“Hello?”
“Marla is that you?” a woman asked.
“Hello?” another voice cut in. Carmen had answered before the second ring.
“I’ve got it,” Marla said quickly. There was a click as Carmen hung up the extension. “Yes, this is Marla,” she said and from the corner of her eye, saw Eugenia, still standing at the doorway saying her goodbyes to Helene, snap around.
“Thank Jesus I finally got through to you,” the caller breathed on a heartfelt sigh. “It’s me. Cherise. I’ve been trying to reach you ever since the accident.”
The front door clicked shut and Eugenia turned, her eyes narrowing on Marla as if she were a stern teacher and Marla was a naughty fifth-grader caught passing notes in class.
“Every time I’ve called I’ve been put off, but Nick said to keep trying and . . . well, the Lord must’ve intervened. How do you feel?” Cherise asked, her voice filled with concern.
“Better.” Marla caught her mother-in-law’s disapproving expression and ignored it. Upstairs the baby began to cry.
“I know this has been hard,” Cherise was saying. “The injuries and the loss of your friend. It’s a terrible, terrible time. The Lord’s challenges are sometimes difficult to understand.”
No kidding.
“The Reverend and I would love to visit you.”
“The Reverend, meaning your husband?” Marla asked.
“Yes. Oh, that’s right . . . I forgot about your amnesia.” There was a smile in Cherise’s voice. “He goes by The Reverend Donald.”
An image of Donald Duck—one complete with halo and angel wings, one she was certain she’d seen sometime long ago—flashed through her mind. The Reverend Donald probably wouldn’t like the comparison. “Come on over.” The baby cried again and Marla cast a glance up the stairs. Where was Fiona?
“How about tomorrow? In the afternoon?” Cherise suggested.
“As it happens, I’m free,” Marla joked, refusing to give in to a sense that she should have checked with someone before inviting guests. This was her house, damn it, and right now, judging from the wails rippling down the stairs, she needed to get off the phone and check on her baby. “I get the wires off my jaw in the morning, so I’ll actually be able to speak clearly again.”
“Perfect. Then I’ll check with The Reverend and we’ll be there between three and four. Maybe I can even talk Monty into tagging along.”
“The more the merrier,” Marla said before hanging up and facing Eugenia’s scowl.
“You invited someone over tomorrow?”
“Just family,” Marla said, rankled at her mother-in-law’s superior, disapproving tone as she headed up the stairs. “Cherise and her husband. The Reverend Donald.”
“Dear Lord.”
“Her words precisely,” she called looking down from the second floor landing. “Her brother might be coming along.”
The baby stopped crying.
“Montgomery. Wonderful,” the older woman intoned through lips that barely moved. “This should be interesting.”
Amen, Marla thought caustically as she started up the stairs to get James. A-friggin’-men!
“Marla’s different.” Nick was slouched in the passenger seat of his brother’s Jaguar as Alex navigated the car down Market Street toward the Bay. The sky was a light gray, the pavement wet from an earlier drizzle.
“Of course she’s different. You haven’t seen her in years.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nick said, surveying the financial district of San Francisco with more than a slightly jaundiced eye. High-rises of concrete and steel towered to the heavens, traffic clogged the streets and pedestrians hauling bags, briefcases, backpacks and umbrellas hurried anxiously along the sidewalks. Traffic signals blinked as engines rumbled and people shouted. Pigeons and seagulls flapped on the busy sidewalks.
Nick hated it. All of it.
“Well, okay, so Marla is different,” Alex admitted, pushing in his lighter as they stopped for a red light and a stream of people bustled both ways as they crossed the street. “She’s just survived the birth of her second child and a traumatic accident that killed her friend and a complete stranger. Now she’s got no memory, had plastic surgery and her mouth wired shut for nearly two months. You haven’t seen her for years. Yeah, I imagine she seems lots different.” Fingers searching, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and shook out a Marlboro just as the lighter clicked. He lit up. “I hope she recovers . . . I mean not just physically, but mentally, that she shakes this amnesia.” He braked for a stop light and traffic swarmed around the Jag. “I doubt if she’ll ever look the same.”