Whispers and Lies by Joy Fielding Page B

relationship would revert to what it should have been in the first place, landlord and tenant. I’d been too hasty in allowing Alison into my life.
    “What are you thinking about, dear?” the voice beside me asked with marked concern.
    “Hmm? What? Sorry,” I said, returning to the present,casting unwanted memories aside, returning my full attention to the withered old woman connected to life by a series of tubes that force-fed nutrients into her collapsing veins.
    Myra Wylie’s eyes radiated quiet curiosity. “You were a million miles away.”
    “Sorry. Did I hurt you?” My hands dropped from the IV I’d been adjusting.
    “No, dear. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Stop apologizing. Is everything all right?”
    “Everything’s fine.” I secured the blanket at her toes. “You’re doing remarkably well.”
    “I meant with you. Is everything all right with you?”
    “Everything’s fine,” I repeated, as if trying to reassure myself as well.
    “You can talk to me, you know. If you have a problem.”
    I smiled gratefully. “I appreciate that.”
    “I mean it.”
    “I know you do.”
    “You look like you have very deep thoughts,” Myra Wylie remarked, and I laughed out loud. “Don’t laugh. Josh thinks so too.”
    I felt my pulse quicken. “Your son thinks I have deep thoughts?”
    “That’s what he said last time he was here.”
    I felt almost ridiculously flattered, like a teenage girl who’s just found out the silly boy she has a crush on feels the same way about her. I checked my watch, noted the trembling in my fingers. “Well, it’s almost noon. He should be here any minute.”
    “He thinks you’re very nice.”
    Was I mistaken, or was there a playful glint in Myra’s watery eyes? “Oh, he does, does he?”
    “Josh deserves someone nice,” Myra was saying, almost to herself. “He’s divorced, you know. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?”
    I nodded, eager for more details, but careful to look only mildly curious.
    “She left him for her aerobics instructor. Can you imagine? Stupid woman.” Myra Wylie’s frail shoulders stiffened with righteous indignation. “Destroys the family. Breaks my son’s heart. And for what? So she can march off into the sunset with some muscle-bound bodybuilder ten years her junior, who dumps her less than six months later—what did she expect?—and of course,
now
she sees the error of her ways,
now
she wants him back. But Josh is too smart for that, thank God. He’ll never let that woman back into his life.” Myra’s voice began breaking up, like a bad radio signal, then dissolved into a worrisome combination of coughs and wheezes.
    “Take deep breaths,” I cautioned, watching Myra’s breathing gradually return to normal. “That’s better. You shouldn’t let yourself get so upset. It’s not worth it. It’s all over now. They’re divorced.”
    “He will never let that woman back into his life.”
    “Never,” I repeated.
    “He deserves someone nice.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Someone like you,” Myra said. Then: “You like children, don’t you?”
    “I love children.” I followed her eyes to the two silver-framed pictures of her smiling grandchildren thatsat on the movable nightstand beside her bed.
    “Of course they’re older now than when these pictures were taken. Jillian is fifteen, and Trevor is almost twelve.”
    “I know. We’ve met,” I reminded her. “They’re lovely children.”
    “They went through hell after Jan left.”
    “I’m sure it wasn’t easy.” It’s never easy to lose your mother, I remember thinking. No matter how old you are, no matter what the circumstances. A mother is a mother is a mother, I thought, and almost laughed. So much for the depth of my thoughts. “I should get going. Is there anything I can do for you before your son gets here?”
    “Comb my hair a little, if you don’t mind?”
    “It will be my pleasure.” I ran a gentle comb across Myra’s scalp, watching the