The Shadow Wife

“Because I didn’t want you to go peek at him and tell me something about him that would wreck my…” She lowered her voice. “My idea of what he looked like.” She started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

Lisbeth shook her head, but she was still grinning. “Oh, Carlynn,” she said. “Here comes the problem.”

“What?”

“If you go stop by the business office, you’ll see.”

“Tell me!”

“He’s colored.”

Carlynn caught her breath. The first thought in her head was “You’re kidding,” but that was not what Lisbeth needed to hear. She wasn’t certain what she should say to her sister. She could think of no colored professionals working at the hospital, but then recalled noticing a nice-looking Negro in the corridor once or twice, a man obviously not a patient, carrying a briefcase. He was missing fingers on his left hand.

“Carlynn?” Lisbeth sounded worried.

Carlynn laughed. “You caught me off guard there,” she said. “I might know who he is. Is he tall and good- looking? Is he missing two—”

“That’s him!” Lisbeth nodded.

“I’ve never spoken to him, but he looks nice,” Carlynn said. “He’s a lot older than you, though, I think, but then Alan is ten years older than me, so I guess I can’t say anything about that.”

“But Alan isn’t colored.”

She knew Lisbeth was waiting for her opinion of her dating a Negro. “Does it matter to you that he’s colored?” she asked her.

“I really like him, Carly,” Lisbeth said.

“Then go out with him.” Carlynn was unsure if that was the right advice, but she’d never heard such joy in her sister’s voice before.

“What about Mother?” Lisbeth asked.

“What about her? Mother won’t like anybody we pick. She doesn’t even like Alan. No one’s good enough for me, in her eyes.”

“Well, maybe she’ll think a colored man would be just perfect for me, then,” Lisbeth said.

Carlynn laughed, but without much spirit. “Look,” she said, “it doesn’t matter what Mother or anyone else thinks. Not even me. None of that matters, Lisbeth, if you really like him. You can’t live your life trying to please everyone else.” Mother, she thought, must never know. Perhaps this man would just be the start of dating for Lisbeth. Perhaps Mother never would have to know that Lisbeth had seen him. “So, did you accept his invitation to go out?”

“I’m supposed to call him,” she said. “He left it up to me to decide if I wanted to or not. He understood that I might feel…uncomfortable.”

“Do you?”

“I think he’s the most. He sails, Carlynn. He has his own boat.”

This was one unusual Negro, Carlynn thought. She knew how much Lisbeth loved sailing. “Then call him,” she said. “Do you want Alan and me to go out with you the first time? A double date? As long as it’s not on a boat, that is.”

“Oh, would you?”

“Of course.” It was strange. She had been intimately involved with Alan for half a year, yet she had no idea how he would feel about a white woman dating a colored man. “How are things with you and Alan?” Lisbeth asked, as though she felt rude for having focused the conversation on herself.

“Great,” Carlynn said, and they were. But just then she wanted to feel some of the passion that Lisbeth clearly felt. She wanted a man whom she could be certain was in love with her, not just with her gift.

19

THERE WAS NO BETTER WAY TO LET YOU KNOW YOU HAD NO FRIENDS than spending a birthday alone, Joelle thought. It was early Saturday morning, July fourteenth, and she was seated in front of her computer checking housing prices on the internet. She had looked at Berkeley and Chicago and was now surfing through a real estate site for the third city she’d added to her list, San Diego, since a social worker she’d known from Silas Memorial was living there. It would be best if she could stay in California, she thought, so that she wouldn’t have to worry about getting a social work license in another state.

She’d decided she’d rent when she first moved, putting her condo on the market and using her savings for her expenses until it sold. At that point, she could decide if she wanted to buy something in her new town. Right now, though, she couldn’t imagine taking that permanent a step. It was hard for her to picture herself living anywhere but here.

She was sixteen weeks pregnant and still able to hide her belly, although that feat was getting more difficult by the day. If anyone wondered why she now wore loose dresses and tunic tops, no one said a word. At least, not to her. She would have to leave within a month, though, to be able to keep her secret, and she worried that waiting that long might be pushing her luck.

Happy birthday to me.

“Feeling a little sorry for ourselves, are we?” she said out loud as she clicked the “rentals” button on the real estate site. She was now officially thirty-five years old. She’d hear from her parents sometime during the day, of course, but knew she would receive no card from them and certainly no gift. She and Mara used to take each other out to dinner on their birthdays, just one of several rituals they’d had. No one at work had said a word to her about her birthday yesterday, but, of course, she hadn’t reminded anyone, either. The only people who were showing any