The intercom on her desk buzzed, and she lifted the phone to her ear.

“There’s a doc here to see you,” Maggie said.

A doctor? Her first thought was that Rebecca Reed had somehow guessed she was pregnant and wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with her.

“Who is it?” Joelle asked.

“Your name again?” Maggie asked, her voice muted a bit, and Joelle couldn’t hear the doctor’s answer. Then the receptionist was back on the line. “Dr. Alan Shire.”

What was Carlynn Shire’s odd, elderly husband doing here? She remembered him from the other day at the Kling Mansion, when he’d looked at her with a confused disapproval that she’d guessed to be a symptom of dementia. She certainly could not have him come back here to her office, where Liam might be able to overhear their conversation.

“I’ll be right out,” she said, then hung up the phone and got to her feet.

Though quite old, Alan Shire was an imposing figure in the small reception area of the social work department. He seemed taller than he had in the high-ceilinged living room of the mansion, his hair looked whiter but less disheveled, and the expression on his face was not one of confusion, but rather of deep and genuine concern. She reached her hand toward him.

“Nice to see you again, Dr. Shire,” she said. His hand felt large and strong in her own. “We’ll be in the conference room,” she said to Maggie. She led her visitor down the narrow hallway to the comparatively large room at the end, the one room that was truly soundproofed from the rest of the social work office.

“Please, have a seat.” She motioned to one of the tweed and wood chairs surrounding the long table and sat in the chair adjacent to him. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

He leaned forward in the chair, his long arms resting on the table, the fingertips touching. “I’ve come to appeal to your good judgment as a social worker,” he said.

She wished he would smile or show some lightness in his face. He had probably been handsome as a young man, although right now he looked worried and tired. In no way, though, did he look confused or slow or demented.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“My wife…Carlynn…is retired,” he said, his blue eyes locked on her face. “She’s done no work for the center for nearly ten years, and it’s been wonderful to see her so relaxed and free.” He did smile a bit now. “She dabbles in the garden. She takes care of the house,” he said. “There’s little for her to worry about. When she was involved with patients, though, she always carried their problems around with her, trying to figure out how to help them. I don’t want to see her in that position again.”

“I understand,” she said. “But, Dr. Shire, I don’t think I twisted her arm. I simply told her about my friend, and she said she would like to meet her.” She tried to remember their conversation, examining her approach to determine if she had been coercive in any way. Unless tears could be counted as coercion, she could not see that she had.

“Yes, of course she would say she would help,” he said. “Carlynn’s a very caring person. She doesn’t like to see anyone suffer if she thinks there’s some way she can help. But you have no idea what healing takes out of her. It’s frightening, really. She’s exhausted afterward, sometimes for days. I’m concerned about her.”

For some reason, she didn’t believe him. There was nothing in his demeanor to suggest he was lying to her—in fact, he seemed nothing if not sincere—yet his words struck her as less than honest. Perhaps it was his own needs that would not be served if Carlynn were to get involved in healing again. Perhaps he had grown tired of sharing her with the rest of the world.

But then she remembered the cane. The woman’s frailty.

“Is she ill?” she asked.

He hesitated a moment before answering. “Yes, she’s quite ill, actually,” he said. “She needs her rest. And I would hate to see her go through that sort of all-consuming exhaustion that results from her healings.”

“I understand,” Joelle said. She wanted to ask him what was wrong with Carlynn, but thought better of it. Suddenly, she recalled her parents’ one concern about her contacting the healer: seeing Shanti Joy might trigger unhappy memories of Carlynn’s sister’s death.

“I was a little worried, anyway,” she said to Alan. “I was afraid that seeing me might remind her of when her sister died, since my birth and her sister’s death both took place in Big Sur, just days apart.”

He actually lit up, his eyes wide. “Yes.” He nodded. “That’s another concern I have. I didn’t know you knew about her sister, because you were…well—” he grinned, his teeth still white and straight and obviously his own “—just a couple of days old. I don’t know if you realize what a toll that accident took on Carlynn herself, both physically and emotionally.” He licked his dry lips. “I’m just so afraid that—”

Joelle held up her hands to stop him, knowing now she had no choice but to agree to his wishes. She would have to give up the fantasy of Carlynn healing Mara to save the elderly couple from painful reminders of the past, as well as from an exacerbation of Carlynn’s illness. It shouldn’t be that hard to let go of the idea; only two weeks earlier, she’d scoffed at it. Yet, she felt undeniable despair at losing the hope, no matter how slim it had seemed.

“I understand,” she said. “I won’t call her. But will you let her know that? That I’ve changed my mind? Or would she be upset that you came here?” She felt as though she was probing a bit too deeply into their relationship.

“Oh, no, she won’t be upset,” he said, standing up. “I’ll let her know we talked, and you decided against it. She’ll understand. I think she knows that she was promising something she really shouldn’t at this time in her life.”

His words made her wonder if perhaps Carlynn had sent him here to do her bidding for her.

Alan Shire shook her hand again, bowing slightly. “I’m very grateful to you for being so understanding.”

“No problem,” Joelle said. “Thank you for coming in.”

She led him back to the reception office, where Liam was collecting his mail from the wooden mailboxes on the wall. She pointed Dr. Shire in the direction of the elevators, then checked her own mailbox, although she had already emptied it earlier.

“How’s your day going?” she asked Liam.

“Good,” he said, barely glancing in her direction as he sorted through the mail in his hands. “Yours?”

“Fine,” she said.

“That’s good.” He turned and headed out the door into the hall.

Walking toward her office, she bit back tears over the emptiness of the perfunctory exchange. No smile from Liam. No “Let’s get a cup of coffee on our break.” Nothing. She had truly lost him.

The only part of him she had left was growing inside her.







12






San Francisco, 1956



LISBETH TURNED OFF THE DICTAPHONE AND PULLED THE TWO sheets of white paper, along with the carbon paper, from the typewriter. Opening the medical chart on her desk, she carefully attached the typed report to the prongs at the top of the manila folder, tossed the overused piece of carbon paper in the trash can, then filed the copy of the medical report in the four-drawer gray metal filing cabinet on the other side of the room.

At the sound of the tinkling bell hanging from the front door, she looked across the counter between her small office and the waiting area to see a young mother walk into the room, her six-or seven-year-old son at her side.

Lisbeth glanced quickly at the appointment book, then looked up as the woman approached the counter.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hesky,” she said. “And good morning, Richard. How are the two of you today?”

“We’re fine,” the woman said. “Just here for Richie’s booster shot.”

“Ah, yes.” Lisbeth could see by the stark white, unsmiling expression on Richard’s face that he was not looking forward to getting a shot. That was the only thing she disliked about working in a pediatrician’s office—it was filled with scared little children. Lloyd Peterson was known as one of the kindest pediatricians in all of San Francisco, but that made little difference when he had a syringe in his hand.

“Have a seat,” Lisbeth said. “Dr. Peterson will be with you in a moment.”

She moved Richard Hesky’s folder from her desk to the table near her office door, where Lloyd would know to look for it, then began to file the stack of folders he’d left her from the day before.

This office was very much hers. Lisbeth had been working for Lloyd Peterson for six years, ever since her graduation from secretarial school, and his office had been in complete disarray when she’d arrived. His previous secretary had been eighty years old at the time of her retirement, and she must have had failing vision, because the charts were misfiled and there was simply no system to the running of the office. Lisbeth had relished the challenge of bringing order to the place, and Dr. Peterson often told her he couldn’t do without her.

She loved working in a medical office. She had no fear of blood or broken bones or germs, only a fascination for the miracles modern medicine could perform. Like the new polio vaccine. Yes, the shots hurt and the children cried, but, oh, what lifesavers they were! She was always picking Dr. Peterson’s brain about the various medical conditions of his patients.

She looked over the counter to the waiting room, where Mrs. Hesky was engrossed in a magazine. Richard was ignoring the toys in the play area as he sat in a chair next to his mother, swinging his legs in an anxious rhythm, and Lisbeth could almost feel his fear from her desk.

“Richard,” Lisbeth said, and he looked over at her. “Come here for a minute, please.”

The little boy glanced at his mother, then walked very slowly toward the counter. Lisbeth leaned toward him, as though telling him a secret.

“There’s a trick to making a shot barely hurt at all,” she said. “Want to hear it?”

He nodded, his brown eyes huge.

“Wiggle your toes when you’re getting it,” she said.

“Wiggle my toes?” There was the hint of a smile on his face.

“Yes, absolutely.” She nodded. “Now, it’s hard to wiggle your toes when you have your shoes on, so tell Dr. Peterson you have to take your shoes off first, okay?”

“Does it really work?” He looked so hopeful, Lisbeth wanted to reach across the counter to hold his little face in her hands and give him a kiss on the forehead.

“I promise,” she said. “But you have to wiggle them hard.”

“Okay.” He nodded conspiratorially, then trotted back to the seat next to his mother. The wiggling would work, she knew as she returned to her filing. The children focused so hard on moving their toes that the shot was given before they even realized what was happening. Dr. Peterson thought she was a genius for coming up with the technique.

The real medical genius in the Kling family, though, was Carlynn. She was in her fourth year of medical school at the University of California, spending almost all her time this year at San Francisco General Hospital, a few blocks from Dr. Peterson’s office. Lisbeth had wanted to go to medical school—or at least to nursing school—herself, but she’d panicked at the thought of college, fearful that she would not get in, or once in, that she would not be able to keep up. She felt angry at herself for not working harder throughout her school years, and she was angry at her parents for providing her with what she had long ago realized was the lesser education. Sometimes she was angry at Carlynn, as well, although she knew the situation was not truly her twin’s fault.

So, she’d opted for secretarial school instead, hoping to work in a medical setting. She did not regret her choice; there was no one better at whipping an office into shape, and for the first time in her life she felt valuable. She was full of innovative ideas to make Dr. Peterson’s office run smoothly, and was often asked by other physicians to train their secretaries and receptionists in some of the methods she used.

She had followed Carlynn to San Francisco, although not without her sister’s encouragement. Carlynn may have been smarter, more beautiful and better educated, but she was still Lisbeth’s twin, and the love between the two of them, though sometimes tinged with resentment or annoyance, was strong. They met at least once a week for lunch, and occasionally saw each other on the weekends, although this year Carlynn’s free time outside the hospital was quite limited.