patients.
As a pediatrician, there was nothing more satisfying than helping a child in pain to feel better and smile again. Having lost his daughter, David felt a keen desire to embrace all children as his own, to somehow fill the void that had opened inside him that terrible day. The children he treated loved to tell stories because he always tried to listen with rapt attention. Above all, he loved the children themselves, and they knew it. He never allowed himself to think he might ever have children of his own again. Until that time—if it ever came—it was enough to be nurtured by the children he helped to be healthy and happy.
David’s breath came in heavy draughts, muscles flexing rhythmically, slick with sweat, lungs filled with sweet Tennessee air. One more block to complete one more mile. The promise of a glorious day.
He’d been in Memphis since birth, attended Treadwell High School, then the University of Tennessee. He, Fran and Alyssa had lived in the house he still called home. For him, it would always brim with Alyssa’s laughter and the subtle magic of Fran’s smile. The memories kept David alive.
When she was three, Alyssa had attended nursery school. Every evening he hoisted her into his lap for a report of her day, complete with paintings, carefully-drawn letters and numbers and, on occasion, a clay or salt sculpture presented lovingly to “Daddy,” and cherished along with the child.
The children who came to see Dr. Stewart every day provided the only means available for expunging some of the pain and regret he felt.
He’d known Fran had been having dizzy spells and insisted she have some tests to see why. After the tests, Fran drove to pick up Alyssa, as usual. He’d wondered a thousand times if Fran had any warning before her heart arrested, sending the car crashing into an oncoming city transit bus.
The test results proved she was afflicted with Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. The congenital heart defect could not be cured. Once diagnosed, the rapid heartbeat and occasional fainting could have been recognized and precautions taken. But it was too late for precautions.
Everyone repeated endlessly that he had no reason to feel guilty, but he still had difficulty reconciling himself to losing them and to the loneliness surrounding him.
He’d thought about moving dozens of times but found it impossible. Leaving the house where they’d been a family would be like abandoning them, something he could never do. And he loved the old houses with their covered porches and nostalgic style too much to consider moving to Germantown, even though parts of it were just as old. Joe and his wife, Shawna, loved it there, but David’s heart was firmly rooted to Midtown, and there he would stay.
When he neared the front door, sadness came flooding back. Fran would not be there in the kitchen with breakfast ready. Alyssa would not be home from school this afternoon, eager to nestle in his lap.
Gone.
Such a terrible, harsh word. But never would the guilt or the longing be gone. And never the emptiness.
David went inside, straight to the shower. Twenty minutes later, he sat at the table, reading The Commercial Appeal , drinking a cup of black coffee, scanning pictures of the dance on the riverboat. There, as brilliant as the morning star, was Marilu, dancing with Phillip, looking every bit the fashionable young woman she aspired to be.
He was about to put the paper aside when something caught his attention. The photographer, aiming at Marilu and Phillip, had inadvertently captured another figure as well.
Lisette. Standing in the shadows.
The features weren’t clear, but David had no doubt it was she. The sound of her voice and the perfection of her features came back in a rush of emotion and warmth.
It hadn’t been a dream—at least meeting her hadn’t been.
He thumbed through the telephone book until he had to admit there was no listing for either Jacob Morgan or his daughter—and no listing