Three Wishes (32 page)

Her eyes lit. “I am so happy. Be happy, too.”

“How not to be?” he asked. “As long as I don't think.”

 

If he was nothing else, though, Tom was a thinking creature. More, he was a
deliberating
creature. It was the single trait most responsible for his success as a lawyer. He could look at a case from every angle, could analyze every argument and devise a strategy that, nine times out of ten, worked.

So he began deliberating. On trial was the validity of Bree's three wishes. The plaintiff was his own peace of mind. His goal was to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that one of those three wishes had not been granted.

As he interpreted the testimony of the fire inspector, the cause of the fire could never be proved one way or another.

Likewise, given the doctor's suspension of disbelief, the pregnancy.

The one piece of evidence that hadn't been established as clearly, and therefore held the most promise, was the positive identification of Bree's mother.

14

T
om had the best of intentions. He called his investigator friend and put him on the case. A few phone calls later, the investigator reported that the little bit of information on Bree's mother that was filed in records at the hospital in Chicago where Bree was born led nowhere, which meant that either the woman had given false information or the address she gave the hospital had been so tentative that no trail remained. Tom put him back to work checking out New York women who drove small red Mercedeses, women who were possibly involved in litigation and who traveled to Montreal on business.

Then life distracted him.

First, there was the weather. Mid-May brought clear skies and warm sun, fragrant apple blossoms, budding trees, and greening grass. Even beyond framing a two-car garage on the far side of the carport, there were chores to do, like replacing storm windows with screens, cutting back trees that were growing too near the house, cleaning the yard, and doing the season's first mowing. The year before, when he was alone and raw, these chores had been therapeutic. This year, they were a pleasure.

Second, there was Bree. How could he dwell on dark fears when she was so happy? She smiled through morning sickness, smiled through afternoon fatigue. She cut back her work hours to four a day and was right there puttering around the house with him, smiling all the while. If she ever thought about a less than happy ending to their story, she didn't let on. She was exhilarated and beautiful. His love for her grew with each day that passed.

Third, there was the phone. It rang more and more often with calls from people wanting legal advice. Those calls came from a growing circle of towns, from families and small-time entrepreneurs with problems that were novel enough to stump their local lawyers. In some instances, Tom shared thoughts off the top of his head. Others required research. He found the thinking a challenge, an easy return to law after a time away, but he never billed a client. That would have made the challenge a job rather than an intellectual exercise. If a case required follow-up, he referred it to Martin Sprague.

Martin proved to be a pleasant surprise. He was a plodding workhorse of a lawyer, making up in follow-through what he lacked in creativity. Tom was pleased to direct work his way, not only because of that, or because the man needed the work, but because Tom was a Panamanian now, and Panamanians supported each other.

Fourth, there was his family. He wanted to tell them about Bree and the baby, but he didn't think he could have borne it if his father hung up again, not when what he had to say was so close to his heart. So he bought a point-and-shoot camera and began writing letters. The first few were short and direct. They included pictures of Bree and him, and while he hoped for a reply, he didn't expect one. Each week, he sent a new letter. By the beginning of June, he was sending pictures of the house with its freshly painted porch and of Bree at the brook. He also dropped notes to his brothers, lighthearted, undemanding little things that said he was thinking of them.

He talked with his sister every few weeks. She had given birth to a boy and was doing well, and, yes, Harris Gates had come around. She thanked Tom for the large package of baby clothes he and Bree had sent. But she didn't invite him to the christening.

Tom didn't blame her. His presence would have detracted from the occasion. But he wasn't holding that against Alice. If anything, he grew more determined to check regularly on the baby and her.

 

By late June, the investigator had reached a dead end. He had amassed a file of information on New York business-women of the right age who owned sporty red Mercedeses, but Bree couldn't make a positive identification from the photos he offered.

“Not surprising,” he said. “The car may be owned by the woman's husband or her boss. It may be leased. I've checked hotels and motels in Montreal, but I can't find the record of a car like that registered at any of the cheap ones on the day in question, and the expensive ones keep their records under lock and key. Times have changed, Tom. Thanks to guys like you suing the pants off them, places like that are locked up tight. And as for the litigation angle,
nada.
It could be she was talking about a friend that day.”

Tom wasn't as disappointed as he thought he would be. He was coming around to Bree's thinking that the pregnancy had resulted from natural causes, which meant that the woman at the diner had been no one in particular and that the fire on South Forest had been pure coincidence. The natural-cause approach was the one that made sense, the one any levelheaded man would take.

Being a levelheaded man, though, Tom was cautious. He got second and third opinions from doctors in New York, who studied Bree's records and agreed with Sealy and Meade that while the chances of Bree's conceiving were slim, they had existed. The New York doctors also agreed, after seeing results of the tests Paul had run on Bree in May, that she was healthier than many an expectant mother. They assured Tom that her heart was steady and strong, and saw no reason whatsoever why Tom should drag Bree to New York for the birth.

So he pushed away the three-wish theory and espoused that of natural causes. Natural causes were easier to swallow than wishes. Natural causes were what he
wanted
to believe, because his life with Bree was rich. They were rarely apart, and then only for brief stretches. Many a day, he stayed at the diner while she worked, and he was seldom the only one in his booth. He had friends now, friends of hers, friends of his own. People looking for him knew to find him there. If the subject was law, he jotted notes on a paper napkin. If the subject was social, he sat back and relaxed. In both cases, he was more content than he had ever been, not to mention within easy reach of Bree.

She was his soul mate. He didn't know another word to describe it. She thought the way he did, felt the way he did. They were both small-town people at heart. She had known it all along. He had simply been longer in the learning.

Her quickness was only one of the things he loved about her. He had never been in a relationship that was so well balanced. When he felt like reading, she wanted to read. When she was hungry, he wanted to eat. When he wanted to walk in the woods, she was one step ahead. When she wanted to lie in the sun, he had chairs drawn up before she had changed her clothes. They went barefoot in the grass and deep-kissed under the lilacs. They talked and laughed and read each other's minds, and they rarely argued. She was his best friend. He would never have imagined a wife would be that, and it kept getting better.

 

July brought warmer sun and richer greens. Fireworks lit Panama's sky on Independence Day, marking the first of an endless string of summer celebrations. There were concerts on the green, warm evenings spent on nubby blankets, listening to the regional high school's marching band or singing along with Panama's barbershop quartet. There were cookouts in the lot behind the town hall, softball games in the schoolyard, a make-your-own-sundae orgy to introduce Panama Rich's twenty-fourth flavor, Oooey Gooey, which was a concoction of vanilla and mocha ice creams, caramel, fudge, marshmallow, and nuts. Even on evenings when nothing formal was planned, people gathered on the town green.

Tom bought a more sophisticated camera. It became a regular at his side, in his hand, at his eye. He photographed Bree in profile in the morning sun, with one hand on the new swell of the baby and a dreamy look in her eye. She had started wearing maternity clothes—early, she said, but her other clothes were too tight in the bust and belly, and besides, she admitted proudly, she felt pregnant and wanted to
look
it. He photographed her in every imaginable pose at home, photographed her in a huddle with Flash and LeeAnn at the diner and laughing with Jane and Julia on a bench on the green. He photographed the barber through the front window of his shop, the bread truck loading up for a day's deliveries, the bottlers at Sleepy Creek Ale taking a cool beer break in the parking lot of the brewery at day's end.

In its summer mode, the diner offered fresh lemonade and lime rickeys, soft-serve frozen yogurt, and iced cappuccinos. The Daily Flash listed two cold salads for every hot special and promoted Oooey Gooey. Picnic tables covered the grass in front of the diner. Sandwiches to go were the rage.

The sounds of Panama were of lawn mowers, sprinklers, and fun, the scents were of warm grass, hazy sunshine, and grilled chicken. For Tom, though, the essence of the season was captured by the Panama Rich ice cream truck with its jingle-jangle bell, its pied piper following, and the old-fashioned ice cream sandwiches it sold, meant to be eaten from the outer edges in.

 

The dog days of August had set in when Martin Sprague called and invited Tom to his office for a meeting. Ostensibly, the topic of discussion was a case Tom had referred. But he had never been asked to the office before.

On the second floor of the Federal that housed the bank, it consisted of two rooms overlooking the town green. One room was for a secretary, who wasn't there when Tom arrived. The other room was for Martin. It had the smell of old papers and the look of a man who was busier than he had expected to be. Folders lay in odd spots beside books that bulged where random objects had been inserted to mark a place. A standing fan, slowed by the heat, swiveled sluggishly from side to side. Only the computer that sat on a small side cabinet looked fresh, as much a guest there as Tom.

“It's not much,” Martin said, with an awkward look around. “But it serves my needs.”

He gestured Tom into one of two straight-back chairs and went to sit behind the desk. After pulling out a handkerchief and mopping his forehead, he jumped back up and opened the cabinet under the computer. It proved to be a small refrigerator. “Cold drink?”

“Sure.”

Even with the fan, the office was warm. Four windows were open, two on either side of the wall behind the desk, but there was no breeze coming in off the green. Tom wore the T-shirt and denim cut-offs that were the summer uniform in Panama. Martin was the only man in town who wore a suit at any time of year. This day, mercifully, his shirt sleeves were short.

“You can have root beer or root beer,” he said. Straightening, he handed one of two bottles to Tom. Then he returned to the desk and opened the nearest folder.

“The Ulrich business. I got your notes. You're right. It's a standard age-discrimination case, but the thing is that what you're suggesting involves going to court, and I don't do that. So I've been sitting here thinking that I could call Don Herrick over in Montgomery and he could take it to court, but then I said that that didn't make sense, not with you living right here in town and looking like you're going to stay. Are you?”

Tom could see that Martin was uneasy, but it seemed a different uneasiness from the one that, months earlier, had had the man warning him off. There was more curiosity than resistance this time.

“I'm staying.”