'This is her night off,' said Grace.
'Quitting medicine?' Celestina asked, baffled by his announcement and his upbeat attitude.
'So we must celebrate-the end of my career and your move.'
Suddenly remembering the doctor's assurance to Neddy that they would be out of this building by week's end, Celestina said, 'But we've nowhere to go.'
Handing Angel to Grace, Lipscomb said, 'I own some investment properties. There's a two-bedroom unit available in one of them.'
Shaking her head, Celestina said, 'I can only pay for a studio apartment, something small.'
'Whatever you're paying here, that's what you'll pay for the new place,' Lipscomb said.
Celestina and her mother exchanged a meaningful glance.
The physician saw the look and understood it. A blush pinked his long, pale face. 'Celestina, you're quite beautiful, and I'm sure you've learned to be wary of men, but I swear that my intentions are entirely honorable.'
'Oh, I didn't think-'
'Yes, you did, and it's exactly what experience has no doubt taught you to think. But I'm forty-seven and you're twenty-'
'Almost twenty-one.'
'— and we're from different worlds, which I respect. I respect you and your wonderful family? your centeredness, your certainty. I want to do this only because it's what I owe you.'
'Why should you owe me anything?'
'Well, actually, I owe Phimie. It's what she said between her two deaths on the delivery table that's changed my life.'
Rowena loves you, Phimie had told him, briefly repressing the effects of her stroke to speak with clarity. Beezil and Feezil are safe with her Messages from his lost wife and children, where they waited for him beyond this life.
Beseechingly, with no intention of intimacy, he took Celestina's hands in his. 'For years, as an obstetrician, I brought life into the world, but I didn't know what life was, didn't grasp the meaning of it, that it even had meaning. Before Rowena, Harry, and Danny went down in that airplane, I was already? empty. After losing them, I was worse than empty. Celestina, I was dead inside. Phimie gave me hope. I can't repay her, but I can do something for her daughter and for you, if you'll let me.'
Her hands trembled in his, and his shook as well.
When she didn't at once accept his generosity, he said, 'All my life, I've lived just to get through the day. First survival. Then achievement, acquisition. Houses, investments, antiques? There's nothing wrong with any of that. But it didn't fill the emptiness. Maybe one day I'll return to medicine. But that's a hectic existence, and right now I want peace, calm, time to reflect. Whatever I do from here on? I want my life to have a degree of purpose it's never had before. Can you understand that?'
'I was raised to understand it,' said Celestina, and when she looked across the room, she saw that her words had moved her mother.
'We could get you out of here tomorrow,' Lipscomb suggested.
'I've got classes tomorrow and Wednesday, but none Thursday.'
'Thursday it is,' he said, clearly delighted to be receiving only a third of the fair-market rental from his apartment.
'Thank you, Dr. Lipscomb. I'll keep track of what you're losing every month, and someday I'll pay it back to you.'
'We'll discuss it when the time comes. And? please call me Wally.'
The physician's long, narrow face, his undertaker's face, ideal for the expression of unnameable sorrow, was not the face of a Wally. You expected a Wally to be freckled and rosy and round-cheeked and full of fun.
'Wally,' Celestina said, without hesitation, because suddenly she saw something of a Wally in his green eyes, which were livelier than they had been before.
Champagne, then, and two shopping bags packed full of Armenian takeout. Sou beurek, mujadereh, chicken- and-rice biryani, stuffed grape leaves, artichokes with lamb and rice, orouk, manti, and more. Following a Baptist grace (said by Grace), Wally and the three White women, a fourth present in spirit, sat around the Formica-topped table, feasting, laughing, talking about art and healing and baby care and the past and tomorrow, while up on Nob Hill, Neddy Gnathic sat tuxedoed at a lacquered black piano, sprinkling diamond-bright notes through an elegant room.
Chapter 47
Still wearing his white pharmacy smock over a white shirt and black slacks, striding purposefully along the streets of Bright Beach, under a malignant-gray twilight sky worthy of a Weird Tales cover, with ominous accompanying rhythm provided by wind-clattered palm fronds overhead, Paul Damascus headed home for the day.
Walking was part of a fitness regimen that he took seriously. He would never be called upon to save the world, like the pulp heroes in the tales he enjoyed; however, he had solemn responsibilities he was determined to meet, and to do so, he must maintain good health.
In a pocket of his smock was his letter to Reverend Harrison White. He hadn't sealed the envelope, because he intended to read to Perri, his wife, what he'd written, and include any corrections she suggested. In this, as in all things, Paul valued her opinion.
The high point of his day was coming home to Perri. They met when they were thirteen, married at twenty- two. In May they would celebrate their twenty-third anniversary.
They were childless. It had to be that way. Truthfully, Paul felt no regrets about missing out on fatherhood. Because they were a family of two, they were closer than they might have been if fate bad made children possible, and he treasured their relationship.
Their evenings together were comfortable bliss, though usually they just watched television, or he read to her. She enjoyed being read to: mostly historical novels and occasional mysteries.
Perri was often fast asleep by nine-thirty, seldom later than ten o'clock while Paul never turned in earlier than midnight or one in the morning. In the later hours, to the reassuring susurration of his wife's breathing, he returned to his pulp adventures.
This was a good night for television. To Tell the Truth at seven-thirty, followed by I've Got a Secret, The Lucy Show, and The Andy Griffith Show. The new Lucy wasn't quite as good as the old show; Paul and Perri missed Desi Arnaz and William Frawley.
As he turned the corner onto Jasmine Way, he felt his heart lift in expectation of the sight of his home. It wasn't a grand residence-a typical Main Street, USA, house-but it was more splendid to Paul than Paris, London, and Rome combined, cities that he would never see and would never regret failing to see.
His happy expectation thickened into dread when he spotted the ambulance at the curb. And in the driveway stood the Buick that belonged to Joshua Nunn, their family doctor.
The front door was ajar. Paul entered in a rush.
In the foyer, Hanna Rey and Nellie Oatis sat side by side on the stairs. Hanna, the housekeeper, was gray- haired and plump. Nellie, was Perri's daytime- companion, could have passed for Hanna's sister.
Hanna was too driven by emotion to stand.
Nellie found the strength to rise, but having risen, she was unable to speak. Her mouth shaped words, but her voice deserted her.
Halted by the unmistakable meaning of the expressions on these women's faces, Paul was grateful that Nellie was briefly stricken mute. He didn't believe he had the strength to receive the news that she had tried to deliver.
The blessing of Nellie's silence lasted only until Hanna, cursed with speech if not with sufficient strength to stand, said, 'We tried to reach you, Mr. Damascus, but you'd already left the pharmacy.'
