The Shadow Wife

You’ve been watching too many sitcoms on TV, she told herself as she lifted the telephone receiver to check her voice mail. She had one message, the mechanical voice told her, and she pressed her code to hear it.

“Hello, Joelle, a.k.a. Shanti Joy,” a woman’s voice said.

Joelle frowned. Carlynn Shire?

“This is Carlynn Shire,” the woman said, answering her question. “I’ve been thinking about you, and was wondering why I haven’t heard from you. How is your friend doing? Would you still like me to see her? If you would, give me a call.” She left her number, and Joelle wrote it down on the cover of a catalog resting on the kitchen counter.

How strange, she thought with a bit of annoyance. Apparently Alan Shire had neglected to tell Carlynn he had asked Joelle not to call her. Yet, she was pleased to hear the older woman’s message.

Setting down her purse and appointment book, she dialed the number.

“Shire residence.” It was a man’s voice. For a moment she was afraid it might belong to Alan Shire, but then she remembered the man who had called to set up her first meeting with Carlynn. This was most certainly his voice.

“This is Joelle D’Angelo,” she said. “May I speak with Carlynn Shire, please?”

“Please hold for a moment,” the man said, and several minutes passed before Carlynn came on the line.

“Hello, Joelle!” she said. “How are you?”

“I’m all right, Carlynn, but I have to say I was surprised to hear from you.”

“Why is that?”

Joelle sat on a stool at the counter. “Maybe you didn’t know this,” she said carefully, “but your husband contacted me. He told me you were retired and having some health problems and would rather not be seeing people. That’s why I didn’t call. I didn’t want to bother you again.”

There was a moment of silence on the line. “Alan called you?” Carlynn asked.

“No, he came to see me at the hospital where I work.”

“And he said…?”

“He said you’re retired and ill, that healing takes too much out of you, that—”

“Oh, horsefeathers,” Carlynn said. “He’s an old worrywart, isn’t he? He’s right that I’m retired, and he’s right that I’m ill, and there are few cases I’d be willing to take on these days, but you touched me with the story of your friend Mara. I would truly like to see her, Joelle.”

“Thank you,” she said, liking Carlynn a great deal for remembering Mara’s name. “But, Carlynn…” She hesitated, wondering if she should bring this up. “Another thing your husband said concerned me. He said that talking to me would remind you of… I know you lost your sister right around the time I was born.”

“That was a very long time ago, Joelle.” Carlynn sounded completely unconcerned. “It overjoys me to see that a life I touched back then has flourished in spite of what I lost. So put that right out of your mind.”

“All right, I will,” Joelle said, thinking that Carlynn seemed quite capable of making her own decisions, despite her husband’s concerns.

“Okay, then,” Carlynn said. “So, dear, when shall we see your friend?”

15

CARLYNN FOUND ALAN SITTING AT THE TABLE ON THE TERRACE, his feet up on one of the other chairs, a book in his lap, although he was not reading. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the gardeners working in the side yard.

She sat down on the other side of the table, and Alan glanced at her, then nodded in the direction of the yard.

“Crazy old man,” he said.

“What?” she asked. “Who?”

“Quinn,” he said.

She followed his gaze to one of the taller cypress trees, and saw the elderly man standing on a ladder, his head buried somewhere beneath the branches of the tree. She could see his weathered dark hands working the pruning shears. She shook her head.

“He can’t hold still, can he?” she said with a smile. “Quinn!” she called. “Come down from there. You’re going to kill yourself.”

He didn’t respond, and she knew that he had either not heard her or was going to pretend that he had not. She knew Quinn would rather die by falling out of a tree than by the slow, miserable route she seemed compelled to endure.

“I need to talk with you, Alan,” she said, shifting her gaze back to the terrace.

“Should you be out here in the sun?” Alan turned to ask her, his eyes masked behind his sunglasses.

“I don’t plan to be out here long,” she said. “I just wanted to understand why you would talk to Joelle D’Angelo behind my back.”

“Who?”

“You know who. The social worker who wanted me to see her friend. Why are you interfering in my business?”