Travelers Rest (6 page)

Jane still cringed when she thought of her mother slitting her wrists. On that spring day, she lay down in the bathtub and put a pillow under her head, as though she was simply going to sleep. “I know, Diana. When she couldn’t live the life she wanted, she chose not to live.”

Diana settled the carafe back into the coffee maker. “What I’ve never understood is why your father didn’t try to get her any help.”

“Maybe he did. I just don’t know. I was their only child, but even so, I was never exactly privy to their private lives. I was always kind of floating around the edges of things, never really sure what was going on.”

Diana sighed heavily as she finally turned back to Jane. “All this happened years ago. Why are you thinking about it now?”

Jane shrugged, started to lift the mug to her lips, decided against it. “She was my mother, Diana. I’m not sure I’ve ever really stopped thinking about her and what happened to her.”

“Fair enough.” Diana moved back to the table and sat. “But, honey, you’ve got a different dragon to slay at this point. You hardly need to borrow any sorrows from the past.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Your mother”—Diana shook her head—“she made her choices, regardless of what it would do to the people around her. She could have found plenty to live for if she’d pulled herself away from that cursed television set long enough to think about it. She had a pretty good life in Troy, and most of us common people would say she was pretty lucky. She had you, for one thing. She might have tried to be a mother to you. But that was never enough.”

“I guess motherhood was hardly as glamorous as Hollywood.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the world of real life.”

“She didn’t much care for real life.”

“She was completely selfish, and that was the bottom line.”

“Do you think so, Diana?”

Diana paused and laid a hand over Jane’s. “I’m sorry, Jane. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s all right. You’re only calling it like it is.”

“It’s just always made me mad, thinking of what she did to you. Sometimes when we were at your place in Troy, I’d want to bring you home with me where you could have halfway decent parents and a sister who loved you. You’re my only little sister, you know.”

Jane smiled. “Yes, I know. I’m glad I have you.”

“Me too.” Diana patted Jane’s hand and went back to drinking her coffee. “Well, not to change the subject, though I guess I am, since talking about your mother makes me angry . . .” Diana laughed and ran the fingers of both hands through her short, unruly hair. “Are you going to the hospital to see Seth today?”

“I don’t think so. I want to give Sid and Jewel the chance to spend some time alone with him this afternoon.”

“In that case, do you want to go shopping with me a little later? I can’t believe we’re leaving in two days and I still don’t have everything I need for the trip.”

“Sure. Shopping sounds good to me.”

Diana stepped to the refrigerator and opened the door. “Let’s have spinach omelets for breakfast, and then for lunch, I know this wonderful little café on Lexington . . .”

She went on, but Jane wasn’t listening. She had already returned to Troy, where she sat beside her mother on the leather couch watching one of the scenes she had watched a hundred times before. Her mother—young, fresh-faced, achingly beautiful in a nineteenth-century ball gown—was playing the part of Clara Delaney, a Southern belle in love with a Confederate soldier.

“You’ll come back to me, won’t you, William? When this awful war is over, promise me you’ll come back.”

“Of course I’ll come back to you, Clara. I promise I will.”

“If my love were enough to protect you, I’d know you were always safe.”

“Then don’t stop loving me.”

“Never! I’ll never stop loving you.”

“And you’ll be here when I come home.”

“Oh yes. I’ll be here for you always, waiting, loving you, praying for your safe return.”

Music begins to play. Clara and William kiss. Camera pans to sunset.

Meredith Belmont Morrow sighs. Jane Morrow wishes Clara Delaney were her mother.

7

H
e was at the piano again, playing something by Chopin. Or Schumann, maybe. Jane wasn’t sure, even though she’d heard it played an untold number of times before on Grandmother’s phonograph back home. She stood at the railing in the medical center lobby early that Monday afternoon, listening to the music coming up from below. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. The notes were soothing, something bright in the midst of a rainy day, a day full of shadows inside and out. She needed the music to comfort her and give her strength before she headed upstairs to see Seth.

When the song stopped and another one started, one she recognized and loved, Jane decided to take the elevator down to the atrium to meet the mysterious musician. All she knew about him so far was that he was a blond-haired man in a business suit.

Once in the atrium, she paused just beyond his right shoulder and watched him play. His fingers searched out the keys and seemed to find them effortlessly as he played the familiar tune. When he finished, Jane stepped closer, into his range of sight, and said, “‘Clair de Lune
.
’”

At the sound of her voice, he looked up with a start. Then he smiled. “Yes. Light of the moon
.
Or more simply, Moonlight
.
Lovely, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

His eyes were a startling shade of blue, the central feature in a pleasant face. He had a high forehead, a narrow nose, and a generous mouth. His skin hinted at time spent in the summer sun, though the bronzed sheen was undoubtedly heightened by the white of his dress shirt and the pale blue of his tie.

“Are you a professional musician?” Jane asked.

“Me?” He laughed. “No. I thought about it once, way back when. I studied classical piano for years with the idea that I might end up on the stage, but”—he shrugged—“I changed my mind. Now I just play for the joy of it.”

“Well, you’re very good.”

He smiled modestly. “Thanks. By the way, I’m Jon-Paul Pearcy.” He extended a hand, and Jane shook it.

“Jane Morrow,” she said.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

Jane withdrew her hand and laid it on the smooth, shiny surface of the piano. “I’ve seen you here before. Do you work here?”

“Here? Goodness no. I’m a partner in my father’s law firm. But thankfully Dad lets me out of the cage long enough to have lunch once in a while.”

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “But if you give me half a chance, you might decide I’m not such a bad person.”

Jane smiled in return. “I suppose you hear a lot of lawyer jokes.”

“I hear my share.”

“But it’s the family business?”

“Believe it or not, it is. My father and his brother both went into law and eventually started their own firm. Now my cousin, my brother, and I are all partners in the firm. We all have the same last name, so we might have called it Pearcy, Pearcy, Pearcy, Pearcy, and Pearcy, but we decided that would be a little too redundant. So we simply call it The Pearcy Law Firm, and we let that cover all of us.”

Jane laughed aloud and Jon-Paul Pearcy joined her. “It must get a little confusing for the secretary,” Jane said, “when someone calls and asks to talk to Mr. Pearcy.”

“That it does,” Jon-Paul said with a definitive nod. “Especially since both my brother and my cousin are juniors. So we have David Pearcy Sr. and David Pearcy Jr. and Stephen Pearcy Sr. and Stephen Pearcy Jr.”

“My goodness! Your poor secretary must be pulling out her hair!”

Jon-Paul looked serious and waved a finger at Jane. “I think you might have just solved the mystery of why Marion wears so many wigs.” He chuckled and played a few lively notes on the piano to punctuate his joke. “But we all have our own area of specialty. Mine is disability law.”

“Oh, I see. So you have clients here at the VA?”

“I’ve had some clients here but—oh, you’re wondering what I’m doing here playing the piano.”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“Well, it’s because of my sister Carolyn. She’s a nurse up on four. I try to get out here about once a week or so to have lunch with her in the cafeteria. Sometimes I end up waiting for her to break away from the floor, so I figure I might as well spend the time entertaining the troops.”

“I think it’s great that you do. And it’s really nice that you come out and have lunch with your sister.”

“Well, otherwise—the way both our schedules are—I’d never see her, even though we both live right here in Asheville.”

Jane smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. He turned his eyes away, seemed to be listening to something. The elevator doors opened, and a young man in maroon-colored scrubs stepped out and marched deliberately to the piano.

“Hey, Jon-Paul,” he said as he casually rested both arms atop the instrument.

“Hi, Gus,” Jon-Paul greeted him. “What’s going on? You on break?”

“Yup.” The young orderly nodded and pulled a cigarette out of the breast pocket of his uniform. He stuck it in his mouth but didn’t light it. It moved up and down as he spoke. “Carolyn sent me down to tell you she’s going to be a little late. She said if you can’t wait, she understands, but she hopes you will, since Melissa is joining you for lunch.”

“No problem,” Jon-Paul said. “Any idea how long?”

“Twenty minutes tops,” Gus replied, the cigarette flapping. “Believe me, Jon-Paul, it’ll be worth your wait. That Melissa, she’s a looker.”

“Yeah?”

The orderly let go a long whistle. Then he looked at Jon-Paul and seemed chagrined. “Well, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No problem, Gus. Hey, thanks for passing along the message.”

“Sure thing.” He rapped the piano with the knuckles of one hand. “Well, gotta get the smoke in before my break’s over. Then it’s back to bedpans and mopping floors. I’ll tell ya, it’d be nice to have a cushy job like yours. One that would impress the ladies too. Well, take it easy, counselor.”

When he left, Jon-Paul turned back to Jane. His cheeks were slightly ruddy. “I love my sister dearly, but she has one irredeemable fault.”

“Oh?” Jane said. “What’s that?”

“She’s always setting me up on blind dates.” Jon-Paul paused, frowned, and finally chuckled. “No pun intended.”

Jane cocked her head. “All right.”

“Well, enough of that. So Jane, what brings you to the VA?”

Jane looked at her hands, stealing a moment to think before answering. How much to say? “My fiancé is here,” she said at length. “He was wounded in Iraq.”

Jon-Paul leaned closer. “I’m sorry,” he said somberly. “Will he . . . do the doctors say he’ll be all right?”

“Well”—another glance away, then back—“he was shot in the neck. He’s paralyzed. They don’t expect him to regain much movement.”

“I’m so sorry. Really. If there’s ever anything I can do . . .”

His voice trailed off. Jane nodded and attempted a smile. “Thank you. Well, I’d better go visit with Seth. Have a good time at lunch today.”

“Yeah, thanks. Say, what time is it anyway?”

Jon-Paul pulled back his sleeve to look at his watch. Except that he didn’t look at it. Instead, he pushed a button that released the crystal covering the face. With an index finger, he tenderly touched the hands of the watch beneath.

And with that, Jane understood his joke about the blind date. Jon-Paul Pearcy, player of Moonlight, was blind.

8

D
id you think about what I asked you to do?”

Jane felt her jaw tighten. Seth hadn’t even bothered to say hello when she walked into the room. He had simply glanced up from his wheelchair, then looked away. “Of course I thought about it,” she said.

“Well?” he asked quietly.

“Well what? I wasn’t considering whether or not I would do it, because I won’t. What I can’t understand is how you can even ask me. I can’t . . .” She was angry now. She stopped herself, not wanting to slip into a tirade, not wanting to say things she would later regret. She slumped down in the one chair in the room and looked at the floor.

After a moment Seth said, “I was hoping you’d see it my way.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

She took a deep breath. “This isn’t like you, Seth. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

He almost smiled then. He latched on to her gaze. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not the Seth you knew, Jane. That’s just it. I will never be the same person again.”

“Then maybe you can be someone different but just as good.”

“It’s not possible. There’s nothing left.”

“
You’re
left!
You
are left. The you inside. That’s something.”

“But I’m trapped. I can’t—”

“And you might get better. You’ve already regained some movement. You might regain more.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It has to be enough.”

“What? That maybe someday I can bend an elbow or flex my wrist? It’s not enough, Jane. I’ll never have my hands back.”

“So you want to give up?”

“Yes.”

She slapped the chair’s armrests with both hands. “How can you do this to me?”

“Jane, I—”

“You’re only thinking of yourself! What about your parents? What would it do to them if you . . . if you gave up?”

He shut his eyes, opened them, said quietly, “You will all go on. I know you will. You’ll be all right.”

Jane cried out in frustration. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe you’re talking like this. You’ve never been a quitter before. Now look at you. You’re not the only person who’s ever had a spinal cord injury, you know. Other people are injured and then go on to live perfectly happy lives—”

“Stop it, Jane. Just stop. I don’t want to hear it. You don’t have a clue what it’s like. You’re not the one in this chair, unable to move, unable to do anything . . .” He didn’t finish. He turned his face to the wall.

She stood abruptly, crossed her arms, and moved to the window. For a long while she leaned a shoulder against the glass and looked out at the drizzling rain. “You were always the one who believed in a loving God,” she said. “I was always the one who didn’t know for sure. What about your loving God now, Seth? Has He stopped being loving because you were wounded? Or have you decided He was never really there after all?”