Chapter 9
James stared at the sky. The sun had begun to set, bathing the sky with the last rays of the golden sun of a spring day. Splotches and streaks of orange and pink traced the blue sky, peeking from behind low-hanging clouds.
The sky met the green grass on the horizon. Under the warm glow of the stone path’s ornate lampposts, James watched other park visitors pass by. Several people strolled the path at a leisurely pace. Most of them walked in pairs, with the exception of one man who was jogging.
James seemed to be the only person in the park who was sitting alone. He wondered if there were more people sitting in other corners of the park. The trees hid most of the park from his view.
Turning on his seat, his eyes found Mariah standing by a tree. He recognized the sturdy oak and sighed heavily. Everything about the park reminded him of Anastasia. He cast a cautious glance at the clouds again and rose to his feet.
He walked past the bench towards the tree that Mariah was now circling. He caught a glint of a tear trailing down her cheeks, and he halted. He realized the ache he was feeling in his chest was little compared to the ache in Mariah’s heart.
After he had brought her to Ashton to see the playhouse, a bit of her memory had surfaced, and she had been doing everything in her power to return to that place.
She had succeeded in returning, and she was proceeding to try to trigger her senses so more of her memory would return. He had never met someone so determined, and he was impressed. He was concerned by how stubborn and blind to her health she was. Yet, he had to admit to himself that he was judging her actions without having walked in her shoes.
He continued walking towards her. When he got closer, she wiped her eyes and cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt and regarded him with the finest smile. “If you want to go, you can leave me here. I’ll leave when I”m ready,” she croaked, her voice still holding the telltale signs of crying.
“And why would I do that?” he asked, walking closer to her. “I know you can”t wait to get rid of me, but not today.”
“I don’t want to get rid of you,” she muttered low, the wind carrying her voice to him. “But I want to stay here, a little longer.” She seemed to want to hug the tree as she spoke. It was as though she was going to wrap her arms around it and stay in that spot.
Stubborn as ever, he shook his head with a sigh. It was one of the things he found interesting about Mariah. Her porcelain-like doll appearance hid a fierce stubbornness he couldn”t tame.
Stubborn as she was, he was an even match for her. Crossing his arms, he said in a matter-of-fact voice, “Then we”ll just have to stay here together.”
In reality, he didn”t want to stay there, as this spot brought back memories.
The oak tree had almost been a daily part of his life at one point. He placed his palm on the sturdy tree trunk, and memories flowed into his mind. He remembered himself and Anastasia having picnics there, sitting under the tree doing homework and eating Anastasia’s apple pie, the two of them stargazing in the evening when they got tired of studying.
Then Mariah’s voice brought him back to the present. “You aren”t going to relax and enjoy the evening if you stand there like that.”
He sighed and retracted his hand from the tree. Then he turned and stared at her and said, “It’s a lovely spot to stargaze though.”
“Stargaze?”” Mariah”s eyes widened from behind her glasses. “Really?!”
“Really,” James chuckled, “I should know, but I didn”t think you would be this excited about it.”
“Oh, I just love stargazing,” she said in a somewhat happy voice. She let go of the tree and walked up to where James was standing. “When I was little, I spent most of my nights stargazing from the bedroom window in the orphanage. I wanted to be an astronaut,” she laughed and dropped to the grass.
James leaned against the tree trunk as she made herself comfortable on a bed of grass near the tree. From his vantage point, she was beautiful, small, and cute. The way her shapely legs crossed at the ankles, how a sliver of skin was revealed where her shirt had ridden up, and how her face lit up.
“Or at least become an astrophysicist or something along those lines.” she continued. “There was this cool old man, Mr. Schneider, who lived in a big house at the end of the street on which my orphanage was. He was an astrophysicist, who had taught at Harvard. He had been excited when he found out that some of the others and I loved the stars. He used to let us come over to his house to watch the stars with his telescope.”
“That was very kind of him,” James muttered. He imagined a little redhead sitting under the stars with a gray-haired professor.
“It was!” Mariah smiled. “We would camp out in the yard on the weekends and he would teach us a lot of things about stars. Whenever he was off to Harvard to teach, he would lend the telescope to us. I didn”t think I would sleep on those nights. Everyone was sure I would enter a profession related to stars, but I didn”t,” she scoffed in amusement.
James pushed himself off the tree trunk. As a kid, he had watched the stars for hours on many days. But ever since the night many years ago when Martin and his friends had tried to scare Anastasia, he had stopped gazing at the stars.
Every time he tried, he would hear Anastasia’s voice telling him about constellations. It became too painful for him to bear. Watching Mariah talk about stars made him want to try it again.
He remembered that night well. Pinned down by Martin’s friends, he had told her to run and hide in the woods, promising that he would find her. Anastasia had gotten lost in the woods that night. He had never been so scared in his life.
Martin and the other boys had barely managed to stumble out of the forest.
Along with her parents and a few other people, he had searched for her until a thunderstorm had rolled in. Against his stepmother’s will, but with his father by his side, he had continued the search for her in the rain with Anastasia’s parents.
He had cried bitterly when they had to stop the search due to the rain and lightning. He had barely slept that night. At the break of dawn, Aunt Emma had driven him back to the woods so he could continue searching for her.
Her parents and others had also returned to resume the search, but James had been the one to find Anastasia. She was huddled, drenched and muddy, inside the hollow of a dead tree.
The paramedics had taken her out of his hands that morning. When he was allowed to visit her at the hospital, he had cried again. He blamed himself for what had happened to her. If only he had been strong enough to fend off Martin and his goons, she would have been safe.
While at the hospital, Anastasia and her mother had told him it wasn”t his fault, but he didn”t believe them and had grown bitter with guilt. She had only spent one day in the hospital and then had been released. A few weeks later, when Anastasia had invited him on her family camping trip, he couldn’t go. His father had insisted he start an internship at Ore, as he was the heir to the company.
James suspected that his father’s insistence on the internship was at the behest of his stepmother. Elaine had not approved of him spending time with Anastasia and her unwealthy family. Anastasia had pleaded with James, and he had tried to convince his parents to let him join the trip, but his parents had not budged.
When the news had come of the Chandlers” disappearance during their family camping trip, he had roared in grief for days, his voice echoing through the walls of the Sorenson house. He had been inconsolable. It was the only time in James’s life when even a hug from his father couldn”t stop his tears. Only a promise from his father to ensure that Anastasia and her family were found had brought him some comfort.
Of course, the police had also been involved in trying to find Anastasia and her family. For six months they had searched, along with the private investigator hired by James’s father, but all anyone had found was a burnt truck near a riverbed.
James had fallen so ill with sorrow that he had been hospitalized for some time. After that, he talked about Anastasia a lot and eventually learned to live with the pain of losing her.
But there was something about Mariah, her red hair, and her excitement about stars. Being with her poked at the wound of losing Anastasia, making it throb again.
He tried to pull his mind from the past and focus on Mariah. She was lying on the grass, looking up at the stars. He shut his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was project his feelings and desire to see his dead friend on an innocent woman. He couldn’t help it, though. More and more, Mariah reminded him of Anastasia.
They had similar mannerisms and made him feel similar feelings–like he was walking on sunshine. He wanted to stay in Mariah’s presence just as much as he had wanted to stay in Anastasia’s.
He wanted her to smile and laugh and be happy. Her fight to regain her memory only made him want to hold her, tell her she didn”t need those memories. He wanted to protect her from her lost past that haunted her.
But he felt almost powerless in the situation. He had felt the same way when Anastasia had disappeared.
“James?” He heard Mariah call him, and his thoughts returned to the present. He gave her a soft groan to let her know that she had his attention. Then he slid onto the grass beside her. He linked his fingers behind his head and lay down on the grass.
“This is a really lovely spot for stargazing,” she continued. “Thank you for showing me. Maybe one day, I”ll buy a telescope and watch the stars too. You’d be invited of course.”
“That–” he turned to look at her to see her staring right at him with her big hazel eyes. He felt like someone punched him in the gut.
Her eyes seemed to have the same look that Anastasia used to have when she wanted him to agree with her.
Then suddenly, he felt a sense of déjà vu when he realized that Mariah was lying approximately in the same spot that Anastasia used to lie in whenever they used to watch the stars.
This isn”t possible, he thought to himself. Or could it be? She couldn”t possibly be Anastasia. God, please help me. I can”t keep projecting Anastasia on this lady.
He looked away from Mariah and forced his thoughts away from Anastasia. “That would be very nice,” he said the words one after the other, hoping she wouldn”t notice that his voice was shaking.
He said no more to her, choosing instead to stare at the stars, which played hide and seek from behind the clouds. Now and then, he would spot a cluster that could be a constellation. Each time, Mariah would point at it excitedly and tell him which constellation she thought it was.
He couldn”t help staring at her. At the pink plumpness of her lips as she spoke, at how her long lashes fluttered as she blinked. At the curve of her body. At her shapely legs.
He was filled with a yearning to hold and protect her. When the feeling was unbearable, he returned his gaze to the midnight blue sky and shut his eyes.
He took deep breaths and summoned thoughts of work to distract himself. When he thought of all the tasks he had to complete the following day, he was immediately bone tired. There were decisions, meetings, files, and more.
He was excited about running the company, but he found himself exhausted every night. He usually collapsed on his bed and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Over the last few weeks, he had only experienced a few moments of feeling relaxed. Most of them had to do with Mariah being nearby. This was one of those times. As he listened to her talk about stars and the universe, his breathing slowed, and he dozed off.
James’s eyes fluttered open when the first drops of rain touched his face. He sat up straight and pulled his phone out of his coat pocket. 7:37 PM, it read.
It’s getting late,he thought, turning to Mariah.
Her eyes were closed behind her glasses, and her chest rose and fell softly. He would have guessed she was asleep if her eyes had not fluttered open at that moment. She lifted her head lazily to gaze at him.
“You want to go, don”t you?” she said softly. “You can. I…I”ll stay here a little longer.”
“In the rain?” he asked as another fat drop landed on his chin.
The rain was a heavy drizzle, coating the park grass with moisture. “It might get worse,” he rose to his feet. “We can make it to the car without being thoroughly soaked now. C’mon,” he said, offering a hand to Mariah. She was still on the grass.
She looked at his hand and looked away, sitting up. She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them. “It’s so peaceful here,” she whispered. “I want to stay for a while. The weather forecast said that it would be a drizzle plus I am not afraid of the rain. I’ve gotten wet many times. I will be fine.”
A gust of wind blew across the night, and he shivered. He stared at Mariah. She was wearing a thin shirt, and he was sure she was cold. The rain was coming down more heavily now, and it was passing through the cover of the branches to reach them.
“You’ll catch a cold, Mariah,” he sighed in defeat.
You’d get sick and reassigned from designing my orphanage. I won”t get to see you again,he thought, and he shrugged off his coat.
“I left my umbrella at the office, and now I think that we can’t get to the car without being completely soaked. Here, please wear my coat.”
Her gaze lifted, and he could have sworn he saw her smile, but it was gone in a millisecond. He knelt in front of her and draped the coat around her. She let him put it on her, and he suppressed laughter at the sight. She looked like a girl wearing her mother’s clothes.
Her hands were hidden in the long sleeves, and the body pooled around her like a robe, hiding her feet. The spot where they were stargazing didn’t give enough shelter from the raindrops, so he urged her to stand up against the tree trunk.
She agreed to do as he asked, seeing the logic in it. He helped her up, and they walked a few short steps to the tree trunk. She stood with her back against it, looking up at its thick canopy of branches. He proceeded to stand in front of her to shelter her from the wind and rain.
James had never known a more strong-willed and resilient woman than Mariah. She had succeeded in returning to Ashton, which he viewed as a potential danger to her health. Now the rain that they thought would be a drizzle had quickly turned into a downpour, and still she refused to leave.
Even if she couldn”t get her memories back, he would ensure she didn’t get a cold. He stood in front of her, blocking her from the direct spray of the rain and chill of the wind. She faced his chest, and their feet touched.
His heart raced wildly in his chest. He was close enough to reach out and tuck stray strands of her red hair behind her ear or even kiss her, but he willed himself to have control over his emotions.
The rain raged, and he got the brunt of it. The back of his turtleneck was soon soaked with the cold rain, and it began spreading to the front of his shirt. He tried to ignore it but prayed the rain would stop as abruptly as it had begun.
His prayers were answered half an hour later when the rain trickled to a stop. He placed his hands on Mariah’s shoulders, and she raised her head slowly in response. The cold seemed to be sapping her strength. It was likely that whatever emotions she had experienced in the playhouse and park but had chosen not to tell him about were also wearing her out.
“Time to go.” He placed his hand on her back and guided her toward the path.
Together, they walked out from underneath the cover of the tree. At first, he walked slowly to make sure Mariah could keep up. His pace quickened, though, when the dark sky rumbled with thunder.
So much for light showers, he scoffed and considered how far they were from the car. He could run to the car in less than two minutes, but he doubted she could. She seemed worn out suddenly. He felt worried she would experience another episode.
He saw her stumble, and then he made his decision. In one sweeping action, he swooped Mariah off her feet, cradling her in his arms. She let out a shocked gasp, and her hands flew to wrap around his neck instinctively.
“Forgive me,” he breathed into her hair, adjusting her in his arms. “But we have to move faster. If we intend to get to the car before the second wave of the rain. This is the only way, except if you fancy running.”
When Mariah didn”t answer, he took that as a positive sign. Despite his effort to protect her from the new onslaught of rain, her clothes were damp by the time they got to the car. She shivered, and he halted suddenly in his tracks with a strong déjà vu feeling. He remembered carrying Anastasia in his arms, wet and cold, out of the woods.
Letting out a deep breath from his mouth, he wrapped her tighter with his damp coat and whispered against her hair words of comfort he had muttered like a mantra on that day so many years ago, “Stay with me, okay? Stay with me.”