Keeper of the Light (29 page)

It was early, and only two other customers were in the deli, sitting at a small table near the back of the store.

“Mr. Simon!”

Paul smiled as he recognized Joe, the round-faced, balding owner of the deli who was working alone behind the counter. Joe had learned Olivia’s name many years earlier and assumed that since Paul was her husband, his name was the same. He and Olivia had never bothered to correct him.

“Haven’t seen you in months!” Joe grinned.

“How’ve you been, Joe?” Paul asked, approaching the counter. “Olivia and I moved to North Carolina. The Outer Banks.”

“Ah,” Joe said. “It’s beautiful down there. You really get the weather, though, don’t you?”

“A bit.”

“Have a seat.” Joe gestured to the tables. “You want the onion bagel with salmon cream cheese?”

“You’ve got quite a memory.”

“Some people stick in your mind, you know what I mean?” He set a cup of coffee on the top of the deli case and Paul carried it to the nearest table.

“So how is Dr. Simon doing?” Joe asked as he worked on Paul’s bagel. “She’s still doctoring, I hope.”

“Uh huh. She’s working in an emergency room down there. I’m up here by myself on business.” At some point he was going to have to come up with a way of saying they were separated. He could imagine Joe’s reaction. He could almost picture the pain and disappointment in his eyes.

“She liked cinnamon and raisin, right?”

“Right.”

Joe shook his head as he carried the plate to Paul’s table. “You give her my best,” he said, setting the bagel next to Paul’s coffee. He wiped his hands on his apron, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He glanced toward the door before sitting down across the table from Paul. “Let me show you something,” he said. He took a picture from the wallet and set it on the table in front of Paul. A small, dark-haired girl, about five years old, grinned up at him. “Know who that is?”

“One of your grandkids?”

“That’s right. Lindsay. The one who wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that wife of yours.”

“Oh.” Paul lifted the picture to get a better look at the child. “I’d forgotten.”

“A crazy coincidence, wasn’t it? You and Dr. Simon were sitting right here when that beeper of hers went off, like it did more times than not, right? And she zipped off like she always did, no matter if she’d gotten her bagel yet, and you and I were saying what a shame it was she always had to take off like that. Remember?”

Paul nodded.

“And it turns out it was little Lindsay in the emergency room they were calling her for.”

Paul did remember that morning, as well as the morning after when all of Joe’s family came into the deli to meet Olivia and the bagels were on the house. Paul had been proud to be her husband.

“Drowned in the bathtub,” Joe said. His eyes had filled. “The gal in the ambulance said she was as good as dead till your wife got to her.” Joe tapped the picture. “You take this to her—to Dr. Simon. Show her what good work she did that morning.”

Paul swallowed. “All right,” he said. He pulled out his own wallet and slipped the picture inside. “Thanks, Joe. She’ll be happy to see it.”

There was a sudden rush of customers, and Joe returned to his place behind the counter. Paul wrapped the bagel in his napkin. His throat had constricted. He couldn’t eat. He waved good-bye to Joe and went outside, the air hitting him in the face like a hot, wet rag as he walked quickly across the street and back into Rock Creek Park. He knew exactly where he would sit to finish his breakfast—on the lush green grass beneath Olivia’s favorite old oak.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
E
IGHT

“How did it go today?” Alec asked. “The amnio?”

Olivia held the phone against her ear as she rolled onto her side. She’d hiked her nightgown up to her hips, and her hand rested on the bandaid below her navel.

“It was all right.” She was relieved to hear Alec’s voice, relieved to talk to someone who knew about the baby. She had felt more alone today than at any time since Paul left her. She’d wept on the far-too-long drive to Chesapeake, as well as on the way back, and she’d gone to bed early tonight—nine-thirty—as though she could hasten Alec’s call just by being there. “Today was the easy part,” she said. “Now comes the waiting.”

“I thought of you driving up there alone. I should have offered to go with you. Didn’t think of it till too late.”

Olivia smiled. He was so sweet. Thoughtful. And his voice was sleepy. Warm. Like the triangle of moonlight that crept across her bed, and her legs, and her hand where it rested on her belly. More than likely his room was drenched in moonlight too. It was in his eyes, perhaps. On his chest. She could see the wedge of white light playing with the softly curled hair of his chest. She had not stared at his body the other day at Rio Beach. She had barely noticed it, but right now she found she could remember it in detail.

“Olivia?”

“Yes?”

“You’re very quiet. Are you sure you’re all right?”

She lifted her hand from her stomach and watched the diamonds in her ring soak up the moonlight. “My bed just feels particularly empty tonight.”

“Oh,” he said. “Do you know how to reach Paul? Maybe you should call him.”

“Actually, you’re a lot easier to talk to than Paul these days.”

“Yeah, but I can’t do much about filling your bed.”

She cringed, and rolled onto her back again. “Where is this conversation going?” she asked.

“Shall we change the subject?”

“Actually, this subject has been on my mind a lot lately. I think it began when you told me about Paul saying he might have made a mistake. I started thinking about him—you know, about
being
with him—and then he takes off for D.C.”

“Maybe when he gets back.”

“Maybe. Alec? How do you…” She struggled for the right words. “How are you coping with celibacy?”

He laughed. “That’s pretty damn personal, Dr. Simon.”

“Sorry.”

Alec sighed. “Mother Nature has a way of taking care of things,” he said. “Having your spouse die seems to obliterate any libidinous urges, temporarily at any rate. At least I’m assuming it’s temporary.” He chuckled. “Actually, I’m
sure
it is. I guess it doesn’t work that way when you’re only separated, huh?”

“No,” she said.

“Are you still getting massages?”

“It’s not the same thing,” she said grumpily.

Alec was quiet for a moment. “What would happen if you showed up in Paul’s hotel room?”

“I don’t want to be humiliated.”

“I’m certain he still cares about you.”

Almost unknowingly, she had moved her hand to the warm delta of her pubic hair. She parted her legs a little. She could do this. She could listen to Alec’s voice and…

“Oh,
God.
” She sat up abruptly, tugging her nightgown to her knees.

“What’s the matter?”

“Talking about this is definitely
not
helping, Alec.” She propped her pillow up against the headboard and sat back, lifting the blue file folder from her night table to her lap. “Why don’t you just quiz me on the lighthouse?”

Mike Shelley walked into her office late the following afternoon.

“Do you have a minute?”

She closed the patient chart she’d been working on as he sat down on the other side of her desk. He looked a little tired, but he was smiling. He leaned back in the chair.

“I wanted to let you know I’ll be leaving the ER in September.”

“No.”
She was genuinely distressed. She depended on the calm efficiency Mike brought to his job as director of the emergency room.

“I’m afraid so. My parents are in Florida, and they haven’t been well this past year. I’d like to be closer to them and I’ve been offered a job down there.” He paused. “So, obviously, that leaves my position here open. I wanted to tell you that you’re in the running, along with Jonathan and two candidates from outside.”

The ambition Olivia had tried to temper when she started working in this small, sedate ER suddenly reared its head. She smiled. “I’m honored to be considered.”

“Between you and me, Olivia, you’re my first choice. Jonathan’s clinically good, but your past experience is far more varied and you handle everything that comes through the door with a cool head. That’s critical in this job. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, though. You still have the least seniority of anyone on the staff.” He stood up and sighed. “Jonathan wants this badly,” he said, and she thought she detected a warning in his voice. “He may be a bear to work with until this is over.”

Olivia smiled. “What else is new?”

She reached for the phone the instant Mike left her office and dialed Paul’s number, but she succeeded only in reaching his answering machine. She’d forgotten he was in Washington. She listened to his voice on the tape, imagining it filling his little cottage, resonating off the colored images in Annie’s stained glass.

She didn’t bother to leave a message. Instead she called Alec and was pleased when he suggested they go out to dinner to celebrate.

“Except,” she said, “there’s really nothing to celebrate yet.” Mike had warned her not to get her hopes up, and already she was picturing taking his place.

“Sure there is.” Alec sounded unusually cheerful. “More than you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.”

He picked her up at the emergency room after her shift and drove her to a small restaurant she’d never even noticed before. It was tucked between a few acres of amusement park rides on one side and a trailer park on the other, but inside it was cozy and dark. The candlelit tables were draped in mauve tablecloths, and the waiter laid her napkin across her lap as she sat down. The setting was undeniably romantic.

They ordered their meals, Alec turning down wine out of obvious deference to her condition. Olivia looked at him across the table as the waiter walked away. “So,” she said, “what did you mean there’s more to celebrate than I know about?”

He lowered his own napkin to his lap. “I went in to work today,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, Alec, really? How was it?”

“It was great till the animals started showing up.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile before she realized he was joking.

“It was actually painless,” he said. “Thanks for persuading me. I’m going to work three days a week for now.”

“You look as though it agrees with you,” she said. He had not stopped smiling since they sat down, and she could barely remember the haggard look he’d worn that first day she’d met him in the studio.

They filled their plates at the salad bar. “You must have had a sonogram with the amnio yesterday, huh?” Alec asked as they walked back to their table.

“Right.”

“No twins?”

She took her seat again. “Just one unbelievably tiny fetus,” she said. “Sex indeterminate.”

“What was it like being a twin?” Alec cut a cherry tomato neatly in half. “You must have been very close to your brother.”

“When we were kids, yes, we were close, but probably not the way you would imagine.” She sipped her water, set the glass down again. “I was born first, but my mother’d had no prenatal care and the midwife wasn’t prepared for twins. The cord was wrapped around Clint’s neck for quite a while before she even realized he was there. He suffered some brain damage.”

“Oh, no.”

“It wasn’t severe. He was mildly retarded, but he also had a wealth of physical problems.” She pictured her brother as a child, his skin so white, so translucent that the veins were clearly visible at his temples. “He was always small for his age and he was asthmatic. Quite frail. So I didn’t have the usual twin experience. I had to look out for him.”

She had sat up with Clint during his middle-of-the-night asthma attacks. She’d beaten up kids who made fun of him. She’d even done his homework for him, until one of her teachers told her she couldn’t protect Clint from everything.
You have to look out for yourself, Livvie,
she’d said, and Olivia had finally done exactly that. Once she left home, she neatly, permanently cut Clint out of her life. In the early years of her marriage, Paul had encouraged her to get in touch with Clint, but even with Paul’s support she had not been able to make the phone call or write the letter that would have brought her brother back into her world.

“How did he die?” Alec asked.

“Respiratory problems and something with his liver. My mother died a few years after I moved out, and Clint and my older brother, Avery, stayed on in the house in the Pine Barrens.” Clint had idolized Avery, but Avery had been a dangerous boy to look up to.

The waiter set their meals in front of them, and Olivia took a bite of tender, perfectly cooked salmon.

“Was it growing up with Clint that made you want to be a doctor?” Alec asked.

Olivia shook her head. “I wasn’t even a pre-med major when I started college. I was going to Penn State, and I was living with a woman who was a doctor. She was the sister of…” How much should she say? “This is confusing. She was the sister of a teacher I had in high school, the teacher I moved in with after I left home.” She took another bite of her salmon, chewing slowly, before she continued. “I’ve always had a tendency to be very influenced by the women around me. My mother wasn’t much of a role model, so I grew up a little unsure of myself as a female. My brothers were my strongest influence when I was young. I could beat up nearly anyone on the playground by the time I was twelve.” She smiled. “But when I became a teenager I realized that wasn’t appropriate behavior for a girl, so I started looking to my teacher for clues to how a woman should act. I started to…
emulate
her, and it became a pattern. When I lived with her sister while I was at college, I began modeling myself after
her.
That’s why medicine started to look so appealing.”

“Good thing she wasn’t a trash collector.”

Olivia laughed.

They ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before Alec began talking about Lacey and Clay. Olivia thought of Lacey’s tough-looking appearance in the emergency room a few nights earlier. Alec had his hands full with her.