The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain [11]
Mara’s room was at the end of the hallway, where he had insisted she be placed because the room possessed two huge windows, one of which overlooked the beautiful green courtyard with its white gazebo. He had visited Mara every single day since she’d been moved here nine months earlier—except for the day after he and Joelle had slept together. He couldn’t bring himself to visit Mara that day, to see the innocent wonder in her face and experience her joy at seeing him. He’d been filled with guilt and anguish that he and Joelle had crossed that line. He was disgusted with himself for wanting it to happen, for allowing his heart and body to overrule his mind.
Mara began to make her “happy sounds,” which Joelle affectionately called her puppy squeals, as soon as the three of them stepped into her room, and Liam immediately broke into the upbeat voice he had mastered for these visits.
“Hi, Mara!” he said as he walked toward her bed. He bent over to kiss her on the lips, then lifted Sam and put him on the edge of the bed.
“We should get her up in the chair,” Sheila said, but an aide passing by in the corridor must have overheard her, because she peeked around the doorway.
“She was up for a while this afternoon,” she said. “It’s better if she stays in bed for your visit today.”
Liam was secretly glad. Getting Mara from the bed to the chair was an ordeal, and he felt certain she didn’t like the man-handling it necessitated, because she would lose her smile during the process. Mara could only control her head and her right arm. She couldn’t speak, and her brilliant mind, or at least most of it, was gone.
“Okay,” Liam said. “We’ll let her rest in bed while we’re here.”
Mara’s smile widened, as though she understood him. He still felt love from her. She couldn’t express it except with her smile and her squeals and the light in her eyes when he walked into her room, but he knew it was there, and he felt both honored and burdened by that fact. Not even Sheila, her own mother, could elicit that demonstration of recognition from her. Nor could Joelle, who Mara had known and adored years longer than she’d known Liam. And certainly not Sam. Oh, Mara now recognized Sam and sometimes even seemed to enjoy his company, despite the fact that she’d never cared much for children, but she hadn’t a clue that the little boy was hers. Sometimes Liam found that unbearably painful. He longed to share Sam, his antics and his development, with Mara. With the Mara of the past. His loving, beautiful, fully functioning wife.
They spent half an hour with Mara, telling her about the day, how Sheila had taken Sam to the beach and allowed him to remove his shoes so the waves could tease him with the frigid water, how Liam had handled a difficult case in the E.R. He never talked down to her, and he always hoped that, if he spoke about a case that had a meaty psychological component, he might tap into the part of Mara’s brain that had once come alive with the challenge of helping a deeply troubled patient. Then they focused on Sam, who often grew impatient with the chatter. The little boy needed action. They played huckle-buckle-beanstalk, “hiding” the small pot of silk daisies that ordinarily rested on Mara’s night table in various places around the room. They made sure the daisies were always in plain sight, but it still took Sam minutes to find them each time, and he would let out a yelp and holler, “huh-buh-besawk!” when he did. It made them laugh, made Mara’s smile grow wider, although Liam doubted she understood the game. After the fourth time they hid the flowers, Liam noticed Mara’s eyelids growing heavy and knew she’d had enough of her visitors for today.
“Let’s go,” he said to Sam, lifting him into his arms.
Sam let out a sound of pure desolation, pointing to the daisies as Sheila placed them back on Mara’s night table. “Huh-buh-besawk,” he said, but