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If only he knew what had happened during that lost time!
“As for my leaving, it may be a moot point,” he told his brother. “I haven’t heard from the project, so it doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.”
“Good.” Andrew checked his watch. “No wonder Helen isn’t bugging us. It’s time for lunch.”
Helen Nguyen was their nurse and, with patients prepped in the examining rooms, would never have allowed them to chat for so long. However, no appointments were scheduled between noon and 1:00 p.m.
“Where shall we go?” Hugh asked. Every Wednesday, the two of them lunched at one of the many restaurants in the area.
Once or twice, he’d had in inexplicable urge to point out to a waiter when he noticed an uncleared table or a messy front counter. It made him wonder whether he might have worked in a restaurant while he was gone, but that didn’t give him much to go on.
Chelsea Byers, their receptionist, appeared behind Andrew, pushing back a strand of her newly dyed maroon hair. “Excuse me.” They both turned toward her. “There’s a woman here without an appointment.”
“Tell her to make one for later,” Andrew said.
“We’re full all afternoon, and she says she’s driven a long ways.” Chelsea bounced a little, as if she were dancing at one of the trendy nightclubs she often mentioned. “Her little girl has an ear infection.”
“If she comes back after lunch, I’ll work her in,” Hugh said. “Have we seen her before?”
The receptionist shook her head, raising an odd-colored cloud. “She doesn’t have insurance, either.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Andrew snapped. “This isn’t the welfare office. Where’s Sandy?” Sandy Craven, their office manager, was in charge of making sure bills got paid.
“Sandy already went to lunch. The woman said she can pay cash,” Chelsea answered. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell her she has to arrange payment with Sandy and then make an appointment.”
Annoyance at his brother’s high-handed attitude spurred Hugh to intervene. “Never mind. I’ll see her now.”
It was highly irregular and an imposition on Helen, who would need to weigh the little girl and take a brief medical history. Ear infections hurt, though, and he didn’t want the child to suffer.
“Don’t wait. Go ahead without me,” he told Andrew.
“I’m not hungry.” Although clearly disgruntled, his brother accepted defeat without further argument.
It occurred to Hugh that, if he did get the research position, Andrew could find a partner who more closely shared his values, someone like Hugh used to be. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
A few minutes later, Helen handed him a chart. “Don’t wait,” Hugh said. “I’m sorry I used up part of your lunch.”
“You might need me,” the nurse warned.
“Thanks, but I’ll handle whatever comes up.” He wasn’t too snooty to administer a shot if necessary.
After Helen left, Hugh glanced at the chart. The child’s name was Dana Avery, age two years. No surgeries or major medical problems. Mother’s name Meg, father’s name Joe.
Joe Avery. It had a familiar ring, but he couldn’t place the man.
Hugh tapped on the door and stepped into the examining room. A small girl with bright green eyes and Little Orphan Annie red hair sat on the examining table, her hands folded in her lap.
It was the sight of the woman standing beside her that, inexplicably, made Hugh’s breath come faster. Despite the well-worn blouse and jeans, despite the frizzy reddish-brown hair pulled into an ungracious ponytail, there was something riveting about her.
She was staring at him, too.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Menton.” Hugh extended his hand. Dazed, she shook it.
He wanted to ask why she looked so startled, but it seemed intrusive. Hugh’s natural reserve would have held him back even if he hadn’t been concerned about professionalism.
“You must be Dana,” he told the little girl. “Which ear hurts?” She pointed to the left. The child had delicate features and the same alert expression as her mother, he noticed.
“Are you Daddy?” she asked as he examined the ear.
“Dana!” Meg Avery found her voice at last.
“Mommy, you said…”
“No, honey. I’m sorry, Doctor.”
“It’s all right.” Hugh was accustomed to hearing kids blurt out unexpected remarks. “Young children see any adult male as a daddy. It’s a generic category.”
“‘Generic category.”’ Nervously, the woman pushed back a strand of hair. “That’s how you used to talk, using those formal words, and I couldn’t figure it out!”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, someone I know talked that way.” The woman took a deep breath, as if fighting the urge to say more.
Hugh hoped she wasn’t unbalanced. Perhaps Andrew had been right to be wary of a new patient who turned up without an appointment.
“Your daughter does have an infection.” Briskly, he reached for his pad. “I’m going to prescribe an antibiotic and a decongestant. Make sure she takes all the antibiotics, and have her rechecked in two weeks. You can take her to her regular pediatrician if you prefer.”
Meg bit her lip as she took the slip from his hand. Perhaps money was a problem, Hugh thought.
“If you can’t afford to fill the prescription, I have some samples in my desk,” he said.
Quickly, she shook her head. “I pay my bills.”
“I’m sorry.” He hadn’t meant to offend her pride. And, instinctively, he knew she had a lot of it.
In fact, he felt as if he knew many things about her. That she laughed infectiously. That she was an easy touch for a friend in trouble, but tough as nails toward anyone who tried to rip her off.
He must be imagining things.
“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” Meg asked.
“Not offhand,” Hugh said. “Have we met?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as if unsure whether to ask him another question or bolt from the room.
“Did someone refer you to me?” he asked.
“No. Yes.” She gave an apologetic shrug that was inexplicably familiar. “My brother Tim saw your picture in the newspaper. He’s a truck driver and he stops in L.A. sometimes.”
Hugh and Andrew had been photographed at a recent medical conference. That didn’t explain why this woman would come to see him.
He glanced at the chart. “You live in Mercy Canyon. Where’s that?”
“San Diego County,” she said. “It’s amazing. You look exactly like him. You talk like him, too.”
An uncomfortable suspicion sprang up inside Hugh. “Like who?”
Although the recent photo caption didn’t mention his earlier disappearance, the newspapers had written it up at the time. The unfortunate result had been several attempts to defraud him.
One man claimed he was owed a large gambling debt, and a couple contended they were due hundreds of dollars in back rent. None of them could produce witnesses or signed documents, and the threat of a police investigation had put an end to their claims.
Now this woman contended she had known someone exactly like him. Maybe she’d stumbled across the information on the Internet and decided to try to squeeze out some money.
Yet she didn’t strike Hugh as the manipulative type. Perhaps someone else had put her up to it.
Meg swallowed hard and picked up her daughter. “You can’t have forgotten Dana. You delivered her yourself.”
“I haven’t delivered babies since my internship.” Hugh kept his tone level.
“The paramedics said you were as good as a doctor, and I couldn’t figure it out because you didn’t even have a high school education. You worked at a cafe, like me.” Now that she’d started talking, the words spilled out. “Then you vanished with my car. You left us at a gas station. Doesn’t this ring a bell?”
“Mrs. Avery, you’re clearly distressed,” Hugh said gently. “But I’ve never seen you before.”
“The longer I talk to you, the more sure I am that you’re my husband!”
“Your husband?”
She shifted her daughter against her shoulder. “It’s so hard…you have to remember, Joe. Wait! I can prove it.”
She set the little girl on a chair and fumbled in her purse. From the doorway, Andrew peered in and frowned. “What’s going on?”
“He’s my husband!” Meg said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”
“You believe my brother is your husband?” Andrew lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
Hugh felt awkward for the woman. She spoke so sincerely and so urgently. And the little girl did resemble him, especially those unusual green eyes.
“Look!” Meg Avery thrust a photograph into his hand.
It was a candid shot of her and a man, both beaming at the camera. The man was the spitting image of Hugh.
“He does resemble me.” He passed the picture to Andrew.
His brother glanced at it. “Photographs can be altered. Besides, you can’t tell me you married a man without knowing who he was.”
“I did know, or I thought I did,” Meg said. “Joe was from Tennessee. Right after he got to California, he fell off a pier in Oceanside and nearly drowned, and he lost his memory. He had ID but…” She stopped in confusion.
“What?” Hugh asked.
“Well…” She spoke hesitantly. “After he vanished, I remembered little things. Like that the picture on his driver’s license was a poor resemblance. And it had his height wrong, too.”
Andrew regarded the woman scornfully. “Let me see if I get this right. You think my brother—a respected pediatrician—stole someone’s ID, married you and then fled? Oh, sure. It happens all the time.”
“Wait a minute,” Hugh said. “Neither of us knows what I did while I had amnesia. I was missing for quite a while.”
“When?” Meg asked.
“I turned up two years ago.”
“That’s when Joe left me!” she said. “I can show you the police report.”
Her story wasn’t as far-fetched as it might seem, Hugh had to admit. He’d disappeared at sea in the accident that killed his friend Rick. Could he have washed up and been mistaken for another accident victim?
On the other hand, if someone had invented this tale, he or she had cleverly woven in the well-publicized details. And chosen a child the right age to fit the timing.
“You’re saying that this is my daughter?” Now Hugh understood why the little girl had called him Daddy. If she’d been deliberately lied to as part of a scheme, it had been a cruel thing to do.
“She is yours,” Meg said. “Can’t you see she’s got your eyes?”
“How do we even know she belongs to you?” Andrew said. “You could have borrowed her to pull a scam.”
Hugh wanted to kick his brother. Whatever Andrew’s opinion of the woman, he shouldn’t speak so harshly in front of the little girl. “The whole question can be resolved by a DNA test,” he said quietly.
This was the point at which he expected Meg to feign outrage. With her unruly hair and flashing amber eyes, she could make a great show of being offended.
Of course, she’d never really had a chance of conning him. A doctor wouldn’t buy a story like hers without proof, but this woman and whoever had encouraged her might be too unsophisticated to realize that.
She visibly fought to subdue the anger smoldering in her gaze. “All right. What do you need? A blood sample?”
Her agreement startled Hugh. Maybe she honestly believed him to be her missing husband.
“That would suffice.” He turned to Andrew. “Would you draw blood for us?”
“You’re joking, right?” said his brother. “You’re not going to dignify this nonsense by submitting to a test!”
Hugh supposed it was insulting to have to go to such lengths to defend himself. He might have withdrawn his offer, except for the tears trembling on the little girl’s lashes.
The grown-ups’ arguing clearly had upset her. He’d always been empathetic toward children, and this girl’s wistfulness touched him deeply.
“What harm can it do? And it will resolve the matter completely.” To Meg, he said, “It’ll take about a week to get the results.”
“I can wait.” While Andrew went to find syringes, Hugh rolled up his sleeve and swabbed his arm with alcohol. He did the same for Dana, while explaining gently that it would hurt a little but was for a good cause.
She believed him instantly. As he leaned close, he inhaled her scent, a blend of baby powder and freshness. The aroma brought a scene vividly to mind.
It was a small room, patchily decorated with flowered curtains and a Minnie Mouse poster. A woman with bushy red hair sat in a rocking chair, nursing a baby.
Maybe it was a scene from a movie, except that it had been summoned to mind by a scent, and movies didn’t have scents. As for Meg’s hair, his mind might be filling in details from the present, Hugh told himself.
“What?” the woman asked. “Are you remembering something?”
Her face was close to his, the eyes wide, the lips parted. Hugh got a sudden urge to kiss the freckles on her nose. He pulled back.
“No. I haven’t eaten lunch yet. I get distracted when I don’t eat.”
“I know,” she said. “You always carried mints for between meals.”
There was a roll of mints in his coat pocket right now. Hugh wondered if she had seen the bulge and guessed at its cause. If so, she was very sharp.
Andrew returned with the equipment. Expressionlessly, he drew blood while Meg hovered over her daughter. The little girl winced but didn’t cry out. After he finished, Meg handed Hugh a scrap of paper with a phone number. “Please call me when the results come in.”
“Our lawyer will call you,” Andrew said.
“She’s either his daughter or she isn’t!” the woman answered. “If she is, that proves he’s my husband. I don’t see why anyone needs a lawyer.”
“If by some bizarre chance you did manage to snare my brother while he wasn’t in his right mind, it isn’t legal,” Andrew said. “You admitted he was using a false ID. You’re married to someone who doesn’t exist.”
“I—” She stared at him in distress. “I never thought of that.”
Her mouth trembled as if she might cry. Before any tears could fall, she gathered her daughter and left.
Once her footsteps had faded away, Andrew said, “You don’t believe a word of this, do you?”
“I can’t dismiss it out of hand.” Hugh’s skin tingled with the memory of the woman’s nearness. He couldn’t explain why he felt such a powerful response to a stranger, and yet it was hard to imagine that the two of them had anything in common.
Except, possibly, for one very sweet little girl.
“We should get the results by next Wednesday,” Andrew said. “Until then, put her out of your mind.”
Hugh wondered if that was possible.
Chapter Three
On the long drive back to Mercy Canyon, Meg battled annoyance and embarrassment as she mentally replayed her meeting with the two doctors. Fortunately, her much-repaired old car rattled along steadily, although the radio was broken and she had to keep the window down to cool the interior.
The brother—Andrew Menton, she remembered from seeing his name on the door—had made her feel sleazy. As for Hugh Menton, he was her Joe right down to his fancy vocabulary and the small scar on his temple. His reserved manner and even temper matched the man she knew, as well.
Meg had instantly recognized the masculine timbre of his voice and the endearing way he ducked his head. When he came close, she’d caught a whiff of the man who’d thrilled her every time he held her. The man she knew with every inch of her body.
Yet he was a complete stranger.
Joe had been an ordinary working guy, blue-collar like her. A man who went bowling with friends and shared the trailer she’d bought with her hard-earned money.
It was doubtful that Dr. Hugh Menton had ever set foot in a trailer. Not unless he’d conked his head and completely lost his marbles, which, when they got the DNA results, was how he would no doubt account for having fathered a child with Meg.
She remembered her first reaction on seeing the newspaper photo, when her brother, Tim, brought it back from L.A. “A doctor?” she’d said. “Look at him in that tuxedo! Come on. My Joe would never rent a tuxedo to go to a dinner.”
Sam, the owner of the Back Door Cafe, had peered over her shoulder at the clipping. “He probably owns the tuxedo.”
“Can you own one?” Tim asked. “I thought you just rented them for special occasions.”
Judy Hartman, Sam’s wife, had poured more coffee for a customer before responding, “I bet you could buy one used, after you rented it.”
“A doctor wouldn’t need to buy a used tuxedo,” Sam said.
They’d debated the topic for a few more minutes before new arrivals at the cafe demanded their attention. Looking back, Meg felt her cheeks get hot.
She could imagine the sneer on Andrew Menton’s face if he had heard their discussion. Having seen that expensive office with its big fish tank, thick carpet and elaborate play area, she didn’t doubt that both doctors owned tuxedoes. Heck, they probably put one on to take out the trash.
She grinned at the image of snobbish Andrew Menton in a tuxedo, carrying a smelly bag of trash. Except that his family must hire servants to do that kind of thing.
She and Hugh lived in different worlds. Unimaginably different.
It was Meg’s friends who’d persuaded her to go to L.A. Tim, Sam and Judy all agreed that the man looked like Joe. So did their bowling buddies Ramon and Rosa Mendez.
“What can it hurt?” Rosa had asked. “You need to take Dana to the doctor anyway. So you make an extra long drive and get a good look at the man. If it’s not him, say ‘hasta la vista, baby,’ and drive away.”
“If it is him, he owes you plenty,” said Ramon. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should be greedy. But he’s Dana’s father.”
For her daughter’s sake, Meg had finally decided to go. She’d struggled financially these past two years to support herself and a small child. Friends had helped with baby-sitting, Tim and her father had given her what money they could spare, and she’d muddled through.
It hadn’t been easy, though, and it would get even harder as Dana grew up. Eventually she would realize that other girls didn’t wear homemade clothes or eat macaroni and cheese three nights a week.
With a sigh, Meg remembered Hugh’s offer of free antibiotic samples. She’d been too proud to accept it. Now, as she stopped by the local pharmacy to fill the prescription, she winced at the cost.
She’d been planning to buy Dana a tricycle soon. It would have to wait until Christmas. Later, as she turned into the trailer park, Meg couldn’t help seeing it with critical eyes. The residences were parked close together, with only space for a few flowers in front. Most people kept their units tidy and so did she, but her paint was chipped and the awning had rust streaks.
A wave of longing rushed over her. She and Joe had cherished dreams of buying their own home. Nothing elaborate; a modest three-bedroom fixer-upper.
They’d talked about decorating a nursery, and putting a workshop for Joe in the garage. “I want an extra freezer so I can stock up on meat and pizza when they’re on sale,” Meg had said, relishing the prospect after battling to stuff food into a tiny, overcrowded freezer compartment.
She wanted her Joe back, the man who had shared those dreams. A man who would never have imagined owning a tuxedo or even renting one. He’d worn a plain suit for their wedding, looking heart-stoppingly handsome in the dark fabric.
Meg parked alongside her trailer and lifted Dana from her seat. By the porch, a stray cat who’d been hanging around regarded them with mingled hope and fear. Its fur had a pandalike pattern of black and white.
“Pat kitty!” cried Dana.
“Not right now.” Even in September, this far inland the temperatures soared, and Meg was eager to turn on a fan and make iced tea. “Let’s go inside.”
“Feed kitty?” her daughter asked.
“We shouldn’t encourage him,” Meg said. “We can’t afford a pet.”
Inside, the trailer was stifling. She opened the windows and fixed cold drinks.
After the spaciousness of Hugh’s office, her home felt cramped. Meg tried not to notice the odds and ends of furniture bought at garage sales.
It wasn’t the lack of frills that bothered her. It was the absence of the man she loved. And something else.
As she sank onto the couch, watching Dana play with her favorite dolls, Meg realized what was troubling her.
For two years, she’d refused to give up hope. Even when she saw the doubt in some people’s eyes, she’d persisted in believing that Joe loved her and that, when she found him, they would resume their life together.
Now, perhaps, she had found him, but if Hugh Menton was Joe, he wasn’t her Joe. He might as well live on Jupiter.
Maybe, as Andrew had said, she was in love with someone who didn’t exist. For the first time, Meg had to face the possibility that she might never get her husband back.
NO LETTER came for Hugh on Thursday or Friday. He put in a call to Dr. Vanessa Archikova, director of the Whole Child Project at Pacific West Coast University, and had to leave a message.
It was not a good sign.
Less than a month remained before the research program started. If they wanted him, surely they’d have notified him by now. There was nothing wrong with the job he had, Hugh reflected as he paused between patients to update his notes. Counseling anxious parents, healing injured or ailing children and referring the rare serious cases to the best specialists were valuable services.
Yet a chasm lurked inside him. If his application were rejected, he needed to find some other way to give meaning to his life.
The Whole Child Project, funded by a private research grant, had been designed by a panel of experts headed by Dr. Archikova. It proposed to use medical personnel, in conjunction with parents and schools, to coordinate the care of a group of poor children in hopes of making a large impact on their futures.
Many of the kids came from homeless families. Others lived in foster homes. Most had borderline nutritional and behavioral disorders.
Government-run attempts to help them had bogged down in paperwork and politics. The Whole Child Project was their last chance.
It would be thrilling to make a difference for those kids, Hugh thought. He’d always loved children. Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about one particular little girl with flaming red hair and elfin features.
Was she really his daughter? It seemed a slim possibility, but one he couldn’t ignore, any more than he could disregard the possibility that he, or some alter ego of his, had a wife. Into his mind swept the image that had haunted his dreams for the past two nights. An image of Meg Avery.
She had the same determined chin as her daughter, along with a tilted nose and full mouth. The eyes were filled with turbulent emotion.
Her blouse had shown the outlines of rounded breasts, while her jeans highlighted a slim waist and a very feminine derriere. If she’d been his wife, they must have spent many nights together. Luscious nights tangling between the sheets, steaming up the bedroom.
Had they really lain together, both of them naked and aroused? Could he have made love to such a woman and not remember it?
“You’re a million miles away.” Helen Nguyen smiled as she passed Hugh in the inner corridor between examining rooms. It was midafternoon, and the after-school crowd of patients would soon stream in. “Daydreaming about the weekend?”
“Trying to plan my future,” he said. “It’s hard to move forward when you don’t understand the past.”
“Do you mean that woman who was here Wednesday?” Helen asked. “Andrew told me she claims to be your wife.”
Petite and dark-haired, the nurse twinkled up at him. She’d been a big help in making Hugh feel at home when he came back to work, and she’d become a good friend.
Last February, he’d joined her and her husband in celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, at a festival in Orange County. It was an adventure that the old, stuffy Hugh might have passed up. “I’m not sure what to believe,” he admitted. “What did you think of her?”