The Shadow Wife

Carlynn looked through the crowd to see Gabriel walking toward them, his dark face standing out from the pale faces of the tourists. When he saw Lisbeth, he broke into a grin and waved, and the color in Lisbeth’s cheeks grew brighter and her eyes glowed. Carlynn thought she had never looked prettier.

Gabriel took Lisbeth’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s so good to see you again,” he said.

“You, too.” She smiled. The two of them looked positively lost in one another.

“Yoo-hoo,” Carlynn said. “Remember us?”

Lisbeth laughed. “Gabriel, this is my sister, Carlynn, and her boyfriend, Alan Shire.”

“Drs. Shire and Kling,” Gabriel said, shaking Alan’s hand and nodding to Carlynn. “We’ve crossed paths in the hospital from time to time. Good to finally meet you both.”

“Please,” Alan said. “Call us Alan and Carlynn.”

Carlynn studied his face. She had honestly never thought before about colored men being handsome or ugly or anything in between, the way she did when she saw a white man. But looking at Gabriel through Lisbeth’s eyes, she could see how attractive he was. He wore his hair very short, close and tight to his scalp. His face was fairly long and thin, and he wore horn-rimmed glasses that made him look very serious, but that could not quite mask the sparkle in his dark eyes.

“Let’s eat,” Alan said, and he motioned toward the door of the restaurant.

The hostess led them to the upper story of the restaurant, to a table in the darkest corner, away from the windows and the other tables, and Carlynn couldn’t help but wonder if Gabriel’s presence had something to do with her choice.

“We’d prefer a table by the window,” Alan said, not moving to sit down.

“Certainly, sir,” the hostess said, as though she wondered why she hadn’t thought of that herself. She led them to an empty table next to a window. Alan thanked her, and the four of them sat down.

Carlynn felt her own anxiety mount as other diners glanced in their direction, but Lisbeth did not seem to care a bit. She and Gabriel were already chatting, their heads close together as they laughed about some subject that had meaning only to the two of them. Carlynn wondered if she and Alan were needed here at all.

Their table overlooked the harbor. It was dark outside, but they could see the wharf lights reflected off the boats lined up along the pier.

“Thanks for getting us this table, Alan,” Lisbeth said, straightening in her seat as though realizing she and Gabriel had been rude to ignore him and Carlynn. She giggled a little, still amused by her conversation with Gabriel, and Carlynn thought she had never heard that girlish sound from her sister, not even when they were children.

They ordered cioppino all around, and talked about the hospital. Alan and Gabriel had been at SF General for about the same length of time and knew many people in common, so Carlynn and Lisbeth listened as they asked each other about various incidents that had taken place at the hospital. Occasionally, the men included Carlynn or Lisbeth in their discussion, but only due to the demands of good etiquette. The women didn’t belong in this conversation, and that was all right. They smiled at each other as Gabriel and Alan exchanged stories and laughter. The bond between the two men could not have developed more quickly, Carlynn thought, if they had been locked together in a prison cell.

Once their huge bowls of cioppino arrived at the table, the men turned their attention to the food. Gabriel buttered a piece of sourdough bread, holding the slice in his right hand and using the knife with his left, deftly maneuvering it despite the missing fingers.

“You and Alan are both lefties,” Carlynn said.

“Well,” Gabriel smiled, “I was left-handed before this happened.” He nodded toward the injured hand. “I still use it when I can. I can write with it, but I can’t hold a racket. I had to learn to play tennis right-handed, which is still a challenge, as Lloyd Peterson can probably tell you.”

“What happened?” Lisbeth asked the question neither she nor Alan dared to.

“I was at Port Chicago,” Gabriel said.

“My God.” Alan, his spoon halfway to his mouth, sat back in his chair.

Carlynn exchanged an ignorant glance with her sister. She knew something big had happened during the war at Port Chicago, a town about fifty miles north of where they were now sitting, but she and Lisbeth had been young and well-protected teens at the time.

“What was it like?” Alan asked.

Gabriel worked a clam free of its shell. “It’s not the best dinner-table topic,” he said, looking apologetic.

“I want to hear,” Lisbeth insisted. “Unless…of course, if you’re uncomfortable talking about it.”

“Do you know what happened at Port Chicago?” he asked Lisbeth.

Something bad, Carlynn would have answered, but her sister surprised her.

“An explosion of some sort?” Lisbeth asked. “Some men were loading explosives onto a ship and something went wrong?”