Coast Road (23 page)

A sheepish grin. "Well, maybe. But she always apologized after. " "What did she say? " "When she apologized? " "When she was cursing me out."

"Oh, you know"�she lifted a shoulder�"stubborn, selfish. But she said it took two to make a marriage work and two to make it fail, so she was as much at fault as you were." That was interesting. To hear Samantha talk, Jack had always assumed that his "desertion" was the only thing discussed. He was the bad guy, Rachel the good guy. He couldn't imagine Hope saying something different, if it wasn't so.

He covered his surprise by flipping her doodle pad around. Her pen had recreated Guinevere, capturing vulnerability with a minimum of strokes.

He turned back a page and forward a page. Each one offered a similarly evocative beauty. He had known Hope could draw but had never made much of it�largely, ironically, to protect Samantha, though it appeared that Samantha was well aware of her inability.

But Samantha wasn't there just then. On a note of genuine awe, he told Hope, "You are your mother's daughter."

"What do you mean? " "You see the same things she does�small, subtle things, feelings� and you can put them on paper. That's more than I can do. It's a real talent.

" Hope gave a modest little shrug, but her cheeks were pink. "I loved Guinevere. Drawing her makes me feel like she's still here." Her voice caught. Her eyes fell. "I keep thinking of her back there. " "I know you do."

"I'll miss her."

"You were good to her. I'm proud of you." Tears gathered on her lower lids. "She's still dead."

"But you made her last days good ones.

You were a loyal friend to her.

" He wanted her happy. "We could get you another cat if you want. " Without a minute's thought, she shook her head. "I want to remember Guinevere for a while. She was always a little scared of new people, and she didn't like playing with toys, but she slept with me from the night we found her, and she always purred when I whispered to her. So if I was loyal, it was because she was loyal. I don't want another cat taking her place so soon."

"BRENDAN says you're not coming with us.

Why not? " Lydia asked. They were at their lockers at the end of the day. Samantha had avoided Lydia that long.

She scooped her hair off her face. "I'm going with Teague Runyan. He has a car. It'll be better this way."

"Better for who? Teague is trouble. He has a police record."

"He was accused of shoplifting.

It was a case of mistaken identity. The charges were dropped, so he does not have a police record."

"He was suspended from school for cheating."

"For one day. That's how serious it was."

"There's no way my parents will let him into the house."

"If your parents weren't home, " Samantha said archly, "they'd never know. Why did you tell them there would be guys there? " "They started asking. I couldn't lie to their faces."

"Well, they're not my parents, so I don't have that worry."

"Does your father know you're going with Teague? " "Sure. He trusts me." When Lydia didn't have an answer to that, Samantha felt a small measure of satisfaction. The satisfaction waned, though, when Lydia gathered her books and, shoulders hunching as she hugged them close, walked away alone.

IT WAS LATE afternoon by the time Jack returned to the hospital.

Katherine had picked up Samantha at school and returned with a CD player, which was now running softly on the bed stand not twelve inches from Rachel's head.

"Garth, " Samantha told him, seeming unperturbed by the change in rooms.

"She's a fan, too? " He knew that the girls were and had assumed that the concert had been for them. His Rachel had been partial to the likes of James Taylor, Van Morrison, and the Eagles.

"A big fan, " Samantha said.

Hope confirmed it with a nod, which didn't leave much for him to do but to set up the pictures he had brought.

Samantha was immediately drawn to them. "Where'd you get those? " "I've had them, " he said casually. "I want the doctors and nurses who walk in and out to see your mother with her eyes open. I want them to view her as a living, breathing, feeling individual."

"Grandma sure does. Look what she sent." Three large boxes were stacked by the wall behind the bed. Each one brimmed with hot pink tissue and the kind of frothy white stuff that Rachel hadn't touched since she had cut it up and sewn it into a quilt.

"Nightgowns, " Samantha said unnecessarily.

Hope sat on her heels and began looking inside the boxes. "Mom won't wear these. Why did she send them? " Jack was saved from answering by the arrival of the travel agent, Dinah Monroe. She wore a smart suit and her dark hair in a shiny bob. After fingering the lingerie with genuine admiration, she kissed Rachel's cheek and, in an upbeat tone that warred with the concern in her eyes, told her about the client from hell for whom she had spent most of the day booking an Aegean cruise. More easily, she kidded Samantha about a mutual friend and shared sympathetic memories of Guinevere with Hope.

She didn't stay for more than ten minutes and was followed soon after by Eliza, of the dark eyes and dark curls, arriving with warm pecan rolls packed in layers of bags. The minute she opened the innermost one, the sweet scent wafted out. Jack began to salivate. After ten minutes of gentle chatter with Rachel, Katherine, and the girls, she was gone.

The rolls remained in the tray table. Jack was eyeing them and wondering what to do about dinner when a new face appeared. This latest visitor was male but effeminate, Harlan by name, one of Katherine's operators. He hugged the girls and kissed Rachel, chatted with each for a short time, then left. Jack had barely begun to get over the feeling that he was the outsider here when Faye arrived with another zippered bag.

"Brisket, " she told him. "Noodles and veggies included. Just heat and serve." She didn't stay much longer than it took to tell Rachel about the abysmal game of golf she had played that day, her surprise enjoyment of the book group's next book, and her three-year-old granddaughter's preschool play. Then she, too, was gone.

Half an hour later, when Charlie Avalon arrived with an earfill of beaded hoops and a cedar-scented candle, Jack waved Katherine into the hall. "Tell me the truth, " he said when she joined him. "These visitors dovetail too neatly. Someone orchestrated this. Was it you?

" "Definitely. They wanted to come, but it won't do Rachel any good to have them all here at once."

"Did you tell each one what to bring? " "I didn't have to. They knew what to bring." She frowned. "Do you have a problem with this? " He did. But he wasn't sure what it was.

Yes, he did. It was the outsider thing. He was feeling usurped.

l "The girls have CD players, " he said. "I gave them each one last Christmas. They might have wanted to bring Rachel their own."

"If they want to, that's great. They can also bring CDs from home.

And books." She studied him. "Are you jealous? " "Jealous of what?

" "Of my bringing a CD? Of Rachel's friends bringing other things? Of Rachel's friends, period? " "No. No. I'm just surprised. She used to be more of a loner. I had no idea she had so many friends, and good friends. They've gone out of their way to help out." ,, "Don't you have friends who would do the same if the situation was reversed? " Jack had many, many friends. But good friends? Jill would come, for sure. David? He . . . couldn't quite picture it.

"Do Rachel's friends make you feel left out? " Katherine asked.

"Of course not. Why do you say that? " "It's just how you look, standing over by the window. It's like you're realizing that you don't know who Rachel is now and what she's doing with her life, and even though you're divorced, that bothers you. Is it a control thing? " He was astounded by her gall. "Are you serious? " "Uh-huh. From what Rachel says, you had the upper hand in the marriage.

Your job, your needs came first. I'd call that controlling. Old habits die hard."

"Thank you, Dr. Freud, " he said, then added an annoyed "Is there some reason you're telling me this? " "Uh-huh.

Rachel would do it if she could, but she can't."

"Rachel would not.

" Not his Rachel. "She was never one to bicker and carp."

"But she thinks. She feels. She's thought a lot about her marriage since it ended. She's learned to express herself more than she did when she was married."

"She expressed herself plenty then." Katherine just shrugged.

"Okay, what didn't she say? " Jack asked. When she shrugged again, he said, "I can take it. What didn't she say? " "Important things. She felt that she let them go by the board. It goes back to control. If Rachel could see you in there with her friends, she'd probably say you were jealous. And insecure."

"I'm controlling. I'm jealous. I'm insecure." Jack sputtered out a breath. "You're tough." As insults went, it was weak. Many women would have taken it as a compliment.

Apparently not Katherine. It fired her up.

"I've had to be tough, because I've depended on men like you and they've always let me down. That's the first thing Rachel and I had in common."

"Ahhh. Fellow man-haters."

"Not man-haters. We have plenty of male friends." He couldn't resist.

"Like Harlan? " She stared. "Harlan supports a sigruficant other who has AIDS. He cooks, cleans, buys food, clothes, and medical care. He rushes home to make lunch and has passed up training seminars in New York that might have advanced his career, all to care for his partner.

You could take a lesson from Harlan." Forget Harlan. Forget even that young guy in the purple scrubs.

Something else had stuck in his brain. "Rachel has plenty of male friends? Where are they? Is Ben the supposed significant other? Or is she dating lots of guys and playing the field�once-burned, twice-shy kind of thing? " "You're a fine one to talk, " Katherine said. "There you are, holding on to favorite pictures of your ex-wife while you string Jill on for, what, two years now? " "Hah. Pot calling the kettle black. What's with you and Bauer? He's a good-looking guy, but whenever he shows up, you get all highvoiced and nervous, then turn tail and run." He paused, frowned. "How do you know about Jill? " "Rachel told me."

"That's interesting. Is she jealous? " "Not on your life. She's been thriving since the divorce. You've seen her work. She couldn't paint in the city. Now she can. Something stifled her back there. I wonder what it was." Jack knew she was about to tell him�and he had suddenly had l enough. He held up a hand. "Your clients may sit in your chair and talk their hearts out, but that's their need, not mine. My life is not your business. I don't have to discuss it with you."

"Wasn't that one of the problems with your marriage? Lack of communication? " Both hands raised now, he stepped back. He was about to return to the room when Katherine said a more gentle "Run if you want, but it won't go away."

"Rachel and I are divorced. That's about as far away as it gets."

"Is that why you've been here every day for the past week? Is that why you kept those pictures? You care, Jack."

"Of course, I care. I was with Rachel for two years, we were married for ten. That doesn't mean I need to analyze every little thing that's happened since�including those pictures. She has pictures of me, why the hell shouldn't I have pictures of her? You don't negate twelve good years. You don't just wipe them off the screen like they never happened, and that goes for the feelings involved. Rachel is seriously ill. I'm here for old times' sake, because someone I was intimate with for years could die.

And because she is the mother of my daughters, who happen to need tending."

"The girls could be staying with me, or with Eliza or Faye.

We all know them well, and we have the room. We also live closer to the hospital than the house in Big Sur, but you're driving them back and forth, back and forth, when you really want to be in the "It's what I think is best, and since I'm the next of kin, it's my say."

"Isn't it always? " "Actually, " he let out an exasperated breath, "no. I didn't ask for the divorce. I didn't move out. Rachel did."

He pushed a hand through his hair. "Why am I telling you this? My life is none of your business. Butt ov, t, wil!you? " JACK was still feeling testy when he started the drive back to Big Sur, but the coast did its thing. By the time they passed Big Sur, a mist had risen to buffer him from the world, and he was more pensive than irate.

He spent thirty minutes with his laptop hooked up to Rachel's fax line, and another thirty with Faye's brisket and the girls. There wasn't much talking. Hope was teary eyed. Samantha kept looking at her. All Jack could do was to say the occasional "It'll get better. Things like this take time." Then the girls went to their rooms, leaving him to his own devices. He told himself to work. Or to paint. Instead, he dumped the bag of mail from his house on the kitchen table, and with barely a glance, threw out all but the bills. That done, he looked around the kitchen. Idly, he opened drawers, thumbed through takeout menus from restaurants in Carmel�Italian, Mexican, Thai. Some had items circled. Others had food stains. All had clearly been used, which was a change. In San Francisco, Rachel had always cooked. She had said it was easy enough, since she worked at home. She still worked at home. Had he been the one who kept them in? He had always preferred home cooking after being away, so Rachel had cooked. He supposed that could be called controlling.