“You’re hurting,” Vanna accuses. “Liz, this is too much for you, too soon.”
I hold out my hand, curling my finger toward Cas. “Come closer. Let me get a good look at you.”
I’m meeting a stranger. Someone who carries my blood, someone who even looks like me, despite the colouring he got from his mom. I have no fucking idea what to say to him.
“How are you feeling, Dad?”
“Like a mule kicked me in the head,” I reply, startling at the word he called me. How can I equate this with the child who last called me ‘Daddy’?
Vanna looks from me to Cas, then back to me again. “What did the doctor say?”
I know she’s asked to distract us from this awkward moment, when neither of her men seem to know what to do or find words to come out of their mouths.
“He said my retrograde amnesia over the past twelve years could have been caused by physical damage to the brain, compounded by the growth of the tumour.”
“Why have you forgotten again, Dad?” Cas asks. “Why don’t you remember the club or your friends?”
I stare at him, then at Vanna. “Could be the swelling that’s yet to go down, could be PTSD, my brain shutting out the pain of how I’ve mistreated you both.”
“You coming home, Dad?”
What a fucking question to ask. I have no idea of the answer. I swallow back the yes as I realise, I don’t even know where home is now. I presume we’re still in San Diego? Does Vanna live in the same house? Will she want me back after all this time? When I glance at my wife, I notice a strained expression on her face. I’d married a young girl and did my best to look after her. Even when I was overseas, I’d checked in regularly with her, paid all the bills and provided for them both. For twelve years now she’d been on her own, raising a son with no one beside her. Already I can see changes, and not just the physical signs of a woman who’s grown older. There’s a new maturity about her. A confidence in the way she holds herself. She might still love me, but does she want me back in her life? Does she want a man who hadn’t been there for her?
How much have the years changed me? I’m apparently a biker, for fuck’s sake. I’d been in the Marines, and that’s all I can remember. What made me enter the outlaw lifestyle, I’ve no fucking idea. I can’t remember myself ever thinking of bikers as anything other than adrenaline junkies with scant regard for anyone else, or even as criminals. If I really joined that type of gang, am I still the man I was? Has my thinking and outlook been altered forever?
I could answer Cas’s question with a simple yes, as that’s what he’s obviously expecting, but it’s far more complicated than that. I’ll have to learn who Vanna is all over again and reprove I’m the man for her. As for Cas himself, how’s he going to react with me stepping into the role of being a father?
Then there’s the little fact that I’ve apparently been with whores. That doesn’t bear thinking about. I just hope I gloved up and didn’t catch anything.
“You don’t want to come back.” Cas supplies the answer when I take too long to reply.
“Cas, Son. No, it’s not that.” I try to put my thoughts into words. “You’ve been without me for twelve years. I’d love to say I’ll step back in and pick up where we left off, but I’ll be stuck in the past, and you’ve moved on. Gonna take a moment to get used to that. Your mom might not want me back, or not straightaway.” The last sentence was hard to get out of my mouth. Vanna not want me? I can’t bear to think about that. She’s my wife for fuck’s sake. Or was, twelve years back.
“At least you won’t need to change diapers.” Vanna smiles. “Of course you can come home with us, you’ll need to convalesce somewhere.”
I’d hate to be a burden on anyone. Perhaps I should go to my own place. If I have one, that is. Do I even have a home? Own, rent? Or had Vanna said something about living at a motorcycle club? Surely not, I like my own space. “Where do I live?”
“You live here, in Pueblo. At the club. We live in Denver.”
I moved? “Why are we not still in California?”
“I don’t know.” Vanna’s biting her lip. “You moved first. When I found where you’d gone, I followed you. I, I thought if I still saw you occasionally, you might remember.”
“You stalked me?” But fuck, I’m glad that she had. “Babe, I’m so grateful you didn’t give up on me.”
Then I catch sight of my son, and I almost feel him wishing that she had. If I’d died, she’d have mourned, moved on, maybe married a good man to be his father. But I’m still alive, not even sure who I am now, or whether I can be the man I once was.
What if I can no longer be the man she remembers, or, would even that be enough for her now?
My head hurts like a bitch. I know I’m overdoing it. My eyes close.
“I’ve had enough of this,” I hear Vanna say. Snapping my eyes open, I see her pressing the button that will send morphine into my veins. “You’re in pain, you need rest.”
The old Vanna wouldn’t have been so presumptuous, but I find I’m admiring the new version.
Already my eyelids feel heavy.
“Cas and I will leave you now. Get some rest, we’ll be back tomorrow.”
My eyes snap open. “Promise?” I ask, sounding like a needy child.
“I promise.”
She leans down, and I feel the brush of her lips against mine.
“Night, Dad.”
“Night, Son.”
Crazy dreams come at me. The loud sound of guns firing, the sharp cracks of sniper rifles, the boom of an explosion. Faces I don’t recognise appearing and melting into faces of men I served with. Hatch. I’ll catch up with Hatch when I get home.
Struggling up through the mire of sleep, I wake. For a moment I have difficulty separating reality from the morphine-induced dreams of the night. Had I dreamed everything? Have twelve years really passed?
What’s real and what’s not?
Hatch? If so much time has gone by, he may not remember me. Or hate that I hadn’t been in touch. How could I have forgotten him? He’s my best bud. He’d been by my side… Fuck. I can’t remember any more.
“Good morning, Mr James.” A too bright male nurse enters my room.
“What year is it?”
When he tells me, despite my initial optimism, my talk with Vanna yesterday hadn’t been a dream.
Lost in my thoughts, I ignore what he’s doing as he takes my blood pressure. He then asks me to move my limbs.
“Do you think you can stand?” When I growl yes, he encourages me. “Slowly does it,” he warns when I sit up too fast.
“Christ, I feel weak,” I complain. My head is spinning and for a moment I don’t think I can stand.
“It’s quite normal to feel worse immediately after an operation like you’ve had. You need to give yourself time.”
“I’m alright.” I wave off his help. When I get to my feet, I stumble as my right leg folds and would have fallen had the nurse not helped me to sit back down.
“You might need crutches for a while,” he offers. “Were you weak in that leg before?”