Page 52 of Take Your Breath Away

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, it is your wife,” Jayne said. “She … she was abducted by aliens and they just brought her back, for Christ’s sake. I don’t know. But if it is, don’t you want it to be her?”

Jesus, how to answer that.

Slowly, I said, “Yes.”

Jayne’s face looked ready to crumple.

“Yes,” I repeated. “Because if it’s her, it means no harm has come to her. That she’s alive. Who knows, maybe some harm had come to her, but it would mean that whatever it was, she’d survived it. She’d still be with us, and that would be a good thing. Never, not for a minute, have I hoped that she was dead. I admit, plenty of times I wished I knew one way or the other what had happened to her, but that doesn’t mean I actually hoped she was dead. So, yeah, I’d want it to be her.”

Jayne swallowed hard as she listened.

“And, you know, there’s been this cloud hanging over me for a long time. There are people out there who still think I killed my wife. I’m sure this latest development’s ruined Detective Hardy’s day, because I know she’s always thought I did it. She wants to believe I did it. If—and I think it’s a big if—but if this woman is Brie, then there you go. I’m not a murderer.” I managed a weak smile. “It’ll ruin Izzy’s day, too, although that might be offset by getting her sister back.”

I was almost finished.

“But if by some miracle it is Brie, it doesn’t mean it’s the end of us. We’ll find a way through this. We will.”

“It’s like Cast Away,” Jayne said.

“Like what?”

“The movie. With Tom Hanks, and what’s her name, the one from Mad About You. Helen Hunt. The one where his jet crashes on an island and he’s there for, like, I don’t know, a few years, and everyone thinks he’s dead. His only friend in the world is Wilson, a volleyball. And Helen Hunt, eventually she has to get on with her life, and she finds another man and falls in love with him and moves in with him, and then it turns out Tom’s not dead, and he comes back.”

I remembered the movie.

“I’m Helen Hunt,” I said.

That almost made Jayne smile when she nodded. “What’s she supposed to do? She loved Tom, but now she has this new man in her life, and she loves him, too. It’s devastating, for everyone involved. She’s in an impossible situation.”

“But she stays with the new guy,” I said.

“It doesn’t mean it will work out that way with us,” Jayne said. “We’re not in a movie.” She looked into my eyes. “Think back to the last day you saw her.”

“Okay.”

“On that day, before she went missing, did you love her?”

I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. “I love you,” I said.

“But that’s not my question. The last time you saw her, talked to her.” She took a breath. “Slept with her. Did you love her?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So doesn’t it stand to reason that if she walked through that door right now you’d still love her?”

“Jayne, I—”

“I mean, if you suddenly went missing, and six years went by, and you walked in here, I’d still love you, no matter how I’d gone on with my life.”

“These … these questions, I feel like there’s no right way to answer them.”

“I’m the one who’s going to have your baby.”

“I know.”

“You and Brie didn’t have children.”

“We … she said she didn’t want to raise a child if we didn’t have a home. A real home. Not one fixer-upper after another. Something stable. It was one of the issues we were working on.”