A Wedding to Remember Read online

  “You overdid it.” Bruce fell in beside her. “Cooking me dinner.”

  A shake of her head. “No. That was fun. It’s not that. It’s that I seem to be going from one appointment to the next to the next now. I can go years without so much as a cold, and yet now, it seems, that’s all I’m doing.”

  Bruce whistled for the dogs playing in the pasture to follow them back to the house.

  “Your limp is less noticeable,” he told her. “Already.”

  The bruises on her face had faded to a light yellow and a faint green, a sign of healing, but her speech was still affected, a little slurred and slushy, and as far as he knew, Savannah hadn’t had any memories, not even flashes, of the last several years. All of her childhood memories, the memories of her young adulthood, and even the early years of their marriage were still, thankfully, intact. But Savannah still did not have recent memories about the darkest period of their marriage.

  “Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful for the help.” She ascended the stairs, holding on to the railing, much more slowly than she had descended. “I just wish I didn’t need the help.”

  * * *

  The first time she mustered the nerve to drive herself into town after she was cleared to drive by her neurologist, Savannah decided to meet her friends from work at one of their favorite spots on Main Street.

  “How are you?” her friend Maria, a speech-language pathologist at the elementary school where Savannah had worked before the accident, asked after the waitress took their orders.

  Savannah took a sip of her soda, enjoying the burn of the carbonation on her throat and the syrupy sweet taste on her tongue. She put her glass down and then said, “Honestly, I don’t even know how to answer that.”

  Deb, a kindergarten teacher whose classroom had been adjacent to Savannah’s, put her hand briefly on her arm. “We’ve all been praying for you.”

  “Thank you,” Savannah said. “I appreciate that. I do. I just want to...feel normal again. But I don’t even know what normal is anymore.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Maria sympathized. “It must be so hard for you.”

  “It’s messy.” She frowned in thought. “It’s like trying to make sense of a blurry photograph, but no matter how hard I squint, I can’t bring my life into focus. I still can’t get my mind around the fact that I’ve lost years.” Savannah shook her head and repeated, “Years.”

  “We’re so sorry.” Deb’s sadness for her was easily read in her kind, brown eyes.

  “It’s the little things that really throw me off,” she explained. “Have you ever looked at one of those pictures in the magazine, two side by side pictures, and you’re supposed to figure out what’s different about them?”

  Her friends both nodded.

  “That’s what it’s like. But it’s not a picture I’m trying to figure out—it’s my life. Everyone looks just a little bit off in my mind, but it takes me some time to figure out why.” Savannah turned to Deb. “Your hair is past your shoulders now. But for me, it was just a couple of weeks ago that you were wearing your hair in a bob and thinking about growing it out. That happens time and time again. Everyone looks just a little bit off from my memory of them. And sometimes I find someone staring at me, and I can’t be sure if I’ve met them before and now they think I’m rude for ignoring them, or if I have spinach in my teeth.”

  “You haven’t gotten any of your memories back?” Maria asked.

  She shook her head. “But that’s not the hardest part. The hardest part,” she continued while her friends lent her their listening ears, “is my marriage.”

  Again her friends nodded to signal that they were listening carefully.

  “I know about the divorce, but I don’t remember it.” Savannah twisted her wedding band. “Bruce told me, once when I was still in the hospital, that he still loves me, but he doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t kiss me.” In a quieter voice she added, “He doesn’t sleep in our bed.”

  “Bruce loves you,” Deb interjected. “Everyone knows that. Even when you were getting divorced, we knew that. He just needs some time to switch gears.”

  “Do you want him to sleep in bed with you?” Maria asked.

  Savannah nodded. She really did. Sleeping in their bed, even with the three dogs, felt so lonely. She wanted her husband next to her again.

  “Then tell him,” Maria encouraged her. “Just tell him.”

  * * *

  Her friend’s words had rattled around in Savannah’s mind all afternoon and late into the evening. The fact that Bruce continued to sleep on the couch was just an accepted fact that neither of them discussed; in fact, they didn’t discuss much below the surface. Yes, they were eating dinner together and going for walks. Yes, Bruce had helped her with the garden and taken an interest in her therapy. But they didn’t seem to be moving forward together. She resented the divide she felt between them; she resented the figurative wall he had erected as a barrier to keep her at arm’s length.

  They had already turned in for the night; he went to the couch and she went to the bed. She could hear him snoring lightly from the living room. The more she listened to him sleeping, the more irritated she became with her own silence. Why hadn’t she talked to him about the sleeping arrangement? If this second chance at their marriage was going to work, she was going to have to learn how to speak from her heart and tell Bruce what she needed from him. At least, that was what her therapist had told her in her last session. And her therapist’s observation seemed to align with Maria’s advice.

  Savannah carefully pulled her legs out from beneath the sleeping dogs, trying not to disturb her canine bedmates. Barefoot, wearing one of Bruce’s white cotton V-neck undershirts and a pair of bikini underpants, she petted the dogs, who’d lifted their heads curiously.

  “You guys stay here,” she whispered. “I’ve got this one.”

  It had been easy for them to put the dogs between them, focus their attention on them, as another way to keep them apart. A distraction from the awkward situation they found themselves in; a distraction from the strange, wounded state of their marriage. Not this time.

  “Bruce.”

  No response, other than a loud snort and a leg twitch beneath the blanket.

  She reached down and poked his shoulder with her pointer finger. “Bruce.”

  That time, her husband’s eyes opened wide in surprise, and he sat up, jerking his head back like he was dodging a punch.

  “What the heck, Savannah!” he sputtered. “What’s the matter?”

  “Sorry.” She tried not to laugh, but failed. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I was asleep.”

  Bruce was always grumbly about being awakened. She was used to it.

  “Are you okay?” He squinted at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Savannah sat down on the edge of the couch, forcing her husband to scoot his legs over to make room for her.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she started, but stopped herself with a shake of her head. “No. That’s not true. Something is wrong.”

  He waited for her to continue, yawning loudly when she paused to collect her thoughts.

  “Here’s the thing,” she restarted. “I don’t want you sleeping out here anymore. I want you to sleep in our bed. With me.”

  Bruce stared at her in the dim light provided by the glow of the three-quarter moon. When he didn’t say anything, she asked, “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.” He pushed his body into a more upright position.

  That was all he said; she waited for him to continue, yet he didn’t.

  “I miss having you in bed with me,” she added softly. “I miss my husband.”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “I know. I know it has been. For you. But for me...”

  Bruce
blew out his breath, and then he shrugged his shoulders.

  “My back’s been mighty pissed off about this sleeping arrangement.”

  Savannah stood up; that was Bruce’s way of saying “yes” without saying it directly.

  Her husband threw the blanket off his legs and stood up beside her. His body, naked save his boxer briefs, was warm from the blanket. She could feel the heat from his skin; it always felt so good, so secure, to wrap her arms around her husband and feel that warmth of his body transferred to her own skin. It was hard not to reach out to him now; it would be hard to resist reaching out to him when they were in bed together.

  “I’m dead tired,” Bruce said sleepily, his pillow tucked beneath his arm.

  She led the way back to their bed, a bed they had picked out together, a bed they had slept in and made love in and read the Sunday paper together in. There was so much more she wanted from Bruce—kissing and touching and lovemaking and loving words. But this was a start. Getting her husband back to their marital bed was a very good place to start.

  * * *

  Bruce had been dead tired until he climbed into his side of the bed. He found some free real estate for his feet and legs on either side of Buckley’s body. He sighed happily as he slid down into the cool, undisturbed sheets on his side of the bed and put his head down on his pillow. He loved this mattress and he’d sorely missed it. And he had a stiff back to prove it.

  Savannah was on her side of the bed, Hound Dog’s large body sprawled out between them like a chastity belt. She turned on her side, facing away from him, and said good-night. For her, that seemed to be the end of it. She had gotten him back into bed and now she was asleep. But that wasn’t the end for him. Now he was the one awake. He’d wanted to hold his ground on the couch for his own good—he didn’t need to start thinking about making love to Savannah. They’d had an active sex life—that was the one thing that they could always get right. It had taken him a long time to get over the desire to make love to his wife; it had taken him a long time to get used to the idea of having sex with a woman other than Savannah. If this thing blew up in his face, he didn’t want to have to detox his body from craving hers.

  “Great,” he said in a raspy whisper.

  “Are you all right?” Savannah asked him, her head turning back a little in his direction.

  How should he respond to that? Should he tell her the truth? The scent of her freshly washed hair, the weight of her body on the mattress, the sound of those little sighs she made when she was getting ready to drift off to sleep—all of those things had made his body respond without his permission.

  “Go to sleep,” he ordered gruffly. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” she murmured in a sleepy voice. “’Night.”

  Bruce usually slept on his back; tonight, he turned on his side, his back to Savannah. He pressed his face into the pillow and tried to ignore the erection in his shorts. How could he be this weak around Savannah? Why did she always seem to have this hold on him, no matter how much he tried to fight it?

  He loved her. Still. And he wanted to love her with his body. With his mouth. With his hands. And day by day, dinner by dinner, walk by walk, it was getting harder for him to figure out why he shouldn’t make love to his wife. His wife.

  Savannah wanted the lovemaking—he could feel the tension building between them. A tension that could only be relieved by bringing their bodies together, skin to skin, mouth to mouth.

  “Damn,” Bruce muttered under his breath as he slipped out of bed.

  His body wouldn’t give up, and he couldn’t go to sleep with a hard-on. This time, Savannah didn’t awaken; she just kept right on sleeping while he took a cold shower. Now that he was sleeping in the same bed with his wife, he was gonna have to stop telling his body “no” and start telling it “yes” if he was ever going to get a second of sleep again.

  Chapter Five

  Savannah had never needed a shrink before she broke a windshield with her head. But now that she had one, she could see how useful they could be.

  “Any memories return since the last time we spoke?”

  Savannah was lying flat on her back, head on the couch pillow, legs stretched out in front of her. Dr. Rebecca Kind had told her on several occasions that she didn’t have to lie down, but she liked talking about her problems in the prone position.

  “Not a one.”

  “Any images, or scents or sounds?”

  “Nope.” Savannah shook her head. “You know... Kind is a great last name for a shrink.” She looked at the counselor. “I bet you hear that a lot.”

  Dr. Kind, a woman in her late fifties, with salt-and-pepper long, frizzy hair down to her waist, cracked the smallest of smiles. “Let’s stay on topic. How are things going in your marriage?”

  For this, Savannah felt she needed to sit upright. “So, here’s the thing... I did exactly what you suggested—I told Bruce what I needed. And it worked. Sort of.”

  “How did it work, and what would you like to see improved?”

  “Well, it got him back in bed. That’s a step in the right direction.”

  Dr. Kind, her head down, jotted some notes on a pad.

  “But...” she continued. “He still won’t kiss me or hug me, and God knows there hasn’t been even the prospect of sex.”

  “And you’d like to be physical with your husband.”

  “Of course. We used to always make love—that never slowed down, even after we’d been married for several years. Now? I’ve been totally cut off.”

  “Have you discussed this with Bruce?”

  Hands in her lap, Savannah shook her head. “No. He’s hard to talk to. He’s always been hard to talk to.”

  “Has communication always been a problem in your marriage?”

  She nodded yes. It had always been a problem. And even though she didn’t have any memory of it, the fact that they’d resorted to divorce meant that their communication issues had only gotten worse over time.

  Dr. Kind put her pen down on top of the pad of paper and then rested one hand on top of the other. “Have you spoken to Bruce at all about what caused the divorce?”

  “No. I’m not ready for that. We’re not ready for that.”

  “What frightens you the most about finding out what your mind won’t remember?”

  Savannah knew what frightened her the most, but it was hard for her to put her thoughts into words, even in this private, safe environment. If she found out what broke their marriage apart while they were so disconnected, then her marriage to Bruce would surely fail for a second time. And no matter what had happened during the last several years—whoever that Savannah was—this Savannah was deeply in love with her husband, and she did not want to risk losing him again.

  “I have a suggestion.” Dr. Kind filled in the silence. “I’d like for Bruce to join us next time.”

  Savannah’s eyebrows popped upward. Bruce didn’t mind her going to a shrink, but he didn’t believe in paying good money to spill your guts to strangers when you could just walk out to any pasture and tell your problems to a cow for free.

  “I don’t think he’ll come.”

  “Don’t assume. Give him the chance to say yes or no.” Dr. Kind looked at her wristwatch and then checked the clock on the wall. “Good. Let’s end here today.”

  * * *

  “What’s on your agenda for today?” Bruce asked his wife after he took a sip of coffee.

  Savannah wasn’t used to having so much free time during the summer—she always volunteered to teach during summer at her elementary school—so it didn’t surprise him that she had been keeping herself occupied by cooking almost every meal for him. They had opted to skip the big family Sunday breakfast; even though he’d had a heart-to-heart with his brothers about Savannah, some of them just couldn’t treat
his wife like they had before. It made Savannah uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to force her to spend concentrated time with his family right now. After his brothers saw that their marriage was going to last—if it did—then things would work out eventually. That was his rationale.

  “I was thinking about spending some time with Mom and Dad,” she replied distractedly. “What’s on yours?”

  Bruce leaned his forearms on the table, his eyes drinking in the sight of the simple pleasure of having his wife sitting across from him again. “It’s Sunday.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How ’bout we get back to our Sunday tradition?”

  Savannah, who had been answering emails and texts on her phone, finally looked up at him. When she smiled at him, a smile that reached those pretty eyes of hers, it sent a pang into the pit of his stomach. This woman still had the power to wreck him with her smile; he loved to be the one to inspire that smile, and he lived for the moments when he could make her laugh.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Anything you want.”

  Her smile broadened, and that pang in his stomach grew stronger. He had spent most of his days during their marriage thinking of ways to make Savannah happy—that was his mission, because she had the same mission for him. Maybe it was time for him to risk a little to get a bigger return. Much like her garden, Savannah had been wilting right in front of him. And he had a feeling, a very strong feeling, that he was a big part of it.

  “Drinking Horse Mountain,” Savannah decided. “Something new.”

  A cloud entered her eyes when she asked a second later, “It is new, right?”

  “Yes,” he reassured her. “It’s new.”

  They filled a backpack with water and food, supplies for the dogs, and Savannah called her mom to let her know that she would be spending the day with Bruce.

  “Mom wants to know if we want to come over after for an early dinner.” His wife held her phone against her body to muffle the sound of his answer.

  It was easy for him to read the anticipation on Savannah’s face—she loved her family, she loved him—and it would be the perfect capstone on her day if she could see her folks. So he agreed. After hiking, in-laws.