Between Husbands and Friends (23 page)

I woke to see Chip walking down to the water. He plunged off in a strong crawl down the length of the inlet. I watched for a while, then rose and went to the water’s edge. Waves lapped at my feet. A much less confident swimmer than Chip, still I walked into the water, gasping as the cold hit my abdomen, then I lay down in the salty sea pond. I swam a few strokes, turned over on my back, and floated. Swam some more. My body felt healthy, strong, supple. I was relaxed, and the salt pond supported me. When I walked up onto the shore, I felt as if I had been somehow renewed, almost baptized, by the sea.

“We should go back,” I said.

“Let’s finish this last beer,” Chip suggested.

We sat on the towels, their edges fluttering at our feet in the growing wind. Chip’s long legs stretched beside mine, the golden hair crusted with sand. A slender strip of dark green seaweed clung to his ankle.

Chip said, “It was good between us. We could be together, Lucy.”

I held the beer to my mouth and felt the wetness from Chip’s mouth on the metal rim. I shook my head. “Don’t, Chip.”

“Haven’t you ever thought about it? About us?”

“I don’t dare.” I handed him back the can and felt the warmth of his fingers on mine. I
scooted on the blanket so that I was away from him, facing him. “I’m married. Kate is my best friend. We all have children.”

“I like being with you, Lucy. I’ve always been sexually attracted to you, but what I feel for you is more—”

I stood up abruptly. Sand shifted down from my suit onto my feet, making whispering noises. “We shouldn’t talk like this. Hell, Chip, we should be feeling
guilty. Remorseful.
You’ve got a brand-new baby. This is all just
wrong.
”

“I don’t think so.” Chip leaned back on his arms looking up at me; his long narrow body, all bones and ropy muscles extended before me. The sun hit my body at such an angle that my shadow fell across him in a long stripe, like a brand, as if he were marked by me, as if his body possessed something of mine, something immaterial but real, part of my spirit, part of my soul. I was frightened and thrilled.

“I want to go back,” I said. “Now. Please.”

The wind had picked up during the day. We sped back to Nantucket over choppy waters. Chip was challenged by the shifting wind, thoroughly engrossed with tacking and adjusting the sails, which made him happy, and made me nervous. He was such a handsome man. How many affairs had he had? Any woman would want to sleep with him, just to touch his perfect body. He was braver than I, more aggressive, more experimental. He was a wonderful lover, too, and he was kind. That he had actually entertained thoughts of the two of us together was stunning, staggering, amazing; it was complimentary and terrifying. All right, so he was less cowed by turbulence than I was; I was still not a complete coward. If I let myself imagine life with him … well, I wouldn’t do it. I could, but I wouldn’t. I would not. We had children to think about, we had Kate and Max.

Lying between Whale Island on Tuckernuck and Smith’s Point on Nantucket was a stretch of deceptively innocent water, a rippling aquamarine region that looked like an easy swim in several directions to the soundness of land. In fact the curve and lie of the land and the small opening between the two islands sent a fierce fast current surging along, relentlessly sweeping with it anything that came its way. I had heard that even a strong swimmer could drown here, in these chaotic depths, just yards from shore.

Chip liked a challenge and was good at anything he set his mind to, and we arrived without mishap at last at the inner harbor, took a boat launch to the shore, and headed up to the Volvo. During the sail back we didn’t talk, but once in the car I felt enclosed in an intimate space, and needed to speak.

“Chip, about today. I did like it.”

He threw an abashed grin my way. “I noticed.”

“But I wish it hadn’t happened.”

“Really?”

“Really. I want to act as if it never happened. I’m committed to my family. And God knows you can’t even consider deserting Kate now.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then he sighed. “You’re right, Lucy. I know you’re right. But I want you to know—”

Reaching over, I put my fingers on his mouth. “No. I don’t want to know. Nothing more.”

He took my hand in his and kissed my palm. He said, “All right.”

We didn’t speak again until we arrived back at Aunt Grace’s house.

I told myself that what happened on Tuckernuck was a secret, an aberration, something to be taken so lightly it could evaporate into the air, like froth on waves.

Still, I felt stronger when I walked into the house. I felt rejuvenated, capable, alive. Kate and the M&Ms and Abby were in the living room, the children hypnotized by some idiotic television show, Kate reading her paperback.

“How was the sail?” she asked carelessly.

“Great!” I replied over my shoulder as I headed upstairs. I showered and spread a lightly fragrant lotion all over my tanned body, pulled on a sundress and sandals, and went back down to the living room.

“Come on, Margaret,” I said to my daughter. “Let’s get you dressed in something pretty. I’m taking you into town for a shopping spree.”

Margaret looked at me with slightly glazed eyes. Her face had a kind of pouchiness to it from sitting still on a humid day. “Mom. I want to stay with the baby.”

“You’ve been with the baby all day. It’s my turn to enjoy the pleasure of your company.” My tone was sweet, but firm. My daughter knew that tone of voice. “Besides,” I added, “we need to let the Cunninghams alone for a while. They need to spend time together as a family.”

Margaret blinked. Her lower lip quivered. Had I been too cruel, reminding her that she
wasn’t part of the precious inner circle? If so, too bad. She had to come to terms with it sooner or later.

Still she hesitated. I took her hand and pulled. Reluctantly, she stood. I led her to her bedroom, changed her dress, put barrettes in her hair, realizing as I tended to my child that she was lovely. I had forgotten how lovely she was.

“Let’s buy you a pink-and-white-striped dress,” I said, turning Margaret around to brush the back of her curly brown hair. “And a pink-and-white headband for your hair.”

“And peppermint ice cream!” she cried, laughing.

We looked at our faces in the mirror: mother and daughter, identical faces, mine older and thinner and red-nosed, hers chubbier and paler, both of us smiling.

“And peppermint ice cream,” I agreed.

Max’s chinos, blue-and-white-striped shirt, blue sleeveless cotton sweater vest, red bow tie, lie across our bed, his loafers and socks on the floor near the chair. He’s pulling on a faded pair of madras shorts. His chest is bare, and in spite of our week in the sun, his arms and neck are still darker than his torso, giving him the vulnerable look of a creature turned on its back, soft belly exposed.

“Max,” I say, my voice coming out strangled, “Jeremy has cystic fibrosis.”

He frowns. “What the hell?”

“Max, I’m so scared. I had to pretend that everything’s all right. I haven’t told Jeremy yet. I want you to be with me when we tell him. And they have to do more tests. But they’re sure, and it was so horrible, driving home Jeremy wanted to sing that stupid,
stupid
camp song.”

Max puts his hands on my shoulders and moves me to the bed. “Wait a minute, Lucy. Sit down. I don’t understand.”

“That damn song about the fly!” Tears shoot from my eyes. “You know. ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly,’ and she swallows a cat and a dog and a pig and the refrain is always, ‘perhaps she’ll die!’ ” The doctor’s diagnosis shoots through my body like a meteor, and sparks of fear flicker in my stomach. “Why do they teach children such terrible songs?”

“Okay, it will be okay,” Max says.

“It won’t be okay,” I whisper. “I’m so scared.”

“Here,” Max says, after a while. Looking down, I watch him pry my hands off the beer bottles I’ve been clutching tightly. He twists the lid off one. “Take a sip.”

I refuse. My throat is clotted with mucus and terror. “Jeremy could die.”

Max goes white around the nostrils. “Look. Start over from the beginning. I don’t even know what the hell cystic fibrosis is.”

“It’s a disease that affects the lungs and the digestion. It’s why Jeremy has had so many colds. Why he hasn’t gained weight.”

“Okay.” Max chews his cheek as the information sinks in. “There’s medicine for it, right?”

“There are lots of medicines, to alleviate the various problems. Antibiotics. Enzyme supplements.”

“Okay. Okay. We can deal with this.”

“We have to tell Jeremy, but the social worker suggested that first you and I discuss how to do it.”

“All right.”

“We don’t need to tell him everything yet.”

Max’s entire face goes white beneath his tan. “Everything.”

“Max, the average life expectancy of someone with CF is around thirty. Thirty years ago the average life expectancy was eight years.”

Light fades from Max’s eyes, drains from his skin. His mouth, his entire jawline, sags. It’s as if he’s aging years in these few minutes. He fights for optimism. “There are medical breakthroughs every day.”

“Not every day.” The grief rises up in me again, and the terror.

Max’s forehead furrows. “My God, Lucy. How did this happen?”

A hearty knock sounds at the door. “Dinner, guys!” Chip calls.

“Later,” I call back.

“Everything okay?”

“Later,”
Max yells, an edge to his voice.

Max and I listen, almost seeing Chip as he hesitates, puzzled and curious. For a moment I feel very strongly how Max and I are a couple, huddled together here. We hear Chip ambling off down the stairs.

Max says, “Jesus, Lucy, I’m sorry I wasn’t with you today. I had no idea … God, I’m sorry you had to do this alone.”

“It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right. It’s unbelievable. It’s terrifying.”

Another stick catches in my throat, snags my breath. “Max. You have to help me through this.”

“Of course I’ll help you! Jesus! How can you say that?”

I pull away from him. We are at the core of it. Jeremy’s illness is making me fold back and fold back the thick obscuring dark leaves of the past to expose the hard pale knot of truth hiding within.

I fold my arms over my chest. I look down at the old rag rug on the floor, every shade of blue and green blurring at my feet. “You’ve deserted me before.”

“I’ve never …”

I look up at him, my husband, this man whom I’ve loved and lived with for fifteen years. Strands of gray curl among the glossy black of his hair. His jaw and mouth are rimmed with a day-old beard that is almost blue and delineated as sharply around his mouth as if drawn with pen and ink. “Emotionally, you’ve deserted me. And physically.”

He blinks. Then he takes a deep breath and nods. “I know I have.”

“This is as bad as losing Maxwell.” My voice thickens. I dig my nails into my arms.

“This is worse.”

“Lucy, I won’t desert you, not this time. I promise.”

“There’s something else.” An anesthetizing ice sheets over me, a glacier of dread.

Max looks at me.

Through numbed lips I say, “The thing about cystic fibrosis is that it’s caused by a genetic defect. The parents don’t have to have it, but they have to be carriers. A child can have cystic fibrosis only if
both
parents carry the gene. And if one child has cystic fibrosis, his siblings could also have cystic fibrosis.”

“But Margaret has been so healthy.”

“Or the child could simply carry the gene, to be passed on to his children. There’s a good chance that the sibling of a child with cystic fibrosis carries the gene. If someone who carries the gene marries someone else who carries the gene, there’s a one-in-four chance that their child will have cystic fibrosis.”

“Is there a test for this gene?”

“There is.”

“So we need to have Margaret tested, right?”

“Maybe not.” I look down at my hands, then back up at Max. I look him steadily, squarely, in the eyes. “We need to have you tested. And Chip has to be tested, too.”

The evening of that remarkable Saturday, when Margaret and I were in a shop buying her a pink-and-white-striped dress, we ran into friends from Sussex who were vacationing for a week on the island. I’d always found Jana Myers a little too prissy for me, and her daughter was a year younger than Margaret, but Tiffany was rumored to have an enormous collection of My Little Ponies, and when they invited us over the next day, I accepted with alacrity.

Sunday morning I woke Margaret early, dressed her, and hustled her outside. We would leave the Volvo for the Cunninghams to use; we rode our bikes into town for a leisurely pancake breakfast. We strolled around, listening to the street musicians, looking in the shops, buying trinkets, and then we went to the Myerses’, where I suffered ten thousand deaths of boredom Sunday afternoon as Jana showed me various swatches of chintz; she was redecorating the guest bedroom. Tiffany did have a huge collection of My Little Ponies, and Margaret enjoyed herself so much she pleaded not to leave, reminding me what it was like to be a child, fully immersed in the moment, reminding me how intensely Margaret went at things, how wholeheartedly she bestowed her heart on each moment’s immediate passion.