Under Alaskan Skies (25 page)

“And that woman?” his father continued.

Matt knew better than to play innocent and ask what woman? He knew and his father knew what woman.

“Yes, well, she is a wonderful woman. But I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again. She has a job up there, actually more than a job. She’s a bush pilot, as you know, who inherited the business from her father. I don’t see her ever leaving Alaska.” Not even to visit San Francisco. Not even to come and see him. Not even to accompany the boy. He was hit once again by a sense of loss so profound he could only sit there
frozen and stare unseeing at his father’s framed diplomas on the wall.

“If she did leave…” his father said.

He shook his head. He didn’t know what he’d do. Would he beg, plead or bribe her to give him a chance? Would it do any good?

“Do you love her?” his father asked, when he didn’t answer.

Matt nodded. He loved her. He’d never told her but maybe she knew. Maybe that was why she refused to come down here with Donny. She didn’t want to tell him she didn’t love him.

Matt’s gaze shifted to his father. The expression on his father’s face had softened, as if he finally understood. What he didn’t understand was that he had no idea if Carrie loved him. And if she did, did she love him enough to give up her life up there for him? If she didn’t care enough to even come down here to see him, it was hopeless.

Matt stood up and so did his father. His father held out his arms, and Matt hugged him for the first time since he could remember. Eugene was not a demonstrative man. They were not an affectionate family. But something had happened today in this room. Matt’s life was taking a new direction and maybe his relationship with his father was also taking one.

M
ATT WAS AT THE HELIPAD
on the roof of the hospital waiting for the med-evac plane along with the paramedics. They wheeled Donny down the ramp on his gurney and he was relieved to see the boy smile. Matt greeted his mother and turned to follow the group when out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse
of a tall, slim figure with red-gold hair gleaming in the California sunshine.

He whirled around, stood and stared, and she walked toward him. “You came.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tillie was afraid to come by herself. She’s never been out of Alaska, you know, and so I thought, well, there’s room in the plane, so…” She trailed off.

If he thought she’d come to see him, she was taking pains to let him know that wasn’t the case. It had nothing to do with him. It was all about helping Donny’s family. Of course it was. But he couldn’t help the hope that surged inside him. The thoughts that crowded his mind. Maybe…just maybe…

Matt saw that Donny got settled in his room and that he was being given a thorough exam. Matt told his mother he’d reserved a room for her in the house for patients’ parents. She thanked him but he could see she wasn’t ready to leave her son’s side just yet. Matt’s friend the neurosurgeon would be by later.

Matt took Carrie aside in the hall outside Donny’s room.

“This is wonderful, what you’ve done,” she said in a low voice. “I’m overwhelmed by all the attention he’s getting.”

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “It may take a while. First the tests, then the diagnosis, then the decision about what will be done. If it’s surgery, we’re talking about a long recovery time.”

“Yes, I see.” She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know how long his mother can stay. She has the other children back home.”

“And you?” he asked.

“I didn’t know how long we’d be here so I canceled some of my orders. I guess I can stay as long as they need me.”

“What about me?” he asked. He shouldn’t have asked her that now. Not now when she’d just arrived, and certainly not here in the busy hallway with the loudspeaker paging certain doctors and aides rushing by with trays of medicines. He should have waited. But suddenly he couldn’t wait any longer. He’d been waiting all his life for her and she was here, in person, her face, her amber eyes looking at him so intently, her lips parted as if she was going to say something, something that would change his life.

Before she could speak, his friend Jay arrived and was introduced to everyone. Then Jay asked that the room be cleared so he could do an exam. Matt took Carrie and Tillie down to the coffee shop and ordered sandwiches and coffee for them. He asked about everyone he’d met in Mystic, and they told him everything that had happened, all the gossip and all the news from the small town. But Carrie didn’t answer the questions he had to have an answer to. What about me? Will you stay as long as I need you? Will you stay forever? Do you love me?

He didn’t have a chance to ask her any of these questions until that evening. Until after they’d settled Donny and his mother. Until they’d made sure they’d both been given dinner and Tillie knew where she was staying. He told Carrie the room for Tillie was in a special residence for family members of patients. He told Carrie—rather than asked her—that she would stay with him in his apartment. He thought she might object, but she just nodded. He felt a rush of
relief. Once he had her alone he could say what he wanted to say. But he didn’t. If the answers to his questions were no, he didn’t think he could take it.

C
ARRIE LOOKED AROUND
at Matt’s apartment with its new beige carpet and buttery leather sofa and was struck by the contrast to her own house furnished with odds and ends collected over the years. It was more clear than ever to her how different they were. Too different.

He put her suitcase in his bedroom that was furnished with a large bed with a natural, light-colored wood frame and matching dresser.

“Wait,” she said. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Not in my house,” he said firmly.

“But in my house…”

“You make the rules, but here…”

She gave him a faint smile and gave in. She was so tired and so tense, after the stress of getting Donny safely into the plane in Mystic, the long flight down and then seeing Matt. When she got off the plane her heart raced and she kept her hands clenched into fists. He looked even better than she’d remembered. So calm and competent and so very handsome in his white coat with his name pinned to his lapel. M. Baker, M.D.

She’d imagined that moment so many times. She imagined throwing herself into his arms, telling him how much she’d missed him. That was in her dreams. In reality there were so many people around, so many more important things to do than indulge in her fantasy. Even if they’d been alone, she wouldn’t have said anything except she was glad to see him. Glad?
That was the understatement of the year. She was excited, terrified, numb, breathless and more.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to find that he looked so at home here in the city, that he fitted in so well at the big-city hospital. It was still a shock to realize once again that he belonged here and she belonged there.

“I want to take you out to dinner,” he said. “I want to show you the town.”

She shook her head. She had no energy to see the town and no clothes to see it in. “Not tonight,” she said. “I’m too tired. Besides, don’t you have to get up early or be on call or something?”

“No.”

That was all he said, but he said it so firmly she gave him a quizzical look, which he ignored. She wanted to ask why not. She wanted to ask what his schedule was, but she didn’t. She asked how the internship was going, and he said that was a long story. Then he changed the subject.

“I can’t offer you any homemade soup, but I could call out for a pizza,” he said.

“With mushrooms and anchovies? I’d love that. You may have noticed, there’s no pizza in Mystic. Dried fish yes, pizza no.”

They ate the pizza in the living room, sitting on the floor around his Swedish Modern coffee table. Carrie savored every bite and sipped the undoubtedly expensive wine he poured for her.

He slanted a smile in her direction. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your appetite.”

“Was I gobbling? I didn’t mean to. I thought I wasn’t hungry, but I guess I was,” she said, wiping
her mouth with a napkin. “I haven’t had a pizza since I don’t know…months, years. I could get used to—” She stopped abruptly hoping he hadn’t heard or noticed. He had.

“Get used to what?” he asked, leveling his gaze at her across the table. “Calling out for food when you’re too tired to cook? Or get used to living with me?”

“Matt,” she said, setting her glass down. What did he expect from her? Why did he even ask?

“Never mind,” he said, holding up his hand. “Forget I said that. You just got here. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

She nodded, but she couldn’t forget what he’d said. When he went to the kitchen to make coffee, she stood up and looked out the window. His apartment looked out on a busy street. It was convenient to the hospital and to a large park on the other side of the street. But the noise and the lights and the frantic pace were so alien to her she could never get used to living in such a place, not after growing up in a small Alaska village. She was glad he’d withdrawn his question.

She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She thought she’d feel guilty about Matt on the couch. She thought she’d be too tense or too worried about Donny, but after Matt ran a bath for her in the extra-long tub, she put her old flannel granny gown on and paused for a moment in the doorway to the living room where Matt was sitting on the couch reading. It was like the nights at her house and yet it wasn’t. In some ways this place he lived in was like another planet.

But when she saw him there, one arm stretched
along the back of the sofa, she had the strangest feeling that she’d come home. Here, in a place so much the antithesis of her real home that she was baffled. Yet it was undeniable. The sight of Matt sitting on a couch, the lamplight on his head made her feel that she belonged there.

She had an unbearable urge to tell him that if he asked her, she’d live here in this noisy city with him. If he loved her, she’d give up her business, her town and her friends, because without him, without love, all those things faded away and became meaningless. She wanted to slide up next to him, to feel his arm around her, her hip next to his. That was all it would take and she would know she belonged there, in his arms, wherever he was, wherever he lived. She held her breath, waiting, hoping, praying…

He looked up, and in the light from his reading lamp, his eyes appeared so dark they were fathomless. He didn’t say anything, but she felt his gaze travel the length of her nightgown. The heat from his gaze sent a flame through her body, so hot she felt scorched. She was breathing hard, as if she’d run all the way from Mystic. For a long while their eyes held, the bond between them so strong she could almost feel it stretch between them. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t ask the question she had the answer to. Without the question, she couldn’t give the answer. She couldn’t say the words she wanted to say. Finally he said good-night, and she went to his bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Under his comforter, in his bed, between his sheets, she fell asleep at last.

In the morning they went to the hospital. Jay met
them outside Donny’s room. He was holding the results of some of the tests. Today they would do a CAT scan and an MRI. It would be a few days before they decided on a course of treatment. He told them he was hopeful that Donny would recover completely.

Then Carrie and Matt went into Donny’s room and spoke to him and his mother. Tillie was having her meals at the table next to his bed. In between, she read or watched TV with her son. She seemed in good spirits, cheered by the optimistic attitude of the doctor and the kindness of the nurses. She had no desire to leave the hospital grounds.

Matt said he was going to take Carrie on a ride out of town. Tillie smiled and told them to have a good time. When they left the hospital Carrie asked where they were going.

“A small town in the foothills of the Sierras. So you won’t think all of California is like this.” He waved his hand at the line of buses and cars, at the fumes and the noise in the street. “It’s the least I can do after you took me all over in your boat. It’s the place I told you about, the town where I did the residency in family medicine.”

“Will we be back tonight or shall I get my suitcase?”

“It’s a few hours’ drive each way. We’ll come back tonight.”

The hours flew by. The awkwardness of the day before was gone. The tension of the evening had disappeared. He described the crops that grew in the fields along the road, explained the meaning of the Spanish
or Indian place names. She asked questions, but not the ones she wanted most to know the answer to.

Do you love me?

What do you want of me?

At one point he put his hand on her knee and said, “I’m glad you came.” Maybe that’s all she would get. Maybe she’d have to settle for that. Maybe she’d have to go home and face life without him.

She turned to face him. “So am I,” she said. But that was all.

The town was charming. Matt told her it was once a gold-mining town, as was Mystic. He told something of the colorful characters who founded it, then showed her their graves in the small cemetery up the hill.

“Pickard, Jones, Wilton,” he read from the tombstones. “The first families of Yuma. Then and now. There are still quite a few of them in town.”

“You know a lot about the town.”

“I know they have a nice library.”

“I suppose it’s a little bigger than ours.”

“Yes, it is. So big I hear they need help.”

She shot a quick glance in his direction. What did that have to do with anything?

“How long were you here?” she asked, stooping over to pick a dandelion between graves.

“Three months, but it seemed longer,” he said gazing down the hill at the small houses clustered around the town square. “Not because I didn’t like it, I did. Time goes slower up here. But you know that, coming from a small town yourself.”

“Mystic makes this town look like New York.”

He leaned against the wooden fence that bordered the cemetery. “I have to tell you something, Carrie.”

Here it comes, she thought. He’s getting married. I should have known. That’s why he hasn’t said anything.