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John wiped the last trace of shaving lather from his neck with one of the hospital’s coarse white towels. The face staring back at him remained as unfamiliar today as the new shoes on his feet.
How could a man forget what he looked like? How could he forget who he was, his own name?
Turning on the water, he rinsed the blue disposable blade. He knew how to use a razor but not where he’d purchased his last one or what brand he preferred. Things every man knew. It seemed only the personal parts of his memory were missing. It was the most frustrating part of his condition.
Traumatic amnesia his doctors called it. Those two words seemed woefully inadequate to describe the entity that had swallowed his life the way a black hole swallowed a star without letting a single ray of light escape.
He almost laughed at the absurdity of his thought. He could remember that weird trivial fact but not his own name. How ridiculous was that?
His doctors said his memory would return in time. They told him not to force it. Yet after eight days his past remained a blank slate. He was sick of hearing their reassurances.
“I’d like to put them in my shoes and see if they could take their own advice,” he muttered as he put away his razor. Chances were good they’d be doing the same thing he was. Relentlessly trying to make himself remember.
Looking up, he stretched his hand toward the likeness in the mirror and forced a smile to his stiff lips. “Hello, my name is…”
Nothing.
Nothing came to mind this morning just as nothing had come to mind for the past week. The only identity he had was the one the hospital had given him. John Doe.
Staring at the mirror, he said, “Hi, I’m Andy. Hello, I’m Bill. I’m Carl. I’m David. My name is Edward.”
If he did happen on the right name would he even know it? Rage and frustration ripped through him, bringing on a crushing headache that nearly took him to his knees.
“Who am I?” he shouted. His fingers ached where they gripped the porcelain lip of the sink.
His whole life was gone. He couldn’t pull a single relevant detail out of the darkness in his mind.
He touched the bandage on the side of his scalp. According to the local law enforcement, he had been beaten, dumped in a ditch and left with no wallet or identification. Every effort to identify him was under way, but with no success thus far. His fingerprints and DNA weren’t in the system. No one was looking for a man fitting his description. Even TV reports and newspaper articles had failed to bring in one solid lead.
Somewhere he must have a mother, a father, maybe even a wife, but the man in the mirror had no faces or names for anyone he’d known before waking up in the hospital.
“Too bad I wasn’t microchipped like—”
Like who? Like what? The thought slipped away before he could fully grasp it. His head began pounding again. The pain worsened each time he tried to concentrate.
Forced to leave the past alone, he buttoned the last button on the gray flannel shirt the hospital social worker had purchased for him. The shirt was new. The one he’d been wearing couldn’t be salvaged but the jeans were the ones he’d been found in. They fit well enough, although he’d lost some weight. Eating seemed so unimportant.
A knock sounded at the door to his room. He moved to sit on the edge of his bed and winced at the pain in his bruised ribs. Someone had planted a kick on two in his side after they’d split his skull. He said, “Come in.”
The door swung open, revealing a tall, blond man in a sheriff’s uniform. John had been expecting Nick Bradley, the officer in charge of his case.
Sheriff Bradley said, “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I can be. Thanks for giving me a lift.”
John was being discharged. After a week and a day of testing and probing he’d been declared fit. Physically, he was in good shape so the hospital had no reason to keep him.
Mentally? That was a different story. Leaving this room suddenly seemed more daunting than anything he could imagine. How did he start over when he had no point to start over from?
No, that wasn’t exactly true. He had one point of reference. His life started a week ago in a ditch outside the town of Hope Springs, Ohio. That was where he had to go.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” The sheriff clearly wasn’t in favor of John’s plan.
“I must have been in Hope Springs for a reason. Seeing the place might trigger something. Besides, it’s all I have.”
“I still think you’d be better off staying here in Millersburg, but I can see you aren’t going to change your mind.”
Reaching into his breast pocket, Sheriff Bradley with-drew a thick white envelope. He held it out. “My cousin Amber lives in Hope Springs. She’s a nurse-midwife there. She knows about your situation. She wanted me to give you this.”
“What is it?” John reached for the envelope.
“Her church took up a collection for you.”
John opened the package and found himself staring at nearly a thousand dollars. Overwhelmed by the generosity of people he didn’t know, he blinked hard. Tears stung the back of his eyes. He hadn’t cried since—
It was there, just at the back of his mind, a feeling of grief, a feeling of overwhelming sadness. But why or for whom he had no idea. The harder he tried to concentrate on the feeling the faster it slipped away.
He forced himself to focus on the present. “Please tell your cousin how grateful I am.”
“You can tell her yourself when you see Doc White to get your stitches out.”
After gathering his few belongings together, John bid the nursing staff farewell and slipped into the passenger’s seat of the squad car parked in front of the hospital. Within minutes they were outside the city and cruising along a narrow ribbon of black asphalt.
The highway rose and fell over gentle hills, past manicured farms and occasional stands of thick woodlands. Looking out the window he saw herds of dairy cattle near the fences. The cows barely glanced up at their passing. A half-dozen times they came upon black buggies pulled by briskly trotting horses. Each vehicle sported a bright orange triangle on the back warning motorists it was a slow-moving vehicle.
John waited for something, anything, to look familiar. He held tight to the hope that returning to where he had been found would jog his absent memory. As they finally rolled into the neat small town of Hope Springs he was once again doomed to disappointment. Nothing looked familiar.
Sheriff Bradley pulled up in front of a Swiss-chalet-styled inn and said, “This is the only inn in town. The place is run by an Amish woman named Emma Wadler. The rooms are clean but nothing fancy.”
Now that he was actually at his destination, John struggled to hide his growing fears. How would he go about searching for answers? Was he going to stand on the street corner and ask each person who walked by if he looked familiar? When the sheriff got out, John forced himself to follow.
A bell over the doorway sounded as the men walked into the building. The place was cozy, charming and decorated with beautifully carved wooden furniture. An intricately pieced, colorful quilt hung over the massive stone fireplace at one end of the lobby. A display of jams for sale sat near the front door.
Behind the counter stood a small woman in blue Amish garb. Her red-brown hair was neatly parted down the middle and pulled back under a white bonnet. She was talking to someone inside a room behind the desk. She glanced toward the men and said, “I will be with you in a minute, gentlemen.”
John watched her eyes closely for the slightest sign of recognition. There was none.
Turning her attention back to the person inside her office, she said, “I would gladly send overflow guests to your farm, cousin. It would be much better than telling them they must go to Millersburg or to Sugarcreek.”
A woman replied, “We have spare rooms and as long as they don’t mind living plain it will work. The extra money would be most welcome. If I can get Dat to agree to it, that is.”
There was something pleasing about the unseen woman’s voice. He enjoyed the singsong cadence. Her accent made will sound like vil and welcome sound like vell-com. It was familiar somehow.
The grandfather clock in the corner began to chime the hour. John reached into the front pocket of his jeans, but found it empty.
Confused, he looked down. Something belonged there. Something was missing.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
John turned around as the inn owner began a conversation with Nick. The hidden woman came out of the office and headed for the front door. She wore a dark blue dress beneath a heavy coat. An Amish cap covered her blond hair. Slender and tall, she moved with unhurried steps and innate grace. When she happened to glance in his direction, John’s breath froze in his chest. His heart began thudding wildly.
Rushing across the room, he grabbed her arm in a crushing grip. “I know you. What’s my name? Who am I?”
* * *
Karen recoiled in shock when a man grabbed her arm and began shouting at her. She threw up one hand to protect herself and tried to twist out of his grasp.
“Tell me who I am,” he shouted again, his face only inches from hers.
A second later, the sheriff was between her and her assailant. Pushing the man back, Sheriff Bradley said, “John, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I know her. I know her face. She knows who I am,” he insisted, pointing at Karen.
By this time, Emma had rounded the counter and reached Karen’s side, adding another body between Karen and the angry man. “Cousin, are you all right?”
Rubbing her forearm, Karen nodded. “I’m fine.”
Karen glanced at the man and recognition hit. This was her Englischer, the man she had discovered lying injured beside their lane. That recognition must have shown on her face.
His eyes widened with hope. “You know me, right? You know my name.”
She shook her head. “Nee. I do not.”
The sheriff spoke calmly but firmly. “John, this is Karen Imhoff. She’s the one who found you.”
His body went slack in the sheriff’s hold. The color drained from his face as the hope in his eyes died. His look of pain and disappointment twisted her heart into a knot.
She said, “It was my little sister who spotted you lying in the weeds.”
His eyes suddenly narrowed. “I was told I was unconscious when the paramedics arrived. How is it that I know your face?”
As her racing heart slowed and her fright abated, Karen took a step closer. He was alive and standing here before her. Joy gladdened her heart. He had been in her thoughts and prayers unceasingly. It took all her willpower not to reach out and touch his face.
She said, “You opened your eyes and spoke to me. You told me you were cold. I put my coat over you.”
The sheriff released his grip on John. “She doesn’t know anything about you. I’ve already questioned her and her family. There’s no connection between you.”
A look of resignation settled over John’s features. He raised a hand to his forehead and rubbed it as if trying to rub away pain. “I’m sorry if I hurt or frightened you, Miss Imhoff. Please forgive me.”
He did not remember her holding him close. Perhaps that was for the best. She had come to the aid of a stranger, nothing more. The rest, the closeness, the connection she felt with him, those things would remain in her secret daydreams.
“You are forgiven,” she said quietly. What she didn’t understand was why he had insisted that she tell him his own name.
The sheriff looked toward the innkeeper. “Sorry for the disturbance, Emma. This is John Doe, the man found injured near here a week ago. John has amnesia.”
“What does this mean?” Karen asked, unfamiliar with the English term.
John’s eyes locked with hers. Once again she felt a stirring bond with him deep in her bones. It was suddenly hard to breathe.
He said, “It means I can’t remember anything that happened before I was hurt. Not even my own name, but I remember your face and the sound of your voice.”
Compassion drenched Karen’s heart and brought the sting of tears to her eyes. His suffering had not ended when the ambulance took him away from her.
Sheriff Bradley said, “John needs a room for a little while, Emma. He doesn’t have any ID so I came to vouch for him in person.”
Emma said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything available for a week. I just rented my last room an hour ago. You know the quilt auction begins tomorrow. It runs for several days, and then there is the Sutter wedding. By next Friday I will have a room.”
Clearly upset with himself, Nick said, “I’m sorry, John. I should have called ahead. They aren’t normally booked up here. I know you had your heart set on staying in Hope Springs. I didn’t even think about the auction being this week. I’ll take you back to Millersburg. We can find a place for you there.”
“We have a room to let.” Karen’s desire to help John overrode her normally good sense. He was a stranger lost in a strange land. He needed her help today as much as he’d needed it the day she found him.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. Karen bit the corner of her lip. What had she done? She should have discussed this with her father first, but she had already made the offer and couldn’t withdraw it.
When she explained things her father would realize the benefits of this additional income. Especially after she had failed to get the teaching job.
Their family’s income had been severely limited following her father’s injury a month earlier. A farrier couldn’t shoe horses with his arm in a cast. There were still medical bills that needed to be paid in addition to their everyday expenses.
She would point out all those things, but she knew he would not be pleased if she brought this man and his English trouble into their house.
She fidgeted under John’s unwavering gaze. Finally, he said, “Your farm was the first place I had planned to visit when I arrived. Renting a room there makes sense.”
“For a week,” she stressed. “After that, Emma will have a place for you here.”
“It seems you’ve come to my rescue once again.” He held out his hand to seal the deal and gave her a crooked grin. It deepened the lines that bracketed his mouth, lending him a boyish charm.
With only a brief hesitation, she accepted his hand. Her pulse skipped a beat then pounded erratically as her small hand was swallowed by his large, warm one. It wasn’t soft, it was calloused and rough like the hand of a man who worked outdoors for a living. A blush heated her cheeks, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.
She remembered him so clearly. The shape of his brow and the stone-gray color of his eyes, even the way the stubble of his beard had felt beneath her fingers. She remembered, too, the husky sound of his voice when he had told her she was beautiful.
Something light and sweet slipped through her veins. An echo of a time when she’d been a giddy teenager smitten with a local boy. A time before she’d had to become a surrogate mother to her younger siblings and put her girlhood dreams away.
Thoughts of the children brought her back to earth with a thud. She pulled her hand away from John. This man was an outsider and thus forbidden to her. She had offered him a room to rent for a week and nothing more. Her strange fascination with him had to stop, and quickly.
Gesturing toward the door, she said, “I must get home.”
He said, “I don’t have any sort of transportation. May I hitch a ride with you?”
Oh, Dat really wasn’t going to like this, but what could she do? She gave a stiff smile. “Of course.”
Emma asked quietly, “Karen, are you sure about this?”
Pretending a bravery she didn’t feel, Karen answered, “Yes. Goodbye, cousin, I will see you at Katie’s wedding next Thursday.”
Emma didn’t look happy, but she nodded. “Give Onkel Eli my best.”
John shook hands with the sheriff, who promised to check up on him soon, and then followed Karen out the door. Her nervousness increased tenfold as he fell into step beside her.
He was taller than she thought he would be. She had been called a beanpole all her life, but he stood half a head taller than she did. She felt delicate next to his big frame. It was a strange feeling. Spending the next half hour in this man’s company in the close confines of her buggy might prove to be awkward.
