Mr. Lewis turned his head this way and that, gentler than he was before.
“I'll have to fetch my tools. I'll return in a moment.”
Mr. Lewis left, and Willa folded his hand in hers.
“That's good news at least. I wonder how long it will take before the swelling will go down?”
He tried to move his head inside the helmet, shifting a little, grimacing, trying to get a feel for how much of his head connected with the helmet.
“I don't know,” he said. “It feels connected to me.”
“Now I wonder what you look like,” she said.
“I wonder that too,” he replied.
She giggled softly, and he was surprised to find himself smiling.
“I can feel a cut on my lip, but it's so strange to have no idea what I look like.”
“You have hair on your chest.”
“I do?”
“It's brown, you must be a brunette.” As she spoke, she touched his chest, and his heart must have hammered against her palm. Did she feel it? Did she know what she was doing to him with her gentle touches, her soft voice? He wished the holes in his helmet were bigger, so he could see more of her. For now, he could just see her nose, her lips, her chin.
“You have brown hair too.”
She sighed. “We all do.”
“Who iswe?” he asked.
“I have eight sisters and a little brother.”
“A family of ten children,” he said with wonder.
“Yes, we are a very large and happy family. Me and my sisters all look alike with brown hair and brown eyes, but my brother was born a year and a half ago. He came out with a shock of blond hair and his eyes were so blue, a deep cobalt blue. But they changed to brown just like my mother's. I sometimes wonder if his hair will change too.”
“I wonder if I have siblings.”
“You might. I can't imagine growing up without siblings. It sounds so miserable. Even with all the fighting and bickering, I love them...” Her voice drifted off. “I was very angry with them when I left Sheffield.”
He closed his eyes, listening intently to her voice, to the pleasant sound, the whimsy as she remembered her family with love. There was so much love.
“They are going to be so cross with me.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I tricked them. Georgie thought I was leaving with Josie, and Josie thought I was leaving with Georgie. All so I could travel by myself and look where it got me? They love me. That's why they hover over me. They just wanted to protect me, and I risked everything to show them that I didn't want it. How could I not want their love and protection?”
Those names tumbled through his mind,Georgie, Josie, Georgie, Josie, they sounded as if he'd heard the names before. Was that simple recognition of common names, or did he know them well? Someone knocked on the door again, and Willa answered, and the moment was gone. If it was ever really a moment at all. These emotions he was having were dangerous.
A thought struck him.
He could be married. He could have a family somewhere, worried about him, and he wouldn't know how to find them. Did he have parents? A brother and sister, wife, children, who depended on him provide for them?
But as he searched his mind, none of those things brought the slightest bit of recognition, which made him think maybe he didn't have those things. Maybe there was no one worried about his absence, or to worry about him at all, except for Willa. She was clearly worried, and though he shouldn't take pleasure in it, he did. Mr. Lewis again entered with a satchel of tools and brought the chair to the side of the bed.
“I can't guarantee this won't hurt like the devil,” Mr. Lewis said. “Beg pardon, my lady.”
