Chapter 10

I want a divorce. She had said before leaving the hospital.

It had taken them the whole night and the better part of the morning to explain to her who Daniela Kent was. Kat had also explained her brother’s personality and the important detail that Kit had never intended to get married or have children. Reno had told her about her shop in Hawaii and she’d left immediately. When she arrived there she found Sarah, who’d told her exactly how she and Kit had come to be married.

I want a divorce, she told her brother two days after arriving in Hawaii.

I want a divorce, she said, after taking DJ’s advice and thinking about it for a month.

Even the sight of her rounding belly couldn’t change her mind. Every day, she discovered just how much she loved Kit, but never did she hear how much he loved her. The stories she had heard about their relationship made it seem like a one-sided love. Only once had Kit told her he loved her and since then, his actions made her doubt. Danny understood the position he was in—he might be angry, confused, or disappointed even, being that she had tried to marry his twin just because Chris reminded her of Kit.

Danny wondered what kind of weak person she was to go to those lengths. To give up her sobriety and her sanity just because Kit had gone missing. She wondered what she would have done if the new Danny had been faced with the same situation. It was harsh for her to judge her old self; it wasn’t right to. However, she wished that Kit himself would tell her about their relationship, especially how he felt about her.

Danny’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. A young, attractive man walked in. He was all smiles and honestly, a little too excited to see her. It creeped Danny out.

“Oh my God, you are as beautiful as ever,” he said animatedly.

“Thank you.” Danny smiled. “Sarah!”

Danny moved around the desk each time he came near her. With the reputation her old self had, Danny wasn’t surprised that there was a man coming after her. Although her family had never said anything about being promiscuous, but they were probably trying to be nice. We don’t know whose baby that is. Mrs. Henry’s words rang in her ears. Who was this now, an old boyfriend? A former lover? Did she not just try to marry Chris, but also kept this man on the side as well? Was he the babies’ father?

“Oh God, him!” Sarah said, startled.

“Yes, him. Who is him?” Danny asked Sarah as if the stranger wasn’t in the room.

“What’s going on here?”

“Danny lost all the bad memories of her past. Apparently, that includes you. What a shame.” Sarah wasn’t sorry at all. In fact, she seemed to enjoy the crestfallen look on the man’s face. “This is Solomon, our old client.”

“Really? Nice to meet you…again,” she added awkwardly.

“You’ve been gone for almost two years,” Solomon whimpered.

Danny frowned. She eliminated him from the list of ‘could have been a lover’. There was no way she would entertain his pathetic personality. With the type of men that were around her, there was no way that Danny could have dated this man, even for a second. She was relieved. The contenders for “my babies’ father” were still down to two.

“Yes, I was going through some stuff.”

“When you left with that soldier guy, I knew something bad would happen to you. When I saw him outside, I knew he was up to no good,” he frowned.

“Soldier guy?” Danny asked. Kit. Her heart picked up its’ pace. “Where did you see him?”

“Why?”

Danny ran out of her office and out of the building. Frantically, she searched the street. She had barely caught a glimpse of him when his motorcycle sped off. She hadn’t seen his face, but she knew it was him. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she let go of the breath she had held for a month. Relief replaced the tension she had been holding on to for a long while. It didn’t matter if he was stalking her from afar and didn’t want to meet her. She was happy that he cared, even if it was just for the pregnancy. Danny was glad.

***

Kit felt dumb about stalking his own wife. But he didn’t have a choice. He had caught the same flight as she had out of New York. He watched her from the back as she got up to go to the bathroom a few more times than usual. He’d wanted to go to her when she’d looked green at the gills. Kit had done her research and knew it must be morning sickness. Revealing himself wouldn’t help. When Kit had found out she was going back to Hawaii, he had asked Sarah to get Danny’s place cleaned out for her. He’d even rented a cabin next to hers. Every day for the past month, he’d watched her and how exhausted she looked each night coming home.

Going through the showroom that day hadn’t been his plan. But he was passing through when he’d seen Solomon walk in. It wasn’t jealousy, just annoyance. But there was nothing he could do. They would be getting a divorce soon. He never called to know how it was progressing, because he was afraid that reality would hit him. Kat knew his address, so he expected the papers any day.

But seeing her through the window, rushing outside, had made his heart skip. She looked as beautiful as ever. Through her dress, there was a slight hint of the babies growing inside her. How he wished he could hold them in his arms, even just once. Kit was so afraid of how excited he felt that he kicked his bike into gear and ran away. He couldn’t face her and give her hope, when he hadn’t gotten over the guilt he felt over his brother. He knew that her family must have told her about Chris, and Kit wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her. He could barely do it when his brother was alive, and Danny was still Danny.

Kit had every intention of going back to his job. Although he had been placed on leave, he could still petition to go back. He wasn’t discharged yet. However, each time thought about returning, something held him back. The first time he’d joined, it had felt like he was home. Now, it felt like a safe place he could run away to. You are a coward. Danny’s words would never leave him. He owned up to them, accepted his truth, but it was hard to get rid of the disappointment that she had felt in him.

This was him, trying to come to terms with the reality of his new situation. He wanted to be with Danny and the babies. Kit wanted to take Kat’s advice, to give Danny space. And in his own way, he was doing exactly that. Kit didn’t have a plan of action; however, he hoped before the divorce papers reached him he would be able to have some sort of relationship with Danny. He didn’t care—they could start off as friends if that was what she wanted. They could be that married couple, soon-to-be parents who don’t live with each other just yet, but are friends. Kit was willing to settle for that relationship. But first things first, he needed to let go of Chris.

Kit drove to the beach. He sat on the sand and stared out at the ocean. It was obvious why he felt guilty. He never felt sorry for being with Danny and being the one she loved and ultimately chose. However, he was sorry that coming back to life had resulted in his brother’s unhappiness. A million times a day, he wished his brother was still alive, so that he could get a chance at finding his own love. He wanted his brother to be happy, even for a moment. Chris hadn’t been that different from the teen Danny, unhappy and self-destructive because of it. Danny had overcome it, and it would have been a matter of time before Chris did, too.

So, Kit looked out to the water and apologized. He was sorry that the woman Chris had chosen was the woman he was in love with. He was sorry that he’d come back to life and taken back what rightfully belonged to him. He was sorry that his brother was unhappy, but he would never apologies for loving Danny and having her as his wife. That was something Chris would have to get over in his afterlife.

Kit got on his bike and kicked it into gear. He had barely gotten on the road when he felt a bump on the back and was sent flying through the air. Kit heard his body crunch, and before the pain could knock him unconscious, he couldn’t help but laugh. Chris always found a way to get his revenge.

***

“Is everything all right?”

Danny looked back at her new store assistant, Ray, and smiled. The girl was so delicate in nature and always looked out for other people. She and her seven-year-old son were her neighbours. Ray had found her on the beach on her first night, crying her broken heart out. She’d sat next to her and put her arm over her shoulder. Danny had thought it was a weird thing to do for a stranger. However, when she’d come to know her a little better, she realized that it was her personality. It didn’t hurt that Ray was also in her fourth month of pregnancy. Danny got all of her pregnant-to-do list from her.

Danny hired her at the shop, and they quickly became best friends, even against Sarah’s pouting. It was good to start fresh with someone. Even better, because they seemed to be on the same path together. Kay had also left her husband in New York. That just told Danny that Kit wasn’t the only coward in the city.

“Ray of sunshine,” Sarah said sarcastically. “She’s fine. She just spotted her husband spying on her like a stalker.”

“You know what, Sarah? One day, the two of us will be best friends,” Ray said with a smile.

She was a ray of sunshine, indeed. Her optimism was infectious. Her happy smile was borderline annoying, and how she faced everything with a positive attitude made her seem more like an alien as each day passed.

“I’m hungry,” Danny said.

“Me too,” Ray added.

“I want to be pregnant.” Sarah huffed. “It must be fun to eat whatever you want.”

“It is,” Danny and Ray said in unison.

Her son, RD, ran into the shop, his elementary school teacher, Jake, chasing behind him. Danny couldn’t help but admire the effort the man put into courting Ray. But somehow, Ray seemed oblivious to the man’s efforts.

“Where is my big hug?” Danny crouched and embraced RD tightly when he ran into her arms. She couldn’t wait for the day she could do this with her own children.

“Hi Aunty D!” he squealed.

“Hi, how was school?”

“Does mommy get a hug?” Ray asked.

“Aunt Sarah first.”

“Fine, but mommy gets more kisses.”

Danny was always happy when witnessing this scene before her. But today, she was extra happy. Seeing Kit was just the cherry on top. “Let’s go gets some pizza!”

“Yay!” RD shrieked.

Sarah ran over to the reception desk when the phone started ringing. She answered it in her usual chipper voice, but then her face turned grave and the tone in her voice dropped. She turned to Danny and held the phone out to her. “It’s the hospital. They are asking for Mrs. Henry.”

Danny turned around, expecting to find Kit’s mother standing behind her, her lips turned down, her foot tapping disapprovingly, and an accusing glare as she wagged her finger at Danny. But no one was there. Although strange—since she never used the name—she was the only Mrs. Henry in the room. Cautiously, she took the receiver from Sarah. After a moment and a deep breath, she said, “Hello.”

“Your husband had an accident.”

Danny clenched her purse close to her chest, using another barrier to keep her heart from jumping out of its cage. The nurse hadn’t given her any sort of information, just that Kit had been hit by a car when he was on his bike. Danny imagined anything and everything a person could at that moment. Fear was just as potent in the air as the smell of sterilized hospital floors. And regret, it nagged at her, loading her mind with a bunch of what-ifs that couldn’t help at that moment. Danny wished she had agreed to Kay and Sarah’s coming with her when they’d insisted.

Danny stood at the station in the middle of the ER and looked around. All of this should feel familiar: the cries, the coppery scent of blood in the air, and the despair on relatives’ faces. Not so long ago, she had been one of those people on a stretcher, covered in blood and at the brink of death. She watched as a man chased a gurney with an unconscious woman on it. He was distraught and inconsolable. Danny couldn’t help but wonder if Kit had behaved as the man did. Or had Kit pulled off his usual indifferent routine—stand at the side, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her family cry over her bruised body? Danny was more inclined to believe the latter. She had been about to marry his twin brother. Kit had probably wanted both punished.

Danny was about to turn around and leave the same way she’d walked in. What was she doing there? Just because Kit had married her under false beliefs more than a year ago? He was now stalking her, and she was pregnant with what could or could not be his children, but that did not make her his wife. She knew nothing about him and the short time they’d played house, it had been clear that they were not suited for each other.

“Excuse me. Are you Mrs. Henry?”

Danny froze just as she was about to make her escape. She turned to the nurse with a feeble smile. “Yes.”

“He described you perfectly.”

“How is that?” A two-timing troll with no conscience toward her husband.

“The most beautiful woman in the world.” The woman smiled and Danny rolled her eyes. “Plus, he gave us a picture. He said you might have a difficult time being in the ER and we should watch over you.”

“So many requests. So, I assume he is not dead?” Danny wanted to bite her tongue. She hadn’t meant to sound so flippant. “I mean, how is he?”

“He’s headed off to X-ray for now. Please fill out these forms.” The once-friendly nurse turned grouchy in a second.

It didn’t surprise Danny that Kit already had a fan base. He was a beautiful man. His blue-grey eyes, his long and his sandy blond hair. The scar across his cheek only gave him more of a mysterious allure. And Danny bet he was a surrounded by nurses throwing their bras and panties at him as he was wheeled off to the X-ray room. Good for him, but why did it piss her off so much?

Danny took a seat and scanned through the forms the nurse had given her. There was nothing there she knew. Of course, his name, Christian Henry, but not his middle name, not even his age. His occupation was probably the talk of the whole hospital, but she realized that she knew more about her fabric supplier than she did her husband. Ashamed, she picked up the phone and asked Kat to fill in the gaps. She couldn’t bear the look that the nurse would have given her if she had gone back to the desk with an empty form.

“Come with me, please?” the nurse asked, once Danny handed the form over.

Do I have to? Danny wanted to ask but didn’t dare. It was strange: the shame of not knowing her husband pushed aside any fear she had about his accident. The nurse took her to a private room where Kit was, his leg strung up as two too many nurses tended to his scratches and bruises. Danny stood to the side and watched as they buzzed about him over nothing.

She couldn’t help but smile at how peaceful Kit looked in his slumber. She wanted to stroke his cheek and push back the lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. Danny had the urge to climb into bed next to him and hold him. That was an impossible desire, considering the nurses seemed stuck to his side.

“Mrs. Henry.” The doctor came up to her with a bemused smile.

“Is he going to live?” Danny asked.

“Definitely. It’s a clean break, so it should heal quickly. Other than that, a few scrapes and bruises. He should be fine,” the doctor said.

“Thank you.”

“Danny,” Kit groaned.

She didn’t move. She stood still where she was, staring at him as he called her name.

“My Danny.”

Danny took a step forward when she saw murder in the nurses’ eyes. It must have irritated them for him to call another woman’s name in his sleep. But it seemed to piss them off more when Danny didn’t react at all.

“Danny?”

“Yes, Kit,” she responded nervously.

His eyes slit open, and he stared at her for a while. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

“Danny.”

“Mmm.”

“I love you, Danny.”

Danny pulled back, but she was no match for Kit’s quick reflexes. He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. A tear rolled over the bridge of his nose and onto the other eyelid, mixing with the tears from his right eye. Danny couldn’t stop following the trail until it landed on his pillow. His lower lip trembled as more tears flowed.

“Danny. I’m sorry I was mean,” Kit swallowed hard. “I felt guilty.”

Guilty?

“Shhh!” She stroked his hair as she whispered to him. “It’s okay. Go to sleep.”

“Danny.”

“Mmm.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“Danny.”

“Mmm.”

“Do you love me?”

Did she? What else could you call the way her heart shattered, to see him so broken? Or how her insides warmed and bloomed at the thought of him? How she felt ticklish all over whenever he touched her or said her name the way he did. Danny, like she was the most loved woman in the world, the most precious and the most desired. What would you call the hurt she felt whenever she thought of how weak she was, and how she’d betrayed him? The fear of losing him crippled her all over, and yet thinking that setting him free was what was best for him.

“Yes, Christian, I love you.”

Danny laid her head over his and listened to his muffled sobs. She rubbed his back, kissed his forehead as she tried to settle him down. How could she not love him, when everything about Kit was filled with sincerity, when her heart beat so wildly?

If only love could be enough for them.

***

When Kit woke up, his head was a fuzzy mess. He didn’t know where he was at first. However, the sterilized scent was something very familiar to him. His eyes opened and the first thing he saw was Danny’s face turned up to him, her lips in a pucker, as if she was waiting for him to kiss her. Kit wanted to. He hadn’t felt the softness of her mouth in such a long time that he missed it, craved it. But he couldn’t move. He looked over to the lower half of his body and saw a cast peeking from under the covers.

I broke my leg? Wait, why is Danny here?

Kit turned toward Danny, as far as his sore body would allow him. He wanted to wrap both his arms around her and hold her close. It was a moment that he hadn’t been able to experience ever since the train accident. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but even while she was asleep, he couldn’t find the courage or the right words. So, he just held her and hoped that this would soon be their everyday.

Kit was a little surprised that Danny was there. He didn’t know who had called her or how they had known to call her. In fact, Kit’s last memory was the force of being hit, sending him and his bike flying into the air. He didn’t remember hitting the ground or getting injured. He got a set of new scars to accompany the only he got from his deployment. He didn’t care thought. At that moment a tornado could come and sweep the whole hospital, but he would never let Danny go. He needed her in his world and his life. There was no more time to waste. He needed to make right with Danny before their twins came into the world. It was easier said than done. It wasn’t like when she’d first woken would go along with whatever he said. Danny moving to Hawaii was proof enough that the self she had forgotten was still there. Kit wasn’t going to give up.

He kissed the top of her head and squeezed her even tighter. He loved her and nothing else mattered. Not even Chris.

“I can’t breathe,” Danny mumbled.

Startled Kit immediately released her, “You’re awake?”

“A few more seconds and I would have been dead,” she grumbled as she got off the bed.

Kit wanted to reach out to her and grab her, settle her back in his arms. But he didn’t have that right, yet. So, he fisted his itchy hand and pulled back. “Danny—”

“My neck,” Danny complained as she stretched. “I’m going to call a nurse.”

Flustered, Kit watched as she walked out of the room, without even a glance back at him. Danny was really going to make him work for forgiveness, he quickly realized. It didn’t matter to Kit. He was up for the fight. Kit sat up and looked himself over. Other than his leg, he didn’t see any major injuries. But he did find it odd that almost every inch of his skin on his chest had been covered by tiny Band-Aids. He began ripping them off one by one and was surprised to find that they were just covering scratches.

“What are you doing?” Danny asked as she walked in with a doctor and three nurses behind them.

“Why…is this really necessary?” he asked, his hand pointing to his chest. “I look like a rag doll being held together by tape.”

“I’ll take them off,” one nurse volunteered and the other two rushed past her.

Kit winced as they slowly pulled them off, their hands lingering on his flesh a few seconds longer than necessary. When the last Band-Aid came off, he quickly pushed their overly attentive hands away. A look at Danny and he could tell that she was hiding her smile behind her hand. She seemed to enjoy the torture that he was going through.

“That’s enough. Thank you for your attentive work, ladies,” Danny hissed through her teeth.

“Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Kit quickly said before one of them offered a sponge bath. “My wife is here. She’ll help. Right, darling?”

“Of course, but they are nurses. I am not as trained as they are,” Danny teased.

“When can I leave?” Kit turned to the doctor.

“Tomorrow. We are going to monitor you tonight. Make sure everything is okay,” he said.

“I would like to stay with you.” Kit saw Danny’s eyebrow rise and he knew he was in trouble. “But I am pregnant, and I need my rest. I’m sure these lovely nurses won’t mind keeping an eye on you when I am gone. Right, ladies?”

Her request was met by giggles and Kit cringed inside. “Danny!”

“Get some rest.” Danny laughed as she made her escape.

It was good that he could still recognize his old Danny in the new one. Kit for the first time since his brother’s death saw hope in having a future with Danny.

***

Running away from Kit wasn’t something that she had planned to do, but it was hard for her to stay in the same room as him. He loved her. It was difficult for her to dream of a life with him; her conscience wouldn’t let her rest. It was weird, feeling guilty and paying the price for something she technically hadn’t done. Danny had already split her past self and the person she was into two different individuals. The things they said she’d done were hard for her to come to terms with. Even if she was pregnant, Danny had sworn never to go near a bottle of alcohol. She even kept away from anything that one would think of as a vice. There was no telling what else she’d done that her family didn’t know about.

One thing she knew for sure was when she was married to Kit, she’d tried to marry Chris in order to save herself. She understood that girl. She was drowning, so addicted to her husband that she accepted a lookalike to stand in for him so that she could save herself. Kit had been an addiction for that girl. It was something that made Danny frightened. What if her obsession with Kit grew worse? What if it wasn’t love to begin with but just the desire to have him? Right now, this girl loved him. Danny was afraid of getting her memories back, only because she thought that girl that had been forgotten would come back and mess up the life she was building now.

“You can’t be afraid of the unknown.” Ray sat across from her, giving her a reassuring smile.

It was weird how calming the woman was. Not much older than Danny, even though life had tried a couple of times to knock her down, she stayed on her feet.

“I’m in love with a man who is married to a woman who tried to steal my son,” she laughed. Ray had come back home from New York hiding from her own past, hiding and hoping it wouldn’t catch up to her. “Yours is easy. Your own fear is what’s chasing you. It’s easy being happy. Being miserable and afraid? It’s hard living life like that.”

Danny watched as Kay stared lovingly at her son, asleep in her arms. “You know I will help with whatever you need?”

“I know. Now call your husband and start over again.”

“I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

“Only because you have been working extra hard to avoid him.”

That was true. Danny hid in the bathroom whenever he came to see her in the office. And when he tried to visit at home, she would turn off all the lights and stay quiet. Or like today. She would escape to Kay’s house and stay there for a few hours. Kit had even left his address and numbers for her at the hospital. For a while, she thought of visiting him, but she was too chicken to do it.

“Falling in love is easy. Staying in love isn’t. Especially if the one you love doesn’t even care if you exist.” Ray smiled sadly.

Danny felt bad. Here she was, running away from the man she loved who was trying to be with her, when Ray couldn’t be with the man she loved.

Kit’s cottage wasn’t far from where Danny lived. She walked on the beach, enjoying the sensation of the sand between her toes, and the cool ocean air blowing against her skin. From a distance, she saw a man limping toward her. Danny stopped when she recognized Kit’s physique even before she saw his face. Her first instinct was to bolt. Even heavy with twins, she could still give it a try. Besides, Kit’s leg wasn’t completely healed. Danny didn’t think he would be able to catch her.

But Ray’s words echoed in her mind. She had to be brave, to love. Danny quickly closed the gap between them.

“I thought you were going to run,” Kit said.

“I’m a little tired or running, of being afraid and for feeling sorry for the things I don’t remember doing.”

Kit nodded and smiled at her. Danny couldn’t help but laugh. It was ridiculous, running away from the inevitable.

“Daniela Kent Henry, will you have dinner with me?”

“Yes.”