Drapes of gray Spanish moss, swaying under the approaching storm, dripped from the live oaks that shaded Market Street, intensifying her dizziness. Emmie knew she needed to sit down before her legs gave way. Wrought iron benches were placed at intervals in shady spots along the street, but the next one was too far. And anyway, the thought of passing out where these strangers could see her made her feel even sicker.
Just ahead, in the yard of an old white house, sat a huge hydrangea bush, five feet tall and just as wide. The sapphire blue flower heads, the size of soccer balls, glowed in the greenish light of the coming storm. In Emmie’s disoriented state she thought the bush radiated strength and power. Her head spinning and the edges of her vision darkening, she staggered to it.
She couldn’t have been unconscious long. Fat drops of rain stung her face and dampened her clothes when she became aware again, but she wasn’t soaked. And she must have made it to the hydrangea because its musty-green scent filled her nostrils. Above her head a huge blue flower dipped and bounced with each drop that struck it.
All the anguish of the past year seemed to have dissolved in her last moments of consciousness, and for the first time since her parents had put her on the plane for the States, she simply existed where she was, not wishing she were somewhere else, not wishing for anything at all.
She discovered that the hydrangea blossoms were actually millions of tiny trumpet-shaped flowerets that spread into four blue petals around a lighter blue throat. Each floweret was lifted to its place by a pale blue stem finer than thread. This was her first experience with looking into the heart of life and her first experience of consciously seeing things the way they were, not the way she thought they were or wanted them to be.
A drop of rain pelted her square in the eye and snapped her away from her timeless contemplation, but some remnants of that moment of clarity, when for one instant she had seen past the illusions that dance on the surface of the world, remained.
The connection between fasting and lying beside a bush in the rain was as inescapable as a geometry proof. As an experiment in finding answers, fasting was an abysmal failure. She knew she would not do it again. Whether she would pray again remained to be seen, but she thought not.
Emmie tied her sweater over her head like a scarf and tucked her schoolbooks under her T-shirt, sucking in a breath when the clammy plastic covers touched the bare skin of her midriff. On wobbling legs she walked the rest of the way to her grandmother’s house.
Emmie dried her hands and watched the woman in the mirror do the same. She hadn’t thought about that day for years. Why had that memory come back now? It had been a wake-up call, a clear warning that she had to deal with problems herself, without help from her grandmother, her parents, or God.
Do- Lord wandered Emmie’s living room while he waited for her to freshen up. It was going to take longer than he had thought to win her trust. He looked at the titles of the books open face down on her desk, carefully putting them back in the same order he found them. Her computer was in sleep mode, not turned off, and when he jostled the mouse, the screen lit. A little game he played was seeing if he could guess people’s passwords. It was amazingly easy. Birthdays, pet names, favorite color, favorite rock group, birthplace-people mentioned them in conversation all the time. All he had to do was pay attention.
He frowned. He didn’t know any of those personal details about Emmie. Where she was born. Where she grew up. What her parents’ names were. She knew all the trivia about him, although she was the only person alive who did. He had created a fund of amusing stories, which he could recount by the hour. They were a smoke screen so others wouldn’t notice he didn’t talk about his origins. And yet, until this minute, he hadn’t noticed that private information about her wasn’t coming through. He doubted if her leaving out facts was as conscious as his. It was like she faded away behind her intellect.
On the other hand, he couldn’t accuse her of keeping secrets. If he asked for her password, she’d probably tell him. Just like she’d told him he could get around her no-sex-on-the-first-date rule.
As it happened he didn’t need the password to get into her files. A document titled “Remedial Conversational English” was open in the window. Hello. Did you have a nice trip? Was the traffic heavy? It’s nice to see you. Isn’t it a nice day?
Who had she been making this list for? Not herself. She didn’t chatter, but she didn’t have any problem holding up her end of a conversation. In fact, she was more interesting to talk to than-the thought broke off. Her first words at the door had been, “Not a pity fuck.” It wasn’t even close to, “It’s nice to see you.”
The pieces of the Emmie-puzzle he’d been assembling suddenly interlocked. He could see the picture emerging now. He had always seen that she was vulnerable. It had been so easy to see that it had blinded him to the truth. A lump rose in his throat. He understood what kept going wrong. What had been wrong all the time. Why all her signals seemed to be on go, and God knows he was ready, and then the moment would vanish. Poof. The problem was with him. He hadn’t wanted to seduce her.
Not that he didn’t want her. He did. Wanting her was like a toothache in his whole body. And it wasn’t an excess of scruples that held him back. If he thought seduction would make her his, he’d do it. She was a plum ripe for the picking. He could do it. She was sending out come- hither signals clearly now. Even though she hadn’t said an unequivocal yes, yet, it was only a matter of time. He had only to keep pushing her. And that’s exactly what he couldn’t do. Didn’t want to do.
The trouble was, he wanted her to want him. The longing went too deep to have words to describe it, even to himself. If he pushed her, time’s one-way door would swing shut, and he’d never know if she would have chosen him.
He knew what the trouble was, but damned if he could see what to do about it.
Caleb tapped on the bathroom door. “Your phone is ringing.”
Not ready to look at him yet, Emmie opened the door a crack and stuck her hand through.
Still regarding her reflection, Emmie flipped the phone open. “Dr. Caddington.”
“Hey!” Pickett’s voice came over the phone. “Did you turn your phone off and forget it again? I’ve been leaving you messages all afternoon.”
“No- well, maybe yes.” Emmie couldn’t remember exactly what she’d done with her phone. “What did the messages say?”
“I want you to meet me at Aunt Lilly Hale’s family reunion.”
“I thought you weren’t coming home until Christmas.”
“I wasn’t, but the last twenty-four hours have turned weird. Tyler’s birthday is this weekend. Jax has had to go out of town.” Out of town Emmie and Pickett had agreed was code for doing something secret that couldn’t be speculated about. �
��And there was a letter in this morning’s mail from Tyler’s grandmother, Lauren-actually, from her lawyer.”
“Bad news?” Lauren and Jax had been locked in a custody dispute over Tyler. Pickett and Jax had hoped their marriage would make the question of custody moot.
“I don’t know whether it’s bad or good. We haven’t heard from his grandmother since the wedding. Before then, she was calling him two or three times a week. But the letter says she’s gone into rehab. In the event of an emergency, we’re to contact the lawyer.”
“You mean she’s gone for alcohol treatment? That sounds like good news.”
“Well, it is, of course, and for Tyler’s sake I hope she gets better, but it’s too soon to get excited about the prospect. In the meantime, it’s Tyler’s birthday. His birth mother is dead, and both his father and his grandmother are incommunicado.”
That was just like Pickett. She was thinking of how Tyler would feel on his first birthday after losing his birth mother. For Tyler’s sake she was more than willing to maintain a relationship with a mother-in-law left over from Jax’s first marriage. “Do you think she should have waited until after his birthday?”
“Not really. When a person is finally willing to seek treatment, it’s important to act right then. I don’t know if he’ll be hurt if she doesn’t call or send a present. He’s really too little to have built up those expectations. The main reason for coming home is that Tyler enjoys having cousins so much, and he doesn’t know many children here yet-”
“And you know you can trust your family to make a big deal over his birthday.”
“Well, I can. Anyway, will you come too? Aunt Lilly Hale has already asked me if you’re coming.”
Grace had suggested she attend as a way of revealing her makeover to a friendly audience, but Emmie had let it slip her mind. Deliberately. She hadn’t wanted to go if Pickett wouldn’t be there. The habits of being unnoticeable were still strong, and she didn’t think she could face the crowd, if her presence was about her. Anyway, the reveal, such as it was, had already happened.
Everything changed if Pickett was going to be there. “When is the family reunion?”
Pickett chuckled in fond exasperation. “Today, silly. That’s why I’ve been calling you and calling you. I’ve got to see your new clothes. I’ve got an idea for a few items I think you should get. Grace’s taste is infallible, but, you know, serious. You need some fun clothes too.”
“Fun clothes? You mean sports clothes?”
“No. I mean apparel, the purpose of which is entertainment. That’s a foreign concept for you, isn’t it? I’ve got to admit I hadn’t fully grasped the possibilities myself until Jax,” Pickett added with a chuckle that was positively sultry.
More than ever, Emmie regretted that she hadn’t been around for Jax and Pickett’s courtship. This was a side of her friend she’d never seen before. Being in love had evidently brought out new elements in her Pickett’s personality. There was a new kind of confidence about her, a deeply personal self-assurance. Emmie was a tiny bit shocked and a tiny bit envious.
“What kind of fun are we talking about here?”
Pickett giggled. “The kind you’re thinking about. But also frivolous or provocative things-like you’d look great in high-heeled boots.”
Emmie was on the verge of pointing out how utterly impractical high-heeled boots were when she got a picture of standing in front of Caleb wearing them. And nothing else. Her heart did a double backflip.
“Say you’ll come, Emmie.”
“I don’t know. Caleb is here.”
“Oh, that’s right! So much has gone on here, I forgot today was the day. How did it go?”
“We went to the open house, but Caleb got thrown out.”
“Is he there now?”
“He’s in the living room.”
“Where are you?”
“In the bathroom.”
“Why are you in the-forget I asked that. This conversation has gone way off track. But now, you’ve got to come because I’ve got to hear the whole story, and I’ve got to tell you what I think sent Lauren into treatment.”
Chapter 24
Caleb was in Emmie’s big blue velour easy chair reading a book, his tie loosened, his shoes kicked off, his feet in coffee-brown socks propped on the ottoman, when Emmie returned to the living room. He had switched on the standing lamp behind the chair. The light brought out the gold in his reddish-brown hair and dwelt in loving lines along the planes and angles of his face. He wasn’t handsome, and he never would be. He was beautiful. Her artist’s eye noted the color composition, palest yellow shirt, tobacco brown slacks, deep blue chair.
His legs were crossed at the ankles, his elbow propped on the armrest, his head supported by the headrest. Light, reflected from the open book, limned the underside of his chin and found the golden fringe of his lashes. A buoyant lightness filled her chest as if something she had waited and waited for had at last transpired.
In a way she couldn’t define, he had made the chair, the lamp, the corner of the room, his, and he looked completely at home there. Except for Pickett, not that many people entered Emmie’s space, and as a rule she felt more at ease when they left it. From now on, the room wouldn’t look quite right without him.
His eyes lit in welcome when he saw her. He held up the book so she could see the cover. “Asimov’s I, Robot. I took it from your bookshelf. Hope you don’t mind. It’s one of my favorites.” He moved his legs to one side on the ottoman in a clear invitation for her to perch there.
Emmie sank down on the low footrest. A faint, warm shock traveled through her when her hip came in contact with his crossed ankles. His toes, those long, strong, elegant rough-hewn toes stroked across her buttocks in what might have been an accidental settling, might have been a caress. Emmie was momentarily diverted, but his expression was so innocent she returned to the subject of the book.
“Mine too. I liked the three laws of robotics. I loved them so much I committed them to memory. ‘One: A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. Two: A robot must obey a human’s orders except where to do so would conflict with the first law. Three: A robot must protect its own existence except where to do so would violate rules one or two.’ In the stories, the robots must make moral choices within a nested hierarchy of values.”
“Unh- unh.” Caleb shook his head. “The robots weren’t acting morally. They’re machines. The three rules were a design function to make them harmless.”
Again, she felt a stroking movement of his toe near the small of her back. This time she caught the playful gleam that accompanied it.
“True. Nevertheless, as the three rules are weighted, they are a perfect, logical encapsulation of Christian ideals
.”
His smile left “interested” and shaded into “indulgent.” “Do you think anyone lives by them?”
“My parents do. The first law of robotics summarizes the commandment to love one another and the Golden Rule. The second rule is about service. My parents’ life purpose is to serve, and their obedience is to the laws of God.”
“What happens when Biblical commandments conflict with the first law? The Old Testament requires the faithful to stone people for everything from wearing the wrong clothes to sassing their mama.”
“Right. Deuteronomy 22:5 and Exodus 21:17-although your translation is extremely loose.” Emmie rolled her eyes. “My parents are Christians, not 4000 BC desert nomads. Christ’s commandment was: ‘love one another.’ It supersedes all the others.”
“How about looking after themselves?”
“They would say self-maintenance is incumbent upon Christians-the body is a temple and all that- but they believe it comes third. The first two are much more important. I think I loved the book because at last I could see the logic on which they based their lives.”
“The logic? Not the faith?”
“Faith didn’t work for me. I hated that they had sent me to live with my grandmother. I knew they loved me, but it was a paradox. If they loved me, why didn’t my happiness matter? If I couldn’t stay with them, why didn’t they come to the States with me?”
“Why did they send you to America?”
“Two people with our mission were kidnapped and held for ransom by terrorists. They were targeted because they were Americans. My parents sent me to live with my grandmother for my safety.
“ I, Robot put the choices they made into a framework I could understand. For my parents, the first law meant they needed to stay and minister, despite possible harm to themselves. However, they could not, through inaction, allow me to come to harm. Anyway, I was a typical self-absorbed teenager. I wanted them to be dedicated to me, not to God.”
Sealed with a promise Page 24
