The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain [109]
“The perennials?” Mary asked.
Carlynn nodded. “I realized this was probably the last year I’d ever see them.”
“Oh, Carlynn.” Mary gently touched her shoulder.
“Don’t feel bad,” Carlynn said. “I don’t. But it was just a shock to realize that. I wish I’d paid better attention to them over the summer.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. “I know Alan’s worried about you,” Mary said finally. “He doesn’t think you should be going to that nursing home, seeing that brain-damaged girl.”
“Well, he’s wrong about that,” Carlynn said.
“How is she doing? The girl with the brain damage?”
Carlynn smiled to herself. “She’s at peace,” she said. “Smiles all the time. She’s not the one who needs healing.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Joelle and Liam who need to be healed, though they don’t realize it yet.”
“Who’s Liam?” Mary asked.
Carlynn watched a pelican fly through her cypress-framed view of the ocean. “He’s a man whose forgotten how to make music in his life,” she said. “And he’s also the man Joelle is in love with.” She looked squarely at Mary. “And he’s the husband of Mara, the brain-damaged woman.”
“Oh,” Mary said with a knowing nod, and Carlynn heard the understanding in that simple word. Mary knew all about forbidden love, love that must remain hidden.
Just as she did.
29
San Francisco, 1962
CARLYNN STEPPED INTO THE HOSPITAL ROOM, WHERE THE LITTLE boy lay in the bed nearest the window. The room was dark, except for a low-wattage lamp on the boy’s night table, and his mother sat in a chair near his bed. Carlynn did not know this child or his mother, but she’d received a call early that morning from the doctor treating the seven-year-old boy, asking for a consult. Carlynn had a reputation as a gifted pediatrician. No one, save Alan, understood the depth of that gift, but she was called on regularly by her colleagues to see their patients who were difficult to diagnose and harder still to treat.
She and Alan shared a practice in their office on Sutter Street, where Carlynn specialized in children, while Alan saw adults. There was crossover, of course. A great deal of it, actually, because Alan often called her in to “meet” one of his patients, in the hope that such a meeting would lead him to a better course of treatment through Carlynn’s intuitive sense of the patient. It was gratifying work, something she seemed born to do. Still, she was not completely happy. All day, every day, she treated the children of other people, when what she longed for was a child of her own.
A year ago, Alan had learned he was sterile. They would never be able to have children unless they adopted, and neither of them was ready or willing to take that step. Carlynn had wondered briefly if she might be able to use her healing skills to make Alan fertile again, but she didn’t want to subject him to being a guinea pig, and he did not offer.
The news that they would remain childless had thrown Carlynn into a mild depression, which she’d attempted to mask so that Alan would feel no worse than he already did. What kept her going, what still brought her joy, was her continued fascination with the nature of her gift. She spent her days pouring her energy into her patients, but at night she was exhausted and often went to bed early, and she knew that Alan worried about her.
“Mrs. Rozak?” Carlynn spoke softly to the woman in the little boy’s room.
“Yes.” The woman stood up to greet her.
“I’m Dr. Shire,” Carlynn said. “Dr. Zieman asked me to see your son.”
“I didn’t expect a woman,” Mrs. Rozak said, obviously disappointed.
“No, I’m often a surprise.” Carlynn smiled.
“Isn’t there another Dr. Shire? A man?”
“That’s my husband,” Carlynn said. “But he treats adults. I’m the pediatrician in the family.”
“Well…” The woman looked at her son, whose eyes were open, but who had not moved or made a sound since Carlynn had walked into the room. “Dr. Zieman said that if anyone could help him, you could.” She spoke in a near whisper, as though not wanting her child to hear her. Her small gray eyes were wet, her face