Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,86

upset. Everything is not as it seems.

Rowan reaches for a tissue and blows her nose. “If you hadn’t sent her away, we’d have been a family all those years.”

Sheila holds up a hand before Webster can respond. “Your father did the right thing by sending me away,” she says to Rowan. “I might have killed you. It’s sort of a miracle I didn’t.”

“So you’re not angry that he sent you away?”

“I have been at times,” Sheila says. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that he did it to save your life.”

“I didn’t save anyone’s life,” Webster says, setting his coffee cup on the ledge under the window. “It happened, and it can’t be taken back. We’ve all been damaged by it.” He pauses. Does he believe that? Yes, he does.

“Rowan and I have a lot of catching up to do,” Sheila says. She stands.

“You’re going?” Rowan asks with dismay.

“If my watch is right,” Sheila says, “the physical therapist is going to come grab you in about five minutes. Besides, I have to return to my house. I don’t want to leave, but I really have to.”

Rowan throws off the covers and sits at the edge of the bed. Her legs are thin and white. Webster is always amazed by how much muscle mass can be lost in so short a time.

“When you go across that stage,” Sheila says, “you keep your chin up and forget about that bald spot. Besides, it’s growing back in already.”

“It is?” Rowan asks, fingering her head.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get back. I have to run to check out of my room at the inn, or I’ll be charged the extra day.”

Rowan looks wildly at her father, as if to say, Fix it.

“Stay the extra day,” Webster suggests to his ex-wife. “Unless you positively have to be back. Follow us to Hartstone. You can get a room at the Bear Hollow Inn.”

Where they had their wedding lunch.

“Or if that’s full, we’ll find you another place. Wouldn’t you like to see this sad, pathetic, bald creature graduate?”

“Yes,” Sheila says. “Yes, I would.” She turns to Rowan. “Are you asking me?”

“I am,” Rowan says.

Sheila, having arrived at the house early from the Bear Hollow Inn, zips up the back of Rowan’s dress, a chore that used to be Webster’s, Rowan always pleading, “Don’t look.”

His girls. It’s on the tip of his tongue. Webster remembers thinking it years ago one afternoon when he found Sheila and Rowan asleep together on the ground. But Sheila is no more his than the neighbor’s lawn mower is. Still, there’s something about the scene before him—a mother and a daughter helping each other with last-minute arrangements—that pleases him.

Rowan is nervous. Webster knows it’s partly the hair, partly a slight unsteadiness on her feet, partly the idea of seeing her friends again.

It’s been fifteen years since all three of them have been in this house together. But Rowan doesn’t remember that.

Webster watches Sheila give Rowan her graduation present, a short necklace of powder blue stones and hammered silver balls. Even as Sheila hands the package to Rowan, the gesture seems tentative. As if she shouldn’t be giving her daughter a present. The easy joy that Sheila took in Rowan just two days earlier appears to have left her.

“What do you think?” Rowan asks, standing before him in her light blue dress with a part of one sleeve cut to make room for the cast.

“You look fabulous,” he says. “Very smart and chic.”

Rowan wrinkles her face. “What do you know about smart and chic?”

Sheila adjusts her white jacket and fiddles with the waistband of her trousers. Webster catches a glimpse of a silky top under the jacket.

In the hospital, Webster told Rowan that his graduation present to her would be a four-night trip to New York City for her and Gina when Rowan is fully recovered. They could see museums, go to plays, eat out. “You won’t drink,” Webster warned. “You can’t drink. You understand that.”

“I do.”

“My father used to say to me that I’d never been anywhere,” Webster said. “He’d be glad that you’re doing this.”

“But, Dad, don’t you want to go instead of Gina?”

He did. “I’d be a bore,” he said. “I’d want to take long walks and visit other rescue squads. And I’d want to be in bed by ten. You’ll have much more fun with Gina.”

“She’s going to flip out when she hears about this,” Rowan said. “Thank you so much.”

It has been arranged that Rowan will