The Shadow Wife

Ellen and Carlynn exchanged a smile. Johnny was an over-anxious new father, and it was not the first time he had come to Carlynn with a concern about his baby daughter since her dramatic birth. She didn’t mind, though. She welcomed any chance to hold the baby.

She rested her hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Shanti is fine,” she said. “And you are going to be an exceptional dad.”

She left Johnny Angel and his family and walked back to Cornflower alone, enjoying the play of moonlight on the trees and shrubs and glad that Penny had gone with the walkers so she had some time for herself. She was longing for home. It had been a wonderful week, but she’d had her fill of rice and vegetables, naked children, guitar music late into the night, and wondering over breakfast who had slept with whom the night before. Tomorrow she would head back to Monterey, her work here finished, and all she could think of was seeing Alan and her sister and Gabriel. She’d tried not to think too much about Alan this week, knowing she couldn’t talk to him and that thinking about him would only make their separation that much harder, but now her head was full of him, and she felt near tears as she drifted off to sleep.

“God, I’ve missed you.” It was a man’s voice, soft and close to her ear, and Carlynn’s eyes sprang open to see Alan sitting on the side of her bed, his hand stroking her hair back from her forehead. Moonlight bathed the room and allowed her to see the love in his eyes. She sat up with a girlish squeal of delight and threw her arms around him.

“I’m dreaming,” she said. “Are you really here?”

There were times she had wondered if she truly loved Alan or if theirs was a partnership based on a passion for their work rather than for each other. But in that moment, she knew the truth. Her love for him filled her.

“I’m really here,” he said. “Are you ever coming home?”

“Oh, yes! Tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long, and it’s been terrible not being able to call you. And how is everyone? And what’s going on at the cen—”

“Come with me now,” he said. “Lisbeth and I drove down here to spirit you away from this place and take you home with us.”

“Is Lisbeth here?” She peered behind him.

“We rented a cabin not too far from here. She’s there. And you will be, too, if you’d get up and get dressed.”

“How did you ever find me?”

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” he said. “I visited another commune before coming here. This place seemed deserted, but I heard a baby crying. I went to that cabin and the baby’s father—”

“Johnny Angel,” she interrupted him with a grin.

“Whatever you say.” Alan smiled with a roll of his eyes. “He told me where you were. Said everyone else was out on a nature walk or something.”

“Yes, they are. I should probably wait till they get back before I—”

“Come now,” Alan pleaded. “They’ve had you long enough.”

“Okay,” she agreed. She lit one of the lanterns so she could dress and pack her suitcase. On the back of one of the sheets of directions Alan had brought with him, she scribbled a note to Penny, then left the cabin with her husband, arm in arm.

“Oh!” she said when they reached the area where her car was parked. “My car’s nearly empty. Keep an eye on me in your rearview mirror in case I run out, okay?”

“These roads would be a bad place to run out of gas,” Alan said. “Especially at night.”

“I know,” she said. “I think I’ve got a smidgen left. But just in case, watch me.”

“I’m never taking my eyes off you again,” Alan said, squeezing her shoulders.

Carlynn’s car made it to the cabin without a problem, although the needle was below the empty line by then. They would have to find gas somewhere in the morning and bring it back to her car before she drove it anywhere, but for the moment it didn’t matter. She and Alan awakened Lisbeth, and the three of them spent much of the rest of the night lounging on the two twin beds and talking. Carlynn told them about life at the commune, assuring both of them that she’d had nothing to do with the bed-hopping that left them wide-eyed with disbelief and disgust. She told them about the drugs and about healing Penny’s voice, and that Penny would be in a musical next year about hippies and long hair. She told them about the infant, Shanti Joy, and the moment she started breathing in her arms.

“I didn’t want to let go of her,” she said wistfully. “I felt so strongly connected to her.”

“Because you saved her life,” Lisbeth said.

“I guess,” Carlynn agreed. She told them about the tiresome food she’d eaten that week, and Lisbeth laughed, promising to go out early in the morning to find some bacon and eggs to bring back and cook in the cabin.

It was nearly four in the morning when the three of them fell asleep, Alan and Carlynn wrapped in one another’s arms, Lisbeth stretched out on her twin bed alone. Outside the cabin, the fog began creeping in from the ocean, hugging the coastline and easing its way through the trees, silently covering Big Sur in a milky-white shroud.

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