Blind Spot. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ of honey mustard dressing from the cupboard. She’d learned shortcuts since her ill-fated marriage. She’d learned she didn’t have to be a perfect wife in order to matter.

      Seeing a flash of color outside the window, she looked out. It was just getting dark and wisps of fog were floating by like a magician’s screens—now you see it, now you don’t—further obscured by fitful rain. The color splash was dullish red and came from her neighbor and friend’s, Dinah’s, tunic. Dinah was walking from the direction of the beach, which, though across the road and down the hill, was part of Dinah’s favorite exercise venue. Walk at dawn, walk at dusk. If Claire’s work schedule permitted, she would be right with her.

      Quickly she unlocked and pushed up her window. “Dinah!” Claire called. “Can you join me for dinner? I’ve chicken breasts, salad, and wine.”

      Dinah hesitated, holding open her screen door. In the gathering dusk Claire couldn’t see her eyes, which she knew to be light blue. “I’ll be right over,” she called.

      Claire hurriedly uncorked the wine, put it in a chilled silver bucket, turned the chicken breasts, then headed into her bedroom to change. The bungalow was two-story: two bedrooms, one bath on the main level; a daylight basement below that faced toward the ocean, its view blocked by houses across the road.

      Changing into an oversized cream cotton sweater and jeans, Claire padded back barefoot. It was chilly and getting wetter with another spate of clouds and rain. She’d just placed the chicken breasts on a platter and set out forks and knives wrapped in napkins when Dinah arrived. “Come and get it,” Claire invited and they served up in the kitchen and took their plates to the covered deck, which surrounded the upper level, where Claire had placed the wine, glasses, and salt and pepper on a teak table built for two, one of the few pieces of furniture she’d taken from her marriage.

      “If the rain comes again, we can head back in. Fast,” Claire said.

      “I like being outside,” Dinah admitted.

      “Me, too.”

      Dinah was in her midthirties, close to Claire’s age, but sometimes seemed like an older sister, almost a mother, to Claire. “How was the hospital today?” she asked.

      Claire peered at her. “Small talk, or do you really want to know?”

      “Whichever you prefer.”

      Claire poured both of their glasses with the Savignon Blanc she’d recently discovered. Light. Not too astringent. Cheap enough to buy without wincing. “Do you remember that Jane Doe I told you about?”

      “The pregnant one?”

      “She was transported from Laurelton General to Halo Valley today. Dr. Freeson has taken her on as his patient, with the help of Dr. Avanti.”

      “You’d like to take care of her,” Dinah guessed.

      “Maybe I’d just like them not to.”

      Dinah cradled her glass in her hands and looked out toward the ocean, her blondish hair smooth and straight to her shoulders. Dinah had been there when the incident happened. She’d seen it on the news and was waiting for Claire to get home after all the interviews and checkups and red tape. As soon as Claire wearily stepped from her car, Dinah was there with a basket of chocolate chip muffins and a warm hug.

      The warmth Dinah lavished on her foster child she brought to Claire when she needed it most. Without the thousand questions Claire expected, Dinah followed her inside that first night, dropped the basket on the table, and set about making herbal tea. Fresh herbs from her own garden. Claire, spent, sat in a chair at the table and let Dinah take over. And while the tea steeped Claire leaned forward on her elbows, head in her hands, and cried. For Melody. For Heyward. For her own inability to stop things.

      Dinah pushed a cup of tea her way and said, “You need to know that this will pass. You won’t be blamed forever. There are changes ahead.”

      “Right now, I’ll be lucky to get through tomorrow.”

      “You are only guilty of a tender heart. It’s your saving grace, but it’s caused you pain. And you may be too polite. It’s how they’ve used you as their scapegoat.”

      “What do you know about it?” Claire asked, surprised.

      “What I saw on the news,” Dinah answered, unruffled.

      But Claire learned that Dinah saw a helluva lot more than was broadcast. She called it her intuition, but Claire had her own intuition about things and she knew this was something else. Just what, she couldn’t say. And as they became friends, she decided she didn’t care. Dinah was her therapist. A therapist’s therapist. Other than her own work with her patients, the evenings she shared tea, or dinner, or wine with Dinah were the real moments where Claire felt connected to the human race.

      Now she said, “I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through the last six months without this.” She motioned to Dinah and herself.

      Dinah smiled. “That’s what I’m here for.”

      “For me? Yeah, right.”

      “Sometimes the universe does answer.”

      “Mmm.” Claire squinched down in her chair and gazed into the fog. “I didn’t know I’d sent out a question.”

      “You didn’t want to send it out. Others did that for you. But the message was received and now you’re getting better. Stronger.”

      “You’re a little too woo-woo for me. You know that, right?”

      She smiled and leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t drink wine. It dulls the senses.”

      “All five, or do you have six?”

      Dinah opened her eyes and turned to look at Claire. “You’re such a believer in straight science.”

      “Hey, if there’s something more, I’m all for it. Don’t quote me on that. The hospital administration already regards me with suspicion. But I like this.” She lifted her glass to toast Dinah.

      Claire had told Dinah how her marriage to Ron fell apart after her two miscarriages. Dinah, in turn, had talked about Toby, about her frustration with Toby’s mother, how she would love to adopt the little boy herself, but it was not to be.

      Now they just enjoyed each other’s company, talking about other things, the less important the better. After dinner and several glasses of wine, Dinah headed back to her house and Claire stayed where she was, her gaze on the ocean.

      Later, lying in bed and watching rain drizzle down her windowpane, she wondered more about her friend. Dinah seemed to understand Claire’s very soul and yet, beyond Toby, Claire knew very little about the woman next door. Some people were like that, she knew; they could give of themselves wholly without offering up a clue to their own inner workings. Claire had just never met someone so completely like that as Dinah. She felt a little guilty because it seemed sometimes like she was taking, taking, taking and offering nothing in return except an occasional dinner or glass of wine.

      She closed her eyes, thoughts of Dinah drifting away to be replaced by other more pressing issues. Tomorrow Claire was going to be bullied by the administration and the Marsdons СКАЧАТЬ