The Shadow Wife

  His words made her wonder if perhaps Carlynn had sent him here to do her bidding for her.

  Alan Shire shook her hand again, bowing slightly. “I’m very grateful to you for being so understanding.”

  “No problem,” Joelle said. “Thank you for coming in.”

  She led him back to the reception office, where Liam was collecting his mail from the wooden mailboxes on the wall. She pointed Dr. Shire in the direction of the elevators, then checked her own mailbox, although she had already emptied it earlier.

  “How’s your day going?” she asked Liam.

  “Good,” he said, barely glancing in her direction as he sorted through the mail in his hands. “Yours?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “That’s good.” He turned and headed out the door into the hall.

  Walking toward her office, she bit back tears over the emptiness of the perfunctory exchange. No smile from Liam. No “Let’s get a cup of coffee on our break.” Nothing. She had truly lost him.

  The only part of him she had left was growing inside her.

  12

  San Francisco, 1956

  LISBETH TURNED OFF THE DICTAPHONE AND PULLED THE TWO sheets of white paper, along with the carbon paper, from the typewriter. Opening the medical chart on her desk, she carefully attached the typed report to the prongs at the top of the manila folder, tossed the overused piece of carbon paper in the trash can, then filed the copy of the medical report in the four-drawer gray metal filing cabinet on the other side of the room.

  At the sound of the tinkling bell hanging from the front door, she looked across the counter between her small office and the waiting area to see a young mother walk into the room, her six-or seven-year-old son at her side.

  Lisbeth glanced quickly at the appointment book, then looked up as the woman approached the counter.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Hesky,” she said. “And good morning, Richard. How are the two of you today?”

  “We’re fine,” the woman said. “Just here for Richie’s booster shot.”

  “Ah, yes.” Lisbeth could see by the stark white, unsmiling expression on Richard’s face that he was not looking forward to getting a shot. That was the only thing she disliked about working in a pediatrician’s office—it was filled with scared little children. Lloyd Peterson was known as one of the kindest pediatricians in all of San Francisco, but that made little difference when he had a syringe in his hand.

  “Have a seat,” Lisbeth said. “Dr. Peterson will be with you in a moment.”

  She moved Richard Hesky’s folder from her desk to the table near her office door, where Lloyd would know to look for it, then began to file the stack of folders he’d left her from the day before.

  This office was very much hers. Lisbeth had been working for Lloyd Peterson for six years, ever since her graduation from secretarial school, and his office had been in complete disarray when she’d arrived. His previous secretary had been eighty years old at the time of her retirement, and she must have had failing vision, because the charts were misfiled and there was simply no system to the running of the office. Lisbeth had relished the challenge of bringing order to the place, and Dr. Peterson often told her he couldn’t do without her.

  She loved working in a medical office. She had no fear of blood or broken bones or germs, only a fascination for the miracles modern medicine could perform. Like the new polio vaccine. Yes, the shots hurt and the children cried, but, oh, what lifesavers they were! She was always picking Dr. Peterson’s brain about the various medical conditions of his patients.

  She looked over the counter to the waiting room, where Mrs. Hesky was engrossed in a magazine. Richard was ignoring the toys in the play area as he sat in a chair next to his mother, swinging his legs in an anxious rhythm, and Lisbeth could almost feel his fear from her desk.

  “Richard,” Lisbeth said, and he looked over at her. “Come here for a minute, please.”

  The little boy glanced at his mother, then walked very slowly toward the counter. Lisbeth leaned toward him, as though telling him a secret.

  “There’s a trick to making a shot barely hurt at all,” she said. “Want to hear it?”

  He nodded, his brown eyes huge.

  “Wiggle your toes when you’re getting it,” she said.

  “Wiggle my toes?” There was the hint of a smile on his face.

  “Yes, absolutely.” She nodded. “Now, it’s hard to wiggle your toes when you have your shoes on, so tell Dr. Peterson you have to take your shoes off first, okay?”

  “Does it really work?” He looked so hopeful, Lisbeth wanted to reach across the counter to hold his little face in her hands and give him a kiss on the forehead.

  “I promise,” she said. “But you have to wiggle them hard.”

  “Okay.” He nodded conspiratorially, then trotted back to the seat next to his mother. The wiggling would work, she knew as she returned to her filing. The children focused so hard on moving their toes that the shot was given before they even realized what was happening. Dr. Peterson thought she was a genius for coming up with the technique.

  The real medical genius in the Kling family, though, was Carlynn. She was in her fourth year of medical school at the University of California, spending almost all her time this year at San Francisco General Hospital, a few blocks from Dr. Peterson’s office. Lisbeth had wanted to go to medical school—or at least to nursing school—herself, but she’d panicked at the thought of college, fearful that she would not get in, or once in, that she would not be able to keep up. She felt angry at herself for not working harder throughout her school years, and she was angry at her parents for providing her with what she had long ago realized was the lesser education. Sometimes she was angry at Carlynn, as well, although she knew the situation was not truly her twin’s fault.

  So, she’d opted for secretarial school instead, hoping to work in a medical setting. She did not regret her choice; there was no one better at whipping an office into shape, and for the first time in her life she felt valuable. She was full of innovative ideas to make Dr. Peterson’s office run smoothly, and was often asked by other physicians to train their secretaries and receptionists in some of the methods she used.

  She had followed Carlynn to San Francisco, although not without her sister’s encouragement. Carlynn may have been smarter, more beautiful and better educated, but she was still Lisbeth’s twin, and the love between the two of them, though sometimes tinged with resentment or annoyance, was strong. They met at least once a week for lunch, and occasionally saw each other on the weekends, although this year Carlynn’s free time outside the hospital was quite limited.

  Carlynn had told her she’d have time for lunch today, though, and Lisbeth was supposed to meet her at noon at a delicatessen halfway between the hospital and Dr. Peterson’s office. It was now eleven, and although she was looking forward to the time with her sister, she wished Gabriel would hurry up and call. What if he called at ten to twelve? Then she’d only have a minute to talk to him before turning the call over to Dr. Peterson.

  Gabriel Johnson was Dr. Peterson’s tennis partner. He usually called Dr. Peterson on Tuesdays and Thursdays to make sure their schedules would allow them to meet on the doctor’s private tennis court for a game after work. Of course, Lisbeth was always the one to answer the phone, and lately, Gabriel had been keeping her on the phone for a while. One time, for thirty minutes! He asked her questions about herself and seemed genuinely interested in her answers. He told her he’d heard about her reputation as an “office manager,” and she’d loved that he used that term instead of “secretary.” She was so much more than a secretary, and he seemed to know that. Although she’d never met him, sometime in the last few months she’d started fantasizing about him, wondering what he looked like. She pictured him looking like Rock Hudson, although his voice was deeper. Or maybe he was blond, like James Dean, his hair sun-streaked from the tennis courts.

  The last time he called, Gabriel had asked her
if she played tennis.

  She’d looked down at her lap, where her white uniform stretched across her soft thighs. “No,” she’d said. “I did when I was a child, but not in years.”

  “I’ll have to get you out there someday,” he said. That was the closest he’d come to actually suggesting a date between the two of them, and it both elated and troubled her. How could she ever let him see her?

  “Maybe,” she’d said.

  “What do you like to do for fun?” he asked.

  I eat. That would be the honest answer.

  “Oh, I like the water,” she said. “I used to like to sail.” She hadn’t sailed since that fateful day with her father, but it was something she missed.

  “Aha!” Gabriel said. “Did Lloyd mention that I have a sailboat?”

  She was embarrassed. She did recall Dr. Peterson mentioning that fact, perhaps as long as a year ago. Would Gabriel think she was hinting at a commonality between them? She would never know, because right at that moment Dr. Peterson had walked into her office, and she’d had no choice but to turn Gabriel over to him, saving her answer to his question for the next time he called.

  Now Dr. Peterson stepped into her office again and picked up Richie Hesky’s chart.

  “Let him take off his shoes,” Lisbeth whispered to him, and Lloyd Peterson smiled his understanding at her. “Are you playing tennis tonight?” she asked, trying to sound casual, hoping it was not obvious to him that she was yearning for Gabriel to call.

  “Not tonight,” he said, leafing through Richie’s chart. “Gabe’s tied up in meetings.” He poked his head around the corner of her office into the waiting room.

  “Richard? Come with me, son.”

  Well, darn. No chance to talk to Gabriel today. She was being ridiculous, anyway; she was hardly in his league. Gabriel was the chief accountant at San Francisco General. He was certainly older than she was, maybe by many years. And the truth was, if she had an opportunity to meet the man, she would turn it down. That meeting, she knew, would put an end to their long phone conversations.

  At twenty-six years of age, Lisbeth weighed two hundred pounds. Although she had a few girlfriends who worked for other doctors in the area, she still found most of her solace in food. She’d given up trying to emulate Carlynn’s style of dress, and she wore her short blond hair in petal curls she set with bobby pins every night before going to bed.

  Carlynn, on the other hand, was the same one hundred and fifteen pounds she’d been when she graduated from high school, and just last week she’d started wearing her long hair in a new do called a French twist, which she said kept it out of her way when she was working. She looked, Lisbeth thought, sophisticated and beautiful, and there were times, mostly in private, when Lisbeth had difficulty keeping her jealousy of her sister in check.

  At eleven forty-five, Lisbeth left the office and walked the few blocks to the deli where she was to meet Carlynn. She was first to arrive, as usual, and as she carried two ham and cheese sandwiches from the deli counter to one of the small tables by the window, she hoped her sister would show up. Carlynn’s hospital schedule was not often predictable, and on a couple of occasions Lisbeth had watched the hands on the clock above the deli counter tick by as she gave up on her sister and ate lunch alone.

  Today, though, Carlynn arrived at ten after twelve, and she was breathless, probably having run from the hospital.

  She kissed Lisbeth’s cheek, then took a seat across the table from her.

  “I talked to Mother last night,” Carlynn said, pulling one of the sandwiches to her side of the table.

  “Is her eyesight any better?” Lisbeth asked.

  “She said it’s still fuzzy. I gave her the name of a doctor to see in Monterey. I wish I could be there to go with her, but I really can’t get away.”

  Delora had been complaining about problems with her vision, asking Carlynn to come home and “heal” her. Carlynn didn’t have time to breathe, much less make the trip to Cypress Point, but Lisbeth supposed it was only a matter of time before her twin would go, and she would have to decide if she wanted to accompany her or not.

  Lisbeth always had mixed feelings about going home and rarely dared to go alone, needing Carlynn to serve as a buffer between Delora and herself. Delora would always shake her head in disgust as soon as Lisbeth walked in the front door of the mansion, and she’d badger her constantly about her weight, insulting her in front of the servants and anyone else who happened to be present. Lisbeth usually brought hidden food home with her because she didn’t dare eat as much as she wanted to at mealtimes, when Delora watched her every mouthful from across the table.

  Yet there was nowhere in the world that stirred Lisbeth’s heart more than the setting of her childhood home. In spite of the strong pickle-and-coleslaw smell of the delicatessen, it took her only a second to conjure up the scent of the sea and the cypress trees and the way the air felt when a blanket of fog rolled over the house. Cypress Point was as familiar to her as her own face—and far better loved. She knew she would accompany Carlynn if she decided to go home. Spending a few days at Cypress Point was worth any humiliation her mother might dish out.

  “So.” Carlynn swallowed a bite of her sandwich and smiled at her. “How are you? You’re hair looks pretty.”

  “Thanks,” Lisbeth said, touching the waves, wondering if they looked any different today to elicit Carlynn’s comment, but guessing that her sister was just being nice. “I’m fine. I’m reading Peyton Place. Have you read it?”

  Carlynn shook her head. “I wish I had time to read something other than medical journals,” she said. “I’m swamped. Penny Everett was in town the other day and I couldn’t even make time to see her.”

  “What’s she doing these days?” Lisbeth remembered Penny primarily from the night ten years ago, when she’d fallen off the terrace at Cypress Point while necking with her boyfriend. Carlynn, though, had kept in touch with her old friend.

  “She’s living in Chicago, singing with a choral group that does classical music. Oh!” She interrupted herself, setting her sandwich on the plate and picking up her purse. “Before I forget,” she said, drawing her wallet from the purse. “Let me pay you for my sandwich. I got a check from Mother, so I can give you some money.”

  Delora sent regular checks to Carlynn, but none to Lisbeth, saying that Lisbeth was on her own since she had elected not to go to college. She had paid for Lisbeth’s secretarial school, but the money for her had stopped the moment she’d graduated. Delora, however, still sent Carlynn far more than she needed for her school and living expenses, and Carlynn insisted on giving her a portion of it. Lisbeth had long ago stopped arguing about it. She needed the money and figured she deserved it just as much as Carlynn did.

  “Thank you.” She accepted the bills from Carlynn and slipped them into her own purse.

  “Did the man call today?” Carlynn asked. “Dr. Peterson’s tennis partner?”

  Lisbeth shook her head, her cheeks turning pink. She’d told Carlynn about Gabriel’s phone calls, nearly every word of them. But she had not told her his name or that he worked at SF General. Carlynn might try to get a look at him then, and Lisbeth didn’t want to hear that he chewed his nails at his desk or was only five feet tall. She preferred her fantasies to reality.

  “No, he didn’t,” she said with a scowl. “They’re not playing tonight, so I probably won’t get to talk to him until Tuesday.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Carlynn said. Despite her beauty, Carlynn had no more dates than Lisbeth, and she didn’t even have the time for fantasies. She was married to medical school.

  Lisbeth would have liked to talk more about Gabriel, but Carlynn suddenly set down her sandwich and turned to look out the window, letting out a great sigh.

  “I don’t think I can eat,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?” Lisbeth asked.

  Carlynn returned her gaze to her sister, the gleam of tears in her eyes. “Oh, this little girl
at the hospital.”

  Lisbeth could have guessed. Carlynn was way too soft. “Carly, honey, you’re not going to survive being a doctor if every patient upsets you so much,” she said.

  “I know, I know. And it’s getting harder every day.” She leaned across the table as though someone might overhear her. “The more I get to actually work with patients, the harder it is for me not to…you know…help them in my own way.”

  Lisbeth knew her sister had been careful to keep her gift under wraps at the hospital. She didn’t want to be seen as different or better than the other students, and she certainly didn’t want to be thought of as crazy.

  “What’s wrong with the little girl?” Lisbeth asked.

  “She has a very serious case of pneumonia, probably fatal because it’s complicated by a congenital deformity of her lungs.” Carlynn looked down at her sandwich, her nose wrinkled. “She’s eight, and she’s dying. We visit her on rounds every day, and one or two of us listen to her lungs and talk about her as though she wasn’t there, and just watch her die.” Carlynn looked pained, and Lisbeth wondered, as she had a number of times before, if being a doctor was going to take too much out of her sister.

  “And you think you can help?” Lisbeth asked.

  “I think I should at least try. But I don’t dare. I’ve thought of sneaking into her room at night, but if I got caught I’d have a hard time explaining what I was doing there. She’s still conscious and able to talk. She’d tell someone I’d been there.”

  Lisbeth knew that Carlynn had, on a few occasions, been able to spend enough time with a patient to touch him, or, as she would say, to “send her energy coursing through his body,” but she’d done it quietly, surreptitiously, and only with unconscious patients. She’d told Lisbeth about overhearing a few of her fellow students talk about how strange she was, and Lisbeth knew she was terrified of fueling that assessment of her.