Chamberlain, Diane - The Shadow Wife

Praise for the novels of

DIANE CHAMBERLAIN

“As Chamberlain examines myriad forms of love, her complicated novel will bring tears to her readers, but they won’t regret the experience.”

— Booklist on The Shadow Wife (formerly Cypress Point )

“A fast-paced read that…explores the psychological complexity of a family pushed to its limits.”

— Booklist on Secrets She Left Behind

“A shattered chronology that’s as graceful as it is perfectly paced…. Engrossing.”

— Publishers Weekly on Before the Storm

“Diane Chamberlain is a marvelously gifted author! Every book she writes is a real gem.”

— Literary Times

“Chamberlain has penned another compelling women’s novel with characters who become real through their talents, compassion and indiscretions.”

— Booklist on Her Mother’s Shadow

“Here, as in previous offerings, Chamberlain creates a captivating tale populated with haunting characters.”

— Publishers Weekly on Summer’s Child

“The story…unfolds organically and credibly, building to a touching denouement that plumbs the nature of crimes of the heart.”

— Publishers Weekly on The Bay at Midnight

“The story offers relentless suspense and intriguing psychological insight, as well as a satisfying love story.”

— Publishers Weekly on Breaking the Silence

Also by DIANE CHAMBERLAIN

THE LIES WE TOLD

SECRETS SHE LEFT BEHIND

BEFORE THE STORM

THE SECRET LIFE OF CEECEE WILKES

THE BAY AT MIDNIGHT

HER MOTHER’S SHADOW

KISS RIVER

KEEPER OF THE LIGHT

CYPRESS POINT

THE COURAGE TREE

BREAKING THE SILENCE

Watch for Diane Chamberlain’s upcoming novel

THE MIDWIFE’S CONFESSION

Coming May 2011 from MIRA Books.

D IANE C HAMBERLAIN

The Shadow Wife

Dear Reader,

I’m delighted to introduce you to The Shadow Wife. Originally published in 2002 as Cypress Point, The Shadow Wife is a story close to my heart in many ways.

First, the setting. Although I now make North Carolina my home, I lived in California for many years and visit it often. On one visit, I drove along the stunning Seventeen-Mile Drive in Monterey, getting out of my car near the mystical “ghost trees” that cling to the rocky coastline. From there, I spotted a mansion high on a cliff. In my imagination, I saw two little girls on the mansion’s veranda. It was as if the ghost trees were offering me an image from the past. I thought about those girls and what it would have been like to grow up on a cliff high above the Pacific. From that seedling of an idea, the story for The Shadow Wife developed into something complex and intriguing.

Another reason this story is special to me is that I gave the central character, Joelle D’Angelo, my old job as a clinical social worker in a high-risk maternity unit. I loved doing that work myself, being able to touch many lives in a positive way. Aside from her occupation, however, Joelle and I are not very much alike and I would hate to be confronted with the personal dilemma The Shadow Wife presents for her. She faces hard choices and makes them with a sort of nobility I hope I would possess if I found myself in her shoes.

Finally, I wanted to explore healing in this story. I have rheumatoid arthritis and have learned that healing comes in many forms. It’s a loaded subject for me, and I suspect it is for many of you, as well. I hope you will draw your own conclusions about what it means to be healed through reading this novel, but most of all, I hope The Shadow Wife keeps you engaged and entertained until the very last page.

With best wishes,

Diane

To my extraordinary sibs,

Tom, Joann and Rob.

What a year, eh?

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Big Sur, California, 1967

T HE FOG WAS AS THICK AND WHITE AS COTTON BATTING, ANDit hugged the coastline and moved slowly, lazily, in the breeze. Anyone unfamiliar with the Cabrial Commune in Big Sur would never know there were twelve small cabins dotting the cliffs above the ocean. Fog was nothing unusual here, but for the past seven days, it had not cleared once. Like living inside a cloud, the children said. The twenty adults and twelve children of the commune had to feel their way from cabin to cabin, and they could never be sure they’d found their own home until they were inside. Parents warned their children not to play too close to the edge of the cliff, and the more nervous mothers kept their little ones inside in the morning, when the fog was thickest. Those who worked in the garden had to bend low to be sure they were pulling weeds and not the young shoots of brussels sprouts or lettuce, and more than one man used the dense fog as an excuse for finding his way into the wrong bed at night—not that an excuse was ever needed on the commune, where love was free and jealousy was denied. Yes, this third week of summer, everyone in the commune had a little taste of what it was like to be blind.

The fog muffled sound, too. The residents of the commune could still hear the foghorns, but the sound was little more than a low moan, wrapping around them so that they had no idea from which direction it came. No idea whether the sea was in front of them or behind.

But one sound managed to pierce the fog. The cries came intermittently from one of the cabins, and the children, many of them naked, would stop their game of hide-and-seek to stare through the fog in the direction of the sound. A couple of them, who were by nature either more sensitive or more anxious than the others, shuddered. They knew what was happening. No secrets were ever kept from children here. They knew that inside cabin number four, Rainbow Cabin, Ellen Liszt was having a baby.

In the small clearing at one side of the cabin, nineteen-year-old Johnny Angel split firewood. The day was warm despite the fog, and he’d taken off his Big Brother and the Holding Company sweatshirt and hung it over the railing of the cabin’s rickety porch. Felicia, the midwife, was inside with Ellen, boiling string and scissors on the small woodstove, and he told himself they needed more firewood, even though he’d already chopped enough to last a week. Still, he lifted the ax and let it fall, over and over again, mesmerized by the thwack as it hit the logs. Every minute or so, he stopped chopping to take a drag from his cigarette, which rested on the cabin railing, and he could feel his heart beating in his bare chest. The hand holding the cigarette trembled—from the strain of chopping wood, he told himself, but he knew that was not the complete truth. He winced every time a fresh shriek of pain came from the cabin’s rear bedroom, and he was quick to pick up the ax again, hoping that the chopping would mask the sound.