walker. His right hand gripped the walker’s handles with white-knuckled force while his left one struggled to do so. All the love in her heart flooded out, filling her with sweet tenderness. This was hard for her, but it was harder for him, and at least he was here. He was here. She was deeply grateful for that.
She slipped her purse strap onto her shoulder and her keys into her jacket pocket and took Jonas’s frail arm. “This is going to be tricky. It’s a long way to the door for you, so lean on me.”
“I can get it.” He looked so determined as he moved his nerve-damaged leg.
While the Good Lord had been gracious in bringing Jonas back to her, the bullet had not been kind. Her heart broke as he struggled so hard to cross the garage floor, even with her help. By the quiet steely set to his jaw, she could tell he hated it. Her once-strong, invincible husband, who rarely missed a workout at the gym the entire time she’d known him, was now forced to lean on her and his walker.
“Don’t tell me,” he quipped between struggled steps. “I used to do this faster.”
“Yes, you did.” Danielle unlocked the garage door. “But I always said our lives were going by too fast, we were always rushing here and there. It’s nice to slow down and take in the sights.”
He stopped to smile, and his grin was lopsided and strained. “I’m taking the, what is it, slow—something?”
“It’s the scenic route.” She hit the remote on her key ring and the security system stopped beeping. She held the door patiently while he struggled to get his walker and then his feet over the doorstep. She stopped him with a touch of her hand to his. “Look around. You made it. You’re home.”
He was silent for a moment, gazing down the hall as if taking in the details of woodwork and walls, of the living room ahead and, to the right, the archway leading to the kitchen. “The kids.”
At first she didn’t know what he meant, but then she realized he was commenting on the framed photographs marching along the wall. “Yes. These are the pictures I have taken once a year at a professional photographer.”
“That’s why they’re tidy.”
“Yes.” She looked at the carefully posed photographs with rich backgrounds. “The kids are in their best clothes. It was a challenge keeping them that clean and neat for the short drive from here to their appointments.”
“No ice cream in the car?” There was that lopsided grin again, but this time with a hint of his old smile, too.
Her heart filled at the glimpse of her husband she knew and loved so well. “No ice cream,” she agreed. “They had to wait until after the sitting. I have more pictures throughout the house, but they’re snapshots.”
“Not as tidy.”
“No. In fact, there are some very messy pictures.”
“Pictures of you, too?” His smile faded. Something serious, and maybe a little bit fearful, came onto his face.
I wish I knew what he was feeling, she thought wistfully. Once, she’d known him so well, there would have been no question. She would have known what he was thinking even before he did.
Determined to stay upbeat, she laid her hand on his broad shoulder. “Yes, there are pictures of me. And of you.”
“I want to see them.”
“Sure, but it’s going to take a long time to go through them. There are so many.”
“I’ve got time. Lots of time.”
She watched the pain on his face and didn’t know what more to say. “Down the hall is the living room. Let’s get you sitting down.”
“I need to rest.” He nodded once in agreement and set his chin. After gripping the handles of his walker tightly, he concentrated on stepping forward. The carpet absorbed most of the thunk and shuffling sounds as he painfully made his way down the short hallway. He was out of breath by the time he reached the living room. She supported his elbow as he dropped, exhausted, onto the couch.
“I’ll be right back.” She smiled at him.
There wasn’t the zing of emotional connection that had always been between them, and as she hurried to the kitchen, she fought deeper frustrations. Why had she thought things would be better once they were home?
It wasn’t fair to put so much pressure on him, she realized while she filled his favorite mug with water and zapped it in the microwave.
She needed to give him all the time he needed, no matter how hard that would be. He’d asked for pictures, and that’s where they would start. As the water heated, she grabbed a small book of snapshots from the corner hutch in the dining room. She caught her husband watching her as she came toward him.
He looked terribly serious, and she wondered if he was disappointed in her. She was painfully aware of the wash-worn jeans she’d put on this morning—the laundry was woefully behind—and the favorite summery T-shirt was hardly high fashion.
She’d been spending so little thought and even less time on her appearance. What if she looked like Frankenstein’s bride after standing all night in the rain? Worse,