Read Online The Crystal Child by Theodore Roszak - Free Book Online
Authors: Theodore Roszak
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After a moment I could feel her trying to free herself, but I didn’t want to let her go. I hugged her closer and buried my face in her shoulder. “Aaron,” she was saying, “that’s enough. Aaron, you’re hurting me.”
Four
Julia picked up the phone, drew a breath, and assumed her most confident manner. “Hello, Kevin,” she said. “How good to hear from you.”
At the other end of the line, a gruff, male voice answered. “Congratulations, my dear. It looks as if ye old village sawbones has finally discovered something of interest to modern medical science.”
She was accustomed to the jocular, semi-affectionate tone; it was all that remained of a love story that had ended in emotional shipwreck more than twenty years ago.
Julia — then Julia Shapiro — and Kevin Forrester had been two of the brightest residents in their class at Johns Hopkins. That had made them rivals, but not for long. Initially, their relationship had been hotly competitive, every encounter filled with caustic jibes and wry put-downs. If they did not notice how much time they spent in each other’s company trading barbed remarks, none of their classmates had any difficulty seeing where things were headed. There was no surprise when their rivalry made an about-face and turned into something very different. All it took was the right word at the right time. As they were packing up their books one night after a round-the-clock cramming session, Forrester said, “Maybe we should be making love not war.” And so they did on her narrow bed in the women’s dorm. Before their first year of residency was out, they had become intimate friends. Julia remembered that year, with some nostalgic exaggeration, as the grand passion of her life. It was certainly her first significant affair of the heart, the first to involve serious talk of marriage. Twenty years later, Jake still referred to Forrester with mock jealousy as “your old boy friend.” The relationship ended at Forrester’s insistence and not very gracefully. He had offered some rambling and clichéd excuse about “not being right for you.” Julia might have said that was neither true nor sincere, but there was no point in arguing over it. It was a deliberately heavy-handed way of breaking up. Later, judging by the shape his life assumed, she concluded that he wanted the freedom to build a career. She should have seen that coming. Having a bright and ambitious wife with priorities of her own looked like more than he wanted to take on.
For the next few years, after they broke up, Julia followed his progress with a sort of peripheral vision as he moved from one prestigious appointment to another. Had they met again, she would not have passed up the chance to resume where they left off. But his work took him to more and more distant places. On his own, Forrester prospered handsomely, picking up positions at leading universities and laboratories, bouncing higher with each new appointment. For two years he was at Cambridge, for another three years he was at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Then, ironically enough, he returned to the US where he set up in a lab of his own near Stanford no further off than an hour’s drive from Julia’s clinic. But now there was his wife and her husband between them, making the distance far greater.
Whenever they met, Julia did her best to mask the disappointment she still felt; even so, Forrester could not have been unaware of the scars she bore. She never found herself in the same room with him without remembering they had once been lovers. Was it the same with him? If so, he never showed it. Time had taken its toll of him, as it had of her; his trim build and the once firm line of his jaw were gone and he had begun balding. Still, with only a minimal effort, Julia could recall the handsome, athletic young man with whom she had spent so many enraptured nights. Reaching back in
Four
Julia picked up the phone, drew a breath, and assumed her most confident manner. “Hello, Kevin,” she said. “How good to hear from you.”
At the other end of the line, a gruff, male voice answered. “Congratulations, my dear. It looks as if ye old village sawbones has finally discovered something of interest to modern medical science.”
She was accustomed to the jocular, semi-affectionate tone; it was all that remained of a love story that had ended in emotional shipwreck more than twenty years ago.
Julia — then Julia Shapiro — and Kevin Forrester had been two of the brightest residents in their class at Johns Hopkins. That had made them rivals, but not for long. Initially, their relationship had been hotly competitive, every encounter filled with caustic jibes and wry put-downs. If they did not notice how much time they spent in each other’s company trading barbed remarks, none of their classmates had any difficulty seeing where things were headed. There was no surprise when their rivalry made an about-face and turned into something very different. All it took was the right word at the right time. As they were packing up their books one night after a round-the-clock cramming session, Forrester said, “Maybe we should be making love not war.” And so they did on her narrow bed in the women’s dorm. Before their first year of residency was out, they had become intimate friends. Julia remembered that year, with some nostalgic exaggeration, as the grand passion of her life. It was certainly her first significant affair of the heart, the first to involve serious talk of marriage. Twenty years later, Jake still referred to Forrester with mock jealousy as “your old boy friend.” The relationship ended at Forrester’s insistence and not very gracefully. He had offered some rambling and clichéd excuse about “not being right for you.” Julia might have said that was neither true nor sincere, but there was no point in arguing over it. It was a deliberately heavy-handed way of breaking up. Later, judging by the shape his life assumed, she concluded that he wanted the freedom to build a career. She should have seen that coming. Having a bright and ambitious wife with priorities of her own looked like more than he wanted to take on.
For the next few years, after they broke up, Julia followed his progress with a sort of peripheral vision as he moved from one prestigious appointment to another. Had they met again, she would not have passed up the chance to resume where they left off. But his work took him to more and more distant places. On his own, Forrester prospered handsomely, picking up positions at leading universities and laboratories, bouncing higher with each new appointment. For two years he was at Cambridge, for another three years he was at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Then, ironically enough, he returned to the US where he set up in a lab of his own near Stanford no further off than an hour’s drive from Julia’s clinic. But now there was his wife and her husband between them, making the distance far greater.
Whenever they met, Julia did her best to mask the disappointment she still felt; even so, Forrester could not have been unaware of the scars she bore. She never found herself in the same room with him without remembering they had once been lovers. Was it the same with him? If so, he never showed it. Time had taken its toll of him, as it had of her; his trim build and the once firm line of his jaw were gone and he had begun balding. Still, with only a minimal effort, Julia could recall the handsome, athletic young man with whom she had spent so many enraptured nights. Reaching back in
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