Echoes in the Walls Read online

  “I’ve got homework to do,” I said, and walked away, tears glistening.

  This wasn’t the first time he had said something that could easily resurrect memories of us dancing at the prom or taking secret walks at night when we were both supposedly doing homework. I might just open a dam and get him an avalanche of our intimate memories.

  But not yet, I told myself. Anyway, it had to come from him. No one could blame me then. I was always looking over my shoulder, anticipating Dr. Davenport’s concern that despite what I now knew about my family tree, that we were indeed blood-related, I would still flame the passion Ryder and I once had found for each other.

  Truthfully, it wasn’t easy to shift from being someone’s girlfriend to being his sister. My mother sensed it. There was concern in her eyes, too. Because of this, I think she, as well as my father, was happy that Samantha was something of a chaperone. My spoiled half sister didn’t understand why it wasn’t easy for me to show how much I cared about Ryder, but she certainly welcomed what she saw as my indifference and claimed aloud that she cared more for him than I did.

  “After all, he was my brother all my life,” she liked to remind me.

  One time, I snapped back at her. “Half brother, Samantha. You’re no different from me when it comes to our relationship to Ryder.”

  She started to pout and then said, “But I’ve been his half sister years and years more than you. For years and years, he’s only known you as a servant’s daughter. That’s what he’s bound to think of when he has his memory again,” she said with glee. “Why should he think anything else?”

  I imagined that thought took all her mental energy. Actually, I was a little impressed. She was not to be underestimated.

  Many a night, after I had done my homework and lay in bed thinking, I couldn’t help but wonder if Samantha was right, that when and if Ryder began to regain his memories of me, he wouldn’t remember me with a young lover’s affections. Would he remember me only the way he had before all this had happened? Would I be the young girl he liked to look after but for whom he never dreamed he would have romantic feelings?

  And what of those memories of when we were together, caressing and kissing each other and each thinking of the other as our first real love? Were they really forever lost? Or were they there just beneath the surface, ready to emerge? When and if they did, would they still be as strong? And then, when he learned the truth as I had, when he was capable of understanding it, would that revelation send him reeling back to the empty world his near drowning had created for him? It was how I felt most of the time, caught in an empty world and as good as nearly drowned myself.

  Consequently, sometimes I felt like I was tiptoeing around him, trying not to be noticed. It broke my heart to be even in the least way disinterested in him, but always haunting me was the question of whether the last thing you remember before you lose your memory takes precedence over everything else. Ryder’s last memory surely was of us clinging to each other in the storm after making so many promises to each other. However, one thing we, mainly me, were repeatedly and emphatically warned was not to mention the accident on the lake during the storm.

  I think both Dr. Davenport and my mother were increasingly concerned about this and my temptation to help him remember in great, emotional detail. I could see it in the way they searched my face after they knew I had spent time with Ryder, especially if I was lucky enough to spend a few minutes alone with him.

  One time, I walked into the living room, not noticing he was there, actually seated in my father’s chair. He was working on a crossword puzzle.

  “Hi,” he said. Was it my imagination, or was he checking the doorway to be sure no one else was coming in, especially Samantha? “What are you doing?”

  “I left a magazine here yesterday,” I said, and nodded at the settee where it still lay.

  He stared at me for a moment. Something was happening. “You ride a little red bike,” he said.

  I smiled. “I did. When I was five. You had a blue bike with a horn and a light.”

  He nodded. I saw my mother standing outside the doorway. I hurried to get the magazine.

  “What’s the magazine?” Ryder asked.

  “Just girls’ fashions,” I said.

  He nodded and then returned to his crossword puzzle.

  “How was he?” my mother asked when I stepped out. She practically pounced on me.

  I knew what she was really asking and why. Love was an emotion. Did you forget your emotions when your memory had been damaged? When you looked at someone you liked, someone you loved, did you have the same feeling even though you had no understanding of why you would? And if you did, would you express it? Would Ryder reach for me, not knowing himself why he wanted to? And if he did, would I retreat or welcome it? Would that be like taking unfair advantage of him just to please myself?

  “Weren’t you just in that room with him, Mummy?” I imagined she was; she probably had brought him down to it.

  “You heard the doctor, Fern. He could have different reactions with different people at different times. We’re supposed to keep track.”

  “He was no different,” I said sadly.

  She nodded, but I could see the suspicion. Would I tell them if Ryder suddenly turned to me with a lover’s passion? Or would I keep it to myself for as long as possible?

  This was, after all, the house of secrets. Why not anticipate another, even one of my own?

  I thought family secrets mainly thrived because my father kept them so locked up in his heart. Occasionally, one would burst free. It was like sweeping out another shadow. That happened just before our Christmas holiday break had begun. My father had missed dinner again. He had called to tell my mother that a cardiac procedure had gone longer than he and his team had anticipated. Mrs. Marlene hadn’t left yet for her holiday, but he always called my mother, who was still our house manager.

  Ryder had fallen into such a deep sleep late that afternoon that my mother didn’t want him awakened, so it was just her, Samantha, and me. As usual, Samantha ran off at the mouth, but my mother only smiled at me and let her talk about her friends, listing those she liked and those she disliked and why. She criticized clothes and hairstyles. I thought she was beginning to sound more and more like her mother. I was happy when dinner was over and I could go help my mother and Mrs. Marlene in the kitchen, something Samantha would never do.

  My mother checked on Ryder and then returned to say she would bring his dinner up to him. “I think it’s better if he’s going to eat alone that he eat in his room. He’s somewhat used to it.”

  “I can stay at the table if you want him to come down,” I offered.

  I saw she was tempted, but the thought flew off like a frightened bird.

  Mrs. Marlene prepared Ryder’s dinner for my mother to take up to him. She remained with him while he ate. She said he seemed comfortable with her there. My mother was very cautious about any hopeful comments she might make about him, but I had the sense she thought he was beginning to recall more and more about her. If he was remembering her, wouldn’t that mean he would soon be remembering me, the way I wanted him to remember me? I could hope for that, at least.

  I still had some schoolwork to do before the holiday break, so I went up to my room to do it. Later, after he had arrived and had some dinner, my father came to see me. Since the day of the Revelations, my father and I had never had another private discussion about my mother and him, Ryder, and me. I was at my computer desk working on a book report when I heard him knock on my door. It was partially opened almost always. I think in the back of my mind, I was hopefully anticipating the day or the night when Ryder would suddenly come to my room, smile, and say, Hi. What’s happening? What’s this nonsense about my forgetting who you are?

  It would surely be like everything since the day of the storm while we were on the lake was one long dream, mostly a nightmare. Neither of us would mention it. For me, it would be like Christmas and my birthday all wrap
ped into one.

  “Busy?” my father asked. Even after all this time, I had still not gotten to the point where I would call him Daddy, Dad, or even Father. Perhaps I never would. Whenever I referred to him now, I still called him the doctor or Dr. Davenport. My mother didn’t make a point of it, but I could see her thinking about it. Would she ever dare say, Call him your father, Fern. That’s who he is?

  “Just a book report due before we break for Christmas,” I told him. “I’m almost done.”

  “Oh, I can come back or . . .”

  “No, it’s only going to be another ten minutes,” I said.

  I was sorry I had even mentioned it. Having him come to my room was special. Most of the time, whenever he spoke to me, either Samantha or my mother was present. Even though I didn’t show it, it really bothered me that not much had really changed between my father and me since the Revelations. When I mentioned that to my mother, she said, “Sometimes we are trapped in ourselves, in who we have become. Change is difficult for people like your father.”

  “But wasn’t he very different with you once?” Of course, I meant when he had impregnated her with me, when they had resembled lovers.

  “I explained that to you, Fern. He wasn’t himself then; he was quite lost for a while. Personal tragedies can do that, but after enough time has passed, it becomes safer to return to who you were. He’s a powerful and extraordinary man, but give him time,” she said. “Lots of time.”

  And so I did.

  He came farther into my room and gazed around. “When I was in my teens, I slept in this room often,” he said.

  “Really? Why?”

  I thought he was going to smile, but he pressed his lips together like he usually did when he went into a deep thought and then sat in the one other chair I had. It wasn’t very feminine, and I doubted any other girl in my class or in the entire high school would want to have it in her room, although it was comfortable. It was a matching Churchill nailhead leather chair, the leather the same shade as the dark oak furniture.

  “I used to have different feelings, reactions to the different bedrooms in this house. Some were so cold, off-putting, that I didn’t even like looking into them. Of course, my mother talked about people, members of the original family of Wyndemere, the Jamesons, dying in some of them. She didn’t make it up to keep me from wandering where I shouldn’t. The real estate agent who sold the house to my father was obligated to reveal if someone had passed away in the house.

  “But no one died in this room,” he quickly added. If he thought that might bother me, he was right.

  “So why did you like sleeping in here?” I asked.

  He sat back and closed his eyes. It was rare for me to catch my father unaware that I was there and available for me to observe him closely when he closed his eyes to rest or fell asleep on a sofa or in a chair in the living room. It was his eyes, after all, that were the most intimidating thing about him. Maybe it was because of the intense concentration he needed to operate on someone’s heart and arteries, but I never saw him look away or down when he was talking to anyone. And it was equally difficult for anyone to look him in the eyes for too long. I imagined that was especially true for a patient who had disobeyed an order. I recalled even Bea shunned looking directly at him, and she was mean enough to stare down Satan.

  But sitting back, relaxing, his eyes closed, my father was suddenly vulnerable to me. I could stare at him more closely. Now in his late forties, he had just the faint outline of gray in his pecan-brown hair. He was still quite attentive to his diet and still exercised as regularly as he could. I wanted to go with him on one of his jogs along the lake, especially on weekend mornings, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep up and he’d be sorry he had agreed. Because it was too cold for that now, he ran and exercised in a gym near the hospital. We couldn’t be sure when he was doing that. Except for informing my mother when he wouldn’t be at dinner or when he would just be late, he didn’t reveal much about his schedule. My mother said he was a very dedicated physician. She had no doubt that he spent way more time than any other doctor in the hospital or with his patients in his office at the hospital.

  His face was always closely shaved and smooth. He had just a tint of rose in his cheeks, but he seemed to have a habitual tan despite spending most of his time indoors. His lips were firm and straight, his nose Roman. I was sure many a movie actor would like to have his looks. I imagined dozens of nurses had crushes on him and just as equally imagined that if he had noticed, he had ignored them and not given any of them a reason to hope. He was always aware of his surroundings and especially of other people. Maybe he didn’t like being surprised, no matter how small the surprise might be.

  Everything he did was precise and careful. When I was very young, I was fascinated with the meticulous way he ate, occasionally dabbing his lips with his napkin. My mother had often told me to observe Dr. Davenport’s posture. Now that I thought about it, thought about those early days, I realized how much she wanted me to emulate and respect him. Maybe she anticipated the day would come when he would tell me in the simplest way, I am your father.

  And I would think, of course. I had somehow always known that.

  “I have this cousin on my father’s side,” he began now, his voice softer. He sounded younger, too. His eyes were open, but he was looking across the room and not at me. “When she was your age, she was as pretty as you are. She was four years older than I was, but she was always so sweet and friendly to me. She had corn-yellow hair that floated along the back of her neck and the tops of her shoulders. It was always neatly trimmed, with bangs over her cerulean eyes. I envied her for her happy disposition. She walked in sunshine.

  “No matter what the weather, to her it was beautiful outside. She was one of those people who see the glass half full and never half empty. I had a terrible crush on her. I was too young to think of her as anything but a sort of angel. She smelled so good, too. I don’t remember what she used or if it was just her shampoo, but it was fresh and vibrant, as if she opened every morning like a beautiful flower.

  “After she and her parents had left, I often came into this room and sprawled on the bed thinking about her, because I could still smell her wonderful fragrance and imagine her here. The last time she visited, she kissed me good-bye, a little peck on my cheek, but I clung to it like a life preserver. Sometimes, when I was much older and depressed about something, I would come to this room and just sit in this chair or on the bed.

  “Little boys are hopeless and helpless when it comes to their crushes. Sigmund Freud wrote that we are never so vulnerable as when we love. My cousin could have easily crushed me with one reprimand, one sour look. But she didn’t. Did you know,” he asked, finally turning to me, “that scientists believe it takes a man only eight-point-two seconds to fall in love? I have no doubt that was all it had taken me. And when I first looked at my wife Samantha, I saw my cousin. I never told her that,” he quickly added.

  He smiled. He actually smiled in a warm and loving way.

  “I don’t think any woman wants to hear that she reminds you of someone else you loved. You all want to be the first, especially in romance, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, afraid to move, even to breathe, and cause him to stop talking.

  “I’m a cardiac specialist, but I cannot tell you that there is anything specific about the heart that enables you to love. I think that’s more in the mind perhaps.”

  I waited. Why was he telling me all this? Had he somehow fallen in love with someone else, someone he was going to marry and bring to live at Wyndemere? Did he think that would make me angry because of how it might affect my mother? Maybe many of those surgeries and appointments were really secret dates. After all, despite the Revelations, there was no sign of any deeper affection between him and my mother. He had always spoken to her more softly and politely than Bea had, but I saw nothing special in the way he looked at her before or even now. My mother didn’t seem to mind, but after wha
t I had learned, it bothered me. I wondered if he could tell.

  Was that why he was here?

  “So much has happened and consumed us all since I came to your room that day and told you I was your father,” he continued, “but I don’t want you to think I have forgotten you and what surely was quite shocking information. I blame so much of this on myself. When you make a mistake in life, it’s often like throwing a rock into the water and watching the ripples go out and out. Everything we do, even the smallest of things, has some consequences beyond the immediate. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is I’m very proud of how you’ve handled it all, how mature you’ve been. I know your mother is very proud of you, too.

  “But I’m also very worried about those ripples,” he added.

  He was looking at me now the way I was told he looked at his patients, full of that intensity. He never held back on his diagnosis or prognosis, even if he was saying dark days were right around the corner. Rationalizations, sugarcoating, was simply impossible for him. He had always been that way when it came to Ryder and even me before he acknowledged who I was.

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “I’m worried that you’ve been wounded so deeply that your future happiness is in jeopardy. I may seem oblivious to what’s happening here, what’s happening with you, but I am aware of the fact that you don’t do much of anything other girls your age are doing.”

  “I do things.”

  “Not very much and certainly not as much as you used to do, Fern. You cannot blame yourself for what’s happened to Ryder. I appreciate how devoted you’ve been and how you and Samantha have helped with his therapy, but rushing home after school, not doing anything with friends on weekends . . . you’re sentencing yourself to his fate. Don’t say you’re not,” he added quickly.

  I looked at my desk. Of course, I couldn’t deny it, but I couldn’t explain why without hurting him, making him feel even more guilty.

  “After the holidays, I’d like to see you out and about more. Join some of the extracurricular activities at school. You were once in the drama club, weren’t you?”