Melinda Curtis - A Memory Away

“Aging wine is all about patiently waiting, isn’t it? Even when you don’t know how it will turn out.” Jessica had become good at biding her time. “Making wine is like waiting for bread dough to rise.” Or babies to be born.

“Exactly.” With a contented sigh, Christine’s gaze lingered on the room as if seeing it filled with bottles of her making.

Outside, the wind whistled past, drawing Jessica to the window in time to see a muddy gray truck pull into the gravel drive.

“There he is.” Christine gave Jessica’s shoulder a sisterly squeeze, and then headed toward the door. “I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”

Did he love me?

A man got out of the truck. Dark hair. Straight nose. Familiar eyes.

It’s him.

She leaned forward, peering through the paned glass, her heart sailing toward him, over ever-hopeful waves of roses and rainbows.

Jess didn’t usually let herself dream. But now...today...him...

And yet...

He wore a burgundy vest jacket that clashed with a red long-sleeve T-shirt. Worn blue jeans. A black baseball cap.

Instead, she saw him in a fine wool suit. Black, always black. A navy shirt of the softest cotton. A silk tie in a geometric pattern. Shiny Italian loafers...

He took the stairs two at a time, work boots ringing on wood.

Jessica’s heart sank as certainly as if someone had drilled holes in the boat carrying her hopeful emotions. Clouds blocked the sun. The rainbow disappeared. Unwilling to sink, Jess clung to joy. To the idea of him.

He entered without a flourish or an energetic greeting. He entered without the smile that teased the corners of her memory. He entered and took stock of the room, the situation, her.

Their eyes met. His were the same color, same shape, so heart-achingly familiar.

It was the cool assessment in them that threw her off. Not a smile, not a brow quirk, not an eye crinkle.

He came forward. “I’m Michael Dufraine, but everyone calls me Duffy.”

His name didn’t ring true.

Had he lied to her?

She couldn’t speak, could barely remember her name.

The wind shook the panes. The house creaked and groaned.

He smiled. A polite smile, a distant smile, an I-don’t-know-you smile.

Disappointment overwhelmed her. Jess resisted the urge to dissolve into a pity puddle on the floor.

“And you are...?” He extended his hand.

On autopilot, she reached for him. Their palms touched.

Jessica’s vision blurred and she gripped his hand tighter as clips of memory assailed her—his deep laughter, him offering her a bite of chocolate cheesecake, his citrusy cologne as he leaned in to kiss her.

It is him.

Relieved. She was so relieved. Jessica blinked at the man—Duffy—who she vaguely recalled and, at the same time, did not.

She’d practiced what to say on the hour-long drive up here from Santa Rosa. Ran through several scenarios. None of them had included him not recognizing her.

She should start at the beginning. Best not to scare him with hysterics and panicked accusations, of which she’d had five months to form.

Don’t raise your voice. Don’t cry. Don’t ask why.

And don’t lead the conversation with the elephant in the room.

Despite all the cautions and practicing and caveats, she drew a breath, and flung her hopes toward him as if he were her life preserver. “I think I’m your wife.”

* * *

DUFFY RELEASED THE woman’s hand as if he’d accidentally grabbed a rattlesnake. “I’m not married.” And he’d sure as hell remember if he had been.

“Or I was... Or I was your girlfriend...maybe?” She glanced down at her belly. Her very pregnant belly.

Holy in-need-of-a-handrail.

Duffy sat down heavily across from her, still chilled from the winter cold. Chilled now to the bone. “I haven’t... You couldn’t...” He swiped a hand over his face, very much aware that his boss was upstairs and the walls in the century-old house were very thin. “Who are you?”

“Jessica... Jess Aguirre.” There was a quiet beauty about her. Long dark hair, big dark eyes, a smooth olive-skin complexion. Many women shared her physical features. Few carried themselves with a combination of contained dignity and edge-of-her-seat intensity. “You...um...don’t know me?”

“You or your passenger.”

Reality was returning. He could see it in her face. Jessica seemed stricken that she wasn’t his significant other, but otherwise she appeared stable. She didn’t wield a knife, didn’t draw a gun, and she wasn’t screaming to high heaven that he should know who she was.

“But...you have to know me.” Jessica leaned over the table—or as far as she could with that baby bump—and whispered, “We’ve kissed and...” She glanced at her stomach.

And here Duffy had thought he’d taken care of all of his brother’s loose ends. “I’m not Greg.”

“Greg.” She murmured his brother’s name, then repeated it—stronger.

“My twin.” Duffy took out his wallet and handed her a picture he’d only recently started carrying—him and Greg before a Little League game.

She placed the photo on the table next to a crumpled newspaper clipping of the winery staff, her smile as soft as morning dew on a grape leaf. “Greg.” She said the name as if testing it with her tongue and finding it acceptable.

He felt compelled to explain. “We were identical.”

“Were?”

“He died nearly six months ago.”

“No.” She moved a hand to her belly.

“Struck by lightning.” Yes, there was a God. Although, “He was killed instantly and didn’t suffer.” Duffy was proud of the detached way he delivered the news. His brother had been a greedy piece of trash, which some siblings may have forgiven, but not when the target was Mom and Dad. “So if you’re looking for the man who did you wrong, it was him.” Duffy gazed out at the cold, dormant vineyard, which felt much like his heart. “My brother was no saint.”

“I don’t believe that.” She slid Duffy’s picture across the table. “Or you wouldn’t be carrying his photo.”

He wasn’t going to rehash the painful details of his life with this stranger. “Why are you here?”

Jessica closed her eyes. “I came looking for closure.”

“Did Greg steal from you?” The question had to be asked, and he didn’t hide the bitterness. Greg had taken every penny of their parents’ retirement fund. Luckily, Greg hadn’t spent it all before he died. “Did he promise you he’d love you until the end of time?”

“I... I... I can’t remember.”

* * *

HE WAS DEAD.

Whatever Jess had been expecting to find by coming here, it hadn’t been this.

He was dead.

Whoever Greg had been.

He was dead.

There’d be no tearful reunions, no admissions of mistakes, no offered apologies. How foolish she’d been to expect to show up here and find a man who loved her, one who’d fall to his knees as he held her hands and begged for forgiveness.

Sadness for Greg’s death mired her insides, more for her baby—who’d never know his or her father—than for the man she barely remembered. It seemed wrong somehow. The day. The news. The man she was left facing.

The baby kicked her ribs.

“What does that mean?” Duffy asked, pulling her back to the present. “You can’t remember.”

Flashes of memory shuttered in her head with every word Duffy uttered, every shrug of his shoulders, every nuanced flick of his brow. His face was austere, where Greg’s had been amiable. His eyes were care-lined where Greg’s had been carefree. And the clash of burgundy vest with a red-sleeved T-shirt? Greg would never have paired those two colors. Of that, she was certain.

“I was in a car accident five months ago.” Jessica dropped her gaze to her baby barge, needing to swallow twice before she could get more words out. “I have retrograde amnesia. I can remember growing up. I can remember how to make sugar cookies from scratch.” She swallowed again. “But I haven’t been able to remember anything about my baby’s father.” She couldn’t even remember whether they’d once been married or in love. “Not until I saw you.”