Death Qualified (42 page)

    Don't leave her for me, but for yourself if that's what you want."

    A flush spread across his sharp face, and he wheeled about almost wildly. At the fireplace he looked at her again and cried, "I don't believe it! You said you love me. You can't change like that from one day to the next!"

    "You told me to leave," she said.

    "I didn't want to, but you made me leave, and it was a good thing. The best thing. I needed you and you said to go away. Not one day to the next. Months, Doc, months. I learned something then. I learned something. I don't need you. I don't need anyone. I can stand by myself!"

    He shook his head, shook away her words.

    "It's Clive, isn't it? Jessie said wouldn't it be nice if you and Clive got together finally. He's waited so long, and I thought what a good idea, to lull any suspicions she might have, to let the world see you with a man who was available, to make them all forget I even lived. We couldn't meet, not if people might be watching, and I thought yes, you and Clive, for now, for a short time. He's no good for you, Nell. He's a.... I don't know. Too rough. Too physical, not a real idea in his head, not a thought. Can you talk to him? Can he talk about anything that isn't woods and trees?"

    She refused to look at him, to see him at all. She could feel her face tighten, and then tighten again.

    "Stop it," she said in a furious voice.

    "What did we have? Twenty minutes, an hour now and then. Did we talk? Did we comfort each other? All we ever had was sex, and we were both so lonely, so ... empty. But that's not enough!"

    "You've found someone younger with a bigger cock to stick between your legs. Is that it? You used me. My God, I wouldn't have thought it possible! You were using me all those years!"

    She jumped up and flung down the afghan.

    "We used each other, maybe. It was safe. I told you from the start that I didn't expect you to leave Jessie. I didn't expect anything from you except what we had, and that's done with. I'm sorry, Doc. You'd better go now before I start to cry or something Please, just go away!"

    He nearly ran across the room but then stopped again, this time shaking all over.

    "Nell, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I need you, Nell. I can't do this alone. Please...."

    "Go home, Doc! Don't try to lean on me. Not now.

    Can't you see that I'm barely able to stand up? If you try to lean on me I'll fall over and I may never be able to get up again. For God's sake, just go home!"

    She did not follow him out to the little foyer, did not see him to the door, did not move again until she heard the door open and close, and the howling wind entered and died. Then she went to the door and turned the lock.

    She went back to the living room and added wood to the fire and stood hugging her arms about herself. She wouldn't sleep yet, she knew, not with the wind screaming like a demented demon. She approached the computer that Travis had set up in the living room months ago, for all of them, they had said, but it was for Travis, and they both knew that. She touched the monitor, a cold sleek surface, and touched the box, and she found herself sinking into the chair before it, blinded by tears. For the first time she wept for Lucas, for herself, for her children.

    When she finally left the computer to wash her face and make a cup of tea, she realized that as much as she hated Ruth Brandywine, and it was a fierce hatred, she was also indebted to her. Ruth Brandywine had restored Lucas to her in some way. She knew that when she was a child, her belief that her parents had abandoned her had been a normal reaction to their premature deaths; she had read enough to come to understand that as an adult, even though her child-self never accepted it. Then Lucas had abandoned her and her grandfather had died, and finally Doc had tossed her away; the feeling had become overwhelming that there was no one she could trust ever again.

    "Lucas didn't stay away," she whispered to her mirror image in the bathroom. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, her nose red. She nodded at herself.

    "He was kept away."

    How many times had she told herself that since hearing Ruth Brandy wine's testimony? She couldn't say, but she would repeat it as many times as it took to make the belief sink in deep, to fill the void that Lucas had left in her so many years ago.

    "See," Mike said at Frank's door, "they were saying on the news that there was a blizzard out here in the wilderness.

    It's just raining in town, but I thought if you get snowbound, it might be fun to be snowbound with you, and fight off the wolves with their gleaming fangs and their bloodlust-fired eyes. I'll distract them with the torch while you smack them with the shovel."

    Barbara stared at him.

    "You've gone stark raving mad.

    How did you get so wet? Did you walk out?"

    Frank took his jacket and held it at arm's length. He started for the closet with it but changed his direction to head for the kitchen.

    "I hope you thought to put some clothes in that bag," he said in a strangled voice, fighting the laughter that kept trying to erupt.

    "Maybe you can wear something of mine," he said then, eyeing the gym bag that was dripping.

    "You're the wettest human being I've seen in a long time."

    "I walked the last mile," Mike said, still grinning.

    "I

    would have called, but there's no phone once you get through Turner's Point, so I just left the car and started to walk." They followed her father through the hallway into the kitchen. Mike squished all the way.

    "Shoes," Frank said.

    Obediently Mike sat down and started to remove his shoes. He was wearing running shoes; they were sodden.

    "Why did you leave the car? Did you wreck it?" Barbara demanded, standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

    "Ran out of gas."

    "Good God!" she muttered.

    "You still haven't fixed that gas gauge, have you?"

    "Keep forgetting." He pulled off his socks; his toes were scarlet.

    "Forgot to put gas in the can last time I filled up."

    "Well," Frank said, surveying the rest of his clothes.

    "Let's get you into a hot bath before you realize you're freezing. Come on, come on." He left; his shoulders were shaking.

    A little later Barbara put down her yellow pad and looked at Mike, who was watching her and had been for many minutes.

    "Dad's gone off to bed in somewhat in decent haste," she said.

    "You realize that, don't you?"

    Mike was wearing one of her father's old terry robes and a pair of his slippers; he looked very comfortable in that room.

    He nodded.

    "I was thinking. You know what I really like about you?"

    "My intellect."

    "That, too."

    "My raven, cascading hair; my eyes like pools of inviting, unplumbed depths; my gazelle like neck."

    "I thought raven hair was black."

    "It usually is; mine's different."

    "All the above," he said.

    "But that's not what I was thinking about."

    "So tell me already."

    "Your ass," he said soberly.

    "I never thought of myself as an ass man, but there it is. I love your ass."

    She sputtered with laughter and stood up, holding out her hands to him. He rose and put his arms around her;

    his hands slid down her back to trace the curve of her buttocks.

    "Ah," he breathed.

    "Ah, indeed," she murmured.

    "Let's go to bed."

    In the guest room that had already become his room they made love with passion, but underlying it there was a quality of serene timelessness, as if they knew this act should not be rushed, and there was all the time in the universe awaiting them this night.

    She would not go to sleep, she had told herself, a very long time ago, it seemed. But she fell asleep in his arms and came awake again at five in the morning. They were entwined, his arm over her, her leg over his. She eased away from his warmth with regret; it was time to get up, shower, have coffee, and go back to work.

    When Prank came down, he found her at the computer typing furiously.

    "Did you get any sleep?" he asked at the door.

    "And do you want some breakfast?"

    "Yes, some, and no, I already ate." She looked up at him without taking her hands from the keyboard. He studied her for a moment, then grinned widely and vanished again. She scowled at the vacated space. Some father!

    Where was the outrage? The shotgun? She began to grin, then reread her last words, and slowly her grin faded and she concentrated once more on the summation.

    In midmorning Frank and Mike left to do something about his car and gas. Frank said he would drop in on Doc and Jessie, see if they had taken any storm damage. Barbara heard their words but paid little attention. She got stiff and sore from sitting too long and went out to the terrace to stand under the roofed section and gaze at the river, which was steel gray. The wind was pushing it backward;

    the current was pushing harder in its determination to reach the sea. The battleground was marked by white froth; wavelets dashed frantically, larger waves rolled and churned. The rain drove in horizontally, the cycle nearing completion as the sea storm returned the water the rivers had carried to it all year. The lashing, wind-driven rain drove her inside again, back to the computer, back to the printout that was nearly finished.

    Another time she stopped reading to listen; her father was laughing in the kitchen. She tried to concentrate again but finally had to leave the desk and walk through the hall to stand outside the kitchen, where silence had settled.

    Suddenly Frank said, "Listen up:

    A nameless young lawyer cried, "Sue!

    It's the civilized course for you.

    Don't fret about facts, My friend;'just relax!

    By the way, my retainer is due. "

    Barbara stifled her laughter as Mike said, "Oh, yeah?

    Well, take this:

    A brilliant young mathematician Juggled sums like a maddened magician.

    When the numbers went screwy, He simply said "Phooey."

    And turned into a staid statistician."

    Frank snorted.

    "I don't get it." A dish rattled, a knife or something clattered. Then he said:

    A judge from the bar fraternity Heard trials that dealt with paternity.

    He could tell at a glance Who had lowered his pants, And screwed with no thought for maternity.

    Barbara fled back to the study, where she stood grinning.

    Poor Dad, she thought then. How he had wanted a son. He never told her dirty jokes, and he cleaned up his language around her more than she did her own.

    "Not my fault," she muttered, and began to do some stretching exercises. Let him adopt Mike. Never too late to make a family any way he could.

    Late in the afternoon Nell called and asked if she could come by. She looked dreadful when she arrived, sleepless, pale, so tired her hands shook when she tried to unbutton her jacket. The children had gone to play in the snow up at the Boy Scout camp, she said. It was a ritual that when it snowed up there for the first time in the season, and rained here, down five hundred feet, there would be a snow party. Friends had come by and picked up Carol and Travis.

    "Can we talk?" she asked Barbara.

    "Sure. Let's go to the study."

    Nell glanced at Frank.

    "Will you come, too?"

    Belatedly, Mike looked embarrassed. He said, "You guys go to the living room. There's something I wanted to do on the computer. If you don't mind, I mean."

    They went to the living room, sat near the fire, and waited for Nell to begin. If Nell had noticed any change in Barbara, she was not showing a sign; she seemed so wrapped in gloom and unhappiness that she probably noticed nothing.

    Finally Nell drew in a long breath and said, "I keep dreaming about Lucas up on the ledge. He's up there with my grandfather, talking and talking. In the dream, when I first go up to the ledge they don't see me, but then Grampa looks surprised and says, "It's about time, young lady."

    " She had been gazing fixedly at the fire; now she looked at her hands, which were clutching each other in her lap. She drew them apart and flexed her fingers.

    "Grampa is trying to tell me something," she said in a very low voice, nearly a whisper.

    "I used to go up to the ledge with him when I was little, and I'd talk out a problem or something. He never told me what to do, but I seemed to know what I should do after we talked. I don't know how he did that.

    Then, after he died, I used to go up and pretend he was still back there, sitting on his log, and I talked to him. I told him about .. . things, and it was almost like before.