Page 9 of When I Forgot Us (Blue River #1)
Chapter Five
He was an absolute and utter failure. Michelle reached out to him yesterday in the barn and asked for truth. He’d tried, but part of him resisted enough that he’d been forced to shut her out.
She worried about whether she was a good person, and he’d wanted nothing more than to reassure her. She was a good person. Even though she’d left him for a job and never looked back, that didn’t make her bad or wrong. They had been two different people on different paths.
The need to comfort her even after all the pain she’d inflicted on him when she left locked his muscles even now as he climbed from the truck and approached the church’s white doors.
They stood open, the pastor in front of the right-side door with his Bible in his hands and a warm smile on his face.
“Lord have mercy, is that Michelle?” An elderly woman with spiked gray hair and glasses thick enough to resemble coke bottles squinted toward the parking lot. She elbowed Pastor Thomas. “Guess we’d best go say hello.”
The hair on the back of his neck rose.
Footsteps shuffled around him, a whole group of older women making a line on the steps and marching down.
He didn’t doubt their good intentions, but the protective instinct he’d always possessed reared up and spun him around.
He followed the woman across the asphalt and over to Michelle’s rental car.
She stared out the driver’s side window with panic on brilliant display.
“Mercy, child. It’s been so long since we’ve seen you.” Mrs. Porter grinned and leaned toward the window. “Come on out here and say hello. We won’t bite.”
Sarah said something to Michelle, who gulped and nodded. The panicked expression eased, and a false smile appeared. She opened the door. “Good morning.”
“Look at that. Right back from the city like she never left.” Mrs. Dinkins motioned toward Michelle. “It’s good to see you. How have you been? Things going well in the city?”
“Never better.” She spoke quickly, her tense posture not dissuading the women at all.
Mrs. Green smacked the back of her hand against Mrs. Dinkins’s arm.
“Elinore, you know good and well she didn’t come back here to talk about life over there.
No one from the city wants to talk about all that.
I bet you came back because you realized how much you missed it here.
” She sniffed and raised her chin with a swell of pride puffing out her chest. “Well, didn’t you? ”
“Excuse me.” He cut through the throng of women like Moses parting the Red Sea. “Glad you both made it.”
Giggles and hushed whispers sounded at his back. He ignored them and focused on getting Michelle through to the front steps where she’d find some peace and quiet.
“Sorry about them.” Sarah flapped a hand in the other women’s direction. “They’re mostly harmless. Curious is all.”
“They don’t know about my amnesia?”
“We heard.” Mrs. Dinkins rushed to catch up, her short heels clacking madly.
“You poor thing. It must be devastating. But surely you remember now. You can’t have forgotten all this.
” She flourished her arms at the town sprawled out on the other side of the street and several blocks in either direction.
“Amnesia isn’t the friendliest infliction.” Mrs. Porter trotted beside Sarah. “Why I heard about a man who lost his memory, and it drove him plumb crazy. He ended up smacking his head so hard he jostled those memories right back in place.”
“I won’t be hitting myself in the head, but thanks for the tip.
” Michelle’s face paled with every forward step.
By the time they reached the church and Pastor Thomas, she trembled and gasped tiny puffs of air.
“Is he going to tell me that all I need to do is pray and have faith and God will make it all right?”
“I doubt it. He might offer to pray for you, but not with that intention in mind.” He dropped his hands to his sides, unclenching his fists and flexing his fingers. “I’ve been praying for you. And so has Sarah.”
Her breathing steadied, the panicked edge falling away. She climbed the steps alongside him and paused to shake Pastor Thomas’s hand.
He greeted her with a warm smile and encouraged her with a wave toward the open doors. “It’s good to have you here.”
Chase waited until they’d crossed the foyer with its echoing ceiling and were seated in the pew he’d occupied for ten years. Michelle didn’t press for him to speak. She never had. It was one of the many things he’d loved about her.
“Michelle, dear. Lovely to see you.” Mrs. Perkins stopped at the end of the pew and held out a hand. “You remember me, don’t you? I used to teach your Sunday School class.”
“It’s good to see you again.” She accepted the offered hand, all while staring at Chase. Mrs. Perkins ambled off, and Michelle slumped into the padded seat. “They all think I can snap my fingers and make myself remember them.” She snapped her fingers in her own face. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
His gaze panned the church. “Do you want me to tell you?”
“It won’t do any good.” She smoothed her flowered skirt over her knees and tucked it beneath her thighs.
“I’m terrible with names. I think I always have been, because when I went back to work that one day, I found stacks of sticky notes with names and descriptions on them, like I’d been trying to remind myself how to keep people straight.
” She puckered her face into a sour expression.
“Mr. Wilson has a goatee and talks like he’s eaten a bushel of lemons.
Seriously? I couldn’t have told myself something better than that? ”
“Did it help you recognize him?”
A short laugh bubbled out. “Yeah, it did. But that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter how much they want me to remember.” One fingernail tapped her temple. “I want to remember so much it physically hurts.”
The pressure everyone put on her to remember had to be exhausting. And frustrating.
“What can I do to help?” His ‘fix-it’ syndrome kicked almost as hard as the protective one. Focusing the two together on the same person and he might as well hang up his boots because nothing was going to change his course.
She eyed him from the side. “Get me out of here when this is over, so I don’t make a fool of myself.
I promised to bring Aunt Sarah to church because they don’t have a regular bus driver.
I won’t go back on my word, but I really don’t want to be bombarded with ‘hey, remember me?’ requests the whole time I’m here. ”
Yep, definitely frustrated. “Does it help if I say it’s okay to take things one step at a time?” He’d tried putting himself in her shoes. It helped a little, but no amount of empathy could truly put him in her situation.
She scooted her feet across the carpet, then tapped him on the arm. Static electricity jolted along his skin, and she giggled. “I think that helped more.”
“Shocking me helps you feel better?” He started to stand. “I got a pair of jumper cables in the truck.”
“What are we going to do, hook them up to you and crank the truck? Pretty sure that’s instant death, not shocking.” She grabbed his hand and yanked him back into the pew. “What if I rub a balloon on your head until your hair stands on end?”
They used to do that as kids. He opened his mouth to tell her, snapping it shut when Pastor Thomas walked onto the stage and stopped behind the pulpit.
The entire church came to attention with sudden silence.
Mrs. Betty sank onto the piano’s bench seat. “Page two hundred.” She started the hymn seconds later, cutting off his chance to respond to Michelle.
Better that he didn’t become one of the people shouting, ‘remember when?’ when he knew good and well she didn’t have a clue.
The service passed with the same routine he’d come to expect. Songs. Prayer. Testimonies. Preaching. Prayer. Dismissal.
He’d been aware of Michelle sitting beside him every second of the service.
It was like having an itch that never stopped, especially when he couldn’t scratch.
Fifteen years ago, they’d sat in this same church, holding hands.
He’d talked about their future. It wasn’t until months after she left that he realized he’d been the one doing all the talking.
She’d listened, nodded along like she agreed, then left him with an apology and an excuse that she needed more than Blue River had to offer. More than he had to offer.
He stood and moved out of the pew. A few of the same women headed their way. Chase put a hand in the small of Michelle’s back when she moved up beside him. “Ready to make a break for it?”
“Absolutely.” She turned. “Aunt Sarah, we’ll meet you outside.”
A wide grin pulled at his cheeks as he grabbed her hand and bolted for the double doors.
Michelle’s laugh pealed out behind him. Their strides fell into a familiar rhythm, and he tightened his grip on her hand, using his free one to push through the doors and out into the brilliant sunshine that threatened to blind him.
He blinked and aimed his feet in the general direction of his truck.
A thought rocketed through him with such force it sucked the air from his lungs and left him lightheaded. Fifteen years ago, he’d anticipated a similar run through the church house doors. Only this version had Michelle in a white dress and him in a tux that pinched and poked.
Michelle slowed and the sudden shift of her pulling back stopped him before he wrenched her arm from its socket. “That has to be the rudest church exit in history.”
“Nah.” Maybe in Blue River history, but not in the grand scheme of the world. “We might be the talk of the town for a few days, though.”
“Like I wasn’t already?” She waved a hand, fanning her face. “There’s Aunt Sarah.” Her smile slipped. “I’d better go.”
“Why don’t you two come to the ranch for lunch?” Mom wouldn’t mind.
“I don’t know.” She waffled in that way he’d always found endearing. Her weight shifted side to side like she was physically weighing out the best option.