Disguised Blessing (11 page)

Catherine turned out the lights and headed for the stairs and her bedroom. Her hand gripped the railing and she froze. She couldn’t go up. Not yet. Tom had never spent an entire night in her bed, but she had imagined what it would be like to wake up and find him there so many times that it had become habit.

She went into the living room and curled up on the sofa. Her first test in the new independent world she planned to create for herself and she’d failed. Hardly an auspicious beginning.

She’d do better tomorrow. She had to. Broken hearts got in the way of everyday life, and Lynda needed her.

The telephone rang. Once, twice, three, four times before the machine picked up. Catherine listened as her own voice cheerfully announced the daily update on Lynda and then invited the caller to leave a message. She expectantly held her breath at
the tone—waiting for Tom’s voice to tell her he’d made a terrible mistake and beg her forgiveness—all the while knowing there was nothing he could say that could mend the tear in their relationship. Knowing how he felt, she couldn’t trust him not to hurt her daughter, and Lynda came first. She always had, she always would. It wasn’t sacrifice or commitment—it simply was.

The line stayed open for several seconds. Finally there was a click, a defining moment of finality.

Catherine turned her face into the pillow and silently wept.

R
ICK RANG THE DOORBELL TO
C
ATHERINE’S HOUSE
, then stepped to the side and stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. He studied the impressive double doors as he waited. They were made of hundreds of pieces of beveled glass leaded together in an art deco pattern and framed in a dark, rich mahogany. Stunning in concept and execution, the doors were museum-quality work that seemed oddly out of place in the modified ranch style house.

Without question, the easily breached entry came with an alarm system as impressive as the rest of the house. People who lived in gated communities with full-time guards placed a high value on security for themselves and their property. They believed they’d earned the right to flaunt the results of their hard work, but only to those of their choosing. Casual observers were not invited or tolerated.

The door opened just as Rick was about to ring the bell again. “I’m sorry,” Catherine said. “I was on the phone with the insurance agent. Please come in.”

She had on a pale blue cotton dress, sleeveless and simple, cut above the knee and fitted to her hips as if it had been made just for her. Her sandals were woven leather, her legs bare, and her hair done up in a twist with the ends sticking out. A narrow gold band circled her wrist, but the engagement ring she’d had on the night before was missing. Rick took it all in with a glance and then forced himself to look elsewhere—to the Persian carpet that protected the marble entry and the crystal chandelier that hung overhead at precisely the right height to reflect through the glass doors at night.

“Nice,” he commented.

“Yeah, it is,” she said without enthusiasm. “I liked the view, Jack liked the house. Or so he thought. As soon as we moved in, he decided it wasn’t what he’d wanted after all. Not big enough. Which is why I’m still here and he’s in that hotel-like thing he had built in Carmichael.”

From the outside, Rick had judged the house to be between four and five thousand square feet. Jack must run with some crowd if that wasn’t enough to impress them.

He followed her through the foyer and into the family room, which opened to the kitchen. A wall of windows overlooked the Sacramento Valley—at least what was visible through the haze. “What did you find out about the car?”

“The radiator leaks, so it can’t be driven. Tom’s agent was going to have it towed to one of their contract garages but I told him I had my own mechanic.” She grinned sheepishly. “And then I
couldn’t remember the name you gave me so I said I’d have to call him back.” She moved to the kitchen and took a cup out of the cupboard. “Coffee?”

He shouldn’t. He had a dozen things he had to get done that day and coffee with Catherine wasn’t one of them. “Please—black.”

She poured from a stainless steel carafe and handed him the cup. “When I talked to Tom this morning I told him I either confiscated his car until mine was fixed or he made arrangements for me to pick up a rental car.” This time she smiled. “He has a Corvette. Want to guess which option he chose?”

Rick sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter and tasted the coffee. It was good. Better than good—the best he’d had in a long time. He refused to consider it might be more the company than the brew.

“Considering the day you had yesterday, you’re in an awfully good mood this morning.”

“I know, I thought the same thing. It’s amazing what a little self-righteous anger can do for you. I woke up so mad at Tom for what he’s done that I couldn’t think about anything else.”

If she’d slept at all, it hadn’t been for long. Her makeup helped, but he could still see the dark circles under her eyes. “He’s an idiot,” Rick said without thinking. Seeing her surprised reaction, he quickly added, “I’m sorry. I had no right to say that.”

“Why did you?”

“Because I can be tactless at times.”

“That’s not what I mean. I want to know why you think Tom’s an idiot.”

If he told her the truth, he’d be stepping over a boundary they needed to maintain their professional relationship. He was there to help Lynda. To go beyond that, to get involved personally, would compromise his work and the work of the Burn Association. “He could have saved himself and everyone else a lot of trouble if he’d called a cab last night.”

“Oh…”

It was plainly not what she’d wanted him to say. She was in pain and looking for an analgesic, not rationale. He changed the subject. “Has Lynda let any of her friends come to see her yet?”

“Brian’s the only one.”

“It might be a good idea to start encouraging her to see one or two of them. The longer she puts it off, the harder it’s going to be.”

“I’ll talk to her about it today.” She picked up a sponge and wiped an already immaculate counter. “I shouldn’t be keeping you here like this. I’m sure you have a lot of things you’d like to get done today.”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

“I’ll get my purse and we can leave.”

Rick took his cup to the sink, rinsed it out, and put it in the dishwasher. While he waited he went to the window and looked out at the acre-sized lot. The landscaping was as lush and expensive-looking as the house. A redwood walkway led to a free-form pool at the bottom of the hill. Fed by a moss-rock waterfall, the pool appeared more natural than man-made, an effect often attempted by the pool
builders in the area, but rarely accomplished.

The maintenance on this place would take half his salary. Add taxes and insurance and there wouldn’t be anything left for little necessities like food.

“I can get lost in the view,” Catherine said, coming up to stand next to him. “Especially at night when you can’t see the pollution.”

“I was admiring the pool.”

“They did an amazing job, didn’t they? Lynda and her friends used to be in it all the time, but then she started high school and got into cheerleading and was hardly ever home. Maybe now…” She looked up at Rick. “I wish I knew what to expect. So far everything I thought she might do or feel has been wrong.”

“Such as?”

“Cutting herself off from her friends. I used to tease her that I wouldn’t recognize her without a phone pressed to her ear.”

“Have you talked to the counselor?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to see if she would come around on her own. But she’s running out of time. She’ll be home next week and there’s no way I’m going to lie for her if someone calls or shows up at the front door.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

She looked at him. “I’m desperate. I’ll take all the help I can get.”

Just as Rick started to answer, he caught a hint of a faint, flowery fragrance. Catherine must have put on perfume when she went to get her purse. Drawn
by the captivating smell, he had to consciously keep himself from leaning closer. For an instant his imagination led him where he had no right to be and he pictured what it would be like to hold her in his arms, to fill his lungs with her essence.

The transition of his thoughts startled him. He needed time to think, to reason through his feelings.

Time to get his head on straight again.
If there was one sure way to screw up his work as a volunteer with the Burn Association, this was it. But it was more than that. The work and reputation of the entire organization was on the line with every volunteer.

He moved away from Catherine and folded his arms across his chest for added insurance. “What Lynda’s feeling is natural. All kids go through it to one degree or another. In her mind it doesn’t matter how we see her, or how her friends see her, it’s how she sees herself. Sometimes that image comes from a mirror, sometimes it comes from an unguarded look from a clerk in a store.”

“Thank God for Brian. At least she knows there’s one person her age who isn’t turned off by her burns.”

Rick felt her looking at him and chanced looking back. Her eyes were filled with the hope he’d come to recognize in parents of burned children. They desperately needed to believe everything would work out, that the scars wouldn’t be as bad as they were told to expect, that the plastic surgeon would work miracles on missing noses and ears and eyebrows and lips, and that strangers wouldn’t look at their child with dread.

Acceptance came in small, seemingly inconsequential miracles: the first joke, a tear shed over a sad movie instead of pain, anger at an injustice that had nothing to do with being burned. These were the moments when the scars became secondary to the personality, when the lost child was, at last, discovered again by her parents.

“Lynda thinks Brian comes to stay with her because he feels sorry for her,” Rick said.

“She told you that?”

“In a dozen different ways. Just like she lets me know that she thinks I’m there because it’s my job and that you and the rest of the family come because you have to. Right now it’s what she believes in her heart and there’s no way we’re going to convince her any differently.”

“Then how do I help her?”

“You keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing. When she’s ready we’ll arrange for her to talk to someone neutral—someone who’s been through what she’s going through, who she can spill her guts to or yell at or feel sorry for herself around and not have to worry about apologizing to later.”

Catherine studied him for a long time. “I’m embarrassed to say this, but I think I finally understand what you do and why I need you. More importantly, why Lynda needs you. Why we all do.”

Rick smiled. “I told you it would take a while.”

“There’s so much I don’t know about helping her to become whole again.”

“I don’t have all the answers, and some of the ones I do have could be wrong for Lynda. What I do
know is how to find someone to help her or you if you need it.”

“I know you told me once, but I’ve forgotten—how long is your tour of duty with us?”

There was something about the way she asked that made him feel hopeful and concerned at the same time. “A year.”

“That’s a big chunk out of your life.”

“You’ll be surprised how fast it passes.”

The phone rang. Catherine ignored it. “I suppose we should get going. I had Tom arrange for a rental car in Roseville so you wouldn’t have to take me all the way downtown.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

She looked at him, not the quick glance reserved for acquaintances, but one that was long and warm, for a special friend. “Do you know the expression that nothing is ever taken away without something given in return?”

“I’ve heard it.”

“It was one of my father’s. Not original. None of his sayings were. He collected them instead of baseball cards and had one he could whip out for any occasion.” She stopped talking long enough to smile. “I’m not sure I understand it yet, but I believe you’re our blessing, the balancing weight on the scale for me and Lynda and what she’s going through.”

Rick had been called a lot of things in his life, but “blessing” was a first. “Thanks.” He hesitated. “But if you don’t mind, could we keep this blessing stuff between us? I wouldn’t want something like
that getting around the department.”

She flushed. “Sorry—I was thinking out loud again. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“I’m not embarrassed.” But he was. Compliments always embarrassed him.

“No more so than a cat that misses a jump and tries to act cool about it?” she teased.

“Okay, maybe a little.”

She dug through her purse for her keys. “After all the kids and parents you’ve taken through the program, I find it hard to believe you still blush when someone says something nice about you.”

This teasing was a side of Catherine he hadn’t seen before. “It’s just that I haven’t had time to prepare. Most people save the outrageous compliments until they know me better.”

She laughed. “That’s encouraging.”

The phone rang again. Rick was amazed at how easily she ignored it. “How do you do that?” he asked, following her to the front door.

“I gave the hospital my private number. It’s the same one the family uses when they have to reach me. If I answered all the calls that come in on this line, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.”

She locked the front door and, as they made their way to the truck, Rick asked, “You’re not going to set the alarm?”

“It isn’t connected. It used to go off on its own all the time so I had it disarmed when Jack moved out. I’d rather take my chances with a thief than have that thing scaring me to death in the middle of the night.”

“I have a visiting dog that takes care of my place on a sometime basis. The way I figure it, I’m safe as long as the thief shows up in a rabbit suit and tries to steal dog food.”

Catherine laughed. “We had a dog like that when I was growing up. My father bought her to take pheasant hunting. They went out one time and somehow that dog convinced a man who’d spent his entire life killing birds that it was a dumb idea. Dad stunned us all when he came home and sold his guns and kept the dog.”

Rick held the truck door for Catherine, then went around to get in his side. Where before he’d appreciated the truck for its heavy-duty springs, powerful motor, and large hauling capacity, all he saw now were the dents and scratches.

By the time he was backing out of the driveway he wasn’t sure whether he was more upset with himself for caring how the truck looked or for caring what Catherine thought about it.

The traffic on Douglas Boulevard was worse than usual with boaters headed for Folsom Lake and an ambulance responding to an accident at one of the intersections in front of them. Rick cut off on Barton and then over to Olive Ranch. He pointed north on Barton as they turned. “That’s the way to my place.”

“How far?”

“Couple of miles. I’m off Laird.”

“I looked at some property up there a couple of years ago when I was thinking about moving,” Catherine said. “I had it in my head that I wanted to
be someplace where I could step outside and not see my neighbor looking back at me.”

“With me it’s cars. I wanted to get away from the sound of them.”

“And did you?”

“For a while. But I knew it wouldn’t last. Auburn’s creeping down the hill and Roseville’s creeping up. I’m right in the middle with large tracts of undeveloped land on all four sides. They just subdivided some high-dollar lots down the road, so it won’t be long before we hear the sounds of building instead of birds.”