I reached across the table, and he clasped my hand.
“I want to know,” I said quietly.
His sigh was huge as he placed his other hand firmly on top of mine. “I do too. You have no idea how much.”
“What about Leah?” I didn’t want to hurt her.
“She wants to know too. We’ve both gone through a lot of changes since Ruby died.” He paused. “When Ruby died, I felt my life fall apart; the regret I felt consumed me. Then, in the middle of all that, I almost lost Leah and my son too.”
I waited.
“For many years things weren’t good,” he said. “But she had been innocent about all my parents’ matchmaking and interference. Over time I saw that, and I did fall in love with her. I wanted to make her happy. I wanted that for Sam. If not for Sam, I might not have made it.”
“He must be a good son.”
“He is. And I have two girls too—nine and twelve.”
My heart leapt. Little sisters? The thought of having sisters to look out for touched me. But that was a maybe. We needed tests first to confirm things. “Do you think anyone else knows the truth?”
He seemed to mull that one over in his mind. “Your grandfather maybe, but I can’t be sure. He would be the only one, I think.” Then he shook his head, like he was going to say something but changed his mind.
“What is it?”
“Nah, talk about a soap. It would be too simple to be possible.”
“What?”
“Well, maybe in the drama of it all we’re overlooking the obvious.”
“What could be more obvious than my doctor being my father?” I asked jokingly.
He laughed. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen your birth certificate, have you?”
“Yes, according to it there must have been an immaculate conception, but we know that only happened once in history, right?”
He laughed good-naturedly at my joke. “It is true—only once.”
I smiled, wondering what he knew about Ruby’s faith. I had a feeling he might be the person to explain some unanswered questions, but I tucked away those thoughts for another time.
“What about Kitty? I can’t believe Ruby didn’t tell her. For all their disagreements, they were so close.” It was my turn to sigh. “I wish Kitty would set her pride aside and just tell me everything she knows.”
Matt looked kindly at me. “She may not know everything you think she does. Don’t put your whole world on her shoulders. If you do, she won’t be able to help but will only fail you.”
Part of me felt as if he’d taken her side. “But all this time I thought it was just my mind blocking the truth. Now I know it wasn’t just me; it was Kitty too.”
“It was your mind,” he said, reaching over to clasp my hand again. “I’m still your doctor, you know. I recorded many of these observations in your record. The things Kitty has kept from you affect you, of course, but many of the things she keeps secret are hers to keep. Maybe you need to accept that there are some things you’ll never know.”
I busied myself with straightening the tablecloth.
“Give her time.”
I looked down at my cup, long empty. Even after the four shots of espresso, unusual for me, I felt exhausted.
Matt walked over to the counter and paid for our drinks. While I waited for them to make Kitty’s green tea to go, I wished that Matt and Ruby hadn’t wasted so much time with their silly misunderstandings. What had resulted from their drama was a lost chance to have a life together—a life I could have been part of. Maybe if Ruby and Matt had married, she would have had someone to keep a closer watch over her asthma, I would have had a father, biological or not, and she would have been happier.
That last thought oozed out as Matt returned with the tea for Kitty.
“Lucy, she was happy. You were her world. You made her happy.”
“It’s my fault,” I said.
“What?”
I thought about confessing, telling him I’d been too slow when she’d called for me that day, but suddenly I was unsure if I could trust him. After all, I didn’t even know if he was my father or my doctor. Plus, he was the son of my grandmother’s only enemy, the one who ruined the marriage between Kitty and Blake. Be careful, I thought. “Oh, nothing.”
“I think you need to go home and get some sleep. Have you been taking care of yourself? Do you carry your inhaler with you at all times?”
I laughed. “Boy, you sound like a father. And yes, I do and I’m fine.”
He reached out and tousled my hair. It was a familiar gesture, and I caught a glimpse of the Dr. Matt Larimer I actually knew. It brought a sense of normalcy back.
“Call me tomorrow, and we’ll make an appointment for the tests. Are you going to tell Kitty?”
“I don’t know.”
He stopped as we walked toward the door. “Listen, Lucy, if we have the tests done and can’t confirm anything, I’d still like us to be friends. I feel I owe it to your mother, you know, to look out for you.”
“Is that the only reason? Obligation?”
He stopped walking and touched my shoulder in what my heart hoped was a fatherly gesture.
“Not obligation. Responsibility.”
He gazed down at me with the same affection I’d seen before in the doctor’s office.
“I was immature back then,” he continued. “I didn’t listen to my heart, and I sure didn’t listen to Ruby. I did what made everyone else happy except for your mother.”
I looked into his brown eyes, seeking the person who’d loved my mother so much, who’d held me when I was only an infant to a lost, unmarried mother. I really liked this man and realized that the affection I felt for him could easily morph into that of a daughter toward her father. After all, he’d been the closest thing to a father in my life already, even if he’d only been my doctor.
The realization suddenly seemed pathetic and made me sad.
He reached over to give me a hug that was awkward but desperately warm. I pulled away and turned to walk the block home but before reaching the curb turned back.
“Dr. Larimer? I mean…Matt?”
“Yeah?”
I noticed he hadn’t moved.
“When did my grandmother forgive you? I mean, she can really hold a grudge, but she must have forgiven you since we’ve been coming to you for appointments all these years.”
“When Ruby died,” he answered softly.
I was surprised.
“What about Ruby? When did she forgive you?”
“I don’t know if she ever did. Would you have?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He waved at me with a lost look on his face. For one more moment I wished everything had been different, that Ruby had married him and we’d been a family, but that was all a fantasy that could never come true now. I momentarily wondered about Leah, if I would get to meet her.
I was glad Matt had found happiness in his life, and then I knew that I too, like Kitty, had chosen to forgive him even if Ruby hadn’t. I didn’t say so out loud, but I smiled and gave him a small wave before turning and crossing the road.
28
I sat with Susannah and Max beneath a sprawling oak in the university square, both of them staring back at me in shock.
“It’s amazing!” Susannah leaned toward me and affectionately patted my leg. “You might get a father and a grandfather before you know it!”
Max hadn’t said anything, and the conversation drifted to Maria and to Susannah’s latest proud mommy story.
“How is Mary?” he asked at one pause.
Susannah’s mood shifted. “Not well. She isn’t responding well to the treatments. They take a lot out of her. Plus we’re now waiting for another test to come back to see how much the cancer has spread, if any. Of course, my dad never leaves her side, and I go to be with her every day. Kitty’s there a lot too.” She turned to me. “Did you know she and Kitty have become fast friends?”
I
smiled. Kitty didn’t reach out to many people, but if she did, it meant she really cared. “It’s good for Kitty to get out,” I said. “She loves sewing with your mom. Did you know they’re making a quilt together?”
Susannah smiled, but her voice trembled. “Mom is so excited. She says if she lives, she’s going to hang that quilt on the wall, and if she dies, then it’s for Maria.”
I reached over and gave Susannah’s shoulders a little hug, and it seemed to trigger all the tears she’d been fighting.
Max laid his hand on her shoulder. He whispered a prayer “for healing…for strength.” I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or moved. I glanced nervously over at the sidewalk, then turned back to lean closer to Susannah, a little ashamed for being embarrassed.
Susannah squeezed Max’s hand. “Thank you so much.” She thanked me too, but I knew the only comfort I could offer was somehow different, on a level of caring and maybe not—what was it I’d heard her say her faith gave?—peace.
“Let’s talk about you, Lucy!” I recognized the effort for diversion when the pain reached too deep. “When are you going to make a trip to La Rosaleda?”
“I would go for the day,” I announced. “What about this weekend?”
Susannah frowned. “Unfortunately, Troy and I have plans, but you should go anyway. The drive isn’t all that long.”
“But I don’t drive,” I reminded her.
“I could take you.” Max looked at me and shrugged. “I’m free.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Great!” Susannah hopped up. “Now I really need to pick up Maria.” She slung her backpack over her shoulder and said good-bye.
“I don’t want to be a bother. It’s a long drive to impose on you.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I drive to San Francisco a couple times a month, so I’m used to it.”
“To visit your parents?”
“Yeah, sometimes to go out on my dad’s boat.”
“Do you like it?”
Max leaned back in mock offense. “A thousand questions, is this?” He winked. “I do. I love my dad’s boat. Life on a ship really gets into a person’s blood, and it will always call me back. There’s nothing like the wind in your face and the smell of the salty air when you’re on a ship.”
“And smelly fish?” I teased.
“That too.” He laughed. “But you get used to it. What about you? Do you like the ocean?”
“I’ve never been on a ship.”
He looked surprised. “You haven’t been on a ship, and you don’t drive?”
“No.”
“Neither you nor Kitty drives at all?”
“No, we don’t even have a car.”
“Driving can be fun,” he said.
“And deadly.”
“True, but when it’s your time to go, it’s your time.”
“You think so?”
He nodded.
I hesitated, thinking of Ruby. It couldn’t have been her time. I said as much to him, and he didn’t respond, just reached over and briefly squeezed my shoulder.
“I think I could have stopped it.” I recounted the details of the day Ruby died, the things I’d never mentioned to Kitty: lingering to smell the roses, the mess I’d made and stopped to clean up, the poking around the house looking for Ruby’s inhaler.
I couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. “I was always getting into trouble as a kid for being slow; I’ve always known it was my fault.” I finished, filled with fresh shame once again and hopelessness and guilt for messing up Ruby’s and Kitty’s lives. I felt suddenly stressed and breathless, a reminder of my asthma, one more thing Kitty hadn’t needed to deal with but did.
Max sat quiet. Finally he said, “That’s quite a burden you’ve been carrying around all these years.”
I stared at our sandals, both stretched straight in front of us, and noticed how the light shone through the oak branches to dapple our legs and arms. Max laid his hand over mine, and I turned my palm to face his, watching the light and shadows of the leaves dance over our fingers, now woven together.
I took a deep breath and noticed how loud my breathing seemed. All other sound seemed muted: the chatter of other students walking past, the birds singing in the trees, the distant sound of cars in a nearby parking lot. Max clasped both my hands, and the sounds of the campus suddenly poured around me again and I could breathe normally.
Max’s voice was tender. “You were just a little girl.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “You definitely aren’t a little girl anymore.”
I stared at him. So often I did feel like Ruby and Kitty’s little girl, but hadn’t Kitty even said something recently about needing to let me grow up? I looked down at our hands. I didn’t want my backward, reclusive ways preventing me from getting to know Max better, but I wondered how I could let the past go when I was in the middle of chasing it. I wasn’t sure what parts to release and what to seek.
“Thank you for being a friend.” I smiled when I noticed color creeping up into his cheeks this time. So Maxwell Sheffield is human after all.
“Thank you,” he said. “That will be enough to carry me through the whole day.”
“Just the day?” I teased.
29
The morning was warm, and the breeze swept the hem of Kitty’s kimono around her legs as we walked. She was wearing the red one today. Her bleached blond look had begun to fade to silvery brown, and she’d swept her hair back into a red scarf like a distinguished traveler from a destination magazine.
Kitty is still every bit as lovely as in her younger pictures, I thought. Only softer, more wizened.
“Ready?” I asked as we headed to the hospital. It was obvious to me that everything wasn’t going to work out well for Mary. She looked gaunt, and her long gray hair fanned over her pillow gave me the sickening feeling that she was already dead.
“Things don’t look good,” Troy whispered to me as I greeted Susannah with a hug.
“Mary?” Kitty whispered. She’d taken a seat next to the bed, and I tiptoed beside her hoping Mary would wake even for a moment. How had this gone so fast? Mary’s immune system was low, and the surgery and chemo had failed. She looked frail, and I was tender when I reached over to caress her hand.
Mary’s hand moved beneath mine.
Kitty brushed away a tear as Mary strained to open her eyes.
“Kitty,” Mary said in a whisper. “I’m so glad to see you.” She looked over at me as I gently patted her hand. “And Lucy. You are so beautiful. Like Kitty.”
I gave Mary a gentle hug and told Susannah I would be right back. With Mary there seemed to be no more unknowns, and the thought filled me with fear. Memories of Ruby’s death crushed my lungs, making me gasp for air. I left the room, searching my purse for an inhaler.
I needed escape, and the arrangement I’d made earlier that day with Matt gave me a reason to leave Mary’s room. The blood tests. I turned toward the lab.
A beeping noise called me down the hallway, where the gleaming floors and severe lighting washed out everything. I felt like I was in a world of white and light. Is this what so many people experienced when they reported a desire to go toward the light during a near-death experience? What if people who felt pulled by some heavenly brightness and claimed to see the other side were simply delirious and blinded by hospital lights and machines? What if there was no God at all?
I thought of Susannah and her mother. Susannah believed in God with all her heart. That was it. No explanations, she’d say. “It’s simply faith. You just have faith. I feel it in my heart that God is real and there and loving us all the time, and that’s enough for me, never mind that I believe that the Bible is evidence whether scholars do or not.”
Faith in what? I often wondered. How could someone be expected to have faith when people everywhere, even in this very hospital, were dying painful, horrible deaths—and some maybe too soon? People’s lives were being ruined every day. People w
ere making the agonizing decision to turn off machines. Babies were lost. Little girls were orphaned, their mommies taken away from them when they were too young to even know what dead was.
I walked faster into the bright lights, lost in unanswerable questions, until I found myself at a desk. The woman sitting there in blue scrubs smiled at me with shining, bright white teeth. I watched her mouth move, her teeth gleaming beneath pink lips, but I heard nothing. She must have been waiting for me to arrive because she ignored my lost look and turned toward the phone.
Within seconds Dr. Larimer—Matt—was at my side. He guided me by the elbow through a maze of doors; I had a feeling we were getting special treatment. Technicians slapped him on the back and smiled warmly. Did they know? Well, of course they did. They were doing tests to see if I was the man’s daughter.
I wasn’t sure if I could trust the tests. I’d heard too much about these kinds of things in bad movies and on daytime television. I remembered seeing some episode on TV. A man who was told that the child he’d raised wasn’t his tried to leave the talk-show stage; the camera crew followed him, cameras in his face, to catch every agonizing grimace and cry. Finally the man had cowered in a corner and covered his head.
How disappointed would Matt be if the tests came back that I wasn’t his daughter? And how would I feel and react?
Matt smiled at me and gently patted my back as he admonished the poor lab technician not to poke me too badly when drawing the blood.
The technician winked at me. “If the level of his overprotectiveness says anything, I know how these tests will come back.” I laughed and let my arms and shoulders relax so he could do his work.
“Good girl,” he’d said. “Now your turn, Doc. I might not be as easy on you if you don’t behave.” He slapped Matt on the shoulder. “Loosen up or this is going to hurt.”
Matt didn’t laugh but took a deep breath. I hadn’t imagined he would be nervous too, not about the pain, but about the knowing…or not.
Ruby Among Us Page 21