“It’s yours,” she said bluntly.
He looked away from her, shaking his head. “Man, oh, man,” he said, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Well, I think she had a few very good reasons,” she said. “At least, they seemed good to her. One, she knew you’ve been overwhelmed dealing with your wife and son. And two, you haven’t…been inviting her to share much with you lately, have you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He looked across the table at the diminutive, gray-haired woman, trying not to turn away from her penetrating blue eyes.
“You’ve been pushing her away,” Carlynn said.
“I haven’t been pushing her away,” he said, but he knew she was right. He sank lower into the chair. “Maybe I have. I’m angry at both of us for what happened. We can’t let it happen again.”
“It happened. Guilt does no one any good.”
He studied her for a moment. “Is Joelle losing her mind?” he asked. “What on earth can she possibly think you can do for my wife?”
“Mara belongs to Joelle as well as to you, Liam,” Carlynn said. “They were extremely close friends, and Joelle suffered a loss as great as your own. She needs to grieve in her own way. If bringing me in helps her, I don’t understand why you should object.”
“Because I don’t believe there’s anything you can do to help my wife,” he said, biting off the words. “I think…what you’re all about is a…a crock of bull. Sorry. But that’s what I think.”
She looked unoffended by his words. “I’m not a quack, Liam,” she said. “Not a charlatan. The truth is, sometimes I can help, and sometimes I can’t. Often, the help doesn’t come in the form we expect it to.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, that sometimes getting well, physically well, is not the true goal of healing.”
“Then what the hell is the point of it?”
Carlynn Shire stood up and rested her hands on the table, leaning toward him. “Do you love Joelle, Liam?”
He felt his jaw tighten at the intrusiveness of the question. “That really isn’t any of your business.”
She didn’t respond, but didn’t let him loose of her gaze, either.
“It doesn’t matter if I do,” he said.
“Do me a favor, Liam,” she said, sitting down again. “Describe Joelle to me.”
“You already seem to know her very well,” he said.
“I want to hear your description of her, though,” she pressed him. “I want to see her through your eyes.”
He sighed. Why was he giving this woman so much control over him?
“She’s very capable,” he said. “Compassionate. Caring. Ethical.”
“Moral?”
“Yes, absolutely. And so am I,” he insisted. “We didn’t plan this to happen, Mrs…. Dr…. Shire. We didn’t mean it to happen.” God, that sounded trite.
“I know,” she said. “Go on.”
He sighed again, giving in. “She’s nurturing.” He could see Joelle, back in the days when their friendship had been close and warm, sitting across the cafeteria table from him. She’d looked girlish, with that long thick dark hair and heavy bangs above her brown eyes. “Very cute,” he said. “And open. Extremely open, especially with me.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to understand how she could have kept this from me. She tells me everything.”
“Used to tell you everything,” Carlynn Shire corrected him. “She didn’t ever want you to know about the baby. She planned to leave before you found out.”
“Leave?” He frowned. “You mean, leave Silas Memorial?”
“No, leave Monterey,” she said. “Leave her life here. Have the baby someplace else so you would never have to be burdened by it.”
He frowned. “I can’t believe she would leave without telling me about…”
“I believe,” she said gently, “that you’ve treated her like an evil person. Like someone you need to avoid.”
He started to object, but she was right, wasn’t she? If he avoided Joelle, he could avoid temptation and never have to face his own weakness.
“Do you have any idea how much she loves you?” Carlynn asked him.
He stared at her, uncomfortable with her questions and with how much she seemed to know about his relationship with Joelle.
“She loves you so much that she came to me, hoping that, somehow, she could give you your wife back. Despite how desperately she wants you for herself. Despite the fact that she’s pregnant with your child.”
His throat tightened, and he stood up quickly to rid himself of the emotion. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the wall.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Yes, I love her. But I’m married to a woman I also love, who will never be able to love me back, but who still needs me. Who still lights up when I come into her room. Who, if she were still…whole…would trust me to be faithful to her, to take care of her forever. Do you blame me for pushing Joelle away? For trying to avoid the one person who can turn me into someone I’d have no respect for?”
“You’re alive, dear.” There was sympathy in Carlynn’s eyes as she rose to her feet. “You’re alive, and Joelle is alive.”
“And so is Mara. So is my son!”
“What pain you carry.” Carlynn Shire shook her head sadly as she moved past him to open the conference-room door. “Think about something, Liam,” she said before stepping into the hallway. “Think about how much harder it is to carry that pain alone than it was when you shared it with Joelle.”
23
JOELLE OPENED HER EYES, THEN SHUT THEM AGAIN. HER EYELIDS were too heavy, the lights too glaring. The surgery was over and she was in the recovery room; she remembered that much. Rebecca had told her that a few minutes ago. Or maybe a few hours. She wasn’t sure. Her baby was all right, Rebecca had said, also telling her that she had an incision in her right side, but Joelle was unaware of any pain. Just a dragging tiredness and some nausea that made her want to lie very, very still.
Rebecca had said something about monitoring the baby’s heart rate with a Doppler, making sure she didn’t have contractions brought on by the surgery. She remembered the doctor standing next to the bed, delivering all this information to her. But something was different now, and it took her a minute to realize that the curtains were pulled around her bed, and that she wasn’t alone. Slowly, she turned her head to the left to see Liam sitting next to her, his face solemn.
“How do you feel?” he asked, his voice quiet. His arms were folded on top of the bed rail, his head resting on his hands.
She swallowed. “Okay.” It hurt to open her eyes wide enough to look at him, but she could see him press his lips together. He looked away from her, then back again.
“When exactly did you plan on telling me?” he asked.
“Never,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse, her throat dry.
“Jo.” He reached over to smooth her hair back from her face, and she closed her eyes to savor the touch. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This must have been a terrible few months for you.”
She turned her head away from him as her tears started.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been cold,” he said, the backs of his fingers brushing a tear from her cheek. “If you’ve felt as though I was pushing you away.”
“No one knows, do they?” She turned toward him, wondering if, while she had been in surgery, the truth might have somehow come out.
“Just you, me and Carlynn Shire.”
How did he know she’d confided in Carlynn? She looked at him quizzically.
“She came up to the office looking for you.”
“Oh, our lunch date.”
“I told her you were in surgery, and we had a talk.”
“A good one?” she asked.
“Depends on your definition of good,” he said dryly. “She told me you were planning to move away.”
She nodded, and he looked incredulo
us.
“How could you even think of doing that, Joelle?” he asked. “You love it here. This is your home.”
“I wanted to avoid what I knew would happen if I stayed,” she said. “What is happening right now—you having one more gigantic problem to deal with.”
“I’m a big boy,” he said. “I can handle it.”
“I know you can,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to have to. Not when I had the power to do something about it.”
“Did you consider abortion?” he asked, then quickly shook his head and placed the tips of his fingers on her lips before she could respond. “I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t, and I understand that, Jo. I do. I’m sorry.”
He was so contrite that she felt sympathy for him.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“Listen, I don’t want you to move away on my account, all right? Please. You’re not going anywhere. I’ll help you however I can, short of…”
“Short of admitting that it’s yours?” she asked.
“Let me think about it, please. I can’t make a decision about that right now.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I didn’t plan on letting anyone know, either. I’m just as much in the wrong as you are, you know, and I don’t want people watching us, judging us.”
“I’m afraid you’re already being judged,” he said.
“But people know I wanted a baby,” she reasoned, “and that I might have gone to extraordinary lengths to have one.”
He nodded. “We’ll talk more about it later, when you’re not groggy from anesthetic. And I’m not still in shock. Okay?” He took her hand. “When you’re up to it, and if you still want to,” he said, “you’re welcome to bring Carlynn Shire back to see Mara. Not that I believe for a minute she can heal her, but it’s not fair for me to stop you. Mara was your best friend, too.”
“Thank you. And will you be there?”
“If you insist.” He smiled at her, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes. Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it. “I care about you, Jo,” he said. “You know that. But I’m married, and as long as Mara is alive, I’m her husband. I love her.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“I’ll be there for you in whatever way I can. But…we can’t get that close again.”
“I know.” She nodded.
“I’ll help you support the baby financially, of course.”
“You’re having a hard enough time with money as it is,” she said. “I don’t expect Sheila to pay child support for my baby.”
He said nothing, and she knew she had bruised his ego. She said the word, “Sorry,” but it came out as a whisper, and she wasn’t certain if he’d heard her or not.
“Do your parents know?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. They don’t know I’ve had surgery, either.”
“Would you like me to call them for you?”
“Would you, please? But don’t tell them about the pregnancy, okay? I’d rather do that myself. Tell them I’m fine, not to come down, not to worry, not to—”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said.
He bent over to kiss her on the forehead, and the gesture reminded her of all the times she’d seen him bend over to kiss Mara in her bed at the nursing home. Mara, though, he would have kissed on the lips.
Liam called her parents from his office. He knew John and Ellen, having spent time with them over the years, when they came down to visit Joelle. They had even come to his wedding, the only guests who took to heart his and Mara’s request for no gifts.
It was John who answered the phone, and Liam told him about the appendectomy, feeling as though he was lying because of what he was omitting from the story.
“We’re on our way,” Joelle’s father said after Liam had delivered the news.
“No, don’t come,” Liam said. “She asked me specifically to tell you not to come. Right now she’s well taken care of. Everyone here knows her and will keep an eye on her.” He recalled one of the nurses telling him that Joelle might be out of work for six weeks. “I’m not sure what her recovery will be like, though,” he said to John. “She’ll probably need some help when she gets home. That might be a better time to come down.”
“Will you keep us posted?” John asked.
“Yes, and she should have a phone in her room later,” Liam said. “I’ll call you when I get the number.”
That seemed to satisfy her father. Liam hung up the phone and sat staring at his blank computer screen.
Why hadn’t they used a condom? Two social workers, two intelligent people in their thirties. Two idiots. Yet, she had been so famously infertile, and they both knew the other was disease-free. A condom, had they stopped to think about using one, would have seemed superfluous. But if they had stopped to think, it wouldn’t have happened at all. And he knew they had both carefully, intentionally, not stopped to think.
He’d needed Joelle so badly that night. He’d needed to know he was still a man, just like that sixty-year-old man he’d seen who had the wife with Alzheimer’s.
He would visit Mara that afternoon. She would make her puppy-dog squeals when he walked into the room, and he knew exactly what she would be saying with those sounds. I remember you, she would say. You’re the one who loves me. You’re the one I can trust, no matter what. You’re my husband, in sickness and in health.
24
San Francisco, 1957
LISBETH SAT ON THE CABIN TOP OF GABRIEL’S SLOOP, MUNCHING on a pear. For the first time in her life, she did not crave candy and ice cream and cookies. Although she was dressed in knee-high rubber boots, bib overalls over a jersey, a yellow slicker, hat and gloves, she could actually feel the difference in her body beneath all that gear. Certainly, she was still larger than she wanted to be, but there was some unmistakable definition to her waistline, and although her hips and thighs were hardly slender, she could fit into the overalls without looking like an elephantine version of the pear she was eating. She had forgotten how it felt not to be tired all the time from carrying around so much extra weight.
She and Gabriel had been going together for six months, but they’d only been able to start sailing about a month ago, when the wintry San Francisco cold began to soften around the edges, and they could get out on the water without either freezing or capsizing. Their inability to sail had not interfered with their dating, however. They’d explored San Francisco together as though they were tourists, and met often for dinner at a restaurant after work. They had a few favorites, especially in the primarily Italian North Beach area where Gabriel lived, where the beats read their poetry in the coffeehouses, and where no one looked twice at a Negro man and a white woman walking or dancing together. She learned to play whist and bridge in the dark, smoke-filled clubs, and she fell in love with jazz and rhythm and blues.
She and Gabriel could talk all day and all night and never run out of things to say. He told her about growing up in the English Village section of Oakland, where a white Realtor had purchased the house his family had wanted and then transferred the title to Gabriel’s father, which had been the only way a Negro family could get into that neighborhood. His mother had been a housekeeper, his father a porter on the Southern Pacific railroad, where just about every man Gabriel knew worked. His father had died on one of the trains when Gabriel was eleven years old, killed by a fellow crew member during a game of craps.
Gabriel’s family had little money after that, and he’d worked his way through school and college. He’d met his wife, Cookie, at Berkeley, and they’d been married eight years when she discovered the lump in her breast. By the way Gabriel spoke of his late wife, Lisbeth knew he’d adored her, yet she never felt he was comparing her to Cookie. Gabriel knew how to focus on the future without letting the past get in the way, and he was teaching her, through his example, to live the same way. The fact that they both had suffered in their childhoods and their early adult years certainly drew them together, but it was
their yearning to create a future that would be peaceful, bright and full of love that sealed that bond.
Dating Gabriel was not without its problems, though. Lisbeth had to find a new place to live after her landlord kicked her out the night she’d brought Gabriel up to her room. She’d only wanted to get him out of the rain while he waited for her to get ready for their date, but the landlord was livid, the tendons in his neck taut as ropes beneath his skin. He had teenage children, he yelled, as if she didn’t know, didn’t hear them playing Elvis on the phonograph at all hours of the night and day. He did not want them to witness interracial dating, and he couldn’t have a colored man in his house. So she left, finding an apartment in North Beach, four blocks from Gabriel’s, with a phone that was available for her use anytime she wanted. Her landlady was a boisterous Italian woman who didn’t care a whit what color Lisbeth’s friends were, and whose house always smelled of tomatoes and olive oil and oregano.
Now that Lisbeth no longer spent her free time huddled in her room eating, the weight dropped off her without her even trying. Diets had not been what she’d needed. All she’d really needed had been the unconditional love of a man, and that she had found in Gabriel.
She loved being out on his boat more than she enjoyed dining with him or listening to music or dancing, because out here they were alone. There was never anyone staring at them, never a look of disapproval or shock from a stranger, as there was sure to be when they ventured out of North Beach. Occasionally, someone would make a disparaging comment loud enough for them to hear, using language that belonged in a sewer, and it would only make Gabriel hold her hand tighter. Sometimes, he would apologize to her, as though the rudeness of others was his fault, and that irritated her no end. He had nothing to apologize for.
At least once every couple of weeks they got together with Carlynn and Alan. They were a compatible foursome, and they’d play bridge at Alan’s apartment, or go to a movie, or meet at Tarantino’s for cioppino. Conversation often seemed to turn to the topic of healing. Gabriel had even taken the three of them to Oakland to meet his mother, who remembered more than he did about his great-grandmother, and who filled their heads with stories they would never have believed, were it not for Carlynn.