His Other Wife (19 page)

H
ilary didn’t know why she expected her friends at Spilling the Beans not to meet the following Tuesday. Alva had left yesterday
amidst hugs and well wishes. Hilary figured that everyone would be in the same shape as she was in, recuperating from having
a houseful of relatives. Hilary expected they’d all decide to take the day off and get a massage or clean out the refrigerator
or collapse in bed. When Fay got her on the phone and said, “Oh, Hilary. We’re still planning on getting together. You’re
not going to wimp out on us, are you?” Hilary couldn’t have been more surprised.

“Well, no,” she said, slightly offended. “I’ll be there.”

So here they sat in their corner booth, with June slanting in through the window and café umbrellas fluttering in the breeze
on the patio. As they were jostling for position (Julie liked to sit to the left of Donna because Julie was left-handed, and
Gina liked the head of the table for obvious reasons), the proprietor of the place beckoned from where he was refilling an
iced-tea cooler. “Back again, I see? You ladies come around often enough, we’ll have to put a brass plaque on that table with
your name on it.”

Of course, the idea of a brass plaque pleased Gina. “Here? You want me to write the name down for you?” She waved a pen and
a napkin at him.

“We’ve added lemon bars to the menu since you were here. You get settled; I’ll bring you a couple of them to try. You ladies
sample them for me and tell me whether you think they’re a good addition.”

This gave them something safe to discuss for about four minutes. They’d been selected to be his taste testers! They oohed
and ahed when the plate was brought out. Kim bit into hers and exclaimed, “Oh, they’re a good addition, all right.” Donna
moaned and made one bite-sized piece last through about five nibbles. “Delicious.” Hilary didn’t have one; she wasn’t hungry.
But she realized this was what Mr. Spilling the Beans was after all along, all these ladies in the corner making suggestive
noises over his newest dessert pastry.

“My grandmother’s recipe,” he admitted loud enough for the nearest patrons to overhear. “Only I made a few tweaks.”

As soon as he removed the plate and disappeared into the kitchen, the table went silent. Gina scraped the floor as she moved
her chair. Lynn was suddenly fascinated by the zipper on her purse. Donna was picking a crumb out of the seat stitches. Julie
arranged packets of sweetener according to size while Fay read the list of ingredients on the ketchup bottle.

The sucker punch came when Hilary understood they had all talked to one another. About
her. Without
her. They had been on the phone, or maybe they’d been sending group e-mails, careful that her name wasn’t on the address
list. “What can we do to help Hilary? What can we say? Let’s try Spilling the Beans. Let’s get together.”

“I thought we were supposed to be meeting in the Bahamas,” Hilary said. “I wanted to buy a new bathing suit.”

By the way they laughed, this was the funniest thing Hilary had said since the boys were in eighth grade and they’d been roasting
the football coach and Hilary had made some offhanded comment that the coach’s bald scalp sweated like a mozzarella. It had
been one of those things where she could be on her deathbed and Seth
still
wouldn’t forgive her.

“I’ll get you a sandwich.” Kim sprang from her chair. “Egg-white salad on rye. That’s the way you like it? Right?”

“It’s fine, Kim. I’m fine, really. It’s okay. You don’t have to take care of me.”

“But the sandwich —”

“I really haven’t been all that hungry anyway.” Not until the words were out of her mouth did she realize that it had been
the wrong thing to say.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Gina asked.

“Breakfast,” Hilary lied.

Actually, it was hard to remember. She’d been cooking for everyone else. She would get all those plates on the table and then
she’d remember what was happening. That’s when she would think of Laura Moore and Seth. That’s when she would feel something
alive and squirming in her stomach. Just like that, she’d feel sick again, like she’d been pitching around for hours in a
car.

“Get her a turkey with pesto and cranberry smear and a large fry on the side,” Gina instructed Kim. “And get one of those
oatmeal raisin cookies. The girl needs
calories
.”

“Gina,” Hilary asked, “how are things at the hospital?” Their silence was all the answer she needed.

The nausea came again. Hilary didn’t think she could work her way through a sandwich. But her friends had ganged up against
her, which meant they were going to win anyway. Kim had already lurched toward the counter and pulled out her wallet. At the
table, they all went quiet again.

“Stop it, you guys,” Hilary said. “I know you’re trying to help, but maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

In an attempt to rescue them all, Lynn launched into a convoluted story about cooking turkey for her in-laws this past weekend.
She had the bird in the pan and she’d followed the recipe from
Gourmet
magazine where you slip lemon slices and rosemary beneath the skin. “All I was doing was cooking this turkey,” she said.
“Joe’s mother walked in and said, ‘Oh, good heavens. You’re not
stuffing
that, are you? You’ll give us all botulism.’”

They shrieked with laughter. Hilary had forgotten how good it felt just to hear something funny again.

Lynn lifted her hands to indicate that she was speechless. “I just told her, ‘I’ve been doing turkey for twenty years for
this family and we haven’t lost anyone yet.’”

Donna said, “My father spent the whole weekend telling us why we’re wasting our money on cable. He said, ‘I have Channel Two
and I have Channel Four and when the weather’s good I get Channel Eleven and that gives me everything I need to watch.’”

To which Hilary couldn’t resist chiming in, “My mother told Pam stories about Eric and me dating each other. She told our
dating stories to Eric’s new
wife
,” she said. Which set all seven of them to shrieking again.

A server retrieved their number and plopped Hilary’s baguette in front of her. Because they were all watching, she forced
herself to take a bite.

“How was that?” At first, Hilary thought Fay was talking about the sandwich. But then she realized that Fay had been asking
about Pam instead.

Hilary wondered if Fay noticed she had a hard time swallowing. Hilary covered her mouth with her hand.

Oh, Fay noticed all right. “That bad?” she asked.

It was Hilary’s fault for bringing it up. How easy it would have been to fall in line with the earlier thread of conversation.
How easy it would have been to moan and let them assume the worst, and even then they wouldn’t understand how difficult things
had been with Pam.

But just this morning, Hilary had come across the old “Love your enemies” passage in Luke. “Bless those who curse you, pray
for those who mistreat you.” As surely as she swallowed a hunk of bread and turkey that tasted like sand, something told her
to swallow the words she wanted to say, too. The truth suddenly appeared in her hand like a pearl. No matter how provoked
Pam made her feel, she’d never be able to get over the hurt if she kept reopening the wound.

Now that the subject of Pam had been broached, it seemed like everyone at the table wanted to weigh in on Hilary’s other circumstances:
“…already so weak when they took her in for the second surgery…,” “…could have happened to any of those kids. It
could
have.”

“I’m so sorry,” Donna said. “It must be so hard.”

What was Hilary supposed to say? “It’s hard,” she agreed. “I love my son. This weekend was supposed to be so happy.”

“To have all this happen when your husband’s wife has come to visit. I can’t imagine what she thinks. I can’t imagine what
she’s been
saying
.”

And so, just like that, they’d gotten back to Pam. “You don’t want to talk about Pam, do you?” Gina asked. She must have read
the resolve in Hilary’s face. “Your mouth looks tight.”

“It’s the sandwich,” Hilary said, trying to get them off the subject. “I told everyone I didn’t want this sandwich.”

“Have fries then,” Kim told her, dipping one in ketchup. “Here. Ketchup has lycopene in it. Eat healthy.”

Gina knew too much from being at the hospital. She had seen the grieving kids, the doctors who were doing their best to work
a miracle, the visits from the police. She laid a comforting hand on Hilary’s knee. “It’s good you haven’t had shifts the
past couple of days.” She paused. “I didn’t think it could get worse than it is already. But Pam’s made it worse, hasn’t she?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hilary?”

There was a moth behind Gina’s head, beating its dusty gray wings against the window. Even in the crowded café, with the conversations
flowing at the other tables, the cash register chiming each time a patron made a purchase, Hilary heard its wings drumming
the glass. She watched it for the longest time because she didn’t dare meet Gina’s eyes. If she did, Gina would know the answer
to her question.

Seth and Hilary finally got the chance to square off alone on the opposite sides of their garage foosball table. He maneuvered
the handles, working the red players. Hilary was on the opposite side, working the black. For the third time since they’d
started, Seth took a shot on a goal that about took his mom’s hand off.

The plastic ball ricocheted off the sidewall and careened right back to him. His shots were so angry, Hilary didn’t need her
goalie to fend off his attack. He was wild, all over the game table. With each jab and yank of the handle, Hilary expected
Seth to make some hotheaded comment about the Stuart Foundation and the lost scholarship.

I don’t care if those people took my scholarship away. I’ll stay home and get a job.

A trick shot to the left between Hilary’s defending midfielders.

I’ll show them. I’ll show them I wasn’t supposed to go to college in the first place.

A bullet to the outside, which bounced off the side of the field.

Dad should have thought about helping me before he decided to leave our family. Why would he think I’d let him and Pam help
me now?

But Seth never said a word. He just got the serve over and over again, took aim, and slammed it. After all, Hilary reminded
herself, he was yet another member of the human male species.

Seth way outclassed his mom in the fine-tuned-motor-skills department. He had a strategy going where he abandoned his attack
players and controlled the ball from the rear line. Every time Hilary was finally able to get hold of a ball and volley it
back, she shot with as much frustration as he did.

Laura was the huge presence in the room that stood between them, the thing neither of them dared speak about.

Seth made a spinning shot to the right that narrowly missed the goalkeeper. Hilary countered with a curve ball that went nowhere.
Seth shook his head at her attempt and sent it blasting back.

Hilary returned the shot straight. The ball rebounded off the corner and dropped into the goal.

Seth was stunned. “You scored.”

Hilary held out her hand for the ball.

“I can’t believe you scored on me.”

When he placed the ball in Hilary’s palm, her fist curved around and she caught hold of her son’s fingers, too. He looked
at her. They both knew they had to talk about this. His entire bearing changed. He literally drooped in front of Hilary’s
eyes. He turned into someone who looked so forlorn and lost, he might as well have been eight years old again. Suddenly they
weren’t talking about foosball anymore.

“I know you thought you could trust me, Mom.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did.”

Hilary went to make her serve on the game table. Seth gripped the foosball handles as if he were going after her, only he
didn’t move. The ball did the quick-bounce thing until it came to a dead stop, out of play.

“They said it could have happened to anybody, Seth. They say it was just an accident. But you
knew better
.”