Clear And Convincing Proof. Kate Wilhelm

was going up and down steps. Everything had been laid out by Darren, she said, and a landscape company had planted it and maintained it.

      “For the most part, you can’t see one path from any other one,” Annie said. “There could be half a dozen patients out here, and they’d be invisible to one another. All Darren’s doing.”

      She started down one of the paths. “This goes to the back gate, and across an alley from there is where Naomi and her husband live. He’s the resident doctor here.” She stopped and put her finger to her lips.

      A woman’s voice came from ahead, somewhere out of sight. “Darren, I am trying. I really am.”

      “I wasn’t talking to you, Mrs. Daniels,” a man said softly. “You know I wouldn’t say something like that to you. I was talking to that lazy leg. It knows I’m speaking to it, and it’s just plain lazy. Muscles can get like that, just lay back and pretend they don’t have to do a thing. Hey, leg, you can’t fool me. I’m on to you. Stop dragging that foot! You hear me, now hustle.”

      After a moment, he said, “See? It knows I’m on to it. Good job.”

      Annie touched Erica’s arm and turned back toward the door. When they were out of range of the others, she said, “When she came here a couple months ago, she couldn’t even move. Now she’s up and walking. That’s Darren’s doing, too.”

      She sounded boastful, smug even, but when Erica glanced at her, she looked sad and averted her face. “On to the kitchen and lounge,” she said briskly. “You’ll like the lounge. It’s like an old country house parlor.”

      She was wearing a diamond-studded wedding ring, her pantsuit was expensive, her nails manicured, her blond hair styled beautifully. Erica recalled what she had said, that she would be there until four-thirty. A volunteer? It seemed so. A wealthy volunteer, from all appearances. Mrs. Maryhill had been correct; Erica would meet the right sort of people here.

      2

      When Annie left, it was a few minutes past four-thirty, and she drove faster than usual, knowing there would be a traffic snarl at the entrance to Coburg Road and the bridge at this time of day. Normally the short trip would take no more than five to eight minutes, but because she was running late already, it took longer. She didn’t know why that was, but it seemed to work out that way every time. It was ten minutes before five when she entered the waiting room of the surgical associates, waved to Leslie Tooey at the reception desk and took a chair in the waiting room. Leslie nodded and picked up her phone to tell Dr. McIvey that she had arrived.

      That was a bad sign, Annie knew. It meant that he was not with a patient, possibly that he had been waiting for her. He hated to be kept waiting. He sometimes was ready to leave at a quarter to five, sometimes not until after six, or even later, but whenever it was, he wanted her to be there.

      Leslie slid open the glass partition and said, “You can go on back now.”

      Annie forced a smile and walked through the waiting room to the door to the offices, paused for Leslie to release the lock, then walked to the office where her husband was waiting for her to drive him home.

      He met her at the door. “I don’t want to hear about the traffic,” he said. “When will you get it through your head that it gets bad this time of day? Start earlier. Do I have to tie a note around your neck? And take off that stupid name tag.”

      He strode out as she fumbled with the name tag. She had forgotten she was still wearing it. They left by the rear door.

      David McIvey was forty-seven, at the peak of his physical attractiveness. Tall, well-built, with abundant, wavy brown hair, brown eyes and regular features, he impressed strangers who often mistook him for a ski instructor, or a model, or a sportscaster—someone in the public eye. He was also at the peak of his profession—the most sought-after neurosurgeon in town, and the most successful.

      “Why did you marry me?” she had demanded one night, two years earlier, the only time they had ever really quarreled. “You don’t want a lover, a wife, a companion. What you want is an indentured servant.”

      “I will not be drawn into an adolescent, fruitless discussion of relationships,” he had said, rising from the dinner table. “You have everything a woman could possibly want, and what I need in return is a peaceful, orderly home.” He held up his hands; his fingers were long and shapely. “I confront death on a daily basis. That requires absolute concentration, certainty and order, and I cannot be distracted by disorder when I get home. I cannot tolerate absurd, childish outbursts of temper or foolish, female hysteria. Call me rigid, inflexible, unyielding, whatever you like, but you have to give me what I need, and that is simply peace and quiet when I get home.”

      “You don’t even realize how it hurts when you treat me like a slave.”

      “You know where the box is that holds all the belongings you brought into this house. I won’t try to hold you here, or restrain you in any way. You are free to take that box and leave whenever you want to, but if you stay, you will accept that my needs are to be met with whatever grace you can manage.”

      “And my needs?”

      “You have no needs that involve me. We will not discuss this again. You know my schedule.”

      What had set off the argument that day was the fact that she had been held up at the rehab clinic, helping restrain a teenager who had had a violent reaction to a medication. David had not wanted to hear about it, and had become an ice-man with a coldness that had persisted throughout dinner.

      A week after the argument, she had talked to a lawyer, had shown him the prenuptial agreement she had blithely signed.

      “You didn’t consult an attorney before you signed it?” the lawyer asked in disgust. He waved away her answer. “Doesn’t matter. You signed it and you were of age, and presumably in your right mind. You agreed that if you want out before ten years pass, you will take with you no more than you brought into the marriage. No settlement, no alimony, nothing. On the other hand, he can kick you out at any time if you fail your wifely duties, commit adultery, turn into a drunk or an addict…. Very generously, he agreed that if he’s the one to end it, he’ll give you severance pay, so to speak—three months’ living expenses. Mrs. McIvey, why did you marry the guy?”

      “I loved him,” she said in a low voice. In a lower voice she added, “I believed he loved me.”

      It had been more than that, and less, she had come to realize. At twenty-two she had been thrilled to be noticed by the older, brilliant and very rich doctor. And she had been infatuated, blind and deaf to the advice of her parents, Naomi, a few friends. David had been devastated by the divorce his first wife had instituted; she had cleaned him out, he had admitted. His child support payments were astronomical, with access to his two children severely limited. He desperately wanted a decent home life, a companion, a wife. Two months after they met, he and Annie were married.

      The lawyer gave her some advice that day. Start a journal, write down the schedule you have to maintain and what happens if you are late. Keep a record of what you do every day for a few weeks, and after that, note any changes. Keep your journal in a safe deposit box, or under lock and key at home.

      She listened and later followed his advice, but she didn’t get a safe deposit box. It was impossible to imagine David reading her private journal; he neither knew nor cared what she did as long as he was not thrown off his schedule. He wanted his breakfast to be ready at six-thirty, and then to be driven to the office. He could drive but he didn’t like to; she had become his chauffeur. She returned to the surgical offices at twelve-thirty to take him home for lunch—which she prepared—and then was back to get him at four-forty-five. What she did the rest of the day he never asked.

      But the attraction of a never-ending vacation soon palled. They lived in a condo complex, where it appeared that the other women were professionals who worked, or had small children, or were a good deal older than she and played bridge. David’s schedule precluded day-long shopping with lunch outings. She could not take a run up to Portland