VICTORIA BRUMLEY always set a nice spread. That’s one thing Solaina could count on when she dined with her neighbors—everything done properly. And tonight Victoria had outdone herself. The cuisine was French, starting with a very proper soupe de piments d’espelettes and following though to the luscious crêpes aux poires. All very nice, served on Victoria’s finest china. But Solaina barely touched it. She’d eaten enough to make a polite pretense, but that was all. That’s all she’d eaten for weeks now.
“He’s going to rebuild,” Howard said, pouring himself a third glass of wine. “And I know he’d like you to be there. He hasn’t changed his mind on that. He’s still quite daft about you, you know.”
“My new job is fine,” Solaina replied. Actually, she liked her new position. It was as a volunteer in a little clinic outside Chandella. She worked with children mostly. Giving shots, taking temperatures, passing out lollipops. And, yes, bedpans. This was nursing at its roots, and a very good place for her. A place to heal, and to learn. A place to move on from Jacob Renner. Her start.
“Well, I think all that rebuilding is nonsense,” Victoria said, pulling the wine bottle away from Howard. “It will take months, and I think David would be better off with his career if he returned to Toronto.”
Solaina cast her a curious glance. In all the time she’d known Victoria, this was the first time she’d heard the woman offer an opinion about medicine. Normally she deferred in that topic to her husband, and talked about travel and cuisine and going to the opera in Italy, or some such. “David needs his career here,” Solaina said. “It’s where his passion is.” A passion she was just beginning to understand.
“If it was only about his career, that would be fine.” Victoria rose from the table and floated across the room to the buffet to fetch the silver coffee server. “But he involves so many other people. And look at you, Solaina. It’s been four months now, and you’re still in a bad way over him.”
“She’s in love with him,” Howard supplied. “That’s why she’s in a bad way. Because she blames herself for his ruin. Which entitles her to be in a bad way.”
“His ruin maybe, but her salvation in the long run.”
Solaina looked back and forth at the couple as they squabbled over her. It wasn’t a side of them she’d seen before, and she wondered if she should merely take her leave before their squabble escalated into a battle.
“And what do you mean by that?” Howard stormed.
“You know what I mean by that. All these years, Howard, and all the time I’ve been alone while you were off chasing after one cause or another. I didn’t mind for a while, because I admired what you did. Admired your work. And I was proud of it. But somewhere in those years I grew old. Old, and alone. And I’ve never been to the opera in Italy, Howard. There was always something else in the way.”
Victoria carried the coffee service to the table, but Solaina declined, so the older woman merely took her place at the end of the table opposite her husband. Looking sad, Solaina thought. She did look sad, and lonely. When the wide-brimmed hats were off, underneath Victoria was a sad, aging woman. And a bitter one, Solaina could tell, from the flash in her eyes.
“But I always thought we would have our retirement,” Victoria said, the momentary fight draining out of her voice. “I counted on our retirement, Howard. Then it would be just the two of us. Nothing and no one else. Just us.” She drew in a frail, shuddering breath. “But I was wrong, of course. You found IMO. And I abided by that. Then you left, and I thought it was finally my turn. But you went to help start David’s hospital.” Victoria sat her cup on the table and glared across at her husband. “It took you all of one week out of IMO to start up Vista with David. And leave me alone again, naturally.” She looked over at Solaina, her eyes softening. “You see, this way it’s so much better for you, dear. No bother over a husband who is never there. You deserve a better life than that.”
“A better life!” Howard yelled.
It was the first time Solaina had ever seen his composure break, and she scooted away from the table, ready to make her exit and leave the Brumleys to work out their difficulties in privacy.
“A better life,” Victoria shouted back. “You gave me things, Howard. Things. Look around.” She stood up and spread her arms in a wide, sweeping gesture, the silk sleeves of her caftan floating like paper kites on a gentle March breeze. “Look around. That’s all this is. Things. And that’s what I’ve had from you all these years. But I stayed, because I always did count on having time together or I wouldn’t ever have…”
She stopped short, then sat back down. “Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a coffee before you leave, dear?” she asked Solaina. Victoria’s full composure slid back over her as if the last angry words had never been uttered. “Or a brandy perhaps?”
“Would have never what?” Howard asked, his voice growing calmer. His hands were shaking, though, and he was turning red.
Victoria glanced across the table at her husband, and what Solaina saw in her eyes was pure ice. Not that spark of love she’d always seen before. Not the one she’d counted on in the most perfect relationship she’d ever known. “Tried to stop you, darling. I wouldn’t have tried to stop you.”
“Dear God,” Solaina gasped. “It was you?”
Victoria nodded demurely as she picked up her coffee-cup. “I never meant anyone any harm. I thought the first few incidents would serve as a warning, then David would scamper away and be done with that silly hospital nonsense. Which he didn’t. And I really never meant for him to be so badly injured. That was a mistake because the man I made arrangements with was greedy for that vehicle David was driving. And I might add that I didn’t pay the fellow after that. Not after what he did to poor David. He kept my pistol, too. My lovely little pearl-handled pistol. I do miss it. Howard gave it to me to protect myself from the snakes here, you know. It was so considerate of him to think of my safety when he was gone.”
Across the table, Howard choked, then grabbed a glass of wine.
“And I do regret all that mess,” Victoria continued. “Dreadfully.”
Solaina glanced at Howard, who was speechless. “And the hospital?” she asked, turning slowly back to Victoria. “You did that, too? You burned down David’s hospital?”
“Not intentionally. I think there was a language problem. I instructed the man to start a fire in the storage room. One of the ones outside the building. I would have never…” Victoria choked, then dropped her head and started to sob quietly. “I would never have intentionally tried to hurt anyone. I just wanted my husband back, and I thought that since IMO didn’t want him any more, and if David wasn’t around to take up his time…I’m so sorry.”
“Victoria!” Howard gasped, then fell sideways out of his chair onto the floor.
Without a word Solaina dashed around the table and dropped to her knees. As her fingers sought the pulse in his neck, she saw that he wasn’t breathing. “Call an ambulance!” she choked, as she opened Howard’s mouth to breathe into it.
No response.
So she gave him a thump in the chest, but that did not start his heart beating. Then, for the next ten minutes, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Solaina intermittently pounded on Howard’s chest, then breathed into his lungs, until help finally came and he was taken off to the hospital.
When Solaina followed the ambulance attendants out of the door, Victoria was still seated at the dining-room table, fussing to get the linen napkin placed properly in her lap and sipping her after-dinner coffee.
Alone.
“He’s going to make it,” David said, stepping out of the intensive care room. “His blood gases are improving and he’s beginning to breathe better. They’ve decreased his oxygen. It’s going to be rough, though. With his age…He’s going to need quite a bit of cardiac rehab and I think he’s going to have to go back to London to get it.”
Solaina was slumped against the wall in the same spot she’d been for the past twelve hours. David had been there for the last six, mostly at Howard’s bedside. “And after that?” she asked. “What is Howard supposed to do once he’s recovered?”
David pulled off his gown and dropped it into the hamper next to the door, then walked across the hall and sat down on the bench next to Solaina. “One day at a time.”
“One lousy day at a time.”
“I’m not going to press charges,” he said. “I don’t think it would serve any purpose to send Victoria to prison. And what’s done is done. With so many years together, maybe they can work something out for the ones they have left.” He paused, smiling sadly. “I hope they can.”
“I’m glad you’re doing that,” Solaina said, slipping her hand into his. “They’ve both got so much to get through now.”
“Victoria’s off in her own little world now. I talked to the authorities a while ago and they said she hadn’t come round, that she just sits and stares.”
“Waiting for the man she loves, I think.” Solaina leaned her head against David’s shoulder. She’d talked to him often since she’d left Vista. When she’d said goodbye, he hadn’t protested, hadn’t tried to convince her to stay. She’d simply said she had to go away and work it out on her own, and she’d asked him not to come after her. It had been so difficult, driving off that day, knowing how he needed her, but the Solaina who had gone away hadn’t been the one he needed, or the one she’d wanted to be.
This was the first she’d seen him in all those months, and it felt very good. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered. “Terribly.”
She laughed. “You haven’t been lurking about in the halls, watching me, as you did the first you saw me, have you?”
“Every time I get the urge, Matteo ties me up.”
“It’s nice, not having to worry about your ribs,” she said, snuggling in even tighter.
“It’s nice not having ribs that need to be worried about.” He placed a light kiss on top of her head. “And I’ve missed the jasmine, pretty lady. I’ve taken to sleeping with a bar of your jasmine soap under my pillow.”
Solaina laughed. “And I’ve planted a little rhododendron bush outside my window.” She paused. “I called my father earlier, David.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He was glad to know he’s no longer under suspicion, even though the authorities never investigated him. And he still wants me to take over as administrator of IMO. Or as nurse administrator of a hospital he’s affiliated with in Brazil. Nothing ever changes with him.”
“It has with me,” David said. “Although it took a whole hospital burning down for me to figure it out. And I’m sorry, Solaina. All the time I was insisting that you were something you insisted you were not I should have been listening to you. Listening better. And helping you get over your fears and doubts, instead of telling you they were silly. Which was what I was doing, you know.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“And all that after you’d told me how you’d spent a lifetime of being dictated to being told who you were and what you could or could not do.”
“But I allowed it, David. I knew my inadequacies, and I didn’t do anything to fix them…to fix my life. Because it was easier. Then I saw all those people at Vista who had to start over…” She shook her head. “I’ve always blamed the tragedy with Jacob Renner as my excuse for not moving on, for not doing what I really wanted to do. It was a nice safe place to hide. A nice safe place to keep myself from not getting hurt again.”
“And here I was, not listening to you, even though you kept telling me. But you’ve got to know that I never saw you as you saw yourself, Solaina. Never perceived your abilities as you did. Of course, I was hiding out in my own little world of denial, wasn’t I? Because you’re right. Sometimes it is easier. It makes us less vulnerable.”
“Or more. And I didn’t know how vulnerable I was until the night of the fire. I was in my element, directing the emergency scene, because that’s what I do. But when you told me you needed me…” She paused, weighing her next words. “That scared me so much, David, because I wanted to be everything you needed. But I couldn’t. And I don’t even know if it was my lack of skills, or…” Solaina smiled demurely “…my perception of my lack, but I truly couldn’t be what you wanted, even though I knew you loved me and would forgive me anything. Even forgive me if it turned out my father had been behind burning down the hospital. And, believe me, staying with you would have been so easy. But I couldn’t. Not with you expecting something from me that I wasn’t. It would have ruined us eventually because we don’t have the luxury of separations in our life, David. Not like many people, where the professional life stops at the threshold before the personal one begins. For us, it carries over. One is the other. Professional is personal. And I truly didn’t know if I could ever become all that you needed, David. I had to find me before I could be with you in every sense that we should be together, and you’re the only person who has ever made me want to do that.”
“I’m so sorry, Solaina. I was so caught up in loving you, and kicking myself for being bad at relationships, and not wanting to hurt you because I was so bad, that I was being horrible and hurting you in a way I didn’t even understand.”
“It wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me. It was what we’d allowed ourselves to become, I think. But we can’t do that again,” she said. “It’s about listening, David. With the heart, but in a very unromantic and practical sense, with the ears, too.”
“Even the most perfect relationships are difficult. I don’t think Howard ever listened to Victoria, not with his ears anyway, and what he saw was his perception of their marriage.”
“We all have our glitches, don’t we? But I’m becoming a good nurse, David. I’ve moaned about it for all these years, and yet I’ve never done anything about it. One of my biggest glitches perhaps. I’m working at it, though. And I’m not shabby.”
“So, toward the effort of listening better, which I promise to do, am I allowed to say that you’re not shabby?”
Solaina laughed. “It’s a start, isn’t it?”
“I think Howard would testify to that. He was asking for you a while ago, by the way. Going on and on about the not shabby way you saved his life.”
“Did he say anything about Victoria? Or ask about her?”
David shook his head. “I think he’s still in a bit of shock. Maybe he doesn’t fully realize what she’s done. Or maybe he does, and there’s nothing for him to say right now. But he loves her, and he’ll get her through it.”
“It’s so sad, to love so fiercely and to feel so alone in it. I feel sorry for her, David. I know that’s a terrible thing to say after everything she’s done, but I do feel sorry for her. She was just trying to find a way to hold onto the man she loves.”
“And you, pretty lady? Are you going to find a way to hold onto the man you love?”
Solaina pulled away from him, but didn’t answer.
“I haven’t bothered you about what you’re doing at the hospital because I admire what you’re doing, starting over. But you’ve got to know that I’ve been going crazy without you. And after what just happened with Howard and Victoria, we can’t let this drag on, Solaina. Life’s too short. We have to be together.”
“I know that. But right now I still need more time, David, before I come back to Vista as a practicing nurse.” And anything else you have in mind. “I am doing better, though. The dreams about Jacob Renner aren’t as frequent…”
“You won’t mind the bedpan brigade?”
“I’d love the bedpan brigade.”
“And changing bed linen?”
“I’m getting especially good at bed linen. Nice square corners.”
“And you wouldn’t be averse to marrying the hospital director?”
“More than anything, I wouldn’t be averse to marrying the hospital director. If the hospital director doesn’t mind his wife doing bedpans and bed linen for a while.”
“So, in the meantime, until you come home, can I sneak into the nurses’ quarters at your clinic sometimes?” he asked, pulling her back into his arms.
“I’m counting on it. I need to have someone mess up that bed linen so I can practice my square corners.” A contented sigh escaped her lips. “I’ve always loved you, David. From that first crazy moment you asked me about my trees, I knew right then I wanted more than just an arboreal relationship with you.”
He chuckled. “You never did tell me which you preferred. Evergreen or deciduous?”
“I’d prefer the one under which we could sit with our picnic hamper and pass the day making love on a blanket, I think.” She kissed him softly on the lips, then laid her head against his chest. No more running. Not ever again. For the first time in her life Solaina Léandre had everything she needed. And wanted. Thank the repaired, smiling, red-lipped Buddha David had slipped into her hands earlier and she, in turn, had slipped onto the bed stand next to Howard. Howard’s road was tough now, but she and David, and their Nirvana-gazing, red-lipped friend, would be there to help him through, as he’d done for them both.
“And permit me to say that my expectations of you under the tree are definitely not shabby.”
“Care to come back to my little room and show me some of those expectations, Casanova?”
“Care to wear an orchid over your left ear, pretty lady?” he asked, handing her a small flower box.
“For the rest of my life.”