Where Dolphins Go

by Webb, Peggy

  As if he understood what was happening, Fergie swam silently and swiftly to the edge of the pool, put his huge head on the concrete apron, and observed the threesome with wise and knowing eyes.

  Watching the silent tableau, Bill held his breath.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Paul reached out and gathered Jeffy's tiny paralyzed hand into his.

  "A friend is someone you can hold on to," he said.

  Bill wanted to stand up and applaud..

  Jeffy gave the offer of friendship some more thought, then suddenly he smiled.

  "Okay," he said.

  Bill exhaled a sigh of relief.

  "If Fergie can make you talk, I think he can make you walk," Paul told the little boy, still holding onto his hand. "Are you willing to try, Jeffy?"

  "Yes."

  "Then let's do it, pal."

  The Paul who lifted Jeffy from the stroller was the compassionate man and great physician that Bill knew and admired. They made quite a picture as Paul walked toward the place where the alert dolphin waited— the haunted man in the ridiculous, sagging wet suit holding the trusting child with his fragile, Tinkertoy body.

  Susan remained on her knees beside the stroller, her hands clasped tightly together as she entrusted her son to the care of the man who had lately done nothing more demanding than feed the dolphins.

  Bill fought back tears. If he didn't get out of there soon, he was going to be bawling like a baby. Afraid that the least distraction would shatter the remarkable transformation, he slipped quietly back into the office.

  Still not trusting what he was seeing, he watched out the window awhile. Then he picked up the phone and called his wife.

  "Good news like this can't wait, Maggie," he said.

  "Like what, darling?"

  "It's Paul. He's out there in the pool with Fergie, doing physical therapy on Jeffy Riley's legs."

  "Physical therapy with a dolphin?"

  "Yes. You ought to see it. Jeffy's sitting on the side of the pool, and Paul is in the water with Fergie, signaling the dolphin to lift the little boy's legs."

  "That's remarkable."

  "The child is laughing."

  "What's the mother doing?"

  "I think she's crying."

  o0o

  Susan swiped at her cheeks. Tears. Of all things. She could do better than that.

  In spite of her efforts, another tear rolled down her cheek. She decided to let them come.

  Paul and his dolphin had been responsible for making Jeffy talk, and now they were going to teach him to walk.

  She leaned toward the dolphin pool, watching every movement of the dolphin, every emotion that crossed her son’s face. Magic was happening right in front of her eyes. This was why she’d come to the center in the first place.

  "When you get home, Jeffy, you must keep moving your legs." Paul gave the large dolphin a signal, and Fergie surfaced, lifting Jeffy's stroke-weakened left leg with his bottlenose snout. "The dolphin wants you to use your legs. Will you do it for Fergie, Jeffy?"

  "Fergie wants me to?"

  "Yes. That's what he's saying, 'Jeffy, move your legs.' "

  Jeffy laughed. "Okay."

  An unbearable tenderness filled Susan's heart, tenderness for her son, for the gentle mammal who understood his need, and for the man who had unexpectedly decided to help them.

  "Paul?" She leaned over the edge of the pool.

  “Yes?"

  What had she meant to say? His dark eyes distracted her. And the way the water beaded his eyelashes together.

  She pushed at her damp hair. "I . . . I'm so grateful to you."

  "Please . . . don't pin medals on me yet."

  “You deserve them. You're wonderful, Paul."

  He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Her breath hitched and her cheeks grew warm.

  Paul reached up and gently traced the tack of tears on her cheek. "You're crying."

  The warmth of his hand radiated through her. A man's touch. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how much she'd missed it.

  "I always cry when I'm happy."

  "I'm glad I'm the one who made you happy."

  His hand lingered on her cheek. She thanked God for her tears.

  'You did, Paul. . . ." He traced the path of tears down the side of her throat. Did he feel what he did to her pulse? "You do," she whispered.

  "Susan . . ."

  Fergie leaped upward and sent a fine spray of water over them all. Jeffy squealed with laughter.

  "You're going to get soaked," Paul said, taking his hand away.

  Susan felt a sudden sense of being pulled back from the edge of a cliff. She stepped back from the pool and made a big to-do of smoothing her dress in order to hide her disappointment – and her unease. Did he notice?

  Susan, he had said. Will you come to dinner with me? Will you come to my apartment afterward so we can find release from this strange and wonderful agony that has seized us?

  A fine kettle of fish she was in. Lusting after another woman's husband. She'd have to remember that. Paul Tyler still legally belonged to another woman.

  "Keep moving Jeffy's left leg, Susan."

  "I will."

  "The muscles are weak from disuse. They have to be strengthened before he can walk again."

  For once, she didn't want to talk about Jeffy. She wanted to talk about herself, about her need. Three years. Three lonely years without the affirmation of a solid, reciprocal relationship.

  Paul reached out as if he might touch her again. His hand wavered near her cheek. She held her breath. Water dripped off his arm and onto the front of her dress. A muscle ticked in his square jaw.

  She was near screaming.

  "I'll see you next Wednesday," he said.

  "Yes. Next Wednesday."

  Her breathing didn't return to normal until she got to her car.

  Chapter Eight

  Maggie turned on the radio and sang along as she drove to Shady Lane. She couldn't sing worth a flip and she knew it, but that didn't stop her from trying. Music of all kinds appealed to her, but she liked Country best. It helped keep her heart right she told Bill every time he caught her two-stepping around the kitchen, dancing with a spoon or a mop or whichever child happened to be passing through.

  She wailed with Willie and moaned with Mickey until she reached the wrought iron fence with pineapples on the top. Two years ago she would have gone through the gates still singing. Jean would have teased her, and Paul would have sung along in a very good baritone.

  But today the sight of the pineapple-adorned fence sobered her. Sadness seemed to sit upon the house and the grounds, weighing it down.

  Bearing her gifts, she rang the doorbell. It was nearly five minutes before Jean answered. She was still dressed in her robe, and her eyes were red from a recent bout of weeping.

  Pity almost overwhelmed Maggie, but she tried not to let it show.

  "I know I should have called before dropping by.

  Jean held open the door, and Maggie went inside. If she'd called, Jean would have given some excuse.

  She breezed to the kitchen with Jean trailing behind like a pale shadow. The house was immaculate, as always. Money could buy everything except the things that mattered most.

  Maggie set the spaghetti on the stove, then placed a sack on the bar.

  "Art supplies," she said. "I thought you might need them."

  "Oh, Maggie . . ." Jean wandered over and halfheartedly looked into the paper bag. It rattled shut as she sank onto a bar stool. "You shouldn't have."

  "Why not? You'd do the same for me."

  "That's the pity of it." Tears gathered in Jean's dark eyes. "I couldn't do anything for you even if I wanted to ... or for any of my friends." She raked a hand through her hair. Once it had been as dark and glossy as the pelt of a healthy animal, but now it hung listlessly around her thin face. "I'm such a wreck."

  Maggie gathered Jean close and stood rocking her as tenderly as if she were a baby.


  "You're going to be okay," she whispered fiercely. "Someday soon we're going to put on ridiculously small bikinis and sit on the beach together and laugh about sand getting into our crotches, and you're going to turn golden brown while I peel, and then we're going to dribble sand all over that fancy-shmancy art gallery of yours while you show me the all the gorgeous paintings you've done."

  A faint smile touched Jean's lips. "And you're going to complain about the prices."

  "You're darned tootin'. Now. How about a big bowl of spaghetti?" Maggie, who knew Jean's kitchen as well as her own, took down a Shearwater Pottery bowl, a design of the late Walter Anderson, and filled it to the brim.

  Jean picked at her food, trying to eat, while Maggie talked about books and art and local politics.

  "You don't have to not talk about your children," Jean said softly. "I love Beth Ann and Timmy." Maggie waited, wary. "How are they?"

  "Timmy made the swim team, and Beth Ann is trying out for a part in the school play. She's skinny as a rail."

  "You and Bill are so lucky."

  "I know. Every day I thank God for my good fortune. If only Bill would slow down long enough to take a vacation. . . . Listen to me, complaining like a fish wife." Maggie bustled around the kitchen, trying to find things to do with her hands. She straightened canisters that weren't crooked, refolded dish towels that didn't need it, and rearranged silverware that was already in perfect order.

  "Have you seen Paul lately?" she said offhandedly. Bill's phone call was fresh on her mind. Paul was slowly reaching back toward life, and all because of another little boy, another woman. Ever the optimist, Maggie still believed that as along as Jean didn’t sign the divorce papers there was still a chance for her two friends.

  "Oh, Maggie. Don't do that."

  "What?"

  "Try to get us back together. It's too late for that. He'll never forgive me for letting our son die. Besides, I'll never forgive myself."

  "Now you listen to me." Maggie whirled, hands on her hips, eyes blazing. Going to battle for her friend. "You didn't let that child die, and you stop talking like that right now."

  "I know . . . Intellectually, I know that." Jean pushed her bowl aside and propped her elbows on the bar. "I'm trying to do better. As a matter of feet, I had dinner at Mary Mahoney's last night. Paul was there."

  "Bill says he's doing better, gaining weight." Some people might call what Maggie was going to do interfering, but she called it loyalty. "It's probably from all those cookies Susan Riley brings him."

  "Who's Susan Riley?"

  "A woman whose little boy has a heart condition. She brings him to the center every Wednesday. Paul's trying out some new kind of therapy with him. Using the big dolphin, Ferguson." Maggie picked up the bowl and nonchalantly emptied it into the garbage disposal. "She's a widow."

  Maggie didn't know if it was Jean's natural reserve or the depression or the news of Paul that held her silent. In any case, Maggie was not one to push.

  She wiped a spaghetti stain off the counter where Jean had set her spoon, then covered the pot and put it in the refrigerator.

  "I'm leaving this for you."

  "Thanks, Maggie. I don't know what I'd do without you."

  "Don't ever try to find out, pal. When I come back to get my pot, I'd better find out that you ate every last drop and that it all went to your thighs. I can't stand the thought of you looking better than me in a bikini."

  She kissed Jean's cheek, then waved and went out the door.

  o0o

  Jean sat on the kitchen stool until she heard Maggie's car leaving the driveway. Then slowly she left the bar and picked up the art supplies. Delving inside the sack, she closed her hand over a sable brush. The familiar silky feel sent a tiny spark of energy flowing through her.

  Carrying the bag, she walked into her workroom and checked the natural light coming through the enormous bank of windows. Her hand shook as she set up the easel.

  The first stroke of oil on canvas was hard. The second easier.

  Perhaps, after all, she would paint again.

  Chapter Nine

  The bus broke down in Phoenix.

  Jo Lisa sat on the hard bench in the bus station, smoking. Home. She was going home.

  Suddenly her chest felt tight.

  "Let's go for a spin, Jo Lisa."

  "Not now. I have only an hour till my next show."

  "An hour's all we need."

  They didn't go far, only to a back road with enough trees for concealment. He ripped her skirt in his haste.

  "Jo Lisa," he whispered. "Jo Lisa." He made her name sound like music, and for the next hour she closed her eyes and pretended they were the only two people in the world.

  Jo Lisa closed her eyes now and leaned her head back against the hard bench. She had a long ride to Mississippi, a long time to contemplate her sins.

  o0o

  All Paul's liquor was hidden at the back of his kitchen cabinets.

  Although no one was there to see when he took them out, no one was there to count the number of drinks he consumed and to issue warnings of doom about his liver and his psyche and the condition of his body in general, he had kept the bottles hidden. Maybe it was an effort to fool himself.

  Back from the center he took the bottles down one by one and lined them up on the Formica countertop. Scotch and gin and vodka and peach brandy. His stash would outshine Sam's.

  The smell of liquor made him sweat as he uncapped the bottles and poured their contents down the drain. Images of Sonny flashed before him in quick bursts of color and pain—Sonny riding the elephant at the San Antonio Zoo, Sonny winding back to throw the baseball, Sonny racing with his dog in the sunshine.

  Paul's hands began to tremble. Scotch sloshed over his fingers. Slowly, he lifted the bottle toward his lips. His mouth was dry. He could almost taste the liquor, could almost feel it going down.

  You're wonderful, Paul.

  Paul lowered the bottle, then rubbed his hands across his parched lips. Susan Riley had called him wonderful.

  He dumped liquor with a vengeance until he came to the last bottle. It was heavy in his hand, the clear amber liquid shining in the glow from the overhead fluorescent lights. What if he needed it? What if the dark memories invaded him and stole his newfound resolve?

  He was tired of being self-indulgent and weak, tired of being dysfunctional.

  He unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle. A thin stream of amber discolored the porcelain sink. Sonny's blood had discolored Paul's white lab coat. There had been so much he couldn't remove the stains.

  "Oh, God."

  Paul recapped the bottle, then leaned his head against the cool edge of the sink. He kept his head down until his breathing returned to normal.

  It wouldn't hurt to have one bottle. For insurance.

  He slid the bottle to the back of the cabinet behind the steak sauce, then bundled the empty bottles into a garbage bag and took them downstairs to the dumpster. As he heaved them inside, the sound of broken glass echoed from the dark, metal cavern.

  Emotionally and physically drained, he leaned against the side of the building and stood quietly in the dark.

  A breeze off the gulf whispered through the bright bougainvillea and stirred the Spanish moss. The scent of gardenias hung in the humid air. Far over the water sea gulls called to one another, their cries plaintive in the night.

  From somewhere deep within, where the memories lay chained and the soul lay wounded, a tiny spark of hope glowed to life. He had held a small boy in his arms at the dolphin pool, a fragile little boy who clung to him with trust and the innocent, generous love of a child.

  Paul leaned his head against the side of the apartment building afraid to move lest the tiny spark of hope flicker and die. He closed his eyes.

  His head hurt from the need for alcohol. All he had to do was go back upstairs and retrieve the bottle from his kitchen cabinet.

  He pressed his hands against his throbbing temples.
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br />   He was surprised to feel tears. Unashamed, he stood in the darkness and let them flow.

  After nearly nine months he was finally able to grieve for Sonny.

  Book Two

  "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  from The Great Gatsby

  Chapter Ten

  White stucco buildings squatted among the lush, well- kept greenery of Medical Park Circle like a flock of herons sitting on their separate nests. In the distance the tides flowed with their ceaseless rhythms, undaunted by the life and death dramas being played out in the plush offices on the mainland.

  Paul quietly let himself into his office in the middle of Medical Park Circle. For a moment he stood in the dark, inhaling the familiar scents of polished wood and rich leather. Nostalgia swept over him. Once he had been happy here, full of courage, zealous ambition, and audacity.

  If only he could turn back the clock.

  Paul switched on the light. There was no going back.

  Rows of medical books lined two walls. He took down a fat volume and scanned the Index until he found what he was seeking.

  As always, he became absorbed by the medical text.

  Let lesser mortals thrill to the pages of a fiction bestseller. For him there was nothing more exciting than reading about the ills of the human body and the miraculous ways to cure them.

  "Paul!"

  His partner, Luther Westberg, leaned against the door frame, his clothes rumpled, a pair of wire-rim glasses pushed back into his frizzy mop of blond hair, and the bridge of his nose peeling.

  "Been sailing again, Luther?"

  "I'll be damned." Luther loped across the room in his long-legged gait and sank into Paul's fat leather chair. "You don't show your ugly face around here for months, and then you come sneaking in here in the middle of the night and that's all you've got to say." He adjusted his glasses on his nose and peered at Paul. "How the hell did you know, anyway?"

  "The red nose. It's a dead giveaway."

  They stared at each other until the silence became uncomfortable. Both of them were remembering the day six months earlier that Paul had left.