A Minute to Smile Read online

  Alexander remained distantly friendly with her. She kept half expecting him to take her aside and explain that he needed some time to assimilate the new fear he felt. Another part of her was amazed that he could so completely shut her out after the things they had shared. How could he look at her and not remember the wild passion that had marked these past few weeks? How could he simply walk away from the transcendent beauty of their joining, turn his back on the holiness that had permeated the exchange of their souls?

  And yet, even as she wondered, she knew. The control that so marked his mastery of tai chi, the concentration that had seen him through two devastating losses in his life, now served to see that he would not suffer another.

  In another time, another place, Esther would have instinctively reached out to try to help him, to try to soothe the virulent pain she sometimes saw in his changeable eyes. Not now. Between meeting her sons’ need of her and her own needs, she had nothing left.

  One afternoon, Alexander came in a few minutes before supper. Jeremy had drifted off to sleep and Esther smiled. “You just missed him.”

  He glanced away, then back at her. “I really came to see you today,” he said, but the words were so terribly formal Esther heard them with dread.

  “All right. Shall we go have a glass of lemonade or something?”

  “Actually it won’t take long.” He touched his beard as if weighing his words, then handed her the papers he carried in his hands. “Watching you the past few days here, I’ve realized how good a nurse you’ll be. I hope you’ll give serious thought to completing your degree.”

  Esther looked at the sheaf of forms and smiled. “When you gave these to me the first time, I was terrified,” she said quietly, then looked at him. “But now I know how much I’ve missed—” she waved to the room, encompassing everything “—all of this. As much as I’ve hated Jeremy being a patient, I’ve loved having the excuse to be here. I always tell the children that they should do what they love when they grow up. It’s time I took my own advice.”

  “Good for you, Esther.” His eyes softened momentarily, then shuttered tight once more. He swallowed. “There’s something else I want to say.”

  Her heart plummeted. “Don’t. Let’s just let it go.” She bit her lip as tears threatened to choke her. “I’ve loved being with you, Alexander, but I really do understand.”

  For a long, long moment, he simply looked at her across the room and Esther saw it all—the love he held for not only her, but for her children; the joy he’d known, the bleakness that had once again stolen the joy away. Then it was gone, and his eyes shone an opaque, even blue with no flicker of silver or turquoise or anything else. “I’m sorry, Esther.”

  “I’m not.’’

  There was nothing else to say then, and he turned to go. “I have you scheduled for one more class—this coming Thursday. I’ll wrap up the lecture for you, shall I?”

  “No, Alexander, I think I’d like to do it myself.”

  He nodded. “I’ll see you then.”

  For the last time. It was unspoken, but very clear.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By some miracle, the electricians finished their job on Monday and Esther was able to bring Jeremy home on Tuesday. The carpenters still had a few loose ends to finish off, but it was nothing they couldn’t do with people in the house.

  The smell of fresh lumber hung in the rooms, and after getting her son settled on the couch with his electronic piano, Esther went around admiring the new outlets and fixtures that had been installed. She’d always loved the old-fashioned push-button light switches, but even the loss of them didn’t mar her swelling pride. The house had been saved. As far as she was concerned, that was quite an accomplishment.

  John brought Daniel home that same night, and as her eldest came up the walk, his dark hair shining, Esther burst out of the house to pick him up. “Oh, I missed you,” she whispered.

  “Where’s Jeremy?” he asked anxiously. “I thought he came home from the hospital.” In his hands was a package wrapped in Sesame Street paper, fastened with an excess of tape.

  “He’s right inside, sweetie.”

  Daniel jumped up the porch steps, Esther and John following behind.

  “Hi, Jer,” Daniel said quietly. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Look at my black eyes!” He opened his lids exaggeratedly wide.

  “Wow.” Daniel murmured in the same tone an adult would have used to let a child know how wonderful he thought he was.

  “You should have seen them before,” Jeremy said with the air of one who’s lived an extraordinary amount. “They were real bad, huh, Mommy?”

  “Pretty bad,” Esther agreed.

  Daniel thrust the package at his brother. “I got you a get well present. I picked it out myself.”

  Jeremy tore open the paper and chortled with glee at the enclosed gift—a set of electronic drumsticks. “All right! Now we can play together!”

  “Oh, boy,” Esther said dryly, with a sidelong look at her former husband.

  “I swear, Daniel picked them out. I had nothing to do with it.”

  She glanced back to the faces of her children. Both were radiant, Daniel’s with the pride of having picked the right gift, Jeremy’s with being the recipient of such careful, loving attention. As she watched, Daniel rubbed his brother’s shoulders lightly, the attentive elder brother.

  Her eyes misted dangerously and she waved a hand toward John. “Let’s leave them alone for a minute.”

  In the kitchen, he squatted on the stool, accepting the glass of lemonade she poured for him. “This was pretty hard on Daniel,” he said. “He said about a hundred prayers a day for him.”

  “Poor baby.” It occurred to her that Daniel was a lot like Alexander. Both of them were unable to protect themselves against negative emotions—or positive ones for that matter. Swallowing, she pushed the thought of Alexander out of her mind. It was too late for him, but maybe she could prepare her son to face a world that was sometimes harsh.

  “Is Jeremy okay now?”

  “He’ll be fine,” she said with a smile. “It’ll be a few weeks before he can try to kill himself again, but there won’t be any permanent damage.”

  John frowned and laced his fingers around his lemonade glass. “Esther, I’ve always liked the way you raised these boys, but the next time that child does something around me to nearly kill himself, I will blister his little behind till he can’t sit down.” He rubbed his face. “Lost ten years of my life when I saw him in that stall.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “We’ll work it out. We’ll teach him.” She turned away, ostensibly putting the lemonade back into the fridge, but really gathering her courage. “John, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “What? Are you gettin’ married?”

  She couldn’t quell the quick surge of pain that sliced through her at his words. A small voice in her heart cried the name of the man who had given her back her dream, and she looked at her hands. “No,” she said softly, then looked at him. “I’m going to finish my nursing degree. Jeremy will be in school in the fall, and I’ll have time.”

  He nodded, waiting for her to continue.

  “What I need from you is time, John. I need your help with the children.”

  “What are you gonna do about the store?”

  “I’ve thought about that, too. I’m going to ask Abe if he’d like to live here—rent free—and tend the store while I’m in class. He’s really been much happier since he started working here.”

  John lifted his glass and drank before he spoke. “I’ve always felt bad about your degree, Esther. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  She hugged him impulsively. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Esther.” A rare huskiness touched his voice, but he untangled himself quickly. “Don’t get all mushy, now. I’m just returning the favor.”

  “Okay,” she said with a laugh.

  As she saw him out, she was
grateful for their friendship, for her children, for her new wiring, for her renewed dream.

  Why then, did she feel so lost?

  * * *

  When Abe came in the following day to help her return the store to order, he was gray and wan. Esther took one alarmed look at his face and sat him down on a chair, rushing to fix a cup of restorative tea. “You have no business being out today,” she said.

  “I threw my back out, Esther,” he said with annoyance. “It’s not like I’ve got some dread disease or anything.” He rubbed the spot. “Not like Alexander.”

  She swallowed, her hands frozen on the cup. “What do you mean?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t play dumb with me, Esther Lucas. I’ve known you for twenty years or better.”

  “I haven’t seen him in several days, for your information. How could I know what’s wrong with him?”

  “You know.” He glared at her. “You’re the one who broke his heart.”

  “I’m the one!” She slammed the mug down on the table, jarring spoons in a basket. “He’s the one that walked away from me, not the other way around.”

  Abe shook his head. “I watched you both in the hospital that night. He was torn to shreds by what happened to Jeremy, and you plain wouldn’t look at him.”

  “I had a child who needed me.”

  “Not as bad as a certain man did.” He looked at her hard. “You’re just so sure you don’t deserve something good that you went out of your way to let him go.”

  A surge of fury swept through her—the blinding anger of someone who doesn’t get angry often. “You have some nerve, Mr. Smith. You played matchmaker with me, without my permission, with a man who had the kind of wounds you knew I wanted to avoid.”

  She stepped forward, pointing at him with a finger. “You knew I didn’t want that, you knew I had a history of being the fix-it lady. And you brought me Alexander.”

  “And you fell in love,” he said quietly.

  Esther bit her lip. “Yes.” The word was a whisper. He reached for her hand. “Esther, he loves you, too. You can’t just give up like this. It’s such a waste.”

  Firmly Esther shook her head. “Abe, I can’t heal him. Only he has that power.”

  “I agree with you. You can’t be the fix-it lady, but you can let him know you’re there for him.”

  A flare of hope, orange against the sorrow of the past few days, soared through her. But cautiously, she shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.”

  But somehow, his words lingered. After supper, the children brought coloring books outside while she did some long-neglected weeding in the herb garden. Their voices reached her, sweet and reassuring as she knelt amid the lavender, plucking stubborn dandelions from between the roots. The heady scent of the flowering lavender filled her nostrils and reached through her defenses to dissolve the barriers she’d erected against thoughts of Alexander. Since the night in the herb garden, the pungent scent had always made her think of him.

  Now as her hands brushed the aromatic leaves, she let him flow into her mind, whole and complete. Abe said she needed to let him know she was there for him. Perhaps she did.

  But he had to understand she could promise nothing. There were no promises in life. No guarantees of happiness or eternal bliss.

  Rocking back on her heels, she looked at her children. Suddenly she remembered when she’d finally gotten a handle on the problems of mortality herself. A smile of inspiration bloomed on her face. There was one class lecture left. Perhaps she could give Alexander a key to opening the rest of his life.

  And for once, she wasn’t thinking like a healer, but like a queen whose king thought the kingdom had fallen. Somehow, she had to find a way to make him see that it was only a trick of the light that made him think so.

  * * *

  Alexander stood nervously in his classroom Thursday morning, wondering if his armor would hold up when Esther appeared. A handful of students drifted in, laughing among themselves, and then a few more. Another one, by himself. No Esther.

  Five minutes after class officially began, he glanced at his watch once more and frowned. “I thought Ms. Lucas would be here to finish her series, but it looks as if she’s been detained.” A gut-wrenching clutch of disappointment struck him, but he covered it by consulting his notes. “In her absence, I’ll finish my own series.”

  “No, I’m here,” came a breathless voice behind him.

  He turned, bracing himself, adjusting his mental armor. “Good,” he said, his voice remarkably calm.

  And then he looked at her. Her pale red hair was loose around her porcelain face, her cheeks flushed.

  She smiled briefly at him, as if there had never been anything but a casual friendship between them, then turned toward the class. “Sorry I’m late, everyone,” she said and settled one hip against the desk at the front of the class. “Let’s get started.”

  Alexander walked to the back of the room and instead of taking his usual seat, leaned against the wall. She wore her damned yellow blouse, the first thing he’d ever seen her in. The pale expanse of exposed shoulders seemed to glow with an inner source of pearlescent light. He found himself devouring the swell of her breasts, the sensual roundness of her arms, the lush curve of her hips.

  With a flash of accursed heat, he recalled in vivid detail how her throat had tasted beneath his tongue, how beautifully pagan she had been the night in his office with the moon floating over her naked breasts like a silver scarf.

  He turned away, looking out the window while she talked.

  “I won’t take long today,” she said. “We’ve covered almost everything I know about medicine in the dark ages, and I think you’ve received a suitably gloomy picture.”

  An appreciative laugh met her words.

  “Today I think I want to share an angle of life in those bygone days that we could learn from now, an attitude that stemmed directly from the harsh reality those people faced day in and day out.”

  Listening, Alexander tautened, sensing her next words would be directed at him. It took everything he had to keep himself from turning back to listen, but he thought again of the bleakness that so tormented him and hardened his resolve.

  “Modern people,” she said, “expect guarantees in everything. And when life doesn’t conform to their demands for perfection, they sue doctors and hospitals and look for someone to blame. People spend years in bitter fights with the courts, trying to fix blame for things there is no answer for.”

  Alexander turned, narrowing his eyes. A hard thudding in his chest made him feel light-headed. And still she didn’t look at him.

  “I’ve recently been through a harrowing experience with one of my children, and it reminded me of my own wish, once, upon a time, that I could get a guarantee.” She paused, her hands folded in her lap. “Not many of you probably have children, but let me tell you, a baby is one of the smallest, most helpless creatures you will ever encounter. I’d been studying nursing when my first child was born, and I knew every possible disease and injury that could happen to him.” She grinned ruefully. “I was a wreck, wondering how I could possibly survive if something happened to him—and it seemed like almost anything could happen. So, I had another baby—just in case.”

  Her expression sobered. “It didn’t help. My love and my worries were just doubled. It seemed dangerous to love anything as much as I loved those two tiny, helpless babies.”

  Alexander felt his throat tighten until he could barely breathe.

  “One afternoon, I was driving on the highway with my new baby and his slightly older brother. And a truckload of construction workers drove by. They all started whooping and hollering,” she said dryly, and looked at some of the women in class with a raised eyebrow. “You know what I mean.”

  Laughter rippled through the room.

  “Anyway, I looked at all those big, strong men who looked as if a falling tree couldn’t hurt them and I realized that every single one of them had once bee
n a baby.”

  Still she didn’t look at Alexander. “It’s a miracle that any of us are even conceived, much less grow up and grow old. In the dark ages, they survived by remembering that miracle of each and every day. They survived in spite of horrors we can’t even contemplate now by meeting each day as it came and celebrating the turn of the seasons with festivals and feasts.”

  Finally she lifted her serious brown eyes to Alexander’s face. “As far as I’m concerned, that was the best medicine they could have had—and it probably beats the heck out of a lot of things we have now.”

  She stood up. “It’s been great, guys. Good luck.” With a swirl of her paisley skirt, she walked out.

  * * *

  It had been an hour since Esther had left his class, and Alexander’s hands were still shaking. Her lecture had not been directed to the class, but to him.

  God help him, but he missed her. He missed the children and the noise, missed her clutter. He wanted her so fiercely he thought of almost nothing else. Everywhere he went, everything he did echoed with Esther’s imprint.

  So now, in the high noon of a Colorado mountain summer, he walked. Through parks and streets, past shops and restaurants, through business districts and residential settlements. Walked until his legs ached.

  He walked until he stood beside Susan’s grave. He stared at the gray headstone for a long time, trying to bring her face alive in his mind. Instead he saw Esther’s and Daniel’s and Jeremy’s.

  As if echoing his mood, a bank of dark clouds had gathered over the mountains, and a gust of wind swept through the graveyard, kicking up leaves and old flowers. He blinked.

  What if it were Esther, lying here below the cold earth? Or Jeremy or Daniel?

  What if?

  A pigeon cooed mournfully. The wind gusted. And a soft, gentle rain began to pour from the sky—a rarity in this land of quick, brutal storms.