What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(73)

Phoebe gasped. “Your mother was a lovely, genteel lady!”

“My mother was a hopeless snob, but the two of you got on admirably. My colleagues were about as interesting plus twice as pompous. My house, which was large and impressive, echoed. I loved surgery, even the most challenging cases. But my life was empty. You’d think saving lives would be more fulfilling, wouldn’t you?”

“Walter,” Maggie said. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

“Well, that was all before I met your mother. And there didn’t seem to be any need to. Didn’t you have what you wanted?”

She wasn’t quite ready to face that. “Back to you. So you went to Tibet. To find balance?”

“Tibet was another extreme. I was looking for the median. The radical center.” He grabbed Phoebe’s hand. “I found your mother in the restaurant. She was the hostess. I started to eat there every night.”

“Oh, Walter...” Phoebe said, touched.

“But wait, Phoebe had a daughter. What was I then? Seven? Eight?”

“Yes, a daughter.” He chuckled a little. “You did nothing to enhance my serenity, by the way.”

“Now, Walter,” Maggie said with a smile.

“Maggie, you were abominable,” he said. “Most days I couldn’t tell if I was anxious to see what bad thing you’d done or excited to hear you’d been a good child for a change. It was a bundle, see. It was nothing like the family I grew up in—it was interesting. It took me a little while but I suspected you had a very high IQ, not that you needed one to be a surgeon. But there was such intelligence in you, especially when you were bad. I had you tested.”

“I thought that was Mother!” Maggie exclaimed.

He was shaking his head. “I gave strict instructions that you never be told the results. That Phoebe, especially, never be told!”

“Walter?” Phoebe asked, as if deeply hurt.

“You have so many wonderful qualities, darling, but humility is not one of them. You would have had the number put on T-shirts. Besides, the most brilliant scientists in the world don’t have the recipe for happiness.”

Maggie took a sip of champagne. “Well. I’m thirty-six and have been around the block. What’s the number? How brilliant am I?”

“You must think I just fell off the turnip truck,” Walter said with a laugh. “All evidence is gone. It’s right here,” he said, tapping his temple. “And right here is getting less reliable by the day.”

“I can’t believe you think I’m a snob,” Phoebe said in a little pout.

“Don’t complain, Phoebe. You taught me to have fun. And to value the frustrations of a real home life. I even half enjoyed all those parties you carted me off to.” He rolled his eyes.

“How’d you two manage to be happy with all you were up against?” Maggie asked Walter.

“It was probably all the great sex,” Walter said.

“Ah! God!” Maggie said. “I can’t believe you said that!”

He laughed and sipped his champagne. “I’m not a very exciting guy, Maggie, I know that. Hardly anyone would take me for a complicated man with many layers. They saw one thing—a nice but boring man with a skill for neurosurgery. I was told many times that I wasn’t personable. One patient said he was so grateful for me, I changed his life forever. He also said he wouldn’t want to go to a ball game with me, but he sure was grateful. Most of my colleagues had way too many layers—booming personalities, many needs and desires, more emotions than one genie could stuff in a lamp. They were exciting men and women. I don’t even have much of a sense of humor.

“But I did need things. I wasn’t much fun but that didn’t mean I couldn’t want a fun-loving woman. I wasn’t much of a romantic but I certainly appreciated how important love was. I wasn’t full of great wisdom but I thought I could be a good father. I thought I knew enough and felt enough to raise a child successfully, though you did cast doubt on that idea a million times. There were twenty or thirty empty places inside me that could not be filled by neurosurgery, although that part of me did seem vital. One thing I found objectionable... When you make a steel worker walk again after he can’t even wiggle his toes, he shouldn’t say, ‘You might not have much of a personality, Doc, but you sure know how to untangle a spinal cord.’”

Maggie gave a snort of laughter and realized she was tearing up. Sweet Walter, brilliant Walter, just as complicated as everyone else.

“How in the world did you think you could fill up the empty places inside you with an incorrigible child?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” Walter said. “But up until you and your mother came into my world, I was living only for myself. I needed more. I needed someone to live for.” He chuckled softly. “You certainly filled the bill, Maggie.”

“Weren’t you afraid of being taken completely for granted?”

Walter shook his head. “I didn’t say I was looking to be used. I said, I needed a purpose greater than myself.”

“Enough,” Phoebe said. “Enough melancholy! We should be celebrating! Maggie won her case and is coming back to this part of the world. I’ll get my decorator to go over to your house and make sure everything is like new. I’ll send Carmen and her cleaning crew over. We’ll get back to our lives. Our real lives!”