A House Divided Page 13

  “Sometimes, especially during high school. My friends and I liked to drive here for beach parties and bon fires.” She sighed. “I had no idea then, of course, how quickly those years would melt away.” Somehow, though, for all the memories, none seemed as peaceful as being here right now with Mark.

  Wendy, face flushed, dashed up to them. “May I take Bandit farther down the beach, Mark?”

  “Sure, just as long as you don’t go too far.”

  “And make sure to be careful and keep an eye on the waves,” Rebecca added. “The tide’s starting to come back in again.”

  “Okay. I promise.”

  Off they flew again, child and dog, while Rebecca and Mark smiled, watching them. The feel of brisk salt breeze nipped at her face. She closed her eyes and reveled in the feeling. The sounds of the waves crashing against the shore echoed in her mind as the smokiness of a beach fire filled her senses.

  “Getting hungry?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes again. “After all those cookies we scarfed down, I don’t feel I’ll need to eat again until tomorrow morning!”

  “I’m sure your little daughter won’t agree. Let’s let her and Bandit have another good romp. Then we can unpack the chow.”

  She smiled up at him. His dark eyes seemed to send her silent messages of love. He reached out, tucked back a strand of hair behind her ear, then silently touched her lips with his fingertip. It felt like a caress . . . soft, fleeting.

  “Thanks again for bringing us here today. I’ve been so caught up in my own worries lately, I didn’t realize how much Wendy and I needed this.”

  He nodded, sending her a lopsided smile. “That goes for me, too. I guess I don’t realize how much time and energy I pack into a single day of work until I stop and draw back from it a little.”

  As she studied his face, unexpected curiosity swept over her, and she found herself wondering exactly what a typical day for him would indeed hold. Over the years, had he grown immune to the uncertainty that at any given moment, the most unexpected could happen, especially on the wards at the hospital—? Or was going there simply another ordinary part of an ordinary day that held no hint of danger or the unforeseen? Maybe the scariness she perceived in life was merely a product of her own imagination—no, her own experience—she quickly amended. After all, she’d been a widow for only a little over one year now, and the circumstances of August’s death were still as fresh in her mind as if it had happened yesterday.

  Still, in some indefinable way, she found herself trying to reach out for a ray of understanding into the misunderstood world of mental illness, like a pale, undernourished plant reaches toward the light of the sun. Maybe it had been something about Mark himself that had caused her to feel this way, she couldn’t be sure. But one thing she did know. Life could be good again, and today, so far, had just proved that. Maybe all the best things in life weren’t locked up in her yesterdays.

  “I think it’s time to build a fire,” Mark said, slicing through her reverie. He rubbed his hands briskly together and got to his feet.

  “Great idea. The air’s getting a bit chilly.”

  Rebecca called to Wendy to join them again while Mark set out to collect the several pieces of driftwood that lay scattered about. Then they spread out their picnic supper on the oversized wool blanket and began eating. Later, sated and content, they poked marshmallows onto green sticks from the nearby creek bed, and held them over the glowing coals. Mark showed Wendy how to toast her marshmallow to a puffy golden perfection and wedge it between two pieces of graham crackers lined with squares from a chocolate bar.

  “This is what you call a s’more,” he said. “They call it that because every time you eat one, you want some more.”

  “Oh, I know about s’mores. We used to make them at day camp back in California,” Wendy heaved a sigh, “but that was such a long time ago.”

  Rebecca’s throat ached. Why had it taken nearly half the summer before it had even dawned on her to take her daughter to the beach? Chagrin swept over her as she recalled the nights on the town with August, the endless round of cast parties, the award banquets, the opening night celebrations. And yet . . . and yet, how could it have been any other way when one was married not only to a well-known Hollywood star, but married also to the lifestyle that went with it?

  Bandit gobbled down the cooled, charred confection that Wendy had let drop to the ground, having just insisted a few minutes earlier on holding it over the flames. They all laughed as the dog wagged his tail and begged for more.

  “I’ll give you one more marshmallow,” Wendy said, “and that’s all. But don’t plan on eating any of the chocolate,” she added. “Chocolate’s very bad for dogs. Mama said so and Mark said so, too, and he should know, because he’s your daddy.”

  Soon dusk gave way to darkness. Rebecca and Mark sat hand-in-hand watching the glowing embers of the fire grow dim. Totally spent, Wendy had fallen asleep on the beach blanket, and Mark had placed his pile-lined denim jacket over her, careful not to wake her. The glow of the firelight illuminated her slightly upturned mouth, the look of contentment on her face. Bandit lay stretched out at her side.

  Overhead, the stars were dazzling. Rebecca tilted back her head and spied the outline of the Summer Triangle, the westernmost star being the first to pop through. Let’s see . . . wasn’t that one called Vega? She thought back to her astronomy class in high school and decided the answer was yes. A nearly full moon was inching its way higher, like a huge gossamer globe. The first sprinkling of the Milky Way was beginning to appear.

  She’d nearly forgotten how awesome the summer night sky could be on clear nights, especially here in the Northwest. The smoggy skies and myriad of lights in L.A. had nearly obliterated this entire splendor.

  She looked back at Mark. “Have you always lived in this part of the country?” The flickering glow from the beach fire made his face seem so alive, so vital. She noticed his Adam’s apple moving.

  “I was born in a small town in Ohio, but I lived with my aunt and uncle in Columbus off –and on for much of my childhood.”

  “Your mother’s family?”

  “Mom’s sister and her husband.” He got to his feet and brushed the sand off his jeans. “It’s kind of an involved story, so first, I think, I’d better put another log on the fire.

  She nodded silently.

  “Wendy and I have more in common than you might realize,” he continued, still standing, as Rebecca stared into the fire at the shower of sparks. “I know what it’s like to grow up, missing a parent.”

  “Your dad died when you were young, too?”

  “Actually, I never knew my dad.” Mark sat down again and dug the toe of his sneaker into the sand. “He left my mother while she was still pregnant with me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, but don’t pity me. It was my mom who suffered the most. ”

  “Oh?”

  He told her about the post-partum depression and his mother’s frequent admissions to the nearest psychiatric hospital. “As I’m sure you realize, fluctuating hormone levels can often play havoc on a woman’s body. But in my mother’s case, her depression went far beyond the everyday type that most people experience from time to time. Her diagnosis was clinical depression.”

  “Wasn’t there something someone could have done to help her?” She glanced down the dark, nearly empty beach and focused her attention on the pulsating beacon on the lighthouse. The sight reminded her of the words spoken by her own mother, so many years ago, who often spoke of God’s love, a light in the darkness.

  “Actually, Mom did try to help herself,” Mark said with a catch in his voice. “Her admissions to the state hospital were always voluntary. But every time the doctors thought she was well enough to go back out on her own, she just ended up having to be readmitted. Her doc tried several types of meds, even shock therapy. Nothing seemed to help.”

  “So you lived with your aunt and uncle while she was away?”
/>
  “Yep. It wasn’t until I was about nine, though, that I went to live with them permanently. That was just one week after she was discharged for the last time. The next day she took her life.”

  “Oh, Mark.” Her voice caught. “I . . . I’m so sorry,” was all she could say again.

  He joined his hands loosely beneath his knees and studied them. A long silence followed before he finally went on. “She . . . she waited until I had gone to school one day . . . then OD’d with sleeping pills.”

  Rebecca swallowed. It felt as if an ice cube had become lodged in her throat. Wordlessly, she touched the back of his hand. Oh dear Lord, she silently prayed. No wonder the man is so dedicated, so driven.

  “My immediate response, like many children, was to blame myself,” he continued. “I thought that maybe if I’d not mouthed back to her as often as I had and run away a time or two, perhaps she wouldn’t have done that.” He shrugged. “And who knows? Maybe if I’d never even been born, she would have never suffered such severe depress—”

  “No! No, don’t say that! You can’t heap that kind of guilt on yourself.”

  “Part of me realizes that. But . . . but . . . the other part needs to do something proactive . . . like buying my forgiveness, perhaps.”

  “Buying your forgiveness?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “If . . . if I can get a solid, working halfway house established not far from Northwestern, a place for folks to get well before being forced out on their own, perhaps God will forgive me for what I did to my mother.”

  “You didn’t do anything to her, Mark. She was ill. Very ill. Besides, you said yourself that what you experienced is a common reaction in children who are left behind.” Who am I, talking to him about God and forgiveness when I still haven’t forgiven God for taking away my August?

  “Right. And I can accept that intellectually. It’s just that I can’t seem to come to terms with what’s going on inside of me. ”

  “So that’s why you decided to become a psychiatrist,” she said. She longed to wrap her arms around him, comfort him for the loss of the mother he’d barely had a chance to know. For the pain that he’d undoubtedly suffered all these years. “You’ve carried this burden of your mother’s death, and now you want to help others the way you wished she had been helped.”

  He lifted his gaze, but kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. The sounds of the waves slapping gently against the shore filled the silence that stretched between them. “You’re right,” he finally spoke. “That’s it. I want to make sure other patients get the opportunity to experience what she never had. I’m convinced that would have made all the difference. And I admit I’m a workaholic. Last year, I broke my engagement to my fiancée—McIntosh’s daughter—because of that. I just knew it wouldn’t be fair to her or the kids we might eventually have.”

  She nodded, deciding not to tell him she already knew about that. It served little if any purpose, and she sensed the real issues centered around something on a much deeper level. “That may be part of the reason you broke off the relationship, Mark, but I think there’s more.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “I think you might be running away from life, just like me, only in a different way, maybe. Your mother left you at a very vulnerable age, and in your own heart and mind, you felt she deserted you on purpose.”

  He looked away and stared out at the ocean. The breeze rippled through his hair, and he hunched his shoulders against the chill. At last he turned his gaze back to hers.

  “You’ve given me something to think about,” he said in a far-away voice. She studied the planes and angles of his too-handsome face. What was it she saw there? All the hurt and pain of a little boy turned man? A man who, after all these years, was still beating himself up for having, in his perspective, driven his mother away?

  “I guess we both have our demons to wrestle.”

  “Uh-huh.” The firelight played off his face. Again, she saw such earnestness, such tenacity. But there was something else there, too. A look that told her he’d shed his defenses and brought her into his secret fold.

  In the distance, a foghorn blared, echoing a lonely, desolate sound that soon faded into nothingness. It melded with the shouts from two teenagers who were sprinting down the beach.

  He reached out and gently traced his finger down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump on you that way. And I have to admit, it’s embarrassing to have someone point out to me what I was probably only half admitting to myself. But . . . but thanks, anyway. Thanks for listening.”

  “I was the one who encouraged you to talk. I’m glad you can trust me enough to share.”

  “I do trust you, Rebecca. I . . . I just wish we weren’t at such odds about the future of the old Glasgow place.”

  “So do I.” Her words came in merely a whisper. She cast her eyes downward while an uncomfortable silence stretched between them. The tension was thick, pervasive.

  “Well.” He stood up again. “The fire’s almost out, the food’s gone, and I’m sure your little daughter will rest more comfortably in her own bed at home.”

  She rose, too. Together they peered down at the sleeping child and cocker spaniel, a study in simple, innocent bliss. Wendy’s mouth was still turned up in a half smile, one arm flung over the dog’s side. “I’ll carry her back to the car, if you like,” Mark said. “Hopefully she won’t wake up.”

  “All right. As hard as she’s played, though, I think she’ll be dead to the world for the rest of the night.”

  She started to fold up the beach chairs, but stopped when she felt Mark nudge her arm. “Wait.” He drew her against him and held her, raking his fingers through her hair.

  “Oh, Mark . . .” Savoring the moment, she rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. His arms felt warm and protective. His touch wonderfully tender. Heaven. Pure heaven.

  When he gently framed her face with his hands, tipped back her chin, and kissed her with equal tenderness, she knew she was on the precarious edge of falling in love.

  * * *

  Mark carried a still-sleeping Wendy upstairs to Rebecca’s apartment and into the girl’s bedroom, while Rebecca led the way. The moon shone through the open mini-blinds, casting its milky light throughout the room.

  Looking around, Mark noticed the padded window seat, the wicker basket piled high with dark furry teddy bears, a couple of white toy kittens, and a doll. Yes, a typical child’s room with all the trimmings. A child who was very much treasured and loved, as all children should be. Yet the thought of his participating in this cozy little domestic scene took him aback, sent chills up his spine. How did you get suckered into this, anyway, Simons?

  Rebecca pulled back the covers and plumped the pillow. Then Mark lowered Wendy onto the bed and pulling the blankets over her, brushed a kiss on the top of her head.

  The simple gesture brought a lump to Rebecca’s throat, and she swallowed against it. Granted, their day together had been extraordinary, bonding all three of them in ways she’d never dreamed possible, but she still hadn’t expected this spontaneous show of affection from Mark, nor had she anticipated the kiss they’d shared on the beach. Fresh confusion tore inside of her. Just a little over a year ago, the man tucking her daughter into bed had been Wendy’s father, her beloved August. And why now, watching Mark do the same, did she suddenly realize how much her precious Wendy still needed a daddy in her life, even if he wasn’t her own flesh-and-blood daddy?

  Quickly she pushed the intrusive thought aside. If Wendy needed a male role model, then there was always her uncle, Missey’s husband Ross, for heaven’s sake.

  “Thanks again for a wonderful day,” she said as they walked back to the front door of the apartment. “No, it was more than wonderful. It was incredible.”

  “I’m glad.” His eyes were serenely compelling, but at the same time she thought she detected a glint of uneasiness in them. “We�
��ll do it again?” he asked. “Soon?”

  “Uh-huh. Absolutely.”

  He pulled her to him, kissed her again quickly, then without a backwards glance, hurried down the stairs. His echoing footsteps grew fainter.

  * * *

  Moonlight played with shadows against her bedroom window as Rebecca began undressing. Such a day . . . and such a revelation from Mark.

  She tried to imagine how it would have felt to grow up without her parents, without Missey too, but somehow she couldn’t. Her family had been everything in her life, those crucial formative years. And she cherished the memories, just as she now cherished the memories of this house, the place where she and August had started the all-too-short journey towards building their own family. Families that gave way to new families . . . that precious cycle as old as time itself, the cycle that sometimes was never fully played out. But what disturbed her even more was the way Mark was getting such a hold on her. Ever since the first day they’d met, she couldn’t deny how she’d admired his sincerity, his dedication. And now that she understood the reasons for all that more fully, she was beginning to care about him so deeply, it was frightening.

  She felt as if she were falling deeper and deeper into a downward spiral. She shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her. She shouldn’t have let herself become swept away by the afterglow of the sunset, the sand and salt air, and especially his gentleness towards her daughter.

  Voices outside, a man’s and a woman’s, cut through her reverie. The woman’s voice was high pitched, and the louder she spoke, the more Rebecca could tell she had a southern accent. A long silence followed. Next the squeal of rubber against pavement.

  Senses alert, she crossed the room to her window. It was odd to be hearing such a commotion at this hour, she thought, especially in this typically quiet, established old neighborhood.

  She parted the mini-blinds ever so carefully and peered into the darkness, but saw nothing unusual. Still, the male voice had sounded uncomfortably familiar. Who could it have been? And what could be going on outside?