Healing Waters (41 page)

“Baby girl,” Wesley said, “when are you going to get in the water with us?”

It was our fourth afternoon of hide-and-seek on the lawn and watermelon-seed-spitting in the gazebo and—at least for Wesley, James-Lawson, and me—splash contests in the river. After our first dip together, followed by lunch at Swett's, Wesley said there was no reason why she and James-Lawson couldn't come for a visit in the afternoons until she acquired another patient to fill Sonia's opening. I suspected she wasn't trying all that hard.

Bethany, of course, loved coming home from school to find Wesley and James-Lawson waiting with their swimsuits on. She kept hers in a downstairs bathroom so she didn't have to waste time going upstairs to change. But once she got to the bank, she always skidded to a halt on her bottom, and while the rest of us bobbed

and shrieked in the water, she patted it with her feet and watched us with undisguised envy.

Today, as usual, I paddled around for a few minutes, then headed for the shore to join her.

“You don't have to know how to swim,” Wesley said to her. “James-Lawson didn't know how the first time I put him in the water.”

“You know what? It's easy,” James-Lawson said, and proved it by wriggling under the water and bobbing to the surface, spitting and grinning.

Bethany giggled, but she shook her head. “I'm fine,” she said.

I leaned my arms on the rock she sat on and let my legs float out behind me like a frog's. Bethany patted my hand.

“Your swimsuit is pretty,” she said.

“It's Miss Wesley's. She's letting me wear it.”

“That's because she's your BFF.”

“My what?” My Aunt Lucia Mom antennae went up. Was this some elementary-school profanity I needed to be brought up to speed on?

“Best Friend Forever,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Where did you learn that?”

“At school. I have three BFFs. James-Lawson.” She held up a finger.

“Right.”

“Louisa at school.” Another finger. “And you.”

I stopped pushing my hair back from my face. “I'm one of your best friends?” I said.

She nodded solemnly. Obviously BFFs were serious business.

“Who are yours?” she said.

I brushed my hand across her perfect white knee. “Well, you, of course.”

She dimpled.

“And James-Lawson.”

“And Miss Wesley?”

I turned to Wesley, who stood waist-deep in the Cumberland River, holding her son's hands. In the past three days we had walked together down a path of topics that grew deeper with each cup of coffee, each feet-up-on-the-deck-railing, each promise to go shopping together when we thought we could safely leave the kids with someone else. We had passed from the comfortable distance of medical colleagues discussing the state of the health-care system to the intimate whispers of sisters sharing the funnies and fears of approaching middle age.

In our whole lives Sonia and I had never talked about the things Wesley and I had told each other in the two short weeks since we'd met.

“Yes,” I told Bethany. “Miss Wesley is one of my best friends.”

Bethany leaned in until her heart-lips were close to my ear. “Then will you tell her I don't want to go in the water?”

I stayed still. “I will,” I said, “but will you tell me why?”

“Do I have to?”

“No. Only if you want to.” I looked into her eyes. They were round with yearning. “But I've learned something, Bethie.”

“Like I learn stuff in school.”

“Right. I've learned that if you talk about something that scares you, sometimes it goes away.”

She looked doubtfully at the water.

“Is it because of that day you went in where it's deep, when Judson and them were here?”

She shook her head hard. “I was scared before that.”

“Did you fall in some other time? Did you hit your head or something?”

Her eyes became two limpid-blue pools of tears. “It's because I'm too fat,” she said. “I'm so fat I'll sink to the bottom and never come up.”

The pink hands went to her face, and she cried as if the heart inside her small self had broken.

I was sure it had.

I hoisted myself out of the water and sank down beside her, pulling her sweet softness against me.

“Listen to me, Bethie,” I said, “and listen hard like you do in school. First of all, you are not fat. You are beautiful and wonderful. And second of all, people who
are
fat don't sink to the bottom.”

Her head came up, and she looked at me with streaming eyes. “How do you know?” she said.

“Because I float like a beach ball, and I'm—”

I choked on the word. Bethany watched me, waited for me to shape her view of herself. I couldn't give her mine.

“And I'm thinking I could teach you to float with me,” I said. “I would never let anything happen to you. I'm your BFF, remember?”

She searched my face until I saw the baby I had held in my arms. I was the first person she had ever trusted. And as she squeezed her arms around my neck and said, “Okay—teach me,” I knew I was probably the only one.

So with James-Lawson demonstrating and Miss Wesley cheering and Aunt-Lucia-Mom-BFF holding her, Bethany Cabot let herself be carried into the water and laid on her back, like a fairy princess on the cloud bed she was entitled to. I never let my hands leave her, nor did I correct her when she declared that she was “swimming.”

“You know what?” James-Lawson said when we were doling out the towels. “You're almost as good of a swimmer as me.”

“Now if she could only be as humble, son,” Wesley said.

She put her arm around my shoulders, and we followed the two Olympic hopefuls toward the house.

“This is a huge thing. You want to celebrate at Chuck E. Cheese? One night of junk food isn't going to hurt them.” She winked. “I know how Bethany is about processed products.”

I laughed. “I would love to do that kind of damage, but I have a therapy session tonight. With Dr. Crisp.”

She stopped and stared at me. “Well, no wonder you're not beating down the door at PHV trying to take care of your sister.”

“That is the last thing I want to be doing.” I lowered my voice. “I think about her, and I worry. But I feel guilty because things are so much better without her.”

Wesley sniffed. “Then you keep seeing Dr. Crisp until you get over that.” She tucked her arms around mine. “I can't believe I've only known you for such a little while and I'm already talking to you like this.”

“Come on, Wesley. I bet you talk straight to everybody.”

“Unh-uh. I don't spend my straight talk on people who can't hear what I have to say. Only my sisters get that.”

I closed my eyes to savor the words and the warmth and the rare contentment that touched me tentatively on the cheek.

But Wesley nudged me. “Look at that,” she whispered.

I opened my eyes to see Bethany and James-Lawson on the deck above us, towels wrapped around negligible hips that bounced against each other. Bethany's hands were raised above her head. James-Lawson clapped out a beat with his.

“What are they doing?” I said.

“Baby, they're dancing.”

“To what?”

Wesley moved her shoulders and with them her head. “To the music of their souls,” she said. “Only I think we ought to show them how it's done.”

I couldn't argue with Wesley Kane. Or with a long-ago rhythm that teased at my feet and set my arms afloat and turned my body like a feather. Like a fawn who didn't disturb a leaf.

“You can
move
, girlfriend,” Wesley said.

Yes. By a miracle I decided to call God, I still could.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

S
ully prayed before the session as always. After the amen, he added an unashamed thanks that Lucia had requested they meet in the breakfast nook instead of by the river so Bethany wouldn't be in the house alone.

God knew he was basically a coward anyway. He appreciated the break.

The nook actually provided a good place for a session, situated cozily into a bay window, cushioned benches forming a booth at the table. It was one of the few rooms in Sonia's McMansion conducive to easy conversation. Too bad he didn't feel especially at ease.

Sully pulled out his phone and checked for messages for the tenth time. He hadn't let the phone out of his sight for the three days since he'd left the message for Cyril and Una. Still no return call, and the possible reasons for that had finally taken over his attempts to stay focused on something else. Cyril and Una didn't remember him. They thought he was cavalier with Lynn and hated him for it. They had recently been abducted by aliens and taken Lynn's secret to an unknown planet with them.

All right. One more try before Lucia got there, just so he wouldn't go completely nuts. He dialed the number, but he hung up when it switched to voice mail. He could be tenacious—or just plain pathetic.

“Would you like some coffee or anything?”

Sully stuck the phone back into his pocket.
Time to shift, Dr.
Crisp.

“If I drink any now,” he said, “I'll be prowling the grounds at
2:00 AM
, and we both know where that gets you.”

She nodded at his lip. “How's it doing?”

“I don't look as much like Mick Jagger now, so there's that.”

Lucia smiled, and so did Sully. If nothing else, she shared more of her face now. Time to celebrate the progress.

“You seem good,” he said. “Are you?”

She looked at the bay window as if the answer might be out there. “There haven't been any more weird things happening, so I guess the FBI was wrong about Bethany being the target. She loves school, which is huge. And we got her to go in the water. I personally felt like I'd walked on it, as much of a miracle as that was.”

She turned to Sully with a tender ache in her eyes. “The only sad thing about all of that is that she is so much better when Sonia isn't here.”

“And what about you?” Sully said. “You've just told me how Bethany is doing. How are
you
doing?” He propped his chin on his hand, ready for the resistance.

She redirected herself to the window again before she looked back at him. “I played
Dancing with the Stars
,” she said.

Sully was surprised he didn't fall out of the booth. “You did?”

“I think Bethany and James-Lawson won, though.”

“There are no losers in Game Show Theology. You play, you win.” He felt his grin go past his ears. “Ding-ding-ding, Mrs. Coffey. How did it feel?”

“Good.” Her voice went dry. “So I'm cured. Your work is done here, right?”

“You don't need to be ‘cured,' because you aren't sick.
Healed
is more what we're going for. You ready to work on that?”

Again he steeled himself for the poker face and the folded arms and the bristling voice. Again she surprised him.

“I know what I want to be healed from,” she said.

“And that is?”

“I want to be healed from hate.”

Sully didn't attempt to keep his mouth from dropping open.

“Do I get a buzz for that?” she said.

“Absolutely not. Tell me more. And, Lucia—” He leaned into the table. “I want you to know that whatever you say, I'm not going to judge you. I won't think you're a horrible person or ask what you were thinking when you did such a stupid thing.”

“You say that now. You haven't heard it yet.”

“Try me.”

She nodded, but studied the window for another moment before she went on. “I figured out that I hate a lot of things. And I hate that about myself.”

“Tell me what you hate.”

She folded her hands precisely on the table. “You know about my husband—that he basically became a drug addict.”

“Yes, I do. Drug abuse in the family can make anybody hate.”

“He was arrested and went to federal prison for two years. They took away his license to practice medicine, which means now he's working for some company that sells medical equipment instead of healing people, the only thing he ever wanted to do. I hate it, and what I really hate is that if it weren't for me, it never would have happened.”

Sully put a foot up on the bench. “Can you tell me why?”

Lucia didn't want to, that was clear. She grew as still as he'd ever seen her. As much as he wanted to save her the pain, he let her wrestle with it.

“We had a great marriage at first,” she said finally. “I thought we did, anyway. Sonia didn't think I should marry Chip because he wasn't a Christian. He went to church—we both did—but she said it wasn't real with him and I was risking eternity in hell if I took him as my husband.”

“And your mother?”

She gave him a look.

“Sided with Sonia,” Sully said.

“She didn't even want to give me a wedding, but my father liked Chip, and he said I deserved as good as Sonia had.” She rubbed her palms on her sleeves. “There is a point to all this.”

“Take as long as you want.”

“We had a nice wedding,” she said, “and we bought a house in Havertown, and Chip tried to build up his practice. He was an internist.”

“And what were you doing?”

“I went back to work at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in obstetrics.”

“
Back
to work. What were you doing before that?”

“I was in a nurse practitioner program, but we needed for me to work more hours while Chip got things going.”

“Did you enjoy obstetrics?”

She almost smiled. “Most of the time everybody's happy in a newborn nursery. Except when something goes wrong. Anyway, things were hard for Chip—it's that way in any new practice—and I said we should go on a little vacation for our anniversary.” She rushed the words like she was trying to outrun a train. “We were trying to have a baby, and nothing was happening, and I thought it was probably because of the stress.”