“No, I don’t want that to happen.” She knew it would have to be that way, though, that she would have to cut herself off from Alec. It was too dangerous. She might confide in him when she should be confiding in Paul. She might compare Paul to him, and there was enormous risk in doing that, in the possibility she would find Paul lacking. At some point she would have to break away from Alec completely. But not right now. Not yet.
“Alec?” she asked. “Are you in bed?”
“Yes.”
“What are you wearing?”
He laughed. “I’d better get off the phone and let your husband take care of you.”
With that he was gone. Olivia lay awake a while longer, waiting for the phone to ring a second time, but it never did.
Paul didn’t call the following day either. She wondered if he might have lost her number at the ER, but even if he had, it wouldn’t be that difficult to track her down. By late afternoon she was certain his machine had somehow eaten her message and she left another. Then she tried his office.
“He’s not in today,” the receptionist said. “He took it as a personal day.”
When seven o’clock came with still no word from Paul, she drove over to Alec’s.
“Maybe he had to go out of town?” Alec suggested. He was sitting at his desk, sorting slides of the lighthouse for a presentation he needed to make the following week, while Olivia studied the directions for the soldering iron resting on the work table.
“That must be it,” she said.
“Hi, Olivia.”
Olivia turned to see Lacey in the doorway. She wore short denim shorts and a tank top that hugged her small breasts and exposed her midriff.
“Hi, Lacey. How did you do on your biology homework?”
“I got an A. Or I guess
you
got an A.”
“Not true,” Olivia said. “You did the work yourself. I just got you pointed in the right direction.”
“I’m going out.” Lacey looked at her father.
Alec glanced up from his slides. “Have fun,” he said.
Lacey turned to leave the room, the denim snug across her small, rounded bottom.
“What time does she need to be in?” Olivia asked, when she heard Lacey close the front door behind her.
Alec shrugged. “When she stops having fun.”
Olivia stared at him. “What if that’s five in the morning?”
Alec turned around at the challenge in her tone. “It won’t be. She rarely pushes her limits.”
“But how do you know she’s okay? I mean, how do you know when to start worrying?”
“Haven’t we had this discussion before?” he asked. “Lacey’s learning to make her own choices and take responsibility for her own actions.”
“Is that Alec talking or Annie?” Olivia knew by his stunned expression that she’d taken the debate one step too far. She sighed. “I’m sorry, Alec. It’s really none of my business.”
He stood up and pulled a book from the shelf by the window, and he touched Olivia’s shoulder lightly before sitting down again. “It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t understand. I think it’s impossible for anyone who didn’t know Annie to understand.”
It was slow in the ER the next day and Olivia spent much of the morning obsessively checking her answering machine at home, but there were no calls from Paul. She tried his work number again, and this time the receptionist told her he’d called in sick. She called his home, beginning to worry. There was no answer, but there was little she could do about it until she got out of work.
She had just finished stitching the eyebrow of a hang gliding novice when Kathy told her there was a girl in the waiting room who was asking to see her. Olivia walked into the reception area to see Lacey leaning against the waiting room wall, thumbing through a magazine.
“Lacey?”
Lacey looked up at her and stood at attention, her arms stretched out to the sides. “See?” She grinned. “I’m alive and well. Dad said you were worried about me going out last night, so I thought I’d stop by and show you I’m still in one piece.”
Olivia smiled. “How did you get here?”
“Bicycle.”
“Where’s your helmet?”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “God. You’re, like, obsessed with this safety stuff. Chill out.”
Olivia opened the door between the waiting room and the reception area. “Come in,” she said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Coffee?” Lacey followed her into the hall. “I’m fourteen, Olivia. Aren’t you afraid it’ll, like, stunt my growth or something?”
Olivia led Lacey into her office, where she poured them each a cup of coffee and closed the door.
“So,” she asked as she watched Lacey empty three packets of sugar into her cup, “did you have fun last night?”
Lacey shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “I guess.”
“What time did you get in?”
“I don’t know.” She held up her left arm. “I don’t own a watch. My mother didn’t believe in them.”
“How can someone not believe in watches?”
“You didn’t know my mother.”
“How do you ever get up for school on time?”
“I just do. My mother said you develop an internal clock, and it’s true. Every once in a while I’d be late, but none of my teachers ever cared. They knew my mother.” She dumped another packet of sugar into her coffee, then returned her eyes to Olivia. “My father has to take Clay to Duke on Friday. He has to stay overnight, so he wants me to stay at Nola’s, but I was wondering if…” She wrinkled her nose. “This is, like,
forward
of me, but could I stay with you while he’s gone?”
Olivia was taken completely off guard. “You hardly know me, Lacey.”
The girl blushed. “Well, but, I mean, you’re nice and I don’t think my father would mind since obviously you’re not going to let me run the streets until morning, right?” She grinned again and Olivia could not help but smile back. It would interfere with any time she might have to spend with Paul, but she could not possibly turn down a fourteen-year-old girl who needed something from her.
“I’d be delighted to have your company,” she said. “But we need to clear this with your father first.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“You’ll
ask
him.”
Lacey giggled.
“Let him know it’s fine with me, Lacey.”
She drove to Paul’s cottage as soon as she got out of work. His car was in the driveway, but there was no answer when she knocked on the door. That worried her. She tried the knob, and the door opened easily. She stepped into the living room, pulling the door closed behind her. The house was quiet.
“Paul?”
There was no response. The room looked bigger without the stained glass in the windows. It relieved her to see the clear windows, the deep evening blue of the ocean in the distance.
She walked into the kitchen, calling his name, her apprehension mounting. Where was he? She headed toward the bedrooms in the back, not certain which was his and a little afraid of what she might find.
The door to the first bedroom was open, and when she stepped inside she was immediately surrounded by color. One of the windows was still hung with a stained glass panel of two vivid tropical fish. The double bed was half made, the spread and sheets twisted into a knot. Two pillows were propped up against the headboard. The room smelled of food, an odd mixture of scents. A half-full carton of Chinese food sat on the night table, next to a wine glass tipped on its side and an empty bottle of chardonnay. A dirty plate and crusty fork rested on the top of a pizza box in the middle of the floor.
Olivia’s pulse began to race. Something was certainly wrong. Paul was fastidious. Except for the stained glass, she would never have guessed this was his room. Could he have rented it out to someone else?
Then she saw the pictures strewn across the bed. Annie, all of them. Olivia picked one up and scowled. She was sick of that face, the red hair, the pert nose, the pale freckled skin. A tape player rested in the midst of the photographs. There was one tape inside it and two stacked next to it. She picked one of them up and read the label.
Interview with ACO, #1.
She shook her head. Three tapes and dozens of pictures for a simple magazine article. She hit the play button on the machine. There was laughter, then a few seconds of silence before Paul asked:
“Do you ever use the lighthouse in your work?”
“Kiss River?” Annie asked, her voice surprising Olivia with its depth, its huskiness. “I have, yes. It’s a very special place to me. It’s where I first met Alec.”
Olivia heard Paul sharply suck in his breath. “I didn’t know that,” he said.
“Yep. I sure did.”
There were another few seconds of silence.
“Jesus, Annie, how could you—”
“Shut
up,
Paul.”
Olivia turned at the sound of the front door opening. She quickly stopped the machine and stood waiting by the bed. She heard him walk through the house. He must have seen her car; she would not be a complete surprise to him. In a moment he stood in the doorway of the bedroom. He did not look well. His green T-shirt was wrinkled and stained; his hair hung limply over his forehead. The sunlight filtering through the stained glass turned his face a sickly yellow, and she wondered how she must look, bathed in the colors of this room. He stared at her for a long moment, then looked down at his bed.
“Your car was here, but there was no answer when I knocked,” she said. “The receptionist at the
Gazette
told me you were sick, so I was worried when you didn’t come to the door.”
He cleared his throat. “I was walking on the beach,” he said.
She gestured toward the bed. “I see you’ve been having a little…Annie fest.”
His lips started to move, but he didn’t answer.
“You’re not through with her.” Her voice was soft, and she heard the weariness in it. “You’re never going to be through with her.”
“I just need a little more time,” he said.
Olivia stalked past him, walking briskly through the hall and the living room, not stopping until she reached her car. She rammed the keys into the ignition, and her tires squealed as she pulled out onto the road. Once on the highway, though, she slowed down, focusing on the heavy summer traffic, reminding herself that inside her slept her normal, healthy son.
C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-
O
NE
Lacey was talkative as she helped Olivia make up the bed in the guest room. A little nervous, Olivia supposed. A little high-strung, which for some reason reminded her of the old lighthouse keeper’s advice to feed Paul kale and sea salt.
Alec had called her the other night to apologize for Lacey’s forwardness. “I’m sure you’d rather spend the time with Paul,” he’d said, and Olivia, who had just returned from Paul’s cottage, fought tears as she described what she had found there.
“He’s
wallowing
in the memories of her, Alec,” she said. “He’s surrounded himself with take-out food so he doesn’t have to budge from his room and he can stare at her pictures for hours on…”
“Olivia?” Alec had interrupted her.
“What?”
“Please give me your permission to talk with him.”
“No.”
“He sounds like he needs help.”
“I know, but he won’t take it.”
“What if I just stopped by his house on the pretense of talking about the lighthouse?”
“Please don’t, Alec.”
Alec had finally given in, but not before he told her that he wished things were settled between her and Paul. “For my sake,” he’d said, his voice quiet, solemn, “if not for yours.”
Lacey tucked the blanket into the foot of the bed. “I’m thinking of getting my nose pierced,” she said, looking over at Olivia, waiting for a reaction. Her red and black hair was beginning to remind Olivia of a checkerboard. “What do you think?”
“I think it sounds revolting.” Olivia lifted the spread from the armchair to the bed. “Would your father let you?”
“My father will let me do anything I want, haven’t you figured that out yet?”
The bed was finished and Olivia looked across it at her house guest. “Let’s go get some dinner,” she said. “You can choose the restaurant.”
Lacey selected the Italian Palace, a family-style restaurant with pasta dishes that, to Olivia’s surprise, were better than passable. “This is my favorite restaurant,” Lacey said, her eyes half closed in a mock swoon over the taste of her lasagna. Then she suddenly sat up at attention. “My father gave me the money to pay for this,” she said.
“Well, that was nice of him, but hardly necessary.”
“He said I’m not supposed to take no for an answer.”
“Okay.” Olivia smiled and lifted her water in a toast. “Here’s to your father.”
Lacey grinned as she tapped her water glass against Olivia’s.
“I have a stained glass lesson with Tom tomorrow morning,” Olivia said. “Would you like to go with me?”
“Sure,” Lacey said. “I haven’t seen Tom since I cut my hair. He’s gonna freak.”
“Tom doesn’t have much room to criticize someone else’s hair, does he?” Olivia asked.
Lacey laughed. “I guess not.” She took a swallow of her Coke. “What’s your sign?” she asked.
“My sign?” Olivia frowned, confused for a moment. “
Oh.
Aquarius.”
“Oh, that’s
excellent!
”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I’m a Cancer. You know, the sign of the crab. A
water
sign, just like yours. You fit in really well with my family. My mother thought water signs were best. My father’s a Pisces—”
Like Paul,
Olivia thought.
“—and my mother was an Aquarius, just like you, only she was a
weird
Aquarius and you’re—well, it’s hard to believe you’re the same sign. Clay, unfortunately, is a Scorpio. I don’t know
how
that happened. But anyhow, when my mother discovered she was pregnant with me and realized I’d be a water sign, she celebrated by taking a long swim in the ocean, even though it was, like, almost winter and the water was really cold.”
Olivia smiled as Lacey paused to take another bite of her dinner. This kid was wound up.
“My mother wanted more children than just us two,” she continued, “but she said it wasn’t fair to the environment. She believed that two people should only replace themselves, or we’d all run out of food and water. She and Dad talked about adopting some handicapped kids, but they never did. I’m sooo glad.” Lacey rolled her eyes again. “I’m very different from my mother. I’m really selfish. I didn’t want to have to share my parents with another kid. Sharing them with Clay was bad enough.”