Free The Look of Love: A Novel by Sarah Jio Page A

but I did some more searching. He was a big deal. Knighted by the Queen for his humanitarian work in Africa. From what I can tell, she was fairly involved too.” Mary shakes her head. “He died in a helicopter accident ten years ago in Africa. With his mistress beside him.”
    I gasp. “Oh, no.” I look over at Vivian sitting at the far end of the salon, staring down at her manicured hands, face pinched into a frown. “No wonder she’s bitter.”
    Mary nods. “I suppose she has the right to be. To lose the love of her life and find out that his heart belonged to another in the same moment.”
    I think of Mel, the antithesis of Vivian’s larger-than-life late husband. Could he thaw the ice around her heart?

    After lunch, I drive downtown for my monthly appointment with my neurologist, Dr. Amy Heller. She’s been following my condition since childhood, and after Mom died, she became my mentor and mother figure, although she couldn’t be any more different from Mom. Where Mom was a romantic who’d sometimes put on her favorite Billy Joel song, “And So It Goes,” and listen to it over and over as she cried, practical Dr. Heller regards life with fact, not feeling. Nothing stands in her way, and as successful as she is, I’ve often wondered if she’s happy.
    “Hello, Jane,” Dr. Heller says, taking her usual seat beside me in her exam room, with its beige walls and windows that look out over Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. “And how are we doing this week?”
    Dr. Heller speaks in “we’s” not “you’s.” When her patients have cancer,
she
has cancer. When they have migraines, she rubs her aching forehead too. No, Dr. Heller may not be an emotional woman, but she does have the gift of empathy.
    “We’re . . . OK,” I say.
    “Just OK?”
    I swallow hard as I begin to relate the details of my visit with Colette.
    Dr. Heller sets my chart down, then nods. “So let me get this straight. A woman you’ve never met told you that the changes in your vision can be explained as your ability to see”—she pauses to clear her throat—“love?”
    “Yes, in short.”
    “And do you believe this woman?”
    I shrug. “I don’t want to, but she spoke about my condition in a way that, for the first time in my life, made sense.”
    “What?”
    “Well, she said that I have until sunset on my thirtieth birthday to identify the six types of love as they appear in my life, or I risk losing the ability to ever find meaningful love myself.”
    She takes off her glasses, rubs the lenses with the sleeve of her white coat, then replaces them.
    “You think this is all nuts, don’t you?” I say.
    “No,” she says. “I do not. Jane, do you know the old parable about the maiden and the fox?”
    I shake my head.
    “It goes like this: There once was a beautiful maiden in a kingdom far away. She watched as her four younger sisters were married off to eligible suitors, but the maiden, despite her great beauty, remained unmarried. A wise old woman in the neighboring village told her that for her to ever find love and marry, she’d have to identify a red fox in the forest under moonlight. Well, red foxes are exceedingly rare. But the maiden accepted the challenge. And night after night, year after year, she consumed herself with finding this elusive red fox. And then, one night, she found her fox, standing on a mossy rock in the moonlight. Moments later, it was shot with an arrow, by a prince on horseback, who immediately noticed the maiden’s great beauty. They married, and she became the princess of the land. So I ask, was it the fox or was it the maiden’s persistence to be thanked for her collision with love?” She nods to herself. “Jane, I believe in science, not magic. I believe there’s a logical explanation for most everything. And while this journey may not cure you of your condition, it may give you some sort of understanding into yourself. And in that, you have my full