Chapter Eleven
Throughout the day, while working with Tomas, Joe’s memories continued to return sporadically and in no particular order.
Sometimes he’d get a vision, a brief glimpse into the past. At other times a feeling would wash over him—a righteous anger or just plain sadness—which only frustrated him more.
At first, he’d assumed that he’d been angered or hurt by something his brother had done. And that’s why he’d left town and never looked back. What else would have compelled him to change his name and lose contact with his family?
Yet each time he’d looked at Rick yesterday, he’d sensed a strong brotherly bond. And while he was more than okay with that, he couldn’t just accept everything at face value.
Even more troubling was the fact that, in spite of his life slowly coming back to him, he still didn’t have a handle on his true identity, either, and that left him more unsettled than ever.
For that reason, after dinner, he thanked Chloe for the meal and turned in early, giving himself a chance to sort through the mixed-up feelings alone.
She was so understanding about it, too. Which confused him all the more. Most women would want to know why the man they’d spent the previous night with all of a sudden wanted to sleep alone. But not Nurse Chloe.
He rose early the next morning, when he was sure she’d still be asleep. Then he went outside to check on Lola and her foal. There’d been plenty of chores to do, so he kept himself busy until Rick arrived.
Joe greeted his brother in the yard, then walked with him to the barn, where Rick examined Lola and the foal.
“They both look good,” Rick said.
Joe thought so, too. “I checked on them earlier this morning. Lola sure seems to be a good mother.”
Rick glanced at his boots, then back to Joe. “You and I weren’t so lucky.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Do you remember any of it? That apartment complex where we lived? The fighting? Dad running off with that stripper? He’d said she was a professional dancer, but I didn’t buy it. And neither did Mom.”
“I have a vague recollection, but nothing solid.”
“What about moving in with our aunt and uncle after Mom died and Dad took off? Do you remember that?”
“Last night, when I undressed for bed, I noticed that scar on my arm. You’d told me what happened, but I was able to remember it—the yelling and screaming.
The huge sense of relief I felt when the police arrived before our uncle beat the crap out of her.
The feeling that it hadn’t been the first nor the last time something like that had happened. ”
“Things were pretty bad at times. I don’t blame you for wanting to put it all behind you.
I might have run off, too, but Mallory had been sent to Boston to finish out her pregnancy and have our baby.
And I’d wanted to wait for her to come back.
Then I met up with Hank Lazarro, who helped me turn my life around. ”
Joe wondered if he’d found a mentor of his own along the way. Had Conway, the retired marine, stepped in and befriended him? Had Joe gone on to find new friends and a family in the corps? The answers to his questions seemed to be yes.
“Hey,” Rick said, placing a hand on Joe’s shoulder.
“Why don’t you ride into town with me? I’ve been craving Caroline’s hotcakes all week.
And since I left home early this morning, I didn’t get a chance to have breakfast. We can talk in my truck and at the diner. Maybe that will jostle your memory.”
Joe had no idea who Caroline was or what diner his brother was talking about, but he’d slipped out of the house without eating, too. “That sounds good to me.”
Twenty minutes later, they entered the small town eatery, where a middle-age waitress, a woman Rick addressed as Margie, greeted them with a smile. “Good mornin’, Doc Martinez. Who have you got here? Don’t tell me this is Joey, all grown up.”
“Yep. It sure is.”
“Where’ve you been, son? We haven’t seen you in...well, it’s been ages.”
“He joined the Marines after he left town,” Rick said. “And when I went off to college, we lost touch for a while.”
Apparently, Rick hadn’t told anyone Joe had run off.
“Isn’t that nice? Y’all found each other. And just in time for Christmas.” Margie grabbed a couple of menus and led them back to a corner booth, all the while chattering about how family should be together during the holidays.
When she offered them menus, Rick said, “I don’t need one. I’ll have the rancher’s breakfast—eggs over easy, bacon and a stack of Caroline’s hotcakes.”
“I’ll have the same thing,” Joe said, “only with scrambled eggs and the country sausage.”
“Coffee?” Margie asked, as she made a note of their orders on a small pad.
“You bet,” Rick said. “Thanks.”
When Margie walked away, leaving the brothers alone, Rick said, “Neither one of us had the kind of past I liked to talk about, so very few people around here know anything about where you went or why.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out some snapshots, one black-and-white, the others in color.
“I brought some family pictures for you to see. I thought it might help.”
When he handed them over, Joe looked at each one, then focused on the old Polaroid of a couple in their late twenties to early thirties.
“That’s one of the only shots I have of our mom and dad,” Rick said. “You can see that she’s blonde. We obviously get one of our genes for blue eyes from the Norwegian side of the family.”
Joe wished he could say that he remembered their parents, but he didn’t. “How old were we when mom died?”
“You were six. I was eight.”
At that age, Joe doubted that he’d have too many memories of them anyway. He flipped through the pictures and found one of a dark-haired couple in their mid-forties. He flashed it at Rick. “Is this Ramon and Rosa?”
“Yeah. Do you remember them?”
“Vaguely, but more than I remember our parents. I keep getting flashes of memory—bits and pieces I’m trying to put together. So keep talking. I think it’s working.”
“Tío Ramon was Dad’s brother. He liked to stop by La Cantina, a little dive in Wexler, every night after work.
He was a mean drunk and had some anger issues, especially when he was three sheets to the wind.
I’m sure that had a lot to do with him not keeping a job.
But for some reason, he always seemed to find a new one. ”
“You mentioned the abuse, the domestic violence. It must have been pretty bad.”
“It was. Ramon and Rosa loved each other, but they fought something awful, especially when they’d both been drinking.”
Margie stopped by with the carafe of coffee and filled both cups. Then she left a creamer and sugar.
Rick thanked her, and when she walked away, he continued.
“We’d tried to talk Rosa into leaving him before it was too late, but she didn’t listen.
And one night, he nearly killed her. After Ramon went to prison and Rosa recovered from that last beating, she joined AA and turned her life around.
She and I reestablished a relationship, although we weren’t especially close at first. I’ve since reconciled with Tío Ramon, too.
But that’s been fairly recent. I wanted to be sure that he was serious about his sobriety.
And I believe he is. He’s due to get his two-year token next spring. ”
Joe lifted his mug and took a sip. “I’d think he could use some anger management classes.”
“That was mandated by the court. He took them while he was in prison, but he took a refresher course after his release. He and Tía Rosa have reconciled and are attending church regularly. You’d hardly know them.”
Joe hardly knew them as it was. And something told him he ought to be grateful that he’d forgotten those early years.
Rick took a sip of coffee. “Because Tío kept losing his job, it seemed as though we had to move each time he found a new one. We lived in several different apartments in Houston, a mobile home and a duplex in Wexler, and then a townhome in Brighton Valley. After I met Mallory in my junior year, I spent more and more time away from home. And that left you to deal with all the family dysfunction on your own. I think you felt abandoned, and I can see why you would. I’d like to say that I wasn’t much more than a kid at that time, but I won’t make excuses.
I was all you really had, and I let you down. ”
Joe forgave him. At least, the man he’d become after the accident did.
And maybe the old Joe did, too. After a ten-year separation, a tour of duty in a war zone, and an accident that damn near killed him and left him with amnesia.
..well, he was glad to have someone and something to hang on to.
And that someone was sitting across the table from him, looking at him with eyes laden with emotion.
“I love you,” Rick said. “And I missed you something awful. Now that we’ve both grown up and moved on, I’d like to establish a better relationship.”
“I’d like that,” Joe said. “I’d like it a lot.”
Margie returned to the table and placed their meals in front of them. Just a whiff of the sausage triggered another memory. Joe paused, allowing it to unfold.
Seated at the kitchen table, Joe watched Tía frying breakfast meat, her bruised eyes nearly swollen shut, her bottom lip split. The words Joe said to her that morning. You gotta leave him, Tía!
I know, mijo. But deep inside, your tío is a good man. And I love him.
But next time, he could kill you. And me...
The memory faded. And while it really wasn’t a whole lot for Joe to go on, it validated the things Rick had told him.
Yet that simple vision and the feelings it triggered stirred up even more bits and pieces, allowing him to cobble some of them together.