Abithica (36 page)

The terminal building was a lot more crowded than it was when I’d arrived. I felt more alone than ever, even while surrounded by hordes of people. The good news was that I wouldn’t have to wait long at my gate. Once I got there, I found a row of empty seats and picked one at the very end, sitting and shielding my eyes with my hand and trying not to cry. No more than two minutes later someone sat right next to me, a man, even though there were plenty of empty seats to choose from. Frick! He must have taken some course or other in ways to infuriate people who needed a little private space, because he stretched out his legs and settled in. There’d been eight other seats in the empty row, the brainless idiot! The gate opposite mine was idle. I should have taken a seat over there. Maybe I’d just do that now. I leaned forward, preparing to stand up.

“Abithica?”

The strange-sounding word had come from “brainless.” Was he talking to me or someone else? There was no one else there, no one close enough, and he seemed to be waiting for me to respond. What language was he using? U-bith-i-ka? It wasn’t anything I’d ever heard.

Then my heart stopped.

Even though I could only see part of his knee while shielding my eyes, it was enough. I knew that voice. I’d heard it every single night in my dreams. Cowboy boots? This couldn’t be! It was just another cruel joke I was being made to endure, another crumb from the cake I’d never taste. Stunned, I pulled my hand away and looked up—directly into blue eyes I thought I’d never see again.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he asked in awe. “I really did find you.”

I couldn’t swallow. Or breathe. I couldn’t do anything but stare.

“Are you going to faint?”

My heart abruptly started again, this time pounding like some jackhammer. Was he really talking to me? Was it possible?

“When I told you that you were odd,” he continued, “I had no idea
how
odd. You knew, of course, but you couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me.”

“Lane, what are you doing here?” I whispered, afraid the mirage would disappear. That was the only explanation I could come up with. I was so lonely that I had created a very real-looking Lane for company, or else this was all a dream.

“What am I doing here? Well for starters, I had to buy a ticket so I could come out to the gates and find you.” He showed me his boarding pass.

“No, I meant how did you find
me?
I’m not… I’m not Sydney. I’m… I don’t even really know who I am, so how did you know?”

“A woman named Marge, a doctor, called Father Gabe and gave him your flight information.” He smiled. “You have a very good friend up there in Seattle.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “But how did you know what I
looked
like?”

He smiled again, this time with a bit of sparkling humor blended in. “I just did. Remember when I told you I could find you anywhere? That all I had to do was follow the pull you have on me? Well, it worked… and by the way you’re looking at me, I think you might actually remember me. Did you take your memories with you when you slipped away from—”

“I will always remember you, Lane.”

My mirage turned then, hugging me. “I prayed you would. I’ve prayed every single day since you left. None of us were sure how all this crazy stuff works. We thought memory loss might be involved, so there was a good possibility you wouldn’t remember any of us. Then we heard you were getting on a plane to come here. I believed in my heart that you’d find us no matter what, if we were right about all the rest of it. It was up to
us
to find
you
.”

“I’m a complete stranger. You’ve never seen me before.”

He pulled away and looked at me curiously. “You don’t know what you are, do you? You really have no idea? Well, forget that part for now. Father Gabe and Shae are much better at that stuff than I am. They’re the ones who figured it all out, so they should be the ones to tell you.”

I reached out and touched a lock of his hair. It felt silky and soft. Then I leaned closer and musky pine filled my senses. “Are you real?” I whispered.

He chuckled, hugging me again, tighter than before. “I could ask you the same question,” he said, nuzzling my hair. “We heard you shouting at us there at the circus. I thought I was going nuts at first, because I’d been looking for you, hoping you’d come back. I thought maybe I wanted it so bad that I was making it up, but Shae heard you, too. Then, when Sydney returned, she not only heard you but felt you.
She
was the one who pointed you out. I ran up those stairs and chased after you, but you were too fast for me. I lost you outside, in the parking lot.” His voice broke. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“But I
didn’t
shout,” I protested. “I wanted to, but I knew you wouldn’t hear me. I never said one word.”

It was his turn to stare, then to smile. It was the same smile I’d seen back at the circus, only this time I knew it was for me. Only for me.

“Flight 2119 now boarding,” a woman’s voice announced. It was the local public address system, right there at the gate.

My ticket was sticking out of the boarding pass folder. Lane reached over, gently took the folder from my hand, pulled out the ticket, and ripped it up.

“I just canceled your flight, Abbi. You’re already home.”

My mind whirled as Lane led me back toward the main terminal. Where were we going? What would happen now? I’d returned to Tucson for closure, not more questions. I wanted to square my shoulders and look forward, not back. Another few minutes, and I’d have been on the plane and on my way to discovering who Annie might be, not wondering why Father Gabe had come looking for me. I could have dried my tears and waited for my heartaches to fade away, but Lane had chased after me! He’d wrecked everything.

Now he seemed to be reading my mind. “I knew when your return flight was scheduled, so I knew I’d find you here. I also called Faith. She’ll meet us at the check-in counter.”

“Faith… is here?” My heart suddenly took flight.

He nodded. “So are Shae and Sydney and Father Gabe. There were enough teachers to chaperon the children at the circus.”

“Sydney? She’s here, too?” I stopped.

“What a change you made in her. You’ll love the person she’s become.” He beamed, nodding.

No, I won’t. Oh, Lane, how can you be so dense? She’s the last person I’d want to see!
I spun around and started running back to my gate. Maybe I could scoop up the torn ticket pieces and they’d let me board. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

But he was suddenly running with me. “What are you doing? What did I say?”

“I can’t do this, Lane. You’re asking too much.”

“Do what? What am I asking? Wait…” He grabbed my hand. “Wait, Abbi, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. Did I break the rules or something?”

“Oh, Lane, don’t you know
anything
about women? You broke
my
rules, that’s what you did! How could you expect me to… Sydney, of all people… she… didn’t you
know
what meeting her would do to me?” Tears blurred everything. I could still see him hugging Sydney; still see the passion on his face. Of
course
he knew what he was doing to me. Denying his feelings for her now would make it worse than horrible.

“Don’t cry, Abbi, please don’t cry. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“Then let’s just put an end to this. Sydney is yours now, and I’m just another woman you don’t know. You can’t deny your feelings for her, and I can’t accept being her shadow. It’s over, Lane.”

“No, you’re wrong. I can’t let you leave again, Abbi, not after all this. You’re wrong about being just another woman. I
do
know you, even if you’re different now. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“You’re impossible. I am nothing more than an illusion, and not a very good one at that. Let’s just say I learned what I came here to learn, okay? I am
not
going to meet anybody, and you can stop calling me Abbi or whatever. That’s not my name.”

“The name you signed on your letter to Shae was Abithica—one of Father Gabe’s academic experts deciphered it—and I’m
not
going to let you run away now that I’ve found you. I’ll come after you. I know where to find you now.”

“Well, I’m not Abithica, and I’m not buying into that Shae letter business any longer. Are you so dense that you think I can just be your
friend
, Lane, that I’ll be content with that? That it won’t bother me in the slightest to watch you and Sydney living the life I’ve always craved?” My floodgates had opened and I couldn’t see, but it no longer mattered. Everything came spilling out. “Give Shae a big kiss for me and tell Faith I will be forevermore obsessed with shoes.”

Then I broke free and ran for my gate.
Don’t follow me. Please don’t follow me!

The waiting area at the gate was empty. Lane had tossed my torn ticket into one of the waste containers. Blinking away the last of my tears, I flipped the top away, scooped up the pieces and rushed to show them to the attendant closing the passenger counter. She was sympathetic. The plane had already left, but she said I could turn in the pieces back at the ticket counter and they’d give me a replacement. I still had my boarding pass, and that was all the proof I needed.

There was a women’s bathroom right there, but I wanted to be as far from the gate as possible in case Lane came back. Fighting another flood of tears, I found a more secluded bathroom in the baggage claim area. I locked the door to one of the stalls and cried for all I’d lost and all that would never be. Why had I broken my own rule about getting emotionally involved? I knew the consequences, but then Lane… he….

A lady with bright red canvas slip-ons hurried out of the stall next to me. I heard her whispering with another woman as they washed their hands. “I wonder what happened to her?”

“Who knows?” the other replied. “Probably one of those immature goodbye scenes, know what I mean?”

“My daughter was like that the first few times, until she learned a little self control.”

They left, but their words lingered. Self control? Immature? Had either of them ever lost the most precious thing of all, their sense of personal worth? Had either ever lost all hope?

Moments later, someone else came in. My knuckles went to my teeth as I strained to contain my sobbing. A pair of Nike tennis shoes entered the stall next to me, but they were pointed in my direction. I should have recognized them. I’d worn the very same shoes.

“Abithica?”

I knew the voice, too—it had once been mine. What was
she
doing here? I lifted my feet so she wouldn’t see them. It didn’t work.

“I know you’re in here,” she whispered. “It’s exactly where I’d have gone. Besides, I saw your feet before you lifted ‘em, and who else but you or Faith would ever wear double-knotted lace-ups?”

“What do you
want
from me?”

“Lane told me what you said at the gate.”

I shivered. Hearing her say his name was like having someone screech fingernails across a blackboard.

“He thinks you don’t love him anymore,” she continued, “but I know better, and so do you. Before you and he got together, I’d never imagined
that
was how love could feel. For me it had always been booze, sex, and drugs. Just a big, feel-good romp with nothing afterward but more of the same. Never any tenderness or caring. You showed me something else, something precious. You humbled me.”

What sort of game was she playing?

“Lane’s a really nice guy. We’re friends, but he loves
you.
He’s real upset that he made you cry.”

“But you’re the one he’s going to marry.” I whispered the words.

“Not!” She laughed. “No wedding on the sixth day of the sixth month, or any other month. I’m not exactly blind, and I’m not dumb. He’ll spend the rest of his life waiting for you, hoping you’ll come back.”

“But I saw the way he looked at you, there at the circus. So happy.”

“Because he was hearing
you,
silly! Besides,
I
was the one who saw you first. I’d have known it was you even if your back had been turned. For a moment there I felt like we were both back in Dr. Chen’s office, on that couch together. Shae knew it was you, too, soon as I pointed you out to her.”

“But I’m totally different now. I’m not you anymore.”

“You never were. You were always yourself. I was just a mask you wore.” The tennis shoes walked out and stood before my stall. “Open up.” It was more a demand than a request. Reluctantly, I slid the lock back and pushed the panel open. It was like looking at myself in a mirror. She pulled me to my feet, gently parting me from my security closet, then smiled.

“Some monster
you
are! The ones
I
know don’t cry.”

* * *

Lane was leaning against a wall, looking just terrible. When he saw us approaching, he straightened, waiting.