Have you met Barbara Holloway?

“A dynamic attorney.”

—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Complex, maddeningly flawed, brilliant, and altogether believable.”

—Salem Statesman Journal

“A passionate lover of truth.”

—Portland Oregonian

“The sort of level-headed heroine you learn to like and trust.”

—Orlando Sentinel

“Something of a slob.”

—Seattle Times

“A marvelously dense and thorny character.”

—Chicago Tribune

“If I had gone the legal route…I’d want to be like Barbara Holloway—smart, savvy, wise, compassionate.”

—Mademoiselle

“A wily and sympathetic heroine.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A complex and appealing woman.”

—Library Journal

KATE WILHELM
CLEAR AND CONVINCING PROOF

CLEAR AND CONVINCING PROOF

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

1

The afternoon that Erica Castle drove into Eugene, Oregon, she was elated, excited at the thought that she would sleep in her own house that night. Weeks earlier an attorney had called to inform her that she had inherited her grandmother’s property; she had become a home owner. She had never met her grandmother, had never before been farther west than Indiana, but her mother had talked about the fine old mansion many times in the distant past, and now it was hers, Erica’s.

She drove with care, admiring the well-kept houses, the neat lawns and lovely landscaping with flowers everywhere. After grimy industrial Cleveland, everything here looked fresh and scrubbed, sparkling clean. It was an affluent neighborhood, not superrich, but comfortable. No more dingy apartments, inner-city filth, just her own house in a nice neighborhood where flowers bloomed.

Driving slower and slower, she watched the house numbers, then came to a stop, backed up, pulled into a driveway and braked hard, aghast at the spectacle before her. The yard had gone to weeds, knee-high or higher, and a tangle of blackberry brambles was ten feet high. There was trash strewn in the driveway, beer bottles, an oil can, a broken chair…The two-story house had peeling paint and bare wood in places. There was a broken window held together with duct tape, a broken banister on the front porch.

She felt as if for weeks she had been floating, as buoyant as a dandelion seed in a breeze, only to have a giant hand reach out now and crush her back to earth. Moving with leaden legs she got out of her old station wagon and approached the front of the house, forced herself up the three steps to the porch, across it to the door.

It was worse on the inside. The smell was so bad that she gagged and took a step back, then hurried through a hallway to the rear of the house and opened a door. Trash was everywhere, more beer cans, wine bottles, liquor bottles, pizza boxes, junk furniture, piles of newspapers, a foam mat on the floor….

She didn’t go upstairs and didn’t linger inside the house longer than it took for a hurried glance. Junk. Nothing but junk. Then she stood on the back porch and regarded the rear of the property: more blackberries, more weeds, more trash. The brambles had nearly covered a small garage.

She fought tears and made her clenched fists relax. “All right,” she said in a low voice. “So there’s no free lunch.”

The house could be cleaned up, painted, the yard cleaned and made neat. Then she would sell it. After cashing out her pension, she had eleven thousand dollars. If she had to use part of it to get the house ready for a sale, so be it.

The giant hand that had crushed her was rubbing her nose in the dirt, she thought grimly the following day, when the attorney informed her that there was also a property tax lien of eight thousand dollars. He put her in touch with a Realtor, Mrs. Maryhill, who walked through the house with Erica and pointed out what needed doing before putting the house on the market.

“See those water stains? Needs a roof. And probably the wiring needs an overhaul…Maybe there’s dry rot in that bathroom. Hard to tell with so much mold…Three windows need replacing…. That water heater’s twenty-five years old, has to be replaced…. All the oak flooring needs to be refinished. What a shame to let it go like that.”

Then, on the rear porch, she said, “I’ll tell you straight, Ms. Castle. You sell it as is, and maybe you can get fifty thousand, maybe not even that. And it might take months or even years. See, no Realtor is going to want to show it. Put in ten, twelve thousand, bring it up to par with the neighborhood and you can get $150 thousand to $185 for it. It’s really a very nice old structure, solid, good wood, but gone to pot now. Depending on how it’s finished, how it appears, maybe you’d get up to two hundred. But it’s going to take a lot of work first.”

Two weeks later Mrs. Maryhill dropped by again. “Just in the neighborhood,” she said, looking all around. “My, my, you’ve been busy, haven’t you? You’re doing it all yourself?”

“So far. I thought I’d see how much I could manage before I yell for help.”

The electricity was on; the kitchen and the downstairs bedroom were scrubbed and usable and just needed repainting; the odors in the house now were of Lysol and bleach, trisodium phosphate, ammonia and Pine Sol. Junk was high in the driveway, with more added daily. The heap looked like a rising volcano of obsidian; some of the trash bags even steamed in the sun.

To Erica’s surprise the house she was unearthing was very nice, as Mrs. Maryhill had said earlier. The first floor had four spacious rooms and a small pantry; the upper apartment had four rooms; and the basement was dry with a good concrete floor.

“Eventually,” the Realtor said, “you’ll have to hire help. If you decide to take out a mortgage, hold off as long as possible. Get the house in the best shape you can before anyone comes to inspect it. Do you plan to get a job?”

“I hadn’t given it any thought yet,” Erica said. She suspected that Mrs. Maryhill had assessed her financial position quite accurately. No one did the kind of cleaning Erica had been doing if they had a tidy fortune stashed away.

“Well, consider it,” Mrs. Maryhill said. “Banks like to think their clients can repay a loan. They’re funny that way.” She smiled widely. “And something else you might consider,” she said, “is doing some volunteer work for the time being. A few hours a week, at least. You’d meet local people who may be willing to give references, you see. You know the rehab clinic over on Country Club Road? That would be a good place for you. Close enough to walk to, but more important, you’d meet a good clientele, some of the patients, doctors, therapists, the sort of people banks adore for references.”

“The only thing I’m qualified to do is teach,” Erica said. “Fifteen years of experience. But I suppose I could work in a kitchen, something like that.”

Mrs. Maryhill shook her head. “No, no. You want to meet people. You have a lovely voice. Volunteer to read to the patients.”

All afternoon and into the night Erica considered both suggestions. Regardless of her years of experience, she knew she would not be qualified to teach full-time here. For that she would need Oregon certification, which would take time, and possibly require some classes, and she had no intention of going that route. She was truly burned out, she admitted, but perhaps she could get a temporary certificate and sign up as a substitute. Most school districts had a number of substitutes who worked all hours, even full-time, but without the perks: no medical insurance, no pension, no paid holidays.

Besides, it would be temporary. As soon as she got a loan, and finished fixing up the house, she would sell it. She didn’t want a house and a job; she wanted some money for the first time in her life. Sell it, take a long vacation, buy a new car…As she scrubbed away grime accumulated over many years, she came to appreciate the fine woodwork, the lovely cabinets, good cedar-lined closets, lead-glass-fronted bookcases in the living room. Two hundred thousand, she told herself. She could endure anything, even teaching fifth grade, for that kind of payback.

More to the point, she would need an income. First she had to spruce herself up, she decided, fingering her hair, lank and mousy brown. She was forty years old and felt fifty, and suspected she looked it. Start with the hair, she told herself; she could not volunteer for anything, much less apply for a teaching position looking like a charwoman.

The next week she put in her application with the school district and then drove to the Kelso-McIvey Rehabilitation Clinic, which turned out to be four blocks from her house. There was a large parking lot in front of the two-story building, a high hedge and a covered walk from a wide drive. A big van under the cover had a mechanism lowering a patient in a wheelchair.

Erica passed it and entered the building, which was not at all institutional. Baskets held potted plants and more plants in ceramic pots were on the reception desk. A teddy bear leaned against a pot with a basket of peppermints nearby. A pretty, blond young woman at the reception desk greeted her and, on hearing her name, said, “Mrs. Boardman will be free in a minute or two. She’s expecting you. You want to sit over there and wait? I’ll tell her you’re here.” She wore a name tag: Annie. She motioned toward a waiting room where a few other people were seated, and then smiled at the patient an attendant was wheeling in.

“Mrs. Daniels! How nice to see you. How’s it going? You look wonderful!”

Erica was not kept waiting long. Annie beckoned her and led the way down a brightly lit corridor, chatting as she walked. “Boy, can they use volunteers here. Half the people you see working are volunteers, in fact.”

“Well, I won’t have a lot of free time,” Erica said.

“Ten minutes makes a difference,” Annie said. “Here we are.”

She tapped on a door, opened it and moved aside for Erica to enter. A tall, lean woman rose from her desk as they entered. She looked to be sixty and was dressed in chinos and a T-shirt. Her hair was gray, straight and very short, almost too severe, but bright blue earrings and a matching necklace softened her appearance, and her smile was warm and friendly as she came around the desk to take Erica’s hand.

“Ms. Castle, how do you do? I’m Naomi Boardman. Thanks, Annie. Will you be around for a bit?”

“Until four-thirty. I’ll be at the front desk until Bernie gets back from the dentist. That should be any minute now.” She smiled at Erica and left.

Then, seated in two visitors’ chairs, Naomi Boardman and Erica talked. It was not a real interview, Erica came to realize very fast. Things had already been decided. Naomi made it clear that they wanted her.

“When I brought it up with Darren—he’s our head physical therapist—we agreed that it’s a marvelous idea, to have someone read to the patients. They work so hard, harder than any of the staff, and they are exhausted by the end of the day. This would be relaxing, and even comforting, we believe.”

The patients varied in age, she said, from young children to octogenarians, suffering the effects of bicycle accidents, strokes, congenital birth defects, fire, brain tumors—all kinds of trauma. Although most of them were outpatients, there was also a fifteen-bed hospital on the upper floor. Sometimes it was filled with a waiting list, other times not. At present, she said, they had eleven patients up there.

Feeling a growing disquietude, Erica asked, “But who would I be reading to? What age group? How many?”

“Well, we won’t know that until you begin. Maybe four, maybe ten. All ages. And anything you would find suitable for your fifth grade classes would work fine.” She smiled at Erica. “You’ll have a lot of latitude. It won’t be so much what you read, you see, as the fact that you will be reading to them. And you have such a nice voice.”

It was arranged. She would begin on Wednesday, starting at five in the evening. Naomi hesitated over the hour. It was best for the patients because some of them were so fretful by then, restless and exhausted, but it might be hard for Erica. Not at all, Erica assured her. Then Naomi called Annie back and asked her to show Erica the facility. “Welcome to the Kelso-McIvey Rehabilitation Center,” Naomi said.

“I’ve never heard anyone call it that,” Annie confided, as she started the tour. “It’s just the rehab clinic. Down that way are the therapy rooms. We won’t go in while they’re being used. This way to the garden. Darren thinks it’s a good idea to get people out in the open as much as possible.”

Erica saw little of the clinic that day, but later she came to appreciate the many ways the curse of institution had been obliterated. One wall held children’s art, colorful, fanciful, honest. Another displayed whimsical figures from Disney or Dr. Suess. Dorothy with her steadfast companions on the yellow brick road. Superheroes. Christopher Robin and Pooh. There was a ceiling-to-floor wall of greeting cards: Valentine’s Day, Christmas cards, birthday cards, thank-you cards. There were plants throughout, in baskets, brass planters, hanging from baskets, on wall brackets. The visitors’ waiting room had a game table, large-screen television, current magazines, a jigsaw puzzle in progress on a table. She laughed later when she followed arrows from the children’s ward to the upper lounge. The arrows began to go this way and that, a drunkard’s walk trail, and then climbed a wall, ending abruptly. A splotch on the floor was the start of the arrows from there, more or less steady to the lounge. She learned that Naomi had been the decorator, and it all worked delightfully.

The offices were like offices everywhere with the usual furnishings, but when she viewed the therapy rooms later, she caught in her breath. Medieval torture chambers, she thought, mortify the flesh and save the soul. But here the plan was to save the body. Tables with straps dangling, holding curiously shaped brackets, cups, straps. A device that appeared to be designed to support body parts—legs, arms, torsos. Several treadmills, walkways with rails, one with a contraption that was like a rescue seat she had seen on television hauling a person from a sinking ship. A small swimming pool in a room so hot and humid it was like a steam bath. A mechanism there apparently could lift a patient and lower him or her into the water, then fish the patient out again.

On that first day, she caught glimpses only as she was escorted to the garden, screened on three sides by shrubbery. It was laid out in such a way, Annie explained, that each section of the path was a particular length, a quarter of a mile, a third of a mile, an eighth. The whole thing, if you covered every path, zigzagging around, would be two miles, with a waterfall at one end and steps going up to it on both sides. There was a koi pond up there, with a couple of benches, a nice place to relax and watch the fish. Apparently it was simply decorative, but that was deceptive, she said; Darren knew that one of the hardest tasks some patients encountered was going up and down steps. Everything had been laid out by Darren, she said, and a landscape company had planted it and maintained it.

“For the most part, you can’t see one path from any other one,” Annie said. “There could be half a dozen patients out here, and they’d be invisible to one another. All Darren’s doing.”

She started down one of the paths. “This goes to the back gate, and across an alley from there is where Naomi and her husband live. He’s the resident doctor here.” She stopped and put her finger to her lips.

A woman’s voice came from ahead, somewhere out of sight. “Darren, I am trying. I really am.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Mrs. Daniels,” a man said softly. “You know I wouldn’t say something like that to you. I was talking to that lazy leg. It knows I’m speaking to it, and it’s just plain lazy. Muscles can get like that, just lay back and pretend they don’t have to do a thing. Hey, leg, you can’t fool me. I’m on to you. Stop dragging that foot! You hear me, now hustle.”

After a moment, he said, “See? It knows I’m on to it. Good job.”

Annie touched Erica’s arm and turned back toward the door. When they were out of range of the others, she said, “When she came here a couple months ago, she couldn’t even move. Now she’s up and walking. That’s Darren’s doing, too.”

She sounded boastful, smug even, but when Erica glanced at her, she looked sad and averted her face. “On to the kitchen and lounge,” she said briskly. “You’ll like the lounge. It’s like an old country house parlor.”

She was wearing a diamond-studded wedding ring, her pantsuit was expensive, her nails manicured, her blond hair styled beautifully. Erica recalled what she had said, that she would be there until four-thirty. A volunteer? It seemed so. A wealthy volunteer, from all appearances. Mrs. Maryhill had been correct; Erica would meet the right sort of people here.

2

When Annie left, it was a few minutes past four-thirty, and she drove faster than usual, knowing there would be a traffic snarl at the entrance to Coburg Road and the bridge at this time of day. Normally the short trip would take no more than five to eight minutes, but because she was running late already, it took longer. She didn’t know why that was, but it seemed to work out that way every time. It was ten minutes before five when she entered the waiting room of the surgical associates, waved to Leslie Tooey at the reception desk and took a chair in the waiting room. Leslie nodded and picked up her phone to tell Dr. McIvey that she had arrived.

That was a bad sign, Annie knew. It meant that he was not with a patient, possibly that he had been waiting for her. He hated to be kept waiting. He sometimes was ready to leave at a quarter to five, sometimes not until after six, or even later, but whenever it was, he wanted her to be there.

Leslie slid open the glass partition and said, “You can go on back now.”

Annie forced a smile and walked through the waiting room to the door to the offices, paused for Leslie to release the lock, then walked to the office where her husband was waiting for her to drive him home.

He met her at the door. “I don’t want to hear about the traffic,” he said. “When will you get it through your head that it gets bad this time of day? Start earlier. Do I have to tie a note around your neck? And take off that stupid name tag.”

He strode out as she fumbled with the name tag. She had forgotten she was still wearing it. They left by the rear door.

David McIvey was forty-seven, at the peak of his physical attractiveness. Tall, well-built, with abundant, wavy brown hair, brown eyes and regular features, he impressed strangers who often mistook him for a ski instructor, or a model, or a sportscaster—someone in the public eye. He was also at the peak of his profession—the most sought-after neurosurgeon in town, and the most successful.

“Why did you marry me?” she had demanded one night, two years earlier, the only time they had ever really quarreled. “You don’t want a lover, a wife, a companion. What you want is an indentured servant.”

“I will not be drawn into an adolescent, fruitless discussion of relationships,” he had said, rising from the dinner table. “You have everything a woman could possibly want, and what I need in return is a peaceful, orderly home.” He held up his hands; his fingers were long and shapely. “I confront death on a daily basis. That requires absolute concentration, certainty and order, and I cannot be distracted by disorder when I get home. I cannot tolerate absurd, childish outbursts of temper or foolish, female hysteria. Call me rigid, inflexible, unyielding, whatever you like, but you have to give me what I need, and that is simply peace and quiet when I get home.”

“You don’t even realize how it hurts when you treat me like a slave.”

“You know where the box is that holds all the belongings you brought into this house. I won’t try to hold you here, or restrain you in any way. You are free to take that box and leave whenever you want to, but if you stay, you will accept that my needs are to be met with whatever grace you can manage.”

“And my needs?”

“You have no needs that involve me. We will not discuss this again. You know my schedule.”

What had set off the argument that day was the fact that she had been held up at the rehab clinic, helping restrain a teenager who had had a violent reaction to a medication. David had not wanted to hear about it, and had become an ice-man with a coldness that had persisted throughout dinner.

A week after the argument, she had talked to a lawyer, had shown him the prenuptial agreement she had blithely signed.

“You didn’t consult an attorney before you signed it?” the lawyer asked in disgust. He waved away her answer. “Doesn’t matter. You signed it and you were of age, and presumably in your right mind. You agreed that if you want out before ten years pass, you will take with you no more than you brought into the marriage. No settlement, no alimony, nothing. On the other hand, he can kick you out at any time if you fail your wifely duties, commit adultery, turn into a drunk or an addict…. Very generously, he agreed that if he’s the one to end it, he’ll give you severance pay, so to speak—three months’ living expenses. Mrs. McIvey, why did you marry the guy?”

“I loved him,” she said in a low voice. In a lower voice she added, “I believed he loved me.”

It had been more than that, and less, she had come to realize. At twenty-two she had been thrilled to be noticed by the older, brilliant and very rich doctor. And she had been infatuated, blind and deaf to the advice of her parents, Naomi, a few friends. David had been devastated by the divorce his first wife had instituted; she had cleaned him out, he had admitted. His child support payments were astronomical, with access to his two children severely limited. He desperately wanted a decent home life, a companion, a wife. Two months after they met, he and Annie were married.

The lawyer gave her some advice that day. Start a journal, write down the schedule you have to maintain and what happens if you are late. Keep a record of what you do every day for a few weeks, and after that, note any changes. Keep your journal in a safe deposit box, or under lock and key at home.

She listened and later followed his advice, but she didn’t get a safe deposit box. It was impossible to imagine David reading her private journal; he neither knew nor cared what she did as long as he was not thrown off his schedule. He wanted his breakfast to be ready at six-thirty, and then to be driven to the office. He could drive but he didn’t like to; she had become his chauffeur. She returned to the surgical offices at twelve-thirty to take him home for lunch—which she prepared—and then was back to get him at four-forty-five. What she did the rest of the day he never asked.

But the attraction of a never-ending vacation soon palled. They lived in a condo complex, where it appeared that the other women were professionals who worked, or had small children, or were a good deal older than she and played bridge. David’s schedule precluded day-long shopping with lunch outings. She could not take a run up to Portland for the opening of a museum show or art gallery. She could not spend all afternoon playing bridge, which she didn’t know how to play to begin with. Invitations from other women in the complex dwindled to nothing within a year. Since a housekeeper-cook came every afternoon to clean and prepare dinner for seven-thirty, she didn’t change sheets, dust books, scrub a bathroom, learn new cooking skills. Even Saturdays were rigidly scheduled, at least the mornings were. David jogged on Saturday morning; she took him to the Amazon Trail at eight-thirty and picked him up again exactly one and a half hours later.

They seldom entertained or accepted invitations, although they did go to an occasional concert or play, and once or twice a month they had dinner with his mother.

He could be tender, and even passionate, she also wrote in the journal. His passion during sex had excited her to an extreme. It was the passion and abandon of stories, of dreams, and she thought that was why she had been determined at first to make it work. She had felt certain that that passionate other would come to the surface all the time, that he would unfreeze, relax, that his rigidity was caused by fear that she would desert him the way he said Lorraine, his ex-wife, had done. After the second year she had abandoned that hope. Not Jekyll and Hyde, but rather Don Juan in bed and Cotton Mather out of bed. Medicine was his god, the operating room his church, the scalpel his scepter.

What she could do, she had decided, was spend time at the clinic, where she felt comfortable and relaxed, and where the only friends she had in Eugene could be found. In many ways being a volunteer was better than working full-time at a salary that barely paid subsistence wages. She had told Naomi years ago that she planned to work and save for a number of years, and then take time off, travel, see New York, Paris…. Working full-time, she had been able to save nothing.

Gradually she had come to realize that she was changing, not David. She was the indentured servant, she thought, a bonded servant whose reward would come after serving for a certain number of years.

She would be thirty-two when the ten years were up; she would still be young. Think of it as working and putting money aside to fulfill dreams later, or like being imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit, she told herself. You can endure anything for a limited time, if you know when the end will be. She endured and followed his schedule and rarely was late, and she counted the months ahead, the months already passed. She kept a faithful record of her days, which were blameless, virtuous, along with his deeds and words and her accommodation.

And when her servitude ended, she reminded herself now and then, she would make his first wife look like a piker.

3

Three afternoons a week Erica walked to the clinic to read to the patients. Her audience changed from week to week, sometimes from day to day, but those who attended were almost excessively grateful.

Since she arrived so late in the afternoon, she had reflected during the first week, her chances of meeting many people were limited. Accordingly, she began to get there by four-thirty, sometimes earlier. She had met Dr. Boardman, a tall craggy man, with prominent bones, big hands and a kindly, somewhat abstracted manner that suggested he was paying little attention to those around him. A mistake, she had come to realize. He and Naomi were parents to the clinic and he was looked on as a mentor, a guru or confessor, to whom people—staff, as well as patients—took their problems, whether personal or medical. She had met people in the offices, nurses, everyone in the kitchen, a number of volunteers. She saw Annie now and then, but never to talk to her. Although she was apparently there every day, Annie always left at just about the same time that Erica arrived.

Erica made it a point to stop by the reception desk to chat with Bernie Zuckerman often. Bernie was a stout woman, dimply and cheerful, in her forties. Bernie was always the first to know anything happening at the facility, and although she might have been able to keep secrets, it had not yet been demonstrated. Most people at the clinic visited with her habitually, and that was where Erica had met the ones she knew. But she had not met many of the therapists yet. They were usually gone by the time Erica finished reading.

That day, the first of August, Erica stopped at the kitchen, as she always did, to get a glass of ice water and chat a moment with Stephanie Waters. When Bernie introduced her as the cook, Stephanie had said indignantly, “I am not a cook. I am a nutritionist.” She was fifty-plus, stately, with burnished copper-colored hair, a figure that was without a curve from shoulders to hips, and she was a dictator in the kitchen.

After leaving the kitchen, while passing a therapy room, Erica heard Darren’s low voice from beyond the door that was ajar.

“See, it’s like this. You already learned all this stuff once, and your brain said, that’s it, done. Then whap, the part of the brain that knows how you walk got zonked right out of business. We’re going to teach some other part to take over its job. Most of your brain, everyone’s brain, is just sitting there not doing a thing until there’s some learning to do and then lights go on all over the place. Let’s watch the video now. See that little fellow crawling around? He’s decided it’s time to get up and walk. That’s hard-wired in, to get up and walk, only the brain doesn’t know yet exactly how legs and feet work, or just where they are, or how to keep balance. Watch. There he goes…. Whoops. Wrong move.”

Erica hardly dared to breathe, listening. Darren’s voice was deep and low, not laughing, but amused and easy.

“Up again, try again…Whoops, down again. He’s starting to get frustrated. Don’t blame the little guy. That’s hard work he’s doing, and he keeps falling down. Whoops. Okay, he’s making progress. He’s learned not to let go of the chair, I see. That’s good…Too bad, down but not out…Uh-oh. A temper tantrum. Back to crawling…And up again. He can’t help it, he has to get up and learn to walk….”

Darren laughed, and after a brief pause a child laughed, too. “He’s got quite a temper, doesn’t he?” Darren said. “And a great throwing arm. Up again. What’s happening is that his brain is learning all the things that don’t work, and trying other things. Ah, he let go of the chair. One, two, three…and down he goes….”

Reluctantly Erica moved on. Bernie had said that Darren had magic in his hands; he knew exactly what the patients needed by feeling them. And magic in his voice, Erica thought, as she made her way to the broad staircase to the second-floor lounge, appreciating the many lessons Darren was giving that child: he was going to work hard; his brain could be reeducated; he had to learn to walk all over again; frustration and even a show of temper would be acceptable. And the most important lesson: he was going to walk again. Darren was a superb teacher, she decided.

In the Boardman residence that afternoon Naomi and Greg Boardman were having a drink with Thomas Kelso. Every week or so he dropped in for a chat, for a drink, just to poke his big nose in, he sometimes said. He was eighty-two, and his nose was indeed very large. It seemed that everything about him had become more and more shrunken except his nose. It was hard to imagine a more wrinkled face and he was stooped and inches shorter than he had been years ago. He had no hair left and wore a yachting cap indoors and out, year round.

He sipped wine and nodded. It was a good claret. “Joyce isn’t going to make it,” he said. “David will agree tomorrow to pull the plug. No point in his pretending otherwise.”

David McIvey’s mother had suffered a massive stroke a week before and had drifted in and out of a coma for several days, then she didn’t come out of it.

“I’m so sorry, Thomas,” Naomi said softly.

“There are worse ways to go,” he said.

She suspected he was thinking of his wife, trapped in the ever worsening dementia of Alzheimer’s.

“What’s going to happen,” Thomas said, “is that David’s going to push to change our charter as soon as he has Joyce’s shares. Next month, six weeks. He won’t wait long.”

“If we lose the nonprofit status,” Greg said after a moment, “we’ll lose the volunteers and there isn’t enough money to pay new staff for the work they do. Christ, we don’t pay the staff we have what they could earn anywhere else. They’ll move on and we’ll have to drop half our patients.”

“I know all that,” Thomas said with a scowl.

“I heard a rumor floating around when David and Lorraine divorced, that part of the settlement she accepted was his shares in the clinic,” Greg said thoughtfully. “Anything to it?”

“Not just like that. The two kids got the shares with no voting rights until they reach majority. Until then David keeps control. Lorraine won’t object to changing the charter. It’s money in the bank for the kids,” Thomas said bitterly.

Upon his mother’s death, David would come into her shares of the clinic. Owning them, and with control of his children’s shares, he would control fifty percent of the vote.

The sudden catastrophic stroke and imminent death of Joyce McIvey had shaken Thomas Kelso profoundly, in a way that his own wife’s decline had not. He had seen that coming for several years. His grief and mourning had turned into dull acceptance, knowing that his wife was on the spiral that circled downward inexorably, with no hint of when it might end. He set down his glass and leaned forward in his chair. “Greg, I’ve made an appointment with Sid Blankenship for this coming Thursday. I want you there.”

“Why?” Greg asked.

“I intend to change my will,” Thomas said. “If you’ll agree to it, I’m leaving you my shares of the clinic, and Donna’s, too, if that’s legal. As you well know, there’s no money in it, just a lot of work and responsibility. We wrote our wills years ago, and I don’t know if my power of attorney is sufficient to override the provisions in her will. The way it’s set up now, her clinic shares will be divided among the kids when she dies. And if they inherit, those three kids will sell out in a minute to the highest bidder, which in this case would be David McIvey. I’ll see him drawn and quartered before I’ll let control of the clinic fall into David’s hands.”

“Amen,” Greg said softly. “Amen.”

After Thomas Kelso left, Greg returned to the clinic. Things to see to, he said vaguely, but Naomi suspected that he wanted time alone wandering about in the garden. She started to prepare dinner, thinking through the implications of Thomas’s visit.

If Greg and David both controlled fifty percent of the clinic, it meant that David could not sell out to one of the health organizations, for one thing. And he could not change the charter from nonprofit to profit making. But only if Greg could hold out against him. That was the sticking point, she admitted to herself. Greg had started his practice as a general practitioner, working alone, keeping his own hours. Naomi had been his office manager, bookkeeper, factotum. Early in their marriage she had delivered two stillborn daughters. They had struggled with grief, then had found solace in hard work. She had scolded him: he spent too much time with patients, talked too much with them, and he had too many. A killer schedule, she had thought, but a necessary one at that time. Then things began to change: bureaucracy, Medicaid, Medicare, HMOs, insurance companies, malpractice insurance…. The day his insurance agent told him bluntly that the company would no longer insure doctors in private practice working alone, he had threatened to quit medicine altogether. His colleagues were joining groups, joining HMOs, forming corporations, becoming more and more involved with paperwork, not medicine, and he was in danger of losing his hospital privileges, he had railed. Medicine was becoming just another big business, and if he had wanted to go into business he would have gone after an MBA, not a medical degree.

Then, Thomas Kelso and William McIvey had interviewed him and offered him the resident physician’s post, and her the job of personnel manager. Their salaries would be modest, not in the corporate six-figure category, Thomas had said, but the directors took no salary at all, and Greg and Naomi would not have anyone breathing down their necks or second-guessing their every decision.

Greg was the kind of doctor Robert Frost had had in mind. He let the patients talk, never rushed them, listened to whatever they wanted to talk about—medical problems, family problems, work or school, whatever. He explained everything to them. He might sit up half the night with a frightened child or hold the hand of an elderly patient who was suffering, until painkilling medication took effect.

What he seemed incapable of was dealing with mechanistic authoritarians, the law-and-order, rigid types who knew the rules and never strayed from them, and gave no quarter to anyone who did. Like David McIvey.

If David and Greg got into a conflict, and they would, Naomi was not at all certain Greg would hold his ground. She was not certain that he could hold his ground.

Years before, a patient of David’s had told her how David had nearly gloated over her X rays, how he had described where he would cut, what he would do. “It was the most terrifying hour of my life,” the woman had said. “I don’t doubt that he’s the brilliant surgeon people say he is, but he’s a monster, too. I think he lives to cut people. That gives him pleasure, that and frightening his patients. He knew he was frightening me, and he kept on and on about it. Never a word of comfort. He’s a monster.”

David was as implacable and unyielding as a glacier, moving steadily forward, crushing anything in its path, oblivious. And David had made it clear that the clinic could not survive as a family hobby in the face of the modern business climate.

If Erica left the clinic promptly at six on those hot days, she still had a couple of hours of daylight to work on the outside of the house, which she had started to paint. She had scraped and brushed flaking paint off, had primed bare spots, and now she was putting on the final coat. Later in the year, when the season changed, she would concentrate on the inside, she had decided, and try to get as much done outside as possible now. In the mornings she worked on the west side, out of the sun. In the evenings she moved the ladder to the east side. Gradually the house was getting painted. That evening she set up her ladder, got her brush and paint and climbed up. It was a two-story house with high eaves, a stretch from as high on the ladder as she dared to go.

She had not yet hung the paint can on the ladder when she felt the ladder starting to shift, to tilt. She dropped the brush and grabbed a gutter for support. It wouldn’t hold her weight, she thought wildly, as the ladder shifted again. It wouldn’t hold her and she didn’t dare let go and start climbing back down.

Then she heard Darren’s voice from below. She recognized the voice instantly from listening to him at the clinic; the same easy cadence, not laughing, but not taking the situation very seriously either. They had not met, but she had seen him with patients, with the interns, talking to Greg Boardman, and she had stopped to listen to him more than once. Looking down she saw his broad face grinning up at her.

“Drop the paint and hold on to the ladder,” he said. “I’ll keep it steady for you.”

“The can’s open,” she said, hearing the words as inane. “You’ll be splashed with paint.”

His grin broadened. “Just drop it. Let it go.”

She dropped the can and it splashed paint like a geyser. Then she climbed down the ladder as Darren held it steady.

At the bottom, on solid ground again, she looked at him in dismay. “Oh, Lord, I’m sorry! Thank you. I think you saved my life.”

He was spattered from his shoes up, with paint on his jeans, his shirt, arms and hands, and some even on his face. He laughed. “Maybe just your neck. You set the ladder over a hole in the ground. Got a hose?”

She shook her head. “Come on around back. You can wash up a little bit at least. I’m Erica Castle.”

“The book lady,” he said. “I’d offer to shake hands, but it’s probably not a good idea. Darren Halvord.”

She led the way around the mountain of trash to the back porch, where he hesitated. “I’d better leave the shoes outside,” he said. “I’ll track up your floor.”

He took off his running shoes, then followed her into the house, where she got out towels and a washcloth and pointed him toward the bathroom. “I could wash your clothes,” she said, “but I don’t have anything you could put on.”

“They’ll keep until I get home.”

When he returned, with a clean face, hands and arms, she held out a glass of iced tea. “It’s about all I have to offer. Or some pretty cheap wine.”

“This is good,” he said, taking the tea, then gazing about the kitchen. About five feet ten or eleven inches tall, he didn’t give the impression of being large, but his arms were corded with muscles and his shoulders were very broad. She had thought his eyes were black, but now saw that they were dark blue, with pale lashes, pale eyebrows. His hair was straight, cut short, probably a dark blond, sun-bleached. Laugh lines at his eyes looked as if they had been drawn with white ink on a russet background.

“How did you just happen to come by in the nick of time?” she asked, moving to the table to sit down. He sat opposite her and sipped the tea.

“I always come this way or a block or two over. My place is behind that mall on Coburg, four blocks from here. I didn’t know you lived in this house. I thought it was vacant, going to ruin.”

“Well, it was going to ruin, that’s for sure. I inherited it from my grandmother.”

She talked about the shape the house had been in when she arrived, about teaching in Cleveland, the trip out. He was easy to talk to, and, she realized, she had been starved for male company. That was a surprise; she had been so tired by bedtime day after day that her thoughts of men had been rare, easily ignored. The few times she thought of Ron, her former fiancé, she had felt only satisfaction of being done with him, done with that endless, go-nowhere engagement. After the first date or two, there had never been any excitement in that relationship. She had never felt the least bit threatened or exhilarated, but rather an unexamined acceptance of her role in his life, one of accommodation to his twice-a-week need for sex. They had been engaged for six years.

“After I start teaching in the fall,” she said, “fixing up the house will go faster. I’ll hire someone to help out, repair or replace the roof, do a number of things.”

“Will you rent out the apartment? It is a separate apartment, isn’t it? I noticed the outside stairs.”

“It is. That’s way down on my list of things to get to. I haven’t even started on it yet.”

“Can I have a look at the upstairs?” he asked then. “See, I have a three-room apartment over by the mall, and the traffic’s getting worse and worse. I suspect that the owner of the building will sell out to a developer for a big box store or something in the coming year. I’ll be house hunting then.”

“It might be that long before I get things in shape upstairs.” She started to say that her plan was to fix up the house and sell it as soon as possible, but she didn’t.

“Let’s have a look.”

It was worse than the downstairs had been when she’d first arrived. She had cleaned out the refrigerator and left the door open, but had done nothing else. There were mats on the floor, rags and paper bags, fast-food boxes, pizza boxes, bottles, broken chairs and a wobbly table, and the whole place was horribly dirty. She was ashamed, humiliated to think that she owned it, more humiliated to think her mother had lived like this for years, until her death from a drug overdose.

Darren examined the apartment carefully, then nodded. They went back down to her kitchen. “Let’s talk rent,” he said.

“I told you, that’s last on my list.”

“Would $750 a month be okay? That’s more than I’m paying now, but it’s a lot bigger, closer to work and not being crowded by a mall.”

She poured more tea, got out ice cubes and shook her head. “Next year maybe.”

“I thought we might make a deal,” he said, accepting the freshened tea. He sat down again. “I could start cleaning it up and do some of the other things that need doing, like hauling away the trash, replacing the glass in those windows. In return I get a free month’s rent, and I get to park my truck in the garage. And have my son with me some of the time. He’s eleven and part of the reason I need more space.”

She stared at him, at a loss.

“I can furnish pretty good references,” he said, and then grinned.

“Oh boy, can you! I just hadn’t considered even trying to rent it yet, not for months and months.”

“Okay, think about it and let me know.” He drank more of the tea and put the glass down, then stood up. “See you at the clinic.”

“No, wait. What am I thinking? Of course, it’s a deal. It’s just so…so unfair for you. To have to clean up that filth, I mean.”

“My department. Don’t even think of it. Eventually I’ll want a key to the outside door. I’ll probably get started over the weekend. You just stay off that ladder, okay? I’ll get it painted along the way.” He held out his hand. “Deal,” he said. “We can get a rental agreement, whatever it takes, later.”

They shook hands, and for the first time in her life she fully understood the old expression: to touch a live wire. She knew that he went out to the porch, that he put his shoes on, waved to her and walked out of sight, but she had become immobilized by that touch. Abruptly she sat down and looked at her hand, opened it, closed it hard, opened it.

“Oh, my God,” she said under her breath.

4

“What it means,” Greg Boardman told Naomi on Thursday night, “is that it’s a legal tangle, a nightmare. When the court granted the power of attorney to Thomas, there was another document, a power of acceptance. Since Donna had a will, the court ruled that her intentions were perfectly clear, and the terms of the will had to be satisfied. Her shares will go to their kids when she dies. Thomas said that when they wrote their wills they were still trying to get the kids interested in the clinic, and had hopes that Lawrence, at least, would get involved. It seemed a good idea, I guess, to bequeath them shares. And now that old will is the determining factor in who will control the clinic.”

Thomas Kelso’s kids were middle-aged, and none of them, as far as Naomi could tell, gave a damn about the clinic. Lawrence was a molecular biologist at Princeton; the twin daughters were both married to well-to-do businessmen in Los Angeles.

“I thought Thomas had the authority to vote her shares, even to sell them,” she said.

“He does. But if he wanted to sell them, he would have to prove it was a real sale with a bona fide buyer. There would have to be an evaluation with a real market value, and then the proceeds of the sale would have to be used for her care, and when she dies, anything left over would go to the kids. He can’t sell them to me for a buck.” Very bitterly he added, “Thomas is beaten, and he knows it. He’s plenty pissed.”

“Not just Thomas,” she said after a moment. Greg’s craggy face was drawn and he looked tired. She knew he had not been sleeping well. His face always revealed his inner self: conflicts, concern, love, whatever emotion was uppermost was as visible to her as if written in script on his features. It was not only that he was close to his sixtieth birthday, she also knew, although that was a factor. Where he could go at his age was problematic. But he cared deeply about the work at the clinic. Everyone who went to work there and stayed cared deeply. Maybe that was a mistake, getting personally involved, caring so much. It was a disturbing thought. She pulled her attention back to what Greg was saying.

“He’ll try to get the power of acceptance changed, but it will take time, and if the judge doesn’t agree to the change, David McIvey will end up in charge.”

More and more often during the past few years Thomas Kelso had found himself pondering the unanswerable questions that he should have put behind him as a youth. When did life begin and, more important these past months, when did it end? Joyce McIvey had been brain-dead for forty-eight hours when they disconnected her life support; her body had resisted death for another forty-eight hours. When did she die? Brain-dead? Heart-dead? Which was the final death? When? If there was a soul, when did it depart? At the funeral service for Joyce, sitting apart from the family, he had regarded them soberly: David with his pretty little wife on one side of him, his two children on the other, Lorraine, his first wife, at the end of the row. The two wives and the grandchildren had all wept for Joyce, but David had been like a statue among them, untouchable, unmovable, remote.

Thomas had heard the story of how David had signed the order to discontinue life support for his mother, and then had gone straight into surgery. Had his hand trembled, his vision blurred?

Thomas felt he could almost understand David, not entirely, but somewhat. His mother had had a good life and had lived to be eighty with no major health problems. She had been happy most of her life, and her end had been merciful. A fulfilled life. An enviable one. David was merely accepting of the fact of death, and perhaps even grateful that it had been merciful. He was a scientist, a doctor. He understood and accepted death in a way that a layperson could not.

But he should weep for his mother, Thomas added to himself. He should not order her death one minute and draw blood with his scalpel the next.

He did not go to the cemetery, or to David’s house after the funeral. Instead, he went home, but his own house seemed oppressive, too silent, too empty. That afternoon the silence and emptiness were more like a vacuum than ever, like a low-pressure area where there was not enough air. The silence was that of holding one’s breath, not simply the lack of sound.

He left the house and sat in his car for a minute or two, tracing the pattern of wear on the steering wheel cover. He had worn it down to nothing in spots. Realizing what he was doing, he stopped. The salesman had said nine out of ten Volvos ever sold were still on the road. Twenty years ago? Twenty-two? Now and then he thought he might trade it in on a new model, then he forgot until the next time he noticed that it was old. He shook himself and drove to the clinic.

He parked in Greg’s driveway, walked the path to the alley, across it, and into the garden, where he made his way to the waterfall and sat on a bench in the shade, listening to the splashing water, watching the koi swim back and forth effortlessly. There, listening to the music of the water, he let his grief fill his eyes with tears. Grieving for his wife, for Joyce and William McIvey, grieving for the clinic. They had shared a vision, the four of them. Now he was the only one left, and the vision was fading.

He had not yet moved when he heard a girl’s voice. “You bastard, you moved the chair farther away!”

“Maybe a little farther,” Darren said. “And does your mama know you use such language?”

“Who the fuck do you think taught me?”

Darren laughed. “The deal still goes. You walk to the chair and earn a ride back.”

Thomas could see them when they rounded a curve, Darren and a teenage black girl. Sweat was running down her face. She was using two canes, learning how to walk with a prosthetic, an artificial leg from the knee down. They rounded the curve and were heading out of sight again when she began to sway.

“I can’t feel it! Darren, I’m falling!” Her voice rose in a wail.

“No, you’re not. You’re fine.” He had his arm around her before she finished speaking, and for a time neither of them moved. “See, what happens is that something in your head wakes up and says, ‘Hey, I don’t have a foot down there,’ and you feel like you’re going to fall. What we have to do is convince that something in your head that it’s okay, there’s a working leg and foot, and it’s yours, so get used to it. Ready? Just a few more steps now. Here we go.”

Thomas watched them out of sight, then he realized his hands were clenched into tight fists, and he relaxed them and flexed his fingers.

“I’ll fight you, David,” he said under his breath. “I’ll fight you every inch of the way.”

Everything was muted at the clinic that afternoon. A few appointments had been canceled. Some of the therapists and nurses had taken time off for the funeral, and some of the volunteers had excused themselves. Greg and Naomi were gone for the day.

In desperation Bernie had called Erica. “If you can just sit at the reception desk for an hour or so, I’ll help out in the kitchen. Stephanie’s gone to the funeral.”

Due to the reduced staff and cancellations, traffic was light that afternoon. The two interns working under Darren’s supervision had their patients as usual, and Winnie Bok, the speech therapist, was on duty. A few others were there with their own flow of patients arriving, leaving. But Erica was not rushed, and she daydreamed that she had trained in physical therapy instead of education, that she now worked full-time here, consulting with Darren, joking with him in the lounge, walking home with him at the end of the day….

She chided herself for indulging in romantic schoolgirl fantasies, but they persisted. In fact, she seldom even saw him. He left the clinic every day before she finished reading, and he didn’t walk; he rode a bicycle. She had not seen it the day he saved her life, but she had been too shaken to notice much of anything. Sometimes she could hear him in the upper apartment, and one time she had made dinner for two, only to find that he had already left by the time she went up the stairs to invite him to share it. It would be different, she told herself, after he moved in. They would be neighbors, and how much closer could neighbors be, separated by a floor, a ceiling? He would drop in for a chat, for a cup of coffee; she would invite him to dinner; they would have long talks. They would find the key, or simply remove the lock on the upper door of the inside stairs.

Bernie returned a little before four-thirty. “They’re back,” she said. “Stephanie chased me out of the kitchen. She’s in a temper.”

“Why? What did you do?” Erica got up from the chair and moved aside as Bernie took her usual place.

“Me? Nothing. Stephanie said that Dr. McIvey plans to take over running the clinic. Believe me, if that happens, this place will clear out like the plague swept through.”

“Why? What’s wrong with him?”

Bernie looked past Erica and smiled. “Hi, Shawn. How’s it going?”

A tall youth had entered with a woman, his mother probably, Erica thought. The boy was wearing a neck brace and had his arm in a sling.

“Okay,” he said.

Bernie buzzed Tony Kranz and the boy started to walk toward the therapy rooms while his mother went to the waiting room. Tony met the boy halfway down the hall and they walked on together. Tony didn’t look very much older than his patient. He was one of the interns who had come for his clinical practice, and to work under the direction of Darren Halvord. The interns, Erica had learned, worked for peanuts, but they would have paid for the chance to work under Darren for a year or two. After this apprenticeship, they were considered to be prizes by other institutions.

Bernie did not have a chance to answer Erica’s question. A couple of patients were arriving for their four-thirty appointments, and others were leaving, some of them stopping by the desk to arrange appointment times or just to chat a moment.

Erica picked up her purse and the book she was reading, The Canterville Ghost, and wandered off to the lounge. She had started coming every weekday to read and knew there would be other chances to quiz Bernie, or one of the kitchen aides, a nurse, someone. She had not met Dr. McIvey, had not even caught a glimpse of him, but every time she heard the name David McIvey, or most often, Dr. McIvey, it was with that same tone of dislike, distrust, whatever it was. Yet, Annie had married him, and apparently planned to stay with him. Curious, she thought. It was very curious.

A week later Thomas Kelso advised David that the bylaws of the corporation required a reorganization of the governing board of directors. They met in the directors’ office at the clinic immediately after David left his surgical office.

The directors’ office was a pleasant room with a leather-covered sofa, good upholstered chairs, a round table with straight chairs and windows that looked out on the garden. In the past, the four directors had sat in the easy chairs, or on the sofa, not at the table, but that day Thomas had left his briefcase, a legal pad, pencils, water glasses and a tape recorder on the table as if to signify that this was not the companionable get-together of old friends who seldom disagreed. He was already at the table, scanning notes he had made over the past day or two when David entered.

After their greeting, which Thomas likened to a meaningless tribal ritual, he got straight to the point. “Since we have no secretary present, I’ll tape our meeting. We are required to keep a record of all meetings, you see.” He turned on the tape recorder. “Now, our bylaws demand that we have four directors’ positions filled at all times. After your father’s death, Joyce assumed his function as vice president, along with her own duties as secretary, of course. Those two positions now have to be filled.”

David watched him with narrowed eyes. He was tired. He had been in surgery for six hours that day, and he had seen patients in the office as well as in the hospital. He shook his head. “I don’t know what Mother did exactly, but whatever it was, it ran her ragged. I don’t have that kind of time, as you well know. I’m a working doctor. Hire someone to do whatever she was responsible for.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Thomas said. “Have you read the bylaws, David?” When he shook his head again, Thomas said, “Well, you should. But I’ll tell you now what’s in them. We set this up as a nonprofit clinic, of course, and we agreed that the directors would receive no compensation for the work they did relating to it. We can hire people like Greg and Naomi to run it, therapists, nurses, other staff, but we, the shareholders, receive no pay. Only the shareholders can hold office, and, in fact, are required to hold office and fulfill the duties of the office or else relinquish their shares. In that event the relinquished shares shall be evenly divided among the other shareholders.”

“That’s insane,” David said.

“Maybe so. But that’s how we set it up, and for fifty-two years that’s how it’s worked.” He pulled out a folder from his briefcase and handed it to David. “The bylaws and our mission statement, our charter,” he said. “We kept it as simple as the law allowed. Why don’t you look it over? It’s short. Won’t take you long.”

When David started to read, Thomas got up and crossed the room to stand at the window gazing out at the garden. Chrysanthemums were beginning to bloom—bright red, yellow, bronze. End of summer, he thought, that’s what chrysanthemums meant. Another season, another year winding down.

When he heard the papers slap down on the table, he turned to regard David, who was scowling fiercely. Thomas knew exactly what was in those bylaws. He and William McIvey had spent a great deal of time on them, and he had reviewed them all thoroughly during the past few days.

“What exactly was Mother responsible for?” David asked in a tightly controlled voice. No emotion was visible on his handsome face, no anger, no disdain, no disbelief. Nothing.

“As vice president, she was in charge of fund-raising. We have three major campaigns annually, as you probably know. She wrote letters to contributors, donors, escorted them on tours of the facility, a garden tea party every June, an annual auction, things of that sort. As secretary she kept notes at all our meetings and put them in order for the annual audit, as required by law. It wasn’t too onerous, but exacting. There are formulas, rules that must be followed.”

“Annette could do those things,” David said after a moment.

“Not unless she’s a shareholder and is elected to office by a majority vote.” Thomas returned to the table and sat down.

“David, there’s no money in this clinic. In fact, for years we ploughed money back into it from our practices. We never intended to make money with the clinic, and we wrote those bylaws in such a way as to ensure that our mission would remain true to itself if one or more of us became incapacitated, or just wanted out.”

“I could assign some of my shares to Annette, let her assume those duties that way. Another husband and wife team. You’d have no grounds to oppose that.”

“You would have to give her the shares outright,” Thomas said. “No strings attached. And she would have to abide by the bylaws just like everyone else. No, I would not oppose that.” He sipped his water, then asked, “Why do you want to stay in, David? This is far removed from your field.”

“Exactly,” David said. “What I can see here is a surgical facility, neurosurgery, cardiovascular surgery. You have fifteen beds upstairs, and room for twenty more, room to expand, rooms to convert to surgery.” He leaned forward, and for the first time ever, Thomas saw a flare of passion in his eyes, heard it in his voice. “Thomas, I’m the best neurosurgeon on the West Coast. We would have people come here from all over the world. A specialist’s specialty, dedicated to those two areas. We could do it together, you and I.”

Thomas realized how seriously he had misjudged the young surgeon. He had thought David wanted control in order to sell out to one of the health organizations, or to change to a for profit facility. This had not occurred to him, that David had his own compelling vision. Time was on David’s side, he thought with a pang. At that moment David looked almost exactly the same as William McIvey had years ago, when he and Thomas first conceived of the idea of the rehabilitation clinic. They had been driven by the plight of their young patients ravaged by polio. After the vaccine came along, they had changed to a general rehabilitation clinic. But he remembered with startling clarity the fierce passion that had seized them both, remembered the determination William McIvey had demonstrated, the not-to-be-denied drive that had compelled them both. Now he was seeing that same determined look on David’s face, in his eyes.

David was still talking. “Rehab can happen anywhere. It doesn’t need a special clinic. You could rent space in a dozen different buildings tomorrow and be set to go. It’s insignificant compared to what surgery demands. That’s one thing. The other thing to consider is what you do here and what I propose. You see people in wheelchairs, people on crutches all the time. They don’t get special care. They learn to manage without all the trimmings you give them. You tinker with them, a little bit better is good enough, but I go in and fix them. I cure them. That’s the big difference.”

When Erica finished reading that day she found a group of people in the staff lounge: Greg Boardman, Naomi, Annie, Darren, another therapist, Stephanie…Naomi motioned her in. “We’re having a high tea,” she said. “Of sorts. Crackers and cheese and punch, at least. Have some.”

Her gaiety was forced, and Greg wasn’t even pretending this was a party. Stephanie held out a glass to Erica and said, “Now I’m off and running. Feeding time upstairs.”

She hurried out and a moment later David McIvey stood in the doorway. “Annette, let’s go.” He didn’t wait for any response, didn’t speak to anyone else, turned and left. With hardly a pause, Annie put down the glass she had lifted to her lips, picked up her purse and followed him without a word. Her cheeks flared with color, and she held her head unnaturally high.

Erica, facing Darren, was startled at the expression that crossed his face and vanished. Stricken, furious, but more, he had looked deeply hurt for that brief moment.

5

The week before Labor Day Darren moved into the apartment, and parked his truck in the newly cleared garage. His son, he said, would bring some things over during the Labor Day holiday.

“Usually we go camping or something when I have a couple of days off, but he’s excited about having his own room. He wants to pick out the color and paint it himself, hang his posters, make it his room.”

Erica straightened up from weeding a flagstone patio outside the kitchen door. Finding it had been another surprise, hidden as it had been under a layer of dirt, weeds and spreading grass. Sometimes she felt that a miracle had taken place: the house was in decent shape, and they were starting to tackle the job of taming the jungle in the yard. It was turning into a real home. She rubbed her back.

“You said he’s eleven?” she asked.

“Twelve in February. He has a half brother, who is six, and a creep, according to Todd. They share a room. And there’s a half sister, who is ten, and a spoiled brat, again according to Todd. He’s looking forward to his own room, his junk left wherever he puts it down.”

Erica laughed. “The mess on the floor will be his mess. That’s different.”

“Right. Anyway, we’ll be in and out, around, all weekend.” He took a step or two, then paused. “I heard that you asked Bernie to give a copy of the book you’ve been reading to Glory. That was good of you.”

Feeling awkward and even a little embarrassed, Erica said, “Just a cheap paperback, used. Glory mentioned that she would be leaving before we finished The Canterville Ghost and she’d never know how it came out. Sort of like following a serial for nine episodes and missing the tenth and final one.”

“Yeah. And I bet no one in her house has ever owned a book before. Anyway, that was good of you. We’re going to grill salmon tomorrow. Want to come?”

She caught her breath and nodded. “I’d love to. I can make a pretty good potato salad.”

“Deal,” he said, and moved on around to the side of the house and the stairs to the upper apartment.

Trembling, she returned to her weeding with renewed energy. She could finish before dark, tidy up for a cookout. Later she would make the potato salad; it was better if made a day ahead of time. Maybe a cake. She didn’t know if the oven worked; she had not tried it. If it worked, she would bake a cake. She would have to go shopping for ingredients; she knew she had no chocolate, little butter. Cake pans? No matter, the stores were open late. Her thoughts raced, making plans, making a mental list of what to buy. Napkins. Paper plates. Ice cream. They were having a cookout, she, Darren, his child. They were having a cookout on the patio. She was too self-conscious to sing out loud, but under her breath she was singing.

Years before, as a new teacher, she had learned to make a long-range school-year plan, nothing too specific, then a more detailed monthly plan and, finally, a very detailed weekly plan. Year after year the plans had served her well. She laughed to herself when she realized she was still doing it. She was now planning to bake a cake although she had never baked a cake in her life. No matter. She would buy a mix. Even her fifth graders had been able to make cakes with mixes.

Greg and Thomas were in Sid Blankenship’s office the Friday after the holiday. Sid was shorter than either of them, and rounder, fifty years old, with a pink face as smooth as an egg. He had gone to work for his father years ago, and when his father retired, he had inherited the office, furnishings and many of the clients, including Thomas Kelso, who to Sid’s eyes looked to be a hundred years old or older.

They had just concluded the transfer of Thomas’s shares to Greg, which left him out in the cold, Thomas thought morosely. But that was step one.

Sid had filed the petition for a change of the power of acceptance, and they had to wait for the court to get around to it. It was out of their hands, Sid told them.

Now Thomas leaned back in his chair and said, “I keep thinking that what I can’t afford to do is wait around very long. David will have his own attorney go over the bylaws and search for loopholes, of course. Sid, are all court orders open to public scrutiny? Is the power of attorney I have open to scrutiny? Is the power of acceptance?”

He was not reassured by the guarded look that came over Sid’s face as he considered the questions.

“One more,” Thomas said. “Is there anything in the bylaws that would prevent us from forming a nonprofit foundation to ensure a succession of directors without altering our mission statement?”

Sid gazed into space with a thoughtful expression, then said, “Most people assume the power of attorney gives you absolute control, to vote, sell, dispose of, whatever. Likely, David McIvey has assumed that. But you’re right, if an attorney goes digging, he’ll find the documents. As for the foundation idea, I’d have to do a little research. It might require another petition to the court, but off the top of my head, I think it can be done. It would adhere to the original intent of the founders, but it would probably take a majority vote, Thomas, and you don’t have it. Fifty-fifty. Remember? McIvey could simply say no, and that would be it.”

“David can’t handle the workload and has no intention of trying,” Thomas said. “He’ll turn a few shares over to his wife and hang the work around her neck. And the minute he does that he won’t have fifty percent of the shares to vote.”

Sid regarded him soberly for a moment, then said, “I may have limited experience in such matters, but it seems to me that wives generally go along with what their husbands demand unless they’re engaged in a custody battle or a messy divorce.”

Thomas looked at Greg. “You tell him about Annie.”

“Well,” Greg said, groping for a starting place, “she’s pretty special to us, to Naomi and me, I mean. Almost like a daughter. I feel as if I know her pretty well. She grew up on a dairy farm over at Tillamook, then went to college in Monmouth and got out when she was still only twenty-one. She answered an ad in the newspaper for a job at the clinic. Very shy, a little afraid of Eugene, the biggest city she ever lived in, pretty…She was so innocent, not like most kids her age. Anyway, we gave her the job and let her stay in the guest room at the residence for a couple of months. She loves the clinic, the patients, what we do there. After she got married, she began coming as a volunteer. She’s there most days for several hours. I don’t think she’d want the clinic to be turned into a surgical center for wealthy clients.”

Although Sid thought that was a naive view, one which did not answer the question of whether she would cross her husband, he did not voice this opinion. “Okay,” he said. “Let me look into the foundation idea. I think it’s a good one if you can get the majority vote for it. And I think the court would agree. The law approves of an orderly succession of directors, maintaining the status quo. Let me get back to you in a week or two. McIvey isn’t going to do anything until he consults his own attorney. Then you’ll have to have another board meeting to elect Annie McIvey to office. Say she’s in by mid-October. You’ll have to allow another month for McIvey to consider your proposal before you can insist on a vote. Mid-November. Hang on, Thomas. Everything takes time. That’s just the way it is.” He put aside his usual caution then and added, “I think you’ve got him, Thomas. I think you’ve come up with the way out.”

Erica sat in the clinic kitchen with Stephanie one afternoon sipping coffee while Stephanie kept an eye on her prep cooks and the two volunteers.

“So what’s with this Dr. McIvey?” Erica asked. “Every time his name comes up it’s as if a cold front has passed through.”

“That’s good,” Stephanie said. “That’s what it feels like, all right. I’ll give you a couple of examples why he’s loved by all. A few years ago, five or six maybe, this kid comes in with McIvey’s referral for hydrotherapy. She was on the basketball team at the U of O and began having terrible leg pains. Diagnosis—stress fractures, shin splints. Hydrotherapy ordered. And if that didn’t work, McIvey was going to operate on her back, a disk problem or something. Anyway, that isn’t how it works here. Darren and Greg examine every new patient, take a history, do a complete workup, and if they decide therapy is needed, they decide what kind, schedule it, everything. If they decide they can’t help a prospective patient, they say so. Darren said no for that girl. Her mother protested, and he advised her to get a second opinion. Well, McIvey hit the ceiling. He said Greg was a medical hack who couldn’t make it in private practice, a know-nothing who should be turned out to pasture, God alone knows what all. And he called Darren a voodoo doctor, a shaman, an ignorant, superstitious laying-on-of-hands fraud who should practice in a tent at revivals or something.”

Her face was flushed at the memory, and her eyes were flashing with anger. “The mother took her kid up to Portland, to the Health and Science University Hospital, and got another opinion. It turned out the girl had a tumor that was causing pressure on her spine. A doc up there operated, and a few months later she was playing basketball again. McIvey knew it was Darren’s call. He’s the one who knows what will or won’t work. Greg backs him up every time, but it’s Darren’s call.”

“Wow,” Erica said. “McIvey made a bad diagnosis and got mad because they knew it? I thought people got second opinions pretty often.”

Stephanie nodded. “I guess he didn’t make the original diagnosis. First the coach said shin splints and sidelined the kid. A GP said shin splints and got some X rays and tests to confirm it. McIvey just went along with the diagnosis, didn’t bother to order more tests or look further. Darren said she’d had shin splints, but being out of action for six weeks or longer had let them heal. They weren’t causing pain anymore. And neither was a disk problem. No physical therapy would help her. Most doctors welcome a second opinion, but God doesn’t. And McIvey thinks he’s God.”

“You said a couple of examples. What else?”

“It isn’t quite as dramatic, I guess, but telling. After that, a few months maybe, McIvey came over one day and wanted to go through the personnel records. Naomi said no. She called Greg and he said no and called Dr. Kelso. Dr. Kelso came right over and told McIvey that the records were not open to the public, that only the directors had the right to examine them. McIvey said the only records he wanted were Darren’s, that he didn’t believe he was qualified to treat patients, and he wanted to check his background, his training and references, before he referred another patient to the clinic. Dr. Kelso made him stay out in the waiting room while he and Naomi collected some of the file and took it to him. McIvey said he wanted the whole file and Dr. Kelso said he had given him all he was entitled to see. Of course, Darren’s education, training, all of it is impeccable. He’s recognized as the best physical therapist in the Northwest, maybe on the whole West Coast. They say he has magic in his hands. They can tell him more than a dozen X rays. Anyway, McIvey was furious. See, he was out to get Darren. Still is, I suspect. The day he gets control here, Greg, Naomi and Darren will all be out before the sun goes down.”

Erica finished her coffee, then said, “But he still sends patients here, doesn’t he?”

“Sure. He knows this is the best facility for hundreds of miles, maybe all the way to Los Angeles.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Erica said. “Why would he try to drive out the best therapist and get control? Be second-rate or something.”

“That’s the stickler,” Stephanie said, nodding. “No one here understands it. But that’s how she blows. I’ve got to get back to work.”

It was a glorious late summer, Erica thought when she left Stephanie to walk for a few minutes in the garden. Dahlias, zinnias, marigolds, chrysanthemums…too many flowers to name were riotous, defying the calendar. Back in Cleveland there would have been a frost by then, but here in Eugene, it was a golden time of color everywhere. Working in her own yard one day, she had asked Darren when to expect the first frost. He had laughed and said Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or maybe not at all this year. Of course, she had thought he was kidding, but it was the end of September and flowers were still in bloom.

She had made friends with Darren’s son, Todd, who had been shy and silent at first, but she had known hundreds of boys his age over the years and had known not to push. Still more child than adolescent, with sun-bleached hair and high color on his cheeks, he had the grace and directness of a child, but responded like a serious young adult to a serious adult who treated him with respect. She was very respectful with him.

When he offered to show her his collection, she had rejoiced. His collection had turned out to be an assortment of posters. He had painted his room forest green with cream trim, and on the walls he had mounted his posters: lava fields, high mountain lakes, totem poles. She had been puzzled until he said, “We collect things, Dad and me. This year it was totem poles. I take pictures and we get them made into posters. Last year it was volcanoes. I think we’ll do trees next summer. You know, the biggest, the oldest, like that. I’m supposed to do the research.”

She had decided his Christmas present from her would be a bonsai tree.

Walking in the garden that golden afternoon, she thought briefly about Dr. McIvey, but decided he could not cast a very long shadow. He would be crazy to get rid of his best therapist and the two people who made the clinic work. He was too busy with his own practice to meddle. Then it was time to go to the upper lounge and read to her patients. She smiled as she realized what her phrasing had been: her patients.

6

“Bernie, what’s going on around here?” Erica and Bernie were having coffee in the staff lounge. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing. Greg looks ill and Naomi is snapping like a turtle. What’s up?”

“I wish to God I knew,” Bernie said after a brief hesitation. She helped herself to leftover Halloween candy. “Something is. All at once Annie’s a shareholder and Dr. McIvey is spending time going through the personnel files while Naomi stews and paces. Teri—you know Teri Crusak in the office?—she said that McIvey demanded the keys to the locked files, all the personnel records, and Naomi said to give them to him.”

“I didn’t even know there were locked files,” Erica said.

“Yeah, there are. Confidential stuff about the staff. Not me. I’ve got no secrets. But others.” She shook her head. “Anyway, whatever’s in there, he’s got now.” She lowered her voice. “Stephanie said she wishes he’d eat something here. She’d season it with arsenic.”

Erica remembered something else Stephanie had said, that McIvey was out to get Darren, that he had tried to get his personnel records a few years back and had not been allowed access. Now he had them, or could easily get them.

Keeping her voice as low as Bernie’s, she said, “Stephanie thinks he’s targeted Darren. Do you?”

“Sure. And now that Annie’s going to be around even more, doing some of the stuff McIvey’s mother did, it’s like he’s stoking the fire.”

Annie and Darren? Erica lifted her cup, then put it down again. Annie and Darren. She had seen his expression that one time, the hurt and anger.

“Nothing to it,” Bernie continued, “but you put kindling on a spark and fan it a little, lo and behold! you get a blaze. Maybe he’s counting on something like that, to use as an excuse to get Darren out. Or else he’s just plain stupid, and I don’t think anyone ever accused David McIvey of stupidity.”

“Were they…? I mean before she got married, were they going out?”

“How it was,” Bernie said, “she came here when she was still just a kid, and he treated her like a kid for about a year. But she was sort of in a hero-worshiping phase, and he was the hero. Gradually he seemed to notice that she wasn’t just a kid. He backed off. He thought he was too old for her. He’s what, about thirty-eight now? I think that’s right. Anyway, we were all watching to see how long it would take for her to get through to him. About a year, a little more. Well, McIvey came along and spotted her and said, I want that, and what David McIvey wants, David McIvey gets. Like David and Bathsheba. You know the story?”

Erica nodded. Her lips felt stiff, her mouth dry. She took a sip of coffee, then said, “I can’t believe there’s anything going on now.”

“But she’ll be around a lot more, not stuck back in the office. Old Mrs. McIvey was here all hours when it was fund-raising time, showing people around, having talks with Darren.” She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

That afternoon Annie dropped in on Naomi in her office. “Are you busy? Can we talk?”

Naomi closed a folder on her desk and stood up. “Let’s go to the house. No one will disturb us there. And I could use a cup of coffee.”

They walked out together. It was a cold, sunny day, with thin cirrus clouds streaking the sky in the west. Annie stopped to sniff the air. “It’s going to rain. Back home I used to go out to the bay and watch the sky move in. I thought of it as the sky eating the ocean, moving in to eat the land. The first gale of the season was always exciting. I never got over that excitement when the first gale blew in. Our lower pasture flooded every year,” she added. A sharp memory surfaced and she saw herself as a little girl, her hair wild in the wind, saw how the cattle—black-and-white like picture-book cows—all turned to smell the ocean, the approaching storm front. She shook herself. “Not quite the same here, but I like the first storms of the season.”

They entered the house through the back door into the kitchen, and while Naomi was busy with the coffee, Annie wandered about the room, as if checking to make certain it was how she remembered from when she had lived there. The same silly salt and pepper shakers—Jack Sprat and his plump wife; the same African violets in bloom on a windowsill—they were never out of bloom, it seemed; the same yellow vase with fresh flowers…

As Naomi waited for Annie to begin, she got out mugs, sugar and half-and-half. Annie always used enough cream to turn her coffee nearly white.

Annie had come to a stop at the back door where she stood gazing out at the herb garden: rosemary, thyme, silvery-green sage, feathery fennel and dill, dark-purple basil, bright-green basil…It was like an illustration from a book about medieval convent gardens. Annie could imagine the cloaked and hooded figures out there with cutting baskets. The coffee was ready. She turned back to the room, to the table where Naomi had already taken a chair and was pouring.

Annie liked the fragrance of coffee more than the taste, she thought, as she took a seat opposite Naomi. Then without preamble she said, “Why did David give me five shares?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“He said it was a formality.”

Naomi nodded. “In a sense it is, I suppose, but there’s more to it than that. As a member of the board of governors, you certainly have a right to know the issues.” She told her most of it, leaving out only the part about Donna Kelso’s will and how her death before a court decision was handed down would change the equation. “So it was fifty percent versus fifty percent in favor of, or opposed to, a nonprofit foundation. Eventually he’ll try to find a way to force a vote for a change of mission, to turn the clinic into a surgical facility. That’s what he really wants.”

“But he gave up some of his voting power by giving me shares,” Annie said.

“He had to give up shares or take on a workload that he couldn’t possibly handle. He had no choice.”

“There’s something else,” Annie said after a moment. “He said to be sure to ask you how Mrs. Kelso is doing. Why? What does that mean?”

Naomi drew in a breath. He knew, she thought. He was letting them know he was aware of Donna Kelso’s will. His attorney might have tricks of his own to use to string out everything until the matter was settled by the death of Donna Kelso. And until then he would use Annie to maintain the impasse the equality had created.

Hesitantly, uncertain for the first time, she told Annie about the terms of Donna Kelso’s will.

“He’ll win,” Annie said when Naomi became silent. “He’ll have the McIvey Surgical Institute.” She tasted her coffee, put it down again. “It isn’t even for the money,” she said. “He really doesn’t care about money.” Abruptly she stood up. “Thanks, Naomi. I have to go. See you tomorrow.”

Naomi watched her rush away, then continued to sit at the table thinking she had never hated anyone in her life the way she hated David McIvey. She had seen Annie change from a happy, laughter-loving child into a woman with shadows in her eyes, with a strained expression when her husband’s name was mentioned and an almost total withdrawal into some other space when he was present. David McIvey had marked her. And he would drive Greg out without a moment’s hesitation, destroy Darren, destroy the clinic. All in a day’s work, inconsequential. Collateral damage, she thought bitterly. That’s what he would bring about on his march to where he was driven to go.

She agreed with Annie—it was not for the money. As a surgeon he was making a lot of money already, and apparently spending little. No yacht, no private plane, no palatial mansion. He didn’t collect art. Annie had said the condo was almost sterile, and neither of them wore expensive jewelry, except for her wedding ring. What was driving him was more compelling than money. Power? In the operating room he was a god, power enough. She stood up and took the coffee mugs to the sink where she poured out Annie’s coffee, rinsed both mugs. She picked up a wooden spoon from the counter, then became still again, looking out the back window, over the herb garden, past the screening hedge, to the upper floor of the clinic.

“God wants a larger domain,” she said under her breath. “He wants people to come from all over the world to seek the healing touch of his magic wand, the scalpel, to pay homage….” She heard a snapping sound and looked down in surprise at her hands. She had broken the spoon handle in two.

The anticipated storm moved in that evening with gusting winds and driving rain. Annie stood at a window in the living room of the condo watching the fir trees dance in the rain. When David came into the room after changing his clothes, she said, without turning to look at him, “I’m going to vote for the foundation.”

“Annette, don’t be a fool,” David said. “You will vote exactly the way I tell you to. That’s a given.”

She shook her head. “I think the foundation is a good idea, the continuity is important.” She turned to face him. He was not even looking at her, but at the mail.

“The court will not agree to such a change when one board member is incompetent and another, with majority shares, is opposed,” he said, opening an envelope. “That isn’t how the system works. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable.”

“You could have a surgical clinic somewhere else,” she said. “You could build it to suit yourself, do it that way.” He didn’t ask her how she had learned about the surgical clinic. He had not told her, and he didn’t care who had any more than he cared what she thought about it. He never asked her anything.

“I already have a facility.” He threw the mail down on the coffee table. “My father built it with every intention of leaving it to me, and I intend to use it. I played second fiddle to that clinic all my life, and now I’m moving into the first fiddler’s chair. Period.”

For a moment his face was transformed by fury like that of a thwarted child, or a wronged youth, neglected and vengeful. The expression was fleeting, and once again his expression became as unreadable as that of a Greek statue. “Annette, listen carefully because I won’t repeat this. Greg and Naomi will be out of there in three months, and Darren sooner than that. How they leave is still open. With the unanimous highest recommendations of the board of governors, or with a serious reservation included in a report by a major shareholder? Greg is incompetent, and Naomi has no training in bookkeeping or anything else as far as I can tell. And Darren has a criminal record. He’s an ex-con, a drug addict who, I am afraid, has reverted to his old habit.”

She stared at him, then started to walk across the room, toward the hall and the foyer.

“Where are you going? Dinner is just about ready.”

“I don’t know where I’m going. Out.”

Annie had been driving aimlessly for hours when she pulled in and stopped at the parking lot of the clinic, although she had no intention of running to Naomi and Greg, or of entering the building. The rain was so hard that the windshield wipers had not been able to keep the glass clear enough to continue driving.

When the rain eased, and it probably would in another hour or two, fog would form, she thought. The earth, buildings, pavement, trees, all still warm from summer’s heat, chilled by the first real rain of the season brought dense fogs here in the valley. She was thinking again of her father’s milk cows, placidly grazing as water crept up into the lower pasture, until Molly Bee, the matriarch of the herd, started to move in a leisurely way toward higher ground, and all the others left off cropping grass to follow her. “Who elected her queen of the cattle?” Annie had asked her father a very long time ago, almost too distant a time to recall. “I think she’s self-appointed,” her father had said. “But no one questions her authority.”

She would give the shares to someone else, she thought suddenly, and shook her head even as the thought formed. David never made idle threats. He would smear Darren, Greg and Naomi, and in the end he would still have the clinic. She didn’t doubt that for a second. He would have the clinic. Her cell phone rang and she ignored it just as she had before. It would be David ordering her to come back home. Even if she gave the shares to Naomi and Greg, it wouldn’t stop David….

They both knew what was happening. If they couldn’t save the clinic, they could protect themselves one way or another, or retire. Greg was old enough to retire, or go to a small town and practice medicine.

Then she thought, what if Darren leaves first? She knew he had been offered a position in one of the biggest rehabilitation centers in Los Angeles. Or he could go to Seattle. Or Portland. He could go almost anywhere, make better money, still do the work he loved and had been born to do…. If he handed in his resignation now, he would leave with excellent references, no smear, no blot on his record.

She didn’t know whether he would accept that idea, and chances were good that he wouldn’t, but he had to have the choice. He had to know what was going on. Leave now, or stay and be forced out later, and possibly be destroyed professionally…He had to know. She called his number on her cell phone.

When Darren agreed to meet her, she quickly said, “No. I’ll come to your place. Where do you live now?”

The storm had made Erica restless, unable to concentrate on a book, or the television, or anything else. What if the shingles blew off, or the new roof leaked, or a tree blew down? She heard the car in the driveway and went to a front window to see who was coming this late. She knew that Darren was home. She always knew if he was in the apartment. When she saw Annie leave the car, look at the house uncertainly, then go around to the outside stairs, she burned with resentment, with an ache that started some place she had no name for.

“We have the next board meeting on Thursday,” Annie said. “I’ll try to stall, but I’ll probably have to vote. Think about it, Darren. He’s going to win, one way or the other. He will. He always does. He’s…he’s like the storm, unstoppable until he gets his way.”

“We’ll find something to do,” Darren said. “Greg, Dr. Kelso, I…we’re pretty formidable, too, you know. We’ll think of something.”

“Is it true, what he said? Drugs, prison?”

“It’s true. One day, over a double chocolate malted milk, I’ll tell you about it. Now you go on home. And thanks, Annie.”

“Oh, God! I haven’t had a chocolate malted milk in years. Not since…”

Erica was in the kitchen when she heard the car leave. Darren was pacing back and forth, back and forth. Neither of them slept much that night. Darren paced and Erica listened to his footsteps while the rain beat on the house.

David was in bed when Annie got home a little after ten-thirty. David always went to bed at ten-thirty.

7

The low pressure front came in waves. The rain eased, fog formed and was very heavy in the morning. Then the sun came out and burned away the fog and brought up steam from roofs and pavement. A few hours later a new wave of rain rolled in and the sequence began again. Annie loved it. The front carried the smell of the ocean inland.

At lunch on Monday Annie toyed with her salad. David ate his with a good appetite. Neither of them had mentioned again the discussion about her vote. He had said, “Period.” That meant no more discussion, no compromise; the matter was settled.

David was saying, “I need those studies before two o’clock tomorrow. You’ll have to leave as soon as you drop me at Greg’s house in the morning. I’ll have Naomi take me to the hospital.”

She nodded. It often happened that patients from an outlying area, Pleasant Hill, or Cottage Grove, someplace closer to Eugene than to Portland, were sent to the University Hospital in Portland for a diagnosis. If surgery was decided upon, they frequently opted to have it done in Eugene, where it was less of a burden on family members and patients alike. It also often happened that the Portland hospital failed to send the required lab results or X-ray studies to the doctor in Eugene. Several times each year Annie drove to Portland herself to collect them.

“It’s going to be foggy again, and probably raining,” David said. “We’ll get an early start. I’ll sign Dwyer out at seven-thirty.”

He had to see his patient at the clinic, sign him out, leave follow-up orders with the nurse and then be at the hospital to make his own rounds by eight.

Annie nodded again. She was looking forward to the drive to Portland; she needed time alone to think. She felt as if her brain had been on strike for days, and no matter how resolutely she started, she kept stopping in frustration, unable to reach any decision.

When Erica arrived at the clinic that afternoon, she saw Annie outside one of the therapy rooms. Annie looked up guiltily, then motioned her closer to the door, holding her finger to her lips.

A woman was saying in a harsh furious voice, “I’m paralyzed, goddamn it! Don’t give me any of that crap!”

“I know you are,” Darren said calmly. “And you’re mad as hell and don’t intend to take it any longer, so get out of the way, world. Right? Well, see, I’m pretty sore myself. You’re too young, for one thing. It isn’t fair. Lightning bolt stroke and zap, you can’t move. But we accepted you as a patient, and we don’t take anyone unless we can help. We’re going to help you, and you’re going to work harder than you thought you could.”

“Oh, Jesus! Just tell me what I’m supposed to when I can’t do a fucking thing!”

“First thing every day will be hydrotherapy. Nice warm water, and you wear angel wings. It’s really a flotation device. You couldn’t sink or flip over if you tried. And Tony will put you through a series of exercises. That’s to regain muscle tone, strength building, in the nearest thing to weightlessness we can come up with. You’ll see. After that a little snack, and then Chris will guide you through an imaging session, meditation, self-hypnosis, whatever you decide to call it. That’s hard, but it works. Lunch next, and in the afternoon I’ll help you parachute jump.” He laughed, a low rumbling sound. “We omit the plane and chute, there’s just the harness. That’s to bear your weight. And underfoot a moving walkway, to remind your legs how to work.”

He paused a moment, then said, “You can see that you have a busy schedule lined up. After all that you might want to listen to our Rikki read. Most folks upstairs do. Her name’s Erica but some of the kids started calling her Rikki—you know, like Rikki-Tikki-Tavi—and I guess we mostly all do now.”

Erica gave Annie a startled look; Annie raised her eyebrows and nodded.

“And if at any time during the day you feel like screaming,” Darren said, “do it. Or if you need a little something, say a margarita or a slug of gin, say so. Not that we can give you a liquid painkiller, but a magic pill or something will have the same effect.” His voice dropped lower, and no longer sounded amused or playful when he said, “Connie, we’re going to make you walk again, and use your hand and arm, and control your body. We are. Any other questions?”

One of the other therapy room doors opened, and Annie looked at her watch in dismay. “I’ve got to go. See you around, Rikki.” She ran.

Erica continued on down the corridor toward the reception desk to check in with Bernie, thinking Rikki. She had never had a nickname before. They must talk about her, or maybe about her reading, which they seemed to think was helpful. They probably knew she was practically destitute, that Darren was her tenant. What else? What else was there, actually?

The clinic opened at eight each weekday morning, but Bernie arrived fifteen or twenty minutes early to check in staff and be ready for the first patients, some of whom were convinced that they had to show up at least ten minutes before their appointments. That Tuesday morning Bernie was surprised when Erica hurried in by way of the front door at a quarter to eight.

“I’m going to be late, and I parked in the van spot,” Erica said. “On my way to Santa Clara Elementary. Will you see that Tim Dwyer gets this? He said he’s going home today.” She put a book on the desk and hurried back out.

Bernie glanced at it and smiled—one of the Harry Potter books—and then put it under the counter. Others were arriving, some stopped at the desk, some just waved. The first patient of the day came in, and she sent him and his wife to the waiting room. Another busy day had started.

Carlos Hermosa pulled into the gravel spot provided for his truck, leaving just enough room for a car to pass in the narrow alley. Rain or shine, he thought, getting out, and today it was rain and fog, rain and fog. But the bird feeders needed filling, the pump at the waterfall needed to be checked, slug bait had to be put down. The first rains brought out slugs and snails in hordes, and they woke up hungry. The cyclamen were starting to bloom, and he knew from experience that the evil critters would head for them straightaway. And, he reminded himself, he had to check the supports for the dahlias. Heavy blooms like they had, soaked now, would pull the plants right over if he didn’t see to them. He was humming under his breath, ignoring the rain as he prepared two pails to take into the garden with his implements, birdseed, slug bait.

The gate was open, but that just meant that Dr. Boardman had already gone in. Either he or Carlos unlocked the gate every morning. Carlos went into the garden and to the first bird feeder, manipulated by a cord and pulley, up high enough for the folks upstairs to look out and watch the birds. And the birds were real gluttons. He never had found out how much was too much for them. They ate whatever he put out.

At twenty minutes past eight, rounding a curve in the path, he came to a stop, then dropped his pails and ran to a man lying on the path. ‘’Madre, Madre,” Carlos whispered, crossing himself.

He backed up a step, and another, then turned and ran to the clinic. Inside the door he pulled off his rain hat and hurried down the corridor, dripping water, toward Dr. Boardman’s office.

Darren and one of the young interns met him in the corridor and Darren said, “Carlos? What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“Dr. Boardman,” he said. “I have to see Dr. Boardman.”

“He hasn’t come in yet,” Darren said. “What’s the matter with you?”

“There’s a dead man in the garden,” Carlos said in a hushed voice.

“What the hell…?” Darren muttered. “Show us.”

Carlos led the way to the path where the dead man was lying with rain streaming off his face.

“Jesus,” Tony Kranz whispered, gazing at David McIvey. There was no need to touch him, to feel for a pulse, no need to try to do anything for him. His sightless eyes were wide-open, his skin as white as marble.

What had started as a normal busy day became much, much busier.

8

That evening Naomi, Greg and Thomas sat in the living room of the residence and talked.

“It’s been a madhouse all day,” Greg said, handing Thomas a glass of claret. “They didn’t even remove the body until four this afternoon. And they’ll be back tomorrow with more questions.”

Thomas nodded. And the next day and the next, he thought, right up until they made an arrest, probably. “Tell me about it,” he said. His wrinkled face became so creased when he frowned that he looked inhuman, and he was frowning ferociously.

“McIvey came by this morning to make sure Naomi could drive him to the office,” Greg said, “and to get the key to the gate. He was going to sign a patient out. Annie dropped him off at seven-thirty, then left to go up to Portland to collect some X rays. Someone was waiting for him, or followed him, or he surprised someone who was already in the garden for God knows what reason. Anyway, he was shot in the heart at close range. The police kept asking exactly what time he arrived, what time he left, and I told them seven-thirty, then they wanted to know how I could be certain. God, you answer a question and they start pounding on the answer. The police wanted to know about the keys, who has one, when we lock up, when we open up. God knows how many keys are floating around. I don’t. You have one, we do, Carlos. Joyce had one. Who else? I don’t know.”

“Darren has one,” Naomi said. “He told them he doesn’t know where it is, but he did have one.”

Greg nodded, then said, “So he left the house here, sometime around seven-thirty. That’s about all I know directly.” He shook his head and went on, “The rest is what they call hearsay. You wouldn’t believe the rumors that have made the rounds today.”

“I probably would,” Thomas said. “Let’s have them.”

“Right. A patient says she heard what might have been a shot. She was in a wheelchair near her window waiting for breakfast, and she looked out and saw a dwarf in a shiny black cape and hood.”

“So are the police looking for a dwarf?” Thomas asked with a touch of sarcasm.

“Who knows what they think, what they’re looking for? Carlos found the body sometime after eight. He doesn’t know exactly what time it was. And Carlos said McIvey had been dragged off the main path out of sight. The police haven’t confirmed it, but if Carlos said so, I believe it. He’d notice something like that.”

“A powerful dwarf,” Thomas said. “Go on. What else?”

“Darren said he passed the open gate and saw an umbrella blowing around in the wind. He left his bike and walked in, closed the umbrella and leaned it against the building out of the rain. He didn’t see anyone and didn’t see the body. He thought the umbrella was mine.” He drew in a breath. “It was McIvey’s. Anyway, Darren got here before eight, but he doesn’t know how much before. Who pays attention like that?”

He got up to pour more wine. Thomas shook his head when Greg started to refill his glass. He never drank more than one glass of wine when he had to drive. He knew that at his age, if he was involved in any infraction of the law while he was driving, he might lose his license. He took no chances.

Naomi leaned forward in her chair and said indignantly, “The police searched the entire clinic and garden. They had someone in the pond, had blocked off the alley to search there, and even here, the residence and garden. I don’t even know what else. They’re looking for a gun, or for a shiny black cape or something. They intercepted Annie when she got to the hospital in Portland. An officer stayed with her when she picked up the X rays, and then drove her back to Eugene. They didn’t tell her anything, just that there had been an accident. What a nightmare that trip home must have been for her! And they got her to open the trunk of her car and the glove box for them to have a look inside.” Naomi’s voice was tight with anger.

“Where is she now?” Thomas asked.

“Upstairs in the guest room resting. She can’t stay alone in that condominium tonight. I took her over to get a few things. A detective went with us and put tape on the doors, sealed them.” She ran her hand through her hair, a gesture she used when upset. By now her hair looked like a straw bale that had come loose from a binding wire, standing out in all directions. “They acted as if they suspect her!”

Thomas waved that away. “Well, they do. They always suspect the surviving spouse in a homicide. But, Greg, Naomi, if they decide she couldn’t have moved him, if indeed he was moved, you know they’ll suspect both of you, me maybe. We all will benefit from this untimely death, I’m afraid. Not as much as the widow, certainly, but enough. And we have to decide how much to tell them of the hassle we’ve been going through. I hope the subject hasn’t already been raised.”

Greg snorted with derision. “They asked the group first, then when they questioned us separately. ‘Do you know of any enemies he had, anyone who might have wanted to harm him?’ Not a soul in that lounge stirred, except maybe to shake their heads. Nope, we don’t know anything like that.”

Thomas regarded Greg for a moment, then he said, “I suggest we keep it that way. If they want to know about the only board meeting David attended, I believe Annie can provide the tape for them to listen to. I explained their duties to the three new shareholders—David, Annie and you—and then I proposed that we consider creating a foundation. We adjourned without further discussion.” His gaze was unwavering. “Is that your recollection of our meeting, Greg?”

The tape would not reveal the flush of rage that had colored David’s face, or his tight-lipped silence, his curt nod…. “That’s how it was,” Greg said.

In the upstairs guest room Annie lay on the bed staring dry-eyed at the ceiling, remembering how happy she had been living in this room, in this house years before. How safe she had felt. She could not recapture any of those feelings; the girl she had been was out of reach, so distant she seemed dreamlike.

Tomorrow she would have to go home, she thought dismally. The detective who questioned her had said that it was part of the routine to look over the victim’s papers, check his computer; he might have received a threatening letter, something of that sort, without mentioning it for fear of alarming her. With near panic she thought of her diary, several diaries by now. She would have to put them away before the police saw them. But she wouldn’t have to face the police alone. Her mother would come to stay with her for a while, she had said on the phone, help her through this terrible time. She would be there by ten; by then Annie and the detectives would be there.

She was glad that her mother was coming. They would go out for lunch or for dinner. They might eat at six or not until nine. They could go shopping together and pay no attention to the clock. She would never keep a real schedule again as long as she lived.

She was free, Annie thought in wonder. Her servitude had ended.

Erica drove straight to the clinic from school that afternoon. She was stopped at the entrance to the staff parking lot, where a uniformed officer asked for ID, checked her against a list, then called someone on a cell phone. The lot was full of police cars, the alley blocked off with crime tape, and some television vans parked as close as they could get. The officer waved her on.

Inside the entrance to the clinic she was stopped again, this time by a plainclothes detective.

“Ms. Castle? I’m Detective Mike Clarkson. I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said.

“It’s true, then?” she said. “Someone shot Dr. McIvey? I heard it on the news on the car radio.”

“It’s true,” he said. “We’re using this office.” He escorted her to Naomi’s office.

“Why me?”

He was middle-aged and polite, but straightforward to a fault. He didn’t wait for her to sit down before he started. “We’re asking everyone who was in the clinic between seven-thirty and eight this morning. That’s not your usual routine, I understand. Why were you here?” He flipped open a notebook.

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