Her eyes burned again. What was wrong with her? Was this part of being pregnant, growing weepy over every little thing?

She set her own napkin on the table. “I’ll think about it, Dad,” she said, and to her surprise, she knew she meant it.







4






THE SOCIAL WORK DEPARTMENT HAD NOT BEEN GIVEN MUCH space in the hospital. Located on the second floor, it consisted of one large room divided into four small offices, or “cubbyholes,” as the staff referred to them. The largest of the cubbies was the central office, where the coffeepot, mini-refrigerator, watercooler, mailboxes and reception desk were located. The three other offices were aligned in a row, separated only by paper-thin walls, through which a whisper could be heard if someone was really trying to listen.

For that reason, Joelle waited until she had the social work offices to herself before making the call to Carlynn Shire. She could hear Maggie, the department’s receptionist/secretary/office manager, talking to her boyfriend on the phone in the central office, but both Paul and Liam were in other parts of the hospital, and she wanted to take advantage of the quiet. Dialing the number for the Mind and Body Center, she wondered if Carlynn Shire would really remember an infant she had “saved” more than thirty-four years before.

“Shire Mind and Body Center.” The voice that answered the phone was that of a very young woman.

“Hello, my name is Joelle D’Angelo.” Joelle heard Liam step into his office next to hers as she was finishing the sentence. Drat. Swiveling her chair to face the far wall, she lowered her voice. “I was wondering if I could speak with Carlynn Shire,” she said.

There was a moment’s hesitation on the other end of the phone.

“Carlynn Shire doesn’t actually work here,” the young woman said.

“Oh,” Joelle said. “I thought…”

“She’s retired. You might catch her at some kind of function or whatever, but she’s almost never actually here.”

“I see.” Joelle wondered whether to dig further. She needed to use the bathroom very soon. In just this past week, she’d learned the location of every public and staff restroom in the hospital. She’d had some teasing of nausea, as well, and couldn’t even think about the liver she’d eaten the week before without gagging. It had been only a little over a week since she’d learned she was pregnant, before which she’d felt completely well, which made her wonder how many of her symptoms were psychological.

“Well, I’d still like to talk with her,” she said. “Could you tell me how to reach her?”

“I can’t give out that information.”

“How can I get a message to her?”

That hesitation again. “Hold on a sec,” the young woman said.

Not too long, please, Joelle thought, squeezing her legs together. She could hear Liam on the phone in his office, and the sound of his voice made her want to weep. Everything made her want to weep these days. Liam hung up his phone and left his office, much to her relief, and she heard his footsteps travel down the hall.

In the old days, before the night that had ruined their friendship, he never would have come and gone from his office without ducking into hers for a quick hello. Often, he’d ask if she wanted to go for a hike the following weekend, sometimes with Sam in a carrier on Liam’s back, sometimes without.

The last hike they’d been on, shortly before Sam’s birthday, had been at Point Lobos. The hike had been, she’d thought later, a turning point for both of them, a warning they’d chosen to ignore. They’d hiked together many times, both of them finding the exercise a great outlet for the stress they were under and an opportunity to talk. But on this hike, something had been different. Sam had not been with them, and when Liam held her hand to help her climb a boulder or cross a dry creek bed, she’d felt something new in his touch.

That morning, she’d given him a book of meditations related to the loss of a loved one, and he’d brought it with him on the hike. They sat on a rock, back to back, while he read aloud from it. They were high above the Pacific, and below them, cormorants flew from rock to rock and sea lions floated and bobbed in the water. Oh, what a strange mixture of emotions she’d felt that day! Surrounded by all that nature had to offer, she’d listened to Liam read about feelings they both shared over Mara’s illness. Those words, and the warmth of his back against her own, had made her both tearful for all that Mara was missing and filled with joy that she, herself, was alive and healthy. Afterward, Liam plucked a small yellow flower from some ground cover and slipped it into her hair, the tips of his fingers sending an electric thrill through her body as they brushed against the shell of her ear.

“That’s probably an endangered flower,” she’d said, but she picked one of the pale yellow blossoms and slipped it behind his ear, as well. They’d held hands as they walked along the smoother part of the trail, neither of them addressing the fact that the way they were relating to one another went beyond the sharing of grief to something more.

Joelle thought she could wait no longer for the bathroom. She was about to hang up when the voice of another woman, sounding slightly older than the first, came over the line.

“I understand you want to speak with Carlynn Shire?” the woman asked.

“Yes, I would.”

“What is this regarding?”

Joelle hesitated. I want her to cure a friend, sounded ridiculous if not downright presumptuous. “I wanted to talk with her about a friend of mine who’s very sick and—”

“She doesn’t take special requests any longer,” the woman said. “She hasn’t for years. I’m sorry.”

“Wait!” Joelle said, afraid the woman was about to hang up on her. “I, um, Car…Dr. Shire saved my life many years ago, when I was born, and I just wanted to meet her and…reconnect, I guess.”

“What did you say your name was?”

This time, Joelle said, “Shanti Joy Angel,” and she was willing to bet the woman didn’t bat an eye as she wrote down the information. She probably heard similarly eccentric names all the time in her business.

“And when did she save your life?”

“Thirty-four years ago. I was born on the Cabrial Commune in Big Sur, and she happened to be there visiting a friend. I wasn’t breathing when I was born. My parents said she saved my life.”

There was a long silence from the other end of the phone, and Joelle hoped the woman was jotting down the story.

“Give me your number,” the woman said, “and I’ll pass the message along to Dr. Shire. It’ll be up to her whether she gets in touch with you or not.”

“Sure, I understand.” She gave the woman both her work and home numbers and hung up, wondering why she was now feeling an almost desperate need to speak with Carlynn Shire. Her father’s words were still in her mind: If there’s the slightest chance Mara could be helped, wouldn’t that be worth feeling like an idiot?







5






CARLYNN SHIRE STOOD IN FRONT OF ONE OF THE MASSIVE bookshelves in the mansion library, her head cocked slightly to the side so that she could read the titles as she searched for one of the books on seals. In recent years, she hadn’t had much time to think about things as frivolous as the seals that swam in the ocean behind the mansion, but now, with so little time left to her, she was hungry to study them as closely as she had when she was a child. Funny how late in life you treasure those simple pleasures that were important to you growing up, she thought, when you all but ignored them in adulthood. Suddenly, when you knew your life was nearing its end, those simple things seemed most important of all.

The phone rang on the broad desk at the other end of the library, and Alan, who was sitting in his desk chair reading the Wall Street Journal, pressed the button for the speakerphone.

“Shire residence,” he said.

“Alan?” It was Therese, who ran the Mind and Body Center so efficiently that it was rare for her to call them anymore. Carlynn turned at the sound of her voice.

“Hi, Therese,” Alan said. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks. I have a message for Carlynn.”

“I’m here, Terry,” Carlynn said, taking a few steps toward the desk to sit on the arm of the sofa. “You’re on the speakerphone. What’s the message?”

“Sorry to bother you with this,” Therese said. “A woman called, wanting to talk with you. She has a sick friend she wanted you to see. I told her you don’t do that anymore, but she said she knows you. Well, sort of knows you. She said you saved her life when she was a baby. On a commune in Big Sur.”

Carlynn and Alan exchanged looks. It was a moment before Carlynn spoke again. “What was her name?” she asked.

“Shanti Joy Angel,” Therese said.

“Ah, yes,” Carlynn said, her eyes still on Alan’s.

“You recognize it?” Therese asked. “It must have been a long time ago.”

“A time I’ll never be able to—”

“Call her back, Therese, and tell her what you told her the first time,” Alan said, leaning toward the speaker. “Carlynn doesn’t treat people anymore.”

Carlynn looked at Alan with annoyance. “Wait a minute, Therese,” she said as she picked up the receiver. “I’ll see her, if she’s willing to come here.” She wasn’t looking at Alan, but she heard him blow out his breath in annoyance and knew he was wearing a scowl.

“You will?” Therese sounded surprised.

“Yes.” She picked up a pen and pad from the desk and leaned over, ready to write. “Give me her number and I’ll have Quinn call her and set something up.” She jotted down the number. “Thanks,” she said. “How are things going over there?”

“Great,” Therese said. “I’ll fill you in at the meeting next week. And how are you doing, Carlynn?”

“Okay, dear,” Carlynn said. “I feel much better than I did when I was on all those poisons they were giving me. We’ll see you next week, then.”

She hung up the phone and let her gaze rest on Alan’s stunned face.

“Why in God’s name would you do that?” he asked.

“I’m dying, Alan.” She folded her arms across her chest. “What do I possibly have to lose?”

“You know as well as I do what you have to lose.”

He was afraid, and she felt sudden sympathy for him. He had always been afraid. Leaning over, she gave him a soft hug and a peck on the cheek. “I may be old, and I may be dying, but I’m not senile,” she said. “I won’t do anything that would hurt us. You know that.”

Using her cane, with which she had a love-hate relationship, she walked from the library into the massive living room and through the French doors to the broad terrace behind the mansion. The air was warm, almost balmy, and it held the faint salt smell of the Pacific mingled with the lemony aroma from the cypress trees surrounding the mansion. She rested her cane against one of the patio chairs and walked to the edge of the terrace to be as close to the water as she could get. What a glorious day on her beloved Cypress Point! The indigo sea beneath the vivid blue sky was framed by the cypress, which grew so close to the terrace she could reach out and touch the coarse leaves. Lifting her arms, stretching them wide, she drew the world into an imagined hug.

She should be at peace now, in this paradise that was her home, as she neared the end of a long-enough life. She should be able to embrace the world with abandon, to visit the seals on Fanshell Beach with nothing else on her mind but their huge dark eyes and shimmering bodies. But peace was elusive, and the reason for that was no mystery to her. Thirty-four years was a long time to be haunted by something. The guilt and sorrow and wretched sense of loss remained tangled up in her heart and her mind. Was she to die still burdened by her memories of that time?

Shanti Joy Angel. How could she ever forget that name? The three words alone pulled her back to Big Sur. She didn’t care what Alan had to say about it, she would see the young woman. She was not much of a believer in fate or in things happening for a reason, but this seemed a sign, something she shouldn’t ignore. Perhaps it was a coincidence that the baby from Big Sur had called her at this moment in her life, when the peaceful pull of death was thwarted by her preoccupation with her sins.

Or, perhaps, it was a gift.







6






Cypress Point, 1937