He was one step from being a pure animal now as he sat there, and surely she must have felt it. But her face was like a mask; her eyes were glassy and she was so still, staring at him, her hands still holding him, that he almost became alarmed.
“Rowan?” he whispered.
Slowly she withdrew her hands. She seemed to be herself again, and she let her fingers drop playfully and with maddening gentleness into his lap. She scratched at the bulge in his jeans.
“So what does the sixth sense tell you?” he asked again, resisting the urge to rip her clothing to pieces on the spot.
“That you’re the most handsome, seductive man I’ve ever been in bed with,” she said languidly. “That falling in love with you was an amazingly intelligent idea. That our first child will be incredibly handsome and beautiful and strong.”
“Are you teasing me? You didn’t really see that?”
“No, but it’s going to happen,” she said. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Wonderful things are going to happen,” she said as he folded her against him. “Because we’re going to make them happen. Let’s go in there now and make something wonderful happen between the sheets.”
By the end of the week, Mayfair and Mayfair held its first serious conference devoted entirely to the creation of the medical center. In consultation with Rowan, it was decided to authorize several coordinated studies as to the feasibility, the optimum size of the center, and the best possible New Orleans location.
Ryan scheduled fact-gathering trips for Anne Marie and Pierce to several major hospitals in Houston, New York, and Cambridge. Meetings were being arranged at the local level to discuss the possibility of affiliation with universities or existing institutions in town.
Rowan was hard at work reading technical histories of the American hospital. For hours she talked long distance to Larkin, her old boss, and other doctors around the country, asking for suggestions and ideas.
It was becoming obvious to her that her most grandiose dream could be realized with only a fraction of her capital, if capital was even involved at all. At least that is how Lauren and Ryan Mayfair interpreted her dreams; and it was best to allow things to proceed on that basis.
“But what if some day every penny of that money could be flowing into medicine,” said Rowan privately to Michael, “going into the creation of vaccines and antibiotics, operating rooms and hospital beds?”
The renovations were going so smoothly that Michael had time to look at a couple of other properties. By mid-September, he’d acquired a big deep dusty shop on Magazine Street for the new Great Expectations, just a few blocks from First Street and from where he’d been born. It was in a vintage building with a flat above and an iron gallery that covered the sidewalk. Another one of those perfect moments.
Yes, it was all going beautifully and it was so much fun. The parlor was almost finished. Several of Julien’s Chinese rugs and fine French armchairs had been returned to it. And the grandfather clock was working once again.
Of course the family besieged them to leave their digs at the Pontchartrain and come to this or that house until the wedding. But they were too comfortable there in the big suite over St. Charles Avenue. They loved the Caribbean Room, and the staff of the small elegant hotel; they even loved the paneled elevator with the flowers painted on the ceiling, and the little coffee shop where they sometimes had breakfast.
Also Aaron was still occupying the suite upstairs, and they had both become extremely fond of him. A day wasn’t a day without coffee or a drink or at least a chat with Aaron. And if he was suffering any more of those accidents now, he didn’t say so.
The last weeks of September were cooler. And many an evening they remained at First Street, after the workers had gone, having their wine at the iron table, and watching the sun set beyond the trees.
The very last light caught in the high attic windows which faced south, turning the panes to gold.
So quietly grand. The bougainvillea gave forth its purple blooms in dazzling profusion, and each newly finished room or bit of painted ironwork excited them, and filled them with dreams of what was to come.
Meantime Beatrice and Lily Mayfair had talked Rowan into a white dress Wedding at St. Mary’s Assumption Church. Apparently the legacy stipulated a Catholic ceremony. And the trappings were considered to be absolutely indispensable for the happiness and satisfaction of the whole clan. Rowan seemed pleased when she finally gave in.
And Michael was secretly elated.
It thrilled him more than he dared to admit. He had never hoped for anything so graceful or traditional in his life. And of course it was the woman’s decision, and he hadn’t wanted to pressure Rowan in any way. But ah, to think of it, a formal white dress wedding in the old church where he’d served Mass.
As the days grew even cooler, as they moved into a beautiful and balmy October, Michael suddenly realized how close they were to their first Christmas together, and that they would spend it in the new house. Think of the tree they could have in that enormous parlor. It would be marvelous, and Aunt Viv was finally settling in at the new condominium. She was still fussing for her personal things, and he was promising to fly to San Francisco any day now to get them, but he knew she liked it here. And she liked the Mayfairs.
Yes, Christmas, the way he had always imagined it ought to be. In a magnificent house, with a splendid tree, and a fire going in the marble fireplace.
Christmas.
Inevitably, the memory of Lasher in the church came back to him. Lasher’s unmistakable presence, mingled with the smell of the pine needles and the candles, and the vision of the plaster Baby Jesus, smiling in the manger.
Why had Lasher looked so lovingly at Michael on that long-ago day when he’d appeared in the sanctuary by the crib?
Why all of it? That was the question finally.
And maybe Michael would never know. Maybe, just maybe, he had somehow completed the purpose for which his life had been given back to him. Maybe it had never been anything more than to return here, to love Rowan, and that they should be happy together in the house.
But he knew it couldn’t be that simple. Just didn’t make sense that way. It would be a miracle if this lasted forever. Just a miracle, the way the creation of Mayfair Medical was a miracle, and that Rowan wanted a baby was a miracle, and that the house would soon be theirs was a miracle … and like seeing a ghost was a miracle-a ghost beaming at you from the sanctuary of a church, or from under a bare crepe myrtle tree on a cold night.
Thirty-nine
ALL RIGHT, HERE we go again, thought Rowan. It was what? The fifth gathering in honor of the engaged couple? There had been Lily’s tea, and Beatrice’s lunch, and Cecilia’s little dinner at Antoine’s. And Lauren’s little party downtown in that lovely old house on Esplanade Avenue.
And this time it was Metairie-Cortland’s house, as they still called it though it had been the home of Gifford and Ryan, and their youngest son, Pierce, for years. And the clear October day was perfect for a garden party of some two hundred.
Never mind that the wedding was only ten days away, on November 1, the Feast of All Saints. The Mayfairs would hold two more teas before then, and another lunch somewhere, the place and time to be confirmed later.
“Any excuse for a party!” Claire Mayfair had said. “Darling, you don’t know how long we’ve been waiting for something like this.”
They were milling on the open lawn now beneath the small, neatly clipped magnolia trees, and through the spacious low-ceilinged rooms of the trim brick Williamsburg house. And the dark-haired Anne Marie, a painfully honest individual who seemed now utterly enchanted by Rowan’s hospital schemes, introduced her to dozens of the same people she had seen at the funeral, and dozens more whom she’d never seen before.