LITMIR.BIZ

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been her friend. Nor did she recognize her own mother. She welcomed everyone, from her child to the electrician, into her room with equal pleasure.

      She knew Liam, though. It was obvious in the way she lit up when he appeared in her doorway at the nursing home, and in the sounds she made, like a puppy whose owner had returned after an absence. Joelle wasn’t certain if Mara’s surprising good cheer made it easier or harder for those who loved her to cope with her condition. Mara had never been the sort of woman one would describe as perpetually cheerful, and her simple happiness made her seem like a stranger. It had been only in the last few months that Joelle could drive away from the nursing home after a visit without crying in her car.

      Mara had been Joelle’s closest friend for years. A psychiatrist in private practice, Mara had specialized in psychological problems related to pregnancy and childbirth, and Joelle would bring her in as a consultant from time to time on her hospital cases. She’d been drawn to Mara the instant she met her. Two years older than Joelle, Mara had worn her straight dark hair to her shoulders, and her nearly black eyes were intense against her fair skin. She was a remarkable mixture of qualities and interests: young doctor, novice folk musician, churchgoing Roman Catholic, yoga instructor and avid runner who had participated in three marathons and was fluent in several languages. Although Mara was the consummate professional while at work, once she and Joelle were alone, she slipped easily into girl talk, the sort of sharing of intimacies that created a treasured and unbreakable bond. It was Joelle who had introduced Mara to Liam, after he started working at Silas Memorial, and she couldn’t have been more pleased when those two people she cared about began to love each other.

      Lord, she missed Mara! She had no one to turn to with the dilemma she was facing, no one she could safely tell about her pregnancy. Least of all the baby’s father, even though he was sitting right across the table from her.

      2

      AT FIVE O’CLOCK,LIAM SAID GOOD-NIGHT TO THE STAFF IN THE emergency room and left the hospital. It had been a long day; his pager had gone off so often for the E.R. that he’d had little time for oncology or cardiology, and he would have to spend more time in those units tomorrow. To make matters worse, this week was his turn to be on call, so he wasn’t able to turn off his pager as he walked across the employee parking lot to his car. He alternated nighttime and weekend coverage with Joelle and Paul. The overtime pay was decent, but the “every third week” schedule had just about done him in this year. He’d been trying to persuade management to hire another social worker, someone who would only cover evenings and weekends, but there was no money for that. Joelle had volunteered to do an extra week on call every month to help him out, but he didn’t think that was fair, even though he had a year-old child to take care of and she did not.

      On a couple of occasions, he’d called Joelle, either to take a middle-of-the-night case at the hospital for him or to ask if she’d watch Sam while he took the case himself, but he wouldn’t be calling her anymore. As of two months ago, he’d felt unable to ask her for a favor or see her outside of work in any capacity, or—God forbid—be alone with her. It was okay when Paul was with them, but alone, he found himself unable to make eye contact with her, as though he was embarrassed or ashamed. And he was both.

      So now, those dreaded middle-of-the-night E.R. calls meant that he had to awaken Sheila, Mara’s mother, and ask her to come over and stay with Sam while he went to the hospital. Sheila was a great sport, though. She lived less than a mile from Liam in a two-story house Mara had always called “the pink house” because of its cotton-candy color. The pink house was just a block from Monterey State Beach, where Sheila often took Sam, bundled up against the cool air, to watch the kites zig and zag through the sky. A widow who had retired several years earlier from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where she’d taught Russian, Sheila took care of Sam every day while Liam was at work, and she never complained when he had to ask her to come at one or two in the morning, as well. She also, unfortunately, had to help Liam with his mortgage. Monterey housing was horrendously expensive, and without Mara’s handsome income from her psychiatric practice, he couldn’t possibly have kept his three-bedroom, cottage-style home. He was dependent on Sheila in many ways, which was both a blessing and a curse. Liam’s own family—his parents and older sister—lived three thousand miles away in Maryland. Although they kept in frequent touch with him, there was little they could do to help him financially.

      He drove straight from Silas Memorial to the nursing home in Pacific Grove, a ten-minute ride in decent traffic. Once in the parking lot, he spotted Sheila and Sam sitting together on the concrete bench outside the entrance. He waved to them as he pulled into a parking space, a smile forming on his lips. He could actually feel the unfamiliar change in his face; his smile muscles were atrophying from disuse.

      The grounds of the nursing home were beautifully landscaped and vibrantly green and alive. That was one of the reasons Liam had been drawn to this place, why he had selected it over the others. It was also cleaner and brighter inside, and he and Sheila and Joelle had eaten a meal there and found the food to be both palatable and nicely presented. He remembered those days of searching, of weighing the aesthetics of various homes, and thought of how naive the three of them had been. None of that mattered to Mara. Very little mattered to her anymore.

      Liam walked up the pathway from the parking lot to the home, and Sam tottered toward him as he neared the bench. The cutest child on earth, Liam thought, not for the first time. Sam was small for his age, a doll-like fourteen-month-old little boy, with curly blond hair that was certain to darken as time wore on, and Mara’s dark eyes and fair skin, which would always need protection from the sun. Sam wore a constant smile. He had no idea that his birth had brought about such tragedy. Liam hoped that, somehow, he’d be able to protect his son from making that connection, at least until he was much, much older.

      When he walked quickly like this, filled with excitement at seeing Liam, Sam looked as though he might topple over at any second. Sometimes he did, but this time he made it all the way to Liam without a hitch. Bending over to pick him up, Liam planted a kiss on his cheek, breathing in his scent—which was all too quickly changing from baby to little boy—before settling him into his arms. He knew Sam would only remain there for a moment. Sam loved his newfound skill of walking, and Liam missed the closeness of holding him for more than a minute at a time. It was going to be hard to let go of his son, bit by bit over the years, as his development demanded. There were days when Liam felt as though Sam was all he had left in the world.

      “We had such a wonderful day,” Sheila said, standing up from the bench and brushing a lock of blond hair away from her face. The warm breeze blew it back again, along with a few other wayward strands. In the sunlight, Liam could see the subtle crow’s-feet at the corners of Sheila’s eyes, reminding him that she had turned sixty the week before. She’d had a face-lift at fifty-five, and while she was a stunning woman, her skin smooth and barely lined, there was something in her face that told her age. Only in the last year had he noticed that. Everyone involved in Mara’s care had aged: Sheila, Joelle, Mara, himself. This year had stolen something from each of them.

      “Oh, yeah?” Liam sat down on the bench. “What did you do today, Sam?” he asked, and Sam squirmed to get out of his father’s arms and back on the sidewalk without answering. Sam was not very verbal yet, still speaking in one- or two-word sentences, but ever since discovering his legs, he’d been impossible to keep still. Liam didn’t know how Sheila kept up with him all day.

      Liam watched his son as he explored one of the light fixtures that lined the sidewalk near the ground. Sam banged it with the flat of his hand, as though trying to make it do something, and Liam turned his attention to his mother-in-law.

      “How are you doing, Sheila?” he asked her, and she smiled.

      “He’s my world, Liam,” she said, nodding toward Sam. “He’s the joy that helps me deal with the sorrow. I don’t know what I would do without him.”

      Liam nodded. He understood completely. Standing up, he held his hand out to Sam. “Let’s go see Mom,” he said, and Sam tottered over to him, slipping his tiny hand into Liam’s.

      The foyer was bright from two huge skylights

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