"More flowers, Mrs Voss. They were just delivered. Do you want them in here? Or shall I put them in the pailour?"
"Bring them in here, please." Sitting in a chair by her favourite window, Nina watched the maid carry the vase into the bedroom and set it down on a night table. Now she was fussing with the arrangement, moving stems around, and the fragrance of sage and phlox wafted towards Nina.
"Put them here, next to me."
"Of course, Ma'am." The maid moved the vase to the small tea table beside Nina's chair. She had to make room for it by taking away another vase of Oriental lilies. "They're not your usual flowers, are they?" the maid said, and her tone of voice was not entirely approving as she regarded the usurping vase.
"No." Nina smiled at the unruly arrangement. Already her gardener's eye had picked out and identified each splash of colour. Russian sage and pink phlox. Purple coneflowers and yellow heliopsis. And daisies. Lots and lots of daisies. Such common, undistinguished flowers. How did one find daisies so late in the season?
She brushed her hand across the blossoms and inhaled the scents of late summer, the remembered fragrance of the garden she had been too ill to tend. Now summer was gone, and their house in Newport was closed for the winter. How she disliked this time of year! The fading of the garden. The return to Boston, to this house with its gold-leafed ceilings and carved doorways and bathrooms of Carrara marble. She found all the dark wood oppressive. Their summer home was blessed with light and warm breezes and the smell of the sea. But this house made her think of winter. She picked out a daisy and breathed in its pungent scent.
"Wouldn't you rather have the lilies next to you?" the maid asked. "They smell so lovely."
"They were giving me a headache. Who are these flowers from?"
The maid pulled off the tiny envelope taped to the vase and opened the flap. '"To Mrs Voss. A speedy recovery. Joy." That's all it says."
Nina frowned. "I don't know anyone named Joy."
"Maybe it'll come to you. Would you like to go back to bed now? MrVoss says you should rest."
"I've had enough of lying in bed."
"But MrVoss says-'
"I'll go to bed later. I'd like to sit here for a while. By myself."
The maid hesitated. Then, with a nod, she reluctantly left the room.
At last, thought Nina. At last I'm alone.
For the past week, ever since she'd left the hospital, she had been surrounded by people. Private duty nurses and doctors and maids. And Victor. Most of all, Victor, hovering at her bedside. Reading aloud all her get-well cards, screening all her phone calls.
Protecting her, insulating her. Imprisoning her in this house. All because he loved her. Perhaps he loved her too much. Wearily she leaned back in the chair and found herself staring at the portrait hanging on the opposite wall. It was her portrait, painted soon after their marriage. Victor had commissioned it, had even chosen which gown she should wear, a long mauve silk patterned faintly with roses. In the painting she was standing under a vine-covered arbour, a single white rose clutched in one hand, her other hand dangling awkwardly at her side. Her smile was shy, uncertain, as though she were thinking to herself: I am only standing in for someone else.
Now, as she studied that portrait of her younger self, she realized how little she'd changed since that day she'd posed as a young bride in the garden. The years had altered her physically, of course. She'd lost her robust good health. In so many ways, though, she was unchanged. Still shy, still awkward. Still the woman Victor Voss had claimed as his possession.
She heard his footsteps and looked up as he came into the bedroom.
"Louisa told me you were still up," he said. "You should be taking your nap."
"I'm fine, Victor."
"You don't look strong enough yet."
"It's been three and a half weeks. DrArcher says his other patients are already walking on treadmills by now."
"You're not like any other patient. I think you should take a nap."
She met his gaze. Firmly she said: "I'm going to sit here, Victor. I want to look out the window."
"Nina, I'm only thinking of what's best for you."
But she had already turned away from him, and was staring down at the park. At the trees, their fall brilliance fading to winter brown. "I'd like to go for a drive."
"It's too soon."
'… to the park. The river. Anywhere, just away from this house." "You're not listening to me, Nina."
She sighed. And said, sadly, "You're the one who's not listening."
There was a silence. "What are these?" he said, pointing to the vase of flowers by her chair. "They just arrived."
"Who sent them?"
She shrugged. "Someone named Joy."
"You can pick these kinds of flowers at the roadside."
"That's why they're called wildflowers."
He lifted the vase and carried it to a table in a far corner. Then he brought the Oriental lilies back and set them beside her. "At least these aren't weeds," he said, and left the room.
She stared at the lilies. They were beautiful. Exotic and perfect. Their cloying fragrance sickened her.
She blinked away an unexpected film of tears and focused on the tiny envelope lying on the table. The one that had come with the wildflowers.
Joy. Who was Joy?
She opened the flap and took out the enclosed card. Only then did she notice that something was written on the back of the card. She flipped it over.
Some doctors always tell the truth, it said.
And beneath that was a phone number.
Abby was home alone when Nina Voss called at 5 p.m.
"Is this Dr. DiMatteo?" said a soft voice. "The one who always tells the truth?"
"Mrs Voss?You got my flowers."
"Yes, thank you. And I got your rather odd note."
"I've tried every other way to contact you. Letters. Phone calls." "I've been home over a week."
"But you haven't been available."
There was a pause. Then a quiet, "I see."
She has no idea how isolated she's been, thought Abby. No idea how her husband has cut her off from the outside.
"Is anyone else listening to this?" asked Abby.
"I'm alone in my room. What is this all about?"
"I have to see you, Mrs Voss. And it has to be without your husband's knowledge. Can you arrange it?"
"First tell me why."
"It's not an easy thing to say over the phone."
"I won't meet with you until you tell me."
Abby hesitated. "It's about your heart. The one you got at Bayside." "Yes?"
"No one seems to know whose heart it was. Or where it came from." She paused. And asked quietly: "Do you know, Mrs Voss?"
The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of Nina's breathing, rapid and irregular. "MrsVoss?"
"I have to go."
"Wait. When can! see you?"
"Tomorrow."
"How? Where?"
There was another pause. Just before the line went dead, Nina said: "I'll find a way."
The rain beat a relentless tattoo on the striped awning over Abby's head. For forty minutes now she had been standing in front of Cellucci's Grocery, shivering beneath the narrow overhang of canvas. A succession of delivery trucks had pulled up to unload, the men wheeling in dollies and carton boxes. Snapple and Frito-Lay and Winston Cigarettes. Little Debbie had a snack for you.
At four-twenty the rain began coming down harder, swirling with the wind. Gusts of it angled under the awning, splattering her shoes. Her feet were freezing. An hour had passed; Nina Voss was not going to show up.
Abby flinched as a Progresso Foods truck suddenly roared away from the kerb, spewing exhaust. When she looked up again, she saw that a black limousine had stopped across the street. The driver's window rolled down a few inches and a man called: "Dr. DiMatteo? Come into the car."
She hesitated. The windows were too darkly tinted for Abby to see inside, but she could make out the silhouette of a single rear-seat passenger.