Suddenly (7 page)

Mara O’Neill had been a dangerous woman. She’d had the knack of befriending a man, drawing him close, then stabbing him in the back. She had done it to her husband and nearly done it to Peter. A dangerous woman, to say the least. He was lucky to have escaped.

He took a healthy swallow of his beer and was setting the glass down when several men from the steelworks entered the Tavern. They passed his booth en route to theirs at the rear.

“Too bad about Dr. O’Neil.”

“Real loss for the town.”

“She was a trooper.”

Peter nodded, spared a response by the guise of grief, grateful when the men moved on. A trooper? Oh, yes, Mara was that. Once she set her mind on something, she didn’t give up, and yes, this was a loss for the town. But another doctor could be found, and in the meantime, he, Paige, and Angie could service their patients just fine.

Susan Hawes, who owned the Tavern, slid in opposite him. She was a born hostess, a natural talker. “Beautiful eulogy the minister gave this morning,” she remarked. “Makes it even harder to understand why a woman like Mara would take her own life. Of course, ministers don’t always talk about the down side of folks.” She grew reminiscent. “She wasn’t a regular here by a long shot, but when she did come in, she could drink with the best of them. She used to sit with old Henry Mills and match him beer for beer until he felt so bad making her drunk that he stopped. He was always back the next day, drinking again, but for that one time, at least, he went home sober.”

Peter cracked his knuckles. “She did have a different way about her.”

“I heard she was stone drunk in that car.”

He shook his head.

“Then what?”

He shrugged. Sure, he had known about the Valium. But he hadn’t dreamed she was taking so much. “Since I wasn’t with her, I can’t really say.”

“Was she seeing anyone local?”

“Nope.”

“No man in her life?”

“Nope.”

“Spud Harvey’s gonna miss her. He used to watch her coming and going around town. Nearly drove him crazy when she had that little fling with his brother a while back. Spud was in love with her, but don’t tell him I told you so.”

Peter might have made a pithy comment to the extent that Mara had been worlds above the Harvey brothers, intellectually and in every other way, had his beeper not sounded just then. Susan pointed to the phone behind the bar and left him to it. He dialed the number of his answering service, thinking all the while about Mara. He knew about the thing with Spud’s brother. It had been an impulsive weekend and had meant nothing. Mara had done things like that sometimes.

But death? Death was
final.
He still couldn’t believe she had done
that.

“Doctors’ office.”

“Trudie, it’s Peter Grace.”

“Oh, hi, Peter. Dr. Bigelow just left a message asking you to cover for Dr. Pfeiffer in the morning. She said to call her at home later if there’s a problem.”

Peter sighed. “Thanks.” A problem? He supposed there wasn’t. He had hoped to sleep late, but it was probably just as well this way. He hadn’t slept late—hadn’t slept
well
—since he had learned of Mara’s death. Demons kept waking him up, reminding him of the last time he’d seen her.

It had been late Tuesday afternoon. Mara had sent the nurse to ask if he could see her last patients for her. Covering for each other was a way of life, one of the very purposes of a group practice; still, he had been tired enough himself to be annoyed. So he had stuck his head in at her door and found her standing by the desk.

“What’s the problem, Mara?”

She had looked at him in confusion. “Uh…”

“Are you sick?” he remembered asking. “You look like shit.”

She hadn’t said a word, had simply stared at him in that same confused way for another few seconds. Then, as though some spark inside had given her sudden momentum, she had bolted forward, pushing past him, running down the hall toward the door.

“Jesus, Mara,” he had said, but she hadn’t heard that, any more than she’d heard the “Crazy bitch” he had muttered on his way back to work.

He kept seeing her running down the hall, kept seeing it over and over again. He wondered if she was haunting him.

Lacey arrived at the booth just as he returned. “Good timing,” she said with a smile. “Have you been here long?”

“Ten minutes,” he said, slipping a hand under his suspender as he settled down in the booth. He took a long drink, using the time to shift gears from Mara to Lacey.

Lacey was a looker. At twenty-eight she was thirteen years his junior, but the age difference didn’t bother him one bit. He was the knowing one, the experienced one, the one who called the shots—all the more so since he was a native. She had come from a publishing house in Boston four months before to help edit the biography of Tucker’s oldest citizen, who at the age of one hundred and two had put together a collection of stories about turn-of-the-century New England. Peter was showing her the local ropes. In return, she was an attractive and sophisticated feather in his cap. Squiring Lacey around, he was the envy of many a native, and he liked it that way.

“How was it?” she asked with a grimace.

Peter knew she was talking of the funeral. She hadn’t gone, hadn’t known Mara. He had worked hard to keep it that way. “Not bad.”

“Sad?”

“All funerals are. The turnout was surprisingly good,” he said, though in truth he hadn’t been surprised at all. Mara had been active enough in town to have touched the lives of nearly everyone there. What had surprised him was the high level of emotion, particularly given the way she had died. He would have thought there would be resentment, even anger, at her desertion. Instead the damned place had reeked of love.

“How were her parents?” Lacey asked.

He released his suspender with a snap. “I told them the usual, how good Mara was with her patients. They nodded stoically. Then I thought I’d be a good guy and tell them how fiercely she fought for what she believed in. Bad move. They don’t appreciate spunk. They wanted her to be a sweet little thing with a husband and babies.” He laughed. “Can you imagine it? That’s the
last
thing Mara could ever have been.”

“Why so?”

“She couldn’t sit still, for one thing, had to be always moving, always doing something. And she was bullheaded. No way should Mara have ever taken a marriage vow promising to love and obey. She couldn’t obey
anyone
. It was against her nature.”

“She was married?”

“Once. Before she came to Tucker. But she blew it. The guy OD’d. Lucky for her there weren’t any kids. She would’ve had trouble with them, too. Mara was spread too thin. That’s why the foster child thing blew up in her face. She was too involved with too many things to do any of them well. Hard to believe she was actually thinking of
adopting
.”

Lacey ordered a glass of wine. The waitress had no sooner left than, curiously, she asked, “Why did you hate her?”

He was startled. “I didn’t.”

“Then, dislike her?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Your tone of voice. The way your jaw is clenched.”

He stared. “Since when are you an expert on my moods?”

“No expert. Just an observer.”

“I won’t be psychoanalyzed, Lacey.”

“I’m not psychoanalyzing you. I’m simply saying that it sounds like you had a problem with Mara O’Neill.”

“And I’m saying I didn’t,” he insisted. Image was everything. Hatred didn’t fit the one he had chosen for the town to see. “She was my partner for ten years. We were friends. But”—he couldn’t help it, the words spilled out—“I refuse to call her a saint, the way everyone else seems to be doing today. She committed suicide, for Christ’s sake. She took her own life, which was an ultimately selfish thing to do. If you’d been at the funeral, you’d have agreed. All those people came to pay tribute to her, after she let them down. She let us down, too, Paige and Angie and I. We relied on her to carry her weight in the practice. Now, by her
own hand
, she’s out of the picture, without a word, no warning, nothing.”

He stared gloomily at his beer. No matter that he had seen Mara’s grave filled in, he couldn’t believe she was gone. He would have thought her too feisty to have allowed death to take her on its very first try.

Then again, Mara wasn’t always what she appeared to be. She had a softer, more vulnerable side. He had seen it. He wondered if any others had.

The Tavern door opened, this time to the town’s major landlord. Jamie Cox owned two of the three blocks of stores that made up Tucker’s center, nearly half of the shabby double-deckers in lower Tucker, and miscellaneous other pieces of real estate scattered through town. He was tall and skinny and wore his clothes too short and too tight in a way that made him look as miserly as he was.

“So she’s gone, huh?” he said, stopping at Peter’s booth. “Can’t say I’ll miss her. She was a royal pain in the butt.”

Peter snorted. “She loved you, too.”

“Didn’t like what I was doing around town, that’s for sure.”

Peter didn’t, either. A person didn’t have to be a crusader like Mara to recognize decay. “You have to admit lower Tucker’s looking pretty bad. Can’t you do any cleaning up out there?”

“That’s the job of the tenant. Says so right on the lease.”

“The houses need painting. That’s your job.”

“And I’ll do it soon as they clean up the yards. That’s their job.”

“Come on, Jamie. You’re the one with the money.”

Jamie scowled. “Jeeez, you’re sounding just like her. If you’re planning to pick up where she left off, don’t bother. I don’t care if you
were
born here, you won’t have any more luck than she did. It’s my money that keeps this town going. That gives me a certain say-so.”

“But she was right.” There was a nobility to admitting it on this one small score. “Especially about the movie house. It’s a fire trap.”

“It’s a gold mine, what with films every weekend and a special event in between. The concerts coming up are all sold out. I saved a few tickets, if you want a pair.”

Peter grunted. “No thanks. I’m not into suicide.”

Jamie gave a thin laugh and swatted his shoulder as he walked on past. “Bet you didn’t think she was either, huh?”

Left without the last word, Peter felt a new stab of anger toward Mara, because Jamie was right. Peter hadn’t thought her capable of suicide, hadn’t thought her a coward, but that was just what she was. If she’d had any guts, she wouldn’t have killed herself. She would have faced her sorrows and dealt with them.

Not that he was sorry she hadn’t, he thought as he took a long, cool, calming drink. She might have had those few soft moments when he had found her irresistible, and those few mellow moments when he had found her interesting, even those few lighthearted moments when he’d found her fun, but the rest of the time she was as difficult a woman as one could meet.

Mara O’Neill wasn’t irreplaceable, either as a doctor or as a lover. The proof of that sat before him right now.

He glanced around the Tavern, then at Lacey, and suddenly he wasn’t in the mood for a burger and beer, but for a filet mignon and fine red wine. “We can do better than this,” he muttered. After dropping several bills on the table, he slid out of the booth and reached for her hand as he strode toward the door.

T
HE PICTURE SAT IN ITS WHITE WICKER FRAME,
in its customary place on the mantel. It was a black-and-white photo, a family portrait, with a youthful Nonny at its center and six-year-old Paige perched on her lap. Paige’s parents, Chloe and Paul, flanked Nonny’s shoulders, looking younger than their twenty-five years and trapped by the camera in the way of creatures of the wild, frozen one instant, only to flee in terror the next.

And flee they had. Paige recalled the day well. It had been her birthday, and she had had such high hopes. “We’ll do whatever your heart desires,” Chloe had written from Paris weeks before. “It will be your day.” So Paige had planned a special breakfast, then a trip from suburban Oak Park to Chicago to shop for her birthday gift, then a movie, then a dinner at home that Nonny and she prepared. She had wanted her parents to see how grown-up she was, how able, how well mannered and pretty. She had been desperate to please, and she had, she thought. Everything had been perfect. More than once Chloe and Paul had told her how wonderful she was.

She had been on cloud nine when the picture was taken in Nonny’s sitting room right before dinner. Right after dinner her parents had given her hugs and kisses, then, to her dismay, had left her standing at the parlor window while the car pulled away.

Always before, Nonny had made gentle excuses for her daughter and son-in-law, using vague references to business, friends, or vacations, then counting on Paige’s brief attention span and similarly childlike perception of time to cover the lapses. This time she was more honest.

“Your parents have what’s called wanderlust,” she had explained to Paige, who thirty-three years later remembered every word of that conversation. “They like to be moving, doing different things. They can’t be kept in any one place for long.”

“Why not?”

“Because they have a curiosity about new things, and it won’t go away. It keeps them traveling. Last year it was France. This year it will be Italy.”

“But what about Chicago?” Paige had asked. Chicago seemed to her a huge place filled with plenty that was new and different. “If they were in Chicago, I could see them all the time.”

Nonny had nodded sagely. “You’re right. But they’ve already explored Chicago. They did that when they were growing up, just like you are now. Sometimes when people get bigger, they have to go farther to satisfy that curiosity.”

“None of my friends’ parents do that. They stay here. I want
my
parents here, too.”

“I know you do, pumpkin,” Nonny had said, giving her a hug and holding her close. “But your parents are different from the others.”

“They hate me.”

“No, they don’t.”

“They didn’t want to have me at all.”

“That’s not true. You were their wedding gift to each other. They love you very much. But it’s them, they’re different.”

“Why?”

“Because your father doesn’t have to work, for one thing. His parents are very wealthy. He has all the money he needs, so he can buy you nice things and travel around with your mother.”

“Why can’t I travel with them?”

“Because you have to go to school. But they do take you places. Remember last year, when you all went to New York? You loved that.”

Paige nodded. “But I got tired. I was happy to come home. Don’t they ever get tired?”

“No. That’s one of the things that makes them different.”

“What’s another thing?”

“The curiosity I mentioned.”

Paige’s child mind grouped curiosity with chicken pox. “But when will they get better?”

Nonny had hugged her again. “They’re not sick. Some people say they have a fairy-tale life.”

“Are they happy?”

Only after a while, and with a reluctant smile, had Nonny said, “I suppose,” and thereby given Paige her first, full dose of reality. She had thought about her parents’ happiness long and hard, standing in the circle of Nonny’s protective arms, and finally, when there didn’t seem anything she could think of to soften the blow, she had simply started to cry.

“Oh, pumpkin,” Nonny crooned.

“But I tried
so hard
. I didn’t spill anything, or bite my fingernails—and I took the littlest piece of cake and gave them the biggest—I thought I was
so good
.”

“You were, you were. You’re always good, pumpkin. You’re the best little girl in all of Illinois, in all of the United States, in all of the
world,
but that has nothing to do with why your parents can’t stay put. They have money and curiosity, and so much energy that they just keep going.”

“But what about
me?
” Paige wailed, at which point Nonny had swung her up on her lap, and held her tight.

“You are mine, is what you are,” she had said with a fierceness Paige had never forgotten. “You’re the one who won’t get away.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It means that you’re different from your mommy. She never let me hold her like this. She had too much energy even back then. She was always running around, getting into things,
always
curious. And I’m not saying that you aren’t curious, just that you’re more normal about it. You’ll be happier in the long run, Paige. You’ll be more peaceful, more content, and you’ll do good things in your life.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. You’ll do good things. I promise.”

For a long time Paige hadn’t been sure. She did well in school, had lots of friends, and grew closer to Nonny every year, but she continued to blame herself for her parents’ absence. She racked her brain when they were home—dressed differently, talked differently, behaved differently—but nothing was good enough to keep them there. They always left her standing at the parlor window while the car pulled away.

Inevitably people asked about Chloe and Paul, and for a time Paige simply repeated what Nonny had said. “Wanderlust” became a part of her vocabulary long before any of her friends knew the meaning of the word. “My parents? Oh, they’re in Alaska. They have wanderlust,” she would say with a nonchalance that hid her hurt.

Then came junior high, an exclusive private school, and a new circle of friends. Paige was an adolescent, old enough to understand what jet-setting was, worldly enough to have friends with jet-setting parents, rebellious enough to be angry. When asked, she took to saying that her parents were dead—until the horrendous day when they did indeed have a close call in a small plane. She never told the story again.

There were, over the years, several longer stretches when Chloe and Paul were home. Sometimes they stayed with Nonny, sometimes at Paul’s family’s estate, and in either case Paige was always beside herself with anticipation at the thought of their being around. It wasn’t until the summer of her seventeenth year that she was able to admit to herself that anticipation always exceeded fact. Nonny was right. Her parents couldn’t stay put. They grew restless, impatient, irascible when restrained.

At the end of that summer, when her parents left again, Paige didn’t stand at the parlor window watching the car pull away. She kissed them each, then turned and, feeling something akin to relief that the normal order of her life would finally return, walked Nonny back to the house.

The lesson of her sixth birthday conversation had finally sunk in. Paige’s need for her parents’ love would never change—and birthdays would always be painful—but she could finally accept that their love would come only on their terms. To compensate, she had Nonny.

“I’ll always be here for you,” Nonny had promised when she tucked Paige into bed on that sixth birthday, and Paige had always known it was true. She’d left Nonny to go to college, then to medical school, and by the time she was doing her residency in Chicago, Nonny had moved back to her own childhood home in Vermont. Through it all, though, they were in constant touch, sharing their lives, being there for each other, and although Paige still loved her parents, Nonny was the one in whom she confided.

That was why Paige had risen early on Sunday, bathed and fed Sami, then packed up a proper diaper bag, strapped the baby seat into the car, and driven to Nonny’s.

Turning away now from the white wicker-framed photograph, she took the deepest, steadiest breath she had taken since learning of Mara’s death. Nonny was a balm, a reassuring presence even before she spoke, and her home was as cheery as the woman herself. It was a tiny garden apartment, done up in the red and white that Nonny had insisted upon when she had sold the larger Victorian.

“
Everything
red and white?” Paige had asked at the time.

“Everything. I adore red and white. I’ve always adored red and white, even when I was the littlest girl, only we didn’t have the money to decorate then.”

“But I thought you liked blue. Our house in Chicago was blue.”

“That was for your mother, who was rarely there anyway, and when I moved back here and bought the Victorian, it was easiest to just use what I had. But now I want red and white—and don’t tell me I’m too old. I may be moving into a retirement community, but I’ll never be one of those old fogies. So,” she had said, sighing, “I want red and white. At last.”

Catching Nonny’s excitement, Paige had helped furnish the little apartment, and although she had worried that the colors might grate in time, that hadn’t happened. To the contrary, they had grown on Nonny, such that she had taken to wearing white—blouses and skirts or leggings, even warm-up suits—with red in a beaded necklace, earrings, or a hair ribbon. On this particular day she was wearing a flowing white caftan and tiny red slippers. Given that she was slender and petite—like Chloe, while Paige was long-legged like Paul—she looked elfin.

She sat on her favorite white wicker chair, holding Sami, who was studying her curiously. “A baby. My word, Paige. You should have called me the minute she arrived!”

“I was in a mild state of panic. I didn’t want to burden you with that. Besides, this is the first breathing space I’ve had since I opened the door and found Sami there.” Saturday had been devoted to moving the last and largest of the baby paraphernalia from Mara’s, which she had accomplished with the help of a revolving contingent of excited neighbors. There had been a return trip to Mount Court, another round of questions from another representative from the adoption agency, then more moving.

“She’s such a sweet little thing!” Nonny cooed.

Paige bent over, bracing her hands on her thighs, putting her eyes level with Sami’s. The child met her gaze for a minute before looking back at Nonny. “She’s good as gold, sleeps through the night, rarely cries. I think she’s still hung over from her trip—she may not be sleeping so much once her body adjusts—but she’s in good health. I had Angie examine her.”

“Why Angie?” Nonny asked, adorably indignant. “Why not you?”

“Doctors should never treat their own. Not that Sami is mine,” Paige added quickly. “I only have her until permanent parents are found. But I felt Angie would be more objective. She was a help Friday night, let me tell you.” She suppressed a shiver. “I can’t remember ever coming so close to losing it like that before.”

Nonny darted her a worried look before taking Sami’s tiny hands and clapping them together lightly. “What happened?”

Paige straightened, sighed, leaned against the chair. “It was a combination of everything, I guess—Mara’s death, the funeral, having to deal with the O’Neills. Then Sami arrived and I insisted on taking her, then the girls from Mount Court called, so I ran over there.” And had a run-in with the new Head. That had been the last straw. Fortunately, he had been out of sight when she had returned on Saturday. “It’s like my immune system was down and then suddenly I found myself with this huge responsibility.” She touched Sami’s silky brown hair. “And you are a
huge
one, for such a little girl. Forget the amoeba infection you came with, and the inoculation program we’ve had to start from scratch, and the exercises to build up your muscles, and the language barrier. Even
aside
from all that, I’ve never been into mothering before.”

“To my eternal sadness,” Nonny said without remorse. “You mother everyone else’s children but your own.”

“Which is totally satisfying.”

“Totally?” Nonny chided.

“Totally. Besides, what with all I’m doing, I don’t have time to have a child of my own.”

“So what are you doing with this one?”

Paige opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Beats me,” she finally said in bewilderment. “I’m telling you, something was amiss. My common sense was on hold. I was mourning Mara, thinking that I’d finish up the things she started, and then Sami was at the door, and it seemed critical that I finish that up, too. It was,” she said deliberately, “sheer impulse. I mean, it’s fine and dandy to say that you can take care of a child and have a career at the same time; the reality of it is something else.”

“If anyone can do it, you can.”

“But can I do it well? Will I be able to give this little one what she needs? And she needs plenty. She needs to be touched and talked to and played with, and encouraged to sit and then stand and walk. She needs to be weaned onto regular milk and the kinds of foods that other fourteen-month-olds eat—”

“She’s that old?” Nonny asked in surprise.

“That old,” Paige replied. “That’s what I’m telling you. She needs extra love and care if she’s going to catch up, but I’m not sure I’m able to give it to her.”

“Of course you are.”

“What with everything else I have to do?”

“You’re the one who talks about quality time.”

Paige grunted. “Sounds good, huh? But does it work?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” Nonny advised, then brightened. “I can help. Let me baby-sit while you’re at work.”

“No way. Babies are hard work.”

“So?”

“You’ve paid your dues twice, first with Chloe, then with me.”

“So? Why can’t I do it a third time? I’m only seventy-six. My friend Elisabeth is eighty-two, and she baby-sits her great-grandchildren all the time.”

“This isn’t your great-grandchild,” Paige reminded her. “She’s only here for a little while.”