in horror the way so many of us look back on medicine from the past. I hope they show me the same mercy I show the doctors of past decades and centuries.”
“I’m sure they will,” she said.
“It’s good to see where we’ve come from. This creepy stuff is living medical history. Someone has to take care of it. It’s all been cataloged. My alma mater is getting it when I’m gone. Unless you want it?” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“No, thank you. I know it was used to help people, but they can have the saws covered in Civil War soldier blood. I’m good.”
“Your loss, kiddo.”
He turned back to his work but stopped and looked over at her with a furrowed brow again. “Didn’t I tell you not to show your face until morning?”
“It’s after midnight,” she said.
“Doesn’t count. There are hotels in Portland, you know. Nice ones.”
“Oh, we got a hotel room. We rented it for an hour.”
He gave her a dirty look. “And this is the girl I want for my monk of a son?”
“I told you not to match make,” she said.
“Can’t help it,” he said as he tossed some more papers in the basket and dropped a match in. “I need something to think about other than my impending demise.”
The papers in the files must have been old because the match caught quickly and fire leapt up. In short order they turned black and gray and shrunk to mere ash.
“You’ll be happy to know then that your son and I are crazy about each other. And I have a pretty good feeling a certain monastery is going to be short one monk by Christmas.”
“Is that so?” Dr. Capello asked, leaning on the filing cabinet and grinning broadly at her.
“That’s so. We had a long talk tonight.”
“Excellent news.”
“Thought you’d like that,” Allison said.
Dr. Capello looked up at the ceiling and heaved a sigh, his eyes closed. For a moment, it seemed he was a man of prayer expressing intense gratitude and relief. She forgave him the lie about Oliver. This was a man who wanted nothing but to see his children happy.
“It gives me peace.” He placed his hand over his heart and patted it twice. “A lot of peace.”
“Good,” she said. “It’s making me a nervous wreck but as long as you’re happy...”
He laughed. “You’ll be sticking around then? Even after I kick the bucket.”
“Oh, can we not talk about that, please?”
“Let’s say I get hit by a bus tomorrow and that’s what does me in. Would you, even when I’m a greasy spot under a bus wheel, stick around here?”
Allison exhaled heavily. Fair question.
“Probably,” she said. “For a little while, anyway. All my stuff’s back at my apartment, and I’ve got no idea what I’d do out here, but maybe I could find a job in Astoria or Clark Beach. Know anyone who needs a professional poetry reciter?”
He grinned at her. “I have a better idea. Come down to my room with me.”
“You’re done playing with matches?”
“All done,” he said as he dumped a bottle of water into the wastepaper basket to extinguish every last spark of flame. “I want to show you something.”
Allison waited for Dr. Capello to go down the stairs but he waved her down first.
“Go slow,” he said. “These old legs are getting weaker by the minute.”
She went as slow as she could, step by step, Dr. Capello right behind her in case he stumbled, his hand on her shoulder to steady himself. At least his grip was still good and strong. The Man of Steel wasn’t done for yet.
They went into his bedroom. Dr. Capello paused in the center of the plaid rug and tugged the hairs of his beard.
“Now, where’d that laptop of mine go...” he said.
She saw it. It stuck out from under a throw pillow on his bed. He sat in the armchair and she gave him his computer.
“What are you going to show me?” she asked.
“Hold your horses, I’m pulling it up. There.” He turned the laptop around and showed her a photograph on the screen. “Like it?” he asked, smiling like a child.
It was a gray shingle building, one-story with a wide, white front porch and a picture window painted with the words Clark Beach Books.
“It’s a bookstore,” she said. “I like it already.”
“You want it?”
Allison’s eyes went wide.
“What?”
“Would you like to own a bookstore in Clark Beach?”
Allison stared at him. “Is this a trick question?”
“No. Especially since I already know the answer. The owners were planning to sell and retire in four years. They’ll happily get out a little early for the right price. I can give them the right price.”
“You can give them the right price,” she said, her voice dull to her own ears. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I bought Deacon and Thora The Glass Dragon. And Roland’s inheriting this house. Gotta give you a building, too. Fair is fair.”
“Not fair,” she said, waving her hand. “Deacon and Thora and Roland are your children.”
“And you were my child for over four years.”
“Yes, thirteen years ago.”
“And now you’re back, doll. And you’re going to stay here with my son. And if you’re going to stay here with my son, I want you to have a job that gives you as much joy and satisfaction as my work gave me—as you kids gave me. You told Deacon owning a bookstore in a little town like Clark Beach is your dream? Well, here you go, dream come true.”
He nudged the laptop forward, and Allison stared long and hard at the photograph. It was a beautiful little building. It even had a porch swing where people could sit and read in good weather. She had that fifty thousand dollars from McQueen burning a hole in her suitcase. That would be enough to live on while she got the bookstore up and running.
“You can change the name,” Dr. Capello said. “Anything you like. Allison’s Books. Oceanside Bookstore.”
“Pandora’s Books,” Allison said.
Dr. Capello nodded his approval. “It’s two blocks from the ocean,” he said. “And right next to an ice-cream shop.”
“You’re trying to seduce me.”
“It’s working, isn’t it?”
“This has to be insanely expensive,” she said.
“I can afford it. And it’s not like I need money where I’m going.”
“Your kids may need it.” The upkeep on The Dragon alone would be a huge figure.
“Yes, and you’re one of my kids,” Dr. Capello said. He leaned forward and took her hand in his and held it gently. “Let me do this for you. If it hadn’t been for my negligence, you would never have had to leave. Let me make it up to you. And on top of that—for years I’ve been nursing a broken heart over my son joining the monastery instead of finding a nice girl. All I ever wanted for him was to find someone to love him, someone he can love and have a normal, happy life with. You’ve made a dream of mine come true. Let me return the favor.”
She was tempted to say yes right then and there. So tempted. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Not yet. Not without talking to Roland first. Allison would never forgive herself for taking financial advantage of an ill and elderly man, no matter how lucid he might seem.
“Can I think about it?” she asked.
“You can, but don’t take too long. I don’t have much more time. I’d like to see you settled here and happy before I move along.”
She looked at him and he shrugged.
“No use pretending.”
“Whatever I decide,” she said, “thank you. This is the kindest thing anyone has ever offered to do for me.”
“The kindest thing you could do for me is accept it.”
“I’ll get back to you about it quickly,” she pledged. “I... It’s just a lot to think about, never going back to Kentucky, owning my own small business.”
/>
“No denying it’ll be work. But maybe you can talk a certain ex-monk we know into helping out. He’s great at heavy lifting.”
Allison came off the bed and wrapped her arms around Dr. Capello’s thin shoulders and held him for a good long time.
“Thank you, Dad.”
“My pleasure, doll face. Now you get to bed, and I’ll get to bed.”
“Great idea.” She helped him to his feet and made sure he was comfortably situated before she turned off the light and left him alone in his room. When she emerged into the hallway, she saw she’d left the attic light on. A moment’s paranoia sent her heading back up the stairs to double check that Dr. Capello’s trash fire had gone out completely. He knew what he was doing apparently, because the fire was dead, completely, though a light smoky smell remained in the room. Out of curiosity, Allison opened the top filing cabinet drawer. The key was in the drawer lock, but now that the drawers were empty, Dr. Capello hadn’t locked it up. There was nothing left in it at all but empty hanging folders. She flipped through them and found nothing. Not until she came to a file folder near the very back. Dr. Capello had missed one small scrap of paper stuck to the bottom of the file. In plain type at the top of the page was written “Pre-Op Instructions.” Underneath in Dr. Capello’s slanted and angular handwriting were words Allison found legible and yet utterly incomprehensible.
Operation: Partial hippocampectomy.
Patient: Larsen, Roland J., age 8
Date: 8-8-93
Time: 7:00 a.m.
Anesthesia: General.
They were medical notes to an anesthesiologist named Dr. Penn about an upcoming operation. An operation on an eight-year-old boy named Roland J. Larsen. An eight-year-old boy named Roland J. Larsen in the year 1993. Which meant that eight-year-old boy named Roland J. Larsen was now thirty years old.
Dr. Capello had operated on Roland. Her Roland. It had to be him, didn’t it? It’s not as if “Roland” was a very common name. It wasn’t a huge surprise to her that Dr. Capello had operated on him. He’d operated on Deacon and Thora and Oliver. But why wouldn’t Roland tell her he’d been operated on? And what was the operation for? There was medical jargon at the bottom of the page that was beyond her. Dr. Capello could translate it for her but he’d been burning these records. He wouldn’t be pleased if she admitted to nosing through them. And if Roland had wanted her to know, wouldn’t he have told her already?
Too many secrets in this house.
So many they were starting to feel like...
Lies.
Chapter 22
The bed was empty when Allison woke up the next morning. Try as she might to wake up before Roland, he was still on monastery time and always got out of bed at five in the morning.
But that was fine by her, as she didn’t know what to say to him yet. There was a note on the pillow that said, You forgot to wake me up, sleepyhead. Tonight. Love, Roland.
She would have smiled if she could have but she didn’t have it in her. There were too many unknowns now. Too many secrets. She wasn’t going to be able to rest easy until she had a few more answers to her too many questions.
It was late enough in the morning that Allison had a good feeling Deacon and Thora had already gone to The Glass Dragon, but not so late that Roland and Dr. Capello would be downstairs yet. If she could time it just right, she could leave the house without having to answer any awkward questions about where she was going.
She dressed in her leggings and boots, her wraparound sweater and jacket, and without stopping in the kitchen for breakfast or coffee, she walked out the front door.
Once in her car, she took off, driving up the hill to the highway. Immediately her phone began to buzz. She ignored it until she reached the first scenic viewpoint area and pulled in and parked.
Where are you going? You disappeared.
He must’ve heard her car tires on the gravel when she left. Of course he’d wondered where she’d run off to. Allison thought fast and replied a few seconds later.
Your father offered to buy me a bookstore in Clark Beach. I need to think about this, go see the place.
Thank God it was just a text message. She wasn’t sure she could pull off a lie like that face-to-face. It seemed Roland bought it.
Why am I not surprised he wants to buy you a bookstore? I love that crazy old man. Have fun in CB. Call me if you need to talk about it. Bring me back ice cream! Pralines and cream or chocolate, not picky. Just nothing mint.
Allison sighed with relief that he hadn’t called her bluff.
Mint, it is, then. See you tonight.
Roland replied with a heart. She replied with a heart in return and hated herself for the deception. No mint, he said, like nothing was happening and nothing was wrong. She wanted to believe that. She truly did. Roland was wonderful, handsome, funny, sexy, kind. She didn’t have to nag him to do the bare minimum of decent behavior like she had to with McQueen. Roland just did it on his own, without prompting. He left his life at the monastery to take care of his father. He’d been nothing but understanding with her about McQueen. He’d gone with her to Vancouver on her wild-goose chase to find out if Oliver had been the one to push her or prank-call her aunt. Roland cooked her breakfast. He made her coffee. He made her happy when, by all accounts, she should be miserable and heartbroken after the end of a consuming six-year relationship. Back home he was alone with Dr. Capello helping him bathe and dress and eat and make it through one more hard day without thinking too much about how the days left could probably be counted on two hands. Roland wasn’t just nice, he was good. He was a good man. But she couldn’t let her feelings for him cloud her judgment. McQueen had warned her where there was smoke there was fire. And she’d seen the fire herself last night in the attic. Nothing left to do but search out the source of the flame.
Maybe—she hoped and prayed—there was a perfectly good explanation for why Roland hadn’t told her he’d been a patient of Dr. Capello’s. Maybe. But she wasn’t going to wait around for him to volunteer any information. She would find it out for herself if she could.
And that meant seeing Kendra.
Roland had said she lived in Olympia, Washington. It was a heck of a drive, but she could do it in one day if she didn’t dally. And she was in no mood to dally. She gave the ocean and the beach below the scenic viewpoint the most cursory of glances before getting back onto the highway. The ocean would wait. Her questions could not.
She thought of nothing but those questions during the three-hour drive to Olympia. McQueen had confirmed Kendra’s address, and she headed straight there, not even bothering to stop for breakfast. The thought of Roland, her Roland, lying to her had killed her appetite. She had no idea how she was going to face him tonight when she came back to The Dragon. If she went back. Depending on what Kendra revealed today, there was a good chance Allison wouldn’t be going home. She’d even brought the money McQueen had given her just in case she decided to run for it.
She was too nervous to call before showing up at Kendra’s house, so Allison prayed that she would be there when she arrived. Sure enough, when Allison found the house in the Olympia suburbs, a little red Mazda that looked about Allison’s age sat in the driveway. A light was on in the window. Kendra seemed to be home.
Allison took a few steadying breaths after parking her car. She hated bothering people. Hated it. But, she told herself two and then three times, Kendra had been her sister. They’d bonded over books, with Kendra nearly as much of a reader as Allison. Kendra had even let Allison read the books that she’d been assigned for school. Kendra had been a sophomore when Allison had been in the seventh grade. Allison was supposed to read stuff like The Call of the Wild by Jack London—yawn—while Kendra got to read exciting writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Toni Morrison. And they had something else in common now, too. They’d both been with Roland. The only two women on earth who could make that claim.
Unless he’d lied about that, too.
Allison got ou
t of her car.
She walked to the front door of the little brick bungalow and rang the doorbell. It was a cute house with everything in good repair. The paint was new. The lawn was well-maintained. Not surprising. Unlike the rest of the kids, Kendra had always made her bed without prompting from Dr. Capello. She’d said made beds just looked prettier. Allison stiffened in nervousness as she heard