“After calving,” Lloyd said. “When it slows down a bit. Then I’ll show you the ropes. Once the doctor gives you the all clear. If you toppled over out there—”
“I’m not going to topple over,” Sawyer retorted.
“Didn’t think you’d get kicked in the head the first time,” Lloyd said. “That happens again, and you might be dead. So no, not yet. After calving.”
Sawyer nodded. The thought of getting out there and learning to be useful again was appealing. Maybe by then, he wouldn’t have to be taught from scratch anymore, and he’d remember his job.
“Say, if I drink coffee too late in the day, does it keep me awake?” Sawyer asked.
“Yup.” Lloyd glanced toward the pot. “You never drink it after noon.”
“Good to know,” he said, then smiled wryly. “I guess I’ll be up for a while.”
Lloyd peeled off his boots, then headed for the kitchen sink. He turned on the tap and squirted some dish soap into his hands.
“Olivia said I used to drink my coffee with cream and sugar,” he added.
“You used to. That was a while ago. Then your doctor warned you about all that sugar, and you went cold turkey and learned to like it black. Why...you going back to the old way?”
“No, I still like it black,” he said.
Lloyd finished washing his hands and turned toward him. “See? It’s all in there. Just a matter of getting it back again.”
“Yup.” That’s what Olivia kept saying, too. They seemed to recognize him still, even if he couldn’t recognize himself.
“You used to sit up in the kitchen reading your Bible,” Lloyd went on. “It was your way to unwind and get your mind settled to sleep. You’d drink some warm milk and read a passage or two.”
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“You know, if you wanted to go through some motions and see if it helped kick-start anything.”
“Thanks. I might try that.”
“You’re a Christian, Sawyer.”
“Huh.” He sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know that.”
“Hold on.” Lloyd headed out of the kitchen, leaving Sawyer alone. He returned a moment later with a worn, black Bible in one hand. He deposited it on the kitchen table.
Sawyer opened the Bible randomly and saw some blue pen underlines. He flipped another few pages and found more.
“This is mine?”
“Yup.”
Sawyer flipped to the front, and he saw his name printed on the dedication page. Underneath was written, From your dad.
“My dad gave it to me,” he murmured, and he had a flash of something in his memory...an aroma—a mixture of Old Spice cologne and hay. It was a little musky. But he couldn’t recall a face.
“You remembering something?” Lloyd asked.
“I don’t know. Almost. It’s close.”
“Your old man gave you that Bible when you were a teenager. He died before your senior year and you came to live here with me.”
“Oh...” Sawyer nodded a couple of times, sadness oozing up inside of him. Funny to grieve for a man he couldn’t remember, but that scent was in his head now, and it was probably the smell he associated with his dad. It was a start.
“He’d be glad to know you’ve still got that Bible,” Lloyd said. “He was a man of faith.”
Sawyer leafed through the pages again, and he touched a place where there was some underlining in blue pen.
“You underlined the passages that meant something to you,” Lloyd said.
“I guess they wouldn’t mean much to me now,” he said quietly.
“Says who?” Lloyd retorted. “That’s the thing with the Good Book. You read something once and it speaks to your heart. Then you read it again a few years later, and you don’t remember what it meant to you back then, but it suddenly means something a bit different. I almost envy you tonight.”
“Why’s that?” Sawyer asked.
“Because you get to read those passages again for the first time.”
Sawyer looked down at the worn pages. Some had torn and had been taped back together again. He thumbed through some pages, and the Bible naturally opened toward the middle, in the book of Psalms. He smoothed a hand over the words, his calloused fingers making a whispering noise against the rice-paper-thin pages. He didn’t remember how to pray, either, but he knew the concept of it.
I’m scared. I don’t know who I am.
And this time, he knew Who he was directing those words toward in his heart.
“Where should I start—” he began to ask, lifting his head. But Lloyd had left the room. Sawyer was alone again, but he didn’t feel quite so isolated this time. The Bible was open on the table in front of him. His gaze fell to Psalm 121.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for
evermore.
“From this time forth, and even for evermore,” Sawyer murmured.
Whatever was in the past was gone so completely that he couldn’t even remember it. But if God would guide his steps from now on...if Sawyer could face this strange, confusing, memory-less world with God at his side, maybe he could find his footing, after all.
Lord, I don’t remember what You’ve done for me. I don’t remember what I’ve done wrong, or right. I don’t even know if I’m a good man. I have this nagging feeling that I wasn’t as good as I should have been, and I can’t let that rest. I just know that I’m adrift and alone, and I’m scared. Lloyd said I was a Christian. And I want to continue being one. If You’ll take me.
Sawyer felt a warmth around him, and his fears seemed to drift away. In the here and now, he was not alone, and he had a feeling that he never had been. He used to know God, and even if his memories were gone, there was
