With This Ring (17 page)

"Amy, I'm so sorry." He stroked her hand.

She closed her eyes. Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt so bad.

The baby. Sam's baby. Gone. Just like Sam.

"Amy . . . "

She turned her head away from him. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to think.

She wanted to die.

* * *

When Lark arrived at Amy's apartment, a woman she didn't recognize opened the door.

"You must be Lark," the woman said. "I'm Claire Malone, Justin's mother."

They shook hands. Lark immediately liked Claire: her directness, her calm voice, the honesty in her deep blue eyes.

"Where's Amy?" Lark looked around. The place seemed empty except for Claire and the cats.

"Come and sit down. I'm afraid I have more bad news," Claire said.

As Claire explained about the events of the night, Lark's heart ached. Pregnant. Amy had been pregnant, and she'd never said a word. And now she'd not only lost Sam, she'd lost his baby. Dear God. How much should one person be expected to endure? "Where is she?" she said finally.

"At Methodist Hospital."

Within minutes, Lark was on her way. Lunch hour traffic was heavy. It took her more than thirty minutes to get to the Medical Center, ten more minutes to park, ten more to get inside and find Amy's floor. She knew the room number, so she didn't stop at the nurses' station.

The door to the room stood slightly ajar. Lark pushed it open gently. The room was dim, the blinds closed. A tall, dark-haired man was sitting next to the bed. He looked up when she entered, then quietly rose and walked toward her. When she would have spoken, he put his finger to his lips and inclined his head toward the hall.

"Hi," he said when they were outside. "I'm Justin." He smiled and held out his hand.

His eyes were the same deep blue of his mother's, and he reflected the same qualities of honesty and calm dependability. He wasn't handsome. His face was too angular, his nose too long. Yet he was enormously appealing, Lark thought, with that air of quiet strength. He also had a very nice smile. No wonder Amy had liked him immediately. Lark liked him, too.

"How is she?" Lark asked.

"They gave her something to make her sleep."

"How'd she take the news about the baby?"

Justin shrugged, but the offhand gesture didn't fool Lark. She saw the concern in his eyes. "It's hard to tell," he said. "She wouldn't talk to me."

Lark listened with growing dismay as Justin described Amy's lack of response, the way she'd closed her eyes and refused to look at him or speak to him. It wasn't like Amy to withdraw. Amy had always shared her feelings with the same exuberance she brought to everything in her life.

"I'm glad you're here," he said.

"Yes."

"Why don't you go on in? I think I'm going to get myself some coffee. Want some?"

Lark nodded. "Black."

She quietly entered the room. Amy lay very still under the white sheets and thin white cotton blanket. Lark stood by the bed and looked at her. Her frailness, her total lack of color, upset Lark, even though she'd thought she was prepared. Her eyes filled with tears, which she angrily brushed away. Fat lot of good they'd do Amy.

Lark sat in the chair Justin had vacated and waited and watched Amy. At least her breathing was even and untroubled. And sleep was restorative. Maybe, when she awakened, she'd be feeling better. And maybe, with Lark there, she'd finally be able to talk. Get her emotions out in the open. That would be good for her, too.

She touched Amy's hand. The skin felt cool and dry.
I'm here, Amy. I'm here . . .

As if she'd spoken the words aloud, Amy stirred. She opened her eyes.

"Amy?"

"Lark?" It was barely more than a whisper.

Within moments, they were holding each other, Amy crying as if her heart would break, and Lark, wishing there were something she could say to make the pain go away but knowing all she could do was be there.

Six months later
. . .

"I'm so worried about her," Faith said.

Lark nodded. "I know. I am, too."

The two women were having lunch at the River Oaks Deli. Faith had called Lark, saying she needed to talk to her and suggesting lunch.

"All she does is stare into space," Faith continued. "Half the time, when you speak to her, she doesn't answer."

"I know."

Faith laid down her fork. "Does she talk to you?"

Lark shook her head. "Not really. She did, that first day at the hospital, but since she's come home? No. Does she talk to you?"

Faith's lower lip trembled. It was one of the few times Lark had ever seen the older woman lose her composure. "No. She . . . she said she knew I didn't like Sam. That . . . I was probably glad he'd died."

"Oh, God . . . " Lark had had no idea. Poor Faith. What a lousy thing to say to her. "When did this happen?"

"Right after we got home."

"She didn't mean it. She was out of her mind with grief then, you know that."

Faith nodded. "I keep telling myself that, but since then . . . she's been so remote. I try to talk to her. I try to get her to go out with me. I invite her over for dinner. Nothing works. It's . . . it's as if all the life has gone out of her. As if, when Sam died, the best part of Amy died, too." She sighed deeply. "I don't know what to do."

"I think you're doing everything you can do," Lark said gently. She felt an unaccustomed sympathy for Faith—who Lark had always considered a bit suspect with her perfect looks and perfect life and perfect behavior. "Maybe all Amy needs right now is more time."

"I hope so."

"After all," Lark pointed out, "the things that have happened to her have been pretty devastating. Not the kinds of things you get over quickly."

Faith nodded and fell silent. She listlessly toyed with her salad and gazed out the window.

Lark picked up her turkey sandwich, looked at it, then put it back on her plate. She'd lost her appetite. "She knows we're there for her. Whether she acknowledges it or not, I think our support is helping her."

Faith turned her troubled eyes back to Lark's. "You know, in retrospect, I think it would have been better if she'd gone back to work."

"Yes, I feel the same way, but she didn't exactly ask for our opinion, did she? I mean, we didn't even know her principal had called and offered to replace her for the remainder of the year until days after it was a fait accompli."

"But I should have known better. I should have talked to her, tried to make her realize it wasn't good for her to stay home."

"Faith . . . quit blaming yourself. You did what you thought was right at the time. Besides, not only would she not have listened to you, we both know Amy wasn't in any shape to go back. It wouldn't have been fair to the kids in her classes."

"If only we'd insisted she move into the house with us."

Lark had joined Amy's parents in trying to persuade Amy to stay with them once she was released from the hospital, but Amy had refused. And she had gotten angry when Lark wouldn't drop the subject, saying, "Leave me alone, Lark. Just leave me alone, please."

"All she does is stare at that portrait or listen to that music box . . . or sleep." Faith rubbed her forehead. "She must sleep fourteen hours a day."

"Sleep is escape," Lark said. She remembered how, as a teenager, when she was trying to lose weight, she would go to bed so she wouldn't be tempted to eat.

"Lark, I know what you're saying is right. Alan has said all the same things to me. But please, please try to get her out of the house. I-I just can't bear to see her this way." Suddenly, Faith's face crumpled and her eyes filled with tears.

Alarmed, Lark reached across the table but Faith shook her head, obviously embarrassed.

"No, I-I'm okay," she said.

Suddenly Lark was ashamed of all the less than complimentary things she'd thought about Faith Carpenter over the years. The woman truly cared. There were obviously deep feelings beneath that mask she normally wore.

Shit, who was Lark to judge anyone, anyway? Wasn't she always thumbing her nose at the world? Didn't everyone need
some
kind of armor? Look what happened when you didn't protect yourself. Life dealt you a knockout blow, and you weren't prepared. Amy was a perfect example. "All right," she said at last. "I'll try again."

* * *

Amy ran her fingers over the surface of the portrait. The oil paint had long since dried.

Nothing. She felt nothing.

What did you think you'd feel? Warmth? Life? This isn't Sam, stupid. This is just a half-finished portrait, and not a very good one, at that . . .

Sam. The pain that had been so much a part of her life for the past six months she'd ceased to even think of it as something separate, throbbed deep within.

"Sam," she whispered.

His unfinished likeness stared back at her. Unfinished. How ironic. A portent, and she hadn't realized it.
I can finish it when he gets home.
She remembered thinking those exact thoughts. Now they mocked her.

Everything mocked her. The sun. The moon. The stars. The beautiful April weather. People—talking, laughing, making love. The earth still spinning, the clocks still ticking.

How could life go on as if nothing had happened, when Sam's life, their baby's life, was gone? When Amy's hopes and dreams, when her future,
her
life was gone?

"Sam," she whispered again. She hugged herself, cold now, even though it was warm in the apartment. Slowly, as if the effort of putting one foot in front of the other was almost more than she could expend, she walked into her bedroom.

As she had every day, sometimes several times a day, she opened the closet. A few of Sam's clothes hung there. One shirt, a muted print in shades of dusty blue, had been worn and carelessly rehung without laundering. This she buried her face in, imagining she could still smell Sam in the soft cotton, even though all traces of his scent had long disappeared.

As she stood there, Delilah and Elvis, ever curious, rubbed up against her legs. Elvis meowed, wanting attention. A few seconds later, Delilah joined him, but Amy ignored both cats. Finally, she lifted her face, let the shirt go and walked out of the closet, the cats on her heels.

A few steps brought her to her bedside. The cloisonné music box sat on her bedside table. She looked down, remembering the look in Sam's eyes as he'd given it to her. She lifted the lid. As the haunting melody filled the air, she lay down on her bed and closed her eyes.

* * *

"Goddammit, Amy, snap out of it!" Lark said. She had decided to try anger, since patience, gentleness and sympathy hadn't worked. "You can't spend the rest of your life cooped up in this apartment. Just look at you! I'll bet you haven't been out of that robe for days. Now go get a shower and get dressed. I'm taking you to a movie, and then we're going out to dinner. And I'm not budging from this couch until you agree." She plopped down on the couch and folded her arms across her chest and gave Amy her best glare.

Amy's wounded eyes stared back at her.

Lark felt like a heel, but she forced herself not to soften her stance. The seconds ticked away.

Amy was the first to drop her gaze. "Please, Lark," she said. Her voice sounded raspy.

No wonder, Lark thought. Amy had not used her voice much in the past months. Like any unused machinery, it had rusted.
Well, it's gonna get oiled today, my friend, whether you like it or not.
"I mean it, Amy. If I have to quit my job and stay here twenty-four hours a day, I will."

After long moments, Amy's shoulders drooped. "All right," she whispered. Her eyes met Lark's again. "But I don't know why you're doing this."

Then she turned and disappeared into the bathroom.

"I'm doing it because I love you, you dope," Lark said.

* * *

Amy blinked as the closing credits of "Scent of a Woman" scrolled by. In some surprise, she realized that she had—despite her belief that she wouldn't—lost herself in the movie.

"Great, wasn't it?" Lark said. "Al Pacino was fantastic, wasn't he? God, that tango! I can't believe I waited so long to see it."

"Yes, it was wonderful." Amy felt disoriented. She got up and followed Lark out of the row and up the aisle of the dollar movie house.

"Where do you want to go to eat?" Lark said as they emerged from the theater into the pleasant spring night.

Amy shrugged. "I don't care."

"How about Chili's? I could really go for one of their margaritas and Grilled Chicken Caesar salads."

"Okay." Amy didn't really care where they went, but she knew she had to make an effort to behave as if she did, otherwise Lark might make good on her threat to camp in her apartment.

Later, she was glad Lark had suggested Chili's. The restaurant held no association with Sam. Instead, it reminded Amy of many companionable meals with Lark. It also reminded her that Lark cared about her. That she hadn't wanted to make Amy feel worse by insisting she go out, that she had wanted Amy to feel better. And it was working. Amy did feel better.

"Um, boy, their margaritas are good here," Lark said after her first swallow of the frosty drink.

Amy nodded and almost managed a smile.

For a while, the two friends sipped at their drinks, and Amy even found herself eating some of the warm chips and queso Lark had ordered. The food tasted good, another surprise. Amy hadn't enjoyed food for a long time. She looked at Lark, who was gazing around. She wanted to tell Lark she appreciated everything she'd done in these last, terrible months, but the words stuck in her throat.

Lark reached for a chip, and their eyes met.

Neither woman moved.

And then they both spoke at once.

"Amy, I'm so glad—"

"Lark, thank you for—"

Then they smiled at each other, and Lark reached across the table. Amy met her halfway. When Lark's warm hand closed around hers, Amy knew words were not necessary. Lark understood. She had always understood.