“I think it’s my business, too, don’t you?” he asked. The sunlight on his head made the thick shock of his hair even whiter.
“Not really,” she said.
“Well.” He closed his book and set it down on the table. “I went to see her because A) you’re not well, and B) you’re not thinking straight.”
“I know I’m not well,” she said, “but there’s nothing wrong with my thinking.”
“There has to be if you’re willing to take on a healing,” he said. “For the last ten years I haven’t had to worry about you. I don’t want to start that up all over again.”
“You’re operating out of fear, Alan,” she said. He always had. “I know your intentions are good and that you’re trying to protect me. To protect all we’ve built together. But this girl— Joelle—needs me.”
“And without you, what will happen to her? Will she explode? Die? What? You’re not going to heal her friend. There’s nothing in the universe that can be done to help a woman that brain-damaged. You’re just giving Joelle false hope.”
“It’s not her friend I’m interested in.” She looked down at her hands. They were not so yellow today, or perhaps it was the sun that made them look a bit less like the hands of a woman dying from hepatitis. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my sister lately,” she said. “I may be going to see her soon.” She smiled, knowing she would irk Alan with that sort of talk. She’d always liked the open-ended nature of spiritual questions, while Alan, ever the physician, had no patience for them.
“Well,” Alan said, “if you see her, send her my regards.”
Carlynn leaned toward him across the table. “I’m not particularly proud of the life I’ve led, Alan,” she said. “I need to find a way to set it right.”
“And this is it?” he asked. “Helping the social worker’s friend?”
“Yes,” she said, rising to her feet. She rested one hand on his shoulder and bent low to buss his temple. “Please don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be very careful. I promise.”
JOELLE SLOWED HER CAR TO SKIRT A GOLF CART PARKED AT THE side of the road. She and Carlynn were driving north along the Seventeen Mile Drive, heading toward Pacific Grove and the nursing home. “Was Alan upset about you coming with me today?” she asked as they passed the pricey and beautiful Inn at Spanish Bay.
“You have to forgive Alan,” Carlynn said, without answering the question directly. “He’s very overprotective of me.”
“Has he always been that way?” Joelle took her eyes from the road to glance at the older woman.
“Not in the beginning,” Carlynn said. “But once people began going to great lengths to try to see me, hoping I could heal them, he really worried that I was either overdoing it, or that some loony person might try to kidnap me or heaven knows what.”
Joelle smiled to herself. It was funny to hear someone who claimed to be a healer refer to anyone other than herself as loony.
“Are you…forgive me for prying,” Joelle said. “Is your illness very serious?”
Carlynn nodded. “I have hepatitis C,” she said. “Apparently I contracted it thirty-four years ago, when I was hospitalized after the accident and needed a transfusion. But it was silent until a couple of years ago.”
Joelle remembered that hepatitis C was serious, but knew little more than that. “What about treatment?” she asked.
“I’m done with that,” Carlynn said. “I had a couple of rounds of the best drugs medicine has to offer, but the side effects were horrendous and the treatment simply didn’t work for me. I could go through it again, but frankly, I’d rather live a comfortable six months or so than a miserable year or two.”
“I’m sorry,” Joelle said. “It sounds as though it’s been pretty frustrating for you.”
“Well, I feel fairly good these days,” Carlynn said with a nod. “So much better than I did when I was taking those drugs. Then I could barely get out of bed.”
“Seeing Mara might tire you out terribly, though.” Joelle suddenly wondered if she should have paid more attention to Alan Shire’s concerns.
“I’d like to do some good before I die,” Carlynn said.
“You’ve already done a great deal of good, though,” Joelle said.
Carlynn smiled and turned to look at her. “I want to see Mara, Joelle,” she said firmly but kindly. “And that’s the final word.”
She obviously didn’t want sympathy, so Joelle changed the subject.
“How long have you and Alan been married?” she asked. They were nearing the Pacific Grove gate, and Carlynn waved at the toll taker as they passed by.
“Forty-three years. We met when I was in medical school. I was keeping my abilities to myself back then, but he sensed there was something different about me.”
Joelle glanced at her again and saw that she was smiling, perhaps at the memory. Today, Carlynn wore a yellow T-shirt beneath denim overalls, a blue-and-yellow-striped scarf tied at her neck, tennis shoes and small, round sunglasses. She looked very thin, yes, and her skin was probably more yellow than it should be, but otherwise it would be hard to guess that this was a woman with a terminal illness.
“I envy you for being married so long to someone who cares enough to protect you,” Joelle said as she turned in the direction of the nursing home.
That coy little smile again. “Yes, I’ve been lucky. And I’m sorry about your divorce. It must have been difficult for you.”
