Good Medicine (21 page)

S
TUNNED
, S
ILAS SAT
for several moments. Then he sprang to his feet and danced, giving a wild, whooping cry that set all the dogs in the village barking. Thanking the spirits of modern technology, he tapped out her cell number, praying she hadn't changed it yet again.

It rang, and after a few tense moments, she answered. Her voice was hesitant this time. She knew it was him.

He didn't waste words either. “When is your father's funeral?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“If you tell me where and when, I'll be there.”

She hesitated, but then she told him.

T
HE FUNERAL WAS AT TWO
. Silas arrived at the Vancouver airport at eleven, and on an impulse he took a cab to his father's house on the city's west side.

The old, rambling stucco house looked a little more run-down than he remembered. There was moss growing on the roof, and the lawn was dry and patchy, but the roses were blooming. It took courage to walk up the driveway and ring the doorbell.

A tiny Asian woman opened the door.

“I'm Silas Keefer. I'm here to see my father.” And he hoped his nervousness didn't show.

Her perfectly arched eyebrows shot up, but all she said was, “He's having his lunch on the sunporch.”

“I know the way.” Silas walked down the hall, through the den, across the kitchen. He stepped out onto the sunporch.

Angus was sitting facing the garden. He was alone at a round, glass-topped table, newspaper spread out, eating a sandwich. Silas was shocked at how old he looked, older even than his seventy years. His hair was mostly white now, with only a few flecks of brown over his ears. In spite of the warm summer day, he was wearing a blue sweater, and his shoulders were slumped. His tall frame was much heavier than Silas remembered.

“Hello, Dad.”

Angus's head whipped around, and he stared at Silas over the top of half-moon reading glasses. His face was deeply wrinkled, but his authoritative baritone voice was still the same.

“Silas.” There was no welcome in the word, only shock. Angus didn't get up. “Where the hell did you drop from?”

“Ahousaht.” The single word was like a gauntlet thrown down between them.

Angus scowled. “And what are you doing here?”

“Visiting you. Can I sit down?”

“Of course, sit.” Angus waved a hand at a chair. In
a gruff tone, he said, “You want some lunch?” Without waiting for an answer, Angus bellowed, “Kim, make another sandwich.” He swept the newspapers aside and then studied Silas, his green eyes narrowed. “I see you've gone native. Still no barbers in Ahousaht?”

Silas refused to be baited. “It saves on haircuts. How are you, Dad?”

“So-so. Have to have another operation on my hip. I broke it a few months back, it didn't heal the way it should have.”

Silas hadn't noticed the heavy cane beside Angus's chair.

“Sorry to hear that. You're retired now, of course?”

“Two years ago. I still guest lecture at the university occasionally.”

Kim set a sandwich in front of Silas. “Hope you like roast beef. You want some tea?” She poured Silas a mug of the strong Irish Breakfast Angus had always preferred, and left them alone again.

Angus waited while Silas took a bite of his sandwich. “So I assume you're here because you need money, right?”

Silas swallowed the food with difficulty, struggling with the anger and outrage that flared in him. His first, powerful impulse was to get up and walk out. Before he could do it, however, he seemed to hear an echo of Sandrine's voice in his head, urging him to take the peaceful path. Like all of Sandrine's teachings, it wasn't easy.

“I don't need anything, Dad,” he was finally able to
say. “I came because we haven't spoken in a long time, and I thought it's time we did.”

Angus eyed him suspiciously. “And what brought about this change of heart? You thinking of coming back to the university?” There was the slightest note of hopefulness in his voice.

“No. I'm happy where I am, doing what I do.”

Angus sneered, “And what exactly is that?”

Silas could have truthfully said he was a writer. He knew it would be more acceptable to Angus, but gaining his father's acceptance wasn't necessary. What he wanted instead was harmony.

“I'm a healer, Dad.” And in stating it, Silas thought about the real meaning of the word, to make whole, to restore well-being. If only he could do that with his father.

“Bunch of mumbo jumbo,” Angus scoffed. “Never get anywhere in the world that way.”

“Depends on where a person wants to go.” Silas took another bite of sandwich and chewed slowly. It gave him time to think. When he'd swallowed, he knew exactly the direction he wanted for his life. “I'm hoping to get married soon, and have kids.” It took all his courage to put it into words. He and Jordan hadn't discussed any of this. He was relying heavily on trust and intuition here. “I hope that you'll come to my wedding and, if I'm lucky enough to have them, be a grandfather to my children. The thing that seems to matter most to me these days is family.”

“She from Ahousaht?”

“Yes, she is.” And she was, at least for the next year.

Silas knew Angus was asking whether the woman was First Nations. Let him think so. It was wicked to tease the old man, but he richly deserved it. It was never going to be easy with Angus. Silas waited for the lecture he was certain was coming.

“Coming to Ahousaht would depend on whether I'm mobile enough. Unless you wanted to get married here.”

Speechless, Silas stared at Angus. When he got his voice back, he said, “The woman makes that decision, but I'll ask her.”

“Bring her here to meet me,” Angus ordered. “I'll ask her myself.” Then he said, “How's your mother doing, anyway?”

And for the next hour, until he had to leave for the funeral, Silas had an almost-enjoyable conversation with his father.

T
HE FUNERAL WAS HELD
in a small room at the chapel. There were a dozen people present, three of them nurses from the rest home.

Jordan held tight to Toby's arm with one hand, and Silas with the other. His strong fingers interlaced with hers; his tall, powerful presence giving her strength and comfort. She didn't cry, but she hadn't expected to feel such a deep, gut-wrenching sadness and regret. She also felt a kind of peace that came from knowing that in spite of everything, her father had cared.

The chaplain read from the Bible, and then gave a
short, kind summary of Mike's life. Jordan listened closely as several strangers got up and spoke about her father. The man they described was kind, generous and had a sense of humor. But to Jordan, he was still a stranger, and that was the saddest thing of all.

“Mike helped me get sober,” one of the men said. “He was my sponsor, and he used to tell me if he could do it, anybody could.”

When the service ended, a wizened little woman came up to Jordan and Toby and shook their hands. “Mike and I were good friends over the years,” she said, wiping away tears with a tissue. “He helped me through a rough time in my life. I wanted you to know he talked about you two all the time, he was really proud of you.”

Even the day before, Jordan's response would have been skeptical and sarcastic. Now, she held the woman's hand, said thank you and meant it.

Afterward, Silas took Jordan and Toby to a restaurant. She sat quietly, picking at her food, watching and listening as the two men she loved got to know each other. As far as she could tell, they even liked each other.

Her heart ached for Toby. His navy suit hung on his emaciated body, and his skin was gray from exhaustion. Nothing could disguise the fact that he was very ill.

The contrast between Toby and Silas was startling, and she kept stealing glances at Silas. She hadn't seen him dressed up before, and it almost hurt to look at him, he was so handsome. His exotic black hair with its
white streak was held back neatly at the nape of his neck, charcoal suit perfectly tailored to his long, lean body, white dress shirt immaculate. He caught her looking and smiled at her, green eyes eerily transparent in the softly lit restaurant.

He'd met them outside the funeral chapel, and there hadn't been any opportunity for private conversation. The memory of the phone call she'd made to him was now uppermost in her mind, and she alternated between acute embarrassment and defiant pride at what she'd told him.

So now he knew she loved him. But when he'd called her back, he hadn't said a single thing about how he felt. The fact that he'd come to Mike's funeral was encouraging, but maybe he was just being kind.

“I'm going back to the hotel for some shut-eye,” Toby said. “Why don't you two drop me off so you can take the car and do some sightseeing?”

“Thanks, we'll do that,” Silas said, turning to her. “As long as Jordan drives. I haven't been behind the wheel of a car since I moved back to Ahousaht. Is that okay with you, Jordan?”

“Sure.” She knew she didn't sound enthusiastic. This meant she'd have to really talk to Silas, and now Jordan wasn't at all sure that's what she wanted to do. Maybe too much truth wasn't a good thing, after all.

She drove to the hotel and Toby got out. Pulling the car back into the late-day traffic, Jordan asked, “Where do you want to go?” Her nervousness was escalating into something like full-blown panic.

“A place where there's trees, where we can go for a walk.”

That was easy. She aimed the car west along 16th Avenue, toward Pacific Spirit Park, glad that he didn't say anything until she'd found a shaded spot to park and turned off the motor.

“This is a good place.” He took off his suit jacket and flung it and his tie into the back seat. “I used to wander in these trees a lot,” he said as he got out and held the door for her. “The school I went to is only a few blocks away.”

He led the way into the old-growth forest, and the incongruity of him in his white shirt and suit pants and her in a short black dress and heels would have made Jordan smile, if she wasn't so tense.

Almost immediately, the traffic noise died and the bustle of the city seemed far away. Sunlight splintered down among huge old cedars and pines, and gigantic ferns bordered the well-worn pathway. They walked in silence, and the nervous anticipation Jordan felt slowly drained away when Silas took her hand in his. Just being with him gave her such happiness.

“I'm sorry about your father, Jordan. I hope he has a good passage into the spirit world.”

“I hope so, too.” It seemed natural and easy now to tell Silas about the photos. “I keep thinking that it would have made such a difference if he'd called me, told me how he felt.”

“Sandrine used to say that at any given time, people are doing the very best they know how. If they make
mistakes, it's because they don't know any better at that moment.” He took a few more steps and then stopped. “Talking about mistakes, I saw my father today.”

“How did that go?” He hadn't seen his father in years. Christina said their last conversation had been painful for Silas. “Was it really bad?”

To her amazement, he laughed. “He wants to meet you.”

“
Me?
Why did you tell him about me?”

“Because you're the woman I want to marry. I told him I hoped he'd be a good grandfather to our children.”

Stunned, Jordan snatched her hand out of his. She squinted up at him, unable to take all this in. “You told your father before you even talked this over with me?”

“That's the mistake I was talking about.” His green eyes were dancing, teasing her. “Sorry about that. He also thinks you're First Nations. And he's going to try to bully you into having the wedding on his dried-up lawn.”

The implications were slowly dawning on her, and she wanted to thump him one. “Now you're telling me you out-and-out lied to your father.”

“I didn't lie to him. He just made assumptions.”

“Yes, well you and your father have a lot in common in that regard.”

“Jordan.” He took both her hands, holding them firmly, forcing her to face him, to look at him. There was no more teasing in his voice or in his eyes.

“I know you love me—you told me so. And I love you, so isn't marriage a logical next step?” His smile
wasn't quite as confident as his words. “I'll make you happy, I promise you that.”

Just being with him makes me happy.
She wanted so much to say yes. But— “We can't get married, Silas. For one thing, I'm not divorced yet.” Although she'd spoken to Marcy that morning, and the process was well under way. “But there are other, more important issues. I can't stay in Ahousaht permanently. I love it there— I love the people—but I know myself well enough to know that after a year I'll probably want to come back to the city. Back to the E.R.”

He nodded. “So we'll come back. I called a friend today, a prof in the medical department at the university. He says there's a real need for native healers at the Alternative Medical Clinic. And there's an indigenous studies course I could teach if I chose.”

“You wouldn't be happy away from Ahousaht.”

“I used to think that. Now, I know I won't be happy anywhere without you. We could compromise, spend the winter in Vancouver, the summer in Ahousaht.”

She couldn't believe the concessions he was willing to make for her.
For them.
She loved him more than she'd ever loved anyone. It tore her apart to refuse him.

“I can't marry you, Silas. Not now, not for the foreseeable future.”

Disappointment flashed in his eyes. “Okay. I'll just stick around and ask again another time, then. But why are you so dead set against it?”

“Because of my brother. You saw Toby, he's terribly ill. He doesn't have anyone but me, and I want to take
care of him.” She was afraid of what might happen to her if she lost Toby. Maybe she'd have nothing left of herself to give, to Silas or to anyone. In the meantime, she couldn't promise anything. “I
need
to take care of him.”