Emilie Richards – Fox River (страница 6)

In the hospital, immediately after the accident, she had found it impossible to measure time. Without visual clues, one moment still seemed much like the next. The sun or the moon could be sending rays through her window and she wouldn’t know. The overhead lights could be on or off, the news on her neighbor’s television set could be either the morning or evening edition.

Little by little she’d learned new cues to guide her. The buzzing of the fluorescent lamp in the corner when light was needed in the evening, or the scent of disinfectant when the hallway was mopped each morning. The cues were different here, but just as predictable.

She had also learned that time passed more slowly than she realized. Without the constant distractions of a normal life, each second seemed to merge in slow motion with the next. She had never understood Einstein’s theories of time and space, but she thought, perhaps, she was beginning to.

After she was sure she’d been sitting for at least a day, she heard Bard’s perfunctory knock. He always rapped twice, with jackhammer precision. Then he threw open the door and strode purposefully across the floor to kiss her cheek.

Tonight was no different. He was at her side before she could even tell him to come in. She smelled the Calvin Klein aftershave she had helped Callie pick out last Christmas, felt the rasp of his cheek against hers.

“You look tired.” He had already straightened and moved away. She could tell by his voice.

“Sitting still all day will do that to you,” she said.

“You need the rest. That’s why you’re here.”

She was here to keep from embarrassing him. She suspected that not one of their mutual friends knew exactly what had happened to her, and she wondered what story he was telling. “I would get more rest at home. I could find my way around. Get a little exercise. I’d feel more like sleeping.”

“We’ve been over and over this, Julia.”

The forced patience in his voice annoyed her. “You’ve been over and over this, Bard. I’ve had very little to say about it.”

“I understand your sessions with Dr. Jeffers aren’t going well.”

“If you mean that I haven’t miraculously regained my eyesight, then yes. They haven’t gone well.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

She could feel her frustration growing. “Bard, stop talking to me like I’m Callie’s age, please. I’m blind, not eight. Exactly what did you mean?”

“Dr. Jeffers says you’re not cooperating. That you’re resistant to treatment.”

“I am resistant to spilling my guts so he’ll have something to write on his notepad.”

“How do you know he writes anything?”

“I can hear the scratching of his pen. I have four senses left.”

“Why are you resisting his help?”

“He isn’t offering help. He’s a Peeping Tom in disguise. He wants to see into every corner of my life, and I don’t see any reason to let him.”

“You’d prefer a guide dog?”

She clamped her lips shut. As he barreled through his days, Bard had developed a theory that life was an endless set of simple decisions, for or against. Accordingly, he had boiled down Julia’s recovery. Either she let Dr. Jeffers cure her or she remained blind. He didn’t have the inclination to consider the matter further.

“I guess that means no.” He sounded farther away, as if he’d taken up her favorite spot at the window.

“What do you see?” she asked. “I’d like to know what’s out there, so I can imagine it when I’m standing there.”

For the first time he sounded annoyed. “That sounds like you’re making plans to live with this.”

“It’s a simple, nonthreatening question.”

“I see exactly what you’d expect. Trees, flower beds, lawn. A slice of the parking lot. Hills in the distance.”

“Thanks.”

“I hear Maisy came to visit today. Against orders.”

His voice was louder, so she imagined he was facing her now. She pictured him leaning against the windowsill, long legs crossed at the ankles, elbows resting comfortably, long fingers laced as he waited for her answer. She remembered the first time she had really noticed Lombard Warwick.

She had known Bard forever. The town of Ridge’s Race—nothing much more than a gas station, post office and scenic white frame grocery store—was named for an annual point-to-point race that extended between two soaring ridges on either side of town. It was also the address of dozens of million-dollar farms and estates, including Ashbourne and Millcreek Farm, which was Bard’s family home. Ridge’s Race had a mayor and town council, churches along three of the four roads that intersected at the western edge of town, and a community as tightly knit as a New England fishing village.

Because of the difference in their ages, she and Bard had never attended school together. Even if they’d been born in the same year, their educational paths wouldn’t have crossed. Bard was destined for the same residential military school his father had attended. Julia, the product of an egalitarian mother who believed class segregation was nearly as harmful as racial segregation, was destined for the local public schools.

They hadn’t attended church together, either. There was a plaque listing generations of Warwicks on the wall at St. Albans, the Episcopal church where the most powerful people in Ridge’s Race convened on Sunday morning. There were Ashbournes on the plaque, as well, and Julia had been christened there, a squalling infant held firmly in the strong arms of the father who had died when she was only four. But for as long as Julia could remember, on the rare occasions when Maisy took her to church, Maisy drove into Leesburg or Fairfax and chose congregations and religions at random.

Even without common churches or schools, Bard had been a presence in Julia’s life. Millcreek Farm was just down the road. As a little girl she had seen him pass by on sleek Thoroughbreds or in one of a series of expensive sports cars. She had seen him in town, discussed weather and local politics while waiting in line at the post office, watched him shop for bourbon and bridles in Middleburg. Until she was twenty he had been a local fixture, like miles of four-rail fencing and Sundowner horse trailers.

Then one day, when her whole world lay in pieces at her feet, she had finally taken a good look at Lombard Warwick, sought-after bachelor, son of Brady Warwick and Grace Lombard, heir to Millcreek Farm, graduate of Yale law school, owner of champion hunters in a region filled with exquisite Thoroughbreds.

She thought now that Bard had been at his peak that year. He’d been thirty-one and appallingly handsome. His dark hair hadn’t yet been touched by gray; his green eyes had been clear and untroubled. He had a long, elegant jaw shadowed by a jet-black beard, and hatchet-sharp cheekbones that defined a face as confident as it was aristocratic. He had a way of looking at a female that had taught more women about their sexuality than Mama’s muddled lectures or high school health class.

She hadn’t fallen in love with him, but she had been drawn to his strength and self-assurance, something nearly as powerful that had, in the end, changed her life.

Today Bard had much of the same physical appeal. He was heavier, following in the footsteps of his father, who had seriously taxed the county’s sturdiest quarter horses. So far the extra pounds merely made Bard more a man to be reckoned with. He was tall and big-boned, and he carried himself with military bearing. He was rarely challenged and even more rarely beaten in any endeavor.

The other changes were subtler. The eyes were still untroubled, but troubling. The silver at his temples was attractive, but misleading. Age hadn’t brought with it serenity. He was intelligent, but not necessarily insightful, able to bide his time but never, never patient.

Now was no exception. “Julia, I’m waiting to hear why Maisy was here. This new push to go home…that wouldn’t happen to have come from her, would it?”

“Is it suddenly necessary to report all conversations with my mother?”

“I don’t want her upsetting you.”

His voice had risen a tone. She could visualize him tugging at an earlobe, the one visible vice he allowed himself when he was angry.

“Bard, you’re upsetting me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re trying to run my life.”

“Dr. Jeffers thinks she’ll set back your recovery. This is Maisy we’re talking about. I’m surprised she was able to find her way here, that she didn’t end up on some side road sorting autumn leaves by size and color.”

She was torn between outrage and a vision of Maisy doing exactly that. “She loves me. And she’s worried.”

His voice softened. “We’re all worried, sugar. And that’s why I want you well as soon as possible.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I can see a therapist privately. We can hire someone to help me. It would be enormously less expensive than keeping me here.”

“But not as beneficial.”

She knew it was time to remove the kid gloves. She straightened a little, carefully turning her head until she was certain she was looking at him. “You don’t want me at home because you’re embarrassed. You don’t want anyone to know that a wife of yours has gone off the deep end and manufactured her own personal handicap.”