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  "And what did you expect?"

  "I don't know. I've just never known a man with natural curls before."

  It took a great effort for Joseph to keep his hands on the wheel; they clenched it now, no longer relaxed as they'd been a minute ago. Her touch was brief, innocent, but terribly sensual, and he thought if she didn't get her hands away, he'd lay her flat on the blacktop parking lot beside the car and see if he couldn't change her mind about cheating on old Silicon Chip.

  "Don't!" He pulled back, not jerking, not even forcefully. He simply retreated, and she understood: what she'd done was raising as much havoc with his libido as it was with her own. She tucked her hands between her knees and apologized. "I'm sorry. Let's go."

  They remained quiet and solitary all the way back to her house. When they pulled up in her driveway, the car engine remained running, and they looked at each other. Neither of them was willing to call an end to their brief time together yet.

  "Would you buy me breakfast?" she asked, feeling foolish and as if she were goading him, when actually it was herself she seemed unable to stop punishing.

  "I think I'd do almost near anything for you."

  "Then buy me breakfast and afterward wish me goodbye sensibly, without walking me to the door, and if we run into each other at the gift opening tomorrow, don't say more than hello."

  "You sure that's how you want it?"

  "No. I'm sure that's how it's got to be."

  They ate apple pannekoekens at the Pannekoeken Huis, which was only a stone's throw from her town house. As they left the restaurant, the sun split the eastern sky with a bright wink of orange that spread and grew and tinted the rim of the world a brilliant combination of purple, heliotrope and lemon. He pulled up at the curb, and as she opened her door by herself, as she got out, he didn't look at her. When she stood on the street, holding onto the handle of the car door, she still waited.

  "Goodbye, Joseph Duggan."

  "Goodbye, Winn Gardner."

  Both of them felt faintly ill as she watched the car drive up the street. He resolutely refrained from looking at her in the rearview mirror as long as he could stand it. But at last he lifted his eyes to see if she still stood in the street watching him drive away. But then he remembered. The Haynes was built before there were rearview mirrors.

  Chapter 6

  W innifred awakened with a violent headache shortly past noon. The gift opening, she thought. I can't face it. She curled into a tight ball and shut her eyes again, reliving yesterday, feeling guilty for betraying Paul.

  She called him five minutes later and came as close to begging as she ever had with him, but he said Sandy and Mick were actually her friends, and he'd prefer to stay home and finish the work he'd begun the day before. Then he added, "But have a good time, darling."

  She considered calling Ann Schaeffer and offering her apologies, then going out for a long hard run to work off her frustration but felt it her duty as maid of honor to attend the gathering. She wore faded string-bean blue jeans and a white cotton-knit "Wallace Beery" shirt, the most unglamorous getup she could produce from her closet. She washed the hair spray from her hair and fluffed it with a blow dryer but left it free and uncurled, totally unspecial. She disdained all makeup except a pale application of lip gloss, chiefly because her lips were chapped from Joseph's rough chin, and the lanolin relieved them.

  She was fifteen minutes late and expected to confront Joseph as she jogged down the steps to the Schaeffers' lower-level family room. But to her relief he wasn't there. Twenty or more people had arrived, and all the chairs were filled, so she took a seat on the floor near Sandy's feet. Sandy and Mick were just about to begin opening gifts, and Winnie was given the job of recording them in the wedding book.

  She had written the eighth name and listed the gift when she looked up to find Joseph had just come in. Her heart went into overdrive, and her mouth watered. He was dressed much as he'd been the night of the rehearsal, in faded Levi's, the same new tennis shoes and same ivory jacket. His thumbs were hooked in his back pockets as he stood for a minute, saying hello, smiling at the group in general as his eyes passed from one person to another. When they came to her, they scarcely paused, and he gave a silent nod, then picked his way through the limited walking space and sat on the floor at the opposite end of the room from Winnie.

  He followed her orders of the night before-to the max. He never again looked at her or spoke to her but visited most of the time with a pretty young woman named Connie, near whose chair he sat. There were times when Winnie thought she felt his eyes on her, especially when her attention was given to the book on her lap. But the two times she glanced his way, he was talking and laughing with Connie, who seemed more taken with him as the afternoon progressed.

  The two of them walked out of the house together, and Winnifred followed, wondering at the deep sense of abandonment she felt while studying Joseph's back as he walked in front of her beside another woman. He laughed and Winnie's heart lurched. She felt empty and cast aside, wondering what the woman said that had amused him.

  The two of them stood on the street beside a strange vehicle, and when Joseph's hand rested on the handle of the door, he looked over the woman's shoulder and saw Winnie, heading for her own car.

  "Winn!" he called.

  She came up short. Her heart lifted with hope. She hadn't time to ask herself for what.

  "I found something of yours in the Haynes. Just a minute." He opened the door to the strange vehicle, and his head disappeared. When he turned, he held one of her pink high heels in his hand, its tiny pearl button winking a reminder in the waning Sunday afternoon. He lifted the shoe above his head and wagged it, walking toward her. They met in the center of the street; Connie remained where he'd left her, waiting.

  Up close he looked and smelled wonderful. But he only handed her the shoe and said, "One's not much good, is it?"

  "Thank you."

  His back was already turning as he said, "It's okay," and waved with a negligent lifting of his knuckles.

  He returned to Connie, and that's where he was when Winnie drove away. When she got home, she changed into her running clothes and ran until her body felt tortured.

  * * *

  Her life returned to normal in the weeks after the wedding. At least, as normal as life can be when you're less than three months away from your own wedding. She kept a list of things that needed checking, ordering or making, and crossed them off one by one: the florist, the organist, the singer, the garter, the pillow for the ring bearer.

  She saw Paul several nights a week, usually at his place, and found it necessary to visit her mother once or twice a week concerning various details. At times Joseph Duggan entered her mind in a most distracting way. Then she'd put on her sweats and try to run him out of her system.

  But it never seemed to work.

  The one place he didn't manage to intrude was at the hospital. She loved her job and the people she worked with, and the patients, each of whom she considered a separate challenge.

  The Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department of North Memorial Medical Center consisted of four systems: physical therapy; occupational therapy; cardiac rehab; and sports medicine, a relatively new and specialized facet of P.T. that was located in a separate building from the other three systems. But it was with those three housed within the main body of the hospital building that Winnifred worked.

  She spent her days gaining the confidence of the patients to whom she was assigned, encouraging them with the often repeated phrase "You can" and making certain they never failed in the problem she assigned them for the day, be it raising a leg one inch higher than the previous day or touching an ear to a shoulder. It was one of the things she loved about being a physical therapist, the constant challenge of gauging each person's abilities and limits, and making certain she never expected more progress than their impaired bodies were ready for.

  She worked with both inpatients and outpatients, seeing them once or twi
ce a day until they were either released or had recuperated as much use of the affected body part as possible. Because she came to know each of them personally-their temperaments, personal histories, goals and fears-there was always a grave danger of becoming emotionally involved with them herself. Sympathy was fine and necessary, but when it grew too empathetic, it clouded judgment and affected a therapist's own emotions. Thus, they were taught from the start to beware of sympathetic involvement.

  It was a gorgeous day in late April when Winnie was assigned a new patient. She met Meredith Emery shortly before noon, and from the first glance at the burn-scarred ten-year-old, something within Winn's heart trembled.

  The child had been standing next to her father when the first match failed as he attempted to light a backyard barbecue. When he went inside for extra matches, he forgot to turn the gas jet down. The resultant explosion burned both of them badly, but the child suffered worse, simply because she was shorter, and the flame caught her at chest and neck level, scarring her face, too.

  It was the frightened, lashless, eyebrowless eyes that caught at Winnifred's heartstrings from the very first moment she looked into them. The child's eyes must have been stunning before the accident-enormous, deep brown with large pupils and such wide-open lids. A poppet's eyes.

  An orderly rolled Meredith Emery down to P.T. on a gurney, which was topped by a "rack" of canvas stretched onto an aluminum frame, much like an Indian litter. Winnifred met her at the door to the tank room and told the orderly she'd take over from there.

  The child had been lightly sedated, but not enough so she wasn't capable of fear at yet another strange face, another strange stainless-steel facility, another new process for her small ravaged body.

  "Hello, Meredith, my name is Winnifred. I'm going to be seeing you twice every day for as long as you're here, and together we're going to work on your arms and legs and toes and fingers and everything until you can move just like you did before and be able to run and play and go back to school. How does that sound?"

  The wide doubtful eyes only stared.

  "Meredith…" Winnie mused. "That's a rather big name for a girl…" Winnifred checked her chart questioningly. "Ten? Are you ten?" She cocked her head closer to the level of the child's.

  Meredith answered with an almost imperceptible nod.

  "What do your friends call you?"

  "Merry." The mouth was misshapen and drawn, and when it formed the words was transformed into a grotesque parody of a child's lips. Steeling herself, Winnifred ignored the pity that gripped her. "May I call you Merry? My name is kind of like yours, too-a little on the fancy side, kind of puts people off sometimes. So I'd like it if you'd call me… Winn." Where had it come from, this form of her name only Joseph Duggan used? She had never before encouraged people to call her by it, but now it soothed her as she looked down upon the unfortunate child.

  Winn explained that because Merry's burns had been treated with sulfa and lanolin aeams, they must be washed off to prevent infection, then she verbally attempted to prepare Merry for the sight that often terrified younger patients: the Hubbard tank. It was a stainless-steel monstrosity, shaped rather like a nine-foot-long four-leaf clover and equipped with a whirlpool. She explained that Merry could lie just as she was, and she and the orderly would attach four hooks to the corners of the rack, then lift her into the pool, rack and all, as if she were cargo being loaded aboard a ship.

  But when the hooks were attached, and the motor began hoisting the child, she screamed and reached pathetically for Winn's hand.

  "Nooo! Nooo!"

  "Stop!" Winn ordered immediately. The fissure in her heart widened, and she took the small hand, ordering the hoist to be lowered again. The thin hand clung. The lashless eyes cried. And Winn wanted to drop to her knees and cry herself. She soothed the child as best she could, rechecked her chart and made a quick decision.

  "Have you been able to sit up yet, Merry?"

  "They wouldn't let me."

  "Just a minute… I have another idea that you'll like better, but I'll be right back." Several minutes later, after receiving an okay from the child's doctor, Winn took Merry instead into a much smaller, less intimidating tub in which the child could sit instead of lie. Merry was strapped into the swivel chair of a device called a Century lift, and upon it was raised over the edge of the stainless-steel tub, then down inside.

  When the ninety-eight-degree water touched her skin, the tiny body, which had had its chemistry so drastically upset, began to shudder violently. Merry howled and broke into tears, and begged to be taken from the tank, but it was necessary to keep her immersed and agitated by the water for a full five minutes.

  They were five of the longest of Winnifred Gardner's life.

  When they were up, the child was swathed in dry blankets and laid once more upon her rack and gurney to be returned to her room. But as she left, her eyes clung to Winn's, still filled with tears that made Winn wish to bend low and run a soothing hand over the little girl's hair. Only Merry had no hair. It, too, had been burned in the explosion.

  When the gurney rolled away, Winn stood in the silent hall, watching the door through which it had disappeared. She sighed deeply, covered her cheeks with both hands and dug her fingertips into her eyes-they were filled with tears. This is what they warned us about. I mustn't get emotionally involved. I mustn't. But how was it possible not to feel anger and pity for a child such as Meredith Emery? Ten years old and already facing a trial more painful and defeating than many must face in a full lifetime.

  At that moment Mrs. Christianson, the coordinator of P.T., stepped out of her office and paused beside the doorway.

  "Winnifred?"

  Winn turned around, her face burdened with pain.

  "It's the child, isn't it?"

  Winn roughly sieved her fingers through her hair. "Yes, it's the child. I'm not sure I can take this one, Sylvia."

  "Of course you can. We all can when we have to. But sometimes it helps to discuss the case. We could go to lunch together."

  "I think I'll pass today, if it's all right with you. I need something more than food right now."

  Winn spent the next hour in the deserted rehab room, riding the stationary bike until her calves burned, then strapping weights onto her ankles and doing extended leg raises until her stomach and neck screamed for her to stop. Next she strapped the weights to her wrists and held them extended straight out from her sides until her facial muscles quivered and her pectoralis major felt ready to snap!

  "What are you doing, Gardner?"

  Winn dropped her arms and sank to her knees on the floor, panting, too breathless to answer.

  Mrs. Christianson entered the gymnasiumlike room and stopped beside the hunkered figure. "No matter how hard you push yourself, you can't make up for it, you know that" came her sympathetic yet firm admonishment. Winn shook her head, still breathless. Her hair flew and stuck to her sweating forehead and cheeks, and she gripped her knees, trying to make sense out of such useless waste as that suffered by Meredith Emery. "The best I can do is offer to put someone else on the case if it gets to you. Will you let me know if it does?"

  Winn nodded blindly. But the image of Merry's slim seeking hand lifting to her in entreaty filled the bleak depths of Winn's mind. She'd stick it out. That was the best thing she could do for the little girl.

  That afternoon when Merry came back to P.T., Winn began a program of exercises whereby motion would be maintained-a flexion of the chin, rolling of the head, lifting of the arms-to prevent the child's skin from contracting and losing elasticity. She tried her hardest to instill confidence and optimism in Merry, but for the first time in her own career that sense of optimism was lacking in herself. The ten-year-old burn victim faced not only the enormous task of recovering motor movements and learning to live with a great deal of ongoing pain but would need to accept the horrendous fact that her appearance was defaced, then begin working upon the even more difficult assignment of attempting to regai
n a positive "body image."

  At the end of the session Winn felt drained and depressed. How could anyone expect a ten-year-old to do all that?

  The day had been one of the first ever when Winn wished to have any other career than the one she had. When she returned home, she immediately called Paul. She needed him equally as bad as Meredith Emery needed a physical therapist-perhaps worse.

  "Paul, could you possibly break free to go to a movie or something tonight?"

  "Oh, darling, I wish I could, but I've brought Arv home from the office because he's considering going into contract work, and he wanted to try out Rita and see what he thinks of her."

  Rita again! Was that all the man could think of? Anger and jealousy immediately surfaced, but Winn bit back the accusation and asked as calmly as she could, "Then could you make it an early evening with Arv and come over here afterward?"

  "Is something wrong, Winnie?"

  "Well… yes and no."

  "What is it, darling?" To his credit he did sound terribly concerned.

  "It's a patient at work."

  There followed a long pause. "Oh." She heard his hesitation and understood. He never knew what to say to her when she spoke of the unfortunate, the accident victims, the aged, the diseased. These were repugnant to Paul in some odd indefinable way. They were not perfect, and he found it difficult to deal with imperfection of any kind. Paul Hildebrandt coped best when working within a tidy sphere. "Well, just a minute, I'll ask Arv." Again a silence passed, then his voice came again. "Listen, darling, I should be able to get over there in a couple of hours, okay?"

  Disappointment welled. "Okay," she said dejectedly, "see you then."

  "And Winnie?" He paused, then added, "I love you."

  "I love you, too. See you as soon as you can make it."

  During those two hours Winn felt trapped in her own house. She simply did not want to be alone right now. She considered going over to her mother's but discarded the idea. Somehow her mother always managed to ruffle instead of soothe. She called Sandy but could sense her friend's impatience to get back to whatever she'd been taken from. Winn suggested they meet one day soon for a game of racket ball, but Sandy offered only a vague, "Yeah, sure, maybe this weekend." At the sound of Sandy's distracted voice Winn wondered if perhaps Mick wasn't waiting in bed for his wife to finish her telephone conversation. At the thought she was chagrined, and felt awkward and excluded-from what, she did not know. Perhaps from the charmed circle of those who shared a part of each day with one special person of the opposite sex. If only Paul were here right now. What she needed most was to be held, petted and perhaps made love to… slowly, expertly.