The Shadow Wife

Joelle sat on the sofa, and Carlynn took a seat in the leather armchair, lifting her feet onto its matching ottoman with surprising energy and resting her cane against the chair’s arm. There was a spryness just beneath the surface of her fragility, as though the woman’s body was not quite ready to give in to whatever nature and age had in store for it. Her voice had a lyrical quality, and her gray hair was cut in a short, youthful bob with deep bangs. Her blue eyes were lively, and she wore a short-sleeved navy-blue blouse with a pink-and-blue scarf tied around her neck. There was a bit of dirt on the knees of her pale blue slacks, and Joelle wondered if she might have been helping the gardeners in the yard. She looked the type who would not mind getting her fingernails dirty, but would her body allow her to crawl around in a garden? All in all, Carlynn Shire was nothing like Joelle had expected. Somehow, the mystical, gifted woman described by her parents had sounded tall and sinewy and mysterious. There was nothing mysterious about the seventyish woman sitting in front of her.

“So.” Carlynn leaned forward in her chair. “You are little Shanti Joy.”

“Yes.” Joelle smiled. “But I go by Joelle D’Angelo now.”

Joelle thought she saw understanding in the older woman’s smile. “When did you change your name?” she asked.

“When I was ten. My parents and I left the Cabrial Commune then, and even though we were living in Berkeley, the name Shanti was just a bit much for me.” She grinned. “So I took a combination of my parents’ names. John and Ellen.”

“Ah.” Carlynn nodded. “That’s how I came by my name, too. Only Carlynn is a combination of my grandparents’ names—Carl and Lena.”

Joelle cocked her head to one side. “Do you remember when I was born?” she asked.

“Yes, certainly.”

“Do you think you really healed me, or do you think I simply started breathing, finally? Forgive my skepticism.”

“It’s difficult to know, Joelle,” she said, using her chosen name easily. “I put my hands on you. You began to breathe, whether it was a coincidence or not. Neither you nor I will ever know. But here you are, alive, looking lovely, and that’s what matters.”

“I guess so,” Joelle said. “But just in case it was a true…healing, I’m glad you were there.”

“I am, too.” Carlynn narrowed her gaze at her. “But what brings you here now?” she asked.

“I have a friend,” Joelle began. “Mara. She had an aneurysm that left her with severe brain damage. She’s in a nursing home, and she’s not expected to regain any more of her functioning. I know it’s a long shot, especially since I am, as I already pointed out, a skeptic—” she smiled at Carlynn “—but I thought it was at least worth talking to you about it, because there’s no other hope. Do you think there’s anything you could do for her?”

She expected Carlynn to smile with sympathy and tell her, as the woman over the phone had already made clear, that she no longer took special requests for healings. So she was surprised when the older woman settled back in the leather chair as though expecting a long conversation and said, “Tell me more about this friend of yours.”

Joelle was not certain what to say. What information would help a healer? “Well, she was a psychiatrist, and she—”

“No,” Carlynn interrupted her, but her voice was soft and kind. She stood up and, without her cane, walked slowly across the room to sit facing Joelle on the sofa. “Tell me about Mara through your eyes, Joelle,” she said. “What was your experience of your friend?”

Instantly, Joelle pictured her best friend in a collage of images. Laughing with her on a hike, talking with her about a case in the hallway of the Women’s Wing, holding Liam’s hand as she struggled to give birth to her son, lying in the nursing home asleep, her jaw slack, her head rolled forward.

Mara.

Joelle was going to cry. The sensation came over her suddenly, and she felt the liquid burn in her eyes, the swelling of her nose. She pressed her hand to the side of her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said as a tear slipped over her fingers.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” Carlynn stood up again and walked over to the end table near the leather chair for a box of tissues, which she brought back to Joelle, setting it between them on the sofa. “She’s obviously someone you care for deeply,” she said, taking her seat near Joelle again.

Joelle could only nod, pulling a tissue from the box and pressing it to her eyes. “She was my best friend.” She choked the words out, and Carlynn nodded.

“Take your time,” she said.

It was another minute before Joelle could continue.