He walked back to her bed and sat down, close to the night table. He switched on the lamp and squinted against the light as he pulled out the drawer. Alison’s picture was where he thought it would be, on top of the box of tissues, next to the little bowl of smoothed glass Kit had collected from the beach. He took it out and held it under the light.
My own daughter. A tragic little thing. She should never have been conceived.
He looked up, startled by the sound of Kit stepping into the room. He hadn’t heard her car. He was caught redhanded, snooping and intrusive. But she smiled at him.
“I look at her picture at least ten times a night,” she said, making everything all right. She sat next to him and draped her arm around his shoulders. “It’s getting a little frayed around the edges.” She gently touched the border. It was all that was left of his child, this much-handled photograph.
“Her hair would have been just like yours,” he said.
“Do you think so?”
He nodded.
They were quiet for a moment, staring at Alison’s picture as if they’d never seen it before.
“I think I’m having a delayed reaction to losing her,” he said. “It took me so long to realize she was mine. I had to adjust to that before I could adjust to the fact that she died.”
“I know, babe. You were gypped.”
“Something happened today.”
“What?”
“It’s going to sound silly.”
“Come on.”
He sighed. “Well, I was in the elevator and this guy got on. He was carrying a baby, six months old or so. He was holding her like this.” He pulled one of Kit’s pillows out from under the spread and set it upright in his arms. “Her ear was right against his lips.” He laughed, feeling ridiculous. “It drove me crazy. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. She was this little black baby with a pink bow in her hair. Every once in a while he’d kiss her ear. I kept thinking about how wonderful it would feel to kiss my daughter’s ear.”
“Oh, Cole.” She knelt next to him on the bed, her arms around him, and to his horror he began to cry. He clung to her, remembering how he’d followed the father and his baby off the elevator and into the gift shop, how he’d bought a roll of mints he didn’t want just so he could watch them longer.
“You need a friend to sleep with.” Kit took the picture from his hand and set it on the night table. Then she stretched out on top of the bedspread, still in that black jersey dress, and pulled him down next to her. He nestled his head against her breasts, feeling content for the first time all day.
She smoothed his hair. “I’ll make you a copy of Alison’s picture before I leave,” she said.
47.
Her bedroom door was open and he could hear her packing, bureau drawers sliding shut, hangers clacking on the wooden rod in her closet. He changed out of his work clothes into his shorts, listening, trying to remember what the house had been like before she arrived. He tried to picture her room before she’d put her heavy dark furniture in it. He remembered the emptiness of that room, how his footsteps used to echo when he stepped inside.
He walked across the hall and stood in her doorway. She was kneeling in front of her bureau, shifting piles of sweaters from the bottom drawer into a box at her side. There were boxes everywhere, neatly stacked, bedroom written across the sides. Her closet door was open. There were just a few things hanging up inside and a couple of pairs of shoes on the floor, clothes she’d need for her last two days at Blair.
She looked up at him. “A lot of work,” she said. She’d pinned her hair up off her neck and her forehead was damp.
He needed some time with her. They hadn’t talked, not really. Just bits and pieces about her plans for her apartment. She seemed to want to leave with no more than a wave good-bye. Surely they had more to say to each other than that.
He didn’t want to let her go without telling her how much her friendship meant to him.
He didn’t want to let her go.
“Would you like to go out later tonight?” he asked. “Just for ice cream or something?”
She sat back on her heels and sighed. “I won’t have time, Cole. I have so much I have to—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “It’s all right,” he said. He didn’t want to watch her struggle to make up excuses. He turned and walked back to his room feeling the emptiness growing behind him.
On paper the surgery was simple: partially remove the fetus from its mother’s uterus, make the necessary corrections to the neural tube—or rather, attempt to make the corrections—and sew the fetus back in. It was the fact that his would be the first medical team ever to attempt it on a human patient that kept him from sleeping the night before and had him in his office by six in the morning going over every step in his mind, every possible thing that might go wrong.
By the time he arrived in the operating room, the amphitheater above him was packed, and he could tell he was not the only tense member of the team. They spoke to each other in hushed tones as if they were in church. He liked every one of them. They were skilled and dedicated, with a collective sense of humor that had carried him through some rough hours in this OR. They’d absorbed everything he’d taught them and then studied on their own, some of them traveling to other parts of the country to learn all they could and bring the knowledge back to him.
He looked at them now. Eight men and women dressed identically in blue and hovering at various distances from the woman on the table. They were absolutely rigid today. Maybe he’d made a mistake asking Aguillerio to join them. They all knew the California neurosurgeon’s reputation as a perfectionist. But politically, Cole had had no other choice. Aguillerio had perfected the technique on primates. If Cole had attempted this procedure without him and failed, he would have left himself wide open to criticism for not inviting Aguillerio along for the ride.
He knew within minutes that worrying had been a waste of time. The team functioned like clockwork. They were calm and methodical in spite of their anxiety. He’d have to remember to compliment them later. He couldn’t fault any of them. He smiled beneath the mask, thinking of himself as a choreographer with his dancers smooth and precise in every step.
Aguillerio was a pleasant surprise himself. He was a tiny man and he held back, offering no more than an occasional suggestion or comment, as if he knew he could intimidate too easily and that intimidation could only hurt the performance.
Near the end of the surgery Cole saw the smile in the little man’s eyes and his own thoughts were confirmed: almost without a doubt they had turned the life of this baby around. It wasn’t over yet. They’d have to wait months before they knew for sure. Yet he left the operating room almost dizzy with a sense of victory and a craving in the back of his throat for champagne.
48.
Kit climbed out of the tub and dried herself slowly with the towel. She smoothed lotion over her body, digging her thumbs into the tight muscles of her thighs, relishing the pain. She ran her fingers through her hair and slipped on her new robe, a gift from Paula. Short and satiny, Paula had written. Life goes on. She looked at herself in the mirror. The robe was a deep charcoal gray. The perfect color for her.
Okay, she thought. Mind’s clear, let’s try it again. She picked up the press release she’d been working on all afternoon, ever since the surgery, and leaned against the bathroom wall to read it once more. She wrinkled her nose. Still not right. She’d hoped that a long soak in the tub and a little self-indulgence would give her a fresh outlook. This was the last press release she’d write at Blair. It had to be good. The best. She’d have Cole take a look at it.
She found him in the gym. He was straddling the bench of one of the weight machines, straining to lower the bar behind his head. Janni was on the elliptical in the corner, a towel draped around her neck as she pumped her legs up and down.
“You don’t look like you’re dressed for a workout,” Janni said.
“No time to work out,” Kit
said as she sat down on a mat across from Cole. “I need your advice,” she said to him.
He let the bar down slowly and wiped his hands on the towel lying across the bench. “Is the press release done yet?”
She smiled at the excitement in his voice. She’d never seen him quite so high before. “That’s what I need your advice on.”
“The most critical thing about that press release is to spell Aguillerio’s name correctly. Two ‘l’s, one ‘r’. The man’s ego is tied up in that procedure.”
“And yours isn’t?” How odd this was, bantering with him as though tomorrow wasn’t her last day at work, her last day in the Chapel House.
He smiled. “Let’s hear it.”
She cleared her throat and began to read. “In the first case of its kind, specialists at Blair Medical Center may have saved a child from the crippling disease spina bifida by operating on the fetus ex utero—outside the mother’s womb. Under the direction of Blair’s Chief of Maternal and Fetal Medicine, Dr. Cole Perelle, the Fetal Surgery Team used bone particles suspended in an agar medium to close neural tube fissures in a twenty-week-old fetus.” She looked up. “Now here’s where my problem begins . . . What are you smiling at?” He looked as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d read.
“Sorry,” he said, trying to make his face serious. “You just look amazing in that robe.”
She felt her nipples press against the soft fabric. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Janni slow down on the elliptical, and she knew without looking that Janni wore a grin.
Cole turned to Janni. “Would you get out of here, please?” he asked.
“You bet!” Janni all but leaped off the machine. She grabbed her towel from one of the benches and tossed it around her shoulders. “And I’ll lock the door on my way out.” She hit the light switch as she left, leaving them in the filtered light from the windows.
Kit looked down at the paper in her hands, impossible to read in the dim light. She raised her gaze to Cole’s.
He leaned toward her. “I want to make love to you,” he said.
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Please, I just don’t want to.”
“The hell you don’t.”
“This release, Cole. I have to—”
“I’ll help you with it tonight,” he said.
Just this once, she thought. It would be all right as long as she could keep herself from wanting anything more than that. At this point she had little to lose.
He followed her with his eyes as she walked toward him. She straddled the bench facing him and he ran one hand up her arm. “I hope you don’t mind a little sweat,” he said.
She lowered her head to taste the salty dampness of his chest. He lifted her chin and kissed her, teasing her with closed lips. She licked at his mouth and he pulled away with a smile.
“You’re impatient,” he said, running his finger across her lips. “Let’s take it slow this time. Make up for the last time.”
“Do you know we’ve never kissed before?” she said, thinking she shouldn’t speak at the same moment the words came out of her mouth.
“Oh, we must have. When we . . . ?”
He didn’t remember.
“No,” she said. “We didn’t.”
“Kitty.” He hugged her to him and she fought tears, glad of the darkness. They kissed again, his tongue gently probing. She was afraid of this, going too slowly. It was harder to stay in control. Her body trembled.
Her diaphragm. Damn.
She jerked her head away. “Cole . . .”
“The diaphragm.” He laughed into her neck. “Shit.”
“I’ll get it.”
“No.” He held her arms. “Let me go. I’m afraid you won’t come back. Where is it?” He stood up, cupped her cheek in his palm.
“It’s packed. The box on my bathroom counter.”
He took her hand and pressed it between his own. “Listen,” he pleaded. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t think of anything. I’ll be right back.”
She obeyed him, afraid not to. If they didn’t make love now, she would go out of her mind. She wouldn’t let herself think of what it might mean. Would it make it harder or easier to drive away from the Chapel House on Saturday?
He was back in seconds, out of breath and smiling. She reached for the diaphragm and the tube of jelly but he held it away from her.
“I want to do it,” he said.
“I don’t want to feel like you’re my doctor.”
“You won’t.” He took her hand and led her to one of the blue mats on the floor. She watched him fill the diaphragm with jelly and set it next to them on the mat. “Later,” he said.
He left the robe on her, reaching inside it with his hands and his mouth, unhurried, taking time to tell her the things he liked best about her body.
“You know my body as well as I do,” she said. “Better in some ways.”
“I feel as though I’ve never seen it before.” He raised himself up on his knees and opened her robe, and she shut her eyes, strangely unshy. She felt his eyes on her, then his hands, softly stroking her skin. Her body was a million nerve endings all reaching up to him, begging him to touch her harder, longer.
He lifted her hips, leaned over her until her scar was against his mouth, and kissed it softly, then moved his lips lower. He held her thighs apart with his hands and made her come with his mouth, his fingers, his mouth again until she felt deliciously drained. He knew her so well. It was as if they’d been lovers all their lives.
She reached for him, letting her hand brush against his penis, and he leaned toward her as if he hoped the touch had been more than accidental. She guided him onto his back and he tugged off her robe. It was suddenly in the way. He kissed her, his mouth feverish, and she caught her breath in surprise as he slipped the diaphragm inside her.
She lowered herself between his legs, struck by the stony hardness of his thighs under her hands. Harder than her own. She felt the tension mounting in his body. He’d considered himself deprived for so long. He treated everything she did, every kiss, the touch of her fingers, the feel of her mouth on him, as a gift, and now she wanted to go slowly to let him savor the pleasure.
She teased him with her tongue and teeth until he finally held her head down on him with both his hands. She unwound his fingers from her hair and lifted her head to look at him.
“I want you to remember this for a long time,” she said. “You’ll thank me later for making it last.”
“Sweet torture,” he murmured.
She finally relented and took as much of him in her mouth as she could. She wished she could see his face at the same time. She imagined the smile was gone. His face would be lined with concentration, a look of pain that had nothing to do with pain at all.
He tugged at her shoulders, and she stretched over his body for a kiss, this one slow and delicate, and then he was inside her.
He held her hips tightly against him, but her concentration was ebbing away. She was distracted by fear. She felt her body gripping his. So full of him now. In a moment she would lose him. She heard the ocean roaring in her ears like city traffic. A couple of gulls fought over something outside the window. She heard Janni call the others to dinner. It seemed like hours since they’d begun, and it was about to end. She’d known it all along, hadn’t she? That it would end? That all this could leave her was more vulnerable than before?
He came with a catch of his breath and a series of shudders, and she pulled off him so quickly that he opened his eyes in surprise.
“No,” he said. “Stay.”
“We’d better go to dinner.” She kissed him lightly. She wanted to get away from him before he said anything else.
He put his arms around her to keep her from getting up. “Dinner will wait. We need to talk.”
“We don’t have time. We’re taking Rennie skating after dinner, remember?” And I’m moving out of your life tomorrow. She pulled free of him and groped on the f
loor for her robe.
He sat up too, grabbing her shoulder to turn her toward him. “You’re acting as though I suddenly have the plague.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It was just this once, Cole. I don’t want any more of you than that.”
“I love you.”
“Shh.” She put her finger to his lips and stood up. “I need to shower.” She walked toward the door on legs that threatened to buckle beneath her. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
It was hard to be polite to Orrin when she suddenly resented his entire existence. He was telling her how he wanted to keep in touch, how he didn’t mind a long-distance relationship. She hung on to his arm as they skated around the rink, cursing the skates, her ankles, and the slick floor. She was no good at this. Her concentration was off. She couldn’t think about anything other than that afternoon in the gym. Her mind tormented her with the image of Cole stretched out beneath her. He’d been soaked, his hair damp against his forehead, his skin glistening. She could still smell him in her hair. Surely Orrin could tell.
Dinner had been an ordeal. It was obvious that Janni had told the others. The disappointment in their faces was clear as they picked up the tension between her and Cole. Cole was upset with her, snapping at her a few times across the table. But he apologized later and asked her if they could go out for breakfast in the morning, just the two of them. She’d agreed. Now as she watched him with Cynthia, holding her hand, skating smoothly in time with the music, she wished she’d risked talking with him in the gym. She was afraid, though, of what he might say. Sappy promises he’d regret later, the next time he saw a woman who looked like she stepped off the cover of Vogue.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Orrin said, taking her hand.
“I was thinking how amazing it is that I can run as well as I do but I can barely skate at all. My calves are killing me.” She took her hand out of his. “I think I’ll take a restroom break.”
Secrets at the Beach House Page 28
