“That could mean trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Maybe you should,” she said, only half teasing. “Teenaged girls are wily. I know. I’ve been there. Is she all set for the prom?”
“We’re shopping for a dress this weekend.”
“Want me to take her?”
“No. I’ll do it. It should be an interesting experience.”
Katherine would have gladly gone along. She had shopped with the girls before. Apparently, though, Jack was taking that responsibility he had mentioned earlier very seriously. Fine. Then she felt less guilty worrying him. “Is she still going to the prom with Brendan?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Jack said, but he looked puzzled. “I can’t get a feel for how paired up this is. In my day, you had a specific date, but Sam’s pretty vague about who’s with who. There are ten of them going in the limo from Lydia’s house. The girls are spending the night there after the prom.” He hmphed. “I think that’s what did it.”
“Did what?”
“Changed her mood. She tossed the spending-the-night thing at me when she was leaving the car this morning, fully expecting I’d refuse, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. It sounds to me like a big sleepover. They’ve been doing sleepovers for years.”
“Are you sure it’s only girls?”
That gave him pause, but it passed. “She says it is. She says Lydia’s parents will be there.”
“I think,” Katherine tried, making a show of debating it herself, “that Rachel might want you to give them a call.”
Jack’s jaw went harder. “If I did that, it would suggest I didn’t trust my daughter.”
“This isn’t about trust. It’s about checking in and being involved.”
“I take it you’ve been through this. How old did you say your kids were?”
Katherine didn’t have kids, and it hit home. There had been a time when having a child had meant the world to her. Then she had been advised to wait a bit. Then Roy had left. And Byron had come and gone. And suddenly she was forty-two.
“Low blow,” Jack surprised her by saying. “Sorry, but I’m going through a tough time here. I’ve never parented a teenager before, not for more than a weekend, and not for things like this, but I’m trying my best to do what’s right, and it isn’t easy. Samantha and I don’t exactly have a love fest going on down there in Big Sur. She doesn’t like what I bring in for dinner, doesn’t like the coffee I brew. She doesn’t like my talking on ‘her’ phone, or sleeping in Rachel’s bed or using Rachel’s shower, or driving her to school. As far as she’s concerned, I’m a major inconvenience in her life—like I was the one who caused the accident, like I’m enjoying all this, like I should sleep on the sofa night after night. She’s given me lip about almost everything I’ve done—but maybe, just maybe we’ve turned a corner. She actually smiled at me when I picked her up at school.” Pleading, he paused for a breath. “Let me enjoy it for a little bit, huh?”
JACK thought about enjoying it a bit as he drove down the coast. It wasn’t the first time he had used those words in response to the antics of Samantha McGill. The first time was fifteen years before, when she was five months old and vehemently opposed to sleeping through the night. They had been living in San Francisco a full month, Samantha in a room that Rachel had painted the same hot pink and navy as her room in Tucson, so she didn’t have the excuse of a strange place. She had been fed cereal at six, along with Rachel’s milk then and again at eleven. It was now two in the morning, and she wanted more.
The battle had been going on for two weeks, and they were exhausted. Jack was working a new job, pulling sweatshop hours as junior architect in a San Francisco firm. Rachel was pulling similar ones caring for the baby, doing the last of the unpacking, sewing drapes, and painting furniture and walls. They had both been dead to the world when Samantha’s wails blasted in from the next room.
Rachel moaned and took cover under Jack’s arm.
Jack pressed the pillow to his ear. “She can’t be hungry,” he mumbled.
Rachel mumbled back, “She isn’t. Go back to sleep.”
But the wailing went on.
Rachel slipped out of bed and, wrapped in his largest red flannel shirt, went off to the baby’s room. The crying stopped. She returned to bed and curled up against him again. They had barely settled, spooned together, when the crying resumed.
Jack pulled the blanket over their heads. That muted the sound, but it went on. Still under the covers, he turned to face Rachel. “She’s not hungry,” he whispered into the warm, sleepy dark that would have been purple had a light been on. “Think she’s sick?”
“Not sick,” Rachel mumbled. “Angry. Pediatrician said to let her cry.”
They let her cry. After five minutes, the wailing was more persistent. Jack threw the blanket back and started to get up.
“Don’t you dare bring her here,” Rachel cried.
Jack wasn’t about to. He wasn’t touching that baby. He had changed a diaper earlier. One per evening was his limit. “I want to make sure she isn’t stuck between the slats and the bumper.”
“She wasn’t before,” Rachel murmured, but she was right behind him, tiptoeing from their room to Samantha’s with her fingers hooked on the waist of his shorts. When he stopped at the baby’s door, Rachel settled against his back with her cheek to his skin.
In the fragmental glow of a tiny night-light, he saw a pale crib, polka-dot bumpers, a mobile with Rachel’s felt creatures cut and pasted in every color imaginable, and beneath it, his angry daughter.
The wails were higher pitched now, but he backed away. “She’s kicking her arms and legs, the little pest.”
They returned to bed and lay entwined for a minute, listening to a fury of cries, before Rachel snaked free. “She’s working herself into a frenzy,” she said and disappeared into the night.
Seconds later, the crying stopped. Two minutes later, Rachel climbed back into bed. They held their breaths, listening, holding each other, on edge. “That did it, that did it,” Jack whispered hopefully.
Samantha screamed.
Rachel laughed. “Whoa.”
“Whose idea was it to have this baby?”
“Not mine,” she said, laughing again.
“Not mine.”
The crying escalated.
“Let her cry,” Jack whispered.
Rachel snuggled closer. “She’ll wear herself out.”
“Just a matter of time.”
But they were wide awake. When wails became screams, Rachel announced full-voice, “I can’t sleep with that noise.”
“You.”
Rolling away, she pushed out of bed and closed all but inches of their door. Back in bed, she pulled him under the covers again to dull the sound coming through the walls. “Kiss me,” she said. “Drown it out.”
“This is a sexy moment? With that racket going on?”
“Kissing’s what started it, isn’t it? So fight fire with fire.”
Jack had to admit it made sense. If the first kiss he gave her lacked passion, he put more into the second. By the third, he was hearing less beyond the bed. His mind was filling with the sweet sounds of Rachel, the warmth of her mouth, the swell of her breasts, the gentle curve of her belly. He had dispensed with her shirt and was fully erect when she said with an audible smile, “It’s working.”
“Oh, boy,” his voice was hoarse, “is it ever.”
She laughed brightly. “Samantha, not you.”
Sure enough, the noise from the other room was slowing to the sounds of a tired baby on the verge of sleep. But was Jack tired? Not on your life! “That’s nice,” he practically purred. “Might as well enjoy it a bit.” Lacing his fingers with Rachel’s on the pillow, he came over her, found just the right spot between her open thighs, and thrust in.
AN AMBER SUN hung low on the horizon when they arrived back in Big Sur. Samantha headed for the house. Hope head
ed for Duncan’s. Not knowing quite where he should head, Jack remained standing by the car. He took several deep breaths. Curious about what it was in the air that he found so appealing, he wandered off the gravel drive, through alternating patches of redwood sorrel and dark, packed earth, to a fallen tree. Purple flowers were budding around the lowest of the dead branches. He sat down midway along the trunk.
Looking straight up, he found the tops of the redwoods, where the foliage was the fullest, and watched for movement. It was a cool, dry, quiet May night. The air smelled of thick textured bark, of patches of moss, of sweet cedar from the lower canyon. At a sound on the forest floor, he spotted a ragged bird hopping among the brush. It was a Steller’s jay, its feathers a motley slate blue and gray.
“You won’t find much here, bud,” he murmured. The forest floor was too heavily shaded to allow for food. Berries and bugs would be more plentiful beneath the live oaks and madrones.
Still the jay foraged, hopping downhill, then up. Jack watched for a bit. It was a mindless interlude that ended before he was quite ready. At the sound of footsteps in the undergrowth, he turned. Hope was coming toward him cradling the tabby. Her face was so serious that for a minute he feared the cat had died. But its eyes opened and its paws and tail shifted the smallest bit when Hope sat down on his tree.
“She didn’t eat today. Nothing.”
Jack didn’t know how to console her. Rather than say something dumb and meaningless, he slid along the branch until they were arm to arm. She was petting the cat, running her small hand over its fur, from nose to ears, over neck, back, and rump, all the way to its tail. She repeated the motion again and again, a hypnotic stroking. In the silence of the forest, Jack heard the cat’s purr.
“She likes that,” he murmured.
Hope nodded. She kept up the petting. The purring went on.
After a bit, curious, Jack stuck in one stroke between Hope’s. The cat’s fur was surprisingly soft, surprisingly warm. He tried it again, half expecting that the cat would raise her head and express her objection to a stranger’s touch. But Guinevere didn’t. Without moving her chin from the crook of Hope’s elbow, she simply looked up at him with total trust.
It nearly did him in.
chapter eight
BY FRIDAY MORNING, when there was still no change in Rachel’s condition, Jack requested a consultation with his man in the city, William Breen. Jack had every confidence that the man was the best. Not only had Tina come up with his name, but Victoria Keats had faxed him the very same one.
The conference took place by phone in Steve Bauer’s office. Besides Bauer, there were Kara Bates, Cindy Winston, and Jack.
The latest stats were sent to Breen’s computer. Bauer orally reviewed them. Kara gave interpretations based on her observation of the patient. Cindy described Rachel’s lack of response during bathing, turning, and range-of-motion exercises.
Jack kept thinking that the millions poured into research each year would surely have produced some procedure, some medication to help Rachel, but in the end, Breen said, “I wish I could say there’s something else to try, but we wouldn’t be doing anything different if she were in San Francisco. Her case is typical. She continues to hold her own. This is only the fourth day.”
Jack hadn’t expected the coma to last two days, and said as much.
“Mm, that would have been nice,” the doctor responded, “but head injuries don’t always do what’s nice. Her GCS score is holding steady.”
“Yeah,” Jack remarked. “At rock bottom.” He had learned about the Glasgow coma scale. Since Rachel showed no eye opening, no verbal response, and no motor response, she had the lowest possible score.
“But the data says she’s not getting worse.”
“Will she?” Jack asked. “Is there a chance she’ll take a sudden turn?” He still felt a clinch in his stomach every time the phone rang, every time he arrived at the hospital after being out of contact for even a brief time.
“She could,” said the doctor. “But if that were to happen, your team will know immediately and be able to act. With comas, it’s a waiting game. I’m sorry, Mr. McGill. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s a little like defusing a bomb. Hurry the process, and it’s apt to explode.”
ON HIS way back to Rachel’s room, Jack placed a call to Victoria. She had wanted an expert involved in the case; he wanted her to know it had been done. He also wanted to thank her for the flowers and to give her an update on Rachel’s condition, discouraging as it was.
He had to settle for leaving a message in New York. Victoria was still abroad.
WHEN BEN WOLFE arrived, Jack was sitting by Rachel’s hip, feeling useless. After trading bland observations about her hair, which spilled nicely from the topknot Katherine had made, the swelling of her face, which was down a little, and the perkiness of her turquoise nightgown, Jack stood and said, “Talk to Rachel. I’ll be back.” Ben was no threat, and he had something to do.
From the bank of phones down the hall, he called Jill. At the sound of her voice, he felt a guilty tug. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” she said with pleasure. “I was wondering when you’d remember I was here.”
His guilt increased. “It’s been a rough couple of days. The girls are pretty upset. I’m still at the hospital. Rachel hasn’t woken up.”
“I know.”
“Ah. You called my office.”
“No.” She sighed. “I didn’t want Tina to know that you hadn’t called me, so I called the hospital.”
He felt even worse. “I’m sorry, Jill. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“You could have called,” she chided. “Didn’t you think I’d want to know how Rachel was doing?”
She would. She was that kind of person. And he couldn’t say why he hadn’t called. That was one of many things that were muddled up in his mind.
But she expected an answer. So he said, “I’ve been trying to juggle everything here—work, the girls, Rachel. It’s a nightmare.”
“One phone call, Jack. It would have taken ten seconds.”
Ten seconds, max. But damn it, she wasn’t as harried as he was. “You could have called me in Big Sur,” he countered. “Rachel’s number is listed.”
There was a silence. Then a sad “I think you forgot.”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “I didn’t forget.”
“I think it didn’t matter enough to you to talk with me.”
“No,” he sighed, “there’s just nothing to tell. Not so long ago I was in conference with some of the best medical minds around, and they had nothing to say. There’s nothing, Jill. We can’t do a damn thing but sit here and wait.”
“You’re missing my point. If I meant anything to you, you’d want to hear my voice. It would be a comfort.”
How could her voice be a comfort when it reminded him of the dozens of loose ends he had left hanging in the city? He put his elbow on the top of the phone and his head on his fist. “This isn’t a good time, Jill. It just isn’t.”
“Is that my answer?”
He sighed. “No. It isn’t. But I’m grappling with something difficult. I need a little time.”
“You always need time.”
“You knew that when we met. You knew I had a demanding life.”
“I didn’t count on the demands coming from your ex-wife,” she said, then caught herself. “God, I’m sorry, Jack. That was selfish of me. She’s in a coma. She may die.”
“She’s not dying. My guess is she’ll wake up by the first of the week.”
He heard a cautious “I won’t see you until then? Not even on Saturday night?”
Over the past few months, Jack had spent every Saturday night with Jill that he hadn’t either been with the girls or out of town—and he looked forward to those nights. He relaxed with Jill. He could count on her to be stimulating, physically and intellectually. He did love her—until she got that tomorrow look in her eye. Then he felt boxed in, which wa
s what he felt now.
“Can’t do it this Saturday,” he said, annoyed. What did she think he would do with the girls while he drove three hours north on a Saturday night? Okay, Samantha was fifteen and would probably have plans of her own, but she was too young to drive, they lived in the middle of nowhere, and their mother was critically ill. “I have to be there for the girls. They have lists of things for me to do for them this weekend, and between all that, I’ll be taking them to visit their mother. The doctors want them to talk with her. They say the girls will keep her focused, maybe help bring her back. Time’ll be tight this weekend.”
Jill said, “I see.”
But she didn’t. He heard hurt between those two little words. “Maybe Monday, when they’re at school,” he said, because he was going to have to drive up to the office again whether Rachel woke up or not. “Want to plan on lunch?”
She was that easily pleased. The smile returned to her voice. “I’d like that.”
“Say, one o’clock, at Stars?”
“Not Stars. Here. I’ll make lunch.”
Lunch at her house would be a longer affair. It would be harder to eat and run, and he didn’t know how much time he would have. But Jill was special. Of the women he had dated since the divorce, she came closest to being right for him. She didn’t mind his travels. She was wonderful at business dinners. One on one, she was a charming companion and a devoted lover. During the few times she had seen the girls, they had gotten along well. How not to get along with Jill? She deserved better than days without a call.
So he said, “Sounds good. I’ll look forward to it. Thanks for being understanding, Jill. That’s the biggest help to me right now.”
He hung up the phone feeling like a total heel.
THE FEELING followed him right back into Rachel’s room.
Ben was saying something to her and looked up, red-faced. “We were talking about the show.”
Jack couldn’t resist. “What was Rachel saying?”
“Not—a whole lot. I was telling her that you’ve been looking through her work. What do you think? Do we have a shot at going ahead?”
Coast Road Page 13
