Three weeks went by, during which Julie went through the motions at home and at work. The days at work were the least difficult, because she enjoyed her patients and was enough of a professional to shut out her personal life. The nights alone in her spindle bed were die worst. There, Travis haunted her waking thoughts and her dreams; after ten days she had blue shadows under her eyes and had lost four pounds.
On the weekends she went camping in the Adirondacks, had dinner with Kathy and Michael, and attended a three-day music festival; any activity was preferable to sitting in her apartment staring at the four walls and remembering with aching clarity the passion-filled hours she'd spent with Travis at the resort. As the days-and nights-slowly passed, he made no attempt to get in touch with her. And how could she blame him?
It was always a relief to go back to work on Monday mornings. The Monday after the festival was particularly busy. At two-thirty, Julie grabbed a coffee and a muffin and went to the empty staff room with them. The muffin was stuffed with fruit and bran; she chewed it valiantly, wishing her appetite would come back. To top it off, she felt bone-tired from morning to night. It really had been just sex between her and Travis, she thought fiercely, washing down the muffin with a gulp of coffee. Sex, plain and simple.
"You look very militant, Julie," an amused voice said from the doorway.
With a nervous start, Julie looked up. Then she put down the last of the muffin and smiled with genuine pleasure. "Leonora," she said, "how nice to see you. But have I missed something? Do you have an appointment today?"
Leonora Connolly had had a series of appointments with Julie earlier in the summer. She was a tall, statuesque woman with very blue eyes, and a wealth of dark hair faintly streaked with grey. Julie had liked her from the start, and had done her best to alleviate some of the damage that a lifetime as a professional dancer had inflicted on Leonora's tendons and ligaments.
Leonora smiled. "May I come, in? No, I don't have an appointment. I was visiting a friend who's been admitted here for a few days, and thought I'd drop by and tell you how much better I've been feeling since our sessions. I'm so grateful to you."
"Don't forget that you worked hard, too," Julie laughed. "I can't claim all the credit. Can I get you a coffee? As hospital coffee goes, it's not bad."
"No, thanks, I can't stay."
Julie's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "You know, it's funny but you remind me of someone. Someone I've seen recently … "
"Oh?" Leonora said, her jaw tensing slightly.
Her fingers unconsciously tightening around her cup, Julie said flatly, "Oh. I remember now. It doesn't matter."
"Tell me who, Julie. Please."
There was an insistence in Leonora's voice that took Julie by surprise. With huge reluctance she said, "I met a Dr. Travis Strathem a few weeks ago. His eyes are very like yours, such a deep blue … Leonora, what's wrong?"
For the other woman had paled, briefly looking every year of her age. Leaning against the doorframe, she blurted, "Did you like him?"
"He's apparently a very fine doctor," Julie said evasively.
"I didn't mean professionally. As a man. What did you think of him?"
Gossip and indiscretion were characteristics Julie would never have applied to Leonora Connolly. Puzzlement overcoming her reluctance, Julie said, "Travis? Forceful, charismatic, articulate. He says it like it is. No games." She grimaced. "Tall, dark and handsome. A male counterpart to you, in that respect."
Leonora said faintly, "I see."
"Do you know him? Leonora, you don't look well, can I get you something?"
"He's my son," Leonora said.
Her head whirling, Julie put her cup down on the table. Whatever she might have expected Leonora to say, it wouldn't have been this.
For Travis's mother was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The silence stretched out. Realizing she had to say something, Julie faltered, "Leonora, Travis can't be your son. He told me his mother died when he was six."
"It's a long story," Leonora said. Awkwardly she straightened, looking every year of her age. "Is there somewhere we could go to talk in private?"
The grace and elegance of Leonora's movements had been the first thing Julie had noticed about her; although this soon had been followed by admiration for her innate dignity of spirit. For Leonora to abandon both must mean that she was deeply upset. "We could go to my office," Julie said. "It's small, but I can close the door."
Quickly she led the way down the corridor, ushering Leonora into a cubicle that contained little more than a desk, two chairs and some shelves. She closed the door and sat down. "I shouldn't have mentioned the likeness between you and Travis," she said remorsefully. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"How well do you know him?"
And how was she supposed to answer that? "I met him at a party. I've only seen him a couple of times since then," Julie said, more or less truthfully.
"I have to tell someone what this is all about," Leonora said helplessly. "It's driving me mad."
"Take your time," Julie said gently.
"Yes." Leonora took a deep breath and launched herself. "I always wanted to be a dancer. I started lessons when I was just a child, and it was obvious from the beginning that I had more than ordinary talent. And then when I was eighteen, I met a man called Charles Strathem. Handsome, forceful, dynamic … well, you get the picture. I fell madly in love and into his bed without once considering the consequences. It's an old story, Julie. I ended up at the altar pregnant. Travis was born five months later."
Julie sat very still, her heart racing under her uniform. Instinctively she knew Leonora was telling the truth; nor was it difficult to picture this imperious, talented woman as Travis's mother. "Go on," she said softly.
"I tried my best to be a good mother. But in essence I don't have a maternal bone in my body. I soon went back to dancing lessons, and then began teaching dance in Boston, getting away from all my responsibilities as often as I could. It wasn't enough, because the whole artistic scene on the East Coast was too conservative for my taste; but I had to make do with what was available. I'd realized a year after I was married that Charles wasn't the man for me, but I made the best of that, too. Then, when Travis was five, I got pregnant again, this time with twins."
"Twins?" Julie echoed.
"A boy and a girl, born just after Travis turned six. Brent and Jenessa." Leonora looked down at her fingers, clenched in her lap. "I felt so trapped, so confined. At first I was angry with the whole world. But I couldn't take that anger out on my children, it wasn't their fault. So it turned inward, and I grew more and more depressed. Finally, I went to New York, to see a world-renowned psychiatrist whom Charles knew … there was a recital while I was there by an avant garde dancer from Paris, Madeleine Mercier. I went to see her dance, and two days later I, too, was in Paris. I simply ran away. Abandoned my marriage and my children."
Her head buzzing with questions, Julie sat very still. There was more to come, she knew.
"I'd never been known for forethought," Leonora said wryly. "The day I arrived in Paris, I phoned Charles, to tell him I'd fly home every two months to see the children. He said I was to change my name, and that if I ever showed my face in Boston or on Manatuck again, he'd ruin me. His lawyers, he said, would be sending me divorce papers, and he would get sole custody of the children." She gave a reminiscent shudder. "I thought of flying home that very day. But Madeleine had already taken me on as a pupil, and I was sure if I waited a few weeks he'd calm down. However, by the time I got in touch with him again, he'd already told Travis that I had died. I found out later he'd invented a fictitious funeral in Philadelphia, where I was born. The twins, of course, were too young to know about any of this."
"How could Charles have done that to his own son?" Julie said, aghast.
"I'd wounded his pride. I'd made a fool of him."
"He's never told Travis the truth about you."
"That's why I'm here. To make peace with Travis, if that's possible. But I've been too afraid to contact him." She gave Julie a shaky smile. "It's ludicrous, isn't it? I'm living in the same town, and I haven't made a move to see him. Or the twins. Brent, I gather, works in Boston, while Jenessa's an artist, living in a little village west of Boston."