“YOU look awfully worried,” Max said sympathetically. He handed a mug of steaming hot tea across the desk to Catherine, then sat down across from her, holding his own cup of tea. “Tea and sympathy is always a nice cure,” he said, settling in. “If you want it.”
Catherine smiled half-heartedly, then took a sip, enjoying the warmth of the liquid as it trickled down her throat. Once it had settled in her belly, she sighed. “I’m tired. That’s all it is. And…” She paused for a moment, contemplating her next words. Perhaps saying them out loud would help. And Max did have a right to know. Besides, he had such a compassionate shoulder, and so much wisdom, both of which she desperately needed right now. “And being here with Dante. I was about to book a reservation to go home for a while when all this with Johann came up.” She held up a hand to stop him from saying the obvious words. “I know. I was running away. You don’t have to point that out.”
“If you need to go that badly, then, by all means, go, my dear. If it’s something you need to settle your life, we can manage here without your for a little while. But only for a little while.”
Catherine shook her head. “I’m not going. Not with Johann sick now. We don’t have another doctor to replace him.”
“Is it the work that’s getting to you, or is it a private matter with Dante? Or am I being too personal, asking?”
“I thought I was over him, Max,” she said. “We were involved for a while, not very long, but it’s been years. I’ve been married once since that, for heaven’s sake! And yet here he is, and I’ve been a total mess since he arrived.”
“In love?”
Catherine shrugged, even though she knew.
“Well, perhaps this is something you should be telling him. Words to whisper in his ear rather than mine.” He chuckled. “Whispering the right words in the right ear can be as good for you as tea and sympathy. Better!”
“Or they can further prove how pathetic I am.”
“Falling in love isn’t pathetic. I’ve always thought it was wonderful. Rather wished I’d had time to do it more often.” Max laughed. “It does make you crazy, though, but it’s a good kind of crazy. We should all be so lucky as to be in love a time or two in our lives.”
“That depends on what you mean by good,” she said despondently. Sliding down into her chair, she took another sip of tea and felt the relaxing effect seeping in all the way to her toes. “And I think the feeling is totally underrated.”
“Underrated because he doesn’t know how you feel about him, and not knowing usually means unrequited. Is that it? Your feelings are unrequited?”
“No, that’s not the problem. They are requited. But what good would it do, telling him how I feel when we’re so wrong for each other?”
“Well, my dear, that’s something for you to figure out on your own.” He scooted to the edge of his chair, then stood to leave. “Or not.”
Catherine studied Max for a moment as he walked to the door. Many things needed figuring out, didn’t they? Dante held a piece of her life in the palm of his hand, yet so did Max. “It’s time, Max,” she said, as he reached for the doorknob.
“For what?” he said, without turning around.
“For you to tell me why me? That’s something I’ve been trying to figure out for over a year now, and you’ve put me off every time I’ve asked. It involves me and I don’t want to be left out again. Either you tell me what I want to know, or I’ll leave for good.”
He arched his eyebrows. “That’s harsh, don’t you think?”
“So is making a decision that includes me without including me. I can’t do that any more. And I can’t let you do that to me, either. So, tell me, Max. Tell me right now or you’ll have my resignation within the hour.”
“Then it seems you’re ready. I’ve wondered when that would happen.”
Perhaps she was. Perhaps she was ready for more than Max’s explanation. She drew in a slow, deep breath then let it out reluctantly. “Yes, I’m ready. Tell me why you chose me. I hadn’t practiced medicine too many years when you sought me out, I’d had no admin experience at all, and you did have several doctors here already who could have stepped into the job. But you came after me specifically, and don’t tell me it had anything to do with our brief meeting in Boston all those years ago when I sneaked into your lecture and we shared dinner afterwards, because that’s not it.”
Max drew in a ragged breath, and turned slowly to face her. “That meeting in Boston after my lecture was planned. I meant to look you up, Catherine. That wasn’t the reason for my trip there but it was at the top of my list of things I wanted to do once I’d arrived.” He paused, and Catherine didn’t know if he was putting her off once more or trying to find the right words.
She watched him walk to the window, pull back the blinds and stare outside for a full minute. He squared his shoulders, and she wondered what made this so difficult for him. “I do have a right to know,” she said gently, but more to remind herself than him.
Max nodded his head. “That you do, but it’s not so easy for me because I know how difficult your relationship with Emil Brannon was.”
“My father?” she asked, too stunned to think ahead to what her father had to do with this.
“Your father. I know how he turned his back on his family to pursue other interests, and how much that hurt you. I’ve been afraid that telling you what I have to would cause you more pain, and I’ve never wanted to do that, Catherine.”
“I wasn’t aware I’d said that much to you about him.” It was something she kept to herself. One of those deeply hurtful parts of her life that could never be resolved now that her father was dead. One of those matters best left buried with him.
“You haven’t said that much to me, Catherine But Emil did. Many times over the years. Every time you two fought, every time he pushed you away, or you pushed him away, I heard about it.”
Catherine blinked, trying to absorb what Max was saying. “You…you knew my father?”
He nodded, but said nothing.
“Tell me, Max,” she cried. “Tell me how you knew him!”
He finally turned around, and a sad smile turned down the corners of his lips. “I wasn’t always such an old, out-of-shape man, the way you see me now. Once I was quite fit. I liked to ski, to climb. I liked to take a few risks, the way Emil did. We lived similar lives, had similar fascinations.”
Catherine sucked in a sharp breath. She hadn’t expected this from Max. He was the man who fixed the broken bodies of those who lived the way her father had. He was the stability she’d never found anywhere else. That’s the only thing that made sense to her.
“I was going up Everest. Small expedition, very knowledgeable Sherpa to guide us. Met your father there. Halfway up we ran into bad weather. I didn’t want to turn back, neither did he, so we didn’t.” He drew in a ragged breath. “We thought we’d walk through the weather, or dig in and wait it out. It was bad, not horrible. So we made camp…there were five of us left at that point. And we waited.”
She’d never heard this story. Of course, she’d heard very few of her father’s stories. He’d never let her get that close to him, never let her into his life.
“After a couple of days the weather seemed to be letting up, so we decided to commence our climb again. But the weather was deceptive…a small break didn’t mean it was getting better. We walked into a total white-out, the wind so bitter and cold we couldn’t breathe, the chill so harsh it froze us. We knew it was time to go, to get off the mountain if we could. But we couldn’t. Three of our party died up there, unfortunately. They were lost…buried somewhere in the snow where we couldn’t find them and left there in a frozen grave for eternity. Emil was injured…frostbite, disorientation, lack of oxygen. I wasn’t quite so bad, but I was suffering.” He glanced down at his feet and winced. “Lost one toe on my right foot and two on my left at the end of it all.”
His slight limp! Now she understood.
“I can’t even begin to describe what it’s like being up there, knowing you’re going to die. At first you’re afraid. You fight it. You pray to God to save you. But eventually death becomes part of your reality. The fear goes away and you think death will come as a relief. Finally, you pray for it to come quickly and mercifully. All those hours…days…while Emil and I huddled together, praying alternately to be saved and to die, he talked about you. Even when he was out of his head. You were quite the young lady…so talented. We looked at the picture of you that he carried…handled it so much we wore it out in a short time.” He lifted his gaze to Catherine. “Emil loved you, Catherine. You were his passion and his greatest pride.”
“Then why didn’t he stop? After his Everest climb, after he’d been so close to death, why didn’t he stop? We wanted him to. My mother and I begged…” With the back of her hand Catherine swiped angrily at the tears spilling down her cheeks. “Why didn’t he love me enough to come home and be my father?”
“He loved you to distraction, but you can’t change the nature of a man, my dear. Your father was who he had to be, and I can’t offer you another explanation. I don’t think he always liked what he did, I know he despised himself for always putting his family second, but I don’t think he could control it.”
“But you stopped, Max. Didn’t you stop?”
He shrugged. “Because I was who I had to be…a doctor. That was always first in my life, and it was a promise I made to myself when we were up there. That if we got back, I would do what I was meant to do. “
“Up on Everest, how did you get back?”
“The weather did let up a bit. Emil was unconscious by then, or at least lapsing in and out. Physically, I was doing a little better than he was. We’d been huddled together in our tent for days, dying inch by inch, and I decided that I’d give it one last go. Either get us both off the mountain or end the ordeal.” He shuddered. “You see bodies up there. Those left behind and frozen. But I was a doctor and I couldn’t leave Emil there. That went against who I was, so…”
“You carried him down,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “You carried my father off the mountain. I remember my father speaking of the doctor who’d carried him down from a mountain, but that’s all I ever knew. He would tell the story in whispers to his friends, tell it when he thought I wasn’t listening.”
Max nodded. “Like I said, we have to be true to who we are. I couldn’t have done anything else. And afterwards…your father was grateful. The money to start this clinic came from his pocket, not mine. It’s one of the things we talked about when we were up there…regrets for the things we hadn’t done. Mine was this clinic. It was always my dream, but I was never able to afford it when I was younger.”
“Did he have any regrets?” she asked tentatively.
“Many,” Max said. “And all were about his family. He regretted not being a better husband, regretted not being a better father. Regretted the compulsion in him that split him apart from his family. Regretted that he could not overcome it. Most of all, though, he regretted missing your life. But he said that with the way he lived, he always knew death was a possibility, so he stayed away from you, pushed you away so that wouldn’t touch you so badly if he did die. He always said he didn’t want to spoil the one perfect thing in his life with the way he lived his life.”
“He stayed away from me to protect me?” she cried. “Because he loved me?”
Max nodded.
“How could he, Max? All I ever wanted was to be important to him. All I ever wanted was to know that he loved me.”
“You were important, Catherine. But he knew he was a man obsessed by something that could hurt you deeply.”
“I’m not a weak person,” Catherine said.
“No, you’re not. But Emil always saw you as someone he had to protect. The way a father protects a child. That was the only way he knew to be your father.”
“Yet he wouldn’t tell me. And he let me lash out at him so many times, push him away, tell him I hated him.” She was quiet for a few moments, too numb to think, to hurt to make full sense of what she was hearing. “Because he loved me?”
“Because he loved you.”
So much remorse, so much regret…so much pain, when a few simple words could have healed so much. She couldn’t think about it, couldn’t make sense yet of how her father had twisted her life in so many ways…ways that had hurt everyone. All these years of feeling so…so alone, so rejected. Years that could have been cured with a few simple words. Daddy, she thought. How could you?
Because he’d loved her. Max wouldn’t lie about that. Her father had loved her and while that didn’t make her feel any better now, in time she hoped it would. “He lent you the money for the clinic,” she finally said, because there was nothing else to say, nothing that could make right all the wrong.
Max shook his head. “Not lent. He gave me the money. He wanted his life to stand for something permanent. Something meaningful.”
“And I wasn’t?”
“You were, Catherine, but I think it’s going to take a while for you to know that in your heart, for you to fully understand why Emil did what he did. He broke your heart, but his heart was broken, too.”
If her father hadn’t been able to say these things to her, why had her mother not said them? Why on earth had her mother not spoken of the things Max was now speaking of? Had her hurt run so deeply, too? Had her mother been shut out the way she had been, as a way to protect her from what her own husband had thought was inevitable? Then she, in turn, had shut out her daughter because that’s all she knew how to do? “They wouldn’t let me be included, Max. I lived on the outside always looking in.”
“Because they didn’t know how to do it differently. Parents aren’t perfect people, Catherine. They can make horrendous mistakes, even if for the right reasons.”
Catherine’s tears had stopped for a moment, but now they were flowing again. “This was my father’s clinic, so why didn’t you name it after him?”
“In my heart, yes, it was his clinic. He refused to have his name on it, though, because he was a humble man. A truly humble man. And he wanted no interest in the clinic in any material way. But Emil did make this clinic possible, and after I learned that you were going to be a rehabilitation specialist, I knew I wanted you here. It seemed fitting.”
“Yet you refused to tell me why.”
“Because you weren’t ready. I know you loved your father, Catherine. But you also have so much bitterness in your heart for him, and I didn’t think you were ready for the truth. You might not have come here, or stayed. You had to learn to love this place, and find the passion for it that I have. Now, though, you’re on the verge of the same conflicts you had with your father, but for another man you love. To resolve one is to resolve the other.”
“You made the decision for me!” she cried bitterly. “Don’t you understand? All this time when I wanted to know…”
“But did you, Catherine? Did you really want to know? Because you always stepped back when I refused to tell you and accepted my decision. You never demanded to know. And with Emil, did you ever demand to know why he pushed you away, or was it easier to accept that without a fight, too?”
“That’s not fair,” she cried. “You weren’t there. You didn’t know.”
“What I know is that it’s often easier to acquiesce. If we do that, if we let them have their way, maybe they’ll love us more. You’re a gentle soul, Catherine. You know how to fight for your patients, but you’ve never known how to fight for yourself. And, yes, that’s your father’s fault. You tried too hard to be the good little girl he would love, but you were fighting against a man who had his own demons to deal with.”
“When I begged my father, he always said I was breaking his heart…”
“So you quit begging. Quit asking. Quit imposing yourself. You just stepped back and let it happen. It became a habit, my dear. To get people to like you…”
Catherine shuddered, and wrapped her arms protectively around herself. What Max was saying was true. She saw that now. “Begging and asking didn’t work. My father never gave up his lifestyle, not even after he almost died. So everything I wanted, every time I begged…all empty words. How can I resolve that, Max?” she cried, her tears now turning to sobs. “How can I resolve that in my father, or even in Dante? He’s just like my father. Shouldn’t love be enough to make either of them quit doing the things that shut out the people they love?”
“Shouldn’t love be enough to support them if they don’t? The best life isn’t measured in quantity, Catherine, but in quality. Your father suffered for what he lost, as I suspect your Dante does. It broke Emil’s heart in the end, because he knew he’d lost you, knew he’d pushed you too far away.”
“And it broke our hearts,” she whispered. “My mother’s and mine.” She swiped at the tears again, then looked up at Max. “Did you make a promise to my father to bring me here to work? Is that why you asked me to take over here, and why you’re giving me part-ownership? Because you feel obligated to him?”
Max shook his head. “I asked you here because you are so much like your father. He was a strong, wise man, and a man filled with much compassion. More than anything, though, he had such a passion for life. I saw that in you the first time we met. I saw Emil in you, and that’s when I knew you had to be the one. My wife left me when I was young…left me because she couldn’t abide my lifestyle then, all the risks I took. So I had no children, no son or daughter to go to medical school and take over here for me. But that time up on Everest, when Emil talked about you, and we looked at your picture…he was so proud that you wanted to go to medical school, to become a doctor. He told me that it would vindicate his worthless life.”
“But he didn’t lead a worthless life,” she cried.
“For him, failing at the things that mattered most to him made his life worthless. You and your mother mattered most but he wouldn’t allow you to get close enough to know that.”
“You were right,” Catherine whispered, pulling open her desk drawer and grabbing a box of tissues. “I wasn’t ready for this before…not sure I’m ready now.” So many things about her father she’d never known…never understood.
“Everything in its own good time, Catherine. You had to demand this from me. You had to make it your choice and not mine. You’re such a fighter, but never for yourself, for what you want. I think the term is tender-hearted.”
“Or cowardly.” She did run away, figuratively speaking. It was easier, and blaming her parents convenient. Blaming her ex-husband, blaming Dante…”Maybe I’m just a coward.”
“Not a coward. Just someone who grew up in a tough situation and coped the only way she knew how. But I’ve watched you this past year, watched you make this clinic your own, and I know you love it now. And nobody here pushes you around, Catherine. You’ve learned to be in charge of what you want.” Max ambled to the door, then paused before stepping into the hall. “And for what it’s worth, you’ve truly grown into the position here. Initially, I wanted you because you were your father’s daughter, but I’ve kept you and offered you part-ownership because you are who you are. You always make the right decisions and there’s no doubt who’s in charge. Now it’s time to do the same in your personal life.”
If there was one word that could have adequately described how she was feeling, it was numb. Six hours after Max had told her about her father, and pointed out her rather dismaying character flaw she’d have preferred not being forced into thinking about, she still wasn’t able to feel anything. She’d bundled up, trudged across the compound to her little house, then huddled under a blanket in front of the fireplace, brooding. The fire had long since burnt down to embers and a chill had filled the room, but she didn’t care. Getting up and adding more logs required an effort she simply couldn’t make right now. The funny thing was, she couldn’t even think, either. She wanted to think about her father, try and put some sense to the things she’d never known about him. Things she’d never admitted about herself. But she was blotting him out. Blotting out everything. Just knowing that he’d loved her, and how his heart had been broken for it, stopped her from thinking beyond that. If only she’d known all this before he’d died.
She couldn’t think about Dante, either. Somehow her mind wasn’t processing the difficult situations in her life, the ones thrust upon her, the ones she’d created herself. They were there, but not in a seamless form right now. More like bits and pieces floating around, pinging her with little notions that made no sense.
She’d actually dialed her mother’s phone number hours ago, thinking that they should talk. But she’d hung up after the second ring. This wasn’t the time. She wasn’t ready. And it was something best done in person.
So she’d watched the fire burn down, going from flame to a flicker, and deliberately filled her mind with work matters, the inconsequential things that took up space in her thoughts—purchase orders, work schedules. She’d forced her concentration on these things until they’d dwindled to the point that she was merely watching the fire, thinking nothing. That, right then, was a good thing as the weather outside was turning bad, and she didn’t want to think about how it had turned bad on her father that day up on Everest. Or how it had turned bad that day when Dante had crashed. A horrendous snowstorm for her father, a simple light rain for Dante. Bad results. Shutting out the emotions and the people she shouldn’t have shut out—even worse results.
As the flames died to sparks, however, and the numbness inside her died down with it, all she had left were thoughts about the things she didn’t want to think about yet. So she forced herself out of her stupor, threw off her blanket, and trudged back outside and across to the clinic.
At the door to Aeberhard, she paused for a moment, looking up at the sky. It was a beautiful night, really. Snowing, but in a peaceful way. It reminded her of words from the old Christmas hymn…” All is calm, all is bright.”
If only she could find that same peace in her soul. That same calmness. That same brightness.
Dante closed the children’s book and laid it aside. Gianni was asleep now, curled up in the bed right next to him. He would be going home tomorrow, back to Tuscany, and already Dante missed him. But in another week or so, he’d be going home, too. He looked forward to that. Looked forward to stepping back into his life. But he also dreaded it, because he knew Catherine would never be part of that life. The space between them was too great and, no matter what his feelings for her, he didn’t see how anything could change.
In the end, he was still a race driver, and she’d never accept that. It frightened her and that wouldn’t change. To be true to himself meant to be without Catherine, and to have Catherine meant he couldn’t be true to himself. This was the race he could not win and, to be honest, there wasn’t even any point lining up at the starting line.
Dante stretched out alongside Gianni, reflecting on the amazing ways his life had changed, having this child with him now. Dario’s gift to him, and the reason he’d come to understand the true nature of his soul. He’d always loved Gianni, at first as a nephew and now as a son. The responsibility of raising him had scared him to death at the start, and still did sometimes. But they were growing up together, as well as growing together. Just the two of them…Sometimes, though, when he closed his eyes, the two of them turned into three. A perfect image, and another piece of his soul. If only he knew how to get through to Catherine.
But Catherine didn’t want to be reached, or touched. So, no matter what he felt, it didn’t matter.
Sighing, Dante pulled Gianni into his arms and held him close. The boy needed to go off to his own bed to sleep, but not for a few more minutes.
The following morning the snow was coming down harder, and Catherine was glad to be safe and warm inside. She needed that security right now, when so many other things in her life were turning upside down. The interaction between Gianni and Dante, which she was watching through the glass in the door, was amazing. Dante was a natural with the boy, and the boy responded as any boy would with his father.
The way she would have responded to her father had he let her.
Dante and Gianni had been swimming for several minutes already, Dante as part of his physical therapy and Gianni for the fun of it. That’s one of the things she dearly loved about Aeberhard—the traditional medical and therapy lines were not drawn too hard. Where was it written that physical therapy had to be rigorous exercise, and where was it written that physical therapy could not be playtime in a swimming pool between father and son, like she was watching?
Dante was getting better and stronger every day. The function in his ankle was improving, the range of motion much improved. He did still have some residual weakness after long periods of time on his feet or strenuous exercise, but even that was steadily improving. Although she was no longer his physician—that duty had been turned over to Friedrich Rilke now, in the best interests of all involved—she did still keep a close watch on his progress as she did with all the patients here. Another week and Dante would be ready to leave.
A lump formed in Catherine’s throat as she peeked through the window at them. Even in her brief marriage she’d never wanted the coziness of a relationship like she was seeing now. Hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t planned it. Pulled away from it. She wasn’t sure what she’d planned on happening after the wedding vows. “Because Robert wasn’t you,” she said sadly, watching Dante climb out of the pool. She’d only loved Dante. She knew that now. More, she would never love anyone else that way.
She was at her desk an hour later when a tiny knock at the door barely caught her attention.
“I came to say goodbye,” Gianni said from the doorway, not coming fully into her office. “My grandpa and Uncle Cristofor are taking me back home now, so my papa can rest more.”
“Does your father know you’re here?” she asked.
Gianni shook his head. “He’s talking to my grandfather about race things. But I know my way around here now. I won’t get lost this time. Your hospital is very small.”
Brave child. He knew what he wanted and went after it. She admired that, especially in someone so young. Things could have been so different for her if she’d been more like Gianni, or her father had been like Dante, who included his child no matter what he had to do, who he had to fight. “Do you know your way to the kitchen?” she asked.
Gianni nodded. “Greta, the cook, gives me biscuits when I stop there.”
“Want to stop off there now?” she asked. “I could use a fresh biscuit myself.” Catherine stood, walked around her desk, then held out her hand to Gianni. “Then we’d better get back to your father’s suite before he misses you.”
“You can sneak me in again,” Gianni said, grinning up shyly at her. “My papa won’t see me.”
A child who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to say so. Dante was, indeed, doing a very good job even with a difficult life. He was everything a father should be.
Dante waved goodbye one more time as the car drove through the Aeberhard gates. In another week they’d be back together again. But that seemed so long.
For a moment, during his last hug from Gianni, he’d thought about calling it quits here and going with them. He’d made good progress and surely he could find another therapist in Tuscany to continue what had been started here. Hell, he could probably pay Hans enough to go with him for a couple of weeks. Money was money, and he had enough for two lifetimes.
He’d actually come within a breath of making the offer. But the thought of Catherine…He couldn’t walk away. Not yet. Not like before, with so many things left undecided, unspoken. All those years ago, when he’d walked away from her he’d made terrible mistakes…a whole string of them, one after the other. Of course, there weren’t any rules for what he had been going through at the time, nothing to tell him what he had to do, and how he had to do it. It had been an overwhelming time in his life, giving up something he desperately wanted in order to take up something from which he’d already turned away.
He hadn’t been thinking. Not for months, maybe years. Then, by the time that his life had found its groove, there’d been too many things done that couldn’t be undone.
Catherine was one of them. She’d told him she hated him. After words like that, there was nowhere left to go. Nothing left to do. No more reasons to try because he hated himself.
But, damn it, he loved her. Then…now…Sometimes, though, love wasn’t enough. If it was, Dario wouldn’t have died.
As the black limousine sped down the slippery drive and disappeared through the gates, its form becoming a black speck in the falling snow, Dante turned around and walked slowly back through the clinic doors. So much of what he loved had driven away, yet so much of what he loved sat locked in an office down the hall. He wanted it all. The problem was, he didn’t know how he could have it.
Or if he even deserved it.