Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

KEIR

Keirnan –

I went to the store. I’ll be back in an hour.

Start shoveling the walk, please. Everyone should be here in a couple of hours, and I don’t want my floors tracked up.

Love,

Mom

The note was sidewayson a small table, but then I realized I was lying on my left side. I sat up and looked around the small room, but none of it looked familiar. I got out of a full-size bed, setting my feet on a freezing cold floor.

I was barefoot and wearing blue plaid pajamas. As I glanced around the room, I saw pictures of myself, though clean-shaven, and a few trophies for debate. I didn’t remember being on a debate team.

Looking out the window, I saw snow…lots of snow. I was guessing that was what the note was about. Did I live here? Where the fuck was here?

A suitcase was in the corner of the room next to the closet, so I walked over to it and opened the door, seeing plaid flannel shirts and blue jeans. There were also turtleneck sweaters and house slippers, which I slid on immediately.

Opening the door to the room didn’t help. The hallway was narrow with worn hardwood floors and several closed doors. The door across from me was open. I stepped inside and turned on the light, seeing it was a bathroom. I quickly used the toilet and washed my hands.

A set of towels sat on a small stand in the corner. I hoped a shower would help clear my head, so I turned on the water and removed my clothes. Once the water was warm, I stepped inside and washed up.

Bar soap didn’t seem right to me, but I used the green bar to clean myself. The smell of mint permeated the warm air, which wasn’t bad. There was a bottle of shampoo that didn’t have much of a smell, but I used it, anyway, feeling a bit closed-in in the bathtub-shower with a navy curtain.

Once I had rinsed my hair, I turned off the shower and got out. I found a new safety razor in the vanity drawer, so I shaved. Until I figured out what was happening, it was better to look as much like my pictures as possible. Everything was far too confusing to analyze.

When I finished, I stuck my head out the bathroom door and listened, finding the house silent. I slipped across the hallway to the room where I’d slept. I found underwear, socks, and T-shirts in the top dresser drawer, so I put them on.

I went to the closet and grabbed a turtleneck sweater, slipping it over my head and my arms through the sleeves. Jeans were next, and then a belt. They didn’t look like the clothes I was used to wearing, but they were warm, which was what I needed.

After tidying up the room and hanging the damp towel over the closet door, I descended a set of stairs leading to a spacious first floor. I didn’t recognize it, but something about it felt like home. Was it my home?

I walked into what appeared to be a living room, spotting a comfy-looking couch. To the right were two worn leather recliners with two armchairs across from them. Everything was neat and orderly, which was oddly comforting.

The dining room was through a large doorway, and the kitchen was just beyond that. There was a huge dining table with at least ten chairs, another large table in the kitchen.

The floor was black-and-white linoleum, and the curtains on the windows in the kitchen were red gingham. The kitchen smelled of apples and cinnamon, and I saw pie crusts on the butcher block counters that had been parbaked. How the hell do I know what that means? Nothing made sense, but everything felt oddly familiar.

Sounds outside caught my attention, so I walked over to the large window in the kitchen and looked out, seeing an older man on a tractor. He was clearing a path to a huge white barn next to groups of black-and-white cattle eating from a large trough.

Seeing all the snow reminded me that my mother had asked me to clear the sidewalk, so I went to the door and found a pair of black rubber boots that looked my size. I slid my foot inside, happy to find they were insulated.

A coat, scarf, and wool beanie were hanging there, so I put them on, finding gloves in the pockets. I slid my hands inside them and opened the front door as if I’d done it a million times. The blast of cold air took my breath, but I hurried out and pulled the door closed behind me.

I sensed that I’d visited the place before but didn’t live there, but I couldn’t remember where I’d been before I woke up. As I shoveled the snow, my muscles reacted as though it wasn’t anything new, so I worked my way to the driveway and then down the other two sidewalks—one that led to the back of the house, and another that led to the large barn.

The man on the tractor whistled and motioned for me to come to him, so I leaned the shovel against the fence and opened the gate, cautiously walking to where he was sitting with the tractor idling.

“You just get up? Well, I guess the drive from Ames took a lot out of ya, huh? Your mom’s glad you’re home. She said you were taking a sabbatical to write a book? I guess that’s good.”

Drive? Ames? Home? Write a book?

Who was this man, and why did he seem to know me when I didn’t know myself?

“Is there something I can do for you?” I damn well couldn’t answer any of his questions.

The man had a welcoming grin. “Can ya open the gate to the barn lot so I can clear it for the girls? It’s supposed to snow again tonight, and I don’t want them wading in two feet of it when they come up to get milked. What time are Keith and Naomi getting here? I hope that damn Darryl doesn’t start his shit tonight. When you go back inside, hide the bourbon, will ya?"

I opened the gate he pointed to and offered a nod. He drove through it on the tractor and kept going, so I closed it. I hurried back to the yard and grabbed the shovel to finish the job, wondering who the fuck those people were that he’d mentioned. If there was bourbon in the house, I wasn’t going to hide it. I was going to gulp it.

After I hungmy coat on the hook and put my boots on the rubber tray by the door, I hurried to the kitchen and opened the drawers like a maniac. I was searching for any mail with the names of the people I was meeting. I found nothing, so I moved into the living room and searched everywhere. Yet again, nothing.

I found a hallway I hadn’t noticed earlier, so I walked it. On the walls were lots of family pictures of the strangers I was encountering, though something inside me whispered they were my family. I was so fucking confused. What the hell happened to me?

There was a picture of the man from the tractor standing next to a tall woman in a sparkly dress. They were smiling at each other as they held hands between them. There was a small cake next to the woman with a topper that read Happy Thirty-Fifth Anniversary.

Next to that picture was another of a man with a big smile. He danced with a girl standing on his shoes while a woman danced beside them, holding a toddler. They were all smiling, giving the impression it was a happy occasion.

The next picture was of a group of people I didn’t know at the same party in a large banquet hall. A pretty woman was staring at me with a happy smile. No clue who she was, but it seemed as if she liked me.

Farther down the hall was another picture with a younger woman who looked like the woman in the anniversary picture, but her hair didn’t have any gray. She was standing next to a man with a sour expression as a young boy stood in front of them. They all looked miserable.

The crunching sound of tires on snow distracted me from staring at the picture. My head was spinning, but I couldn’t remember anything about myself before that very moment.

I went to the door to look out, seeing a woman in a pickup truck. She was bundled up and wearing boots, so obviously, she was used to the weather. I slid my boots on and hurried outside to help her.

“Can I, uh, help you?” She glanced my way with friendly blue eyes and a warm smile. Her hair was shoulder-length with a bit of silver running through it.

“Did you get enough sleep, sweetheart? You looked so tired last night when you showed up. Thank you for cleaning the sidewalks. Let’s go inside, and I’ll make you something to eat. You look thin.”

I glanced down my body to see I didn’t look any different, but she seemed to think so, and I wasn’t prepared to argue with a woman I didn’t know—or did I?

After grabbing cloth bags and a frozen turkey, I followed the woman inside. “Put everything on the counter. What do you want for breakfast, Keirnan?”

Keirnan? It was close, but it didn’t feel like my name. Who did she think I was? She looked at me as if she knew me well, and a part of me seemed to recognize her, but I couldn’t imagine why or how.

“I’ll be fine with coffee. I’m not much of a breakfast person.” Suddenly, a blond guy flashed through my mind’s eye. He was eating food at a kitchen counter, and we laughed together. My heart sped up a bit.

“When is Sibley getting here?”

Who the hell was Sibley? I had a sick feeling in my gut, and then I glanced at my left hand and found a ring. Oh hell, was I married?

“Uh, I’m not sure.”

What else could I say? I had no idea who or what Sibley was to me.

“Are you sure you two can’t work things out, Keirnan? You’ve been together for five years, and she’s pregnant. Don’t you want to be a father to your unborn child?”

“We’re working on it.” It was the best response that came to mind. Hell, was I going to be a father? I wanted a child, didn’t I? I didn’t think that was the problem. The mother, though, felt wrong.

The woman in the kitchen stepped closer and touched my shoulder. “Then why did you invite her for Thanksgiving?”

Damn, that was a good question.

“I guess she wanted to see all of you.”

The woman laughed. “Honey, her parents live up the road. She’s been in our lives since she was a little girl and they moved in. She’ll still be in our lives, even if you two can’t work things out.”

I had a million questions swirling in my head and no answers. What the hell was going on? I knew I wasn’t where I needed to be, but I couldn’t understand why.