Waiting for the Moon

Patient exhibits expressive and cognitive aphasia. Basilar skull fracture. Prognosis: unknown. Receptive and expressive aphasia appears to be impermanent, but future uncertain. Can speak somewhat, answer questions, and retain limited understanding. But can she reason? The last sentence was underlined.

She looked up at him through a blur of hot tears. "I

176

don't know if I reason, but I feel, Ian. Perhaps that is what saved my life."

He looked away. A deep breath filled his chest and then released in a hissing sigh. He was quiet for so long that she thought perhaps she'd reached him, thought maybe she'd forced him to think about her, instead of her injury.

He got slowly to his feet. "That's enough for this morning, Selena." Stepping away from the rock, he eased away from her.

"You know, Ian," she said without looking at him. "I may be brain-damaged, but I am smart enough to know something that you do not."

Reluctantly he turned to her. "What's that?"

She met his gaze head-on. "You need to be saved more than I do."

Ian stood at the window, gazing out at the front lawn. The glass of wine felt warm and familiar in his hand. Absently he twirled the delicate crystal stem.

He couldn't stop thinking about what Selena had said to him this morning. There was a core of truth in her observation. He'd always been better with facts and figures and challenges than with people. Whenever he had to deal with people he didn't understand, especially mentally deficient people, he drew back, cloaked himself in detachment. It was something he'd learned long ago, a survival skill Maeve had taught him.

He'd always seen mental illness in stark, black-and-white definition. A person was normal or abnormal. Period.

When had he stopped searching for the truth? Stopped seeing anything beyond the label?

But he knew, of course. He'd stopped a long, long time ago-with every slight from Maeve, every moment of irrationality. He'd been afraid to think of his mother as anything but irreparably broken, because if he saw her as a human-worse yet, a human in pain-he'd

177

have to change. And change would hurt, just as expectations hurt, just as disappointment hurt.

Somewhere along the way, he'd become ugly in his selfishness. As Johann said, he'd demanded a wretched commonness from those around him. Healthy or sick- that's how he saw people, how he treated them. The world according to Ian Carrick. He sighed, depressed by the realization. He regretted that he'd hurt her, regretted even more that he'd been such a poor physician. He knew a good physician treated the mind as well as the body; unfortunately, he'd always had a wretched bedside manner.

Normally it didn't matter. Most of his patients didn't care about his personality at all. All they cared about was his skill, and that was unparalleled.

But nothing about Selena was normal. He owed her an apology.

Behind him, the door creaked open, then clicked shut. "Contemplating your monumental errors, I hope," said a drawling male voice.

Ian flinched. Johann. Christ. "Go away." Crystal clinked, liquid splashed. "I thought I'd join you for a drink."

Slowly Ian turned around. Johann stood next to the mahogany sideboard, wineglass in hand. Johann tipped the glass in a mock salute.

"Well, you've done it-what none of us was able to do in the month you were gone." "What are you talking about?" Johann set down the glass with a clunk on the table and peered up at him. "You stole Selena's smile."

Ian went to the chair across from Johann and sat down. "Did I?" He tried to make the words sound cold and disinterested, but he didn't quite manage.

"I know you're not a bad man-though I believe you're more than half stupid and certainly blind." Johann leaned forward. "She's an innocent, Ian. Doesn't that mean something to you?"

178

"Her brain-"

"Screw her brain." He leaned back and plucked his glass from the table, gazing moodily into the crimson liquid. "You think about things more when you're dying. I think about the way I've lived my life, the way I've treated people, and more than half the time, I'm ashamed. But then ..." He shook his head, smiling just a little. "Then I think of Marie and the way I loved her, and I feel ... redeemed."

The words hit dangerously close to home. "What makes you think I need to be redeemed?"

"Ten minutes in your company."