The Shadow Wife

DEPARTMENT HAD NOT BEEN GIVEN MUCH space in the hospital. Located on the second floor, it consisted of one large room divided into four small offices, or “cubbyholes,” as the staff referred to them. The largest of the cubbies was the central office, where the coffeepot, mini-refrigerator, watercooler, mailboxes and reception desk were located. The three other offices were aligned in a row, separated only by paper-thin walls, through which a whisper could be heard if someone was really trying to listen.

For that reason, Joelle waited until she had the social work offices to herself before making the call to Carlynn Shire. She could hear Maggie, the department’s receptionist/secretary/office manager, talking to her boyfriend on the phone in the central office, but both Paul and Liam were in other parts of the hospital, and she wanted to take advantage of the quiet. Dialing the number for the Mind and Body Center, she wondered if Carlynn Shire would really remember an infant she had “saved” more than thirty-four years before.

“Shire Mind and Body Center.” The voice that answered the phone was that of a very young woman.

“Hello, my name is Joelle D’Angelo.” Joelle heard Liam step into his office next to hers as she was finishing the sentence. Drat. Swiveling her chair to face the far wall, she lowered her voice. “I was wondering if I could speak with Carlynn Shire,” she said.

There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end of the phone.

“Carlynn Shire doesn’t actually work here,” the young woman said.

“Oh,” Joelle said. “I thought…”

“She’s retired. You might catch her at some kind of function or whatever, but she’s almost never actually here.”

“I see.” Joelle wondered whether to dig further. She needed to use the bathroom very soon. In just this past week, she’d learned the location of every public and staff restroom in the hospital. She’d had some teasing of nausea, as well, and couldn’t even think about the liver she’d eaten the week before without gagging. It had been only a little over a week since she’d learned she was pregnant, before which she’d felt completely well, which made her wonder how many of her symptoms were psychological.

“Well, I’d still like to talk with her,” she said. “Could you tell me how to reach her?”

“I can’t give out that information.”

“How can I get a message to her?”

That hesitation again. “Hold on a sec,” the young woman said.

Not too long, please, Joelle thought, squeezing her legs together. She could hear Liam on the phone in his office, and the sound of his voice made her want to weep. Everything made her want to weep these days. Liam hung up his phone and left his office, much to her relief, and she heard his footsteps travel down the hall.

In the old days, before the night that had ruined their friendship, he never would have come and gone from his office without ducking into hers for a quick hello. Often, he’d ask if she wanted to go for a hike the following weekend, sometimes with Sam in a carrier on Liam’s back, sometimes without.

The last hike they’d been on, shortly before Sam’s birthday, had been at Point Lobos. The hike had been, she’d thought later, a turning point for both of them, a warning they’d chosen to ignore. They’d hiked together many times, both of them finding the exercise a great outlet for the stress they were under and an opportunity to talk. But on this hike, something had been different. Sam had not been with them, and when Liam held her hand to help her climb a boulder or cross a dry creek bed, she’d felt something new in his touch.

That morning, she’d given him a book of meditations related to the loss of a loved one, and he’d brought it with him on the hike. They sat on a rock, back to back, while he read aloud from it. They were high above the Pacific, and below them, cormorants flew from rock to rock and sea lions floated and bobbed in the water. Oh, what a strange mixture of emotions she’d felt that day! Surrounded by all that nature had to offer, she’d listened to Liam read about feelings they both shared over Mara’s illness. Those words, and the warmth of his back against her own, had made her both tearful for all that Mara was missing and filled with joy that she, herself, was alive and healthy. Afterward, Liam plucked a small yellow flower from some ground cover and slipped it into her hair, the tips of his fingers sending an electric thrill through her body as they brushed against the shell of her ear.

“That’s probably an endangered flower,” she’d said, but she picked one of the pale yellow blossoms and slipped it behind his ear, as well. They’d held hands as they walked along the smoother part of the trail, neither of them addressing the fact that the way they were relating to one another went beyond the sharing of grief to something more.

Joelle thought she could wait no longer for the bathroom. She was about to hang up when the voice of another woman, sounding slightly older than the first, came over the line.

“I understand you want to speak with Carlynn Shire?” the woman asked.

“Yes, I would.”

“What is this regarding?”

Joelle hesitated. I want her to cure a friend, sounded ridiculous if not downright presumptuous. “I wanted to talk with her about a friend of mine who’s very sick and—”

“She doesn’t take special requests any longer,” the woman said. “She hasn’t for years. I’m sorry.”

“Wait!” Joelle said, afraid the woman was about to hang up on her. “I, um, Car…Dr. Shire saved my life many years ago, when I was born, and I just wanted to meet her and…reconnect, I guess.”

“What did you say your name was?”

This time, Joelle said, “Shanti Joy Angel,” and she was willing to bet the woman didn’t bat an eye as she wrote down the information. She probably heard similarly eccentric names all the time in her business.

“And when did she save your life?”

“Thirty-four years ago. I was born on the Cabrial Commune in Big Sur, and she happened to be there visiting a friend. I wasn’t breathing when I was born. My parents said she saved my life.”

There was a long silence from the other end of the phone, and Joelle hoped the woman was jotting down the story.