Read Online The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman - Free Book Online Page B

if anything happened to her. They wouldn't be devastated if they were already on their own.
    When she'd first heard that Maddy was staying at the Lion Park, Lucy had phoned over. She hadn't even been sure Teddy Healy would still be alive. But the girl at the front desk who'd answered her call assured her that he was, and then Maddy herself mentioned him. Maybe it was fate or perhaps it was only circumstance; either way it seemed time for Lucy to go back. There were several elderly customers at the bar, but it wasn't until a gentleman came in late in the evening and spoke to the bartender that she was certain it was Teddy. She remembered his voice. His features looked familiar, even after all this time. As for Teddy, he didn't seem to recognize her at all. Lucy, after all, was a woman in her fifties and he was an old man.
    Over the years Teddy had been a reliable godfather to his brother's three children. He always remembered birthdays and had been at every graduation ceremony. But drinking was the only thing that he'd taken seriously for a good part of his life. Some of the women at the bank where he'd worked had made it clear they were available, but Teddy was wary. If he wanted female companionship when he was younger, he phoned a business that offered those services. It was easy enough; an attractive woman would come up to his place, and they'd have sex and he'd pay her, and then he would go to the Lion Park and get drunk. That was the constant in his life. The bar at the hotel. The hour when he went upstairs and relived what had happened to him.
    One night, many years ago, Teddy had gotten so inebriated that the porter at the Lion Park had tossed him out on the street. It was the sixties, a time of wild goings-on; drugs were everywhere and yet Teddy was the one thrown out on his ear. A girl had come over and said something to him. She was stern and very pretty. Things were different back then; young women talked to strangers. This one helped him into a taxi and told him he'd kill himself with loss of liver function if he didn't quit drinking. She told him to think of someone other than himself. You never knew who you were helping, she'd said. It's your duty as a human being, after all.
    Teddy began to sober up after that. He started to travel, to Africa and the Middle East, places where the landscape was huge, where life had gone on forever and his pitiful existence seemed completely unimportant. He still drank, but it wasn't the same. He wasn't obliterating himself. He gave most of his money away, to schools in the countries he visited, to children whose tuition he paid. He also took care of his nephews' university educations. He visited elderly people in homes and read to them. He had a beautiful reading voice, people said. He went on to make recordings for unsighted readers. He thought if he did enough good in the world, perhaps that young woman he'd once met might be right; what he'd lost on the night of the accident might come back to him.
    Teddy did have liver problems and emphysema, just as that young woman had once predicted, but he still went to Africa once a year, to Nigeria. He had been involved in building a school there, and was helping to raise money for a girls' dormitory, so they could attend classes as well. But he still came back to the lounge at the Lion Park, and not simply because it was a pleasant place to be. This was the place where his life had gone wrong.
    Lucy was surprised by how fragile he looked, a man who needed his nap in the afternoon.
    â€œTeddy Healy. Is it really you?”
    Teddy raised his coffee cup to her. He rarely had more than a drink or two these days. “Here's to you,” he said, clearly having no idea who she was.
    â€œI'm Lucy Green. Lucy Heller now.”
    Teddy Healy stared at her. An attractive dark-haired woman. A total stranger. Then she did something with her face, a sort of half smile, and he saw the girl she had been years ago when she had stayed