“I keep thinking about that baby. Feeling that loss. Thinking maybe that would’ve done it, made us yell and scream and get it all out. Six years. What we could have had and done in six years.” He felt a wave of weariness. “Talk to me,” he whispered plaintively. “Tell me.”
Katherine turned into the room. He took a tired breath, sighed, straightened. “How goes it?”
“Not bad. And here?”
Jack shrugged. He followed her gaze to the tray table that was covered with papers.
“Are you getting much done?” she asked without spite.
“Nah. I spread stuff out and pretend, but it’s hard to concentrate. What I’m working on feels stale. I was in the office this morning and got a call about a new project. If I hadn’t been right there, I wouldn’t ever have known. My partner would have said thanks, but no thanks.”
“Why?”
“The job is to build a private home. Granted, there are four acres to work with and the client wants more an estate than a home, but it’s smaller than most of our recent jobs. David thinks it’s a step back for us.”
“What do you think?”
“I think,” he said, flexing his spine side to side, “that it’d be a fun job to do. It’s in Hillsborough. Local. The zoning’s all done. The client knows my work. He wants me to use what I’ve done in the past as a springboard. I.e., he wants something new and imaginative.”
Katherine nodded her approval. Jack wanted to think Rachel approved, too.
He sat back and smiled. “So, how’s the good doctor?”
For a minute he saw the old, defensive Katherine. Then his smile registered, and she softened. “Sent me flowers yesterday afternoon,” she said.
“That’s impressive.”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Byron sent me flowers, too. The good doctor is as much in the dark about you-know-what as Byron was then.”
“You don’t think Bauer is used to medical quirks?”
“Quirks? That’s rich. And I’m sure he is. But that’s a problem in itself. If he deals with medical … quirks all day long, why ever would he want to face them at night?”
“The flip side of that argument is that he’s become so inured to them, he wouldn’t notice.”
“He’d notice.”
“Are they that bad?” Jack asked, frankly curious. From the outside, nothing was wrong. Absolutely nothing.
“Well, they aren’t,” Katherine conceded. “They just … take a little getting used to. There are scars.”
“Few people make it to forty without those.”
“It’s the idea of the whole thing.”
“That may be more in your mind than anyone else’s.”
“Possibly.” She paused. “Why are you pushing this?”
“Pushing what?”
“The good doctor and me. Why do I need a man?”
Jack sat back. “There’s an interesting question. From what I’ve gathered, you and Rachel are two peas in a pod, very much alike, yes? Strong, independent women?”
Katherine considered that. “I’d say so.”
“Okay. Early on, I said that Rachel never really needed me. You said I was wrong. If you tell me how she needed me, there might be a message for you.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he said, “I assume you two talked about it.”
“Not in as many words. Strong, independent women like us don’t use the word need. We use the word want, like we have the power to choose.” But she grew reflective as she focused on Rachel. “She sometimes talks about things she misses.”
“Like?”
“Help with the girls. Raising kids is hard. The bigger they get, the bigger the issues. Rachel misses having you there to talk things through with.”
“She always had answers.”
“Maybe when the girls were little. She had to. You weren’t around, and little kids need immediate response. Big kids, big problems require more thought. That’s the discussion she misses.”
You weren’t around. Well, he was, but not enough. He had missed some important times for the girls. And for Rachel? Okay. He should have been there more. He certainly should have known about that baby. He should have cut that trip short and come home. If he was haunted by the loss of that child now, he could imagine what Rachel had felt at the time.
She should have told him. He should have been there.
But if he had been there for her all along, she might have told him.
Accepting his share of the blame, he sighed. “What else did she miss?”
“I don’t know,” Katherine said, seeming embarrassed. She pushed her fingers through her hair from underneath, then shook her head. “I know what I miss. I miss someone to be with after work. Someone to share wine with. Someone to share silence. Sharing. I guess that’s it. I’d venture to say that Rachel misses that.”
“Sounds to me she found some of it with Faith Bligh. Sharing the silence over coffee.”
“Not the same. There’s something about lying in bed late at night or very, very early in the morning, talking, silent, whatever.”
Memory had Jack right back there, lying with Rachel. They were special times, which had started coming fewer and farther between. Then they had ended. “When you work and have kids, you’re exhausted.”
But it was a stock excuse. Katherine’s arched brow said as much.
You make time for what you want, Rachel had said once. And she had tried. He recalled a time when he was due back from a trip in the evening. She hired a baby-sitter and made reservations at Postrio weeks in advance, then picked him up at the airport and drove him there. He proceeded to tell her that he had eaten at the place six times in the last month and couldn’t bear to do it again.
He had missed the point, which wasn’t form but substance. He realized that now, with no pride at all.
“I miss taking vacations with Rachel,” he offered.
He was rewarded when Katherine said, “She misses being pampered once in a while.”
“Strong, independent women need pampering?”
“We’re human, too.”
“Any man can suffice for that.”
She shook her head. “Only certain ones. It’s an … intangible something. A man can be in a room with fifty women and fall for only one. A woman can be in a room with fifty men and fall for only one. Why? I don’t know the answer. Do you?”
Jack didn’t. But he hadn’t fallen in love with Jill the way logic said he should. “Does Rachel have that … whatever with Ben?”
Katherine laughed. “Not quite.”
He was immensely pleased. “Really?”
“What do you think?”
“Well, the guy doesn’t turn me on,” he said, then asked a cautious “She hasn’t found it with anyone else?”
Katherine slowly shook her head. Softly she said, “It’s a very special quality. When it works, it works. Rachel had it with you. She still thinks about that. She thinks about it a lot.”
SO DID JACK, most notably Katherine’s use of the present tense. He might have taken it more lightly if it had come from anyone else. But Katherine said what she meant.
He could ask her for specifics, could prod and dig. But did he want to risk her saying that Rachel was simply analyzing and understanding the past, rather than feeling it in the present?
No.
Because the fact was that he did feel things now. He felt things every time he touched her, whether applying skin cream or exercising her limbs. He felt things looking at her mouth, or at those freckles that promised such spirit. He felt things walking down the hospital corridor and turning in at her room. Anticipation. Purpose. Rightness.
Fine to say that he was here out of guilt, or for the girls, or for old times’ sake, but the truth was that he still felt a connection with Rachel. Unfinished business, he had told Jill. He wondered if it was more than that. One of the things he had loved most about Rachel when they first met was believing that she brought out the best in him. He wondered if she sti
ll could.
SO HE SAT with her following his talk with Katherine, and though he didn’t deliberately think about work, his mind wandered there on its own. Looking at Rachel, holding her hand, he began to talk out the Montana project, and suddenly he saw a design possibility. No, it wasn’t the one he had originally wanted, or any one of his subsequent revisions, but yes, it would work.
Fearful that he might lose it once he left Rachel, he pulled up a pad and quickly sketched out his thoughts, then booted up his laptop and drew it there. He saved what he drew and took longer studying it, but way deep down in his fast-beating heart he knew it was finally, finally right.
His agonizing was over. The client would be pleased. The resort would be built in this design. Done deal.
RIDING THE TIDE of that sense of accomplishment, he painted in Rachel’s studio again that night. He was up until four in the morning this time, but the satisfaction was worth it. He woke up to have breakfast with the girls and drive them down the road to the bus stop, to call the hospital for an update on Rachel, and to fax the new design from his laptop to the office. Ignoring E-mail from David, he went back to bed and slept until ten. Even then, he took the time to drink a leisurely cup of coffee, sitting on the fallen log in Rachel’s woods, watching the foraging of half a dozen wild turkeys, big brown things the likes of which he couldn’t imagine cooking and carving.
He didn’t bother to shave. Rachel never minded stubble. He stopped at the market for a dozen two-liter bottles of assorted sodas and, feeling another bit of accomplishment, dropped them at school just in time for Hope’s class picnic. Then he went on to Monterey.
He had known that Rachel was still comatose. What he hadn’t known was that she had new guests.
chapter fifteen
JACK WAS ALWAYS amazed when he saw Victoria Keats. She looked younger each time—and it wasn’t generosity toward his ex-mother-in-law that made him think that. It was fact. She was six years older now than when he had seen her last, but she didn’t look a minute of it. Her eyes were bright and wide, her skin smooth. He figured she was on her third face-lift. She was always on the run, hence well toned, and not only had impeccable taste in clothes but refused to believe that trendiness had either age or business limits. She wore a chic wrap dress in a jersey print, produced by a designer whose styles were making a dramatic comeback. The print was heavy in brown, black, and beige. She wore sheer brown stockings and stylish brown heels. Her hair was a tasteful platinum, drawn back into a knot at the nape of her neck. Her face had a moisturized glow; her lipstick was a flattering coral.
She was extraordinary looking, particularly in comparison to the plain woman standing at the foot of Rachel’s bed.
“Mom!” Jack said to the plain woman, feeling the same tug at his heart that he felt each time he saw her. “I didn’t expect you here!”
“Of course, you didn’t,” scolded Victoria Keats. “You didn’t call her, because you wanted to spare her the worry, but Rachel is, after all, her daughter-in-law and the mother of her grandchildren. Eunice was so upset when I told her about the accident that she insisted on meeting me here.”
Jack was about to ask how his mother, who rarely left Oregon, had managed to get to Monterey on her own, when Victoria said, “Well, Rachel doesn’t look as bad as I thought she would. That’s a nasty scrape on her face, but it looks to be healing well, and the doctor tells me her leg will be just fine. It looks like she’s sleeping.” She patted Rachel’s arm. “Well, you go right ahead and sleep, darling, that’s the best thing for you. The doctor assures me it’s only a matter of days before you’ll be awake and then you’ll have to face this man.” The look she turned on Jack might have been a scowl if her face had worked properly. The smooth stretch of her skin watered down dismay into puzzlement. “You look like something the cat dragged in. You know, they did tell me that comas can be psychological.”
They had told Jack that, too. Everything about Rachel suggested that she was healing well. Since they didn’t know why she wasn’t waking up, they were looking for excuses. Personally, he couldn’t believe she wanted this.
“She may be terrified of facing you,” Victoria said. “Is that how successful architects dress these days? It must be a West Coast thing, because they would never walk around New York looking like that. In New York they’re a dapper group, which they have to be; it’s part of the statement they make, knowing about fashion and style, and good grooming. But then, in New York, everyone has higher standards. When was the last time you shaved?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Your father shaved every day,” Eunice reminded him.
“It looks like longer than that,” Victoria decided, giving him a slow head-to-toe, “but we won’t put you on the spot. After all, you do have a lot on your hands. Rachel, they tell me he’s been here every day. Now isn’t that something? He’s living with the girls in Big Sur, and after all that hullaballoo about preferring to live in the city, aside from the stubble he doesn’t look bad. Well, he could use a pair of tailored slacks; those jeans have seen better days, as have the loafers—are those Cole-Haans? No, they wouldn’t be. You need Cole-Haans—the leather is exquisite—but that would be for the city, and if you’re living in the country now, I suppose what you have on is all right. Oh my”—she lifted Rachel’s hand—“look at your nails. Someone did a beautiful French manicure. It makes your nails look longer and more elegant. How many years did I tell you that you ought to let them grow?”
“She paints,” Jack said. He had rounded the bed, greeting his mother with a shoulder touch along the way—a grand show of affection, by his family’s standards. Taking root opposite Victoria, he put a protective hand against Rachel’s neck. “Long nails get in the way.”
“I don’t see why they should,” Victoria argued, “not if she uses a brush. Of course, that manicure calls for something classic and white, certainly something more elegant than flannel,” she said in distaste. “And lime green? Oh my. Lime green is not terribly classy. Subtle is the way to go, subtle and rich. But where is the lingerie I sent?”
“In Big Sur … ”
“I sent it here.”
“I know, but—”
“Ah! Didn’t I read once that silk and electronic devices like monitors don’t work well together?” She hit her beautifully smooth forehead—but gently. “I should have remembered! I could as easily have sent cotton. We could have shopped in the city,” she told Eunice, then told Jack, “I rented a car at the airport, fetched Eunice at the train, and here we are, but I should have thought to stop. Honestly, I assumed that she had everything she needed.”
“She does.”
“Do you know how rude drivers are around here? I have never been honked at so much. And trucks? All over the place, getting larger and longer by the day. You take your hands in your life trying to pass one of those on the highway. I thought about hiring a driver, but I wanted this to be a break from business. You know”—she was pensive, looking at Eunice—“we should have stopped in the city. There’s a marvelous restaurant at the Huntington, although we probably aren’t dressed right—”
Victoria was, Jack thought. Eunice was not. She wore a plain white blouse, a just-below-the-knee skirt, and serviceable tie shoes. What with her home-cut gray hair and a tightness in her face that had nothing to do with plastic surgery, she looked every one of her seventy-something years. His heart ached for her. She would have stood out at the Huntington like a donkey at Ascot.
“—and we did want to get down here as soon as possible,” Victoria was saying. “Maybe another time. I hear Diane loves the place.”
“Diane?” Jack asked.
“Your senator,” Victoria said.
Eunice confirmed his ignorance with a dismayed “Jack.”
Victoria waved it aside. “Naturally, the city was covered with fog, so it was probably just as well we didn’t stop. We’ll have another chance. I have to say, Jack, I kept expecting you to move Rachel to the city. I was not te
rribly impressed with the way I was treated when I called here on the phone. Fine to say that the important thing is the quality of the medical care, but the term bedside manner is a broad one, and it comes right down from management, at least, that’s what I say to my management team. So I was expecting the worst, and then I met Kara in person, but what a lovely young woman!” She confided, “And what gorgeous pearl earrings. There’s a woman who knows how to make a statement. As it happens, I know her parents. They’re a side branch of the Philadelphia Bateses, who have a summer place in Newport. A fine family.”
“Aren’t Kara’s parents younger than you?” Jack said.
“Jack!” cried Eunice, but Victoria was undaunted.
“Not by much,” she assured him. “She’s the youngest of four, she told me. A lovely girl. And where are yours? I’d like to see my granddaughters. I don’t come this way often, and I can’t stay long. It’s quite pathetic, with my own daughter in a coma, but the board of directors is holding its quarterly meeting in New York on Monday. I have to fly back tomorrow. I know you said not to come at all, Jack, but I had to, even for this little time. Where are those girls?”
“School,” Jack said. Single words had less of a chance of being cut off.
“Well, how do they get here from there? They are coming, aren’t they? I would think that the very best thing for Rachel is to have her daughters here. Of course, they’re probably the ones responsible for that music.” She winced. “What awful stuff. I turned it right off. There has to be something more appropriate.”
“Appropriate?”
“If she’s listening to music, it might as well be something worthwhile. Rachel used to love symphonies. Did you know that she wanted to be a concert pianist?”
A concert pianist? Jack thought not. Victoria had wanted it. Not Rachel. Victoria had given them a piano as a wedding gift, and they had toted it from Tucson to San Francisco because one didn’t sell a Steinway, especially if it was a gift from a parent—not until you were divorced, which Rachel had promptly done. Before then, in her inimitably irreverent way, she had used it as a table for photographs, the girls’ projects, and wine and hors d’oeuvres. The bench was perpetually open and filled with green plants.
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