Gift of the Golden Mountain

by Shirley Streshinsky

  "That he 'said' his first word in code. Steak. Seems he is starving for real food. The therapists are working with him every day, and now it looks as if the damage may not be as devastating as they thought. The important thing is that Philip seems to be up to the effort. Kit says he always wants to work longer than any of them, that his resiliency is amazing them all."

  May worded her next question carefully, keeping her eyes on the winding road. "Before Philip's accident, how were things between you?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "I don't know, just a feeling."

  Karin nodded and pressed her lips together. "Okay, you asked, I'll tell you. The marriage was a mistake, my mistake. I was charmed by Philip, but I wasn't in love with him and I never figured out how to be his wife, the one he wanted. The role was too much for me—except where Dan and Thea were concerned. I love them, I couldn't possibly leave them. But I didn't love Philip, and the strain of the charade was becoming unbearable."

  May waited awhile before asking, "What do you think about Kit's role in his rehabilitation?"

  Karin cradled her head in her hand, as if she were very tired. "You don't have to tiptoe around. I know about Philip and Kit," she said. "I found some old photos in a foot locker in the basement a long time ago, I think Philip must have forgotten about them. It was only a couple of snapshots, really—from the 1940s, I think. They looked so young. It was fairly clear that they were more than just casual acquaintances."

  "You never asked Philip about it?"

  Karin shook her head. "I figured Kit would have told you, and that you would have warned me if you thought it mattered."

  "You trusted me that much?"

  "Yes. And Philip and Kit, too."

  "And now?"

  "Now? I don't know why Kit is doing what she's doing—if you are suggesting she might still feel something for Philip, I don't think so. She might feel she owes me something, or Philip. I think it is more likely that she simply wants to help, that it is a challenge, as she says. To be honest, it really doesn't matter. The only thing I know for certain is that I am Philip's wife, and because of that I should be there to help him if I can."

  May hesitated, then said it. "And if you can't?"

  Karin didn't answer at once. She finally said, "I've been such a disappointment to him, you know . . . before it happened I wasn't even sleeping with him, except when he asked and then he quit asking . . . and I was . . . relieved. I don't really know what happened. He was so hopeful, so sure when he married me, and I thought . . . but somehow whatever Philip wanted didn't happen, and there was the trouble with Dan . . ."

  "Things were going wrong with Dan long before you came into the picture, K. I'm not going to let you flog yourself about that."

  "I know, but you see," she bit her lip, "Philip expected me to be his wife first, and the mother of his children second. The truth is, almost from the beginning I cared more about being their mother than I cared about being his wife. And I'm still doing it—I'm here because I'm worried sick about Thea . . . and it isn't right, May. It really isn't. Philip deserves better from me." She was close to tears.

  "Okay," May told her, "listen. I have an idea. You said Thea was going away this weekend on a class trip. Why don't you use the time to fly back home and see Philip? I'll cover for you with Thea on Monday, and you can come back on Tuesday."

  "I don't know . . . I mean, I didn't think we would be staying so long—and I don't know about going without Thea."

  "Face it, K. Thea isn't ready yet, and you are going to get more and more tense, the longer you're away. This way you can at least explain to Philip what's happening with Thea, and you can get an idea of how he's doing."

  May stopped in front of the steep drive that led down to the little house where Karin and Thea were staying. "I think you're right," Karin said as she got out, "I will make a quick trip back. But right now I'd better go in and see who belongs to that nifty little sports car in the drive."

  He was sprawled on the swing on the lanai, and Karin knew at once he was Alex Hollowell, who had been voted, Thea told her, "senior class heartbreak." Karin could see why. He had a tight, graceful body, his jeans outlined his slim hips, and his shirt was unbuttoned to allow a glimpse of the hard muscle coil of his chest. His face was almost beautiful. Had it not been for the eyebrows, which almost met, he would have been too pretty to be acceptable. He looked at her and she knew the look. Instinctively, she lifted the bag she was carrying to her chest.

  "Here she is," Thea called out, her voice artificially high as she introduced them.

  "Alex has promised to take me to see Sunset Beach—the waves are supposed to be perfect today, and all the great surfers will be out. . ."

  A wave of apprehension washed over Karin: "When, you mean now?"

  The look on Thea's face was a warning. "I've been wanting to go there . . ." she started, reprovingly.

  "I just want to know how far it is," Karin said, directing the question to Alex, "and if you'll be back before . . ." She had been about to say "dark," but she managed to catch herself, and said "by dinnertime."

  Alex answered for her: "I'll have her back by seven, Mrs. Ward, that's a promise." He smiled winningly. Karin wondered how long he'd been using his charm to get what he wanted.

  "I still need to know how far it is," she told him, "because I don't want you racing that sports car over mountain roads to make it back on time."

  When they left, Thea was pouting because the trip to Sunset Beach had been postponed. They were going over to the local beach, to see who was there. Alex's smile was intact, but Karin could see that he was not pleased.

  That night Thea ate her dinner in angry silence, her eyes on her plate. Karin made several attempts to break through, but Thea was having none of it. Finally, Karin sighed and said, "Look, honey, I know I am being very protective and I'm sorry, if that makes things hard for you but . . . well, we don't really know Alex that well. . ."

  "What do you want to know about him?" she came back, suddenly combative. In short, hot bursts she recited, "We're the strangers here—his family has been in Hawaii forever. Both his parents graduated from Punahou. He's an only child. His mother died last year in a boating accident—we have that much in common, both our mothers are dead. His father owns a boatyard and works all the time. They aren't rich and they aren't poor either. The reason he can afford a sports car is that his father let him trade in his mom's Cadillac. He doesn't make terrific grades, but he's terrifically smart. He likes me, but I don't know how long that is going to last if you keep quizzing him every time we go out." Her eyes flashed as she finished, but Karin could see that the anger had spent itself.

  "Is Alex going on the trip this weekend?" she asked.

  Thea frowned in disappointment. "No, he'd already made other plans . . . he said if he had known I would be going . . . but it was too late to change."

  "While you're away this weekend," Karin began, so that Thea would know at once that she was not expected to go with her, "I thought I would make a quick trip back to California, to see how your dad is doing."

  Karin saw the panic rising in the girl's eyes: "When will you be back?" was her first question. Her anger over Alex was gone, Karin noticed. Then, plaintively, "You will come back, won't you?"

  "Yes," Karin said, caressing her hair, "I'll be back on Tuesday. May said she'll be here Sunday night when you return, to stay with you."

  "That isn't necessary," Thea told her, "I can stay with Lynne. I mean, I know how busy May is and all. . ."

  "All right," Karin agreed. "You understand why I need to go back?"

  Thea nodded, her eyes closed as if to hold back her own misery.

  "Thea, dear," Karin went on, "listen to me now. I don't want you to go with me, because we need to be very careful—you and I—about not upsetting your dad's new therapy. He is working very hard, and it is possible that if he sees how worried we are about him, that could upset him so he isn't able to work. In a way you could say he needs yo
u to be here, to try to carry on your own life in as happy a way as possible. So I am going back mostly to see what will be best for your dad. Do you understand?"

  She nodded to signal that she did, but she kept her eyes lowered so Karin could not see how relieved she was, to be told she didn't have to go.

  When Karin arrived, Kit was sitting in the chair at the foot of Philip's bed, reading out loud from The New York Times, yet another analysis of Nixon's firing of Cox in the Watergate affair. Karin stood at the door and the words run . . . now flashed into her mind before she could choke them off.

  Kit looked up, saw her and smiled. "Here she is," she said to Philip. Then she rose to embrace Karin, and quickly gathered her things to leave.

  Karin wanted to ask her not to go, not to leave them alone. "I'll see you later, Kit," she said instead, and moved to Philip's bedside.

  "Hello, dear," were her first words. She took his hand in hers and added, "Your errant wife has returned. I needed to see for myself this wonderful progress I hear you're making."

  He blinked, but she didn't know what it meant. "Let me give you all the news from Hawaii," she heard herself say, hating the false-hearty tone of her voice. "Thea . . ." she began, and talked at length about how well she was doing. When she had exhausted the news of Thea, she talked about Dan for a time, and even fished his last two letters out of her handbag, to read to him.

  All the while she was aware of his eyes on her, watching. What does he see? she wondered. What is he thinking?

  She did not know how long she could bear having him watch her.

  Karin kicked off her sandals, took off the linen suit she had traveled in and sprawled on the thick carpeting. The sterile white of May's Honolulu apartment made her think of the hospital, so she closed her eyes. She was dozing when May came in.

  "I needed to talk to you," Karin said, "but first I have to call Thea to tell her I'm back . . ."

  "Thea's having dinner at Lynne's," May answered. "They were going to bring her here at eight so we could pick you up at the airport. You came back early. How come?"

  "How come," Karin said, taking a deep breath. "That's what I need to talk to you about. I don't really know how come anything."

  "Do you want a drink?" May asked.

  "No," Karin answered, "though sometimes I think it would be grand to get gloriously drunk and stay that way."

  "No you don't."

  "No, I don't."

  Karin pulled herself up and rested her back against a chair. A small gold locket fell in the tender spot between her breasts. May saw it and smiled. It had been her first gift to Karin, the year they had met in school. "You still wear the locket?" she said.

  Karin lifted it out, caressed it tenderly between her fingers. "Philip used to say that some people have security blankets, but I had my security charm."

  "Well, if 'security' means permanence, then Philip was right."

  "Philip was often right."

  May lowered herself onto the rug and reached for Karin's hand. "Tell me about him."

  Karin pressed her lips hard together. "Philip," she said, "is making truly remarkable progress. Kit has organized a whole battalion of therapists, and a few stalwart friends like Marge and Faith, to work with him. The communication system they have set up is amazing. And while he looks much the same—he remains paralyzed—he seems different, too. I think because there are ways now that he can make his wishes known—he isn't so isolated."

  She put her head back on the chair and closed her eyes. "I haven't been sleeping—I can feel it in the pit of my stomach."

  "What are his wishes?" May asked. "Did you talk to Kit?"

  "Kit was at the hospital when I arrived, then I didn't see her again until Faith's on Sunday afternoon. That's when Hank Fromberg takes his stint with Philip. It was so strange, May—to be with Faith and Kit and feel . . . awkward. So much was being left unsaid. The three of us spent several hours together, and for the first half of that time the talk was trivial . . . just small talk. Oh, they wanted to know about Thea and how she was doing, and Dan, of course. Faith told me all about Israel and his 'lumbago'—whatever that is—and how a friend of hers went over to check on him and was distressed to find him living in a tiny, one-room apartment with only a hot plate to cook on. Kit was doing what you used to call her 'vanishing' routine, where she manages to make you think she is taking part, but she really has withdrawn."

  May interrupted. "I've only talked to her twice in the last few weeks, and both those times she wanted me to talk about you and Thea, come to think of it. She answered my questions as perfunctorily as possible. Still, there was something in her voice . . ."

  "Exactly," Karin answered. "It's how she looks that gives her away. She is just . . . the only word I can think to describe it is 'luminous' . . . she looks absolutely wonderful, you would never guess that she was sixty-nine, she looks ten years younger. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, I guess Faith figured out that I was about to go crazy with all the avoiding, so she said something very sweet and gentle, I don't remember her words exactly, but something like, 'Karin, dear, tell us what you need to know.'"

  Karin stood, stretched, then leaned over to touch her toes, as if she could not sit still with the memory. She straightened, clasped her hands in front of her, and went on. I said, 'I need to know what I can do to help Philip.' No one said anything, there was this long silence—I think Faith was waiting for Kit to speak up, and she didn't, so I decided to dive in. 'And I need to know if all you are doing is for me, Kit. Or is it for Philip?'

  "Then something very strange happened. Kit's eyes flooded with tears. She wasn't really crying, but the tears just started streaming down her cheeks. And stranger yet, she didn't try to turn away. I always carry a linen handkerchief—you know that old habit—so I got up to give it to her, and instead she took my hand and clung to it. She was sitting on one of Faith's old settees . . . I sat down next to her and put my arms around her and we held each other.

  "After that," she went on, "all the barriers were down, it was as if one group of women had been replaced by another, and the three of us were old friends again, and we could really talk. I'm not sure that Kit knows why she is working so hard to help Philip. She says it is a tremendous challenge, and that it makes her feel as if she has a purpose again. I envy her, May . . . wanting to do it, I mean. I really do." Karin's voice cracked, and she began to cry, softly. The telephone rang, as if to announce a time-out, and May sprang up to answer it.

  "Yes," she said into the receiver, "I was just about to call you. Karin caught an earlier flight. Yes, everything is okay with your dad, she'll tell you all about it later. No, that won't work." A long silence, then, and with steel in her voice she said, "No. They don't have to bring you here, we'll pick you up in a while. Just sit tight and wait."

  "Was that Thea? Is something wrong?" Karin wanted to know.

  "We'll talk about Thea when you've finished telling me about Kit."

  Karin frowned, but did as May said. "Well, Philip's rehabilitation has become something of an obsession with her, that's the first thing. It took me awhile to catch on, but she has pushed everything else in her life aside, to concentrate on him. She is at the hospital almost every day. In the beginning I'm sure it was to give me some relief. But then it became a challenge, and when Philip began to respond, she said, she had a feeling of great reward—that was her word."

  It was May's turn to frown. "Did you tell her what you know?"

  "You mean that they were lovers once? No, I didn't, any more than I would tell her that Philip and I were never truly lovers. That's in the past, done."

  "And. . .?"

  "What I discovered is that Philip wants me to concentrate on Thea . . . what he said, using Morse code, was that he would be 'forever grateful' to me if I helped his children, so he could put all his energy into his recovery."

  "Do you think he meant it?"

  "Yes. Yes, I'm sure he did. What I'm not sure of is why. If he thinks I wou
ld be acting only out of a sense of duty, he would hate that. I don't know. I just know there is nothing more for me to do there, right now. I went in to see him this morning, very briefly, on the way to the airport. I interrupted his first session with a physical therapist, and I got the oddest feeling that he was annoyed at the interruption. That may not have been true, of course. There is an atmosphere in the room of work underway, people in and out all the time—it's a major production, really. You could title it, 'The Reclamation of Philip Ward.' I don't mean to sound cynical. Really, the feeling is very hopeful. I give Kit good marks."

  May's stomach growled. "I skipped lunch," she said, in explanation. "Let me stick some frozen dinners in the oven. Chicken divan, how does that sound?"

  "Terrible," Karin answered, "why don't we call out for Chinese?"

  May ran her forefinger down the list she kept taped to the wall next to the telephone and placed the order.

  "You were saying that you didn't mean to sound cynical," May reminded her, "but you did . . . a little. Or did I misunderstand?"

  Karin struggled with the chopsticks, trying to pick up a square of barbecued pork. "I feel . . . impotent. I mean, when it comes right down to it, the best thing I can do for Philip is to stay out of his way. Oh, everybody—Kit particularly—works overtime to make it seem right to me. Because they know I don't have this driving passion to do what Kit is doing . . . they may even know that before Thea and I left, I had to force myself just to enter the hospital. It's as if I can't seem to come up with the right feelings, or reactions, or something. I'm disoriented—I don't know what I'm supposed to do . . . except I'm not supposed to be dismissed, am I?"

  "You're not being dismissed, and you're not running away. Thea and Dan are big responsibilities. They're still very young, and your work is cut out for you—it's not going to be easy sailing, you know."

  "I guess I can't put it off any longer—tell me about Thea," Karin said wearily.

  "Last night I called Lynne's house about nine, just to check to make sure the girls got back okay from the outing. Lynne was there, but Thea wasn't. She had never made plans to stay overnight. I drove right up to the house and found Thea there with the kid who has the green sports car. Alex? They were snuggled up together on the lanai, in a cloud of cannabis."