Sanctuary

death so unnecessary.”
    “I’ve had time to cope, to start to accept that my parents are gone.” Even to thank God for it, Nathan thought. “As for Kyle, we hadn’t been close in a long time. Their deaths didn’t change that.”
    “And you feel guilty that you don’t grieve for him as you do for them.”
    “Maybe.” Nathan set the snifter aside, rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m not sure where the guilt’s rooted anymore. Doctor Kauffman, you were friends with my father for thirty years, you knew him before I was born.”
    “And your mother.” Kauffman smiled. “As a man who has three ex-wives, I admired their dedication to each other and their marriage. To their sons. You were a lovely family. I hope you can find comfort in the memory of that.”
    And that, Nathan thought with a sinking heart, was the crux of it. There could be no comfort in the memories now, and never would be again. “What would make a man, a seemingly normal man living a perfectly normal life, plan and commit an obscene act? An unspeakable act.”
    The pressure on his chest forced Nathan’s heart to beat too hard, too thickly. He picked up the snifter again, but without any desire to drink. “Would he be insane, would he be ill? Would there be some physical cause?”
    “I couldn’t say, Nathan, on such general speculation. Do you believe your father committed an unspeakable act?”
    “I know he did.” Before Kauffman could speak, Nathan shook his head and rose to pace again. “I can’t—I’m not free to explain it to you. There are others I have to talk to first.”
    “Nathan, David Delaney was a loyal friend, a loving husband, and a devoted father. You can rest your mind on that.”
    “I haven’t been able to rest my mind on that since the month after he was killed.” Emotions swirled in his eyes, turning them to smoke. “I buried him, Doctor Kauffman, him and my mother. And I’m very tempted to bury the rest. If I could be sure,” he said softly, “that it’s not happening again.”
    Kauffman leaned forward. He’d been treating the human condition for half a century and knew there was no healing of the body or the brain without healing of the heart. “Whatever it is you believe he did, you can’t bear the weight of it.”
    “Who else can? Who else will? I’m the only one left.”
    “Nathan.” Kauffman let out a little sigh. “You were a bright, interesting child, and you have become a talented and intelligent young man. Too often when you were growing up, I saw you shoulder the responsibilities of others. You took on your brother’s far too often for your own good, or for Kyle’s. Don’t make that mistake now over something you can neither change nor repair.”
    “I’ve been telling myself that for the last couple of months. ‘Leave it alone, live your own life.’ I’d decided not to dig into the past, to try to concentrate on the present and forge a future. There’s a woman.”
    “Ah.” Kauffman relaxed, eased back.
    “I’m in love with her.”
    “I’m delighted to hear it and would love to meet her. Has she been vacationing on that island you took yourself off to?”
    “Not exactly. Her family lives there. She’s spending some time. She’s had . . . difficulties of her own. Actually I met her when we were children. When I saw her again ... well, to simplify, one thing led to another. I could have prevented it.” He moved to the window, to the view of Central Park, which was thick and green with summer. “Perhaps I should have.”
    “Why would you deny yourself happiness?”
    “There’s something I know that affects her. If I tell her, she’ll despise me. More, I don’t know what it will do to her, emotionally.” Because the park made him think of the forest on Desire, he turned away from it. “Would it be better for her to go on believing something that hurts her but isn’t true, or to know the truth and have to live with pain she might not be able to bear? I’ll lose her if I tell her, and I don’t know if I can live with myself if I don’t.”
    “Is she in love with you?”
    “She’s beginning to be. If I let things go on as they are, she will be.” A ghost of a smile flitted around his mouth. “She’d hate hearing me say that, as if it were inevitable. As if she had no control over it.”
    Kauffman heard the warmth come back into Nathan’s voice. The boy had always been his favorite, he admitted privately. Even among his own grandchildren. “Ah, an