Chapter 2
“You expect me to go and pick up your latest hire?” Daniel yelled from across the table. “No way! You want her here—you go get her.”
“Son, you are acting like a spoiled child. The nurse knows all the latest medical advances in patient recovery. You should be grateful that we can afford such luxuries,” his mother said.
“You both expect the impossible. I understand you want your son back, but the fair-haired boy who left Kentucky to fight for the cause is long gone. If I don’t remember you by now, Mother, I never will.”
He called her Mother because it lit up her face, and he tired of seeing it drag the floor with pity since his arrival home. Home—it seemed such a distant stretch of his imagination. She’d hugged him fiercely upon his return, while his arms had lain limp at his sides. Thomas McAlister had proudly shaken his son’s hand and thanked Daniel for his service to the country. The Christian name, Daniel, was foreign even to his own lips, and he rarely responded to the first call for his attention.
The good Samaritan in that small town of refuge had nicknamed him Daniel-boy, and the casualness of the way it rippled from her lips, gave him a sense of liberty—an existence without responsibility. But that façade had been snatched from him when his father showed up for a chance meeting with Richmond’s mayor. Upon discovery, Daniel had been dragged from his isolation and welcomed back into his childhood home, but the move from familiar to unfamiliar, had only intensified the raging within his soul.
Daniel’s homecoming was a disappointment to his parents from day one, and it fatigued him to watch them walk on eggshells every time he entered the main house. Most days, he hid out in the Chalet, which he’d claimed as his new private quarters. He’d opt to run again, but where would he go? There was certainly no benefit in abandoning the roof over your head and food on your table.
His mind re-enacted the horrors of battle during the night terrors, which drenched him in sweat. Upon awakening, agonizing fear always gripped him like a strongman. But miraculously, the light of day blocked even those memories. He lived as a newborn babe, without identity but still able to function using the skills and knowledge he’d learned as a youngster. Only the people he’d known had been cut from his life, as if they lived in a separate part of his brain—one which he could not unlock.
The doctor had informed him that the mind was complex, and no one really understood how it functioned. Then, he apprised Daniel of his new reality—no one could predict when or if his memory would ever return. It was a wonder he hadn’t been killed by the cannon blast and the angle of his head when he’d hit the stone. Daniel simply awakened one day in the army hospital, his body shattered and torn, his fragmented mind wiped completely clean like a new slate. He’d escaped when he was well enough, and no one had come looking for him.
“You have that faraway look in your eyes,” Thomas said. “Are you recalling something?”
Daniel sighed. It was the question of the day, repeated many times over, every day, which irritated him beyond endurance, and he felt the anger within him rising to the surface. Maybe getting off the property would be a good thing.
He stood and placed his napkin on the half-empty lunch plate. “Would you have Arthur bring the carriage around to my quarters? I’ve changed my mind. I will pick up your nurse, but don’t expect me to like it, or her, for that matter.” When he reached the door, he turned around to address the gaping onlookers. “Pray tell, where is this angel of mercy going to sleep?”
“She will live in the cottage adjoining your chalet. If you will not sleep under our roof surely your caregiver shall not either. Peggy cleaned it yesterday and laid fresh flowers on her table to welcome her to the McAlister Plantation.”
“Perfect. Now I won’t have to extend a false greeting. She needs to know straight off that I will not tolerate her interfering with my daily routine.”
“Which is?” Thomas asked.
The young man ignored his father’s sarcasm and headed for the front door. What little peace he found in his isolated cottage, far from the probing eyes of his do-gooder family, was about to be invaded, and it appeared he had no say in the matter.
At the station, Daniel remained in the carriage and sent the hired man, Arthur, to wait on the platform. Crowds did not appeal to him, and he refused to give the nurse the false hope that he was thrilled at the prospect of her arrival. Puffs of grey smoke exploded into the air about the same time the shrill whistle of the locomotive sounded. Within minutes, the black beast rounded the corner.
Curiosity got the better of him as he watched the people disembark. Families ran to greet one another with open arms and excitement. Businessmen wore frock coats and narrow-brimmed silk hats with a tall, flat-top while carrying leather bags, holding their so-called important papers. Ladies of the night were easy to spot, their come-on eyes inviting every male within view to take a free peek. The saloons were full of this type, and Daniel steered clear of the sin-infested house of ill-repute. Funny how he hadn’t forgotten God. In fact, his faith had grown from mere acknowledgement to something deeper. He wasn’t always certain he appreciated the new relationship, but most times he tolerated it, for the lack of better company.
