She rolled her eyes. Already she’d answered questions about where she was, what day it was, who the President was. She’d counted forward and backward by threes and memorized a short list of fruits and vegetables. “It’s a pen.”
“And this?”
“A pen cap.” She glanced at Will and grinned. “Or is it a cow?” As the doctor’s eyes snapped up to hers, she laughed. “I’mkidding,” she said. “Just a little joke.”
“See?” Will said. “She can make jokes. She’s fine.” He crossed his arms, uneasy. Hospitals made him nervous; they had ever since he was nine years old and had watched his father die in one. Three days after the car accident, his mother already buried, Will had sat with his grandfather waiting for his father to regain consciousness. He had stared for hours at his father’s lax brown hand contrasting against the white sheets, the white lights, and the white walls, and he knew it was only a matter of time before his father left to go somewhere he belonged.
“All right.” At the sound of the doctor’s voice, both Jane and Will stood straighter. “You appear to have a mild concussion, but you seem to be on the mend. Chances are you’ll recover your more distant memories before you recover the recent ones. There may be a few minutes surrounding the actual blow to the head that you never recall.” He turned to Will. “And you are . . . ?”
“Officer William Flying Horse,LAPD.”
The doctor nodded. “Tell whoever comes to get her that she should be observed overnight. They need to wake her every few hours and just check her level of alertness; you know, ask her who she is, and how she’s feeling, things like that.”
“Wait,” Jane said. “How long until I remember who I am?”
The doctor smiled for the first time in the hour he’d been with her.
“I can’t say. It could be hours; it could be weeks. But I’m sure your husband will be waiting for you downtown.” He slipped his pen into his jacket pocket and patted her shoulder. “He’ll be filling you in on the details in no time.”
The doctor swung open the door of the examination room and left, his white coat flying behind him.
“Husband?” she said. She stared down at her left hand, watching the diamonds on the simple band catch the fluorescent light. She glanced up at Will. “How could I have missed this?”
Will shrugged. He had not noticed it himself. “Can you remember him?”
Jane closed her eyes and tried to conjure a face, a gesture, even the pitch of a voice. She shook her head. “I don’tfeelmarried.”
Will laughed. “Well, then half the wives in America would probably kill for your kind of blow to the head.” He walked to the door and held it open for her. “Come on.”
He could feel her one step behind him the entire way to the parking lot. When they reached the truck, he unlocked her door first and helped her into the seat. He turned the ignition and fastened his seat belt before he spoke. “Look,” he said. “If your husband’s looking for you, he can’t file a missing persons report until twenty-four hours go by. We can go down to the station now if you want, or we can go first thing in the morning.”
She stared at him. “Why don’t you want to take me there?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re hedging,” Jane said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Will faced straight ahead and put the truck into reverse. “Well, then you’re not listening too well.” A muscle jumped along the side of his jaw. “It’s up to you.”
She stared at his profile, a chiseled silhouette. She wondered what she had said to make him so angry. For right now, at least, he was her only friend. “Maybe if I get some rest,” she said carefully, “I’ll remember everything when I wake up. Maybe everything will look different.”
Will turned to her, taking in the tremor of her voice and the hope she was holding out to him. This woman he knew nothing about, this woman who knew nothing abouthim, was putting herself in his hands.
It was the most he’d ever been given. “Maybe,” he said.
JANE WAS ASLEEP BY THE TIME THEY REACHED THE HOUSE IN RESEDA.
Will carried her back to the bedroom, settling her on the naked mattress and covering her with the only blanket he’d unpacked. He took off her shoes, but that was as far as he’d go. She was another man’s wife.
At Oglala Community College, in some culture class he’d been forced to take to graduate, Will had learned the punishment the Sioux meted out for a woman’s adultery in the days of the buffalo. It had completely shocked him: If his wife had run away with another man, the husband had the right to cut off the tip of her nose, so she’d be marked for life.
To Will, it seemed to contradict everything else he knew about the Sioux. After all, they did not understand ownership of the land. They believed in giving away money, food, and clothing to friends down on their luck, even if it meant that they’d become poor as well. Yet they branded a wife as property, a husband as an owner.
He watched Jane sleep. In a way, he envied her. She’d managed to discard her past so easily, when Will had to work so hard to put his own history out of his mind.
Will touched the edge of Jane’s collar where blood had dried. He would get some cold water and soak that. He brushed her hair away from her forehead and looked over her features. She had ordinary brown hair, a small nose, a stubborn chin. Freckles. She was not the blond bombshell of his adolescent dreams, but she was pretty in a simple way.
Someone must have been frantic to find her missing.
