met his adult twin daughters, but she’d seen pictures of them just that night during the house tour. Photographs of the blue-eyed blondes at various ages were on the bookshelf in the den. There were a few photographs of Alice on that bookshelf, too, and she looked just as Faye had expected: well-coifed, well-dressed and glittering with gold. The woman was her opposite, at least on the surface.
“They didn’t talk to me for a year after Alice died,” he said.
“Why?”
It was his turn to hesitate. “They blamed me for their mother’s death,” he said. “I talked Alice into enrolling in an experimental treatment program. I didn’t see that she had much of a chance otherwise, and I think—I hope—she understood that. The girls were furious with me, though. They said I turned Alice into a guinea pig, et cetera, et cetera.” He sighed, and she knew he’d been through quite a battle with his girls. She could only imagine what it had been like for him to endure the loss of his wife and his daughters’ antipathy at the same time.
“I think they were cruel to turn their backs on you,” she said.
“They were in a lot of pain,” he said, “but eventually, they realized that I’d truly had Alice’s best interest in mind. So maybe, someday Fred will come around, too.”
“God, I wish,” she said, struggling not to feel the sorrow welling up inside her. “Every time I see a young man come into the pain clinic, I think of him. Even when they don’t look a thing like him.” Gunshot victims, especially, tugged at her emotions. If it hadn’t been for Annie O’Neill, Freddy might have been one of them himself. She waved her hand in front of her face as if trying to bat away the thought. “I can’t talk about it anymore,” she said.
She lifted her head to study his face. In the light from the Tiffany lamp, she could see the arc of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the deep crevices that ran from his nose to his chin, and she knew he must be seeing similar flaws on her own face. She should turn off the light. But before she could roll over, he touched her cheek with his fingertip, tracing whatever lines he might be finding there, and smiled. “When you’re ready to tell me more,” he said, “I’ll be here for you.”
10
THE KEEPER’S HOUSE WAS QUIET AND CALM AS Lacey and Rick sat at the kitchen table, sipping iced tea and wrapping gifts for Jessica. Sasha slept by the screen door, occasionally opening his eyes to see if Clay or Gina or Rani might be walking through the sand toward the house. It was Clay’s long day at work, and Gina had taken Rani to her toddler swim lessons.
“Isn’t she a little young for swimming lessons?” Rick had asked when Lacey told him where they were.
“It’s mostly to get her used to the water,” Lacey said. “She was afraid of it when she first got here. She couldn’t even look at a full bathtub or the toilet without crying.” For reasons they were never to understand, Rani would scream even when approached with a damp washcloth. Gina’s best guess was that her little daughter had been subjected to rough shampooing with harsh soaps, necessary to kill the lice and nits that every child in the orphanage seemed to have. But Rani’s phobia was improving. She let Gina or Clay bathe her now in a large basin, and the previous week, Gina had finally coaxed her into the pool.
It was at moments like these, when the only sounds in the house were from the ocean and the cicadas, that Lacey realized how much chatter and energy Rani produced. Just a few months ago, Gina had worried there was a problem with her development, because Rani never spoke. One morning, though, the child simply woke up a chatterbox. Not only did she seem to know the right words for nearly every object she encountered, but she also strung those words together in sentences. She may not have been speaking, but she’d certainly been listening. She ran into the kitchen that morning, looked up at Clay, and said, “Daddy, I want you play with me, now!” Gina and Lacey had looked at each other and laughed, but Clay had cried. He had changed so much since Rani came into his life. There was a softness to him Lacey had never expected to see.
“Should I wrap each of these separately?” Rick held up the three gel pens they had bought for Jessica.
“Sure,” Lacey said. “It will be more fun for her to have a bunch of things to open, don’t you think?”
She and Rick had shopped most of the afternoon, picking up small gifts to send to Jessica. Little things like pens and magazines, tiny jigsaw puzzles and one of Lacey’s kaleidoscopes, gifts that could help her while away her time in the hospital. Lacey planned to put all the wrapped gifts into one big box and ship it to her. It had been kind of Rick to go shopping with her, and he’d seemed to get into it, picking up things on his own that he thought someone like Jessica might enjoy. Adding the kaleidoscope had been his idea.
A car door slammed shut in the parking lot, and Sasha was immediately on his feet, nose pressed against the screen and tail wagging. It was too soon for either Clay or Gina to be home, and Lacey got up to walk over to the door.
Her father was walking—strolling, really—toward the house. His head was down, his hands in his pockets. He was not a stroller. He always moved quickly, like Clay, and the sight of him like this scared her.
She pushed open the door and stepped onto the porch.
“Dad?” she called.
He looked up from his pensive staring at the sand and waved to her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, as he neared the house.
“Let’s go inside.” He reached past her for the handle of the screened door. “Go on in,” he said.
He followed her into the kitchen, and Rick was quick to stand up.
“Dad, this is Rick Tenley,” she said. “Rick, this is my father, Alec O’Neill.”
“Hello, Dr. O’Neill.” Rick held out his hand, and Alec shook it, frank curiosity on his face, but the expression disappeared quickly as his somber look returned.
“What’s wrong?” she asked again. Her heart was beating hard, and she thought of Rani’s little heart, so newly repaired and delicate. “Please tell me Rani’s okay.”
“Rani’s fine.” Her father touched her shoulder. “Sit down,” he said, and she dropped into the chair Rick pulled out for her.
“Nola just called me,” her father said. “She was trying to reach you, but didn’t have your number out here.”
All of a sudden, she knew. “It’s Jessica,” she said.
Her father leaned against the kitchen counter and nodded. “She died this morning, honey. I’m sorry.”
Lacey leaped to her feet so quickly that Sasha started barking at her. “Oh, Dad, no!” she said. “How could that happen? She sounded so good when I talked to her yesterday.”
“They think it was a blood clot from the surgery,” her father said. “It was fast. She probably didn’t even know what hit her.”
That’s what they had said about her mother, but her mother had known. Lacey would never forget the look of surprise on her face.
“Oh, God, I don’t believe it.” She sat down again, one elbow on the table, her fist pressed to her mouth. She was not aware of crying until she felt the tears
