Chapter 13
Jarrod was on his haunches on the floor, near the end of the bar, his bone-handled gun on the floor and Heath's walnut-handled gun in his right hand. Jarrod was staring, totally fixated on Heath's gun and on the gold eagle in the handle.
Nick bent down beside him. "Jarrod? You all right?"
Jarrod just stared at Heath's gun.
"Jarrod – " Heath said.
Jarrod gaze was firm on Heath's gun, and finally, still staring at it, he said, "I gave you this gun. For your birthday, right before I went up to Rockville, I gave you this gun."
Nick and Heath smiled at each other. "You remember that?" Nick asked.
Jarrod slumped, his hand and the gun falling to the floor, his head bowed. And he began to shake, and then sob like a baby.
Nick and Heath reached for him, not understanding why he was crying when something miraculous and wonderful had just happened. "Pappy, you remembered that!" Nick said.
"Nick – Nick, Heath – " Jarrod looked up, his face as wet as they'd ever seen it. "I remember everything. Nick – I remember – Nick – "
Jarrod collapsed in tears. Nick quickly took him up in his arms and held onto him, falling into tears with him.
It was a long time before Jarrod looked up again. "I remember everything," he said. "Everything – growing up, that snotty little brat who kept following me around – "
Jarrod laughed, and Nick and Heath laughed too, but the tears still kept coming.
"Everything," Jarrod said and dissolved into sobs again. More than a year of fear and grief he didn't even realize he'd been holding onto came pouring out. "I remember everything. I remember everything."
Nick held tight to him as he just continued to sob and shake. Heath saw the sheriff and Harry looking down at them.
"You all right?" the sheriff asked.
Heath nodded. He spoke very quietly. "We got our brother back."
XXXXXX
Jarrod stared at Heath's gun in his hand again, this time in the living room of the family home as the day was winding down. Everything was suddenly new again, everything he saw, everything he touched in this house he'd grown up in and now could remember completely. He kept falling into tears, but no one let him cry alone. Then he'd begin to laugh, and no one let him laugh alone.
"After the shooting stopped in Harry's, I banged my arm on the edge of the bar and lost hold of my gun and picked this one up by mistake. It was the eagle on this handle - " Jarrod explained. "I've been seeing eagles and dreaming about eagles for a year now and never knew why. I should have looked at this gun weeks ago, Heath."
Heath shook his head as Jarrod wept again. "You couldn't have known, and maybe it wouldn't have brought your memories back if you'd looked at it before."
"Dr. Merar said it was probably the stress of shooting that man that made everything come back when you saw Heath's gun," Audra said.
"Maybe," Jarrod agreed, handing Heath's gun back to him. He looked up at his family. These faces were all new again, just like everything in this house, new but genuinely familiar again. He shook his head in glorious disbelief. "I thought I'd never remember again. I thought it was gone forever, and I'd made peace with that, but – oh, it is so wonderful to have myself back again. I can't tell you how wonderful it is."
"It is wonderful," Victoria said, her own tears running down her face. "But having yourself back isn't quite all that's happened, is it?"
Jarrod shook his head. "No. I'm not the same man I was. I've spent a lot of time rebuilding myself from scratch, so this new Jarrod Barkley is part the old Jarrod Barkley, part the one I reinvented, part Dakota. Oh," he said suddenly, falling deeper into his "thinking chair" but smiling a bit. "I'm getting complicated."
Nick handed him a glass of scotch. "Don't worry about it. You always were complicated. Figuring you out has always been a lot of fun for the rest of us."
Jarrod laughed. He wiped the wetness from his face and said, "Somehow I don't think you really mean that."
"Yeah, actually I do," Nick said, "and since you're going to be part Jarrod, part Dakota and part reinvented Jarrod, it looks like we're gonna have a lot more fun."
"There's more you're going to like, too. You know what else this means now, don't you?"
"What?" Nick asked.
"I remember the law, too. I can start practicing law again, tomorrow if I want to. I remember everything I thought I'd lost forever." He fell into tears again.
Heath looked up at Nick, rubbing the wetness from his own face and said, "That'll make Nick happy. Now you can do all the deeds and the easements and the lawsuits, just like you did before."
Jarrod said, "I'll do it happily, Nick."
"I'll remember you said that," Nick said.
Jarrod looked at his glass of scotch and drank it down. "I have to thank you, all of you, for what you've helped me through over the last couple months. I never could have made it without you. I'd never have found myself without you. You took in a stranger who didn't know you, and you helped me crawl back into a life I didn't know I had. I don't know how - " He broke into tears yet again, then suddenly got up. "All right, enough. I've cried more in the last 8 hours than I have in the past 20 years, and that includes the war I can now remember. Time to stop."
Victoria got up, too. "Time to get some rest, all of us," she said. She went to her oldest, put her arm around him and kissed him on the cheek. "Tomorrow is a new day."
Jarrod smiled at her. "Yes, Lovely Lady, it is, and isn't it wonderful?"
Epilogue
Jarrod was heading for the library to work on some easements for Nick when he heard the knock at the door. Silas was coming down the stairs and headed to answer it, but Jarrod said, "I'll get it, Silas."
"Thank you, Mr. Jarrod," Silas said and headed for the kitchen instead.
Jarrod opened the door and was startled to see Phil Archer there.
"Jarrod, may I come in?" Archer asked.
Jarrod opened the door to him. "Come on into the library."
"No, I won't take up much of your time." He took his wallet out and gave Jarrod several bills. "For your fee. Money doesn't say enough, I know. I'd be in terrible trouble if not for you. I wanted to thank you in person."
Jarrod accepted the money with a nod.
"I hear your memory has come back to you," Archer said.
"Yes," Jarrod said, "and I suppose I have you to thank in part for that. Chasing down the man who really hurt that girl is what snapped me back to my senses."
"Well, whatever it was, I'm happy to hear everything's come back to you. And about that thing I told you while I was in jail - "
Jarrod realized that the secret that Archer told him might be a big reason for his sour personality, but Jarrod smiled. "Phil, I promised to keep your confidences, and I'll keep that one safe."
"Thank you, Jarrod. For everything." Archer offered his hand.
Jarrod took it. "You know, Phil, what hasn't come back to me is why you and I fell out after law school. Did I ever know why that happened, or have you always kept that to yourself?"
Archer let go the handshake and looked at the floor. "I never told you why. To this day, I haven't been able to put it into words. I suspect it's – " He hesitated. "It's something that's difficult for me."
Jarrod eyed him. "Is it me you've been jealous of, or my family, or maybe both?"
The wall that had been around Archer all these years, the wall that had almost moved up out of the way, came crashing back down. He looked up, looking almost angry. "It's not jealousy, Jarrod. It's not that," he said, and he tipped his hat awkwardly and left.
Jarrod watched him mount up before he closed the door again. He was as confused as he ever was about Archer. If something had happened between them to bring Archer to this attitude, Jarrod had no idea what it was, but just feeling Archer's anger again made Jarrod think that was one memory he wasn't that anxious to get back anyway.
Victoria came in from the kitchen. "Was that Phil Archer I just heard at the door?"
Jarrod showed her the money Archer had given him. "He thanked me and paid his bill."
Victoria shook her head. "He's such a strange man. I can't fathom what he has against you, or us."
"I thought he might tell me there for a minute, but he didn't. And if it was something that's happened between us at some point, that's one memory I haven't gotten back."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Victoria said. "If he wants you to know, he'll tell you. And if he doesn't, that's his weight to carry around, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," Jarrod agreed and pocketed his fee. "I'm off to the library to write up some easements for Nick. I think he's happier than anyone that I've regained the ability to practice law."
"We knew he would be. I'll bring you some coffee while you work."
Jarrod smiled. "It's nice to remember all the times you've done that, too."
"Funny, isn't it?" Victoria said. "Remembering things over again - it's like living them for the first time."
"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Jarrod gave her a peck on the cheek. "Back to work!" he said happily and headed back to the library, with a kick to his step.
The End