Sweet Giordan Please Remember Read online

  Dedication

  For Evin, my green-eyed druid. You were right.

  And look where we are because of it!

  And for Lisa Campbell, who thinks Chloe Devereaux

  should be in every story ever.

  Acknowledgments

  For Cate Ashwood’s kindness, patience, wisdom, grace, understanding, and most of all, friendship… there are simply not enough thank-yous. Nor enough pie.

  A very special thank you to Amy J. Fisher, without whom there would be no Raine O’Tierney. (Or she’d be called something else at least!) You’ve always had my back, and you’ll never know just how much that means to me.

  Sweet Giordan, Please Remember

  CHLOE DEVEREAUX’S hands were gentle as she helped Giordan step into the bath.

  The first time she’d stripped him naked in that no-nonsense way of hers, he’d flushed from head to toe and tried to cover himself with his hands. Chloe clucked her tongue and let him know that being a wife, mother, and new grandmother—though how can someone so young possibly have a grandbaby?—she had seen her share of dangles. Surprisingly, this frank admission helped, and he let her run the soapy sponge over his naked back. Besides, it was quickly evident that with his stiff right side, Giordan needed her help.

  This particular morning, Giordan shakily sank into the steaming bubbles, neither ashamed nor protesting as Chloe helped him adjust his position. His left knee bent fully while his right moved barely an inch. His hip, too, didn’t work properly on that side. The ugly pink scars that zigzagged from his waist down his hip and leg almost all the way to the ankle served as outward warning: He was broken.

  Chloe, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows, hummed as she dipped the rag into the bath. Lifting it, she let the water rain down over his shoulders. It felt familiar in the way everything did. An almost-memory or a dream. He tried not to overthink these moments, or he’d end up crushing the familiarity right out of the situation. Too many frustrated days had taught him this lesson.

  There were only two things he remembered with the concrete certainty of ever having existed at all: His name was Giordan Stone and he was an artist. The rest of it was covered by a mental veil too thick to see through. In that, he supposed he had a third concrete truth. Giordan had amnesia.

  “Dr. P’s comin’ by today,” Chloe told him, breaking into her sweet song. She helped him lean back into the water so she could wash his hair. “I told her that we had things in hand, but I guess we don’t pay her the big bucks for nothin’.”

  Giordan had learned quickly he wasn’t supposed to argue with Chloe. His first day out of the hospital, the day he insisted on helping out, she favored him with a look so displeased it still made him shudder when he thought about it. Chloe was firmly in charge, and what she said, went.

  She told him then and there, in that sweet southern accent of hers, that she had been expecting a pliant patient who would let her mother and coddle him. “After raising two of the most stubborn children God has seen fit to bless a woman with,” Chloe had said, eyes flashing, “and makin’ a home for a husband with his head so far up his ass he might as well do his own colonoscopy”—she tapped him lightly on the nose—“I am lookin’ forward to no questions, no back talk, and no lip, Giordan Stone. Now, there is no way in the sulfur-stinkin’ fires of hell that you are settin’ a foot outta this bed, lest you mean to use the toilet or take a bath, and until I say so, you’re doin’ both under my watchful eye.” She wagged one stern finger at him, her wooden bangles clacking at her wrist.

  “All right,” he agreed meekly.

  “Once you tip the scales at one thirty-five, then we’ll talk about chores. Don’t worry,” she chuffed, “I’m savin’ ’em up for you. In the meantime, your job is to eat.”

  He had obliged her that first day by picking a toast point off his breakfast tray and putting it into his mouth.

  After Chloe finished washing and rinsing his hair and had assured herself that every bit of him was clean, she said, “After this, we’ll get some breakfast. We’ve got to impress Dr. P so she’ll leave us be for a time. We’ll show her what an excellent eater you’ve become.”

  He thought it was the sort of thing one would say to a finicky five-year-old, but it was hard to be insulted by Chloe. Despite the short time they’d been reunited, he loved her like a real mother.

  She was gentle as she toweled him off and helped him back into his pajamas.

  “You know I don’t believe in bullshit, Giordan,” she said, as she walked slowly with him back to the bed, “so you’ll believe me when I say that I think you’re already lookin’ a thousand times healthier than when I first saw you lyin’ there in the hospital.”

  “MAMAN?” HE asked quietly. Sometimes, Giordan was afraid to speak too loud in this warm, well-lit space. He was soft-spoken by nature, but it was almost as if by speaking up, he would fracture the illusion of comfort that cocooned him. He guessed that’s what happened when one had spent the better part of the last seven months living under a bridge. Her guest room, with the lilacs on the nightstand and the lace curtains and the private bath, all seemed like a delicate mirage, ready to fade at any moment.

  “Yes, Giordan?” she asked.

  “Do you have something I could read?”

  “Somethin’ to read?” Chloe repeated, tapping her chin as she thought. “Of course, we’ve lots of books on the shelves, anythin’ you want. Or I suppose, if I don’t have somethin’ to your taste, I could always make a trip into town and pay back some of those fines the Reverie Public Library has been houndin’ me about. What do you like, honey?”

  Chloe had been transparent with him from the beginning about how she intended to handle his amnesia. She shared the advice she’d received from the many experts and professionals she had consulted on the topic. Chloe said she didn’t like “tricking him” and she’d always be straight with him if she could. The last expert she spoke to said she was supposed to ask him questions about his preferences and his past, not to push him too hard, but not to tread on eggshells either.

  She always asked Giordan questions in an off-handed way, like he’d heard her do when she was sussing out gossip from one of the ladies in her church group or one of the other members of the Reverie Chapter of the Women’s Democratic Society. Her husband being the mayor of Reverie, she was naturally the president of the chapter, and as such, in a prime position to overhear lots of interesting things that weren’t, strictly speaking, any of her business.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. He couldn’t remember ever having read anything before. Most of his days were spent sketching or painting. “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, there’s one my book club just read that I’ve got sittin’ on my nightstand. It’s about an art forger in Missouri. There’s some mystery and some romance in it. I didn’t think it was near as borin’ as the last book the club picked. Would you like to read it maybe?”

  His ears had perked up at the word “art”—she’d definitely guessed right.

  “Maman?” he asked again. She motioned at the tray of food she’d set down in front of him, telling him to eat. He dutifully stabbed his eggs with his fork.

  “Yes, Giordan?”

  “I’ve been thinking….” Sometimes it’s all he did, just think. “Do you know how old I am?”

  The simplest questions were the ones he often forgot to ask. When he first met her, he found himself curiously quizzing her about his past and his family and his life beyond the veil, but simple things like his age fell to the wayside until, randomly, he remembered to ask.

  “I think you’re thirty-two or… maybe thirty-three,” she answered, after a long moment calculating secretly in her head. “I
don’t think your birthday’s until the summer.”

  “Already thirty.” He sighed.

  “It’s not so bad, Giordan. You could be pushin’ up on sixty. Which I’m not.” She winked at him. “I have spent the last five years being forty-nine. So honey, until we have your birth certificate to prove otherwise, we can celebrate your twenty-ninth, if you want.”

  He grinned and put more egg into his mouth.

  “Let me go get you that book, all right?”

  DR. P was shorter even than Chloe, who, when she stood her straightest, didn’t quite hit five two. The doctor was a fierce little woman with a pixie haircut and a devilish grin, and every bit as obstinate as his surrogate Maman. She spoke quickly and confidently.

  When she asked Chloe to step out of the room while she performed the examination, an argument immediately broke out between the two women. Chloe refused outright, and Dr. P raised one dark eyebrow, putting her hands on her small hips and planting her feet into the carpet as if readying herself for a physical altercation.

  “Now, Chloe Devereaux,” she clipped with a tight smile, “I’m pretty sure mine is the name with the MD behind it.”

  “Yes, you do have your fancy title from a big ol’ university, don’t you, Andie? You’ll forgive me that my credentials are a little less impressive. Unless you consider that I raised two children to their full, healthy potential? And that I’ve certainly seen all manner of illness and indecency, same as you. But with all due respect, if, and only if, Giordan tells me he’d like privacy, then I’ll give it. Otherwise, I’d prefer to stay right where I am.”

  The women stared each other down, eyes flashing, for one long, incredibly tense moment. Chloe’s mouth was set in a tight line; Dr. P’s was curled up in a little smile.

  “Giordan?” The doctor finally asked, turning to look at him, and Giordan realized that in addition to being feisty, she was also a woman who knew how to pick her battles. He nodded at her that it was okay for Chloe to stay.

  Dr. P was clinical as she ran her hands over his body—feeling for what, he didn’t quite know. The scars from the accident that had left him comatose were long healed, but it was the months after he’d awoken—the months he’d spent living in shelters and on the street and under the bridge—that had wasted him to nothing. When they found him and took him back to the hospital, he was running a dangerously high fever. He was malnourished, dehydrated, and delirious.

  “Can you walk for me, Mr. Stone?” Dr. P asked. She was standing right near him, so he could see the gold flecks glinting in her hazel eyes and the freckles that covered her lovely face. He hadn’t expected her to be disgusted by his thin, broken body—after all, she was a doctor; she probably encountered thin and broken all the time. Still, he flushed to have her gaze so firmly on his face.

  “Don’t you think you’re taxin’ the boy, Andie?” Chloe asked loudly, but held up her hands in peace when Dr. P gave her a look that rivaled her own most protective scowls.

  Giordan couldn’t walk right.

  The left leg moved with a fine fluid grace. The right leg was stiff and awkward and wouldn’t bend correctly. He ended up dragging it limply along behind him.

  “Do you think practice would help?” Chloe asked as Giordan collapsed onto his bed, exhausted from what should have been the small effort of walking the length of the room. He could see the gears in Chloe’s brain turning; she was already planning out daily walks and stretches and exercises they could do to help loosen the leg.

  “I think physical therapy would certainly benefit him. I wouldn’t start for a couple of weeks still. Bed rest,” Dr. P said, nodding at Giordan, who nodded back sheepishly. Then she said to Chloe, “And I’ve brought some nutritional materials to help plan his meals. He’s still very underweight.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry at all about my feedin’ him. I’ve got that in hand. By the time I’m through with the boy, he’ll be fatter than a hog let loose in an all-you-can-eat buffet.” She beamed with pride as she said this.

  “As far as all the rest goes, Mr. Stone,” Dr. P said, smiling brightly. “You seem to be making good progress. Keep to your medicine schedule, keep up with the fluids, and try not to wear yourself out. You had a nasty virus, and it’s just going to take a little time to get back to normal. Rest is the best thing for you right now.”

  When Dr. P had gone and Chloe tucked Giordan into his bed, she kissed his cheek and told him, as she did every day, how happy she was to have him in her home.

  “I’m happy to be here,” he replied, wishing he knew how to say more. He wasn’t very good with words. The journal he kept by the bed, the one the therapist insisted he write in, was full of simple statements about his day.

  Ate toast for breakfast.

  Overheard Chloe downstairs with her women’s group. She mentioned me.

  Wish I could remember everything.

  Giordan was much better with his paints. He thought, with time, he could definitely paint Chloe a picture that genuinely conveyed his gratitude.

  HE COULD remember waking up in the hospital two different times in his life.

  The first time he opened his eyes was when he woke up from the coma. That was the scarier of the two. Staring at the ceiling, he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there or what year it was or anything at all other than his name. He had a fully formed vocabulary—names and concepts, Beths and Brians and Annas, forks and buses and computers—but he couldn’t remember ever having met any of those people or ever having used any of those items.

  The first nurse that came into his room seven months ago completely missed that he blinked at her. She checked the machines around him, fiddled with the chart, and even tucked his covers tighter, all without ever looking in his face. Then she was gone, and he wondered if he was really awake at all. The second nurse, though, the big-boned Latina woman with the healthy laugh, she saw, and she smiled.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  His voice didn’t work so well at first, but she was patient. She poured him a glass of water and helped him take a few sips. Most of it dribbled down the front of his hospital gown. After the doctor checked him over and he had rested, he finally managed a few syllables.

  “Gior-dan.” He paused. “Stone.”

  She smiled brightly then. “Good,” she said. “Now we can find out who you belong to.”

  A lot of nurses and a lot of doctors would come to see him during the week before he was discharged, and all of them would frown or try to hide disappointment when he couldn’t force himself to remember anything more. But not Luz. That was her name. Luz, the second nurse, his nurse, she smiled at him and she sat with him longer than her rounds necessitated and she told him everything she knew about him. She told him about the accident and how long he’d been there, seemingly asleep. Five years. She called him “Joey.” And she told him he never snored. She told him who was president now, and all the things that happened while he was under. She showed him her new cell phone. She told him about the latest big, new trial. When she ran out of things to tell him about himself and the world in general, which was pretty quick, she talked at length about herself and her family.

  Luz had a girl she loved more than anything in the world.

  “What’s going to happen to me, Luz?” he asked her right at the end. She’d said she was going to find his family, but it hadn’t happened. She showed him the article they ran in the Declan Times, and a couple of curious folks came by to talk with him, but no one claimed him.

  He could sense it coming. Change. No one had come to claim him in the five years he’d been under, and now that his eyes were open, there was still no one.

  Luz was a straight shooter. She didn’t hesitate to tell him about his accident, and that when they brought him in after the car hit him, his leg was cut to the bone and she could see it as they wheeled him through: white bone peeking out of white flesh. But when he asked her what was going to happen to him, she got quiet, a
nd it scared him almost as much as realizing he couldn’t remember anything.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was changed, different than he’d ever heard it. “Well, you’ll be discharged soon.”

  “Where do I go?” He looked at her and thought for a moment that she would have the answer. After all, she’d been so kind to him, so friendly, and she’d talked so much about herself. He’d come to rely on her without even knowing it.

  “I don’t know, Joey,” she said, and then she touched his cheek and slid off the side of his bed. “But I know you’ll be okay.” She said this last part with her back to him.

  THE SECOND time Giordan Stone woke up in the hospital was about seven months after the first. He opened his eyes on the same ceiling, except this time he had seven months’ worth of new memories, most of them bad. He could remember the feeling of dread as he’d left the hospital after first waking up from the coma, he remembered searching everywhere for a job, being turned down because he had no ID, and having no ID because he couldn’t remember his social security number. He remembered the shelters, one after another, staying until his time ran out and he was evicted and forced to move on. Eventually there was nowhere left to go.

  He remembered painting on the corner with a half-used child’s watercolor set he found in a dumpster, and sometimes selling those paintings for a few dollars, but often not. And then he remembered the old bridge at the edge of town. Removed from it, now, he could say it was beautiful, crumbling from age and weather. No one used it; it led nowhere. Vines had grown down inside, and he watched them dry up as summer turned to fall. He remembered being hungry all the time. And then he remembered when he stopped feeling hungry. He’d been hungry every single night since he’d left the hospital, and then one day, he wasn’t. He was also suddenly too dizzy to raise his head. And burning hot, despite the fact that it was snowing past the bridge. And then things became a blur.