The Best of Us (22 page)

“Fine, fine,” Louise said. “It’s just that Sammy came down with a little bug this morning. His stomach hurts, so I was going to run him to the doctor.”

“Does he have a fever?” Tina asked.

“Not really,” Louise said. “It’s a touch above normal. But mostly it’s the stomach pain he’s complaining about.”

“Which side of his stomach? Is the pain coming from below his belly button?”

“I’m not sure,” Louise said. “Should I ask him?”

“Um . . . actually, can you put him on?” Tina asked.

“Sure,” Louise said.

She could hear voices in the background, then the sound of heavy breathing into the phone.

“Sammy?”

“Mama?”

She bit her lower lip as her eyes grew wet. Her baby was sick, and she was hundreds of miles away.

“Hi, little bunny,” she said. “Louise told me your tummy hurts.”

“Mmn-hmm,” Sammy said.

“Below your belly button, Sammy? Is that where it hurts?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Please don’t let it be his appendix,
Tina thought.

“Is it above your belly button, too?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And my feet.”

She should’ve known better than to try to diagnose a two-and-a-half-year-old over the phone. She glanced out the window and saw the weather had turned again; the rain was coming down, hard.

“I miss you,” she said. “But Louise is going to take good care of you.”

“Come home, Mama,” he said. His voice was small.

“Oh, baby,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m coming soon . . .”

“Now?” he asked.

Tina pictured Sammy standing there, holding the phone to his ear with his chubby little hands, his poor sore belly sticking out from the bottom of his T-shirt, wanting a hug from his mama. She felt horrible.

Then a traitorous thought wormed into her mind:
Damn it, don’t I deserve a break for once?

For just a moment, she felt angry at Sammy. Not at Sammy, she told herself, feeling ashamed. What kind of mother would be mad at her child for getting sick? She was angry at the situation, that was all.

“I can’t come home now,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Louise is going to take you to the doctor. Remember you get stickers every time you go? You can pick a Thomas the Train sticker if you want. And then you can call me right afterward, okay?”

More heavy breathing, then Louise picked up again.

“Tina? I’m afraid we have to go . . . the doctor’s squeezing us in.”

“Can you make sure the doctor checks his appendix?” Tina blurted.

“Of course,” Louise said, her voice reassuring. “But I’m sure it’s just a stomachache. That’s why I didn’t call you . . .”

“I know,” Tina said, holding back a sigh. She’d specifically asked Louise to call her if any of the kids became sick. Maybe Louise was waiting for the official report from the doctor, but Tina still wished she’d phoned earlier.

“Could you call me after you see the doctor?” Tina asked.

“It’s a deal,” Louise said. “But don’t let it ruin your day . . . There’s no sense in you worrying. I’ll call you as soon as we get back.”

“Okay,” Tina said. “And thanks for taking care of him.”

She hung up and plopped down heavily on the bed. Sammy was fine; he’d had tummy aches before. Every kid in the world got them. He’d take a bit of medicine and watch some TV and he’d be all better by morning.

Still, reading a book held no appeal now; she knew she
wouldn’t be able to concentrate. And she no longer felt like being alone.

She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It would take at least an hour for Louise to get to the doctor, have Sammy checked out, and arrive home. In the meantime, Tina was going to force herself to enjoy Jamaica.

She almost laughed, realizing how ridiculous that thought sounded. “You can do it,” she said aloud, giving herself a mock pep talk. “Make yourself lie down by the private pool. Try to choke down a gourmet dinner. Then work your way up to sleeping in!”

She looked out the window and saw the weather was still freaky; the rain had abruptly stopped—not just tapered off but halted so suddenly it was as if the drops had evaporated between the clouds and the ground. The sun was edging back out.

Tina stood up and flung open the door. “Allie? Van? Where is everybody?”

EVERY TIME PAULINE CLOSED
her eyes, she was back in the hospital.

When she walked through the door of Therese’s room, her gaze was instantly drawn to the small figure lying on a bed. Therese was dressed in a thin cotton gown, and a blue blanket covered her lower body. Her eyes were shut.

Okay,
Pauline thought.
I can do this.

There were two chairs by Therese’s bed, and Pauline took the one farther away. The room was stark white and sterile, as hospital rooms tended to be, but there was something different about this one. After a moment Pauline realized what it was. Every other time she’d visited a patient, they’d been surrounded by personal belongings: family photographs, a pretty bathrobe draped on the end of the bed, greeting cards. Therese wasn’t.

She forced herself to look at her sister’s face, scanning her wide forehead, her full cheeks, and her small nose. With a start, Pauline realized Therese had a few tiny lines around her eyes. How strange that her body’s aging process had continued to march relentlessly ahead while her mind had remained locked in its earliest stage.

Pauline shifted in her chair. She wondered what was happening in Jamaica. Maybe everyone was getting ready to head to the beach . . .

She stole another glance at Therese. Her sister was slightly pudgy—no, that was the wrong word. She looked . . . soft. Her skin was a creamy white, and her hands were almost dainty. Pauline blinked and looked again.

Someone had painted Therese’s nails. They’d been filed into smooth ovals and covered with a light pink polish.

It must’ve been one of her aides, Pauline thought, leaning forward in her chair to get a better view. Care had been taken to coat Therese’s nails smoothly and evenly. To make them look pretty. It wasn’t the sort of job that would be required, and Pauline wondered why someone had done it.

A sudden, awful sound made her flinch: Therese coughing. Her lungs seemed to be losing the battle to suck in enough air.

Pauline leapt to her feet to get help, but before she could reach the door, a middle-aged nurse hurried into the room. “You can give her some oxygen,” the nurse said, reaching for a clear mask that was attached to a machine by thin tubes. She demonstrated how to hold the mask an inch or two away from Therese’s face, and soon the raspy-sounding coughing ceased.

“Thank you,” Pauline’s mother said, reaching for the mask. “Should we hold it all the time? Or just when she needs it?”

“When she needs it,” the nurse said. Her expression was compassionate, but her manner was rushed. “And she’ll begin to require it more frequently.” She checked one of the machines near Therese—there weren’t as many as Pauline had expected; just two, including the one supplying oxygen—then left the room.

Pauline and her mother sat together in silence for a while. Now and then, Therese coughed, but the oxygen always eased her breathing.

After a while, someone knocked on the door. Pauline and her mother looked at each other.

“Come in,” Pauline finally called.

A man who looked to be in his midfifties stepped in. He wore jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt with white sneakers.

“I’m Carlos,” he said, extending his hand.

Pauline’s mother rose and reached out to clasp his hand with her own. “Of course,” she said. “We met last month, I believe. Thank you for coming.”

“I’m Therese’s aide,” the man said to Pauline. She nodded a greeting and hid her surprise. Her mother hadn’t mentioned going to visit Therese last month. She would’ve gone, too, if she’d known, but she’d been so busy with the charity auction, and planning the vacation . . .

Carlos moved closer to Therese. He was standing on the other side of the bed, and Pauline could see his face clearly. He stared down at Therese for a moment, then closed his eyes. His lips moved, but he didn’t make any sound.

He was praying, Pauline realized. She wished she could hear him.

Carlos opened his eyes again and reached down to adjust Therese’s blanket, the gesture as natural as if he’d done it dozens of times before. He probably had, Pauline realized with a start.

Then Carlos lifted Therese’s right hand and held it between his own. Her eyes stayed closed, and her hand was limp in his much bigger one.

“Would you mind if I sang to her?” he asked.

“Sang?” Pauline’s mother asked. “No, I don’t mind . . . of course not.”

Carlos nodded.

“ ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,’ ” he began. His
voice was off-key, but deep and gentle. “ ‘You make me happy, when skies are gray . . .’ ”

Pauline didn’t realize she was crying until a tear splashed onto her lap.

Carlos finished the song. “It’s one of her favorites,” he said. “This and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’ ”

Pauline stared at him. “It is?” she whispered. “She has a favorite song? How do you know?”

“She always looks happy when I sing it,” Carlos said simply. “She smiles sometimes.”

Pauline stood up and fumbled to put her purse’s strap over her shoulder. “I’ll—I’ll be right back,” she said.

“Pauline?” her mother called.

But Pauline was already running down the hallway. She tore down three flights of stairs and kept running, past the blond woman at the coffee kiosk in the lobby, through the automatic sliding doors, and down the sidewalk toward the parking garage where she’d left her car just hours ago. A lifetime ago.

*   *   *

Savannah was in the middle of a delicious fantasy about the crewman from the catamaran when her iPhone rang. She sighed and began to roll over in her lounge chair, thinking that maybe a buyer had finally made an offer on the house with the ugly family photos and peeling wallpaper. She’d try to keep her voice professional, even though she was hot, horny, and half-asleep.

Then she recognized the ring tone: Carrie Underwood singing,
“I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seat . . . Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.”

She stared at the phone for a second before answering with a terse “Yes?”

“Savannah?”

She inhaled quickly, feeling her body tense. She hadn’t heard his voice in months.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to talk.”

How typically Gary. No apology, no chitchat—just a simple, declarative sentence. She used to love his directness.

“Really?” She purred, stretching out the word even as her heart began to pound. “And what exactly would you like to talk about, Gary?”

“Savannah, I know I screwed up.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d wanted to hear those words so desperately in the weeks after he left. But now? She was too numb to feel vindicated.

“Actually, you screwed your way down,” she said. “I know what your girlfriend looks like.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have given away that particular detail. Gary didn’t need to know that she’d lurked by the elevator in the hospital’s employee parking lot, waiting to see The Nurse exit after her shift one evening. This, of course, after she’d called the hospital to verify that The Nurse was working (speaking her name aloud was so awful that Savannah had vowed never to do it again). Of course, Savannah had also Googled her and found a few photos on Facebook to confirm she’d be viewing the right woman. She was proud of her investigative prowess, actually.

She could hear Gary sigh. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said. “Not anymore.”

“Really?” Savannah said. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

She couldn’t believe how cool she was playing it. Thank God they were talking on the phone and not in person—she knew the expression on her face didn’t match her casual tone.

“Please. Can I see you?” he asked. “Just to talk.”

“Well, that might be a little difficult,” she said. “Since I’m in Jamaica.”

“Jamaica?” Gary asked. He paused, and she could almost see him tapping his chin with his index finger as he formulated a Plan B. Gary always could come up with a Plan B, whether they’d gotten lost on the way to a party or been overcharged by a repairman. “Okay, when will you be back? I can come over then.”

No. She wasn’t going to let him control things. He’d given up that right the day he walked out.

“You really want to talk?” she asked. “Okay, then. I’m available tonight at ten o’clock. I’m afraid that’s the only opening I have in my schedule for the foreseeable future.”

“Sure,” Gary said, sounding puzzled. “I wanted to do it in person, but I guess I could call you back.”

“Nope,” Savannah said. This was actually fun. Gary had gutted her emotionally, and now she relished the chance to torture him a bit. “If you truly want to talk, you’ll be here at ten o’clock.”

“In
Jamaica
?”

“We’re at a private villa in Negril. It’s called Summer Escape.”

“But . . . that’s in seven hours. I can’t get there in seven hours.”

“Technically you can,” Savannah said. “Unless it’s not important enough to you.”

“Savannah, look—” Gary began, but she pressed a button to cut off the call.

She lay there for a moment, not believing what had just happened. Then she glanced to her left, where Tina and Allie were sitting bolt upright on their lounge chairs, staring at her.

“No way did you just do that,” Tina said.

“Yup,” Savannah said.

“You told Gary to come here? Tonight?”

“It appears so,” Savannah said. She gave a little laugh.

She couldn’t believe how good she felt. When Gary left,
her confidence had been deeply shaken. She knew he was the one with the character flaw, but she couldn’t help questioning whether she was smart enough, interesting enough, knowledgeable enough. Gary was brilliant—he could converse about national politics as easily as he could about chemistry or the stock market. But while Savannah had always been savvy and quick, she’d never been a particularly good student. She’d barely squeaked into UVa, and she knew it was only because admissions officials went easier on students who lived in state. Even so, she’d been wait-listed at first. She hated reading the newspaper, other than the gossip columns, and she’d once been deeply embarrassed while playing some silly game at a party when she couldn’t point to Ohio on the U.S. map.