The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain [83]
Lisbeth caught her eye, giving her the slightest of nods.
“All right, I’m beginning to feel left out here.” Gabriel set down his spoon, but the frustration in his voice had a playful edge to it. “You three are communicating with each other wordlessly, back and forth across this table, and I would love to know what the secret is.”
Carlynn took in a breath. “Can you keep this quiet?” she asked him.
“Of course.”
“I seem to be able to heal people sometimes,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how it happens, but that’s why we’re asking you questions about your great-grandmother. We’re all very interested in the phenomenon.”
“My.” Gabriel looked a bit stunned. “I wasn’t expecting that. Tell me more. How do you do it? Who have you healed?”
The three of them started talking at once, and the conversation lasted into dessert. They speculated about everything. Could his great-grandmother have cured the neighbor of polio without living in his room with him? And what did invoking the name of Jesus have to do with her healing?
“I think it’s all the same thing,” Alan said finally. “Whatever your great-grandmother did and what Carlynn does is connected. It’s not the religiosity involved. But maybe it does have to do with faith. I just don’t know.”
Gabriel looked at Lisbeth. “You must have this ability, too,” he said. “After all, you have the same genetic makeup as your sister. Have you ever tried?”
The color rose to Lisbeth’s cheeks. “I don’t have it,” she said with certainty. “There must be something more than genes at play.”
Gabriel covered her hand with his. “I guess one healer in a family is enough,” he said.
By the time they left the restaurant, Carlynn had the feeling she’d known Gabriel for years instead of hours. He fit in well with the three of them, and his adoration and admiration of Lisbeth was clear.
“Can we give you a lift home, Lisbeth?” Carlynn asked.
“I was hoping to have the honor of driving Lisbeth home,” Gabriel said before Lisbeth could answer.
“I’d like that.” Lisbeth easily put her hand through Gabriel’s arm, and the two of them started walking down the wharf together, and this time Carlynn didn’t even notice that Gabriel’s face was not like any of the others.
21
MIDMORNING FOUND THE WOMEN’S WING BUSTLING WITH activity. Two sets of triplets had been born overnight in addition to twice the usual number of single births, one of them to the wife of a popular local sportscaster. Newspaper reporters and photographers clogged the corridor, where a security guard was doing his best to keep them from disturbing the patients. The nurses were frantic, and extra staff needed to be called in. Although it was nearing the end of July, the weather was still unseasonably hot for Monterey, and the air-conditioning in the Women’s Wing was not working properly. Engineers trying to fix the problem added to the mayhem in the hallway. Some of the rooms were ice-cold, the mothers and babies bundled in blankets. At the other end of the corridor, perspiration dripped from the new mothers’ foreheads as they nursed their nearly naked infants.
Joelle didn’t feel well. She had picked up a stack of twelve referrals from the social work office earlier that morning, and so far had managed to see only one of the patients on her list. That case had required her to make over a dozen phone calls, and as she leafed through the remaining referrals, she hoped the rest of them would not be so labor intensive. She really wanted to go back to her office, put her head on her desk and fall asleep.
For the past couple of days, she’d been having pain low in her belly. It was subtle at first, and she’d mentioned it to Rebecca the day before when they passed each other in the hall. Rebecca said it