Practice Makes Perfect (Single Father) (8 page)

“Daddy, can I see if your cell phone works out here?”

Matthew handed it back to her. “How did we ever get along without cell phones?” he asked Sarah with a grin.

“Pigeons,” she said. “Remember?”

“Oh, right, but I always hated the mess they made. The way they’d poop on your hands when you were trying to retrieve a message.”

“Oh, gross,” Lucy said.

“Sarah taught her pigeon to play the piano,” Matthew said. “Chopin, Beethoven. Her pigeon was much smarter than mine.”

“Shut up, Dad.” Lucy punched his shoulder. “You’re crazy.”

Sarah glanced at her watch. The rain hadn’t let up and she was getting a headache. They still had a good forty-five minutes to go, which meant they’d miss low tide. Less beach to search on but, given the rain, it probably didn’t matter a whole lot. She thought of the box of hammers and tools and shovels and who knows what that she’d carefully assembled. Matthew had loaded them into his car as Lucy looked on.

“How come we need all that stuff?” she’d asked.

Sarah tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Earlier, trying to fill what felt like a suffocating silence, she’d launched into a rambling explanation about the Mesozoic period. She’d intended it as an introduction to the dinosaurs—something she was sure Lucy would find interesting. Nerves had sidetracked her into a lengthy discourse on how the continents were formed and, even though she could see that Lucy was struggling to keep her eyes open, she hadn’t been able to stop talking. She now gazed through the streaming passenger window at the stands of dark pines, at the relentless rain. Lucy was wearing some kind of perfumed cream that smelled like apples. She could smell her own wool sweater. The scents filled her nose, mixed with the stuffy warm smell of three bodies in a small space. She rolled down her window a crack, felt the rush of cool, wet air, then quickly closed it, afraid she might get Lucy wet.

Lucy didn’t like her. But maybe Lucy didn’t like any women Matthew was involved with. Except she wasn’t involved with Matthew. Pepita had liked her, though. All the girls at Saint Julia’s Orphanage had liked her. Fighting for her attention, hanging on to her hands. Resting their heads on her lap. Why could she talk to them and not to Matthew’s daughter? The easy explanation was that Lucy reminded her of Elizabeth. But, come on, she wasn’t that petty. Was she? Maybe it was
wanting
Lucy to like her.

Standing at the window that morning, waiting for Matthew and Lucy to arrive she’d felt as if she was waiting for a first date. She’d paced the room, changed from a navy parka that struck her as drab into a bright red one before deciding that wouldn’t be warm enough and putting the navy one back on again. She’d added a scarf for color. And then because of the rain, she’d added the yellow slicker.

She glanced at her watch again.

“Only five minutes since the last time you looked.” Matthew squeezed her shoulder. “Relax.”

Sarah smiled. The gray skies seemed to lighten just a bit. They’d turned onto the road that ran along the coast and, through the pines, she caught glimpses of the ocean. “See that formation over there?” She scooted around in her seat to look at Lucy who was now in communion with her video game. “That tall pile of rocks?” Sarah gestured at the rugged seashore outside the window. “Formations like that are called stacks and they form when part of the headland is eroded.”

“You know what
erosion
means, Lulu?” Matthew asked.

“Like when the sea washes stuff away?”

“Exactly.” Sarah beamed at her. “Stacks also form when a natural arch collapses due to subaerial processes and gravity.”

Matthew cleared his throat.

“What?”

He smiled. “Nothing.”

“Was I rambling on too long?” she asked.

“That’s okay,” Lucy said.

“See, when a stack collapses or erodes, it leaves a stump. Or sometimes it leaves this small island, like that one over there.” She pointed again.

“What’s a headland?” Lucy asked.

“It’s a piece of rocky land that juts out into the sea.” Sarah smiled, feeling encouraged.
She likes me, she really likes me.
“You’ve heard of the Rock of Gibraltar, right?”

Lucy gave her a blank look.

“Sure you have,” Matthew said. “Remember when we all went to Spain? That big rock—”

“Oh, yeah,” Lucy said. “Cool.”

“Interesting, Sarah,” Matthew said.

“Can we get something to eat soon?” Lucy asked.

“It’s early for lunch,” Matthew said.

“Stacks are important sites for nesting seabirds,” Sarah said, trying to regain Lucy’s attention. “They’re also ideal for rock climbing. Your dad and I used to have these great adventures rock climbing.”

“We did.” Matthew looked at Lucy in the rearview mirror. “Those are the kind of experiences you remember years later.”

“Dad, really. I’m
so
hungry.”

“I made sandwiches,” Sarah said. “Two kinds. Goat cheese with red bell peppers on whole-wheat bread and—”

“Sounds good,” Matthew said with a tad too much enthusiasm. “Right, Lu?”

Sarah sat back in her seat. Rose had stopped by while she was making the sandwiches. “Hardly kid’s stuff,” she’d said. “But you know best.” Which Rose obviously didn’t believe and, Sarah could see now, was obviously not true.

“Or…I don’t know, it’s kind of cold,” Matthew said. “Remember that beach café that made really great clam chowder?”

“Yeah, let’s go there,” Lucy said, showing enthusiasm for the first time that morning.

“Hey, Sarah,” Matthew said. “What about that rock formation just west of Agate Beach? One of the rocks was like a little cave, remember that?”

“I used to hole up in it,” Sarah said.

“I wonder if it’s still there…”

“One way to find out,” Sarah said, and Matthew turned to smile at her.

“Dad,” Lucy said, “I am seriously hungry.”

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Matthew said. “I say rock formation, then lunch. Sarah?”

“I’m starving,” Sarah lied. “Guess you lose, Matthew.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
RAIN
FINALLY
STOPPED
and by the time they’d had lunch, burgers for Lucy, clam chowder for him and Sarah—he’d been quite willing to eat her sandwiches, but she’d insisted—a few anemic sunbeams were illuminating the gloom. Encouraged by the break in the weather, they’d hiked a mile or so along a wooded trail, then clambered over barnacle- and mussel-encrusted rocks to check out the tide pools. But as they’d crouched on the rocks watching a hermit crab wind its way through ribbons of pale green seaweed, Lucy had grown bored and announced she was going off by herself to look for shells. He could see her red coat, a splash of color against the muted seascape.

“I guess my expectations were unrealistic,” he said.

“About?”

“You and Lucy.” He kept his eyes on his daughter’s back. “You’re not exactly getting along like a house on fire.”

“Oh, come on. I’m this woman she doesn’t know from Adam.” Sarah’s voice was heated. “She gets dragged along on some cockamamy trip with… Did you even ask her if she wanted to do this?”

“No.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Figures.”

“In my defense,” he said, “I did think it would be good for her to do something other than shop.” He straightened his legs. “And I wanted you two to meet each other. Elizabeth’s always telling me I spoil her. I decided this time, instead of letting her choose, I’d set the agenda.”

“It’s a difficult concept to imagine,” Sarah said thoughtfully. “Being spoiled. With Rose I tended to feel like a small and less intelligent adult she’d been stuck with but that she was trying to make the best of it.”

“She used to intimidate me,” Matthew said.

“She intimidated everyone. Once, she told me that my father died of a heart attack because he really wanted to leave her, but didn’t have the guts to just walk out.”

Matthew could hardly remember her father, a quiet, mild-mannered man, because his memories of Rose were so vivid. Sarah had baked a cake for, maybe, his tenth birthday. She’d called him over to her house on some pretext and it had been there on the kitchen table. Lopsided, frosted before it cooled sufficiently—Rose had pointed this out—but the first birthday cake he’d ever had. He’d hardly blown out the candles though before Sarah slipped into a gloomy funk. It was hideous, overcooked, revolting, on and on. And he’d imagined then, as he often did, a bird, a big black raven, perched on Sarah’s shoulder, berating and judging her and continually finding her wanting. And he’d wonder what it was like being Sarah.

Today, at this very moment, he suspected it wasn’t a whole lot of fun. The thought made him feel protective toward her. With any other woman he might have put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. But with Sarah, the simple gesture would turn complicated, require an explanation. He could hear her.
So you’re feeling sorry for me?

Down at the water’s edge, Lucy was holding up a long strand of seaweed, her face in three-quarters profile, the wind tossing her dark hair.

“She looks like Elizabeth,” Sarah said.

“Her personality’s more like Elizabeth’s, too,” he replied. “She’s creative and impulsive. Unlike me.”

Sarah said nothing but, somehow, the silence spoke volumes.

Something wasn’t working about the day. The chemistry was all wrong. He’d envisioned Lucy and Sarah forming this instant bond, chattering away about girl stuff, teasing him for being a guy. Instead, Lucy had hardly said two words and Sarah was most un-Sarah-like.

“So what happened with you and Elizabeth?” Sarah broke the silence to ask.

“Oh…” He considered the question. “We probably shouldn’t have got married in the first place. We’re very different. We tried to make things work, mostly because of Lucy, but it just didn’t happen. Sometimes you just have to face reality.” It might have been the moment to ask about her husband, but she felt closed off to him, contained.

“Do you see a lot of her…Lucy?”

“As much as I can. It was difficult for her after the divorce. I carried—carry—my share of guilt. You know how my childhood was. I promised myself I wouldn’t impose that on my own kids, but…”

She smiled faintly. “I still can’t quite get used to the idea of you being a daddy. How did we get to be so old?”

“Happens while you’re not looking,” Matthew said. “One minute you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, the next you’re middle-aged.”

The fog had slowly rolled in as they spoke, obscuring the horizon and the distant pines on either side of where they sat. Through it, he could just make out Lucy’s red jacket as she walked toward them cupping something in her hands. He stood, reached for Sarah’s hand to pull her up.

“Let’s go see what treasures Lucy has discovered.”

But as they walked down to the water, Sarah stopped to examine a shell and he walked on alone. By the time he reached Lucy and turned back to look at Sarah, he could barely make her out in the drifting fog.

“I
WAS
JUST
THINKING
about you,” Curt Hudelson said when Sarah stopped by his stall at the Saturday farmer’s market. “I went to an alternative-medicine seminar last week. Some of the things I heard there reminded me of your plan. What’s happening with it?”

Sarah picked up a bunch of kale, feigned close inspection. “It… There’s been a set back.” She’d deliberately avoided Matthew in the week since the Colossal Fossil Failure, as she’d taken to thinking of it. “Someone I was hoping would be a key part of it isn’t interested.” She set the kale down, looked at Curt. “So now I’m doing some rethinking.”

“Hold on.” He bagged some red potatoes the size of marbles, handed the bag over to a man in a cloth cap. “Steam them, then eat them with chopped parsley,” he said. “Good for the circulatory system.” He turned back to Sarah. “Rethinking what?”

“The whole idea,” Sarah said before she’d had a chance to choose her words. “Maybe Port Hamilton isn’t really the place for it.”

“You’re wrong.” Curt’s pale eyes gleamed. “Port Hamilton is exactly the place for it. It’s up to you and me—people who don’t believe big medicine has all the answers—to fight the cancer that’s spreading across the peninsula.”

“Cancer?” Sarah fought back a grin. There was something almost evangelical about his fervor. Not difficult to imagine him in a preacher’s pulpit. “You wouldn’t be talking about Compassionate Medical Systems?”

“Compassionate Medical Systems!” He almost spit the words. “Let’s see how compassionate they are when it comes to those who don’t have the money to pay. Down where Debbi and I live on the west end of the peninsula. People in trailers and manufactured homes. Men who used to work for the mill. My neighbor, for example. He lost his job, lost his home in town so he moved out where it’s cheaper, but he’s got no car, no money. I’ll be interested to see how compassionate the system is when guys like him drop by for a visit.”

“Hey.” Debbi appeared at his side, smiled at Sarah then turned to Curt. “That woman with the bread stall needs help hauling boxes. I told her you’d go down and give her a hand.”

“Off to do my Tarzan act.” He pantomimed a show of strength, then fixed Sarah with another of his laser-eyed looks. “Port Hamilton needs you. The
world
needs you,” he intoned theatrically.

Debbi rolled her eyes after he left. “He can be kind of fanatical, in case you didn’t pick that up. I mean, he’s got some good ideas, but sometimes he’s over the top.” She hesitated, her tentative manner in dramatic contrast to Curt’s intensity. “I just made up that excuse to get rid of him, I wanted to talk to you alone. Do you have a minute?”

Sarah stepped aside to allow a woman in a navy parka to inspect a basket of mushrooms. “Sure.”

“I took Alli to the E.R. a few weeks ago. Dr. Cameron saw her. He said she needs tests to see if she has kidney disease, but Curt keeps telling me it’s just an allergy. I’m giving his herbal supplements another try, but…” She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Sarah nodded. She’d seen enough examples of the power of natural healing not to scoff at the idea, but if the child did have kidney disease, she was probably going to need more than herbal remedies.

“I went to the library to look up stuff about kidney disease on the Internet. What really freaks me out is surgery. My mom died having surgery she didn’t need.”

“Well, it might not come to that,” Sarah said. “That’s probably why Matt—Dr. Cameron—wants her to come in for tests. Just to make sure.”

Debbi nodded. “But I’m also worried about the Compassionate Medical Systems thing—what Curt was talking about. I’m scared that if they get their hands on her, they’ll make me agree to surgery. Call me an unfit mother if I refuse.”

“So,” Sarah pressed, trying to see where Debbi was headed, “you’re not completely comfortable with Curt’s plan, but you don’t entirely trust the alternative?”

Debbi nodded, clearly relieved at being understood. “What you were saying to Curt about the kind of things you wanted to do. That’s what I want for Alli.”

“You want me to have a look at her,” Sarah said, a statement rather than a question. She dug into her purse for a business card, scribbled a number on the back. “Look, I’m licensed to practice here in Washington.” She laughed. “I just don’t have a practice yet.” Or a place to practice, or equipment or a business plan. “Call me,” she told Debbi. “We’ll work something out.”

“C
URT
IS
DEFINITELY
over the top,” Elizabeth agreed when Sarah recounted the exchange over coffee at Mombassa that afternoon. “Debbi used to be a waitress here and he’d come in and pick her up. She used to hide her inhaler at work because she needed it for her asthma, but Curt would have a fit if he saw her using it.”

Sarah nodded, remembering the almost fanatical look in his eyes. “Too bad, because a lot of what he said made sense.” She stirred her coffee. “I think I might take on Debbi’s daughter as my first patient.”

Elizabeth smiled broadly, clinked her coffee cup against Sarah’s. “Fantastic.” She leaned across the table. “This is so great, Sarah. Even though I thought Matthew should go with CMS, I was still disappointed because, well, he had all these ideals—”

“He also had his reasons,” Sarah broke in, not wanting to hear Elizabeth echo her own accusation that Matthew had sold out. “Matthew still has ideals. He’s still a great doctor.” She picked up her coffee cup, then caught Elizabeth’s smirk. “And I’m not defending him because there’s anything going on between us—”

“Oh, no,” Elizabeth said. “I’m disappointed.”

“Don’t be. We’re friends. But back to my first patient. Here’s my plan. The new and revised version. I’ll set up the practice here in town, hang out a shingle—”

“Where?”

She smiled. “Haven’t figured that out yet.”

“I can look around for you,” Elizabeth said. “In fact, if you need an office manager—correction, when you need an office manager, receptionist, general gofer—I’m officially applying for the job.”

“You’ve got it,” Sarah said. “But don’t talk to me about salary, at least not yet.”

“I’m not exactly rolling in the dough waiting tables.” Elizabeth dipped a piece of biscotti in her coffee. “I am so stoked that you want to do this, Sarah. I mean, it seems like everything is falling into place. I was telling some friends about you going to Central America and taking care of patients down there and they said that what they really need is a doctor who would make house calls.”

“House calls.” Sarah stared at her. “That could be the answer, at least for now.” She’d clipped an article from the
Seattle Times
just the week before about a physician in eastern Washington who’d decided to buck the trend and start an old-fashioned practice. No insurance companies—too time-consuming and it raises overhead—no paperwork. Strictly cash. And house calls. Maybe ten a week. Payment on the spot. The whole point was to keep the costs low and the services affordable. Her own version of that would include the integrated-medicine component. Deep in thought, she realized Elizabeth was watching her across the table. “What?”

“I was thinking about money. I mean, these people don’t have any.”

Sarah nodded, holding her mug in both hands, savoring the warmth. Spring had made a tentative appearance on the peninsula; daffodils bloomed in grassy roadside strips and pale green leaves covered tree branches, but the sun was deceptive and she inevitably ended up dressing too lightly for the weather. “I’m not in this to make a lot of money,” she said. “I saved a little while I was in Central America. My dad left me some. It’s enough to get started.”

“When are you going to tell Matthew?” Elizabeth asked. “Or are you going to tell him?”

“Don’t know,” Sarah said. “To either of those questions. Right now, I have a million other things to think about.”

M
ATTHEW
HAD
BEEN
PAGED
to the E.R. at around midnight. At two in the morning he’d started for home, but the fog was so thick it all but obscured the streetlights, creating a ghostly aura that would have been great for Halloween, except that it was mid-March and more of the same was forecast.

Socked-in fog was bad news on the peninsula.

The night before, he’d decided it wasn’t worth going home and was napping on a couch in pediatrics when his beeper went off again. Car accident on 101, head injury. Fog had precluded flying the victim to Seattle.