Kate
For a moment, the words hang between us in the silence, gentle and cruel. A fucking ridiculous smile frozen on my face as I process the fact that he’s not joking. All the hope I had shreds into thin paper ribbons with a single sentence.
Who are you?
My world tilts, tipping my smile until it falls from my face. I blink hard, but my vision becomes kaleidoscopic anyway. I pull my hands away and they curl into themselves, nails cutting into my palms, clinging to the echo of his thumb skimming my skin earlier.
Jackson’s eyes sweep over me without a hint of recognition.
“Wife?” The hoarseness of a sore throat and the pain evident on his face aren’t what makes the word sound foreign—it’s the uneasy try-on of a title, a relationship, a life he doesn’t remember.
Jackson looks at me in a way that makes my stomach turn inside out. I feel made of glass, and the man who’s always held me like the most valuable thing in the world is suddenly haphazard.
“I…” He gently clears his throat. “I don’t have a wife.”
I shatter.
Panic overwhelms my body, and for the first time in days, I need air. I need out of this godforsaken room. Pushing myself out of my chair, I shrug off the feel of Austin’s hand on my shoulder on my way to the door.
The door clicks softly behind me and I speedwalk down the hallway, like the pain might catch me if I slow down. I turn a corner, find a quiet alcove near a vending machine, and press my back against the wall.
My hands are shaking. My knees buckle, and I slide down until I’m crouched, elbows on my thighs, head in my hands. The sob hits me without warning—raw and deep, the kind that comes from somewhere beyond words.
Sixteen years. Two children. A whole life. A new baby. And now I’m a stranger.
Tilting my head back, my skull collides with the wall, and it doesn’t even hurt. At least, not nearly enough to transpose the agony throughout the rest of my body. Tears slide down past my temples into my hairline.
“Kate.” Denny says my name softly. When I open my eyes, he’s crouched so close our knees almost bump. “He’s just confused right now. This doesn’t mean anything.”
My breaths come short and shallow. “What—fuck. What if—”
“Breathe.” He inhales and exhales dramatically to demonstrate.
Eyes locked on his, I force air in and out of my lungs.
Austin saunters down the hall, coming to a stop behind Denny and shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Not sure if it helps, but he doesn’t recognize us either. He…he knows he has brothers but doesn’t believe that’s us. Dad’s the only one he knows…he’s talking to him.”
I sniffle. “At least he knows he has brothers. He doesn’t think he has a wife, period.”
Denny’s lips press together in a thin line. “Aaron said it’ll just take some time. He’s gonna remember who you are. Shit’s just foggy for him right now…give him time.”
With a reassuring nod, Austin adds, “You’re not the type of person who’s easy to forget.”
I cradle my stomach, shakily clenching my shirt fabric as a wave of nausea burns deep in my gut. I want to be strong. Want to believe this is temporary, that his memories will come back, that the man I love is still in there somewhere. But right now, it feels like I’ve lost him.
—
When it became clear that a few more hours wouldn’t be enough to jog Jackson’s brain—he wouldn’t even look at me when I walked into the room—it didn’t take much convincing by Austin and Denny for me to get in the truck and go home. Leaving hurt; staying would’ve killed me.
Best-case scenario, we get a call from the hospital and I turn right back around because the missing puzzle pieces of his memory magically snapped back into place. Worst case, I’m home with my kids while we wait for him to remember us.
When I stumble through the front door a little after ten p.m., my bones are impossibly heavy. The house is quiet and calm. Too quiet, after nights in a hospital that never fully sleeps. I steal down the hallway, careful not to step on the creaky floorboard, and slip unnoticed into my bedroom.
It feels like him in here. The white duvet’s still rumpled from the other morning, his pillows askew because he always sleeps with one tucked under his head and one between his knees, and the musk of his body wash lingers in the air.
I drop my clothes in the middle of the room and shuffle to the shower, where the heavy pelt of water does nothing except remind me of all the times he slipped into the small space with me in spite of my protests that the shower stall wasn’t big enough for both of us.
I brush my teeth while staring at his blue toothbrush.
Slather my face in the skincare I haven’t used in days—the multi-step toner and serum and cream routine he loves to tease me about.
When I comb my hair, I close my eyes and imagine he’s brushing it the way he did after I broke my wrist years ago.
Just before I toss my dirty clothes into the laundry hamper, I scoop up the last T-shirt he wore and put it on. At the smell of him, a tear falls from my jaw to splatter on the faded black fabric.
I can’t bring myself to sleep in our bed without him. Over the years, he’s been on plenty of cattle drives and road trips for the ranch, but this is different. This entire room feels like a shrine to a man who is somehow both here and gone.
This is the undercurrent. Deep sadness held in an innocuous set of cool sheets, waiting to pull me under and never let me up.
So I slip back out of the room without touching anything else, and pad upstairs to Rhett’s room.
My sweet little boy—the spitting image of his dad—is sprawled across the top of his comforter.
I wiggle in next to him and sling an arm around his tiny waist, gently squeezing his hand, and letting the tears flow onto his pillow when he squeezes back in his sleep.