He watched her without belief. “You’re setting yourself up against medical authority?”
“Not really. I just feel that the only way to accomplish anything is not to give up. Not to accept passively anyone who says something can’t be done. Not even a doctor who makes that claim. All he can mean is that he doesn’t know anything else to do. But there’s always one more step—somewhere. So we hunt for it. Maybe there’s a chance here to find it.”
She heard the passion and conviction in her own voice, but Tyler Hammond remained unmoved.
“I’m not going to change my plans,” he said. “A week from tomorrow, the ambulance will come to take Jody away. If you want to visit him once more, and make what suggestions you can, perhaps I can pass along what you say. My son is not going to be anyone’s guinea pig.”
Kelsey suppressed quick anger at his words and made up her mind. “No! I want to come every day while he’s still here. I want to stay for two or three hours each day and work with him.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I won’t hurt your son. I only want to stir what may be there to awaken in him. I can’t make any useful change in him in a week’s time, but I can begin to find out something about Jody Hammond.”
“It’s not entirely up to me,” he told her stiffly. “Jody’s mother must give her consent too, and she’s in no condition for that at the moment.”
Kelsey nodded, waiting.
“My wife agreed with me days ago that it would be better to have Jody out of the house. Better to make a clean break. She has a long road ahead herself to any sort of emotional recovery. She may never walk again, and she knows that we’ve already lost our son. Right now she doesn’t want to live, and she must be watched constantly. I can’t see that Jody’s tears necessarily mean anything except a reflex or some faint glimmer of understanding. He can’t move or talk, and to have him here in this house puts an additional strain on my wife.”
She longed to point out that this very attitude meant sure defeat, but in spite of herself she’d become partisan as far as the boy was concerned, and she didn’t want to anger Tyler any more than she already had.
“Let me come every day for this remaining week,” Kelsey said. “I don’t want to be paid, and you needn’t feel obligated in any way. Aside from doing this for Jody, I’m doing it for Aunt Elaine, who is Mrs. Langford’s friend. Besides, my aunt thought it would be good for me.” She put a challenge into her emphasis, and caught his attention.
“What do you mean?”
Perhaps this was using an unfair weapon, but she met his eyes directly, boldly, refusing to be cowed. “If I come into this house on any basis, you need to know something about me. Though not because I want sympathy. That’s not for you to give. Two years ago my three-year-old son died in a car accident. I was driving. My husband never forgave me for taking our boy on that trip, and we’ve been divorced since. You see why I might feel especially drawn to Jody. I know what it’s like to be blamed unjustly.”
He turned in his swivel chair and stared out the window. She looked past him to the tremendous view of Carmel Bay, its shining surface enclosed in arms of land that pointed into the ocean on either hand—blue and clear and far-reaching. Way out on the water a white sailboat was skimming past, as though it flew in some special element between sea and sky.
But it was the man she watched, the man who held her first attention. She knew a little about color therapy—it was sometimes one of her tools. Color had to do with individuals, and she saw the stark hues that seemed to envelop him, with dark shades predominant—melancholy grays, the black of despair, all laced through by a startling streak of scarlet. She knew these colors existed only in her own mind, but she had a feeling that red was always there underneath—the true red of anger. He could be a dangerous man. Perhaps to himself most of all. Perhaps to his wife and son as well. Never an easy man to work with.
Nothing about him had softened or gentled in the least when he turned back to her. “Come tomorrow morning, and then we’ll see. If she’s able to talk to you, I want you to meet my wife.”
When Kelsey reached the study door and glanced back, he was staring out the window again, his eyes as empty as his son’s.
She went quickly down the hall, to find Ginnie alone with Jody. The nurse sat beside his bed, reading to him from a child’s picture book—too young for Jody’s nine years as he had once been.
“I’m coming back tomorrow,” Kelsey told her.
Ginnie nodded. “Maybe you can help. I’ve never seen him cry before, except when there’s the reflex of pain. Denis has gone out to the car to wait for you. I’m glad you came, Kelsey. I think I’m glad you came.”
That seemed a curious way to put it, and neither woman smiled, though for an instant their eyes held. Then Kelsey said good-bye and found her way out to the front door. She climbed the stone steps to the garage area on the hillside above. Denis sat at the wheel of his car, and he made no move to start it as she got in. He looked sick and shaken by grief.
“That was pretty bad,” he said. “Jody crying. I almost cried myself. Tyler can be a brute. When I think of him married to my sister—and the way she is now—” He closed his eyes.
“We’ve got to help Jody,” Kelsey said. “We’ve got to at least try.”
“How? When Tyler won’t listen to anyone.”
“If your sister agrees, I’ll come back every day for a week. I can’t promise anything. But I can try.”
Denis looked at her in wonder. “You managed that?”
“He said it would depend on Mrs. Hammond. If she’s able, he wants me to meet her when I come tomorrow.”
“I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad you got through. Just don’t begin to hope for too much. I wish you didn’t need to see Ruth at all. She may be discouraging because of her own despair.”
Ruth Hammond was another facet of a complex problem, but she would postpone dealing with her until the time came.
“I’ve worked with children like this before,” she told Denis, “and all I know is that I have to try. I can be tough and stand up to parents when it’s necessary.”
Though not as tough as she might need to be in this case, she thought wearily. She had to put up a front to convince others, and that in itself could be enervating.
Denis reached out to touch her hand lightly, and spoke the same words Ginnie had—“I’m glad you’re here, Kelsey. Maybe you are the miracle we need.”
“Don’t ask for miracles—please.”
“All right. I’ll tell you what—this is my day off, so let’s not waste it. Sooner or later you have to do the Seventeen-Mile Drive around part of the Monterey Peninsula. Let me take you this morning. We can go slowly, and stop for lunch along the way.”
She was already shaking her head. “I don’t feel like sightseeing.”
“It will be more than that. You needn’t look at the views, if you don’t feel like it. There’s someone I want you to meet. Someone who knows Tyler Hammond very well, and who may be able to give you some leads in dealing with him.”
Kelsey gave up and tried to relax.
V
From Carmel Gate, the Seventeen-Mile Drive curved through the Del Monte forest, turning, after some miles, toward the sea. Denis seemed quiet, and Kelsey didn’t feel like talking. The events at Tyler Hammond’s house were too recent in her mind, and too disturbing. She found herself increasingly concerned—dreading what might lie ahead when she returned.
Not that she would change her course—not after those tears on Jody’s cheeks. The one faintly encouraging instant had been when Tyler had touched his son’s forehead—an involuntary gesture that perhaps betrayed something beneath his grim exterior. At least, at the end of their talk, he’d seemed less certain about doctors’ verdicts than he’d been at first. Ruth, of course, was still the big question mark.
As the road dropped toward the ocean, the peninsula’s surf-fringed shore came into view and Denis slowed the car.
“House of Light?”
“The opposite of Tyler’s House of Shadow. Don’t worry—it’s not as pretentious as it sounds. Marisa has never called it that. It’s the nickname visitors and friends have given it—you’ll see why. She built the house for herself fifteen years ago, after her husband died. I suppose in another day people would have called Marisa a Wise Woman. Or maybe a witch! Of course she’d laugh at that. She’s very down to earth, at the same time that she soars. By now she must be in her seventies, though you’d never guess it.”
“Why are we going to see her?”
Denis smiled a bit ruefully. “I suppose because she has a gift for quieting rough waters, and quiet is what we both need right now. There are other reasons you’ll understand when you meet her.”
He turned the car off the highway and followed a narrow, climbing road away from the water. A few low-built houses overlooked the sea, and Marisa’s house was at a high point, where the road ended.
“Do we just drop in?” Kelsey asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Her door is always open. Here we are.”
The house was built of adobe and redwood, with arched windows all around, and a small front garden of flowers blooming riotously to suit themselves. Stepping-stones led to a redwood entry porch. Before they reached it, Marisa Marsh appeared in the doorway, her smile welcoming—almost as though she’d expected them and looked forward to their coming.
She was a small woman, slightly built, though somehow giving an impression of height because of her manner. She held herself “tall.” Her eyes were a sparkling blue, clear and direct in their gaze. She was not, Kelsey thought, a woman whom anyone would fool for long. Everything about her seemed distinctive. Thick, springy gray hair hung in a plait over one shoulder, and was fastened at the end with a turquoise thunderbird clip. Obviously, she liked the color of turquoise, since she wore a flowing skirt of that color, trimmed with a wide band of garnet red at waist and hem. Somehow the shades seemed to blend. A white blouse of thin cotton set off her slim, tanned throat, and dangling earrings were again a thunderbird design. She wore no other jewelry on brown hands and arms.
As they came up the steps she held out both hands to Denis, and then turned to include Kelsey in her welcome.
“This is Kelsey Stewart, Marisa—Elaine Carey’s niece,” Denis said. “I’m showing her the Seventeen-Mile Drive, and I wanted her to meet you.”
“Come in, both of you.” Marisa took Kelsey’s hand and drew her into the house, continuing to hold it. When they were inside, she turned it over palm up, and studied its structure. Kelsey felt uncomfortable, but Marisa Marsh was without self-consciousness.
“A good hand,” she assured Kelsey. “Strong—useful. A hand for helping. But you haven’t quite found yourself yet, have you?”
This was a woman who would like to challenge and surprise, and Kelsey found herself uncertain. As far as she was concerned, she’d been tested a great deal in these past two years. She wondered what Denis’s real purpose was in bringing her here to meet Marisa Marsh.
“You’re right, as usual,” Denis said. “I mean about Kelsey being useful. She’s a special kind of physical therapist—with trimmings—and perhaps she’s going to work with Jody Hammond.”
Marisa looked intently into Kelsey’s eyes, and again there seemed a challenge Kelsey couldn’t read. “Sit down, please, both of you. I’ve something in the kitchen that needs stirring. Back in a moment.”
Her movements were quick, and Kelsey sensed the vitality and strength with which this woman would meet whatever happened in her life.
Her home was indeed a “house of light”—built, not in the Spanish adobe style that sought to protect from the heat of the sun, but to let in light and air on all sides. A main, central room with high arched windows ran the width of the house. Beyond, a terrace looked out toward the ocean, so that a gold and blue radiance poured in and bathed the entire room. The furniture was simply constructed of light woods. The chairs had turquoise seats, and turquoise cushions were tossed across a wheat-colored sofa.
Kelsey sat in a handcrafted chair with wide wooden arms, and rocked gently, beginning to feel more relaxed. This bathing of light and color soothed more than it invigorated.
“You feel it, don’t you, Kelsey?” Denis asked. “Marisa claims that the color turquoise fights depression. Even when there’s fog, light comes in, and the sea color is strong. On clear evenings, the blue darkens inside and out, and it’s all the more a quiet room.”
Kelsey could sympathize with the feeling for color, and there seemed almost a poetry in Denis’s words. Yet she still wondered why she was here. No matter. For the moment she could be still inside, and watch Marisa, who was definitely the star in her own staging. Whether it was an artificial staging or simply natural, she couldn’t tell yet.
When Marisa rejoined them, Denis told her what had happened with Jody that morning, and how Tyler had agreed to let Kelsey return every day for a week until the boy was sent away. Providing, of course, that Ruth consented. Then he added somberly, “Last night my sister tried to slash her wrists.”
“I know,” Marisa said gently. “Tyler called me late in the evening. Ruth seems to be all right. Perhaps it was more a cry for help than anything else.” She turned to Kelsey. “Has Denis told you—I practically raised Tyler. His parents were my husband’s and my friends a long time ago in Illinois. After they died, we arranged to take him. Adopt him. He was only ten when he came to us. Their death was a tragedy he never really got over. I’m afraid it still darkens his life.”
Marisa’s tone of voice had changed to a different cadence—a musical minor key. She could, Kelsey recognized, play emotions in her voice, as though it were an instrument, and again, whether this was natural or calculated, she couldn’t tell.
Denis had grown uneasy with this talk of Tyler, and he changed the subject. “Will you show Kelsey your photographs, Marisa? They might help her to understand a little better what she’s getting into up at the Hammonds’.”
“You’re a photographer?” Kelsey asked.
“I suppose I’m a lot of unimportant things. That’s what happens to a person who can’t decide about one talent. So I’m a dabbler. I do things for my own satisfaction, and I enjoy photography. Paintings interpret and require a very great skill. But a photograph catches one moment of life as I see it—when I’m lucky, that is.”
“It’s more than luck in the portraits you’ve done,” Denis said. “I think you hypnotize people when they sit for you. They let down their guard and give themselves away.”
She laughed—a light sound like wind chimes—and led them into a studio wing where terra cotta tiles paved the floor and there was very little furniture. Dozens of black and white photographs lined the walls, while at the rear a door opened in to a small darkroom.
Here the ceiling was lower and had been painted pale blue. Across it, suspended invisibly, flew three lovely geese—perhaps a fourth of life size—as though seen far away against the sky. They had been fashioned from driftwood, partly natural, partly created by the artist who had seen the form in the wood.
“Beautiful!” For a moment Kelsey could look only at the three soaring birds, and her spirits lifted at the sight.
“Tyler carved those for me a long time ago,” Marisa said, and now the timbre of her voice was melancholy again.
It was difficult to imagine that dour, unfeeling man creating beauty like this. Another facet of Tyler Hammond had been revealed that gave her a little more hope. Somewhere in him there was a sensitivity she hadn’t suspected.
The richness of Marisa’s black and white prints was due to the gradations that lay between deep black and pure white. Velvet gradations, so that one didn’t miss color.
Some of the photographs were of the Monterey Peninsula and of the Big Sur coastline—not pretty postcard pictures but a revelation of
wild elements in nature. For a woman who liked the calming influence of turquoise, Marisa had a surprising instinct for the violent. She had caught a vivid moment of storm where the sea churned with white water and flung its spray high against wet black granite. Marvelous contrasts there.
“Point Lobos,” Denis said softly.
Marisa spoke quickly, as though to draw Denis away from thinking of the terrible thing that had happened in that particular place.
“I studied photography for a while with Ansel Adams,” she said. “He lived here for years until his recent death, you know. I don’t think anyone has ever equaled what he could do with a landscape.”
The next picture, again devastating, showed Cannery Row in Monterey after a fire had destroyed most of the original buildings. Still another revealed the devastation on Highway One, where a tremendous landslide had wiped out the shore connection between Big Sur and San Simeon.
“They’re tremendous pictures,” Kelsey said. “And a bit frightening.”
Marisa nodded, pleased. “I suppose disaster always fascinates me. Natural disaster—the dark side of reality. The thing mere humans can do so little about.”
“Wrath of the gods,” Denis said, and his shiver wasn’t altogether pretense. “I guess I prefer a little insulation. Reality?—there’s too much reality around. What can we do but close our eyes and pray? Let’s look at the portraits—they’re not so threatening.”
As they crossed the studio to an opposite wall, Kelsey watched Marisa with growing interest. So much of her own work dealt with the psychological as well as the physiological that she was always curious about what drove and motivated people. Marisa seemed a woman of many aspects. Perhaps not all as healing as Denis seemed to think.
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