Emma sidled halfway behind Laura.
“Can you explain a little of what you’re doing?” Laura asked him.
“Sure.” He stood up again. “First we’re filling the envelope—the balloon—with cold air, and after it’s partway filled, we’ll heat the air. Remember I told you about hot air making the balloon rise, Emma?”
Laura wasn’t certain if Emma nodded or not.
“The way I do that is with a very big flame. So when you see the flame, you don’t need to be afraid. It’s supposed to be there.”
Dylan’s gaze was drawn to something behind them, and Laura turned to see a man and woman walking across the field from the driveway.
“Excuse me,” Dylan said, and he started toward the couple.
He spoke to them for a few minutes, then returned to the balloon, and the man and woman came to stand near her and Emma. They looked as though they might be close to seventy, and they wore anticipatory smiles.
“You must be the passengers for this morning,” Laura said to them.
“Yes,” said the man.
“I don’t know how I let him talk me into this,” said the woman, laughing.
“It’s our fiftieth anniversary,” the man said. “And this is something I’ve always wanted to do, so she gave it to me as a present.”
“Congratulations,” Laura said, thinking of her sham birthday flight. “What a wonderful way this will be to celebrate.”
“Have you ever been up in one of those things?” the woman asked, clearly hunting for reassurance.
“Yes,” Laura said, and Emma looked up at her in sharp surprise. “I have, honey,” she said to Emma. “I went up with Dylan a few weeks ago.” To the woman she said, “It’s breathtaking. You’re going to love it.”
“You must be friends of the pilot, then,” the man said. “Of Dylan Geer’s.”
“That’s right. I’m Laura, and this is Emma.”
The man turned his attention to Emma. “What a pretty name,” he said to her. “How old are you, Emma?”
Emma pressed her face against Laura’s hip.
“She’s shy,” Laura said. She hated calling Emma “shy” but didn’t know what else to say. Coping with a mute child wasn’t in the parenting books. Still, she was afraid that by labeling her shy, Emma would begin to think of herself that way. Well, it was becoming the truth, wasn’t it? But it was the last word Laura would have used to describe her in the past.
Emma suddenly gasped, and Laura looked at the balloon. Dylan was standing in front of its large, round opening and had lit the flame.
“Watch now,” she said to Emma. “He’s heating the air and the balloon will slowly rise up.”
Dylan was silhouetted in the circle of light from the balloon opening. The muscles in his arms were cut by the light from the fire behind him, and Laura wondered if she could possibly be feeling the heat from the flame from where she stood. She was reminded for a moment of Sarah, staring at the paintings of nudes in the restaurant, growing hotter by the minute, and she stifled a laugh.
He’s Emma’s father, she told herself, unnerved by the sudden visceral attraction. That’s all you need him to be.
As the colorful fabric began to rise above the basket, Emma slowly moved apart from Laura and closer to the balloon. Laura thought of calling her back but didn’t dare squelch this small act of independence as long as Emma was not in the way. Emma stopped a safe distance from the balloon, and there she stood, small hands knotted behind her back, and although Laura could not see her face, she was certain the little girl’s eyes were wide with wonder. She was so tiny. Her hair was in a ponytail, and her neck looked thin and fragile. Laura finally stole her gaze from her daughter to watch the balloon herself, trying to imagine how magical it would look through Emma’s eyes.
She and Emma watched as the man and woman climbed into the basket. The woman giggled like a schoolgirl, making Laura smile. She reminded Laura of Sarah. Why, though, had fate allowed this woman a husband, a fiftieth anniversary and the means to climb into a balloon and sail into the air, while Sarah was left alone with her fading mind in the retirement home? Laura was surprised by the quick rise of tears, and she blinked them back. Maybe she could visit Sarah more than once a week.
“See you in about an hour,” Dylan called to them from the basket. “I’ll make you and Emma breakfast. Bye, Emma.” He waved.
He was good about this, she thought. For a guy who knew nothing about children, he remembered that Emma was there, and he spoke to her even though she would not speak back.
They watched the balloon rise into the air. Alex got into his truck, which was parked in the field, and Brian walked with Laura and Emma back toward the driveway.
“Dylan said for you two to follow me in your car while we chase the balloon,” Brian said to Laura. “Keep a close eye on me, though. You never know when we’re going to have to turn and go in another direction. You know, like if someone gets sick or something.” He grinned at her, and she guessed that he knew the true nature of her birthday ride deceit.
“Okay,” she said with a smile.
She buckled Emma into the back seat of her car, then followed Brian’s van down the driveway to begin the chase.
Alex and Brian were waiting for him. Dylan saw them as he guided the balloon toward one of his favorite landing sites—an empty pasture belonging to a balloon-friendly farmer—but it wasn’t his crew he was looking for.
“Is it going to bounce when we land?” his female passenger asked him.
“Nope,” Dylan said. “This is going to be one smooth landing.”
The woman had relaxed once they were in the air, enjoying the ride with her husband, but she’d become unnerved again as he began the descent and they swept over the tops of the trees.
Searching the pasture, he finally spotted Laura and Emma walking toward his crew, and he felt relief at seeing them there. Relief and trepidation. He wanted to help that little girl, and he didn’t know how. There’d been wonder in her eyes earlier when he was readying the balloon, and he wished he could tap into that wonder somehow. Free her up enough to talk. Usually, children who were around when he was inflating the balloon were filled with questions and curiosity. They’d try to get too close, the questions spilling from them as they inched nearer. Why doesn’t the balloon catch fire? How do you steer? He’d seen those questions burning inside Emma. It had to be the worst thing in the world to be filled with questions and unable to get them out.
He was in over his head with this child, but he was in for good.
Once Dylan had helped his passengers out of the basket, he worked with the crew to dismantle the balloon. Then he sent the elderly couple back to his house in Brian’s van to pick up their car, while he rode with Laura and Emma.
The moment Emma stepped inside his cabin, she ran over to the aquarium in the wall of the living room, instantly attracted to the colorful, exotic fish. Dylan stood next to her, as close as she would allow, and told her about each type. Emma’s hands were linked behind her back, her head raised to see the fish, and her eyes reflected the colors in the tank. She had her mother’s long, smoky eyelashes and a small, perfect nose. One strand of dark hair had come loose from her ponytail, and he longed to slip it behind her ear, but of course, he didn’t dare. He settled for standing there, engaged in a monologue, a tightness in his chest that had something to do with his feelings for this little girl.
They ate fruit salad and toasted bagels for breakfast. Laura asked the sort of questions about the balloon that a child might ask, and he knew she was asking them for her daughter. Answering them in basic terms, Dylan shifted his gaze between his two guests, and although Emma appeared intent on her food, he knew she was listening.
Laura helped him with the dishes after breakfast, not uttering a word about the fact that he had no dishwasher, while Emma wandered back into the living room.
“She loves those fish,” Laura said as she dried a plate.
“Has she ever had one?”
Dylan asked. “A fish for a pet?”
“No. Just a guinea pig named Michael, who is no longer with us.”
“What do you think about me getting her an aquarium?” He rinsed a soapy glass under the tap, already thinking about the types of fish he could put in it.
“It’s a great idea,” Laura said.
Dylan looked out the window as Alex pulled in the driveway, the balloon neatly folded in the back of his truck. He watched as Alex turned onto the dirt road leading to the barn.
Laura followed his gaze through the window. “He and Brian really seem to know what they’re doing,” she said.
“Oh, yeah.” Dylan handed her another glass. “They’re great. Alex is working on getting his license, though, so I’ll lose him eventually. He’s going on a cruise next week with his girlfriend to get me used to him being gone, or so he says.”
Laura suddenly stopped drying the glass. She looked at him with a surprised expression on her face. “That’s it!” she said.
“What’s it?”
“You know Sarah? The woman I visit in the retirement home?”
“Your father’s friend.” Dylan nodded.
“She used to be a nurse on a cruise ship. My father took a few cruises over the years. Maybe that’s where he knows Sarah from. Maybe they met on a cruise.”
“I bet you’re right.” Dylan turned off the water and picked up the sponge to wipe the counters. Laura seemed a bit consumed with trying to figure out the relationship between her father and the old woman, but he had to admit he’d wondered about it himself.
He heard a sound from the living room, a vaguely familiar squeaking sound, and it took him a few seconds to place it. When he did, his heart leapt into his throat.
“The guns!” he said, dropping the sponge. He ran into the living room and spotted Emma balancing on the armchair below the glass cabinet that contained his father’s old gun collection. She had the cabinet door open and was reaching for one of the guns.
“Get down!” Dylan yelled as he raced toward her. “Get away from there!”
Emma turned toward him, cowering, terror in her eyes at the angry sound of his voice. Losing her balance, she fell onto the arm of the chair and toppled over backward, landing on the floor. Dylan tried to reach for her, but she got quickly to her feet. Crying loudly, she ran to Laura, who was standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, a stunned look in her own eyes. Emma grabbed hold of her mother, burying her head against Laura’s stomach and sobbing.
Dylan turned back to the gun cabinet, his hands shaking as he closed the door. He didn’t even know if those damned guns were loaded. Probably not. He’d probably blown it with Emma over a bunch of harmless guns.
Laura leaned over her trembling daughter. “You know better than that, Emma,” she scolded, her voice firm but soft. “You mustn’t play with guns.”
Dylan looked at Laura helplessly. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I was afraid she’d—”
“It’s all right,” Laura said. “You had to stop her.” She bent over her daughter again. “Did you hurt yourself when you fell?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
Emma pressed her face more firmly against her mother’s stomach.
Laura glanced toward the TV in the corner of his living room. “Can she watch cartoons while we finish cleaning up?”
“Of course.”
He went into the kitchen while Laura settled Emma on the sofa in front of the TV. When she returned to the kitchen, she leaned against the counter, arms folded across her chest.
“They’re loaded?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He’d picked up the sponge, but now set it down again. “They were my father’s. I’m not a…gun guy.” He smiled weakly. “I just stuck the cabinet up there with the guns in it and never bothered checking to see if they were loaded or not. I never had to worry about it before.” He sounded like an idiot. Who would have guns in his house and not even know if they were loaded?
“She’s had a fascination with guns ever since Ray killed himself,” Laura said. “She plays with them—with the toy guns—in her therapy sessions. She probably thought they were toys.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have blown up at her like that,” he said.
“You had to,” Laura said again. “It was an emergency.”
“I’m supposed to watch my anger around her. That’s what Heather said.”
“This wasn’t anger,” Laura said. “This was fear. True?”
“Yeah, but I’m sure it all sounds the same to her.”
“She’ll get over it,” Laura said, but he heard the lack of certainty in her voice.
Looking through the doorway toward the living room, he could just see the top of Emma’s head above the back of the couch. He imagined how she would look from the front—eyes puffy and red from crying, thumb in her mouth. If she could speak, she’d be telling her mother she wanted to go home, to get away from that mean man who was pretending to be her father.
“Thanks for helping me clean up.” He looked around his kitchen. It was in pretty good shape.
“You’re welcome. And thanks for breakfast and for letting us watch the balloon go up.”
She walked into the living room, and he followed her.
“Come on, honey,” she said to Emma. “Time to go home.”
Emma flicked off the TV and ran to the front door, not even glancing at her mother or Dylan. She was out the door quickly, and when he and Laura walked onto the porch, she was standing on the steps with her back to them.
“Whoa, she’s mad,” Dylan said quietly to Laura, his sense of powerlessness mounting. He would never be able to turn this around.
“Tell her why you did it,” Laura said to him, just as quietly.
He took a step closer to Emma and spoke to her back. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Emma,” he said. “I got scared. I was afraid you might hurt yourself if you tried to play with the guns. They’re real guns. Some of them might…have bullets in them. I was trying to protect you.”
Emma scrunched her shoulders up to her ears as if she could block out his voice.
Laura touched his arm and offered him a smile as she passed him. “We’ll be in touch,” she said. “Thanks again. And don’t beat yourself up over this.”
21
“DO YOU THINK MY FATHER MIGHT HAVE MET YOU ON A cruise?” Laura asked as she and Sarah set out for their walk. “I remembered the other day that he’d taken several cruises over the years.”
“What cruise line?” Sarah asked.
Laura tried vainly to remember. “I don’t know.”
“Where did he go?” Sarah asked. “I was mostly in the Caribbean. Though Alaska was my favorite.”
“I know he’d been to the Caribbean at least once.”
“What was his name again?”
“Carl Brandon.”
“He flies dirigibles, right? I saw the Akron once. I think I was about ten.”
“Dirigibles? No, he—”
“Hot air balloons!” Sarah said. “He flies hot air balloons?”
“No, that’s Dylan. My daughter’s father. I was talking about my father. Carl.”
Sarah shook her head, a helpless expression on her face. “I’m lost,” she said, and the words sounded so small and pathetic that Laura put her arm around her shoulders and gave them a squeeze.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s not important. Let’s just enjoy our walk. And you can tell me more about your job at Saint Margaret’s.”
Sarah, 1956–1957
“They’re poisoning me,” the new patient, Julia, said as she pushed away her breakfast tray.
“No, they’re not,” Sarah said. “Which food do you think is poisoned?”
“The potatoes.”
Sarah picked up the teaspoon from the tray and swallowed a mouthful of the mashed potatoes. “See?” she said. “I certainly wouldn’t eat them if they were poisoned. They’re delicious, actu
ally.” She pushed the plate toward the patient again.
Julia slowly picked up her fork and began to eat, and Sarah smiled to herself. She was making progress with this patient everyone had described as impossible to deal with.
Julia was twenty-eight years old and very beautiful. Her thick auburn hair fell to her waist, and it was the one thing about herself that she bothered to take care of. She brushed her hair many times a day and kept it very clean. It was a lovely sight to behold.
Julia was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and she had been on ward three since breaking the nose of an orderly on ward two. Already, since she’d been moved, she had injured one of the aides and cracked her own head against the wall of her room. And she’d spent one entire night singing at the top of her lungs. That was after Dr. Palmiento gave her the injection of LSD.
“Julia Nichols is one of the most deeply disturbed patients we’ve had here in a while,” Dr. P. had said at a staff meeting. “She broke a neighbor’s boy’s arm when she thought he was stealing from her. She claims to hear voices telling her to harm others and herself. The LSD will open her up. It will break down the walls of her resistance to treatment. It may be the only way to get to the root cause of her illness.”
Sarah was not so sure. Dr. P. was bolder than ever with his syringe of LSD, using it on his patients with, it seemed to Sarah, little concern for their diagnoses. She’d seen the drug work well on a couple of patients, freeing them up so they could finally talk about their deepest troubles. But in most cases, she thought the drug made patients lose touch with reality altogether. It made Julia sing, and Dr. P. was itching to inject her again.
Sarah was beginning to feel old-fashioned in her approach. All she had to offer was herself. She used to believe a relationship with a concerned and empathetic person could be enough to help her patients. Such an approach was beginning to seem ludicrous in light of Dr. P.’s advanced techniques.