The Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 1)

Ellie gave a snort of derision. “And I’m just the opposite. I was in a gifted program all through high school, so everyone thought I was a ‘brain.’ What I wanted was physical. And now my life is spent thinking. If I had a romance—not that I will—but if I did, I’d just want feeling, emotion. Thunderous romance.”

The way she said the last words made the others laugh.

“Not me,” Leslie said. “I’d want hearts and flowers. Champagne. Tea in porcelain cups. Picnics while I wear lace. Hand kissing. And no groping. And absolutely nothing that thunders!”

At that the three of them laughed together.

“But at least you got what you wanted,” Ellie said to Madison. “You got a man to talk to you, but I’m still waiting for my thunder.”

“And I can tell you that Alan isn’t the hearts-and-flowers type,” Leslie said. “For our tenth anniversary, he bought me an annuity.” When the other two looked at her in question, she shrugged. “It’s a very sensible thing. I’ll have it long after the flowers that I wanted died.”

“On the other hand,” Madison said, “diamonds last longer than companies that hold annuities.”

Again the three of them laughed; then Leslie’s face suddenly grew serious as she looked at Madison. “Pardon me for asking something so personal, but why didn’t you divorce Roger and marry Thomas?”

For a moment, Madison turned away, and there looked to be tears in her eyes.

“Okay,” Ellie said, lying back down. “Go back to the story. Tell us as it happened. Tell us every detail. Lead up to the punch line. If you didn’t marry him, I trust that you had a good reason.”

“Yeah,” Madison said softly. “I had a good reason. He—”

“No!” Ellie said. “You’re in my domain now. You have to tell a story in the proper order. You don’t tell the punch line before you tell the joke. Go back to that beautiful wilderness in Upstate New York and tell us about—” Ellie sat up abruptly. “Tell us why that woman was named Pretty.”

The tears went away and Madison smiled again. “Any more of that wine? Do you think they have a pizza parlor in this tiny town? One that delivers?”

“They have pizza parlors that deliver even in Egypt,” Ellie said, and when the others looked at her in question, she smiled. “You can read all about that in my third book, but now let’s look for a phone book and order. And can we get something besides pepperoni? And you—” She pointed at Madison. “You sit and talk. So, tell me, did Thomas have really great legs?”

“Beautiful,” Madison said, leaning back against the leg of the couch. “Every part of him was beautiful.”

Ten

“And you’re how old?” Thomas said with a deep scowl as he held Madison’s foot in his palm and turned it to look at the bloody blisters. “You couldn’t be more than six if you did something this dumb.”

For all that his words were harsh, Madison felt nothing but caring concern coming from him. It had taken them three hours to walk over the hill that Thomas called a mountain to reach the pickup where Pretty waited for them.

And during the walk, Thomas had encouraged Madison to talk. He told her that his mother had said she’d rehabilitated Roger, so he wanted to know, in detail, what she’d done.

At first, Madison was reluctant to talk about the matter. For one thing, she’d had no experience with talking with a man. She’d tried it, but as men looked at her, they became “distracted.” And since she’d been married, she’d tried to interest Roger in what she was reading about, but he’d said that it was enough that he had to do what she read about, he didn’t want to have to listen to it too.

But Thomas, walking ahead of her on the trail, had persisted. “I’m about ready to choose my specialty in medicine, so maybe I’ll become a physiatrist.”

She knew that he was testing her on this obscure word for a doctor who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation. “Do you have the personality?” Madison teased, but Thomas glanced back at her with his usual frown.

“What do you mean?”

“If I had to put it into one word, it’s ‘Encouragement.’ Rehabilitation is nonstop encouragement. The patient isn’t just a doll you can manipulate. You have to deal with his personality and make him want to do all the work involved. It’s easier to lie in bed and watch football than it is to try to lift a leg three inches off the bed, then repeat the process twenty times.”

“I see,” Thomas said, turning back to the trail. “So what did you do to encourage your patient?”

Not “Roger,” Madison thought, but “your patient.” She liked that. It made her feel as though she were actually in the medical profession, rather than just Roger’s wife who wasn’t sure what she was doing half the time.

When she didn’t say anything, Thomas said, “Start at the beginning.”

Madison made a sound of disgust. “The beginning is difficult. With Roger it was especially difficult because he’d been told by the neurosurgeon that his spinal cord had been severed and that he’d never walk again. When I got back to Montana, Roger was suicidal.”

“But you gave him hope,” Thomas said softly. “And, more important, you made him walk again. So tell me how you did it.”

The way he said that made Madison feel wonderful, but she didn’t want him to think she was an egomaniac, so she passed the buck. “I had a lot of help from your aunt. She’d told Roger’s parents that the X-rays seemed to show a complete lesion, but there was so much swelling that she couldn’t be sure. I called her. I was very nervous about doing so, and I didn’t know if Roger’s parents would pay her bill if she sent one but I wanted to learn all that I could. She was very nice and she told me to put towels under Roger’s knees then push down on his legs. If his feet came up and seemed to show signs of movement, then there was hope.”