Miracle Woman (36 page)

‘Where are your kids?' he asked matter-of-factly.

‘Mike's got them this weekend,' she said. ‘Or maybe you'd like something to drink?' she offered, too late realizing there was probably nothing in the house.

‘A scotch or a brandy would be nice.'

She opened a small cupboard. A half-bottle of crème de menthe, a liquorice-based liqueur and about two teaspoons of whiskey in the bottom of the bottle of Irish she normally kept for her mother. She'd lashed a full glass of it into the Christmas cake. ‘I'm sorry, Dan. Since Mike left I just haven't got around to restocking it and I haven't got my Christmas wine or anything bought . . .'

‘Sssh, it's OK!' he said, touching her lip.

‘Though there's champagne!' she remembered, trying to think where in heaven's name she'd put the crate he'd sent her all that time ago.

They eventually found it alongside her dryer in the laundry room.

‘Well, at least I don't have to worry about you being a raving alcoholic!' Dan teased. ‘Why didn't you open it?'

‘I guess I felt I had nothing to celebrate.'

He pulled a bottle out of the wooden packing case and began to open the wire. As the cork top popped and flew out across the kitchen,
Martha rushed to get two glasses. Champagne and coffee and hot chocolate, that's what they drank, Dan throwing a match onto the fire she'd left set.

‘Tonight you've got to celebrate Christmas, your god-daughter's christening day and meeting me,' he declared.

‘OK, I suppose some of those reasons are valid, but we've already met,' she reasoned.

‘Yes, but meeting again this time is different!'

She looked at him, already seeing the twinkle in his eye.

‘Because this time I'm going to do what I should have done in San Francisco,' he said, pulling her into his arms. Martha closed her eyes as he began to kiss her. His kiss was warm and strong and lovely, Martha thought as she responded.

Two glasses of champagne were her limit, Dan refusing to pour her more as she was excited and tipsy and curled up into his lap so he could just keep on kissing her. ‘I think you should go to bed,' he suggested at about 3 a.m.

‘Yes, please!' she said as she followed him upstairs.

She woke with a dry mouth and a pounding head, the comforter pulled over her. She was still wearing the knitted mauve suit she'd chosen for the christening party. Remembering the night before, she wondered if she'd disgraced herself. She found
Dan's note perched on her dressing table: ‘Sleep well, princess, will collect you for dinner tonight at 7.30.' Martha thanked heaven that the kids were out of the house and hadn't witnessed Dan putting her to bed.

MARTHA WAS NERVOUS
as hell about having dinner with Dan. She spent an age choosing just the right outfit, settling on a simple black cocktail dress that she had hardly worn.

She busied herself writing Christmas cards and letters, replying to many of the people with whom she had developed a correspondence, later wrapping the kids' presents, trying to find good places to hide them. It seemed strange to be having her first Christmas without Mike: though Alice and Patrick had begged and pleaded for her to invite him to join them for their Christmas Day meal, Martha was not so sure it was a good idea.

Dan collected her promptly, kissing her full on the lips before even getting into the car.

‘I thought we might get another of those fish suppers we both like,' he said.

Martha was puzzled until she discovered they were eating in a tiny fish restaurant built on a jetty overlooking the harbour. The waiter led
them to a table in the window and Martha's eyes widened when she saw the price on the menu. Dan burst out laughing at her reaction.

‘Martha, you are some woman!' he teased. ‘The only one I've ever met who doesn't want me to spend any money on her, which believe me is pretty rare.'

She smiled, telling him to hush up as she considered the menu. When the wine waiter came, Martha blushed from top to toe as Dan threatened to order a bottle of champagne. She stuck to a single glass of dry white wine.

The food was good and they both relaxed and chatted easily, Martha finding it easy to talk to him as she told him about her work and how important it was to her but how emotionally involved she tended to get.

‘It must sure be something to be able to help your fellow man the way you do,' Dan said, praising her. ‘You have a pretty amazing gift or ability, whatever you like to call it.'

‘Since I discovered the healing gift, my life has totally changed. Mostly it's all right because I like to help people but other times it's almost unbearable.' She told him about Cass and the pain of losing her. ‘No matter what I did there was no saving her.'

‘She was the Lord's,' he said simply. ‘So don't go blaming yourself.'

‘That's a nice way of putting it, Dan,' she thanked him, realizing how kind he was.

‘I think you are quite a sensitive being,' he said gently, ‘and I'm a pretty lucky guy to be sitting here with you, holding your hand.'

She in turn asked him about his work and how it was going.

‘You don't want to hear!' he joked. ‘We dropped about ten million dollars in the past two months. Some people say the computer industry is up the Swanee, but I'm not one of them. OK, so we were all probably overvalued and our stock was in for a tumble and a bit of a downfall. As my mother, Lord rest her, would say: Danny, what good is paper money? Give me cash!'

He sounded so matter of fact about it that Martha respected him for it. ‘That's a good way to think about it. Your mom was right,' she said.

‘I know we're in for a rough ride for the next few months, maybe a year or two, but anyone who keeps their head down and doesn't bullshit should get through it.'

The evening passed far too quickly. Martha was enjoying herself more than she could have imagined as they laughed and shared disaster stories about their kids. Dan told her about his two grown-up sons who both worked in the business and lived in Silicon Valley too.

‘I get to keep a good eye on them and make sure they behave!'

Martha sipped an Irish coffee as Dan settled the bill.

‘Listen, Martha, I fly back to San Francisco
tomorrow, and probably won't be back to the East Coast till mid-January. I'm no young buck but I don't know how I'm going to last out that long without seeing you again. I don't know how you feel but I'm a straight talker and that's the way I feel!' he said.

Martha looked across at his broad face and hazel eyes, creased with laughter lines, his greying hair cut tight into his head, showing off his strong features, and knew it was a face she could love.

‘I'll miss you,' she said simply.

Outside the house she asked him to kiss her, reaffirming her attraction to him.

‘Do you want to come in?' she asked. ‘The kids are still at their dad's, and I promise I'm fairly sober.'

Once inside she felt suddenly shy and nervous as Dan pulled her into his arms, asking herself was she ready to become involved with another man? Dan dispelled any such doubts as her body began to respond to his.

LARA CHADWICK TURNED
in the bed, reaching for the phone. The night editor screamed down the line at her.

‘Listen, Lara, I wouldn't normally do this to you but we got a tip-off that Glenn Harris, the investment millionaire guy, that his son Joshua committed suicide a few hours ago, and we need to get an official confirmation and file the story.'

‘Jesus, Bill, it's Christmas Day! Can't it wait?'

‘Sorry, but no. You're on to do relief so it's your shot!'

‘Where was he found?' she asked.

‘Hung himself off a fucking scaffold in one of his father's building developments!'

‘What a Christmas present,' replied Lara, taking down the address. ‘Anything else?'

‘There were rumours about him being bounced out of college two years ago and mention of a habit, but maybe you can check them out.'

Lara sighed. She'd give it two hours, three max,
as she was cooking a turkey and had invited her parents and her sister to Christmas dinner.

Pulling on her clothes, she raced outside. The pavement was so icy she nearly slipped as she walked to her car, blasting the Harris kid for ruining her day.

Martha made the best of that first Christmas on their own, driving over on Christmas Eve with the kids to meet Evie and Frank at the midnight mass at St John's. The hymns and the simple crib moved her.

Paul and Sue Lucas had invited her and some neighbours for a festive drink on Christmas morning, young Timmy proudly displaying his new bike. Martha was amazed by the power of the human body and spirit to recover as she watched him cycle crazily on the snowy paths outside.

She put extra effort into decorating the house and cooking and felt glad when Mike accepted her invitation to join them for the Christmas meal. Alice, Mary Rose, Patrick and she did their utmost to pretend that nothing had changed, but it hurt when Mike made his excuses as soon as they'd finished eating about having to go and meet some friends. Martha tried to laugh it off and pretend to the children that it didn't matter, but she knew deep inside that it really did.

The next day Jack and Annie insisted she come
over to their place to join Sean and Carrie and her mother and all the cousins. When the news of Joshua Harris's suicide made the local evening news, Martha wept but felt comforted in having her own family around.

THE NEW YEAR
brought heavy snows and freezing cold. Alice was sent home from school with influenza and Martha had to take the time out to stay home and mind her. Like dominoes it spread through their family, Mary Rose sick as a dog with it, shivering and shaking and running a sky-high temperature.

‘Mom, if you're meant to be such a good healer then how come you can't cure us?' asked Alice through her stuffed-up nose.

Martha had no answer for such a simple, logical question! Patrick was floored with the flu and Martha was worn out running around after a house full of invalids, praying that they'd all get better.

Dan rang her every now and then, the two of them spending hours on the phone to each other. It was only when her own nose began to run and her bones ached that she realized she'd gone down with the flu too. She was lying in bed feeling
absolutely awful when Alice gave her the sealed envelope that had just been delivered. Martha tore it open.

Stunned, she read it over and over again, not believing its contents.

Glenn Harris was initiating legal action against her for being involved in the death of his son. She was also being named in a similar suit by Beth and Tom Armstrong in respect of their daughter Cass.

Alice, seeing her reaction, ran and got her brother and sister. Martha tossed Patrick the letter to read.

‘Mom, what are you going to do?' he asked, his young face like that of a ghost.

‘I don't know, Patrick. I just don't know,' she replied, too sick and sorry to think.

She phoned Evie first in a panic, not knowing what to do.

‘God, you sound crap, Martha! Maybe you need to get a good lawyer. You can't let people like that attack you and get away with it.'

Her brother Jack had told her to fax him a copy of the letter and he'd show it to a lawyer friend of his, promising her that they would find a loophole in the stupid charges and get them dropped.

She told Dan the next time he called. He took it seriously, telling her not to worry, he'd try to sort something out. Somehow Martha trusted him.

Lying in bed alone that night she gave in to her tears and anger thinking of the two young people
she had tried to help, whose pain she had tried to ease, and how now it had all backfired and she was being held responsible.

She woke in the middle of the night, her temperature down, suddenly clear headed and feeling stronger. She had done nothing wrong and she would fight it!

SHE STILL FELT
run down and tired when she returned to work and Ruth told her that the appointment list was running almost two years ahead.

‘God, Ruth! There must be some way to fix it.'

‘What do you want me to do? Write and tell all those good people to fuck off, is it! If you want me to start booking for four and five years' time I will, but you'd better book yourself in for the long stay, cos you'll be here till kingdom come, and you still won't have seen a quarter of them.'

‘I don't believe it!'

‘Believe!' insisted Evie, standing at the door. ‘I brought up some more of your mail that was left in my shop by accident.' She dumped about thirty letters on the table. Martha looked up: Evie seemed peeved, annoyed.

‘What is it, Evie?'

‘Martha, I don't mean to complain but I just
never imagined so many people hanging around the shop all day. Some buy, but most don't and they're crowding out my own customers.'

Martha apologized, knowing how good her friend was to put up with the constant stream of traffic through her shop and up and down the stairs.

‘Maybe upstairs here is too small. I don't know, maybe you need to get a bigger place, closer to the city,' said Evie.

‘That's what I've been saying to her,' agreed Ruth.

Martha noticed the hurt on her friends' faces. Reluctantly she told them about Glenn Harris and what he intended. Evie backed her up, saying that they would just ride it out till good sense prevailed.

Dan had been to Boston twice in the past month and a half, taking the legal threat very seriously. He arranged to meet with herself and her brother Jack in his office.

‘What can Glenn Harris do?' asked Jack. ‘His son committed suicide! It's a tragedy, but Martha wasn't there. Wasn't near him at all. He hasn't a leg to stand on, as far as I can see.'