Donovan's Child (7 page)

She got there before Luisa. She chose a booth with a clear view of the door and ordered coffee for both of them.

Luisa arrived a few minutes later, wearing a snug-fitting V-neck navy blue knit dress and navy blue heels as high as the ones she'd worn the night before. She spotted Abilene immediately and her face lit up with her gorgeous, open smile. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

Luisa hurried to join her in the booth. “So you came,” she said, leaning across the table, pitching her voice to just above a whisper. “I wasn't sure you would make it.”

Abilene frowned. “But I said I would be here.”

“You did. But I thought that Donovan would try to change your mind about meeting me alone.”

“He did try. But as you can see, my mind is my own.”

“Yes, I do see.” Luisa said the words approvingly. “But Donovan can be very persuasive, as I'm sure you know.”

“Persuasive?” Abilene laughed at that. “No. That's not a word I would use to describe him. He's gruff and exacting. Demanding. Overbearing. Sometimes cruel,
though not so much lately. But persuasive? Uh-uh. Not in the least.”

“He
used
to be persuasive.”

“Yeah? Well, he used to be a lot of things.”

Luisa leaned even closer. She reached out, touched the back of Abilene's hand. “He's changed a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“He must guess that we'll talk about him. He'll hate that.”

“Too bad.”

The waitress came over. Luisa introduced them. “Margie, this is Abilene….”

When Margie had taken their orders and left them alone, Luisa sipped her coffee and leaned close again. “I do have a few questions. And I'm thinking it will be easier to get the answers from you than from Donovan.”

“Ask. Please.”

“I heard he had an accident during one of his climbing trips….”

Abilene quickly filled Luisa in on all she knew, from the fall on Dhaulagiri One, to the days alone in the ice cave, to the chain of surgeries. She spoke of his dedication to his physical rehabilitation. And she included what Donovan had told her the morning Ben left—that he
could
walk, though with difficulty, using crutches.

“He seems so sad,” said Luisa. At Abilene's nod, she asked, “So what is this project you're working on with him?”

Abilene told her about the children's center, explained that she was the architect who'd won the fellowship he'd offered.

Margie came with the food. She gave them more coffee and left them alone again.

Luisa said, “I remember, a couple of years ago, he
mentioned a plan he had to build a center in San Antonio for children in need. He was passionate about that.”

“Well, it's finally happening. We're pulling the design together now. In a few weeks, we'll…” She corrected herself. “
I'll
be going back to SA, to supervise construction.”

“He won't go with you? But why not?”

“He says he'll never work again.”

“But that's impossible. He loves his work.”

“I know. But he says that's all over now.”

“He used to travel often, all around the world, building fine hotels, houses for rich people, museums, skyscrapers….”

Abilene set down her slice of toast after only nibbling the crust. “It seems so wrong, I know. He's locked himself up in his house. He won't come out and he won't let anyone in.”

“But he let you in.”

“I think he finally felt he had to. For the sake of the children who need the center we're building.”

“And you've helped him,” Luisa said.

“I don't know if I'd go that far.”

“Abilene, you let
me
in. And he allowed it.”

“Yeah. That's true. He did. Finally.”

“You're changing his mind,” said Luisa, as if it were such a simple, obvious thing. “You're making him see that life goes on—and life is good. That there's hope and there's meaning. That he can't hide in his house forever, nursing his injuries, feeling sorry for himself. That there's more of life ahead for him, much more. Years and years.”

Abilene blew out a breath. “You make it all sound so…possible.”

“But of course, it's possible. You're showing him that it is.”

“I've been trying, believe me. I don't know
why
I'm trying, exactly. But I am.” She fiddled with her napkin, smoothing it on her lap, though it really didn't require smoothing. “I can't…seem to stop myself.”

Luisa said simply, “You care for him. There's no shame in that.”

She glanced up, met the other woman's waiting eyes. “But I…”

Luisa's smile was soft and knowing. “Yes?”

“Well, I only mean…” She felt suddenly breathless, awkward and tongue-tied. “It's not that we're…intimate. We're not.”

Luisa ate a careful bite of her breakfast. “But you do care for him, don't you?”

Abilene sat up straighter. Why should that be so difficult to admit? “Yes, all right. I do. I care for him.” A low, confused sound escaped her. “But the way he behaves a lot of the time, I have no idea why.”

Luisa laughed. “I know what you mean. Caring for him has to be a very tough job, given the way he is now. But someone's got to do it, got to reach out for him, got to…stick with him, no matter how hard he seems to be pushing everyone away.”

“Yeah.” Abilene laughed, too, though it came out sounding forced. “I guess I should look at it that way.”

“And he is stronger than he knows.”

“Oh, Luisa. You think so?”

“I know so. He will come back, to himself, to the world.”

“I hope you're right.”

“Trust me. I know him. Yes, he suffered a terrible accident. So?” She waved a hand, an airy gesture. “What
is all that? What are months of operations and painful rehabilitation? Nothing. Less than nothing, next to losing a child…”

Abilene didn't know what to say. “Luisa, I'm so sorry. I had no idea you'd lost a child.”

Luisa pressed her hand against the small gold crucifix at her throat. “Oh, no. Not me.”

“But you said—”

“I meant of
his
child. Donovan's child. Elias.”

A
bilene could not draw breath.

She felt, suddenly, the same as she had back in the third grade, when the class bully, Billy Trumball, had punched her in the stomach for coming to the defense of a smaller boy. That punch had really knocked the wind out of her. It was an awful, scary feeling, to fear her breath would never come, to gape for air like a landed fish.

She pressed her hand to her stomach, hard. And all at once the air rushed in again. She managed to whisper, “I didn't know….”

Luisa seemed shocked. “He never told you?”

Abilene shook her head. “I know I said we weren't intimate. But even that's an exaggeration. We are so much less than intimate. We're not friends, not even close. I find that I want to understand him, you know? But he's not an easy man to understand. And Ben—Donovan's assistant?”

“Oh, yes. I remember Ben.”

“Actually, he quit last Monday, which is another story altogether. But what I'm getting at is that Ben and I, well, I thought we got along. We talked some, about Donovan. About what had happened to make him retreat from the world. I guess I thought I knew more than I did.”

“Ben never told you…?”

“Not a word. And Donovan never so much as hinted at such a thing.” She leaned across the table, pitched her voice to a whisper. “I just can't believe I never knew. Donovan's a famous man—I mean, to another architect, like me, he's pretty much a living legend. You'd think I would have heard from someone, at some point, that there was a child. And then there's Dax….”

“Dax? I don't know him.”

“Dax Girard, my new brother-in-law. He and my baby sister got married a few weeks ago. Dax
knows
Donovan. Not really well, I don't think. But still. Dax never said anything about a lost child.”

“Maybe it never came up,” Luisa suggested gently. “Elias has been gone for a while now.”

“How long?”

“About five years.”

“But Luisa, there are no pictures of a child in the house—none that I've seen, anyway.”

“No pictures…” Twin lines formed between Luisa's dark brows. “But there were pictures a year ago. One on the piano, of Elias at the beach in California, holding a starfish, smiling his wide, happy smile. One over the fireplace, a large portrait from when he was two or three, in the front room…” Her frown deepened. “I didn't look, last night, when we went through there on the way to the dining room. I didn't notice if Elias's picture was
still above the fireplace. And I didn't go into the music room.”

“No pictures,” Abilene repeated. “Not in the public rooms of the house, anyway. How old was the child— Elias—when he died?”

“Six, I think.”

“So you're saying Donovan was married, then?”

Luisa was shaking her head. “Abilene…”

“I just, well, I had no idea he'd been married.”

“Please, Abilene.”

She sat back in her chair. “What's the matter?”

“I can't say any more.”

“But I was hoping, if you could just explain to me—”

“I can't. It's not right.” Luisa reached across the table, caught Abilene's hand and held on. Her dark eyes were tender, her expression firm. “I've said too much already. You know I have. The rest is Donovan's to tell.”

 

Donovan went to the studio at a little after ten.

Abilene was still in Chula Mesa with Luisa, wasting the valuable morning hours when she should have been working. He wondered what the two of them were talking about—and then he told himself to stop wondering.

It didn't matter, he tried to convince himself. Whatever they found to chatter about, it had nothing to do with him.

He reviewed, for the second time, the work Abilene had done the day before. He made notes on her progress, notes on what she ought to get accomplished that day. And also notes on what she should be tackling in the next week. She was doing well, was actually a little ahead of where he'd hoped she might be at this time.

The truth was that she continued to thoroughly impress him, with how quickly she learned, with her dedication
to the work. In fact, she could probably afford a Sunday morning at the Chula Mesa Diner with Luisa.

Not that he would ever admit that to her face.

She came in at ten forty-five. He felt a rising apprehension at the sight of her, in narrow gray slacks, a coral-colored checked shirt and a jacket nipped in at the waist. Her hair was windblown, her cheeks a healthy pink. He wanted to ask her if she'd had a nice time with Luisa.

But that would have been too friendly. He tried to be careful, not to get friendly with her.

Plus, he really didn't want to know about her breakfast with Luisa. He had a strong intuition that his name had probably come up. Maybe more than once. And he just didn't want to hear what those two might have said about him.

“Ready to work?” He rolled toward her.

She nodded, but didn't say anything as she slipped in behind the drafting table.

He circled the table and glided in beside her. That close, he could smell the light, tempting perfume she wore. She reached up, smoothed her hair. He found himself staring at the silky flesh of her neck, at the pure line of her jaw.

She slid him a look, frowned. “What is it?”

He cleared his throat. “I have notes, a lot of them.”

“Well, all right then.” Her voice sounded…what? Careful? Breathless? He wasn't sure. She added, “Let's get started.”

He had dual urges—both insane. To ask her if everything was all right. To run the back of his finger down the satin skin of her neck, and to feel for the first time with conscious intent, the texture of her flesh.

Seriously. Was he losing his mind?

They went to work.

An hour later, he left her to continue on her own. He checked on her at three, then changed into sweats and went down to the gym where he worked out on his own, a long session with the free weights and then another, equally long, of simple walking, back and forth, with the aid of the parallel bars, sweating bullets with each step.

His legs really were getting stronger. Recently, he'd found he was capable of standing long enough to make use of a urinal, even without a nearby wall or a bar to brace himself with. It was milestone of which he was inordinately proud.

At five, he returned to the main floor. He dropped in on her again before he went to clean up, because it was getting late and he was afraid she'd have left the studio if he took the time to shower first.

She was still there. “Just getting ready to wrap things up for the day,” she told him. That green-golden gaze ran over him. “Good workout?”

“Yes, it was.” He felt sweaty and grungy, and he probably smelled like a hard-ridden horse. But he should have thought of that before he came wheeling in here without a shower. “Let's see how you're doing….”

She showed him what she'd come up with in the past hour and a half. They briefly discussed what was going well. And what wasn't quite coming together.

They agreed that they had a good handle on the arrangement of space now. But they'd also decided the design had to speak of fun, of possibility. Probably of flight. That, they had begun to think, was the eventual
parti:
early flight.

Somehow, they needed to get the theme of flight into the facade and the main entry, so that when parents and children and teachers came to the center every day
they felt a sense of uplift, that anything could happen in this special place, that they, the children who grew and learned there, could do anything they set their young minds to accomplishing.

This was the central idea for the structure. And that meant they needed to get a serious grip on it soon, since the rest of the complex would be likely to change, once they found the true heart of the project.

“Soon,” he said, affirming what they both knew needed to happen. “I know you're going to find it soon.”

She was straightening her workspace by then. “Well, probably not tonight. Right now, I think I could use a long, hard swim.”

He had a sudden, stunning vision of her, emerging from the courtyard pool, all wet and gleaming, the water sliding off her body in glittering streams.

“Uh. Yeah,” he said stupidly. “A swim. Good idea. Clear your head.”

She regarded him. It was a strange, piercing sort of look. He almost wondered if she could see inside his mind, if she knew that he had watched her, in her blue tank suit, out in the courtyard, when she thought she was alone.

Well, if she did suspect him of spying on her, she could stop worrying. He would never do such a thing again.

“See you at dinner,” she said, still eyeing him in that odd way—or at least, so it seemed to him.

“Yes,” he answered distractedly. “See you at dinner.”

And she left him.

He made himself stay behind in the studio, which was one of the few main floor areas without a view of the courtyard—and the pool. He went to his desk and he pushed his computer monitors out of the way, and he
spent an hour sketching, plugging away at the facade problem.

At six-thirty, no closer to any kind of solution than he had been when he started, he went back to his own rooms to shower before dinner.

The lights in the courtyard were on by then. And before he turned on any lights in his sitting room, he went to the glass doors and gazed out.

The pool was deserted—which he had known it would be.

And he felt disappointed, that she wasn't still out there, after all—a feeling he knew to be completely reprehensible.

He whirled and rolled through his bedroom, and the wide-open double doors to the bathroom, where he tore off his sweats and used the railings he'd had installed months ago, to get into the open shower and onto the bathing stool waiting there.

Twenty minutes later, he was clean and dressed and on his way to the dining room.

Abilene was already there, in a simple long-sleeve black dress, standing at the doors that looked out on the courtyard. She turned when he entered.

In her eyes, he thought he saw questions. His guard went up.

But then she smiled. And all she said was, “There you are.” Now she seemed almost happy to see him.

And he was glad, absurdly glad. That she hadn't asked any questions. That she had smiled.

They went to the small table that Olga had set for them. He wished he could stand up, step close to her, pull back her chair. Such a simple gesture, but not something he could do. Not yet, anyway.

And possibly, not ever.

She sat. He wheeled around the table and took the waiting place across from her. Olga had lit the candles, and already served the soup. And the wine was there, opened.

He poured. For Abilene. And then for him. He raised his glass. She touched hers to it. They sipped. Shared a nod.

Ate the soup.

Olga appeared with the salads. She took their empty bowls away, refilled their wineglasses. And vanished again.

They ate the salad, sipped more wine.

The whole dinner was like that. He didn't talk. Neither did Abilene.

But he felt…together with her, somehow. In collusion. Connected.

And that made him wonder, as he had more than once that day, if he might really be losing his mind somehow, slipping over the edge into some strange self-delusion.

On the mountain, in the snow cave, alone with his pain, he'd known he was going mad. He was crazy. And he was going to die.

On the mountain, he understood everything. He talked to Elias.

He was ready to go.

And there had been peace in that, a kind of completion.

When they dragged him back to the world, peace became the thing that eluded him.

Until tonight, for some unknown reason. Tonight, in the quiet of the dining room. Sharing a meal with Abilene.

It ended too soon. She got up, smiled again at him, said good-night.

“Good night,” he answered, and watched her go.

The room seemed empty without her. Yet another sign of his current slide into total insanity.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, in the bright light of morning, the world would right itself. He would be the man he had become in the past year. Self-contained. Wanting no one. Needing no one.

Alone.

 

In her rooms, Abilene changed into the old pair of sweats and worn T-shirt she usually slept in. She brushed her teeth. And then she paced the floor for a while.

What had just happened, in the dining room?

She had questions for Donovan. And she'd fully intended to ask them. She had planned to be delicate about it. And respectful. But really, there was so much she wanted to know.

And she'd accepted that Luisa was right. If she wanted answers—about whether Donovan had been married, about his wife, if there had been one, about the child he had lost—well, it was only fair that she ask the man himself.

But then she'd turned from the doors to the courtyard to find him sitting there, so gorgeous, so self-contained, so guarded….

And she couldn't do it. She didn't even
want
to do it, to pry into his mind and his secret heart. To ferret out the answers he didn't want to share.

All she wanted was to be with him.

Simply. Gracefully. For an evening.

To share a meal with him, if not as a friend, at least as a temporary companion, a guest in his house. She was grateful to him, she realized, for teaching her so much, for guiding her at the same time as he prodded
her forward. For demanding so much of her, for never letting her off easy.

For being such a fascinating man.

So she had done exactly what she wanted. She'd shared a quiet meal with him.

And now she paced her sitting room, feeling edgy and full of nervous energy, not understanding herself any better than she understood him.

Eventually, she gave up wearing a path into the hardwood floor. She got out her cell and called home, called her mom, and her sister, Zoe, who was just back from her honeymoon.