Flaming Tree Page 13

  That night, Kelsey’s sleep was restless, her dreams uneasy and troubled. Yet when she awoke in the morning, she couldn’t remember them. Instead, she lay for a moment thinking of the piper on the beach, trying to recapture the lift his appearance had provided to push her out of her bell jar. But all too quickly, she remembered that she wouldn’t see Jody today, and that only a little while remained before he would be sent away. This must be a day of figuring out how to get back to that house when his father didn’t want her there. Marisa must be the one to help.

  She dressed in jeans and pullover, and was ready outside when Marisa pulled up in her bright yellow car. Kelsey might have expected turquoise. Today, Marisa had shed her gold and blue for a white skirt and cardigan, and a dark red blouse with a gold chain shimmering against the red. Her long braid had been looped into a coil at the back of her head, held in place with tortoiseshell pins. She looked as striking as ever, and again Kelsey sensed the vitality in this woman. Sometimes she seemed to sparkle, and being near Marisa Marsh made one feel more alive. Yet there was some inner quality that never quite reached the surface. Kelsey had a sudden realization that she would not like to become this woman’s enemy. There might be a fighter here.

  “I don’t quite pass the test, do I?” Marisa asked as she opened the opposite door for Kelsey.

  But she was smiling, and Kelsey smiled back. “I have to watch my face,” she admitted. “It’s always giving me away.”

  They drove the few blocks to the restaurant, and since it was early, found a place to park. A side path led to the door. Katy’s Place had just opened for the day, though tables were quickly filling. They were given one near an arched window that looked out upon greenery. Overhead the white ceiling was beamed with wood, curtains at the windows were of lace, and brass lamps hung above the tables. Old baskets graced the walls, and there were old-fashioned pictures as well. The atmosphere was of the past, and there was a comfortable hominess.

  Katy herself was big and beautiful. Marisa said she had once been in the theater—as was true of a good many Californians who had found more profitable lines of work. She certainly knew how to run a restaurant and had made a popular success of this and her Wagon Wheel out in Carmel Valley. She came over to their table to greet Marisa, who was an old friend, and presented Kelsey with her warm smile.

  “Now then,” Marisa said when she’d gone, “decide what you want to eat and then we’ll get to work.

  Marisa’s brisk manner was reassuring. Points would be made, and problems would be solved.

  The menu was imaginative and Kelsey ordered raspberry pancakes and a slice of melon. When the waitress had gone, she gave Marisa a full account of her morning with Jody, her disturbing visit to Ruth, and the afternoon experience of visiting Tor House. Marisa listened intently, her clear involvement with Tyler and Jody evident.

  She responded with special pleasure over the small advances Jody had taken. “This is practically a miracle. And whether Tyler appreciates it or not, he has you to thank.”

  “He’s not thanking me. He doesn’t want me back.”

  “Pay no attention. I know he’s allowed himself to turn bitter. The accident must seem all the more unbearable after what happened to him as a child. Do you know about his background?”

  “Aunt Elaine told me. But if he goes on like this, he’ll damage Jody, and maybe Ruth too.”

  “I have someone in mind I want to have see Jody. She’s a doctor and a very special woman. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to bring her in. Tyler’s been too occupied with all his high-priced specialists to listen. Now he may. Dr. Norman has done some interesting research on brain damage, and it’s just possible that she can help. We’ll see. At least it was a good idea to take Jody out to Tor House. He used to love that place.”

  “I’m not sure. Tor House depressed Tyler all the more because his own drive to work is gone. For a little while he seemed to catch fire, and from what he said, I thought he might have made a wonderful film about Robinson Jeffers. One thing seems strange—that Denis never mentioned working with Tyler Hammond on past films.”

  “They parted badly after the accident. Everything blew up then. It’s a sore point with Denis. He really wanted to do the camera work on the Jeffers documentary, and it troubles him that he’ll never have the chance now. It’s difficult for him to talk about.”

  “Denis told me that you found them, Marisa—out at Point Lobos. How did it happen?”

  For a moment Marisa looked as though she might refuse to answer, but then she went on reluctantly. “I don’t much like to discuss that. I really hate it when this sort of thing happens to me. I’m afraid of it, in a way, and I’m never sure I should follow such prompting. Though this time it seemed to pay off, as Denis told you.”

  “You did save them,” Kelsey said gently.

  “I suppose I played a part in saving them, but sometimes lately I ask myself for what. Would Tyler have been better off with a clean break, instead of being left with a damaged wife and son to take care of, with little hope that they’ll recover? Perhaps there’s a natural war going on inside him because part of him only wants to escape from this impossible situation.”

  “There isn’t any escape,” Kelsey said quietly. “We have to bring Jody back as far as he will come.”

  Marisa seemed to study her for a moment. “I was pretty close to where they lay when I heard a weak voice calling. I climbed to where I could look down and see Ruth and Jody caught on a shelf of rock, just above the water. I tried to reassure her and went for help. A park ranger called an ambulance, and I went back to stay near them until they were rescued. I talked to Ruth—just talked, to help with the pain.”

  “Did she tell you anything about what happened?”

  “She was out of her head some of the time. What little came out didn’t make much sense.”

  The waitress brought their orders, poured coffee, and when she was gone, Kelsey said, “What did Ruth tell you?”

  “She was almost crazy with pain and fear. She was worrying about how badly she might be hurt, and whether Jody was dead. He didn’t move, and the wound on his head was still bleeding.”

  Something was missing in the account—perhaps something else had happened that Marisa chose to be silent about. There was no use asking more questions.

  Kelsey spread creamy butter on steaming pancakes. Marisa had ordered Katy’s wonderful whole wheat bread toasted, the slices thick and generous.

  They ate for a little while in silence, while Kelsey troubled over the question in her mind. She still needed to know, for Jody’s sake, what the missing pieces might be.

  “What are you leaving out?” she asked bluntly.

  “Nothing you need to know about now. You might as well get prepared, Kelsey. Tyler’s coming in the door. I asked him to meet us here.”

  Kelsey looked around, stiffening. Tyler stood at the desk, talking to Katy. “Why didn’t you warn me?” she cried.

  “And have you so worried about seeing him that you couldn’t think about anything else? Relax. Just let whatever happens happen.”

  He came toward them across the room, looking grim and anything but friendly. When he reached their table, his “Good morning” was grudging, and he managed a mocking smile for Marisa. The portents were as ominous as ever.

  “What are you up to?” he asked Marisa.

  She smiled cheerfully, though it seemed to Kelsey that her eyes were watchful, measuring. “Plenty. What would you like to eat?”

  He ordered coffee, and when it came he took a few swallows, black and hot. “All right,” he said, “you might as well start talking. Since you brought me here to listen.”

  “First,” Marisa began, “I want you to know that I’m on Kelsey’s side. And Jody’s. Kelsey has told me about your visit to Tor House, and about the effort Jody is making for the first time.”

  “Did she tell you how he fell apart and couldn’t breathe?”

  “Yes, she told me. That’s why I’d like
you to listen to a suggestion I want to make. I have a friend—Dr. Jane Norman—who lives in Pacific Grove. I’d like her to see Jody.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Probably not, but that’s hardly important. She’s been working mainly in research these days, and off the orthodox beaten track. Her subject happens to be brain damage. Jane doesn’t practice much anymore because she’s too absorbed in her research. But Jody’s problem is her main concern, and she’ll come to see him if I ask her to.”

  “I suppose it can’t matter, one way or another,” Tyler said glumly.

  “I like your positive attitude. I’ll see if I can get her there tomorrow.”

  He only shrugged and drank his coffee.

  “How did Jody do after you took him home yesterday?” Kelsey ventured.

  He looked directly at her—a cold, appraising stare that promised nothing, and she wondered how she could ever have been drawn to him for that little while at Tor House.

  “My son was sick most of the night,” he told her. “The night nurse had a bad time with him, as Ginnie did too, earlier. He was vomiting and crying and moaning. We had to have our doctor in to get him quiet.”

  Kelsey wanted to say, “Maybe you upset him,” but that was hardly the way to win another chance. “How is he this morning?”

  “Still too excited. But at least not sick. He’s making a lot of strange sounds.”

  “He’s trying to talk,” Kelsey said.

  “But he can’t, can he?”

  “What if he has something he wants terribly to tell you? Not being able to would make anyone ill.”

  Tyler gave her a look of distaste. “He keeps repeating something that sounds like ‘Elly.’”

  Quick tears came into Kelsey’s eyes. “He’s trying to say my name!”

  “That’s what Ginnie claims.”

  “Give up, Tyler,” Marisa said. “You’re fighting for the wrong goal. Let Kelsey come back and see what happens.” She put her hand on Tyler’s arm in a gesture of affection.

  He didn’t surrender at once, however. He was a man who would never surrender easily—perhaps that was what had kept him going. Though, as Marisa said, he was now on the wrong side.

  “All this has upset Ruth as well. We had to tell her what had happened, and she couldn’t sleep last night either. She’s asking to see you again, Kelsey. And she wants to see Jody too.”

  “You really have stirred things up, haven’t you, Kelsey?” Marisa sounded pleased.

  Kelsey stared at Tyler, waiting.

  He set down his cup and rose from the table. “Come at your usual time, Mrs. Stewart. Though I’m not promising anything. I’ll be talking to you, Marisa.”

  He went off with his long stride, his shoulders a bit more hunched than usual—as if he had warded off more blows.

  Marisa released the breath she’d been holding. “Whew! That was touch and go for a while. You did pretty well, Kelsey. You hardly snapped at him at all. Tyler doesn’t know how to handle what’s happened. He’s always hurled himself at stone walls, no matter how much he bruises.”

  “I suppose I should thank you,” Kelsey said uncertainly. “If you hadn’t done this, I might never have been able to go back.”

  “Jody did it. He’s asking for you!”

  Kelsey glanced at her watch. “Breakfast was very good, but I can’t finish these pancakes. Too many lumps all the way down my throat.”

  Marisa put a light hand on her arm, as she had done with Tyler, and it was as though some force flowed into her. “Finish your breakfast and the lumps will go away. You have plenty of time.”

  She could feel it happening—the relaxing of tense muscles allowing a sense of quiet to flow through her until her mind grew peaceful. This was what she tried to do for Jody.

  Afterward, they discussed no more troubling matters, and Kelsey told Marisa about the piper on the beach—that “gift” that had been so unexpected.

  “That’s good,” Marisa said. “You can use it. Hold that experience in your mind. When things get bad, switch over to your piper. Go down to the beach in your thoughts and see him again. Though maybe you’d better turn off the sound—pipes can be a bit too stirring!”

  As they finished breakfast, Kelsey asked the question that always returned to trouble her. “Why does Tyler set himself in opposition to everyone who’s trying to help? I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t love Jody.”

  “He’s in such a state of painful confusion right now that almost any direction seems dangerous. And maybe it is.”

  The last seemed an odd thing to say. “Even though he cares, he seems determined to send Jody out of the house and out of sight,” Kelsey added bitterly.

  “It’s not quite like that, but I don’t have all the answers to unlocking Tyler. Even though I know him so well.”

  “It seems as though everyone is afraid of him. Dora Langford is nervous around him. And she seems convinced that he frightens Ruth. Denis certainly isn’t comfortable, even talking about him.”

  “Comfortable will never be the right word to use about Tyler. The gifted are often hard to get along with. Their drives are different, and perhaps more selfish. But they give more to the world in the long run. All I could do for Tyler was try to provide him with a climate he could grow in.”

  “You’re still doing that,” Kelsey said. “I was upset at first about the way you managed this today, but I’m glad you pulled it off.”

  “It’s not pulled off yet,” Marisa reminded her. “Now it’s up to you.”

  When she’d paid the check, they told Katy goodbye and returned to the yellow car.

  “Reminds me of the sun,” Marisa said as they got in. She drove back to the inn, and before Kelsey left the car she held her arm for a moment, as though there might be something more she wanted to say. Apparently she didn’t find the right words, for she only patted her and let her go. “Just look out for you,” she said as she drove away.

  Kelsey told her aunt that she was going to see Jody after all, and hurried to change from her jeans. Once she was on her way, anxiety set in again. She hated this situation in which she could be sure about nothing, and whose complications kept her from giving all her thoughts to her patient.

  Again Hana waited for her at the front door of the house, and she looked upset as she hurried Kelsey in.

  “They’re waiting for you, Mrs. Stewart. Maybe you can help him.”

  In Jody’s room she found the boy lying in bed, while Ginnie attempted to calm him. He lay rigid, his arms turned stiffly inward, and he was grinding his teeth. Dora Langford stood on the other side of the bed, her nursing skills helpless in the face of whatever demon Jody was fighting. Both women glanced around in relief when Kelsey walked in.

  “Here’s your Elly,” Dora said.

  Jody’s eyes found Kelsey and tried to focus. She sat on the bed in order to be close to him, and took one stiff hand in her own. Slowly she began to stroke down his arm, relaxing each finger while she talked to him.

  “Your father told me that you can say my name, Jody. That’s wonderful, and I’m happy that you wanted to see me again.”

  She pressed his hand, and in response he made a slight movement with his fingers. The wild look seemed to quiet. Kelsey changed her position so she could lean against the head of the bed, and raise him in her arms. Then she sat quietly, holding him with his head against her shoulder, talking to him softly, offering the pressure of her arms. Offering love. Slowly she coaxed the stiffness from his body, and his teeth stopped grinding.

  Dora, still insensitive to the fact that Jody could understand, said, “I’ve never seen him as bad as last night. I think he was afraid you weren’t coming back.”

  “That’s what Tyler told us,” Ginnie said grimly. “But you’ve given Jody a lifeline to hold on to, and he’s not going to let anyone take it away from him. Are you, Jody?”

  Looking down, Kelsey could see Jody’s lips curve in what was almost a smile. The machinery in his brain t
hat would enable him to speak must have time to be retrained. But it was working to the extent that he could understand much of what went on around him.

  “You will talk, Jody,” Kelsey assured him. “It may take a while, but it will happen. I know there is a lot you want to say, so you’ll have to work hard—as you did today when you started saying my name. It’s not an easy name, but they tell me you’ve managed very well.”

  Jody said “Elly” clearly and distinctly, and Dora gasped.

  Ginnie said, “See?” triumphantly.

  “I’d better get back upstairs,” Dora said. “Ruth sent me down to see how he was. She’ll be happy to know what you’ve done.” Jody’s grandmother started toward the door, and then stopped. “Oh, dear,” she said and came back into the room.

  Kelsey looked up to see Tyler pushing the wheelchair that Ruth, until now, had refused to use. Sitting in it limply, Ruth looked exhausted, yet keyed up and tense. Once more she wore a red ribbon in her short, dark curls, and Kelsey suspected that Dora had tied it there. The gray eyes that were so much like Jody’s were fixed upon her son.

  Quickly Kelsey released the boy and stood up, watching Jody’s parents out of her own anxiety. In Tyler’s face all expression, all feeling had been ironed out; he was holding himself under a tight rein. Kelsey remembered again what he had said about explosives lying loose around the house—“gunpowder!”—and wondered if he were the one who sat on the powder keg with a match in hand.

  She watched uneasily as he wheeled Ruth close to Jody’s bed. The boy appeared to struggle inside himself. His body stiffened again and he grimaced as if in pain. A great deal would depend on what his mother did—on what Tyler did.

  Dora, equally anxious, spoke to her daughter. “Ruth dear, Jody is saying Kelsey’s name in his own way. He’s trying to talk.”

  Carefully, Ruth reached out to touch Jody’s hand where it lay outside the sheet—as carefully as though it were made of glass. Her anxiety was evident, but at least she tried.