The Shadow Wife

“Me, too.” His smile was warm, his teeth very white against his milk chocolate-colored skin, and he suddenly looked beautiful to her. “Though I guess I knew that when you met me, it would be over. I’m a Negro, to begin with. I’m what…ten years older than you?”

“I’m twenty-seven,” she said.

He groaned. “Eleven years older, then.”

And I’m fat, she wanted to add, but managed to stop herself.

“Is it impossible?” he asked.

She raised her eyes quickly to his. “You mean…?”

“Is it impossible for us to go out together?” He looked ill at ease for the first time, and she felt like hugging him to make him comfortable again. “I mean,” he continued, “how would you feel about that? Would it be awkward for you to be seen with me?”

She shook her head. “No.” She hoped she was being honest in her answer. “No. I wouldn’t care.”

“What about your family?”

Oh, God. “My sister wouldn’t care,” she said, hoping that was the truth, as well. “But my mother…” Her voice trailed off.

“Your mother?” he prompted.

“She thinks…well, she sees…” She started to say colored people, but he had referred to himself as a Negro, and she decided she should use his language. “She sees Negroes as servants or manual laborers.”

He nodded. “Not unusual,” he said, and she picked up a hint of some old, deep anger in his voice.

“But—” she shrugged with a laugh “—she already detests me, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about that.”

“Detests you? Why on earth?”

“I…oh, it’s a long story.”

He suddenly picked up his phone and pressed the intercom button.

“Nancy?” he said. “No interruptions.”

Hanging up the phone, he stood and closed his office door until it was almost completely shut, but not quite, and she was grateful for his sense of propriety. He sat down again.

“When is Lloyd expecting you back?” he asked.

She looked at her watch. “At around one,” she said.

Gabriel picked up his phone again, and with a jolt, Lisbeth noticed he was missing two fingers on his left hand, both the pinkie and ring fingers. They’d been sliced off right down to his hand, and she wondered what he had been through. Had he lost them as a child or an adult?

Gabriel dialed a number. “Lloyd? It’s Gabe,” he said. “Lisbeth Kling is here and she’ll be late getting back to you. Yes, it’s my fault. I need to keep her here a while longer. We have some things to discuss.” He smiled across the desk at her. “Sure, thanks.” He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair.

“Now we have time for your long story,” he said.

She told him everything, letting out the secrets and sadness of her childhood years. She spoke of her love for her sister despite her feelings of bitterness and resentment, emotions she usually tried hard to keep hidden. She cried, but only a little, when she spoke about how hard it was to go home these days. She needed to spend time at Cypress Point, she told him, the way someone else might need food or medicine, but she had not yet figured out a way to prevent her mother’s insults from ruining those visits for her.

Never before had she chronicled the hurt in her life in quite this way. She’d never allowed it to spill out to another soul. Gabriel’s face was full of sympathy and understanding, and she had the feeling he had experienced the same sort of ostracism she had. Not from a mother, perhaps, but from the world at large. Somehow, though, he had overcome it, and she wondered if he might be able to teach her how to do the same. His gentleness, his attentive listening, was seductive and comforting, and by the time she had finished her story she was in love—with Gabriel the man, not Gabriel the fantasy.

“Don’t answer now,” he said as he walked her to the door after their long conversation. “But I would love to go out with you. Sailing, or out to dinner, or just about anywhere. Do you have a phone?”

“I can only use my landlord’s phone in an emergency,” she said, thrilled, but by this point, not surprised, by his invitation. “I can call from Dr. Peterson’s office, though.”

Stepping back to his desk, Gabriel jotted down a phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

“I’m giving you an open invitation,” he said. “If you decide you want to go out with me, please call. I’ll leave it up to you.”