watched Jenny trundle Astrid across the empty restaurant and toward the far door. When they were gone, he turned to me. “So. We have a bargain?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t DS on me?”
DS. Carny-speak for down south, meaning to pull stakes and disappear.
“No, Charlie. I won’t DS on you.”
“That’s fine, then.” He was looking at the doorway through which the women had gone. “Miss Knowlton doesn’t like me much now that I’ve left Team Jesus, does she?”
“Scared of you is what she is.”
He shrugged it off. Like his smile, the shrug was mostly one-sided. “Ten years ago, I couldn’t have cured our Miss Soderberg. Perhaps not even five. But things are moving fast, now. By this summer . . .”
“By this summer, what?”
“Who knows?” he said. “Who knows?”
You do, I thought. You do, Charlie.
• • •
“Watch this, Jamie,” Astrid said when I arrived with her soft drink.
She got out of the wheelchair and tottered three steps to the chair by her bedroom window. She held on to it for balance while she turned herself around, and collapsed into it with a sigh of relief and pleasure.
“Not much, I know—”
“Are you kidding? It’s amazing.” I handed her an ice-choked glass of Coca-Cola. I had even stuck a piece of lime on the rim for good luck. “And you’ll be able to do more each day.”
We had the room to ourselves. Jenny had excused herself to finish packing, although it looked to me as if the job was already done. Astrid’s coat was laid out on the bed.
“I think I owe you as much as I owe Mr. Jacobs.”
“That’s not true.”
“Don’t lie, Jamie, your nose will grow and the bees will sting your knees. He must get thousands of letters begging for cures, even now. I don’t think he picked mine out of the pile by accident. Were you the one in charge of reading them?”
“Nope, that was Al Stamper, your friend Jenny’s old fave. Charlie got in touch with me later.”
“And you came,” she said. “After all these years, you came. Why?”
“Because I had to. I can’t explain any better than that, except there was a time when you meant the world to me.”
“You didn’t promise him anything? There was no . . . what do they call it . . . quid pro quo?”
“Not a single one.” I said it without missing a beat. During my years as an addict, I’d become an accomplished liar, and the sad truth is that sort of skill sticks with you.
“Walk over here. Stand close to me.”
I did. With no hesitation or embarrassment, she put her hand on the front of my jeans. “You were gentle with this,” she said. “Many boys wouldn’t have been. You had no experience, but you knew how to be kind. You meant the world to me, too.” She dropped her hand and looked at me out of eyes no longer dull and preoccupied with her own pain. Now they were full of vitality. Also worry. “You did promise. I know you did. I won’t ask what, but if you ever loved me, be careful of him. I owe him my life, and I feel awful saying this, but I believe he’s dangerous. And I think you believe that, too.”
Not as accomplished at lying as I’d thought, then. Or perhaps it was just that she saw more now that she was cured.
“Astrid, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I wonder . . . could I have a kiss, Jamie? While we’re alone? I know I’m not much to look at, but . . .”
I dropped to one knee—again feeling like a swain in a romance—and kissed her. No, she wasn’t much to look at, but compared to how she’d looked that morning, she was a knockout. Still—it was only skin against skin, that kiss. There were no embers in the ashes. For me, at least. But we were tied together, just the same. Jacobs was the knot.
She stroked the back of my head. “Still such wonderful hair, going white or not. Life leaves us so little, but it’s left you that. Goodbye, Jamie. And thank you.”
• • •
On my way out, I stopped to talk briefly to Jenny. Mostly I wanted to know if she lived close enough to Astrid to monitor her progress.
She smiled. “Astrid and I are divorce buddies. Have been since I moved to Rockland and started working at the hospital there. Ten years ago, that was. When she got sick, I moved in with her.”
I gave her my