The Shadow Wife

  Liam and Mara had thanked her over and over again once they realized her role in bringing them together. They’d never stopped thanking her.

  “I’m telling you way too much,” Joelle said.

  “No, honey, you’re not.” Carlynn moved a bit closer and took her hands, holding them on her knees. The older woman’s hands were delicate and bony, with a yellowish cast to the dry, warm skin. “Tell me about their wedding,” she said.

  “Well,” Joelle said, feeling only a bit awkward with the new intimacy between herself and the healer. “They were married a couple of years later, on the beach at Asilomar. I was their matron of honor.” She recalled her happiness at seeing her two friends together, a happiness that was tinged with envy because she knew she and Rusty would never have the sort of relationship Mara and Liam enjoyed. “They started playing together at clubs then. They called themselves Sommers and Steele, and they had a real following.”

  Occasionally, she would be in the audience at a club where they were performing, and they would play the song they’d written for her—a funny, poignant song of teasing gratitude for fixing them up—that would make her blush and the audience laugh.

  “Mara didn’t want to have children, as I mentioned. It was the one thing we were always in disagreement about, because I wanted children so badly and Rusty and I couldn’t seem to get pregnant.” For a moment, the sense of fullness in her belly teased her, but she tried to ignore it. “Mara was afraid. I mean deeply afraid. She had dreams that things would go wrong if she got pregnant or that she’d inadvertently harm her baby because she couldn’t take good care of it. Her work focused on everything that could go wrong with pregnancy and childbirth. Day in, day out, that’s what she dealt with, so naturally, that affected her. Plus—” Joelle looked through the arched window at the cypress trees “—she really wasn’t crazy about kids to begin with. We’d be someplace, the mall or somewhere, and I’d be oohing and aahing over a toddler or a baby, and she’d look right through them. If you talked to her about her goals, they would all be oriented toward her career. But Liam wanted children, and I know it was a source of tension between them, because I’d get dragged into it from time to time.” She looked apologetically at Carlynn. “I’m really rambling,” she said.

  “That’s good.” Carlynn gave her hands a squeeze. “Keep on rambling.”

  Carlynn might not be able to heal anyone, Joelle thought, but she certainly had the patience of a saint.

  “I saw Mara socially,” she continued, “even after she was married. We still got together a couple of times a week. We took an aerobics class, and later on, yoga. We went out to dinner or lunch, and I would hear her side of the having-children issue, her fears and concerns. Then at work, Liam would tell me how much he longed for a child. I have to admit, I could relate to Liam’s longing more than I could to Mara’s fear, although I certainly understood it, given the work she did.”

  Joelle stopped talking for a moment, looking out the arched window again, where the old gardener was sweeping the terrace.

  “I think,” she said finally, “that I pushed her too hard.” She looked at Carlynn. “I’m afraid I talked her into it. To getting pregnant.”

  “It’s not talking that gets one pregnant,” Carlynn said with a smile.

  “But I kept telling her that everything would be all right. That she could go to Rebecca Reed, the best OB in town, and that she would love her own child, even if she’d never cared about other peoples’ children. Liam and I both pushed her. And she loved Liam so much…” Her voice cracked, but she got control of herself quickly. “She wanted to please him. So she finally got pregnant, and her pregnancy turned out to be really easy, and I think she was actually starting to look forward to the baby. And, partly because I work in the maternity unit, and partly because I was a very close friend to both of them, they invited me to be in the delivery room with them when the baby was born. They were going to be in the family birthing room, which is a very homey environment.”

  Carlynn nodded.

  “Everything was fine at first. But as things progressed, Mara suddenly started screaming that her head hurt. She was grabbing her head.” Joelle’s tears started again at the horrific memory, and she removed one of her hands from Carlynn’s to pull another tissue from the box. “It was terrible,” she said, not bothering to raise the tissue to her eyes. “She had a convulsion, and then she was unconscious. Liam and I didn’t know what was going on. They rushed her into the operating room and performed a C-section, then they took her upstairs to X ray to get an MRI or a CAT scan, I don’t remember which. We were hoping, Liam and I, that she had just passed out from the pain, but deep down we knew it was something more. Something terrible. I think we both knew that Mara’s worst fears were coming true.”

  “How terrible for all of you.” Carlynn clutched her hand, her smile completely gone.

  “I feel guilty,” Joelle said. “And Liam feels even worse. He’s lost a wife, her son has no mother. I’ve lost my dearest friend, and her patients have lost their doctor. One of them committed suicide when she learned that Mara was never coming back to her practice.”

  “Were you ever able to get pregnant yourself?” Carlynn asked. “Do you have children?”

  Joelle shook her head. “No, and it finally split my husband and me up. We were divorced two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carlynn said.

  Joelle waved away her sympathy with her free hand. “We were never a good match,” she said. “The infertility just brought us to the end of our marriage sooner than we would have reached it otherwise, but I don’t think children would have saved our marriage.”

  “And do you have a boyfriend now?”

  The question seemed far off the subject, but she shook her head, anyway. “No.” She smiled weakly. “I’m just taking things one day at a time.”

  “And now Mara is…what sort of condition is she in?” Carlynn asked.

  “She’s in a nursing home because they gave up on her in rehab. She can’t do anything, really, and they never expect her to be able to. She can use one arm and move her head, but that’s about it. The thing is, she smiles a lot. She smiles more than she did when she was…” She almost said alive, but caught herself. “Than she did before. Sometimes, when someone has brain damage, it can cause them to feel unnaturally high—”

  “Euphoric.” Carlynn nodded, and Joelle remembered that she was talking to a doctor.

  “Right. And that’s what’s happened in her case. Which is both a blessing and a curse. At least she’s not suffering. But we want her back. Liam and I. And her little boy, Sam, who is such a doll.” She pressed the tissue to her nose, afraid she was going to start crying once again.

  “I’ll see her,” Carlynn said.

  “You will?” Joelle was surprised. “Thank you!”

  Carlynn squeezed her hand again, then let go and stood up. “I don’t know my schedule yet for the next few weeks, but if you could call me in a couple of days, I should be able to set up a date to see her. And you’ll go with me, of course, all right?”

  “Yes, that would be—”

  They both turned at the sound of footsteps entering the room. A tall, elderly man with a wild shock of white hair stood in the doorway.

  “Hi, dear,” Carlynn said. “Joelle, this is my husband, Alan.” She walked over to the armchair and picked up her cane, then started toward the man.

  Joelle stood up and walked to the doorway to shake Alan Shire’s hand. He was unsmiling, staring at her with frank curiosity. He looked as though he was in his eighties, at least a decade older than Carlynn.

  “Hello,” she said. “I was just about to leave. I came to ask Carlynn if she would see a friend of mine.”

  Alan raised his eyebrows at his wife. “And you said?” he asked her.

  “It’s a very special case,” Carlynn said. “Especially since Joelle was the baby born at that commune down in Big Sur. Remember?”

  He looked at his wife stupid
ly, as though not understanding her words, and his lips were turned down in a scowl. Then he shifted his gaze to Joelle, forcing her to look away in discomfort. He was odd, she thought. Perhaps he suffered from Alzheimer’s. Whatever his problem, he was hardly a good advertisement for Carlynn’s ability to heal someone with brain damage.

  Carlynn walked her out to her car, where she shook Joelle’s hand, pressing it between her own.

  “You call me in a few days, honey,” she said.

  “I will.” Joelle got into her car and turned it around in the wide driveway, catching sight of Alan Shire’s stern face at the front window as she passed. She waved at him, but received no response. Surely he was suffering from dementia. But whatever the cause of his reaction to her visit, she quickly forgot about it as she left the driveway and pulled onto the Seventeen Mile Drive. She could still feel the warmth of Carlynn’s hands.

  11

  THREE DAYS AFTER VISITING THE KLING MANSION, JOELLE SAT in her office writing a report on a patient, keenly aware that on the other side of the thin wall dividing her office from his, Liam was talking on the phone. Although it was difficult to make out exactly what he was saying, it was clear he was arranging home health care for one of his patients. His voice was cordial and calm, not too deep, not too high, and she realized how much she missed hearing him sing. She didn’t think he had picked up his guitar once since Mara’s aneurysm.

  Tonight she planned to call Carlynn Shire to schedule the visit with Mara. She was firm in her decision to keep Liam from learning about the woman’s involvement. He would either scoff at her foolishness or simply forbid her to subject Mara to more unnecessary treatment. She didn’t know which reaction she would get from him, but one thing was certain: he would not think that involving a healer was a good or useful idea. She knew herself that it was impossibly out of character for her to even consider it.

  Carlynn Shire had been charismatic in a quiet, peaceful way. If anyone had told Joelle that she would sit for a half hour or more, holding someone other than a lover’s hands while revealing her feelings, she would have cringed at the thought. Yet having Carlynn hold her hands had been comfortable as well as comforting. Joelle was a trained counselor; she knew all about active listening, and she knew that Carlynn’s attentiveness had gone way beyond the norm, even after Joelle had rambled on far too long. How good it had felt to pour out all of Mara’s story and her involvement in it to another human being! Of course, she had not poured the part that desperately needed pouring. And that she could never do.

  Mara would have been the one person to whom Joelle could have confessed what she’d done. She could have told Mara that she was in love with her best friend’s husband and that she was torn apart with guilt over having slept with him while her friend lay helpless in a nursing home. If Mara were well and could serve once again as Joelle’s confidante—and the husband in question were, of course, not Mara’s—how would she respond to that revelation? What would she say? What guidance would she offer? Mara was big on morals and ethics, but then so was Joelle. She had never done anything so flat out wrong in her life, and the experience was still tangled up in her mind and her heart. How could she regret that night, when they had comforted one another in the deepest way a man and woman could? Yet, if it cost her their friendship, and it certainly seemed to have done that, she would regret it always.

  Lifting her fingers from the keyboard of her computer, she rested her hands on her belly, uncertain if the slight rise of flesh beneath her palms was the growing fetus or the product of not working out. Ten and a half weeks now. Last night, observing her body in a full-length mirror, she’d noticed that the blue-green veins in her belly and breasts were clearly visible beneath the skin, and her waistline was just starting to thicken. How long would it be before people began talking about her behind her back? She could imagine the social work department’s receptionist, Maggie, saying to Liam, “Gee, Joelle’s gettin’ a little chunky, isn’t she?”

  The intercom on her desk buzzed, and she lifted the phone to her ear.

  “There’s a doc here to see you,” Maggie said.

  A doctor? Her first thought was that Rebecca Reed had somehow guessed she was pregnant and wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with her.

  “Who is it?” Joelle asked.

  “Your name again?” Maggie asked, her voice muted a bit, and Joelle couldn’t hear the doctor’s answer. Then the receptionist was back on the line. “Dr. Alan Shire.”

  What was Carlynn Shire’s odd, elderly husband doing here? She remembered him from the other day at the Kling Mansion, when he’d looked at her with a confused disapproval that she’d guessed to be a symptom of dementia. She certainly could not have him come back here to her office, where Liam might be able to overhear their conversation.

  “I’ll be right out,” she said, then hung up the phone and got to her feet.

  Though quite old, Alan Shire was an imposing figure in the small reception area of the social work department. He seemed taller than he had in the high-ceilinged living room of the mansion, his hair looked whiter but less disheveled, and the expression on his face was not one of confusion, but rather of deep and genuine concern. She reached her hand toward him.

  “Nice to see you again, Dr. Shire,” she said. His hand felt large and strong in her own. “We’ll be in the conference room,” she said to Maggie. She led her visitor down the narrow hallway to the comparatively large room at the end, the one room that was truly soundproofed from the rest of the social work office.

  “Please, have a seat.” She motioned to one of the tweed and wood chairs surrounding the long table and sat in the chair adjacent to him. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  He leaned forward in the chair, his long arms resting on the table, the fingertips touching. “I’ve come to appeal to your good judgment as a social worker,” he said.

  She wished he would smile or show some lightness in his face. He had probably been handsome as a young man, although right now he looked worried and tired. In no way, though, did he look confused or slow or demented.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “My wife…Carlynn…is retired,” he said, his blue eyes locked on her face. “She’s done no work for the center for nearly ten years, and it’s been wonderful to see her so relaxed and free.” He did smile a bit now. “She dabbles in the garden. She takes care of the house,” he said. “There’s little for her to worry about. When she was involved with patients, though, she always carried their problems around with her, trying to figure out how to help them. I don’t want to see her in that position again.”

  “I understand,” she said. “But, Dr. Shire, I don’t think I twisted her arm. I simply told her about my friend, and she said she would like to meet her.” She tried to remember their conversation, examining her approach to determine if she had been coercive in any way. Unless tears could be counted as coercion, she could not see that she had.

  “Yes, of course she would say she would help,” he said. “Carlynn’s a very caring person. She doesn’t like to see anyone suffer if she thinks there’s some way she can help. But you have no idea what healing takes out of her. It’s frightening, really. She’s exhausted afterward, sometimes for days. I’m concerned about her.”

  For some reason, she didn’t believe him. There was nothing in his demeanor to suggest he was lying to her—in fact, he seemed nothing if not sincere—yet his words struck her as less than honest. Perhaps it was his own needs that would not be served if Carlynn were to get involved in healing again. Perhaps he had grown tired of sharing her with the rest of the world.

  But then she remembered the cane. The woman’s frailty.

  “Is she ill?” she asked.

  He hesitated a moment before answering. “Yes, she’s quite ill, actually,” he said. “She needs her rest. And I would hate to see her go through that sort of all-consuming exhaustion that results from her healings.”

  “I understand,” Joelle said. She wante
d to ask him what was wrong with Carlynn, but thought better of it. Suddenly, she recalled her parents’ one concern about her contacting the healer: seeing Shanti Joy might trigger unhappy memories of Carlynn’s sister’s death.

  “I was a little worried, anyway,” she said to Alan. “I was afraid that seeing me might remind her of when her sister died, since my birth and her sister’s death both took place in Big Sur, just days apart.”

  He actually lit up, his eyes wide. “Yes.” He nodded. “That’s another concern I have. I didn’t know you knew about her sister, because you were…well—” he grinned, his teeth still white and straight and obviously his own “—just a couple of days old. I don’t know if you realize what a toll that accident took on Carlynn herself, both physically and emotionally.” He licked his dry lips. “I’m just so afraid that—”

  Joelle held up her hands to stop him, knowing now she had no choice but to agree to his wishes. She would have to give up the fantasy of Carlynn healing Mara to save the elderly couple from painful reminders of the past, as well as from an exacerbation of Carlynn’s illness. It shouldn’t be that hard to let go of the idea; only two weeks earlier, she’d scoffed at it. Yet, she felt undeniable despair at losing the hope, no matter how slim it had seemed.

  “I understand,” she said. “I won’t call her. But will you let her know that? That I’ve changed my mind? Or would she be upset that you came here?” She felt as though she was probing a bit too deeply into their relationship.

  “Oh, no, she won’t be upset,” he said, standing up. “I’ll let her know we talked, and you decided against it. She’ll understand. I think she knows that she was promising something she really shouldn’t at this time in her life.”