The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [8]
The nurse with pale sun hair held her breath during the final moments, then exhaled. Her faultless fece glowed with a beatific smile, acknowledging that once again she had done her job well.
The Seth Thomas wall clock in his living room showed seven thirty when David finished stacking the dishes in the sink and changed into a navy blue sweat suit. He made a deliberate study of his small record collection before selecting Copeland’s Rodeo and then began a series of slow-motion stretching exercises and calisthenics.
The Copeland was a perfect choice, he thought as he dragged a set of weights out from behind the couch. For ten minutes he lifted in various positions and angles, pushing himself harder than usual until the tension of Lauren’s unemotional departure left him.
The weights had come to be as much mental as physical therapy—a morning ritual for almost five years, begun the day David had decided to return to surgery by repeating the last two grueling years of residency. That same day he smoked his last cigarette and ran his first mile. Within a few months he had more than regained the stamina lost during three years away from the operating room.
Glistening from the workout, he grabbed his stopwatch and keys, stuffing them into the pocket of his sweatpants as he stepped out the door.
He bypassed the narrow, rickety elevator in favor of the stairs at the end of the hall. Trotting down four flights and across the dimly lit foyer of the building, he pushed through the front doors and out onto Commonwealth Avenue.
The sunlight hit his eyes like a flashbulb. It was one of those days New Englanders boast about when they tell outsiders that there is nowhere else on earth to live. One of those days that renders February little more than a distant memory, and helps them forget the muddy drizzle of April and the oppressive, steamy heat of mid-August, at least for a while.
Stiffly at first, but with rapidly developing fluidness, he jogged the few blocks toward the esplanade. Elms and oaks flashed by, heavy now with reds and oranges and golds. The air, unwilling this day to succumb to commuters’ exhaust fumes, tasted like mountain water.
David crossed over Storrow Drive and picked up his pace as he turned onto the tarmac path paralleling the river. For a time he ran with his eyes nearly closed, breathing in the day and taking increasing delight in the responsiveness of each muscle in his body.
He watched a lone oarsman sculling the Charles like some giant water bug. Even at such an early hour there were people scattered along the grassy bank reading, sketching, or just soaking in the morning. Cyclists glided silently past him in both directions. Dogs tugged their masters along. Intense-faced students, wearing their books on their backs like hair shirts, shuffled reluctantly toward classrooms where sterile fluorescence would replace the autumn sun.
David checked his stopwatch and glanced around him. Under six minutes to the bridge. He had won his first bet of the run. Sooner or later a Rolls Royce and an A-frame in the Berkshires would be his. Wiping sweat from around his eyes, he picked up his tempo a bit.
To his right a barefoot girl wearing jeans and a bright red T-shirt sent a Frisbee spinning toward her boyfriend. “Two Twinkies and a Big Mac says he catches it,” David panted just before the disc spun sharply toward the river, hit the ground, and rolled down the bank. “Thank goodness,” he laughed out loud.
At the three-mile mark he turned and headed back. “Everything is getting better,” he said out loud, matching each syllable to the slap of his Nikes on the pavement. “Better and better and better.”
Christ, it felt good to be alive again.
CHAPTER II
Christine Beall eased her light blue Mustang past the guard at Parking Lot C, forcing a thin smile in response to his wave. She cruised past several empty spaces without noticing them, then spotted one in the corner farthest from the gate