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Walking on legs of rubber, Rachel finally made it to her car. She tossed her briefcase onto the passenger seat and blindly reached for the bottle of drinking water she kept in the console between the front seats. A few deep drinks and a few deep breaths later, she started her car and pulled from the parking lot.
She was dismayed to notice the continuing tremor in her hands and the erratic pounding of her heart.
“Bueno, Rachel, what did you expect?” she spoke the words aloud, berating herself. “You haven’t seen him in years. It was bound to affect you.” She inhaled deeply, then blew out the breath, finding she was still inundated with Lucas’s scent. “And, yes, the person you knew, the man you fell in love with—he’s still there. He’s wearing many layers, but he’s still there.” She couldn’t deny that much.
Unfortunately, she also knew that the woman who had fallen in love with him all those years ago still lived in her somewhere. She, too, was deeply buried, but she had responded to Lucas nevertheless. Something she could not allow. The knowledge left her shaky and dangerously close to tears.
But Rachel Neuman never cried—she couldn’t afford to waste the energy. In any case, she would never show such weakness where anyone might see her.
Checking the time, Rachel decided to stop at home and see if she could manage lunch. She’d had merely a bagel and juice this morning, and that only because it had been forced on her by Linda Tafoya, the day supervisor.
Rachel Neuman, at twenty-seven years of age, was young to hold the position she held: head pediatric nurse at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. When she had accepted her first position at PCH five years ago, night shift had been offered and she had accepted it. After a while she’d found it suited her. These days, even though she was head of the department, she continued to work the night shift.
Initially her remarkable academic record had caught the attention of the higher-ups at the hospital when they had interviewed her, but she had gone on to demonstrate thorough professional competence and a warm personal touch—a combination much valued in a nurse. She was adept at handling multiple tasks, monitoring health-care issues as well as those that dealt more with comfort and happiness. She fit in with both the staff and the doctors at the hospital, not to mention patients and their parents. She graciously coped with the dreaded administrative duties and paperwork involved in the job, as well. In any case, no one begrudged Rachel her position.
The upshot of this was that she worked a very long day. Her shift ran officially from midnight to 8:00 a.m. However, she usually met with patients, patients’ parents and hospital administrators after that. Her bedtime was 4:00 p.m., so the intervening daytime hours were hers. To spend with her daughter.
Today, however, she’d had her meeting with Lucas at ten-thirty. She’d gone to her office promptly at the end of her shift, knowing she could use the personal quarters the hospital staff had set up for her there as a changing place.
It was a miniature home away from home, except for the absence of a kitchen. This was a factor in her recent weight loss, but not the only factor. Her hospital colleagues were aware of it, understood the reasons, but knew she couldn’t afford to stop taking care of herself. Hence, Linda shoving a bagel in her face.
As she maneuvered through the traffic, heading out of Scottsdale and into Phoenix, Rachel was disgusted to feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. Usually she was so successful at controlling things like tears.
She hadn’t allowed herself such a release during her final year with Lucas, nor during the breakup or its aftermath. She hadn’t cried as she struggled to become a single mother or as she had learned, in fact, how to be a single mother. She hadn’t even cried when Dr. Paul Graham, director of the Children’s Cancer Unit at the hospital, had told her Michaela’s test results.
After all, he was really only confirming what she’d already known. She’d seen the symptoms too many times before, as a nurse. She had recognized what she was seeing; she’d known it was more than the flu. That’s why she’d gone to Paul in the first place.
Dear sweet Paul, who’d been working at the hospital for nearly fifteen years before Rachel’s arrival. He’d become her mentor, a guiding hand when she’d needed one. They had become fast friends, in addition to working together, sharing one of those rare and profound friendships that occasionally bless a person’s life.
Rachel was utterly unaware of rumors that had their relationship heading in a different kind of intimate direction. Paul was old enough to be her father and Rachel viewed him in that light. He had helped restore her self-confidence when she had arrived, new to her career, newly pregnant and without a husband. He had helped her believe again, and she had secretly hoped he would help her believe this time, too—preferably by telling her that Michaela didn’t have leukemia after all. Of course, he hadn’t told her that. Rachel had known, really, that he wouldn’t.
That day Rachel had fainted for the first and only time in her life. Paul had taken care of her, never mentioning her moment of weakness to anyone. It was something else to add to the list of reasons she was grateful to him.
Rachel knew what leukemia would mean. She knew it meant granulocytes, a certain type of white cell, were causing the problem. She also knew that chemotherapy would be the initial form of treatment and that it would likely be a rough experience for her little girl. And for her.
It had been worse than she’d expected. Michaela had lost her hair almost immediately. Her nausea was intense and frequent. They could help her some with that, but it still left Michaela a very fragile, very weak little girl. Had Rachel not seen the procedure before, she would have found it hard to believe this state of being could in any way be connected to an improvement in Michaela’s health. When the chemotherapy took longer to work than they had expected, Rachel had faced it stoically, refusing to let herself shatter, turning her energies instead toward supporting her daughter in any way she could.
Rachel had known that a bone marrow transplant would be a likely next step, and that identifying a suitable donor was crucial to performing the procedure. As a matter of course, Rachel had had herself typed, assuming she’d be an acceptable match for her daughter. When that had not occurred, she had assumed someone in the family would be suitable. That failing, she had bravely pursued the next possibility: she had initiated the search to identify other potential donors. She had worked diligently on finding a match for several months, watching her daughter’s lurching progress through chemotherapy, when she had one day acknowledged that she had not succeeded.
She had also exhausted all of the obvious avenues for locating that donor, with one equally obvious exception. Lucas. Michaela’s father. The one blood relative who, under normal circumstances, would have been one of the first to be tested. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
By the time testing Lucas had occurred to Rachel, Michaela had been in the hospital for several months, undergoing all manner of treatment, and Rachel was living in her office. She had refused to take a leave of absence, knowing that she needed her work to help maintain a sense of normalcy in her life.
Once Michaela’s condition had become apparent and the hospital staff had understood that Rachel wouldn’t go home if it meant leaving Michaela at the hospital, they had called upon the administration to provide Rachel with a suitable refuge. No one debated Rachel’s need to be near her daughter; supporting families in this way had long been incorporated as an aspect of care. They would definitely take care of their own. Moving remarkably fast for a bureaucracy, the hospital had reshaped Rachel’s office. What had once been an area reasonably able to accommodate a desk, file cabinets and a few chairs had been converted into an acceptable, if small, living space.
Support was the thing, and everyone knew that.
No one had ever seen Rachel hit the breaking point, but they all suspected she was dangerously close. Except, of course, Dr. Paul Graham—who realized she had already hit her breaking point and was now running on empty.
Rachel had appreciated the renovation of her quarters. She had tried to let everyone know her feelings, but acknowledged that she wasn’t very good at accepting help from others. Her familia, of course, were different from other people. They knew her better, and were able to anticipate some of what she needed from them. They could offer to help before she had to ask for it—and asking for help was foreign to her. That’s why it had been so difficult to go to Lucas for help.
Part of the reason, anyway.
With Lucas it was something else again. Needing him was something Rachel had weaned herself away from. It was a survival technique that had developed slowly, but which had become firmly embedded in her way of life.
Turning to Lucas now was, quite simply, a violation of Rachel’s current code. Everything in her resisted opening herself up to the man, showing him anything of herself that might look like vulnerability. Rachel needed to protect herself.
But, ultimately, what Michaela needed was more important than what Rachel needed. If Rachel had been slow to think of testing Lucas, it was because she’d had no concept—anymore—of turning to him. That, and she’d truly believed Michaela’s treatment would follow the path Rachel had seen before.
It was traumatic enough, without adding other dramas to it. For Michaela, though, Rachel had managed to overcome her own nature as well as the hard-earned aversion to needing Lucas. As soon as the thought had occurred to her—as soon as she’d seen what should have been obvious—she’d asked him to help.
Sí, sí, Rachel admitted to herself, today was nothing more than another difficult challenge on an ever-increasing list of difficult challenges.
She thought of her visit to Lucas’s office, remembering the cold, though luxurious, stainless steel-and-glass decor. It seemed so impersonal to her, so spiritless, so sterile. That Neuman Industries was in the architectural field was surprising.
Not that Rachel had ever really been tempted to do otherwise, but seeing those surroundings reminded her that she was happy she’d followed the career course that was natural to her. As a nurse, especially in pediatrics, heart-wrenching tragedy was not unknown. At the same time, however, Rachel found that the best of human courage and compassion were found there, as well. She’d always been drawn toward nursing, but had known it was the right place for her the minute she had started working as a medical trainee at the University Health Center when she was only eighteen.
No, she admitted, I knew it was right before that or I’d have never set foot in the center. I knew it when I helped Papá at the veterinary clinic.
And yet…Lucas had never noticed. He hadn’t seen her “big picture” at all.
As she made her way through the Phoenix traffic, a slight smile played around her lips. She thought about her phone call yesterday, when she’d made her appointment with Lucas. The receptionist she’d spoken with had been at a loss for words when she’d identified herself as Lucas’s wife. Clearly, the woman had joined the company after the demise of the Neuman marriage. Obviously, Lucas didn’t promote himself as a married man, not that she would have expected him to. After all, it had been Rachel who’d wanted to make the marriage work. It was Lucas who…well, who hadn’t.
How had their special relationship slipped through their fingers? She had believed in it, in them, so completely.
Why had things gone wrong? Now there was a question. One she couldn’t afford to think about right now. She had no answers.
She turned off of Sixteenth Street, just north of McDowell Road, into the area where her town house was located. Technically, it was considered a garden home, part of a new planned community built in an older section of Phoenix, but one designed according to the city’s older flavor. The idea behind these communities was to draw young families from the suburbs, encouraging them to live in Phoenix proper. To sweeten the deal, the city also helped sponsor low-cost loans so that families that might not otherwise be able to own a home could buy one in these communities.
Rachel had lived with Rick, her brother, for the first few months following her break with Lucas. She had heard about these communities, recognizing them as the best kind of place she could provide for her daughter. The locations appealed to her, as well. Working at a hospital in the city meant that she appreciated the idea of living there. She had begun to put aside every cent she could for a down payment. Once her family had caught on to her plan, they had helped her. She had been ready for home ownership far sooner than she had hoped. In fact, she had had time to settle in before Michaela’s arrival.
Each home boasted a small, private courtyard that opened onto the shared community “green” and facilities. The homes were clustered in pairs, each one sharing a wall with one other home. Rachel’s was one of the smaller choices: two bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs, with an additional 1/2 bath downstairs. She had an open, bright kitchen with an eat-in dining area, as well as a great room, rather than separate living, family and dining rooms. It wasn’t fancy or extravagant, but it was perfect for Rachel and Michaela. It felt like home.
These days she was doing the best she could financially. It wasn’t too bad. Her job was a good one. She was well paid and had considerable benefits. She would never be rich in her field, but then she hadn’t chosen nursing for the money.
Pulling into the driveway of her cream stucco home, she pushed the button on the remote garage door opener and drove into the garage. She kicked off her shoes as she stepped inside and picked up the stack of mail her neighbor, Tanisha Davis, had been bringing in. Tanisha was also a single working mother, and she and Rachel had a solid friendship.
Sorting through the mail, Rachel mechanically threw out the junk and filed away the bills. It was twelve-thirty now, so she decided to fix lunch for herself before returning to the hospital.
A glance in the fridge revealed it was virtually empty. Rachel gingerly peeked into a tub of cottage cheese, noting it was beyond its use-by date, and hurriedly tossed it into the trash bin. She then eyed the splash of milk remaining in the jug and decided to use it since its date suggested it was still fresh. She grabbed a can of tomato soup from the cupboard and prepared it to heat on the stove.
Rachel ran upstairs, knowing she needed to gather some clothing to take with her to the hospital. She smiled at the piles of clean laundry her mother had left on her bed. What would I have done without Mamá to help me?
Or, to be fair, what would I have done without everybody’s help?
If she continued to think along these lines, Rachel would be crying soon. She felt weak today, worn out from meeting with Lucas. She could understand the weakness, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to it.
And yet, she was so tired. So tense inside.
She shook off the thoughts and stripped off her suit, carefully hanging it in the closet. She pulled on pale blue jeans and a T-shirt in primary color stripes. She slipped on her sandals and reached for a small suitcase at the top of the closet. Quickly she loaded it with clean undergarments and headed back down the stairs. She poured her soup into a large mug and returned to the living room. Settling on the couch, she whispered a brief prayer and began sipping.
Thoughts, emotions, memories. They were bombarding her. This time she would be unable to stop them.
Things had gone so wrong. But what choice did I have? How long was I supposed to take it, try to ignore it, pretend it didn’t matter to me? After all, Las Vegas had been the last straw—it hadn’t been the only straw. There came a point when enough was simply, truly enough. Right?
Ayuda, she knew, ayuda had saved her then. It continued to sustain her now.
Ayuda, that particular Mexican form of “circling the wagons” to support, aid and protect anybody considered part of the group. It existed, of course, in any culture, but it was an ever-present force in the Mexican mind-set, simply more visible at some times than at others.
Rachel’s familia was a large group. Of course, it included grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, her brother—the obvious people. Some members were called cousins and were actually related in traditional ways. Others were called cousins simply because it was a convenient title and the actual relationship was too complicated to explore. Familia extended to certain friends and friends of friends, and to those who married into it. Rachel’s father, Mike Shannon, was one such member, affectionately referred to as el gringo. This title acknowledged his non-Hispanic background, simply, easily—but it also marked him as someone included in the familia by choice.
Rachel’s familia had watched her marry outside their circle, welcoming her young man because she had chosen him. He had been brought in unreservedly, had been granted a place within their group because of his connection with Rachel. They had watched the early happiness, shaking their heads in bewilderment over how such a fine young man could have sprung from such cold, overbearing, narrow-minded people as his parents.
They continued to watch as Lucas had veered away from life with Rachel. Rachel had never said anything, and, out of respect, they had never mentioned it to her. But they knew she knew.
When the day came that she appeared at her brother’s door, he knew exactly why she was there. Rick had been ready to help her, just as anyone in their circle would have been. Quickly news of her wounded status had spread, and family and friends had rallied around her. They had, in fact, circled the wagons—kept her safe until she was ready to face the world again. Because her state was regarded as unresolved, they remained on high alert where she was concerned. They knew she needed room to appear independent, to save face in public, but they also knew they had to be ready to support her.
In earlier times Lucas Neuman might well have found himself on the wrong end of violent vengeance. In the eyes of Rachel’s people, not only had he betrayed her—he had deceived the entire group. In doing so, he had demonstrated his lack of character. Instead of violence, however, they elected to monitor his activities. They talked amongst themselves, quietly, gradually spreading word of Lucas Neuman beyond Rachel’s immediate group. Of course, Arnold Neuman had already made a questionable name for himself. It was no great difficulty to suggest, with a shrug, De tal palo, tal astilla. An apple never falls far from the tree.
Rachel would have been surprised had anyone told her they kept tabs on Lucas and that they knew exactly what he’d been doing since she’d left him. She tried not to think of him at all.
She had loved him deeply and completely. He had loved her in return. Whatever she had questioned—and she’d had many questions—she had never doubted that he loved her. That’s why his behavior had been so hard to understand. He had just drifted away, following his parents and Alana, almost like a sleepwalker.
They had been happy together at first, she and Lucas. They had led a simple life, largely because they hadn’t had enough time or money for anything complicated. They had both been university students, living in a dumpy little apartment within walking distance of the campus. Others in the complex had “partied hearty,” staying up late, carrying on. But Lucas and Rachel had lived quietly. Sunsets had been nice for them. Ice cream on Saturday mornings had been nice. Spending Sundays in bed, or hurrying to make morning classes because lovemaking had gone into overtime—that had been nice, too. Grocery shopping and laundry duties had been times to spend together, not chores. Music had always been there; they’d enjoyed dancing, even when it was just the two of them in the kitchen. Especially when it was only the two of them in the kitchen. They’d laughed together, they’d had private jokes. They’d been in love, but it had been more than that. They had matched each other. And there had always been a sense of a future together.
Rachel had believed she knew Lucas, knew who he really was, right to his core. Even when things had begun falling apart, she had been able to see the person he was. Deep inside. Down to his soul. Just as he had been able to see hers.
Maybe we were too young, Rachel considered, swishing the dregs of her tomato soup. She’d only been nineteen, Lucas, twenty, when they’d married. Too young was a possibility. It was a major objection offered by Lucas’s parents. But that, Rachel knew, was only because it was a socially acceptable thing to say. The real problem was that Rachel was not, and could never be, what the Neumans wanted for their son’s wife. Specifically, she was not Alana Winston—a woman who had been groomed for just that role. Or for a role just like it, anyway. And she’d had her sights set on Lucas for a long time.
Alana Winston was everything Rachel was not. Most importantly, in the Neumans’ opinion, her pedigree was impeccable. Rachel’s was not. After all, Rachel’s mother was Hispanic. She had been born in Mexico, and happily acknowledged that she had as much family living on the American side of the border as on the Mexican side. She spoke Spanish and she’d taught Rachel and her brother to speak Spanish, as well. Her father, a white man, had done nothing to discourage their ethnic tendencies—he even seemed proud of them. As far as the Neumans were concerned, that was nearly worse than the existence of the ethnicity in the first place.
To Arnold and Sophie Neuman, it didn’t matter that Rachel’s parents, Michael and Gloria Shannon, were well-educated, hard-working, caring individuals. In fact, that they had to work was another negative as far as the Neumans were concerned. Gloria was a teacher with a preference for teaching kindergarten. Michael was a veterinarian. Perhaps the Neumans would have been sufficiently impressed had he been a doctor who treated humans, rather than animals. But he wasn’t, so it was a moot point.
As for their opinion of Rachel, nothing could win her an objective audience with them. Not her natural beauty. Not her quiet intelligence. Not her zest for life. Not her gentle competence, her genuine compassion or inner strength—the very qualities sustaining her as a single mother and as head pediatric nurse.
They held inflexible ideas about her correct place in society and it wasn’t as Lucas’s wife. She was suitable mistress material.
Alana, as Lucas’s wife, would have understood a mistress. She’d been raised to understand that.
According to the Neumans, as a minority, Rachel should have been appreciative of such a desirable position. The Neumans had tried very hard to instruct Rachel on her “proper place.” Rachel had rejected their reasoning, had found their demands unacceptable. Yet she had felt pressure to somehow get along with them. They were her in-laws after all.
Lucas had never understood why Rachel didn’t want to be around his parents. He’d been confident that if she’d spend time with them, she’d come to like them. She just needed to give them a chance. If she would do that, he had said, his parents would come around and like her, too. Lucas did not understand prejudice, having never been on the receiving end of it. Rachel had been incapable of making him understand, had eventually quit trying.
Eventually Rachel had quietly tried to avoid Lucas’s parents more and more, whenever possible. To manage this, she had begun to withdraw from the social life she shared with Lucas. She had hoped to nourish their private life. Except that their private life, their relationship, had begun to disintegrate slowly, bit by bit.
“Well, I’m not withdrawing now,” she stated, clattering her spoon into her now-empty soup mug. “This isn’t about me, about whether or not I’m comfortable. This is about Michaela. And if that makes Lucas uncomfortable, well, that will make two of us. It’s about time.”
Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Answering its summons, Rachel found herself confronted by the dazzling smile and click of beaded braids that accompanied Tanisha Davis everywhere she went.
“Hey, there,” Tanisha said in greeting.
“Hey,” Rachel answered. “What brings you here?”
“Are you kidding?” Tanisha’s eyebrows descended in mock disapproval as she breezed into Rachel’s home. “I’ve been in this house lately, more than you I might add, and I know what the food supply looks like.” Holding up a grocery bag that Rachel hadn’t noticed, Tanisha continued, “I’ve brought tostada stuff. It’s quick and it will be better than anything lurking in this house. And you a nurse.” Tanisha tsk-tsked at Rachel. “You should know better. When food starts to come back to life, when it can move all by itself—you really shouldn’t be eating it. It’s a basic rule.”
Rachel laughed and followed her friend into the kitchen, acknowledging that Tanisha spoke the truth. Or very nearly the truth, anyway.
Within minutes, busily filled with chopping vegetables and warming refried beans, the table was spread. Rachel couldn’t help noticing how much more appetizing this meal was than her tomato soup had been. Not to mention that being with Tanisha always relaxed Rachel, since she knew she could drop her guard and be herself.
Of course, Rachel thought, smiling to herself, the person who can fool Tanisha has not been born, so there’s really no point in trying to be anything less than open with her.
“Why are you home today?” Rachel asked, conversation rolling naturally and comfortably between them.
“Oh, well, it’s my weekend, you know,” Tanisha answered.
Tanisha, in order to avoid working off-shifts, had elected to take a schedule with rotating weekends. Therefore, rather than a Saturday-Sunday weekend, she sometimes had other combinations. In this case, it looked like Tuesday-Wednesday.
“And Vanessa is with Wayne?”
“Yeah,” Tanisha agreed, nodding her head, her beads rustling in her hair. “I have to admit, once we worked it out, he’s pretty sympathetic about the weekend time. He has alternating shifts, too, so we try to give Vanessa time with each of us on our weekends, but we try to give each other a free weekend now and then. We’ve been able to reduce day-care time for Vanessa, which is great. Not that it was easy to get it worked out.” Tanisha was shaking her head vehemently now, lending emphasis to her words, the beads increasing their gentle rhythm.
Rachel had never pressed Tanisha for the details of the situations, grateful that Tanisha had never pressed her either. Frankly, she was reluctant to risk asking anything that would change that. Rachel had never been inclined to complain about what life had thrown her—living it was all she could do. She assumed Tanisha had a similar philosophy.
Always, it had been enough that they were both single mothers of young daughters, doing their best. In that, they had much in common.
However, Rachel now considered the possibility that knowing how someone else had coped might be valuable information. Comforting, even. It was the reason for support groups, she reasoned.
Suddenly Rachel wanted to know more about Tanisha’s details. “How did you work it out?”
“Well—” Tanisha pondered a minute “—first, I had to let go of Wayne, I guess. I had to accept that he didn’t want to be married, or at least not to me. But he did want to be a father. Once I got used to those basic facts, things went a lot better.”
“He didn’t want to be married?”
“No. Well…I mean, I didn’t either, exactly. We were just, you know, seriously seeing each other, not dating anyone else. But we sure were not thinking about making babies. Then, when I realized that we were making a baby, whether or not we planned to be, well, that’s when we got married. No argument on that. But after a couple years, it was pretty obvious that Wayne really didn’t want to be married. I fought that. I didn’t want to give up, you know? I thought a marriage, no matter how bad, was better than no marriage. And I didn’t think ours was that bad. So, eventually he was moving out and filing for divorce and I was a nutcase over it. I was not—” she emphasized the word with a severely arched eyebrow “—very nice about it.” Tanisha shrugged, exchanging her harsh expression for a relaxed one. “But eventually I admitted to myself that it was losing the marriage that upset me, not losing Wayne. I liked him well enough, but—” she shrugged again “—I was not consumed with love for the man. Passion, oh, yeah. That part we did right, which is what got us together in the first place.”
She punctuated her story with a laugh. “But I wasn’t in love with him. He wasn’t in love with me. That was never really part of our marriage. So I finally let go. And now Wayne and me, we’re friends. I would have never believed it, but we are. And that’s the best we can do for Vanessa, which is the important thing, anyway.”
“Do you ever miss it? Being married, I mean?” Rachel wasn’t sure where the questions were coming from.
“Lord, yes, I miss it. I don’t miss Wayne, mind you, not anymore. But I miss being part of a couple. I’d like to have that again. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sí, sí, I think I do know.” Rachel nodded. “I’d say I miss being part of a couple, too. I guess some people see freedom in being single, but for me, to always be making decisions by myself, to never have anyone to share things with, good or bad…that gets old.”
“I hear that,” Tanisha said in agreement, her ebony eyes watching Rachel, missing nothing. “And that’s the weird thing with Wayne now. We are both so much parents. If it has to do with Vanessa, I’m not alone. We are totally, completely partners as parents. I just can’t believe it sometimes.” Tanisha raised her eyebrow meaningfully, signaling her upcoming questions. “What about you? Do you have someone to parent with you now?”
Rachel gave a start, surprised by Tanisha’s inquiry. “You mean…Lucas?”
“Is that the man’s name? I always wondered.” Tanisha was nodding, her hair beads rustling again.
