period of his life.
After Vass’s death, Alex had never set foot in one again. Even when he broke his arm playing lacrosse in college, he’d insisted on having it set at a doctor’s office. “No hospital,” he’d said firmly. It was the last place he wanted to be.
He didn’t talk about hospitals, either. Didn’t talk about Vass. Never had to anyone. Except that weekend when Daisy had got under his skin.
He supposed it was because she was just getting her equilibrium back after losing her father. Barely fifty, he’d been born with a heart defect that had grown worse over time. He’d been in and out of the hospital often, she’d said. And the sad wistful look on her face had prompted Alex to confide that he, too, hated hospitals.
“They take away your life,” he’d said harshly, remembering how remote and sterile they had seemed, how they’d isolated his brother, how Vass had wanted to come home so badly, to be out, to be anywhere but there. “They don’t save it.”
He’d expected her to agree.
Instead she’d shaken her head. “It wasn’t the hospital’s fault. Without the care my dad got there, we’d have lost him sooner. But it was hard for him to feel connected. He felt so isolated, like he wasn’t really a part of things anymore.”
Vass had said the same thing.
“There was only one window,” she’d gone on. “But he couldn’t see outside from his bed. So we used to pretend. We’d close our eyes and pretend he was home or we were going fishing in the San Juan or even doing chores, chopping wood for the fireplace. He loved that fireplace …” Daisy had swallowed then, and her eyes had glistened with unshed tears. She’d blinked them back rapidly. “It wasn’t the hospital’s fault,” she repeated. “But it could have been better. It could have been more.”
Her words had made Alex think.
What if Vass had had a chance to spend time in a hospital that had allowed him to feel connected. What if he’d been able to do, at least virtually, the things he wanted to do—like go back to the beach near their island home, or drive a race car, or sail over the Alps in a hot-air balloon?
Once Alex opened the floodgates, the ideas wouldn’t stop coming. And what hadn’t been possible twenty-five to thirty years ago was within reach now.
Alex’s hospital wing was full of windows—floor-to-ceiling in many rooms. Even treatment rooms, wherever possible, brought the outside in. If a patient wanted to see the world beyond the walls, he could. The semirural setting just across the river north of the city provided views of the countryside as well as the city skyline. And it wasn’t just about the visuals. Alex worked in sound systems and even olfactory ones, connecting senses to the world beyond the hospital’s confines.
He had provided virtual worlds, as well. Patients in the wing he’d designed could close their eyes as Daisy’s father had, but they could also use modern electronics to create the sights, sounds and smells of the seashore, the woods, the inside of a race car or the ballroom of a fairy-tale palace.
He told her about it now, aware of the way she looked at him, as if he could hang the moon. The salads that had been in front of them when they’d sat down remained virtually untouched.
“It sounds like an amazing place.” Daisy smiled, a smile that went all the way to her eyes, that touched—as it always did—a place hidden somewhere deep inside him that no one ever reached but her.
He cleared his throat. “If you have to be in a hospital,” he agreed gruffly, “if you can’t have what the rest of the world takes for granted, I guess it will do.”
Their eyes met. And Alex knew that whether or not he mentioned his brother or her father, Daisy remembered. Daisy knew.
What surprised him, though, was her withdrawal. One minute she’d been gazing at him with warmth and admiration. The next some shadow seemed to settle over her, her expression shuttered.
“I’m sure that all the children will appreciate it.” Her tone was polite, but she seemed suddenly more remote. She turned to her salad and began to eat.
Alex was more nettled by her withdrawal than he would have liked. But really, what difference did it make? He hadn’t done it for her. He’d done it for people like her father, his brother. He dug into his own salad.
Neither of them spoke until the salads were taken away and the entree was set before them. Then Daisy turned toward him again. “What sort of building are you working on now?”
So they were going to be polite and proper and distant. Fine by him. Alex was glad to talk about the present so he told her about the office building he was designing on the edge of Paris.
Daisy had never been to Paris. And as he talked, he saw her eyes begin to sparkle again. Her remoteness vanished. Her questions came more quickly, and her enthusiasm was contagious. He wanted to make her smile, wanted to have her cock her head and listen eagerly. Alex found himself telling her not just about his work in Paris, but about the city itself, about places he liked, things he’d seen, galleries he visited, buildings he admired.
“You used to live there, didn’t you?” It was the first time she’d alluded to the past.
“Yes. And then I was here for a while. But I went back four or five years ago,” he said. He knew precisely when he’d gone—and why. After the disastrous end to his weekend with Daisy, New York had more memories than he wanted. Paris seemed like a far safer place to be.
It was only in the past six months or so—when he’d made up his mind to marry, in fact—that he’d returned to live more or less permanently in New York. Even now, though, he kept his small flat in the fifth arrondissement.
Their talk moved from Paris to the Riviera, to other places he’d been. Daisy asked about all of them. The women Amalie had set him up with had asked questions, too, but not like Daisy. Not as if they cared about the answers.
Daisy did. And her interest and enthusiasm drew him out. He would have liked to show her Paris, to walk the wide boulevards and narrow lanes with her, to sit at a tiny table in an outdoor café and drink strong dark coffee with her, to wander through the museums and the galleries hand in hand with her, to walk along the Seine with her and kiss her there, to run through a rainstorm with her.
To take her back to his little garret flat and make love with her. He could imagine Daisy there, letting him strip off her little embroidered jacket, then letting him find the zip at the back of her dress and lower it slowly. He’d kiss his way down—inch by luscious inch and—
“And what?” Daisy was looking at him, curious and impatient.
Hot. God, he was hot. And hard. And suddenly aware that he was in the middle of a crowded room with the object of his fantasy studying him worriedly. Her eyes were still bright and eager, but she was looking at him with puzzlement.
“What happened? You stopped talking,” Daisy said. “Did you just get distracted?”
Alex’s heart was still hammering, his body still feeling the effects of what he’d been thinking about—her. He shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “I did, yes.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “Sorry about that.”
He didn’t let it happen again, even though he was still intensely aware of her. It was almost
