Coast Road

by Barbara Delinsky

  “It’s the same.”

  “Then the drip isn’t helping?”

  “It may be, since she isn’t getting worse. We’ll have to wait a little longer to see improvement.”

  “And there’s nothing else we can do in the meantime?” he asked, hearing Samantha in the words; but hell, he was scared, too.

  “Not yet. Are those your girls?” Kara Bates asked with a glance toward the room.

  On the other side of the glass, Katherine had coaxed Hope to Rachel’s bedside. Though Samantha was nearly as tall as Katherine and a head taller than Hope, both girls looked very blond, very young, very frightened.

  “I’m not sure I should have brought them. They might have been better off at home. I keep telling them this is temporary, but it’s hard for them to see. I don’t know what to say to make it better.”

  “Let me give it a try,” Kara said.

  Willing to forgive her the pretense of power pearls if she succeeded, Jack walked her back to the room, but he waited at the door while she went inside. Gently, she told the girls much of what Steve Bauer had told him earlier. They listened. Their eyes went from Rachel’s face to Kara’s and back. They nodded when Kara asked if they understood, and didn’t balk when she told them what they could and should do. By the time she was done, Hope was standing at Rachel’s side under her own power and Samantha was holding her mother’s hand—and suddenly Jack felt angry that two strangers, two women who were no relation at all to his daughters, had been able to reach them when he couldn’t.

  His family wasn’t supposed to be like that. His family was supposed to be cohesive and communicative. It was supposed to be everything his childhood family hadn’t been.

  Turning against a sense of failure, he strode down the hall to the phone.

  FIGHTING mental static, he made two calls. Both were to San Francisco.

  “Sung and McGill,” said Christina Cianni. She had been with Jack since the firm’s inception, back then as receptionist, general assistant, overall gofer. The ten years she had on Jack didn’t show. Her hair was a rich mahogany, her olive skin smooth as ever, her smile ready, her manner calming. Sitting at the front desk in those early years, she had conveyed an aura of success long before they had any. Now she manned the front phone only when the regular receptionist was on break. She divided the rest of her time between keeping the books and doing PR. The most precious of her traits was her undying loyalty to Jack.

  “Hi,” he said in relief when her voice cut through the static in his head. She was an anchor in his suddenly topsy-turvy world.

  “Jack! I’m so sorry to hear about Rachel! How is she?”

  “Comatose. Her injuries wouldn’t be all that serious if it weren’t for the one to the head. But that’s a tough one. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “I can’t begin to picture it. I’m so, so sorry. How are the girls?”

  “Scared.”

  “Do you think she’d be better off at a hospital up here?”

  “Not yet. This team seems on top of things, and if they are, there’s no point moving her. But I want an expert to tell me for sure. Can you get me the name of the best neurologist in the city?”

  “Done,” she said with blessed confidence.

  “What’s happening there?”

  There was a pause, then a pregnant “You don’t want to know.”

  “We lost Montana?”

  “Worse. We didn’t. They rescheduled for next Tuesday.”

  He was tired enough to laugh. Only Tina understood him enough to put it that way. She had seen him through years of increasing success when the adrenaline was rushing and wild dreams were coming true. But something had happened to the joy. Lately, it was harder to come by. Lately, there was less actual designing, less creative satisfaction, and more business meetings, one after another after another after another.

  “I should be flattered,” he said. “What about Napa?” He had designed a restaurant there and was scheduled to meet with the owner, an electrician, a plumber, and a kitchen consultant.

  “Next Wednesday.”

  “Good. I want shop drawings before then. And San Jose?” He was supposed to have a preliminary meeting with the owners of a computer company that had outgrown its space and wanted to build.

  “Wednesday, also. David was pushing for this Friday. He wants to get them hooked. Lucky they couldn’t make it. You’re supposed to be in Austin on Friday.” After the space of a breath, she asked, “Think you’ll make it?”

  Jack closed his eyes and massaged tired lids. Standing there at the phone, he felt shrouded in fog. “God knows. She could wake up later today. Or tomorrow. Or Thursday. Or next week. This is bizarre.”

  “Are you staying down there with the girls?”

  “Well, I don’t have clothes. But, yeah, I guess I am. Just for a night or two, until we know more of what’s going on. Rachel will wake up. She’s too healthy not to, but even then, her leg is smashed up, so she won’t be doing much driving, which means I’ll have to do something about the girls.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Austin on Friday may be tight, but leave it for now. Clear my appointment book for tomorrow. I’ll take it a day at a time.”

  “David won’t be happy.”

  “No. I don’t suppose he will.” But Jack couldn’t worry about David. There were now more urgent players in his life.

  The second call he made was to one of those. His “Hey” was gentler, but the sense of wallowing in fog remained.

  “Jack!” It came through with the delighted smile that he thrived on. Jill always liked hearing from him, liked being with him, and it showed. What man wouldn’t value that?

  “It’s early,” she said, still smiling audibly. “I didn’t think you’d be calling so soon. Is your meeting done?”

  “Never took place. I have a problem, Jill. Rachel’s been in a car accident. She’s in Intensive Care. I’m here with the girls.”

  There was a pause, then, minus the smile, a cautious “In Big Sur?”

  “In Monterey. She’s in a coma.” He passed on the basics of the case. “She could wake up in five minutes, five days, five weeks—or never. The doctors have no way of knowing, and the girls are terrified. I can’t leave them alone right now.”

  The pause that followed was long enough for him to hear the static in his mind loud and clear. Finally, Jill said, “You won’t make it to the ball.” Her disappointment was as obvious as her delight had been. She wore her feelings on her sleeve. Usually that was a plus. He preferred it when her feelings were positive.

  “Not unless she wakes up within the next few hours. I’m sorry, Jill. I really am. I know what you’ve put into tonight, but you’re not the only one I’m doing this to. I canceled three meetings today and just told Tina to do the same for tomorrow. I stand there looking at Rachel, thinking there has to be something that someone can do to bring her out of this, but no one has any answers. So it’s a stinking, lousy waiting game.”

  “You can’t be there all the time. Isn’t there someone who can stay with the girls tonight?”

  Duncan Bligh could, he supposed. Maybe even Katherine Evans. But Jack remembered the scene he had just witnessed and felt again the same annoyance—annoyance, defensiveness, pride. It had become a matter of principle.

  “The girls are my responsibility. They’re still young. They don’t understand why this has happened. Not that I do. But I can’t leave them, Jill. Not today. The situation is too shaky. I mean, I don’t know what in the hell to say to them, how to make things better, but I can’t just drive off. Trust me. This is not what I want to be doing right now.”

  “I’m the cochair of this,” Jill said. What she didn’t say, because she wasn’t a shrew, but what Jack heard, was that she didn’t want to be without a date.

  “You told me you’d be running around most of the time.”

  “But I wanted you there.” It wasn’t whiney—mere statement of fact, which only increased his sense of guilt.


  “I know.” He pushed a hand through his hair, torn between what he knew Jill wanted and what he wanted to give her but couldn’t. “I know. But I’ve slept a total of one hour in the last twenty-four. I drove down here with my laptop and scads of papers—no change of clothes, no comb, no razor. If I try driving back to the city, I’ll either nod off at the wheel or in the middle of your lovely black-tie dinner. Either way, it wouldn’t be pretty. I feel really bad, Jill. If I could be in two places at once, I would.”

  “She isn’t your wife anymore.”

  This, too, was softly spoken, another simple statement of fact. What Jack heard was something entirely different. What he heard was, I’ve dated you for two years, Jack. I’ve met your business partner, been at your business dinners, spent weekends with you here and in Tahoe—I’ve even met your daughters. Doesn’t that say something? Haven’t I finally come to mean more to you than your ex-wife?

  David had said something similar. Jack answered her now in kind. “She may be my ex-wife, but there’s nothing ex about the girls. They’re still my daughters.” No fog in his mind when it came to that. “They’re only thirteen and fifteen. Their mother is in a coma from which she could either wake up or die, and the next day or two are crucial. How can I leave them alone here, so that I can go back to the city to party?” He caught sight of Katherine heading his way. “Hey, I gotta go. I’m really sorry, Jill. I’ll call you later, okay?” He hung up the phone and drew himself up. Katherine looked like she might have gotten a little sleep, certainly had freshened up. Her pantsuit was linen and stylishly creased, her makeup immaculate, her long curls just so. Her expression was all business.

  “Are the girls still with Rachel?” he asked.

  “They are.” She tucked a hand in her pants pocket. “Are you heading back to the city?”

  “No. I just cancelled everything so that I can be here.”

  She looked startled by that. Then someone called her name. She swung her head around and paused for a second before breaking into a grin. “How goes it, Darlene?”

  Darlene didn’t miss a step. All big white teeth in a dark, dark face, she gave Katherine a thumbs-up in passing and was gone.

  Jack pushed off from the phone booth. When Katherine fell into step beside him, he said, “You didn’t think I’d stay?”

  “I didn’t know what to think. All I know about you is what I’ve heard from Rachel. And it sounded like you were better at leaving than staying put. She felt abandoned.”

  That quickly, he stopped. Katherine did the same. “Abandoned?” he echoed. “I didn’t walk away from this marriage. Rachel did. She was the one who packed up and left the city.”

  Katherine looked about to say something, then pressed her lips together and simply nodded.

  “Go ahead,” he invited. “Say what you want.” He was just tired enough, just frustrated enough, just worried enough to pick a fight.

  She thought for a minute. When she spoke, her tone was innocuous, but there was challenge in her eyes. “I was going to say, the way Rachel sees it, you’d already left. Her moving on was just in response. San Francisco stifled her. She couldn’t paint there. She was frustrated, and bored.”

  “If she was bored, it was her own fault. There were dozens of things she could have done and didn’t.” He told himself to walk on. This wasn’t the time or place. But Katherine Evans had scratched a festering scab. He stood his ground. “She blamed me because she was bored?”

  Katherine gave a small shrug. “The only person she wanted to do things with in the city was you, but you weren’t around.”

  “No, I wasn’t.” Definitely not the time or place, but hell, this friend of Rachel’s had accused him of abandonment, and beyond keeping his voice low, he couldn’t let the charge go unanswered. “I was working my tail off to build a successful practice, so that I could keep us housed and fed and, P.S., let her paint without worrying about earning money. She wouldn’t take money from her parents. I wanted to give her everything I thought she deserved.” Enough! a voice inside him said, but the rest of him didn’t listen. “What in the hell did I ask of her? To dress up and go out once or twice a week? Was that so much? God only knew she did it enough as a kid. She was raised dressing up. She could do the party thing with her eyes closed. Besides, she knew it was business. If you’re trying to build a name, you have to be seen.”

  “She knew that,” Katherine conceded. “The traveling bothered her more. To hear her tell, you were on the road more often than not.”

  Jack turned away, swearing under his breath, then turned back in the very next beat. “Rachel told you all that? Funny, she didn’t tell me about you. Who the hell are you, to be coming between my wife and me?”

  “It’s ex-wife,” Katherine said, seeming bewildered, “and you asked. Who I am is Rachel’s friend. I love her and the girls. They’re like family. I don’t want them hurt.”

  “And I do? Wrrrrrong.” This time when he set off, he kept going.

  IF SIMPLY to spite Katherine Evans, Jack stuck to his daughters like glue. He stayed with them at Rachel’s bedside for a time, took them to breakfast in the cafeteria, returned with them to sit with Rachel again, took them to lunch. In between, he spoke with a neurologist from the city, who agreed to see Rachel the next day.

  Of the medical personnel who came and went from Rachel’s room, the nurse heading the case was the most encouraging. Her name was Cindy Winston. She wore white leggings, a long blouse to hide plumpness, and thick glasses, but there was a quiet to her, an endearing shyness. She spoke slowly and softly and seemed kind as could be. If Kara Bates was a teacher, Cindy Winston was a friend. The girls hung on her every word.

  “Keep talking,” she told them. “Tell her what you’ve been doing.” She looked at Rachel. “Tell her jokes. Tell her you’re sad. Or angry. Or scared.” She looked at the girls again. “You can laugh, or cry. Those are all normal things. She’ll understand them.”

  “What if we run out of things to say?” Samantha asked.

  Cindy studied her own hand. “Then touch her. That’s important. See me?” Though she was addressing the girls, Jack looked. She was massaging Rachel’s shoulder, had been doing it the whole time she was talking. “Your mother feels. Touching is a way to connect.” She demonstrated with measured movements. “Don’t be afraid to lift her hand. Or bend her knee. Or brush her hair. Or move her fingers or toes.” She let that sink in, then asked, “Does she have a favorite scent?”

  Hope’s eyes lit. “Lily of the valley.”

  “You could bring some in.”

  “And it’ll help?”

  “It can’t hurt.”

  UNFORTUNATELY, Cindy Winston’s comfort was short-term and specific. More generally, more urgently, Jack wanted to know when Rachel was going to wake up, but no one was saying.

  He drank so much coffee to stay awake that by late afternoon he was starting to shake. When Katherine arrived with several friends, he barely heard the introductions. As soon as they were done, he ushered the girls to the car.

  They had barely hit the road when, in a big, bold voice, Samantha said, “So what do we do?”

  “Do?” It was too general, and he was too tired. How to answer?

  “If Mom dies.”

  “She’s not going to die.”

  “Then if she lies there for a while. Who’s taking care of us?”

  “Me.”

  “Where?” The word was thick with distrust. He remembered what she had said earlier about not living in San Francisco. This wasn’t the time to challenge her, not about a quandary so far down the road, not to mention an improbable one. Rachel would wake up. There might even be a message on the machine saying that she already had, by the time they got home.

  “Big Sur.” The logical short-run choice. He wasn’t thinking about work, couldn’t think about work. “If there’s no change by tomorrow, I’ll drive up for clothes while you guys are in school.”

  Sam was horrified. “We can’t go to school.”
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  “You can’t not go. It’s the end of the year. Aren’t exams coming up?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll pick you up at school.” Since the school in Big Sur went only to sixth grade, the girls were bused to Carmel. From Carmel to the hospital in Monterey was a ten-minute drive. “You can spend the rest of the day at the hospital.”

  “Like I can really concentrate on classes?”

  “I really think you should try. I really think your mother would want you to. I really think we have to try to maintain a sense of normalcy.”

  “Nothing is normal.”

  It was a truth so bluntly stated that he wanted to strangle her. “Look, your mom’s apt to wake up anytime now. This won’t go on forever.”

  “How do you know?” came Hope’s small voice from behind.

  He caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “Because it won’t. Your mother is young and healthy. She’ll heal. She’ll wake up.”

  “You don’t know it for sure,” Samantha argued.

  “No. But what’s the alternative? Would you rather assume she’s going to die?”

  “No! I just don’t know what’s happening! There’s a mess of things we’re supposed to be doing, doctor and dentist—”

  “My picnic—”

  “My prom, for which I have no dress. Mom was taking me shopping this week, but if she’s in the hospital, who’ll do it?”

  “Me,” Jack said.

  She sagged into the seat and looked out the window. “Yeah. Right. You don’t have time. You never have time.”

  “I’ll make time.”

  “Like you made time for my gymnastics meets?”

  Her gymnastics meets. She hadn’t done gymnastics in years, not since well before the divorce. There had been a time when he attended every meet. Then work had come in the way and he had missed more and more. She had been young. He wouldn’t have thought she remembered. He was shaken that she did, and with such venom.

  “This is different,” was all he could say. Then, angered at being put on the defensive when there were two sides to every story, he held up a hand. “Y’know, what’s happened to your mother is kind of hard on me, too. I’m past the point of being tired right now. What I’d like is a little silence.”