Sometimes, when someone has brain damage, it can cause them to feel unnaturally high—”
“Euphoric.” Carlynn nodded, and Joelle remembered that she was talking to a doctor.
“Right. And that’s what’s happened in her case. Which is both a blessing and a curse. At least she’s not suffering. But we want her back. Liam and I. And her little boy, Sam, who is such a doll.” She pressed the tissue to her nose, afraid she was going to start crying once again.
“I’ll see her,” Carlynn said.
“You will?” Joelle was surprised. “Thank you!”
Carlynn squeezed her hand again, then let go and stood up. “I don’t know my schedule yet for the next few weeks, but if you could call me in a couple of days, I should be able to set up a date to see her. And you’ll go with me, of course, all right?”
“Yes, that would be—”
They both turned at the sound of footsteps entering the room. A tall, elderly man with a wild shock of white hair stood in the doorway.
“Hi, dear,” Carlynn said. “Joelle, this is my husband, Alan.” She walked over to the armchair and picked up her cane, then started toward the man.
Joelle stood up and walked to the doorway to shake Alan Shire’s hand. He was unsmiling, staring at her with frank curiosity. He looked as though he was in his eighties, at least a decade older than Carlynn.
“Hello,” she said. “I was just about to leave. I came to ask Carlynn if she would see a friend of mine.”
Alan raised his eyebrows at his wife. “And you said?” he asked her.
“It’s a very special case,” Carlynn said. “Especially since Joelle was the baby born at that commune down in Big Sur. Remember?”
He looked at his wife stupidly, as though not understanding her words, and his lips were turned down in a scowl. Then he shifted his gaze to Joelle, forcing her to look away in discomfort. He was odd, she thought. Perhaps he suffered from Alzheimer’s. Whatever his problem, he was hardly a good advertisement for Carlynn’s ability to heal someone with brain damage.
Carlynn walked her out to her car, where she shook Joelle’s hand, pressing it between her own.
“You call me in a few days, honey,” she said.
“I will.” Joelle got into her car and turned it around in the wide driveway, catching sight of Alan Shire’s stern face at the front window as she passed. She waved at him, but received no response. Surely he was suffering from dementia. But whatever the cause of his reaction to her visit, she quickly forgot about it as she left the driveway and pulled onto the Seventeen Mile Drive. She could still feel the warmth of Carlynn’s hands.
THREE DAYS AFTER VISITING THE KLING MANSION, JOELLE SAT in her office writing a report on a patient, keenly aware that on the other side of the thin wall dividing her office from his, Liam was talking on the phone. Although it was difficult to make out exactly what he was saying, it was clear he was arranging home health care for one of his patients. His voice was cordial and calm, not too deep, not too high, and she realized how much she missed hearing him sing. She didn’t think he had picked up his guitar once since Mara’s aneurysm.
Tonight she planned to call Carlynn Shire to schedule the visit with Mara. She was firm in her decision to keep Liam from learning about the woman’s involvement. He would either scoff at her foolishness or simply forbid her to subject Mara to more unnecessary treatment. She didn’t know which reaction she would get from him, but one thing was certain: he would not think that involving a healer was a good or useful idea. She knew herself that it was impossibly out of character for her to even consider it.
Carlynn Shire had been charismatic in a quiet, peaceful way. If anyone had told Joelle that she would sit for a half hour or more, holding someone other than a lover’s hands while revealing her feelings, she would have cringed at the thought. Yet having Carlynn hold her hands had been comfortable as well as comforting. Joelle was a trained counselor; she knew all about active listening, and she knew that Carlynn’s attentiveness had gone way beyond the norm, even after Joelle had rambled on far too long. How good it had felt to pour out all of Mara’s story and her involvement in it to another human being! Of course, she had not poured the part that desperately needed pouring. And that she could never do.
Mara would have been the one person to whom Joelle could have confessed what she’d done. She could have told Mara that she was in love with her best friend’s husband and that she was torn apart with guilt over having slept with him while her friend lay helpless in a nursing home. If Mara were well and could serve once again as Joelle’s confidante—and the husband in question were, of course, not Mara’s—how would she respond to that revelation? What would she say? What guidance would she offer? Mara was big on morals and ethics, but then so was Joelle. She had never done anything so flat out wrong in her life, and the experience was still tangled up in her mind and her heart. How could she regret that night, when they had comforted one another in the deepest way a man and woman could? Yet, if it cost her their friendship, and it certainly seemed to have done that, she would regret it always.
Lifting her fingers from the keyboard of her computer, she rested her hands on her belly, uncertain if the slight rise of flesh beneath her palms was the growing fetus or the product of not working out. Ten and a half weeks now. Last night, observing her body in a full-length mirror, she’d noticed that the blue-green veins in her belly and breasts were clearly visible beneath the skin, and her waistline was just starting to thicken. How long would it be before people began talking about her behind her back? She could imagine the social work department’s receptionist, Maggie, saying to Liam, “Gee, Joelle’s gettin’ a little chunky, isn’t she?”
The intercom on her desk buzzed, and she lifted the phone to her ear.
“There’s a doc here to see you,” Maggie said.
A doctor? Her first thought was that Rebecca Reed had somehow guessed she was pregnant and wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with her.
“Who is it?” Joelle asked.
“Your name again?” Maggie asked, her voice muted a bit, and Joelle couldn’t hear the doctor’s answer. Then
