No Regrets (23 page)

“I don't know,” Molly admitted, wishing that she hadn't caused such a gulf between them. Even though she knew she couldn't ever love Joe the way he'd professed to love her, she missed their easy friendship, the long conversations about everything and nothing.

She wanted to tell him about her dreams—dreams of her and Lena as children, holding each other tight as their parents screamed and fought, then, made wild, furious love on the other side of the thin wall. She wanted to share how even as she tried to keep from dwelling on the past, her mutinous mind had begun ticking off memories like rosary beads in the hands of the more devout old nuns.

There were days that the thoughts and words swelled up inside her head, crowding out the present, clamoring for release. She wanted to tell Joe all these things, but a chasm as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon loomed between her and the man their patients fondly referred to as Dr. Joe. He didn't seem eager to breach it and she didn't know how.

“I call her at least twice a week, and she seems all right. But Theo says the spark that always lit up a room is missing.”

“That's not surprising,” he offered as he put a tray of scalpels and tweezers into the autoclave. “Recovery takes time. It hasn't even been three months since she lost her mother. Perhaps she's not as proficient at denial as some people.”

Well, they certainly weren't the comforting words she'd been hoping for. But at least it was the first personal thing he'd said to her since the embarrassingly public blowup a month after they'd returned from Los Angeles.

“I assume you're talking about me.”

His gaze slid over her obliquely, giving nothing away. Molly realized she was holding her breath, but just when she thought he was going to say something, Naomi appeared at the door, announcing the arrival of a patient in the late stages of labor, and the opportunity to attempt to mend the charred bridges between them had passed.

 

In his wide lonely bed, Reece slept lightly, like a soldier in a far distant war zone expecting a heat-seeking missile to land in his bedroll.

Although he lived in what many would consider one of the most beautiful locations in the world, Reece's days and nights were spent in a howling black void as cold as a witch's heart. A vast empty darkness where Lena's bright, shimmering light had once shone like a beacon.

From time to time a white-hot rage would burn its way through the fog surrounding his brain, a fire quenched only by increasing quantities of whiskey and brandy.

Every night he'd go to bed and hope to die. Every morning he'd awake to the bleached white arid dawn of a new day. Another day in the years of aloneness stretching out before him like parched desert sands.

Some days after the funeral—he was not very accurate about passing time—he woke with a burning need to go to the site of the crash. Perhaps he'd merely dreamed his Lena's death. Perhaps, he thought, crazed with hope, the entire horrendous episode had merely been a figment of his alcohol-sodden mind.

But when he got to the tight narrow curve and saw some remnants of glass on the side of the road, Reece knew he'd not dreamed or imagined anything. It was frighteningly real.

Ignoring the blare of a horn and the raised middle finger of a driver speeding down the cliff, Reece squatted down beside the road and picked up a piece of glass that had once belonged to the minivan's headlights. He slipped the piece of glass into his pocket and took it home with him, where he continued to touch it several times each day, as if it were his own personal lodestone. His private, secret link to Lena.

Six weeks after the funeral, the prosecuting county attorney contacted Reece to tell him that the drunken driver had plea-bargained his way into a reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter plea. Under normal conditions that would have involved jail time. Unfortunately, the assistant D.A. who didn't sound old enough to shave yet, informed him, because of the crowded prisons throughout the state, they'd had no choice but to recommend probation and counseling.

“I understand,” Reece managed. As he'd been doing for weeks, he willed his consciousness to a cold remote calm. There were times, when he actually managed to go for hours beneath this protective glacier without dwelling on his loss.

But invariably, like Jack the Ripper stalking his prey in the mists of London's deadly fog, it would sneak up behind him and waylay him with a force that took his breath away and left him literally doubled over with pain. And this, he thought, as he opened a new bottle of Chivas Regal, was definitely one of those times.

Theo fretted and Alex tried to talk reason into him, but Reece ignored their well-meaning efforts and continued his futile attempt to fill the gaping hole in his heart and in his life with alcohol, bitterness and self-pity.

 

Molly was about thirty miles outside of Window Rock, trying to see through a north country wind storm that filled the air with lightning and blinding red dust when the cellular phone in the motor home rang.

“Thank God I found you,” Theo said when Molly answered.

Although the temperature outside the van was in the low hundreds, Molly's blood immediately turned to ice. “What happened? Is it Grace?”

“Oh, hell,” Theo muttered with self-disgust. “I'm sorry, Molly. I should have realized after Lena's accident, you'd expect the worst…. Yes, I'm calling about Grace. She's all right physically.”

“But not emotionally?”

“Emotionally, she's a mess. And Reece is impossible.” Theo snorted. “He's refused to return to the hospital and spends all his time holed up in the library, drinking and creating imaginary scenarios of horrendously gruesome ways to kill that drunk driver….

“But he's a grown man. He'll eventually come to grips with his own pain. It's Gracie that Alex and I are worried about.”

“I read that children feel a period of disorganization and chaos after a parent's death,” Molly said. “Perhaps she needs professional counseling.”

“We tried that last week. And again today. She refuses to open up. She just smiled at the therapist and drew pretty pictures of her mommy in heaven planting those goddamn tulips. And meanwhile she's taken to wearing Lena's jewelry and burying her dolls in the garden.”

“What?” Molly pulled off to the side of the empty road that trailed like an undulating black ribbon through the miles of deserted reservation land. “She's burying her dolls?”

“Alex caught her yesterday. Apparently she's been burying them in the morning, then digging them up again after dinner.”

“Oh, Lord.” Molly lowered her forehead to the steering wheel and closed her eyes against the pain gripping her heart. She took a deep breath and tried to focus, not on her own grief, but on what needed to be done. “I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Alex and I were hoping you'd say that.” Theo's relief was so palpable, Molly felt as if it had ridden the air through the cellular signal to surround her.

“Should I call Reece?”

“No,” Theo answered quickly. Too quickly, Molly thought. “I don't want to give him the opportunity to tell you not to come. I think it's better if we spring it on him.”

Molly agreed. But after she'd hung up and turned the motor home around to head southwest to Los Angeles, she wondered if Theo's concerns had anything to do with the possibility that Reece might think she would try to take her daughter away from him.

He'd already lost so much, Molly didn't want to have to do that. On the other hand, she considered bleakly as she dialed the number of the Sister of Mercy's Mother House, she fully intended to do whatever it took to comfort and protect her child.

“I
'm so glad you've come,” Theo said simply when she opened the door to Molly.

“How could I not?” Molly asked as she hugged the older woman. “I'm just glad you called me. After the last time I was here…”

“Alex and I think we may have made a mistake about that,” Theo admitted. “But Reece has always been so strong, even when he was a little boy and his parents died, I believed he could handle losing Lena, as well.”

Molly had never found it particularly strange that Reece seemed to have suffered no ill effects from being orphaned at such an early age. However, lately, she'd begun to wonder if perhaps they were both experts in denial.

Ever since Lena's death, there had been times when Molly feared she'd explode, allowing everything she'd
been refusing to feel herself all these years to come hurtling to the surface.

“Reece is in the library,” Theo said. “As usual. Alex and Dan took Grace to the movies and they're going to go out for ice cream later. That should give you at least three hours to knock some sense into his stubborn head.”

Molly could only hope that would be enough.

The library shutters were closed, but enough natural light remained to allow her to see Reece clearly and even knowing how he'd cut himself off from the world, Molly was shocked at his appearance.

He'd lost a great deal of weight. His face was all harsh planes and shadows. The lines on either side of his mouth were so deep, they looked as if they'd been chiseled in granite, and the sunken flesh beneath his eyes was an ugly saffron color. She couldn't move. All she could do was stand in the doorway and stare at this haggard, tormented stranger.

Reece blinked at her from his dim and musty lair, unable to believe his eyes. He'd been prepared to tell Theo, or Alex, or even Dan, who'd recently joined the others in trying to coax him out of his hermitage, to leave him the hell alone. But the sight of Molly, standing there, backlit by the blinding California sun he'd been avoiding like some paranoid vampire, left him speechless.

For a long silent time they looked at each other across the abyss that had been inexorably widening between them ever since Molly had signed away all rights of maternity to her sister, ensuring that their relationship—indeed, the lives of all four people involved—would change forever.

Molly was the first to break the heavy silence. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by.”

Her calm tone, laced with her own wry humor and faint regret revealed none of the pain he knew she must still feel from those ugly, killing words he'd shot straight into her heart the last time they'd spoken. The words had been born of his anguish, but his intention had been to mortally wound. And yet here she was, back in his life like a breath of fresh air that promised to blow away the dark dank cloud that had been hovering over him for months.

Reece had missed Molly horribly without even realizing he'd been missing her. He'd needed her without admitting it, even to himself.

“It'd probably be easier for me to perform surgery in the middle of the San Diego Freeway at rush hour than to say I'm sorry.” He took a deep harsh breath. “But I am.”

She smiled at that. A soft smile that wrapped him in comforting warmth. “Stop the presses. Dr. Reece Longworth has just admitted to imperfection.”

“I'm not a doctor anymore.” He belatedly realized that she must have been contacted by a worried Theo and wondered exactly how much his aunt had told her.

“Nonsense.” Her soft tone changed into the take-charge ER nurse he'd worked so well with for so many years. The woman who, in what seemed like another lifetime, had been his very best friend. “You took an oath, Reece. You can't just turn your back on the medical profession the way a sporting goods store owner can put a Gone Fishing sign on the door. You'll always be a doctor. Whether you're practicing or not.”

“I'm not practicing. And I have no intention of ever walking into a hospital again.”

“What a waste that would be.” She entered the room and sat down on the leather sofa facing his chair. She was dressed in a pair of soft faded jeans and a blue chambray blouse. And cowboy boots. Reece almost smiled, thinking she looked more like a cowgirl than a nun. “And how self-indulgent of you.”

What the hell did she want from him? He'd already apologized, dammit! What more did she expect?

“I'd forgotten how bossy you can be.”

She crossed her legs with an angry swish of denim. “And I'd forgotten how stubborn you can be.” His tenacity, which once had resulted in lives being saved, was at the moment proving to be a flaw. “I also never realized you were a coward.”

The words struck home, just as she'd intended. Reece managed, just barely, to tamp down the anger. “Bull's-eye. Give the lady a Kewpie doll… If you've come all this way to insult me, Saint Molly, you're out of luck. There's nothing you can call me that I haven't already called myself.”

Her own temper, which had kept her in hot water during so much of her childhood, flared. “Dammit, Reece, I understand you're hurting. Don't you think I am? We both lost someone we loved. But how do you think Lena would feel if she knew you were indulging in a maudlin drunken pity party while your daughter was left to fend for herself?”

He burrowed deeper into the chair, reached out, refilled his glass with Scotch, then, with his eyes locked on hers, took a long swallow. He'd die before he let her
know that he was getting damn sick and tired of the taste of liquor.

“Obviously these past years on your own out in the wild West have hardened you. No more velvet gloves for Sister Molly. You've definitely taken up bare-knuckles fighting.”

“I hate fighting. But I'll do it when it's important. Like to save two people I love.”

“Don't waste your love on me, Molly.” He turned away. “I'm not worth it.” He reached for the bottle again, then seemed to reconsider and dropped his hand into his lap instead. “Hell, I couldn't save her. I'll never forgive myself for that.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

“I was a doctor,” he said flatly. Stubbornly. “I was trained to save lives. But I couldn't save the single life that mattered most to me.”

“No one could have saved her, Reece. Not you, not Dr. Parker—”

“Not even your precious, all-knowing, all-powerful God? You've always used your faith as a fucking shield to protect you from having to live a normal life like the rest of us. Well, what happened this time, Saint Molly? Aren't you ever haunted by the sight of Lena lying in that damn hospital bed, kept alive by those obscene tubes and machines? Don't you ever lie awake at night, wondering if you'd just prayed a little harder, Lena might still be alive?”

It was his turn to hit the mark. Of course those thoughts had occurred to her. They'd hovered at the back of her mind, but instead of hiding away in the dark like Reese, she'd thrown herself into her work to
avoid dealing with what she feared would be devastating pain. The same wrenching emotional pain she'd successfully avoided all these years.

Lena's desperate need for love had been born out of that tragic, horrifying Christmas Eve night so many years ago. Although Molly had only been a child herself, she'd taken it upon herself to try to protect and comfort her younger sister. That was the night she'd begun building her parapets in earnest. Constructed stone by stone over the years, the barricade had grown as high and forbidding to the outside world as an old-time convent wall. She'd truly believed she could keep her childhood at bay, but now Molly realized she'd been lying to herself all these years.

Faced with the reality of her situation, frustrated by Reece's behavior and worried sick about Grace, she felt the gate come crashing down and the walls collapse.

The almost unbearable pain she'd managed to evade most of her life flooded over her. Clutching her stomach, she bent over and began to sob.

At first a shocked Reece couldn't believe what he was seeing. Molly, who'd always been the voice of wisdom, calm and order, had burst into a furious storm of weeping. Her face was buried in her hands and her slender shoulders were shaking like a willow in a hurricane as she rocked back and forth, bawling the deep, gut-wrenching sobs of a suffering child.

Reece had never seen Molly so abandoned; he'd never imagined she could experience such agony. Tears flowed from between her fingers, drenching her face, her neck, her chambray blouse.

He wanted to do something, anything, to stem this
tide of anguish. To calm the violent seas that seemed to be storming inside her. The shock of seeing her terrible pain suddenly had Reece, for the first time in months, feeling stone-cold sober. He pushed himself out of the chair and made his way to the couch where he gathered her to him and buried his face into her drenched and matted hair.

“Aw, Molly.” He brushed his cheek against the side of her wet face. “Hell, honey, I'm sorry.” He touched his lips to her skin and tasted the salt of her tears. It was only later that he realized that part of the wetness on her face was from his own tears. “I'm so damn sorry. For everything.”

They held each other for a long time, rocking and weeping in shared grief. Eventually, the tempest blew over, leaving behind a feeling of much-needed fresh air.

“I'm sorry.” She swiped at her wet face with the backs of her hands, looking so much like Grace, Reece felt something move deep inside him. “I didn't mean to make such a fool of myself.”

“There's nothing foolish about tears.” He ran his hand down her tangled hair.

“I never cry.” It was true. Not since… Molly shook her head, unable to think about that Christmas Eve night anymore. She knew she'd have to deal with it. But not right now. Not when her grief for the loss of her sister was still so fresh and raw.

“Then I'd say you're long overdue.” He took out a handkerchief, handed it to her and once again, as she blew her nose, was reminded of Grace. “Besides, didn't Saint Augustine say something about a saint being a man willing to make a fool of himself to prove a point to fools?”

“I don't know.” Reece's words reminded her of her theological contests with Thomas. Although she'd never seen him again after the rape, periodic notes from the former priest would arrive at the Mother House for her from all over the country, and she thought about him often.

“Well, if he didn't, he should have.” Reece realized that for the first time in a very long while, he was actually almost smiling.

Then he sighed. “I miss her so damn much, Molly.”

She sighed, as well. “I know. I do, too.”

“I can't let her go. I keep playing the answering machine tape over and over again, pretending she's still here.”

“I called here a couple weeks ago,” Molly admitted. “And when I heard that recording, I tried to tell myself that it had all been a nightmare. That Lena was still alive.” She didn't mention that her first startled thought was that she was hearing her sister's voice from the grave.

“I've been doing a lot of reading about death.” Reece linked his fingers together between his knees. “Everyone keeps bringing me all these self-help books. Dan brought one by C. S. Lewis.”

“I read that one,” Molly said. Reece had not been the only one searching for answers. “At least part of it. I stopped when I got to the part where he decided that our loved ones don't watch us after their death because it'd be too painful for them to watch our lives continue without them in it.”

“I wondered about that,” Reece allowed. “About whether it would hurt Lena too much to watch Grace
growing up without her mother.” He shook his head. “But I can't believe Lewis is right. I need to believe that she can still see our daughter. And me.”

“Which only makes you feel more guilty for being alive,” Molly guessed. She'd felt the same way herself, many times.

“That's probably the understatement of the millennium.” He'd stopped reading the damn books after that.

“Dan says I've been romanticizing my relationship with Lena,” Reece divulged. “He says I'm idealizing the potential of my murdered marriage.”

“Since from what Theo and Alex tell me, Dan's still into hit-and-run relationships, I'm not certain he's an expert on marriage,” Molly said dryly.

The familiar tone made Reece grin. “That's pretty much what I told him.”

They exchanged a smile. And both felt a little better.

“Are you going to stay?”

“For a while. If it's all right with you.” Actually, it would take an entire team of Clydesdales to remove her from this house until she ensured her daughter's emotional well-being, but Molly wanted it to seem as if she was offering Reece a choice.

“I can't think of anyone I'd rather have here than you.”

Hearing the honesty in his tone gave Molly the first hope she'd felt in a very long time.

Grace was obviously pleased to see the woman she knew as her aunt, but Molly was concerned by the change in the child. She appeared far too grown-up.

“It's not so surprising,” Alan Bernstein told Molly,
Reece, Theo and Alex after she'd invited the psychiatrist to dinner to surreptitiously watch Grace in action. “Her mother's death has pushed her into premature adulthood.” He glanced over at Molly. “You, more than most people, should understand how that can happen.”

“I do.” Molly shook her head with regret. “But understanding doesn't seem to help. She's like a miniature Mary Poppins, fetching this, buzzing around picking up after people, trying to anticipate everyone's every need.”

“I keep expecting her to burst out singing ‘Chim-Chim-Cheree' and fly over the rooftops,” Theo muttered.

“She feels the need to be perfect,” the psychiatrist said. “She's already lost her mother. It's only natural she'd develop an obsessive fear of her father abandoning her, as well.”