A Seahorse in the Thames Read Online Free Page B

Rebecca would be thrilled if I could spend more time with her, see her regularly, take her places for lunch. And being needed by Rebecca, my brain-damaged sister, was better than being needed by no one.
    I applied to all the San Diego hospitals, hoping to get a job close to Rebecca’s group home. I moved back to San Diego, found the triplex after a chance meeting with Rose, the owner and landlady, in a parking lot, and hoped for the right job offer to come my way. It finally came at just about the time my meager funds were about to run out. I got a job at Mercy Hospital, just a few minutes away from Rebecca’s group home.
    So the job worked out, I found a wonderful place to live near the beach and I was and still am able to see Rebecca every week.
    But it’s been seven years and here I am still waiting for my life to move on to the next phase. Nothing ever seems to change for the better. I don’t want to win the lottery or move to France or sail around the world. I just want what millions of other women have and probably find unremarkable: a husband, children and a home to love them in.
    I just don’t seem to run across many suitable men to date. I long ago decided not to get mixed up with another Rick. Ever. Trouble is, I didn’t know what Rick was like until I had been with him for many months.
    Rose’s son, Patrick, who lives in the last third of the triplex—on the other side of Serafina and Jorge—made an attempt to woo me early on, but it was clear from the beginning that he only wanted my company if it included sex. It was obvious to me, and still is, that Patrick dates beautiful women for show, average women for sex, and rich women—for what else?—money. This is why Patrick is still chasing women at a frenzied pace, because eventually, they all figure him out. This is also why I refuse to even go with him to a movie. I barely tolerate him as a neighbor.
    There are some nice, single men at the hospital where I work, but no one that has ever taken my breath away. Not like Rick did. Not like Stephen does.
    The thing is, there is something about Stephen that is unlike Rick in every way. I have seen it in everything he has done in the short time I’ve known him. It is a quality I find hard to define. I’ve seen it in his every conversation with me, with little Rafael, with the mailman. He is… genuine.
    Yesterday afternoon, he came to my back door and grudgingly asked for some Tylenol because he had a headache; grudgingly because he said he usually kept a bottle in his truck but it was empty. I didn’t mind, of course. I gave it to him and told him he should rest a few minutes before continuing in the hot sun. He agreed and I invited him into my kitchen and gave him a glass of lemonade.
    We started to chat about little, trivial things, and then for some reason I can’t recall—even though it happened just yesterday—we got on the subject of church. He asked if I went to one and I said sometimes I go with Serafina and Jorge. He asked why just sometimes. I shrugged and said I just go when I feel like I have missed it.
    “Alexa, can I ask you something? Do you have a relationship with God?” His question unnerved me a little, but I answered him.
    “Doesn’t everybody?” I didn’t mean to sound glib. I just don’t see who doesn’t have a relationship with God.
    He laughed. I felt the need to explain.
    “I mean, that’s like asking me if I have a relationship with air,” I said. “Of course I do. Even the atheist has a relationship with God. He denies God exists. That’s his relationship. One of denial.”
    “Okay, fair enough.” He grinned.
    “Why do you ask?”
    I thought this was an odd question to ask. A private question. A question I was not prepared to answer. I already liked Stephen too much to be offended, but I wondered why he asked it.
    “Why do you ask?” I said.
    His answer moved me. “Because you seem like you have been carrying around a lot of pain, a lot of bad memories, a lot