“You’re usually over at the Tavern by now. Have you had any dinner?”
“Don’ wanna eat. No point.”
“Sure there is. You have to keep up your strength. You have patients who depend on you.” None of whom, she prayed, would be calling with an emergency this night. Then again, she could cover any emergencies, but if he went staggering down the street, the whole town would know by morning that its favorite son had been drunk.
Paige had never known him to be drunk before. She wondered what was behind it.
He moved his forearms again, as though trying to hide what was beneath them.
“Whatcha got there?” she asked.
“Not a thing,” he answered, enunciating each word.
It was a photograph. She could see that much, though no more, and felt a wrenching depression deep inside. “Oh, Peter. You told me you destroyed them.”
“Tried,” he said. “Right in the basket. But I pulled ‘em back out. Therrrrre all I have of ‘er now.”
“But it’s not right,” she pleaded. “You know it’s not. Those pictures are inappropriate, whether she was eighteen or not.”
He barked out a laugh. “Hah! She wazzzzn’t eighteen! Maybe wished she was, but she had these teeny-weeny lines on ‘er hands”—he gestured—”and on her neck, and these teeny-weeny veins on ‘er thighs, she din’t like those, lemme tell you.”
Paige took the opportunity of his gesturing to lift the photograph from the desk, but even before she turned it right side up she had an odd sense of what she’d find. It was a picture of Mara, fully dressed, grinning for the camera with a silliness that few people ever saw in her.
The great depression widened inside her. Not pedophilia, but what? Fascination? Obsession? Love?
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “I didn’t know you’d taken pictures of her.”
He reached for the photograph, put it back on the desk, and scrubbed its surface with his palms in an attempt to erase the creases. “Hunerds,” he said, then, “More’n hunerds.”
Paige pulled up a chair and sat close beside him. “She must have liked that. She must have felt wanted.”
He frowned. “She wazzz…wazzz…wanted.”
“Loved, too?”
“Loved. Mmmm.” He frowned again. “She said I ruined things.”
“Ruined what?”
“Us. That I always found ways to wreck things.” He looked up at her and added, “With women,” in a knowing way before returning brooding eyes to the photo. “Said I din’t think I was worthy of anything good. Zzzz’at stupid?” he asked, looking up again, but before Paige had to answer, he reached for the Scotch.
She held the bottle. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“Never enough when you’re ‘lone.”
“You’re not alone. You have friends all over town.”
“But she’s gone,” he said, and suddenly his face crumpled. To Paige’s horror, he began to cry.
She touched his shoulder. “Oh, Peter. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Love. Tragically so.
“She’zzz th’best,” he said between sobs.
“I know.”
“An’ I never told ’er. She killed hersssself ‘cause she din’t think anyone cared.”
“That wasn’t why. It was a combination of things—”
“I did it I did it.”
Paige gripped his arm. “No, Peter. It wasn’t you, any more than it was me or Angie or Mara’s family. We all thought she was tougher than she was, so we made mistakes with her, but it wasn’t any one of those that sent her over the edge. It was lots of things, some of which we had absolutely no control over.”
Peter was shaking his head.
More softly, Paige said, “We don’t know that it was suicide.”
“I did it, me.”
“It might have been pure exhaustion. Mara was always pushing herself. This time she might have pushed too far.”
When he reached for the Scotch this time, she moved both bottles to the credenza behind the desk.
“I need it,” he whined, then added, “I don’ feel so good,” just as he turned an ominous shade of green.
Paige got him to the bathroom just in time. After he had lost the contents of his stomach, she helped him clean up. Then she walked him to the kitchen, sat him on a chair, and made a pot of coffee, caffeinated and strong, which she proceeded to force into him until he was marginally sobered.
“Better?” she asked finally.
He had his head in his palms. His hair was sticking out every which way. “Hardly,” he grumbled. “I can think now.” He was silent for another little while, then, “Did I say much?”
“Nah.”
“No damning confessions?”
She smiled and shook her head. There seemed no point in kicking the man when he was down. “Just that you did like Mara, and that you miss her, which makes me feel a little more normal. I think about her so much.”
“That’s your own fault,” he grunted. “You’re stalling on hiring another doctor.”
“No, I put an ad in the journals, but they don’t come out for another week. We’ll get someone.”
“And you wake up and see her little girl every day.”
“But I like that.”
“She reminds you of Mara.”
“She helps me over the hump. By the time they find an adoptive family for her, I’ll be better.” She was in the process of pouring him a final cup of coffee when she thought of the bottles of Scotch that should, under no conditions, be found.
“Drink up. I’ll be right back.”
She returned to his office and was taking the bottles by the neck when something on the credenza caught her eye. It was a letter, handwritten on fine pink vellum that had a familiar scent to it. When she tried to place it, she conjured up a picture of Mount Court.
Uneasy, she raised the letter. Center top was an embossed monogram so swirly it was indecipherable. The handwriting was not, though. It was neat and pretty, the kind of script that lacked the character of maturity.
“Dear Dr. Grace,” she read:
I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry if I put you in an uncomfortable position at the park. I only wanted to be with you. It seemed like I’d been waiting forever for you to see me like that. I’m not the little girl I was when I first came to Tucker. I’m grown up. You know that now. I’m sure that the pictures you took will be awesome.
Paige didn’t read further. Furious, she stalked back to the kitchen and tossed the letter onto the table before Peter.
“What’s this?” she demanded.
He frowned, studied the paper, mumbled, “A letter from Julie Engel.”
“Obviously. But what does it mean?”
He held his head. “Don’t shout.”
“You said you didn’t have a problem,” she shouted.
He winced. “I don’t.”
“Then why is Julie Engel sending you scented letters?”
“Because she has a warped imagination. She came on to me, not the other way around. I walked away from her. The letter is an apology.”
“And a thanks for the pictures you took. What pictures, Peter?”
“Pictures of her. For her stepmother’s birthday.”
“Oh, please,” Paige said, rolling her eyes. After listening to Peter’s drunken sobbing, after cleaning him when he was sick and sobering him up, she felt betrayed.
“They were,” he muttered. “At least, that was what she told me. And the pictures I took were innocent. The minute she unbuttoned her blouse, I walked away. When I got home, I exposed the film.” He braced the coffee cup between both hands, but it still shook on its way to his mouth.
Paige sighed. “I hope so, Peter, because, while I’m at it, it will be just as easy to fill two MD spots as one. I’m asking you a final time. Do you have a problem?”
“Ask Julie,” he grumbled.
“I’m asking you. I need your word. For the sake of all the children we see in
the course of a year, I want to know whether there is any reason, any reason at all, why you shouldn’t be practicing here.”
He pushed himself to his feet, looking tired but steady. “There’s no reason.” He tossed his chin at the half-empty coffee cup, murmured, “Thanks for nothing,” and left.
She watched him walk a straight line down the hall before turning back to clean up the kitchen.
sixteen
SATURDAY NIGHT, SHORTLY AFTER TEN, PETER turned onto the cemetery road and gave the car enough gas to make the top of the hill. He parked and climbed out, then reached back in for a small bouquet of flowers and crossed the grass to Mara’s grave.
A crescent moon hung low in the sky, too slim to cast a shadow, but the darkness didn’t frighten him. Nor did the field of headstones marking this the land of the dead. He had been living with a ghost for weeks. Nothing he found here could be worse.
He was stone-cold sober. Nothing stronger than V-8 juice had passed his lips since the night he had made a fool of himself in front of Paige. The details of that night blurred, leaving only frayed bits of conversation, but they were enough to confirm his worst suspicions. It had been all he could do to look Paige in the eye the next morning and assure her that he was more than capable of seeing his patients.
Mara’s headstone was a solid slab of local granite, left raw and natural for all but the polished square on which had been carved her name, the dates of her life, and the epithet “Dear friend and healer, once loved, never forgotten.”
He brushed several leaves from the top of the stone, then from the ground at its base. After tossing aside the bouquet he had left the week before, he set down the fresh one. The flowers were yellow and red, vibrant, as Mara would have liked, and though he knew that they wouldn’t last long, he felt good bringing her something.
Better late than never, he thought, and sat down on the mound of leaves that he’d made. “Just visiting,” he told her. “Life is lonely.”
He hadn’t seen Lacey and wasn’t about to. Their relationship had run its course and died a death that was, ironically, more permanent than this one. That relationship had been less substantial than this one. He had admitted it to Paige, could certainly admit it to Mara.
“There aren’t many women around like you.” He missed her in a visceral way. “So I don’t know what I’ll do now.”
You could date someone local, he heard her say.
“I’ve never done that in my life, and you know it.”
You could start.
“Why should I? They didn’t want me when I was growing up, so I don’t need them now. Besides,” he added, “they know too much. They know my brothers.”
And they’d make comparisons? That’s bullshit, Peter. No one compares you to your brothers anymore. It’s all in your mind.
“Maybe, but it’s just as real. And don’t tell me I’m insecure. Did you write about that in your letters?”
I didn’t have to. Anyone who knows you can see it.
“Gee, thanks. You always had a way of making me feel great. Would it have been so awful to say glowing things for once?”
I did.
“You did? About what?”
What do you think?”
“About that? Really?” The thought of it pleased him. “Wonder if Paige was impressed. I could use a little boost in her eyes. Right now she’s thinking I have a thing for little girls. I told her that I only like adult women, but she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t think I should be practicing medicine at all.
Bear with her, Peter. She’s under a strain.
“Well, damn it, so am I. She’s dragging her tail about hiring someone new, even though you’d be the first one to tell her to do it.”
So if she’s dragging her tail, you do it.
“Me? Nah. That’s Paige’s job. She’ll interview people, then present them to me for approval. That way I don’t have to waste time on the dregs.”
There’s a flip side to that line of reasoning.
“Yeah?”
Yeah. You don’t get half as much a say as to whom you hire. Paige may rule someone out—like a gorgeous young female—with whom you’d enjoy working.
She had a point.
“I suppose. Paige makes too many decisions herself. She has too much power. It gets to making her feel too important, like she could take unfounded allegations against me to the medical board and have my licensed revoked. If she ever tries to do that, she’s in for a fight. My license to practice means as much to me as it does to you.” Quietly he corrected, “Did to you. I’d be dead without it.”
A siren wailed in the distance. “Uh-oh. Car crash. Wonder where it is this time.” He pulled up the collar of his coat against the chill of the night. “Probably one of the good ole boys driving his pickup into a tree.”
You’re awful.
“Nah. Factual.” He shivered and shot a look at trees that were growing skeletal. “Winter’s coming. We’ll have snow within the month.” He wondered if she’d be warm enough six feet under. Then he caught himself. If factual was what he was, then he had to accept that she wouldn’t be feeling anything at all, not this winter or the winter after, or one ten years down the road, or a hundred. She was dead. D-e-a-d.
He hoisted himself to his feet before the finality of it all got him down. “Gotta run. I can hear another siren coming our way. Somethin’s goin’ on. Could be they’ll need a doc.”
He started to leave, then did an about-face and returned. Kneeling at the very base of the stone, he moved the flowers closer, touched his fingertips to the letters of her name, and whispered, “I’ll be back.”
Feeling a huge throbbing in his chest where his feelings for Mara had been, he crossed the grass, climbed in his car, and cruised back down the hill in search of diversion.
With the canoe strapped to the top of the Explorer, their camping gear piled in the back, and Tucker less than half an hour away, Noah felt the kind of exhausted satisfaction that came from physical exertion and emotional reward.
Sara was asleep on the seat beside him, leaning against the door, pushing the limits of her shoulder harness. He checked—for the tenth time—to make sure the lock was down and even then would have given anything to shift her so that she was leaning toward him. Body language spoke volumes. But he could be patient.
They had come a ways together in the past few days, not talking as much as he would like but cooperating nicely. Sara hadn’t complained, not about portaging the canoe, or setting up camp the night before, or waking up to a brief and unexpected snow squall that morning. Sure, he would have loved it if she had showed enthusiasm. He would have loved it if she’d said “Wow, Dad, this is great!” or “You’re so good at this!” or “I’ll bet none of my friends are doing anything this cool on their fall breaks!”
The flashing lights of an ambulance appeared in his rearview mirror, followed soon after by the rise of its siren. He pulled as far to the right as he could without ramming the guardrail that bordered the two-lane road. He didn’t care to know what was beyond the rail; the topography of the area suggested a thirty-foot drop past trees and boulders to a stream; he checked Sara’s door for the eleventh time.
The ambulance flew by. He pulled back onto the road and returned to speed. It was ten-fifteen. They had been awake since dawn, warming up, having breakfast, breaking camp before putting into the water. By midmorning the sun had brought a warmth that made the snow squall seem a joke.
He was glad they had come canoeing now. Another few weeks and a snow squall would escalate into something more. He loved the thought of that—nature was beautiful cloaked in white, reduced to the basics of size and shape and therein more bold—but he wasn’t sure Sara was up to it. Maybe in a few years. They might go farther north. Make three or four days of it. Even shoot the rapids.
A crescent moon poked through the bare arms of the trees. A month before, it would have been kept out by the leaves. A shame. With the ghost of its entirety holding it there in the s
ky, it was a testament to the stalwart source of its light.
His rearview mirror flashed with the approach of another ambulance, and again he squeezed right. It wasn’t one this time, but three in succession, whipping past with a speed he would have judged unsafe had he not known that everything was relative. Three ambulances meant serious trouble. He wondered where.
Sara stirred. She raised her head as the last of the flashing lights disappeared around a curve in the road. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, but something must have. They’re bringing them in from all over.”
She righted herself on the seat. “Maybe it’s a car crash.”
“That’s a lot of ambulances for a car crash.”
“Or a bus crash. Or a madman opening fire in the Tucker Tavern.”
He shot her a humorous look. “Good God, sweetie, you have a vivid imagination.”
She shrugged. “It happened back home. At a fast food place, with families and kids all around.”
“That was urban violence. Chances of something like that happening in quiet little Tucker are more remote.” But he saw another ambulance coming up behind them. There were two in this group. When they had passed, he said, “Maybe you’re right.”
“Can we follow?”
“No. We’d only be in the way.” And he had no intention of letting Sara see blood and gore. “We’ll go home. If it’s something big, we’ll hear about it pretty fast.”
“At Mount Court?” she asked. The dashboard illuminated her “get-real” expression. “We’re as far as you can get from Tucker and still be within the town limits.”
“That,” he said with a sigh, “is an astute observation. It’s true on more levels than you’d want to count.”
“They hate us.”
“No. They don’t know us. They have a preconceived notion of who we are, what we stand for, and how we behave, and unfortunately the blatant misbehavior of a small group of students in recent years has fed into it. We’re off to a better start this year.”
Another ambulance approached, passed, and whizzed off. By Noah’s count, that made seven. He was beginning to think that Sara’s vivid imagination might not be far off the mark when she asked, “Do you think Dr. Pfeiffer’s involved?”
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