Muriel Jensen - Father Found

Then the running lights of a boat had appeared and strong male hands had pulled her out of the water.

“What happened?” the man demanded, wrapping her in a jacket. “I saw your car go in! Were you alone?”

It was as though the questions had struck her ear and then bounced off. She wanted to answer, but she couldn’t.

Even as he questioned her, he was on the radio, calling the police. “Astoria police, this is Captain Burgess, pilot boat Rainbow. I just fished a young woman out of the water. Saw her car go in right by the church on the Washington side of the river. Have an ambulance meet me at the Red Lion Marina.”

He turned the boat around and headed not for the near shore, but for the opposite one, where she saw a mound of lights on the other side of a big bridge.

“What’s your name?” he asked her, apparently providing information to the police.

But that was another question that bounced.

She remembered the sense of panic, the jolt to her feet off the cushion in the cabin where he’d placed her. Then the surprise she’d experienced at her sudden awareness of the weight she carried. She was pregnant! More panic blossomed out of itself.

Her name! How could she not know her name?

“Whoa!” The captain had put the radio down and caught her arm, urging her to relax. “It’s all right. You’re just in shock. Sit down and put that jacket back on. They’ll warm you up at the hospital and everything will come back to you.”

That had been three weeks ago, and so far, nothing earlier than that moment of surfacing from under water had come back to her.

She sat down awkwardly in the middle of the fragrant grass and listened to the silence. The insects were gone now that it was the second week in October, and all she heard was the rustle of leaves and the steady, staccato sound of Bram’s ax against the firewood. Half a mile out of Paintbrush, a town of four hundred, their four-room cabin was on the city water line, but power was iffy depending upon the elements. The only source of heat was a fieldstone fireplace.

The nights were cool now, and Bram said that soon it would snow. He’d been chopping wood for half an hour.

If she was surprised that she’d forgotten the scenery surrounding this mountain meadow, she was astounded that she’d forgotten her husband. When she’d awakened in the hospital the morning after the accident, the hour so early her room was still in shadows, he was leaning over her bed, a finger to his lips asking her to be quiet.

“I’m taking you home,” he’d whispered.

Now that she looked back on it, she thought it strange that she hadn’t been afraid. She’d looked into his dark brown eyes and seen something there that had reassured her, despite the threatening situation. And the word “home,” when she couldn’t remember where she belonged, had sounded so inviting.

He’d taken her left hand and held it up to her face, pointing to the simple gold band on her third finger. It had shone in the shadows. He’d placed his hand beside it, to show her that he wore a matching ring.

“I know you don’t remember anything,” he’d said. “But I’m your husband. You’re in danger here, and I want to take you to safety.”

The sight of their rings, when she felt so alone, had been a ray of light in her black panic.

Then he’d wrapped her in a blanket, leaped nimbly out the open window and reached in for her.

He was a private detective, he’d told her as they’d driven into the night, and she was a teacher. He’d been working on a case on the Oregon Coast and she’d flown out from their home in northern California to meet him to celebrate his birthday. When it was time for her to return home, they’d left in separate cars, she to drive to Portland and fly home, he to return to work.

He’d been following a small distance behind her on the narrow, winding road along the river, a row of rocks the only protection against the water. He’d seen a car speed out of a side road, then bump the back of her vehicle at high speed. At a low point in the rock wall, the car hit hers again and she went into the river.

Her rescue and resultant amnesia were all over the news.

Bram recognized the car as belonging to the brother of Nicanor Mendez, a trafficker in drugs and women, sent to jail by Bram’s testimony.

Bram had been hired by Mendez’s wife, who’d suspected infidelity. His surveillance had taken him to Mexico, and when he realized what Mendez was doing, he’d called the DEA.

Certain the man’s motive was revenge, and that he’d see the news and be after her again, Bram had spirited her out of the hospital and they’d been in hiding ever since.

The whole scenario had an unreal quality because she could remember none of it. All the personal things she’d had with her at the time had been lost at the bottom of the river with the rental car.

He’d taken her to their home in Pansy Junction, California, hoping familiar surroundings would help her remember. But they hadn’t.

They’d lingered several days for Gusty to rest, but when there’d been two telephone calls with no response on the other end of the line, they’d left stealthily during the night. They’d flown back to Portland, then driven east.

They’d been here ever since in a curious state of suspension. At least, that’s how it seemed to her. He’d suggested they occupy separate bedrooms, since she couldn’t remember having been intimate with him, and they lived as friends in a state of uncertainty.

As she watched him appear with an armload of wood from around the side of the house, she wondered if their marriage had been in trouble before the accident. They were such different people—or so it seemed to her. He was organized and confident with a tendency to order rather than ask.

And she…well, that was hard to say. She knew so little about herself and her abilities. She’d held her own with him, though she tried to accede to his wishes because of the danger and their unique situation. But she suspected she might be someone who’d never been self-confident. It didn’t feel as though that was part of her makeup. She worried about that sometimes, with a baby just five weeks from birth.

What if her memory returned one day and she discovered her marriage had been in trouble? What if she recalled that she’d been about to leave him, or he’d intended to leave her? Then she’d be alone with a baby to support. Then what?

Bram said she’d been a teacher, but with no knowledge of her past, how could she return to her old job, or sell herself and her skills to a new school board? No. She’d have to think of something else.

She could cook. She’d learned that over the past few weeks. It didn’t seem to matter how little the cupboards held, she apparently had a gift for making something delicious out of nothing.

She was also good in the garden. Bram’s friends had planted all kinds of greens, tomatoes, peppers and a veritable field of pumpkins. Then a sudden change of plans had required that they return to the city before Bram and Gusty arrived. Gusty had harvested everything but the pumpkins, which continued to grow.

She’d stashed the vegetables in an old-fashioned root cellar, put up the tomatoes, made green tomato relish with those that hadn’t ripened and pepper slaw with the green and red peppers.

She wondered with a hint of black humor whether she’d been a survivalist at some point in her life. Or been stuck alone somewhere in the wilderness.

“A dandelion for your thoughts.” Bram squatted down beside her in the grass and handed her the woolly weed.

She looked into his face and thought, not for the first time, that he was something special. He was tall and muscular, with a presence of strength that had as much to do with internal toughness as with well-defined pectorals and softball-sized biceps.