Coast Road (43 page)

Cautious, she said, "A try, as in living together? Remarrying? " "Remarrying, " Jack said, since it was a day of shockers. He felt a twisting inside when Katherine looked troubled. "Come on. Say it.

I'm a big boy."

"It's not that. It's this. One crisis is over, but the other goes on.

You want her back based on memories of how it was during the best of times. But what if it isn't ever like that again? What if she wakes up and can't walk or talk? " "We've been through this before."

"What if there's permanent brain damage, so that she can't think the way she used to? What if she can't understand what it takes to paint?

Or to cook a meal, or drive a car, or bathe? " "Why are you obsessed with this? " "Because it's part of what it means to love Rachel."

"But why are you pessimistic? " "I'm not, " she cried, then composed herself and said a quieter "I'm not, but I could be. I could assume that next month or next year I'll find that they didn't get it all and my cancer has spread. For a year or two after my diagnosis, I panicked every time I felt a pain. Then I decided that hope was a better way to go. I choose to believe that I'll live to grow old. But there are no guarantees. If I become involved with someone, he has to know that. " Ahhh. Jack understood. She was asking him what she would have to ask Steve Bauer. Jack could argue that Rachel's situation was more traumatic. If Katherine woke up one day with a recurrence of cancer, there would be treatment and remission and, still, the possibility of some good time. If Rachel woke up mentally diminished, there would be nothing.

No. That was wrong. There would be something. But it would be different.

He guessed that was what Duncan had experienced with Faith. Life after the accident was different. Duncan changed jobs. He learned to do things around the house. He gave up much of what was social in their lives, all because he loved Faith.

If that old, leathery clod of a mountain man could do it, Jack certainly could.

One thing was for sure. If Rachel woke up disabled, he didn't trust that anyone else could take care of her the way he would.

He said a quiet "You didn't answer my question. Do I have a chance?

Is the feeling there? Or gone? " Katherine looked past him at something and brightened, then frowned almost as quickly.

Jack turned to find Hope at the door. Her hair was a mess of blond waves. She was breathless and sweaty. Wide eyes were on Rachel.

He started toward her, but she ran past to the bed. "I knew it! " she cried, breaking into an excited smile. "I knew something was happening, only I didn't know which way it would go." She hugged Jack, jumping up and down, then gave Rachel a big, smiling, smacking kiss on the cheek.

When she straightened, she breathe out a satisfied sigh and looked triumphantly from Jack to Katherine and back.

Jack felt as though he ought to scold her, but he couldn't figure out what for. It was Katherine who finally cleared her throat and said, "Uh, Jack, maybe you should call the school before they call the cops, and tell them she's with you? " KATHERINE had to return to work, Jack had to call his lawyer, and Hope had to put several more braids in Rachel's hair. By the time she announced she was hungry, Jack was starved. He took her to lunch in downtown Monterey and returned to the hospital in time to open more gifts from Victoria�cotton nightgowns, perfume and powder, and no less than a dozen CDs, all symphomes. They had moved Rachel back to a regular room, where Jack promptly fell asleep with his head on the bed near her hand. When he woke up, it was time to get Samantha. He talked with his lawyer again while the girls were busy with Rachel, then he told Rachel about dissolving the firm.

He drove the girls back to Big Sur, cooked dinner, and went to the studio.

Samantha worked with him for a while before heading off to make calls.

Jack was relieved enough that she was back to normal to let her go.

Hope continued to work by his side until he finally sent her to bed.

They had framed another six pictures that night. Twelve were done in all. They couldn't do much more until Jack finished painting.

He chose a canvas depicting a great egret spreading its wings for takeoff. His task was to fill in the murky dusk of the Florida Everglades against which the white bird was poised. He had barely taken up palette and brush when Hope returned. She wore a T-shirt that reached her knees and nothing on her legs and feet.

"Everything okay? " he asked.

She nodded. Her hands were linked behind her. She looked like she just wanted to hang around. So Jack started talking about the canvas.

He told her why he mixed certain colors and showed her the effect of different brushes.

She watched what he did, nodded, said the kind of distracted "Uhhuh" that suggested her mind wasn't on it. After a few minutes she began wandering around the studio. He watched her make one leisurely turn, then another. Each time, she stopped at the desk backed against the wall.

"Hope? " She shot him a smile that was a little too bright, shrugged, and moved on. But she was back in the same spot three minutes later.

He set down his things and went to the desk. His laptop was there, closed. Several shop drawings lay under it, but they wouldn't interest her. They didn't interest him. He had only planned to study them later as a concession to his lawyer, who suggested that he complete as much of the firm's work as he could until a dissolution agreement was signed.

"What's going on in that pretty head of yours? " he asked.

She spoke quickly, barely opening her mouth. "There's other stuff here.

I'm not supposed to know."

"What stuff? " "Sketches."

"Where? " She made an offhand gesture toward the desk. "Behind."

From where Jack stood, he saw nothing. Only when he leaned over to where the desk hit the wall did he see the edge of something wedged behind. Dragging the desk forward, he removed a slim portfolio. He set it down with care, remembering the last time he had opened a surprise portfolio.

Then he had learned about a child he had lost.

With some trepidation, he opened this one�and was suddenly back in life drawing class, sitting with Rachel, drawing nudes. She had used charcoal on thick ivory rag. The view was a rear one� hips, torso, shoulders, head. Without a face it might have been anonymous. But that was his shape, his hair, his scar at the back of the elbow, all drawn with such feeling that the sorrow of things lost rushed through him.

He paused. The scar was from a runaway piece of scaffolding. It was six months old. Rachel had seen it and commented on it once when he had come for the girls.

Wishing that she was right there right then, he turned from one sheet to the next to the next. Some had been done with charcoal, others with watercolor. Some had features as distinct as his profile, others were as faceless as the first. But her voice spoke, answering his question in each and every one.

Is thefeeling there? Orgone? Katherine hadn't answered because Hope arrived. Hope must have heard.

She had given him a gift, but by the time he turned to thank her, she had gone.

chapter twenty-one.

JACK SHOULD HAVE been used to being woken by the phone, but he jumped as high as ever when it rang Tuesday morning at dawn.

He reached it on the first grab. "Yes? " "Mr. McGill? " The voice was authoritative. "This is Janice Pierce. I'm one of the residents�" "What happened? " he cut in, sitting up.

"Rachel is starting to move." He was utterly still for a second.

Then he dared breathe, but barely.

"She's waking up? " "Not exactly. She's moving her fingers and toes.

" "Moving them how? " "Wiggling. It's spontaneous. Not in response to commands. We call it lightening, as in limbs that have been dead weight becoming lighter.

Typically, it starts from the outside and moves in. It definitely boosts her GCS score."

"Which means?

"She may be starting to wake up."

"May be, " he repeated, wanting to hope, but Rachel had moved before.

He had seen her blink, flinch, whatever.

"It doesn't always lead to full awakening, " she said. "This could be as good as it gets. But it's more than we've had so far. We thought you'd want to know." THE GIRLS had heard the phone and were beside him even before he hung up. He told them what Janice had said. Within five minutes, they were dressed and in the car.

The air outside was moist. Fog floated in pale gray bands through the woods and over the narrow road. Sitting higher in the new car than he had in the old, Jack should have been able to see more, but anything too distant was a blur.

As he turned onto the highway and picked up speed, he struggled not to get carried away. He had read enough to know that comatose responses were unreliable. The movement might end before they reached the hospital, having been nothing more than the last little spasms in limbs that would never move again. Or this kind of movement could go on forever, never spreading beyond fingers and toes.

Still, his hopes edged up along with the sun behind the fog.

WHEN THEY arrived, Rachel was propped on her left side. There was no sign of movement. Pillows held her in place. She lay as still as ever.

Fearfi31, Jack eased lank blond hair back from a face that was growing thinner by the day. "Hi, Rachel. Hi, angel. They told us you're moving.

Can we see? " "Hi, Mommy." Hope crowded in beside him. "It's me.

We didn't even have breakfast, we just came here first."

"Move, Mom, " ordered Samantha.

"She won't move if you tell her like that."

"Come on, Rachel, " Jack coaxed. "Sun's coming up. It's gonna be a nice one. That's poetic, don't you think? " "There, " Samantha cried, pointing at the sheet.

"Her foot." Jack moved the sheet away. When there was nothing, he tickled her sole.

Hope said a worried "That always makes her laugh."

"How can she not feel it? " Samantha asked.

"She's still comatose, " Kara said as she joined them. "The movement isn't conscious. It usually comes in waves, brief periods of activity alternating with periods of rest."

"Ah! " Jack cried, victorious.

"Her ankle jerked! " "I saw it! " "Me, too! " Energized, he straightened. "What do we do now? " he asked the power-pead lady.

"How do we get her to do more? " "Keep doing what you've been doing.

Something's working." KATHERINE was coming out of the shower when the phone rang. The mirror was covered with steam, but she wrapped herself in a bath sheet before she passed.

"She's starting to move, " Jack said without preamble and went on to describe what he'd seen. "It could be nothing or the proverbial last gasp, but I don't want to let anything go that might help. I thought I'd call her friends and get them in here. Bombard her with stimulation. Can you give me numbers? " Katherine's first instinct was to make the calls herself. Then she took a slow, understanding breath and went for her address book.

Five minutes later, she returned to the bathroom. The mirror was clearing from the bottom up. She loosened her towel, figuring that this would be easy as pie with her face obscured. She could be more objective that way, less emotional. Rachel was moving right along.

She should, too.

But . . . not yet. Opening the medicine chest wide so that the mirror faced the wall, she quickly slathered her body with cream and put on a bra and a blouse. Covered up, she relaxed. She reached for panty hose and let excitement about Rachel erase every negative thought.

JACK called the numbers Katherine gave him, plus others he found in the phone book. He called Faith Bligh. He called Victoria, then remembered a message that she had left for him. She was in either Chicago or Detroit, he couldn't remember which. He settled for leaving a message on her machine in New York.

When Cindy came to bathe Rachel, he drove the girls to school. Then he turned around and drove back to Big Sur. Having lined up successive visits by Dinah, Charlie, and the bridge player, Bev, he knew that Rachel would have stimulation until he returned. Between now and then, he had something urgent to do.

The sun was making short shrift of the fog, unveiling a day as full of color as any Jack had seen. The farmland flanking the road just south of Carmel was green with lettuce and artichoke, the hills beyond were wild mustard yellow. Granite outcroppings on the shore side of the road were a richer gray, almost slate under an emerging blue sky.

Beyond rock, the ocean was kelp-green, then aqua descending into a deep, dark charcoal blue. The sky was endless and new.

Turning off the highway at Rachel's road, he felt the glow of familiarity.

Oak, sycamore, redwood, even scrub chaparral�all substantial, all thriving. He climbed from the car that was really a truck and stretched, smiled, filled his lungs with air so clear that his body tingled. Inside, the phone began to ring. Hopeful, terrified, he rushed to get it.

"Mr. McGill? " "Yes." He didn't recognize the voice, but the hospital had dozens of doctors.

"My name is Myron Elliott. I'm a developer. I want to talk business.