For All Their Lives (40 page)

“We won't say anything about this to Lily, Singin. When I get back home, I'll check out the paper in the library and see what she cut out. If she brings it up, we can discuss it. If not, I don't think we should mention it. Agreed?”

Singin nodded.

 

T
HE INTERCONTINENTAL JET
from Thailand set down on American soil on January third at the same moment Malcolm Carlin was being sworn into the United States Senate, his wife and daughter at his side.

C
ASEY SETTLED INTO
Alan Carpenter's house on Beekman Place easily. She hunkered down for what she knew was going to be a grueling, gut-wrenching time in her life. The end result, Alan said, would be worth her while. That was six months ago. So far all Casey could see was disfigurement. “A small matter,” Alan said quietly. He said the same words every day, until she thought she would scream and go out of her mind.

She fought him every step of the way, right up to the moment she was given anesthetic, and again when she came out of recovery. She cursed him, herself, and anyone else who came to mind. But when she was alone, she whimpered and cried into her pillow. She knew she was being unfair, but she seemed unable to stop herself. She wasn't the same person any longer. She didn't care if she lived or died, didn't care about anyone or anything. She
did
care about having her face made whole again, and didn't know why. In her heart she didn't believe Alan Carpenter could do it, and she'd called him a liar. His face had turned crimson, and her own had burned with shame. She apologized instantly, but the words rang false. They both knew it.

Casey stretched her legs out on the ottoman, a cup of herbal tea at her elbow. Maybe it was the dreams, the god-awful dreams that left her sweating and sleepless, so that she spent most of her nights staring at the ceiling. And while she stared at the ceiling, she thought of Mac Carlin and his family. When those thoughts and memories became too unbearable, she thought about Lily and Luke Farrell. She no longer cried though. She gulped at the tangy tea, draining the contents of the cup. Alan said this type of tea would relax her. That was a lie too, she thought in disgust. If anything, it made her jittery and cranky.

A light breeze wafted through the window, stirring the curtains so they danced. She got off the chair to pin the sheers against the window frame. How good the summer air felt on her skin. She wanted to touch her face, to run her fingers up and down the scars that crisscrossed it. “Don't do it,” Alan said. She clenched her hands into tight fists.

“God help me, please,” she prayed aloud. “Make these terrible dreams go away. Give me some measure of peace, and please, please, help me to rid myself of this anger. Help me to be kinder to Alan. He's a gentle, wonderful man, and I am an ungrateful, silly, stupid female, a nurse who should know better.” She almost blubbered then, but bit down on her tongue.

She'd had such good intentions when she arrived here from Thailand. Alan hadn't minimized a thing. If anything, he had made it all sound worse than it actually was. Gut it out, that's what she'd promised to do, and she'd done it so far. She hadn't agreed not to get angry and belligerent. Damn it, she was trying. Then try harder, an inner voice chided. Alan doesn't deserve to be treated the way you're treating him. “I know, I know,” Casey mumbled. If she could just get a good night's sleep, she thought, things might be different. She might be able to cope better. Just one good night's sleep. Speak to Alan, the voice pleaded. Tell him about the dreams. Talk it out. “Sure, so he can tell me I need a psychiatrist.” she said aloud. “No thank you. I'll work out my own problems.” She knew Alan had enough on his mind without her adding to his burden. If he knew about her headaches, he'd probably ship her to some hospital for brain scans.

Thoughts of doctors and hospitals always conjured up Luke Farrell's name and face. Where was he now? What was he doing? Did he ever think of her? What had been his reaction when he'd heard that she was dead? Casey kicked out at the ottoman. Pain shot up her leg. “Damn,” she seethed. “I probably broke my toes. Oh shit!” She hobbled to the chaise and flopped down to massage her aching foot. She swore then, with every word she'd ever heard Luke Farrell and the other doctors use. It didn't make her feel any better.

Luke. Gentle, caring, wonderful Luke. If she could just talk to Luke for a minute, she knew she would be all right. Right now, this very minute. Why not? the inner voice queried. There's a telephone two feet from where you're sitting. Pick it up and call him. I dare you! “No, no, I can't do that.” Sure you can.

Casey continued to argue with herself until her head began to pound so badly she wanted to bang it on the wall for relief. She knew the sweats were going to come on any second. She leaned back against the chaise, the soft pillows cushioning her head. When she started to shake, she moved from the chaise to the phone, where she dropped to the floor to hug her knees. Call him, talk to him. Tell him you're alive.

Casey blinked past the headache, her teeth chattering when she reached out a shaking hand for the phone. In a hoarse croak she asked the operator to put through a call to Luke Farrell, saying, “I don't know the number operator, but I know he practices medicine and lives in Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania. Yes, I'll hold.” Casey was trembling, her eyelids were twitching, and her head was pounding worse than before. Spasms, worse than any she'd ever experienced, coursed through her as she waited.

“Dr. Farrell here. Hello. Is anyone there? This is Dr. Farrell. Mom, is that you? Speak up, I can't hear you. Is anyone there?”

“Guess there's no one there. Must be gremlins on the line.” Luke Farrell chuckled. “Feel free to call me anytime. That's what I'm here for.”

Casey replaced the buzzing receiver in the cradle. She swiveled around, stunned to find her headache gone, and the twitching and trembling diminishing with each ragged breath she took. The spasms and the sweats were gone too. Wearily she closed her eyes as she made her way back to the chaise. Luke. Luke was her Band-Aid. Luke could help her get through this. For a moment she felt shame and guilt. Back in Vietnam Luke had said, time after time, “You do whatever you have to do to get through this. It's the same principle as saying you kick ass and take names later.” Right or wrong, she now had something to hang on to. “Someday, Luke, some way, I'll make this up to you. I don't know how or when that will happen, but I'll find a way.”

The tension eased and she slept dreamlessly, then fitfully, thrashing about on the narrow brocade chaise, running in her dream, faster than a sprinter, with a white surgical bag in her hand. She stopped, bent over to pick up an ear, a finger, a foot, another foot, a hand. “Wait! Wait!” she screamed. She unzipped the body bag, trying desperately with surgical tape to attach the contents in the white surgical bag to the lifeless bodies in their plastic bags. “Help me!” she shouted. “Give me a chance to fix it! Please help me!

“Stop it, Casey, you can't fix it,” Luke Farrell said. “We tried, don't you remember? We did our best. We can't do more than our best. Let them go. You have to let them go.”

The pasty, blue-white hand with its chewed-off fingernails fell into the surgical bag.

“Atta girl,” Luke crooned, stroking her hair. “It's all right. We get another shot at it today. Incoming wounded. Shake your ass, Adams!”

Casey rolled over, muttering in her sleep. She curled into the fetal position, her arms clutching a thick, fat pillow against her stomach. “It's a parade,” someone shouted. “Attention!”

“Soldiers?” Casey looked to the right and then to the left. She was back in San Francisco at her father's house, in the green and yellow bathroom with the ceramic frog on the windowsill.

“The parade starts here and goes to the Savoy Hotel, where Mac stayed. Get in line, Lieutenant Adams. That's a goddamn order!”

“I can't. All these boxes are in the way. Can't you see them?”

“I gave you an order, Lieutenant Adams. Get in formation!”

“I'll have to jump over these boxes. I can't do it. Move them, please move them.”

“They aren't boxes, Lieutenant Adams, they're coffins, and I can't move them. If you'd done a better job, there wouldn't be so many.”

“I did my job. Luke did his job. We all did our jobs. You're the one who didn't do his job. You sent these young boys out to kill and . . . and we did our jobs, damn you! Luke writes letters—he doesn't have to, but he does. He makes up . . . what he does is he . . . he tells parents their son's last words were . . . about
them.
I can't do anymore. We're doing our best!”

“That's not good enough! You have to do better. Much better. I'm waiting, Lieutenant.”

“I'm not climbing over those . . . boxes. I'm not! You can't make me!”

They were moving then, the long line of boxes, slipping and sliding out of the green and yellow bedroom, through the living room and out the front door.

Traffic on Lombard Street stopped. People sneered and jeered as the boxes trundled down and around the corners on their way to the Savoy Hotel.
Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light
. . .

She was running, her nurse's cap falling over her left ear. She jerked at it, tossed it in the direction of the brutal voice ordering her to lead the parade.

“I won't do it! Where's Luke? Where's Mac?”

“They can't help you. This is your punishment. I told you it would come to this. Now do you believe?”

“Sister Ann Elizabeth!”

“Yes, Sister Ann Elizabeth. This is all your fault, Casey Adams. All these boys are dead because you couldn't save them. I knew you would come to a bad end!”

“No! No!”

“Yes!”

“Go to hell, Sister!”

Casey woke then, her entire body bathed in sweat. She felt calm for some strange reason. She lay quietly, her eyes closed, trying to make sense out of her dreams. She felt normal. Tired perhaps, but she felt the call to Luke, hearing his voice after so long a time, was really going to help her. Knowing, making the decision to pick up the phone to call him, was going to make all the difference. She could call him anytime and listen to his voice.

She
was
going to get through this. With Alan and Luke, she would mend, physically and mentally. All she had to do was work at it.

O
UTSIDE THE BRIGHTLY
lit brownstone building on Beekman Place, the world was dark as a womb. Only a medical doctor, such as himself, would use such a description, Alan Carpenter thought. Inside, where it counted, the rooms were brightly lit. A six-foot twinkling Frazier fir added even more light. It was Christmas Eve, the first holiday in seventeen years that he'd actually celebrated as such. It wasn't that he simply ignored holidays. More than that, he slept through them, because there was no one he cared to celebrate them with since the death of his wife. They'd had no children.

This year, however, he'd been as excited as a child, shopping through Saks, Bloomingdale's, and every other expensive store in New York. He'd buzzed through Van Cleef and Arpel, Tiffany, and Cartier like a man with a mission, secreting the gaily wrapped presents in his wall safe. The box from the furrier, along with the brilliant red and silver boxes from Bergdorf and Saks, were hidden in his closet.

The whole day, until this very minute, had been an exercise in secrecy. With the aid of his housekeeper and butler, they'd smuggled the tree into the house. They'd decorated it and wrapped presents for Casey until all three of them were so tired they had to break for a toddy at five o'clock. It was done now, in the study, his favorite place in the twelve-room brownstone.

The room looked the way a room is supposed to look on Christmas Eve. The scent of the fir and the pinecones in the fireplace had a dizzying effect on Alan. He sniffed appreciatively. He didn't want this night ever to end. But, of course, after tomorrow this idyllic time would be just a memory. Tears burned his eyes.

Alan Carpenter, M.D., who would go back to his ordinary life the day after Christmas, had committed the cardinal sin of falling in love with his patient—he, a man of sixty-five with a paunch and balding head. How he'd always guffawed whenever a colleague fell in love with a younger woman. May-December marriages never worked. But if someone asked him right now, this very second, what he wanted most in life, he would say Casey Adams. He knew exactly the minute he'd fallen in love with her, because his aging heart had skipped two beats when she confessed her identity. “Because I love and trust you,” she'd said. He'd kissed her, and she'd returned his kiss with an ardor that surprised him. He remembered the date too—November 27, 1969. Thanksgiving. It was the anniversary of the first time they'd met in Maline's apartment in Thailand. At first he told himself she was just being grateful that, yes, she did love him, but she wasn't
in love
with him. When his heart skipped the second beat, he told himself he didn't care.

This whole past year they'd lived as man and wife, sleeping together in the same bed when her surgery permitted. Now she was well and it was time for her to leave. He'd waited until now, hoping the wonderful holiday would make it easier. A new life for Casey, a life he was providing. He wanted her happiness more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. He'd had his moment in the sun, now it was Casey's turn. He thought it a corny analogy, if it was an analogy at all. He couldn't seem to think this evening. He drew a deep breath, inhaling the pine-scented air. He swayed dizzily. Only this time he knew it wasn't because of the fragrant air. Six months ago his cardiologist had said he was a walking time bomb. He was going to correct that problem the day after Christmas when he would be admitted to Columbia Presbyterian for bypass surgery. In more ways than one, this just might be his last Christmas. He'd decided long ago, when Marie died, that his life and death were preordained.

Casey loved this old house, which he'd painstakingly restored. She loved returning after a bout of surgery at his private clinic. He loved having her in the house, hearing her call his name, seeing the smile that was just for him.
Grateful.
He knew Casey would never leave, if he agreed to it, but he couldn't do that to her, couldn't shackle her to him out of gratitude. Yes, part of him wanted to do just that, but the other part of him, which he called his conscience, wanted to see her soar and fly. He'd taken care of that too. He'd taken care of everything, right down to the last detail.

He was not without influence and connections. He'd operated on some of the richest, most powerful people in the world. He'd finally come to terms with everything, and had secured Casey's future. Tonight, right after midnight, when it was actually Christmas Day, he was going to present her with her new life, right after all the packages were opened. He was going to tell her it wasn't possible to gift wrap a new life, but he would hand her a big, red, silky bow.

There were other things he was going to tell her too. The first and most important was that the United States Army now knew there were two Lieutenant Simons, one with the first name of Nancy and the other Joyce. Nowhere, they said, in any of their records, was there a Lily Simon who had served in Vietnam. He'd handled all the paperwork through his attorney, when the army denied all claims, refusing payment. Lily Simon no longer existed. Casey Adams was listed as dead. Casey herself wanted it kept that way.

A second lawyer, with connections on the other side of the law, had helped him secure a new identity for Casey, right down to a Social Security card and a passport. She had a driver's license even though she didn't know how to drive, something she was going to have to remedy rather quickly.

On December twenty-seventh Casey would start her new life as Mary Ashley, assistant to the producer of the noonday news at CXT with a salary of $13,000 a year, along with an apartment on East Seventy-ninth Street. The apartment, which Alan Carpenter owned, had been refurbished and furnished. He would tell her he was going to retire to Spain and close up the brownstone. As far as he could see, his plan was foolproof. He would have his surgery, come back to the brownstone to recover, and then go to his Spanish villa, where he would live out his days.
If
he was lucky.

He gazed at the beautiful Christmas tree, holding back his tears. Would it be so terrible, he wondered, to cry? He'd always been a sentimental man, and sensitive as a child. Now, in the twilight of his life, he wished for family, for blood ties, but there were none. Not even distant cousins. He was alone with thousands of acquaintances and perhaps a dozen close friends. And several thousand grateful patients and their families. It hadn't been a terrible life; in fact he'd thought it quite wonderful until Casey came into it. He had then realized that his life had merely been content. Her appearance turned it to wonderful. He had no regrets. He would have retired this year anyway. He was just moving things ahead of schedule.

Last week he'd called his old friend Marcus Carlin in Washington to ask his advice about drawing up a new will and voiding his old one, in which he left his fortune to various medical schools. And he did have a fortune: this brownstone, the villa in Spain, a ski lodge in Aspen, a small house in the Cayman Islands, and, of course, his stocks and bonds. He'd told his old friend a conservative estimate of his fortune was close to three million dollars. “All of it goes to Mary Ashley.”

“Who's Mary Ashley?” Marcus demanded.

“My illegitimate daughter,” Alan had snapped. “It's not important for you to know everything about my life, Marcus. I'm sure there are things in your life I don't know about, even though we go back fifty years.”

“Are there records? Documents that can substantiate her identity?”

“Of course,” he'd responded irritably. The sleazy lawyer on the Lower East Side had provided every document known to man. “I want no problems for the girl, when it comes time to claim my estate. I'm sending several pictures on to you along with a sample of her handwriting. Look it over, Marcus, before I pass it on to my lawyer here. Make sure there are no problems. Give me your word.”

Marcus, however, refused to be satisfied with pictures and handwriting. He was driving to New York tomorrow to have dinner with Casey and Alan. At some point tonight, Alan was going to tell Casey about the judge. He knew she would balk about being called his daughter, but in the end she would do as he asked, simply because he asked.

Alan listened to the Bavarian clock in the wide, central foyer strike the hour of six. Casey would be coming downstairs in half an hour. They'd sit on the deep, sea-green sofa and have cocktails, their shoulders touching, and talk about the extensive, complete physical she'd undergone during the day. He'd known at four o'clock that all her tests were negative. She was in perfect health. He'd heard her come in and go to her room. She had to be exhausted, but she would take the warm bath and nap he'd ordered earlier in the day. Not once during the last two years had she complained about or refused him anything he wanted. Christ, he loved her. He ached with love, carried it like a suit of armor. The doctors who would treat him were fools, he thought. You can't mend a shattered heart. Let them try, he didn't care anymore.

Alan's eyes kept going to the Frazier fir standing in the corner and the huge mountain of gifts underneath. It all looked so festive, so real. The whole room was beautiful, with the poinsettias and garlands of evergreen roped along the mantel. A huge basket next to the fireplace held hundreds of Christmas cards. He hadn't sent a single one this year. The furniture was old, shabby really, but so comfortable he wouldn't give it up. Casey loved snuggling in a cozy corner of the couch with her feet curled under her, book in hand. He was going to miss her reading aloud from the mystery stories she loved. He'd always figured out who the villain was by page fifteen, but not Casey. She would squeal her displeasure and say, “I never guessed it was so and so.” He loved their four o'clock ritual of hot chocolate and brownies. He loved sharing the
Times
with her before dinner. There wasn't one thing he didn't love about Casey.

She was so fit these days, thanks to his expertise. Every day he thanked God for his surgical talents. Every day he thanked God for
everything.

A day and a half with Casey was all that was left to him. He wanted eternity. He felt a tear trickle down his cheek. He hadn't cried in years, not since he was a boy. Now he cried silently. He didn't bother to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

His life was ending, and Casey's was just beginning.

 

O
NLY HERE
,
IN
the privacy of her mauve- and champagne-colored bedroom, would Casey allow herself a cigarette. Alan had forbidden her to smoke, so she allowed herself to lapse only in secret. She sucked on mints, but he always knew. She wasn't fooling anyone but herself. She'd wanted to quit and had tried, but cigarettes were such a perfect pacifier. She'd given up everything else, but she needed this one last thing. It wasn't that she smoked much, three or four cigarettes a day at most. And it was something to look forward to. She puffed greedily, knowing when she stubbed out the cigarette it would be time to go downstairs.

She smiled. Christmas Eve was going to be wonderful. She'd bought a load of presents for Alan, anguishing over this and that, uncertain if she was making the right choices. She was going to tell him tonight that she wanted to marry him, to spend the rest of her life with him. Right after they opened their presents, when the Christmas glow was still with both of them. It was the only way she could think to repay him for these two wonderful and hateful years. She'd gutted it out the way he'd asked her to. She'd done everything. It had all been carefully orchestrated, and now she was better than new. Thanks to Alan. In her lifetime she knew she would never, ever meet as wonderful a human being as Alan Carpenter. She loved him with all her heart. He was her lover, her father, her brother, her uncle, her cousin, but most important, he was her friend. He was her whole life, her reason for being. She'd been
in love
once, and once was enough. What she felt for Alan would endure. She would make him happy. She'd work at it twenty-four hours a day. He loved her, he said so. Said he was
in love
with her. She'd responded in kind, but she'd seen the shadow in his eyes. He hadn't believed her. There were times, like now, when she wished she'd been entirely truthful with Alan. The only thing she'd held back was the name of the married officer with whom she'd had an affair. To this day she couldn't bring herself to say Mac's name aloud. Mac Carlin was as dead as Casey Adams.

It was all over now: the operations, the recovery time, the days and weeks when she couldn't move about. All of it was behind her. In another week it would be a new year, and a new life with Alan. The thought was pleasant. She could see herself catering to him, waiting on him the way the Japanese women waited on their mates. She wanted to do it, needed to do it.

Everything she owned, she owed to Alan's generosity, right down to the underwear she had on and the food she ate. She owed him, she thought, her very life.

For this evening she had a new dress, and for tomorrow another. She looked down at the crushed burgundy velvet she'd spent a fortune on. She could hardly wait to see the approval in Alan's eyes. It was important to her that he approve of
everything
about her. She felt festive. Tomorrow, after church services, she would change into the hunter-green A-line dress she'd purchased only yesterday. Faux pearls would be her only jewelry.

Her color was high this evening, she thought, peering into the mirror over the dressing table. She stood, mesmerized for a moment as she stared at her new face. It had to be a miracle, no other explanation would suffice. With God's help and Alan's hand she was whole again. Different, but whole. Her nose was shorter, more defined, to compensate for the surgery on her shattered cheekbones. Her jaw at first glance looked the same, but it too was different, thinner somehow, to match her other new features. Nicole and Danele would never recognize her. She hardly recognized herself. The implanted contact lenses which turned her eyes from blue to aquamarine had made the greatest difference. Luke wouldn't recognize her either. Alan said she was beautiful. Impishly, she stuck her tongue out at her reflection. She didn't know if she would agree to the beautiful part, but she was different, pretty, attractive. Luke would say she was a head turner. She tweaked a stray curl, working it so it fell artfully over her forehead to cover the red scar along her hairline. Wisps of hair that looked so casual were actually camouflage to cover scars around her ears. Someone named Kenneth had come to the brownstone to study her for hours before he finally came up with a hairstyle both Alan and she approved of. His fee had been outrageous, but well worth it. The other scars on her cheekbones, sides of her nose, and chin were covered with a special pancake makeup Alan had created just for her. When it was removed, the scars were blatantly visible. Alan predicted that in time they would lighten, but they would never disappear. Twice a day, before she applied her makeup and when she removed it, she would run her fingers along the scar lines and stare at herself, remembering the way she looked at Maline and Singin's Thanksgiving dinner. Then she'd been deformed and disfigured. Ugly. Now she was whole, healthy, and alive. A few scars didn't matter. Nothing mattered but Alan.