Lover's Knot, page 2
But she had needed him the night she was shot.
She hadn’t said that, of course. One thing he could always depend on was Kendra’s unemotional, practical approach to life. This was something they shared. They were like the twin blades of a kayak paddle, each cutting cleanly through the water with an economy of motion, dipping low on one side, then the other. No rivalry, no recriminations, no resentment.
But she had needed him that one night, and he had failed her. Now that fact weighed heavily on both of them, a silent burden borne by two sets of shoulders. If he had left work when he should have, he could have arrived at the drugstore in time to get Kendra’s medication. If he’d left work in time, she wouldn’t have dragged herself out into the cold night air to be shot by a man who stole cars the way some men sold insurance or taught high school physics.
If he had just left work.
So he had left work today. He supposed it was a form of penance. Or it was an unspoken pledge.
You mean more to me than the job, Kendra. Look, here I am. In the flesh this time, no matter what it costs me.
“Mr. Taylor?”
By the time he halted, he was already a good three feet beyond the woman who had spoken. He turned and recognized Rashi Gupta, the physician in charge of Kendra’s recovery.
He held out his hand. “Dr. Gupta, I’m sorry. I didn’t notice you.”
She took the hand briefly. “Yes, you seem like a man with a mission.”
Dr. Gupta was slender and attractive, forty, perhaps, with dark skin and almond-shaped eyes. She wore an unbuttoned white lab coat over a navy skirt and blouse, and a trio of gold necklaces twinkled in the fluorescent light. Her black hair waved over her ears and collar.
From their first conversation, he had known that medically Kendra was in good hands. He was less secure about the Indian doctor’s holistic approach. Had Kendra’s injury been a suicide attempt, he would have understood Dr. Gupta’s desire to probe the nuances of a relationship that had always suited both its partners. But the shooting had been wholly arbitrary. And he had yet to see what the doctor’s probing had accomplished.
He tried not to sound impatient. “I’m going to pick up Kendra in a few minutes. Or at least that’s what I thought?”
“Oh, yes, she will be going home as promised. Do you have a few moments to talk to me first?”
His inclination was to say no. He was anxious to get his wife home and comfortably settled so he could get back to work and find out what had transpired with Gary Forsythe. He knew that this afternoon, no matter what, he had to leave the office by five to spend the evening at home.
At his hesitation, Dr. Gupta stepped closer. “I must talk with you. Now or very soon. We can do it over coffee.” Without waiting for his assent, she started down the hallway in the direction he had just come from. She ducked into a small deli near the reception area, and he followed her through a short line, filling a cup with coffee that smelled as if it had been heating in the stainless-steel pot all night.
The room was only half filled, a mixture of staff and visitors. A small boy in a lime-green T-shirt screamed and tried to launch himself from a booster seat at the other end of the room. The child’s mother looked too exhausted to care.
“Do you wonder at the story there?” Dr. Gupta asked. “What member of the family is here, and what this young mother discovered today to make her so tired?”
Isaac never wondered about the lives of strangers. At some point in his own, he had learned the futility of trying to figure out motivations.
“I imagine the news in this place can be pretty dismal.” He pulled tops off half-and-half containers and dumped the contents into his coffee. “I know we’re lucky.” He looked up. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told us?”
Dr. Gupta paused before she spoke. “Not everyone in your situation would describe it as lucky.”
He was annoyed. “Kendra was shot. Twice. The bullet nicked the spinal cord, surgery was required to halt the bleeding, there was some paralysis, which has subsided with time and good care.” He forced a smile. “We can thank you for that last part. And we do.”
“Mr. Taylor, the bullet damaged more than your wife’s spine and internal organs.”
Now he was angry, a feeling he didn’t like. He looked away from her, observing the young woman grab the child’s shoulder. She gave him a hard shake, and the screaming intensified. Isaac’s anger ramped up a notch.
“If she shakes that baby again, we need to intercede.” His tone was casual. His feelings weren’t.
Dr. Gupta turned in time to see the woman reach for the child and pull him from the chair. Then, as they both watched, she settled the boy on her lap and stroked his hair, murmuring as she did. In a moment the screams subsided.
“People handle bad news in different ways.” Dr. Gupta faced him again. “Some of them take it out on their children. Our young mother seems to have enough sense to know she was wrong.”
Isaac went back to the subject at hand. “I know complete recovery will take time. The shooting was traumatic. Kendra’s still a little shaky. I support her decision to take a leave of absence from the Post.”
Isaac stopped, because even though he did support Kendra’s choice not to return to work for six months, he also knew the consequences. The Washington Post always had a pack of candidates hungry to become the next Woodward or Bernstein. She had worked hard to move up the journalistic ladder to investigative reporting, and a long hiatus would knock her down at least a few rungs.
Dr. Gupta hadn’t touched her coffee and didn’t now. “I’m afraid that saying your wife is only a little shaky is like saying she was only a little injured.”
“What would you like me to say?”
“Perhaps you can tell me how you feel about everything that has happened?”
“I’m not the patient.”
“No, you are the most important person in the patient’s life.”
He sat quietly a moment trying to figure out what she wanted. “I feel a lot of things,” he said at last. “Relieved she’s recovering, for one.”
“‘Relieved’ is an interesting word. It almost implies guilt, doesn’t it? As if you are relieved that after what you have done, the worst did not catch up to you.”
“Isn’t that a stretch?”
“Is it?”
He wished she was not quite so good at getting right to the heart of matters. “Shouldn’t you just say what you need to, so we can end this? I’d like to get my wife.”
“Your wife was extremely sick the night she went out to the drugstore. As it turns out, she had pneumonia, which very much complicated her recovery. She asked you to get the medication, and you were too busy. I imagine you have regrets about this?” The last sentence was clearly a question she expected him to answer.
“Of course I do.” He was almost surprised the words escaped his clenched jaw.
“But there is more....”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Her eyes were the color of milk chocolate and as expressive as her lovely, long-fingered hands. She used both now to prompt him, the fingers turned upward as if to beckon words hiding inside him.
He shook his head. “Okay, I was upset with her. After the worst was over and I knew she was going to recover. Is that what you need to hear? That I question why she went out in the first place? One dose wasn’t going to make much difference in her recovery. And as it turns out, after we spoke I left to get her prescriptions, hoping I could get there before the store closed.”
“Instead you arrived as she was being loaded into the ambulance.”
For just a moment, despite his attempt to remain logical and calm, he experienced the same panic he had felt that night. It fractured quickly inside him, but left him vulnerable. “Yes.”
“And now you ask yourself why she did this to you?”
“No, I don’t ask myself why she did this to me. I ask myself why she did it. And the answer is pretty clear. She wasn’t thinking straight. She was upset with me for not doing what I’d promised, what I should have done, so she left to take care of herself. She didn’t know I was rushing to the store, because I didn’t phone her back to tell her. I didn’t take the time because I had no idea she’d do something that foolish. That’s it. End of story.”
He pushed his chair back to get up, but the doctor put her hand on his arm.
“If the story had ended, Mr. Taylor, would you be so upset?”
He didn’t stand. “I’m not upset. We just aren’t getting anywhere.”
“Your wife’s recovery is my job. Not simply her physical recovery, her emotional recovery, too. One is going as expected, one is not. I am concerned that she seems to have given up on you as a source of support.”
He leaned forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I am talking about her plan to move out to your vacation cabin in the Shenandoah Valley.”
For a moment he didn’t believe he’d heard her right. “I’m sorry?”
“She hasn’t told you?”
Her hand no longer weighted him to the chair. It didn’t have to. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Then I am sorry to bring you this news. But perhaps it’s best that we talk it over, so you are prepared.”
He couldn’t take this in. It was inconceivable to him. Kendra would need more physical therapy. She would need checkups. She would need him.
Or...perhaps not.
“It’s not a vacation cabin.” He wasn’t sure why he had chosen the most trivial point for starters. “We...I own some property out there. In Toms Brook, near the river. The cabin’s old. It’s not an A-frame chalet with views all the way to West Virginia. Is that the way she’s made it sound?”
“It’s livable?”
Isaac really didn’t know. Kendra had wanted an occasional retreat outside the city, and she had made friends in the Valley. She’d found a local handyman who had put in plumbing, renovated a small bathroom, updated decades-old wiring. The man had done the work for a quarter of what anyone in the D.C. area would have charged. She had asked Isaac to come and take a look at the project, but he had always found an excuse not to. He didn’t think the cabin was finished, but he really wasn’t certain. To his knowledge, Kendra had never even stayed there overnight.
“Apparently she thinks it’s livable,” he said. “Apparently she thinks a lot of things.”
“Do you understand why she’s doing this?”
“Why don’t you give me a clue?”
She lifted one beautifully shaped brow at his tone. “This will be something for the two of you to discuss. Kendra tells me you work long hours, that your job is important. Would you be available to her even if she was in town?”
“You want me to say I’ll drop everything and fly to her bedside the moment she needs a glass of water or a tissue?”
She sat back. “If you need to say it. But I doubt you do. Not to me, and probably not to your wife.” She paused. “And not like that.”
Isaac was rarely rude, and now he was sorry. The apology was in his voice. “You took me by surprise.”
“Perhaps what you will need to say is that you understand she feels her life is no longer under her control. That you know much has been taken from her in the past few weeks, and you sympathize with her need to come to terms with it.”
“You underestimate Kendra. She’s a strong woman.”
“Kendra no longer feels at peace in her own skin. She no longer feels whole. She no longer feels secure. She must find her way in this new world where a woman can nearly be killed for going out to the drugstore on a rainy night.”
“She’s a reporter. She understands violence.”
“There is much we don’t understand until it knocks at our front doors, Mr. Taylor. Do not underestimate the impact of those few terrifying moments on all the moments that will follow.”
Dr. Gupta glanced at her watch and shook her head. “I will be available to you, and I have colleagues who will be happy to talk to both of you as you work through all that has happened.”
He rose as she did. “I think Kendra and I can work things out together. We always have.”
She searched his eyes. “Have you? I wonder. Or, like most people, have you merely ignored the fragments that don’t fit into the picture you hold of your marriage?”
She left him with this, left him dissatisfied that out of respect he had allowed her the final word. Left him wondering exactly how Kendra could believe that hiding in a ramshackle log cabin several hours from Washington would put the lingering effects of the shooting to rest.
* * *
Kendra swung both legs over the side of her hospital bed, a maneuver that required both hands to nudge her left leg into place. Then slowly, carefully, she shifted her weight to her feet, gripping the rail as she did. When she was balanced, she moved slowly across the floor to the mirror on the closet door. Her left foot still dragged, but the fact she was moving on her own steam was such a miracle, she felt only pride.
She ran her fingers through pecan-colored curls that the hospital salon had cut from her shoulders to her collar yesterday. She liked the new look, although it released the curls from any semblance of order. But she would be managing her own care now, and easier was better. She would be bathing in well water, too, and there was no guarantee the old well by the river was going to tolerate anything but the most perfunctory showers.
She eyed her image and ticked off what she saw. She had lost weight and hadn’t needed to. Now her face was thin, almost gaunt, and there were shadows under her hazel eyes. She was pale, which meant that the freckles that had haunted her as a child stood out in sharper relief. Years ago her sister Jamie had told her she looked like a puppy in Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. To Jamie, at four, this had been the greatest of compliments.
Sandy, who was picking her up in a few minutes, had brought Kendra the clothes she wore. Yesterday she had assessed Kendra’s figure and whistled disparagingly. “Girl, we got to get you some clothes that won’t slide right off that skinny ass.” And she had gone right out to do it.
The clothes fit perfectly. Sandy had a stellar eye for fashion, which had landed her a job in the Post’s Style section. For Kendra’s trip home she had chosen a gauzy peach skirt and a lightweight cream-colored sweater. Kendra’s taste ran more toward Ralph Lauren than JLo, but Sandy had found a compromise.
She heard a wolf whistle from the doorway and turned around too fast, nearly tripping on her own feet. Somehow she managed to keep her balance. “Isaac? What are you doing here?”
“I came to take you home. I didn’t expect to find a supermodel.” He moved across the room as he spoke and took her elbow to steady her.
She was aware of the strength in his fingers, the solid weight of his body against hers, the inches she had to tilt her head to gaze up at him. His golden brown eyes stared down at her steadily, unsmiling. He lowered his head and gave her a quick kiss.
“I’m okay. Just turned too fast.”
“You look terrific.”
Her hand went to her hair before she realized what she was doing. She supposed it was the most natural of responses, ingrained in her gender. “Thanks.”
He reached out and lightly ruffled her curls. “I’ve never seen it this short.”
“It’s easier to take care of. And summer is coming.”
For a moment he still didn’t smile; then he managed one. “I like it. A lot.”
“I was expecting Sandy.”
He stepped away. He was dressed for work—gray slacks, navy sports coat, pale yellow dress shirt that teased out the blond streaks in his hair. If there had been a tie, he had stripped it off.
“I told Sandy I’d come. I didn’t want to miss this. It’s a big day.” He held up a shopping bag. “I brought you a welcome home present.”
For a moment she didn’t take it. She felt like a fraud. She wouldn’t be going home, at least not for long, and she had to tell her husband.
“Want to sit?” he asked.
“No. No, I’m fine.” She reached for the bag. “I’m, well, just surprised, that’s all.”
“That was the point.”
She reached into the bag and pulled out a package wrapped in siren-red paper with silver ribbon. “Maybe I’d better sit.”
He didn’t try to help her to the bed. Isaac had learned that lesson a week ago. An aide had chastised him for trying to make things too easy. Now she made the trip with a minimum of fuss. She slid the box free of the ribbon and tore the paper loose. Inside was a sterling silver cigarette case, an antique etched with art deco fans. She pictured it in the clutch purse of a flapper.
“You want me to take up smoking?”
His smile was more natural this time. “It’s the perfect size for business cards.”
“It’ll hold a credit card and money, too, if I want to travel light some evening.” She shined it with her palm. “I love it.”
“You missed the card.”
“Oh?” She saw he was right. She opened the plain white envelope and drew out a sheet of watercolor paper folded into quarters. On the front he had drawn a perfect caricature of her, brown curls flying, heels clicking midair, arms flapping like wings, a smile as wide as the Potomac. Underneath the computer had printed “I Am Woman.”
She opened the card. The printed message read “Watch Me Soar.” Underneath it, Isaac had written, “And you will. You’re on your way. Welcome home.”
Tears stung her eyes. The tears were new, the product of a life that had flipped out of control and taken her emotions with it. “Who is this crazy lady?”
“Maybe you don’t feel like clicking your heels just yet, but you will soon enough.”
