Almost An Angel (8 page)

When he finally found the strength, he kissed that smile and propped himself up on his elbows. She opened her eyes. “You were wrong,” she said.
 

Damn. She’d found him out. Yes, he was wrong—about seducing her, about hoping she wanted him as much as he wanted her, about convincing himself that this wasn’t a bad idea.
 

“You said you weren’t good at this,” she reminded him. “You are.”
 

“Oh.” Was that the best he could do?
Oh
?
Thank you
didn’t seem quite right. “I was inspired,” he said instead.
 

She laughed wearily. “I don’t think I’m that inspiring.”
 

“Then you’re the one who’s wrong.” He sat up and eased her into a sitting position, pulling her snugly to himself. “Are you sure this was—I mean, safe? I usually…” Actually, he hadn’t used a condom in more than a decade. Did he even have any? Renewing his sex life hadn’t been a high priority before the instant he’d stepped into Eliza’s office at the Adams School a week ago.
 

He’d wanted her from that moment, the first time he’d seen her. He hadn’t acknowledged it, hadn’t wanted to admit it, but there it was. He should have bought some contraceptives that day.
 

“I’m okay,” she assured him. “And I assume you are, too.”
 

“I really did intend to talk to you,” he said, sounding apologetic to himself. Yet the feel of her against him, her breast pressing into his chest and her head nestled into the curve of his shoulder, vanquished any regrets. He wasn’t sorry about this. He wasn’t sorry about anything.
 

“There are ethical issues,” she said, jolting him. “But as long as Amy is seeing Rosalyn Hoffman instead of me, I don’t think we’ve crossed any lines.”
 

Oh, they’d crossed lines, all right. They’d crossed the line of a man who’d vowed to love only one woman and now wanted another woman. They’d crossed the line of a man who ought to be keeping the mental health of his daughter first and foremost in his mind. He was sure there were other lines, too, dozens of lines he couldn’t even discern. He felt them like trip-wires tangling around his feet.
 

Tomorrow he would worry about them. Not tonight.
 

“I can’t stay,” Eliza said.
 

Whoa. That was a line he hadn’t anticipated.
 

“I can’t let Amy find me here.”
 

“She’s dead to the world,” he assured her. “She could sleep through a category-five hurricane.”
 

“But eventually she’ll wake up,” Eliza pointed out. “I can’t be here when she does.”
 

Amy never woke in the middle of the night. Surely Eliza could stay a few more hours. They could spend at least part of the night together. They could lie in each other’s arms, kiss, touch. He could arouse her slowly. He could make her come with his fingers, his mouth. They could talk. They could retire to his bed, which was a lot more comfortable than the sofa.
 

The bed he’d shared with Sheila for twelve years.
 

One of those lines he’d crossed rose high enough to clothes-line him. Had he betrayed Sheila? Betrayed her memory?
 

“I wish I could drive you home,” he said. He couldn’t, not with Amy asleep upstairs and Eliza’s car parked in his driveway.
 

“Really, Conor, I’m okay.” He sensed that she was talking about more than birth control now. She was talking about independence and the fact that she was okay with what they’d just done, that she hadn’t expected him to drive her home, let alone invite her into his bed.
 

Then again, after so many years of monogamy, he was pathetically ignorant about what women expected.
 

Surely Eliza expected
something.
A few words about how much she meant to him, how much
this
meant, how much he wished he could offer her but couldn’t. Words implying a commitment he wasn’t in any position to make.
 

Instead, he said, “Amy wants you to help decorate the tree tomorrow.”
 

“I’ll see,” she murmured, and he felt as if she was slipping through his fingers. She literally did, easing out of his embrace, pushing her hair from her face, searching the floor for her clothing.
 

He’d only just had her, and now he was losing her. And he realized that, angel or no, Eliza Powell was still a complete mystery to him.
 

I’M OKAY,
she told herself as she pulled into the garage of her condo. Snow was falling more heavily, starting to stick, but she’d felt compelled to drive home through it. She couldn’t stay at the Malone house. Not just because of Amy but because of Conor.
 

He was in mourning. He was in need. As a shrink, she knew what was going on: two lonely people, drawn to each other, going way too far.
 

Her body ached in unexpected places—her insteps, her spine, the backs of her knees, the hinges of her hips. The hollow of her heart. She entered the condo, and it took all her willpower not to race back to her snow-dusted car and retrace the route through town to Conor’s house, where a fire glowed in the fireplace and a beautiful evergreen filled a corner of the living room. Where an unbearably sexy man had briefly made her feel reborn.
 

Where a little girl slept at the top of the stairs.
 

After the debacle with Matt, she’d resolved not to fall in love again, at least not for a while. Her heart still required healing. She wasn’t ready to trust.
 

Yet she was falling in love with Conor Malone. Whether or not she trusted him, she loved him.
 

Big mistake. Bad move. The curse of being a psychologist was that she knew too well how the human mind worked. She was Conor’s first woman after the death of his wife. She was the bridge back to normal for him, the path he’d take to the land of physical and emotional wholeness. The first person you had sex with after losing a partner of long-standing was the rebound, the event that assured you you could return to the land of healthy adulthood.
 

That first person proved that you could be complete again. But she wasn’t the person you wound up being complete with. She was just the therapy that got you where you ultimately wanted to be.
 

How many times had she told Conor she was all right? Had she only been trying to convince herself?
 

If so, she’d failed. She wasn’t all right. She was alone in her cold, sterile townhouse, thinking about Christmases past with her family, about all she’d hoped Christmas would be this year with Matt and their friends in Albany. About a little girl who wanted her mother back for Christmas, and a man who wanted his daughter to be happy and well.
 

Who wanted Eliza? She couldn’t think of anyone.
 

*
 

THE PHONE in her office issued a bird-like twitter shortly after lunch on Monday. Why phones couldn’t ring the way they used to, she couldn’t say, but the airy, fluty sound her phone emitted somehow didn’t sound legitimate.
 

Then again, everything aggravated her Monday morning: the IEP’s she’d evaluated, the two boys with ADHD she’d had sessions with, the second-grade genius who was already doing basic trigonometry and probably should be bumped up to middle school, but was nowhere near mature enough to handle such a leap. Eliza had spent a half-hour on the phone with the girl’s mother, discussing private-school options and consoling the woman, who lamented that being too smart was almost as much of a handicap as being too slow.
 

Throughout the morning, memories of the weekend thrummed in Eliza’s skull like a low-grade migraine. She’d wanted to return to the Malone house Sunday to decorate the tree. She’d wanted to spend more time with Amy, and especially with Conor. She’d wanted things she shouldn’t want, and when she’d seen his name pop up on her caller-ID several times Sunday morning and afternoon, she’d refused to answer her phone, aware of how easy it would be to say yes to anything Conor suggested.
 

Instead, she’d driven to the nursery and purchased a wreath. Not as satisfying as a tree, but at least it held the promise of Christmas in its curving holly branches. She could survive this holiday, she assured herself. She didn’t need Matt or her mother or her brother—or, especially, the Malones—to celebrate Christmas.
 

She lifted her phone. “Eliza Powell,” she said.
 

“Hi, this is Linda Rodriguez,” the fourth-grade teacher’s voice came through the phone. “I’m sending Amy Malone to your office. We’ve had another incident.”
 

No!
Eliza wanted to shout. She didn’t want to see Amy. She
couldn’t
see her. Amy was Rosalyn Hoffman’s patient, not Eliza’s.
 

But every student at the Adams School was Eliza’s patient to some extent. She squared her shoulders and suppressed a sigh. “Did she hit someone again?”
 

“No. If she had, I would have sent her to the principal’s office this time. But she got into an argument with some classmates about the existence of Santa during lunch, and she’s been sobbing uncontrollably for at least ten minutes. I can’t calm her down. Erin Murphy is accompanying her to your office. They’re good friends.”
 

“Okay,” Eliza said. “Thanks for the heads-up.” She said goodbye to the teacher and pulled up Amy’s file on her computer.
 

Minutes later, her door opened and Amy was led in by a worried-looking blond girl. Amy’s face was red, her eyes swollen. She was sobbing so hard she’d developed hiccups. “She’s very sad,” the blond girl said.
 

“I can see that.” Eliza reached for the box of tissues she kept on her desk, placed it in front of Amy and plucked a tissue from the slot for her.
 

“My mom didn’t die, but she doesn’t live with us anymore,” the blond girl said. “We’ve got a step-mother now. She’s great. I think Amy needs a step-mother, too.”
 

Thank you for that diagnosis,
Eliza almost retorted. Amy’s friend might well be right, but Eliza didn’t want to think of Amy in the context of a step-mother.
 

Amy mopped her face with the tissue, reducing it to a soggy wad that she placed on the corner of Eliza’s desk. Eliza nodded to Erin Murphy, who backed toward the door, her gaze lingering on her weeping buddy. At least Amy had a close, caring friend. Not the same thing as a loving mother, or even a step-mother, but it would help.
 

Once she and Amy were alone, Eliza resumed her seat, swiveling her chair to face Amy and wheeling it close. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Can you tell me?”
 

“I didn’t hit anyone,” Amy swore between sobs and hiccups. “I’m being ve-very g-good.”
 

Eliza wanted to tell her to stop worrying about being so flipping good, but first she had to find out what had happened to precipitate this meltdown. “Did someone hit you?”
 

“N-no.” Amy released a stuttering breath. “But they told me there’s no Santa Claus. They said the pr-presents come from p-people like your parents, or your grandma.” Another shaky heave of breath. “My daddy can’t give me my mom. That’s the only thing I want for Chr-Christmas, and if there’s no Santa, I can’t have it.” She punctuated her statement with a heartbreaking whimper.
 

What Amy had said was true. Eliza couldn’t tell her otherwise. Yet she had to convince Amy that although her mother wouldn’t come back to her, she could still find joy in life, and in the holiday.
 

“I really want to believe in Santa,” Amy said, then sniffled.
 

Eliza handed her another tissue. “Do you know what a myth is?” she asked.
 

Amy peered at her through watery eyes. “Something Greek?”
 

Eliza smiled. “The Greeks had many myths. So did the Vikings. So did the Romans. So do we.”
 

Amy blew her nose. She had stopped crying, thank goodness.
 

“A myth is a story we believe because we want to. Logically, we know it can’t be true. But believing it makes us happy. So we accept that it’s not true, but we believe it anyway because it fulfills an emotional need inside us. Maybe it answers a question we can’t answer any other way. The Greeks believed Apollo carried the sun across the sky in a chariot because they could see that the sun appeared in different places in the sky, but they didn’t know how or why that happened. They created a myth. And we create myths to help us figure things out, too. Or simply because they make us happy. Santa Claus is a happy myth. We believe in him because it’s fun. But logically, we know he doesn’t exist.” She eyed Amy carefully, trying to gauge how well this explanation was working.
 

Amy mulled it over. “If—if—if Santa doesn’t exist, how can my mom be his angel?”
 

That question struck Eliza as a bit more theological than she felt comfortable with. She wished she could bring in a priest or minister to assist her. “As I understand it,” she said, “angels aren’t attached to any one person. Or God. They exist in heaven and watch over the people they love.” Another myth, she thought, but she couldn’t take
everything
away from Amy.
 

“I don’t want my mom in heaven. I want her here.”
 

“We all have things we want that we can’t have, Amy. It’s very sad, and very hard to accept. But you’re a smart girl and you know how true this is.”
 

“What do you want that you don’t have?”
 

A lover I can depend on,
Eliza thought.
A lover I can trust. Someone I can count on to stick with me through all the rough spots in life.