HEARTSPRING, NORTH CAROLINA
APRIL 1995
Cecilia McAlister held her breath against the agonizing stab that shot through her. She shifted in the velvet chaise and tried to sit upright. When the pain subsided, she straightened the afghan and lay back on the pillows, breathing heavily. The slightest movement was a monumental effort now; just getting from the bed to the chaise could sap her energy for half a day.
Still, she was determined not to give in. The hospital bed—that hideous metal monster with its electronic controls, brought into this room eight months ago and installed in the corner—was her coffin. If she stayed there, she would die; she was certain of it. As long as she could get up and move to the chaise, have Vesta fix her hair and put on a little makeup, wear a nice bed jacket, hold a book on her lap, she might fend off the Intruder for a little while longer. It was a futile deception, but at least for the time being she might fool Death into believing he still had a fight on his hands.
Her breath came a little easier, and Cecilia looked around what once had been the music room of the massive house. What echoes this room held, with its grand piano and big bay windows looking over the garden. Memories of singing and laughter and voices calling her name. When she sat like this, with her back to the hospital bed, she could almost believe things were now as they once had been. She could see flowers blooming beyond the patio and watch spring storms building over the mountain vistas beyond. From the very beginning, this one room had been her refuge, her sanctuary, the single corner of the world where she felt alive and whole and—
She could barely think the word: normal. Nothing had been normal for years. And now, facing the inevitable repossession of her soul, Cecilia was forced to consider what might have been, if only she had claimed the power, years ago, to say "no" to her husband. No to his grandiose dreams, his ambition. No to his vision of what their life should be. No to—well, to a lot of things.
But no one—not even a wife—said "no" to Duncan McAlister. When he had built this house thirty years ago, he had claimed he was doing it for her—a doting husband giving the wife he loved a grand home.
But she knew the truth then as she knew it now—this house had never been built for her. It was Duncan McAlister's giant billboard, a huge, hulking "I-told-you-so" to all the people in his past who had called him a nobody, the good-for-nothing son of an alcoholic and abusive father.
Well, he had done it. He was rich. He was Somebody. A real estate mogul. Mayor of one of the Top Ten Small Towns in America. An icon. An idol. There was even talk of erecting a statue in his honor on the neatly trimmed town square.
Her husband had proved himself, Cecilia mused. But what had become of the man she had married, the gentle, wounded, compassionate boy who haunted her memories? Had he ever really existed, or had he only been a product of fantasy and imagination and wishful thinking?
She willed the question away. She didn't have enough years left—or enough energy—to answer all of life's dilemmas. You couldn't pull every loose thread, or the whole thing would unravel.
Death had a way of bringing life into focus, of distilling out peripheral concerns and leaving you with pure, undiluted, pristine truth. A truth that had to be spoken—now, quickly, while there was still time.
A line from Keats wandered through her drug-fogged mind: Truth is beauty; beauty, truth . . .
Cecilia shook her head. It sounded high and noble, such poetry, but until you had everything stripped away and were left with nothing but your last gasping breaths and a world centered in pain, you couldn't begin to imagine how infernally ugly reality could be.
The truth might set you free, but first it would drag you through hell and back.