Rough Edge (The Edge #1)(4)

“The speakeasy in the basement? Yes.”

He’d told me about the Prohibition-era space the first owners had dug out of the basement. How it had false walls, a mosaic tile floor, a mahogany bar, and secret places to hide customers and almost a century later, small children.

“It’s a really nice house,” I said. “Is this a good neighborhood, as neighborhoods go in New York?”

“This block is unattainable.”

“What’s that mean?”

“This house is priceless. I could name a number and get it.”

“Your dad was smart to buy it when he did.”

“He wanted to be near enough to the hospital, but not that close. He had a space for a practice in the garden apartment, which is soon to be…” He waited for me to finish.

“My practice.”

“Bingo.”

“I’m nervous.”

“I know.”

“What if I—”

He put his finger on my lips before I could utter my litany of doubts. “You’re going to do fine. And if it takes longer than you think it should, we can survive on a heart surgeon’s salary for a while.”

Of course we could. There was nothing to be nervous about. He had my back and my front.

“Can I see the office?”

“Yes.”



* * *



We wiggled into pajamas and went down the back stairs, which led to a short carpeted hall with an old wooden door at each end.

“The door at the back leads to a shared kind of alley thing out the front, so patients won’t bump into each other on the way in and out,” Caden said as he turned the skeleton key that stuck out of the office’s keyhole. It clacked deeply before the door swung open. He flicked on the lights.

The office defied every expectation.

I expected cold fluorescents and a dropped ceiling.

What I got was a pristine white ceiling and warm lamps.

I expected an empty space.

What I got was a 1950s era desk and chairs, tufted couch, end tables, a clock where I could see it but the patient couldn’t, and a deep blue carpet to muffle the distracting scrape of chairs and footsteps. Behind the desk, a horizontal filing cabinet had framed pictures leaning on the top. Family. Friends. Caden and me on the rooftop of the hotel in Amman, with the sunset behind us. I picked up our wedding photo. My parents had set up the backyard in flowers and tables, doing the best they could when they heard we were getting hitched on two-day leave. Caden and me outside the combat hospital in Balad, dressed in dull green and smiles.

“I read up on what you’d need. They said family pictures humanized you to patients.”

“That’s right.”

He opened the door on the far end of the room. The waiting room was bathed in the same warm lamplight. It was small. Two chairs and a love seat. A coffee table. A Wasily Kandinski print. Everything matched the interior office.

“I had speakers put in.” He pointed up. Small wood-grain boxes hung in the corners where the ceiling met the walls. “I hear music soothes the savage breast.”

Caden, a psychiatrist’s husband, had hang-ups about mental illness that had revealed themselves after I accepted his proposal.

“I won’t be working with savages,” I said with a raised eyebrow. I was going to have to patiently whittle away this particular neurosis.

“They won’t all have breasts either.” He put his arm around me. “So you like it?”

“I love it. Madly, deeply. I love it.” I put my arms around his shoulders, and his snaked around my waist. “Thank you so much.”

“There’s so much we’re going to do together.” He kissed my neck. “We’re going to build an entire life out of a war.”

“That would be a miracle.”

“First of many. You and me. We’re a miracle.” He pulled back so he could see my face. “You know what I see when I look at you?”

“Your wife?”

“The worst decisions I’ve ever made, I made for a reason. You. You rose out of the destruction. Our life together will be built into the best from what survived the worst.”

“That’s very poetic.”

He smiled. “I’ve been thinking about what to say for days. I wanted to explain how magnificent we’re going to be.”

“Magnificent?”

“I don’t think I quite nailed it.” He took me back into the hall and to an unremarkable door under the stairs. “Basement.”

He opened the door, and flicked on the light. Wooden stairs led to a dirt floor in a four-by-five room. Caden reached around me and put his hands on a vase sitting on a set-in shelf. He yanked it, and the wall slid to the side, revealing a mosaic floral floor and dark wood bar stacked high with cardboard boxes.

“Chez Columbus,” he said, smiling. “1925-1933.”

Amazing. An actual speakeasy with a stairway to the hidden alley on the side of the house, hidden rooms, and lastly, behind the laundry room, a big wall safe. He opened it, then pushed away the wall behind it to yet another room with cylindrical holes in the concrete.

“The bottle room,” he said. “This was where I hid when… you know.”

“When you were scared.”