A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [58]
“I’m sorry.”
“You hurt me terribly, Albert. I’ve always been so loyal. You know I have. And I’ve tried to be understanding. No matter what was going on, I always tried to see your side of it. So how could you do that to me?”
“I’m sorry.”
The emotional restraint she had found so sexy was breaking her heart. “I feel so empty,” she whispered, unable to stop the dreaded tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We can’t very well discuss it here. Not when you’re like this! I’m sorry!” He spoke through a ventriloquist’s frozen smile. “This is our big personalized-stationery sale. There’s a calligrapher in there right now. He’s waiting for me!” The grin widened. “You couldn’t have picked a worse day for this!”
“I’m sorry.” She turned away.
The back door opened. “Oh! Albert! There you are!” Katie said.
“So I’ll come by and we’ll get it all figured out,” he called, his tinny jollity a blade up her spine as she walked to her car.
She was surprised to find her sister waiting for her at the store. Karen had just gotten off her shift and couldn’t wait to tell Delores who had come into the emergency room last night. “So here it is three in the morning when this cab pulls up and this huge guy runs in—I mean, he was enormous—and he’s all worked up because there’s a woman with him—a woman out in the cab and she’s having a heart attack and he’s afraid she’s going to die. ‘She’s in real bad shape,’ he says, ‘so can somebody please get out there with a stretcher and bring her inside?’ And I’m sitting there with my jaw hanging open, looking up at him, and all I’m thinking is, Oh, my God. I don’t believe it. It’s Gordon Loomis—wait until I tell Delores.”
“Who was the woman?”
“I wrote it down.” She unfolded the paper. “Jukas. Elsbeth Jukas.”
Delores tried to hide her relief. “Why didn’t they come in an ambulance?”
“He couldn’t get her to. He said she wanted him to drive her car, but he doesn’t have a license. Naturally! I mean, I didn’t even think of it until he said that, but he probably doesn’t even know how to drive, right?”
“Probably not.”
“Twenty-five years. God! I mean, think of all the things you’ve done in the last twenty-five years. Can you imagine?”
For eleven years there had been her job in the bank and shy Robert Cleary, five years younger and a high school English teacher. He told her through the teller window one fine June morning that he had accepted a job in Japan and would be leaving immediately. She wrote, but he never did. After Robert, there had been other men she met in clubs, on singles cruises, men she worked with, bowled and played softball with, single and married, blind dates, personal ads, it hadn’t mattered until she found herself spread-kneed on a paper-lined gurney with her feet in stirrups, hands muffling her ears against the ravenous sound of the suctioning. She was still bleeding and hating herself the day Albert Smick shuffled up to her window with his store’s deposits and a weary sigh. His salesgirl had quit just when he was finally able to take his wife and children to Disney World. He couldn’t afford to close down the business, so he was on his way home to tell them they’d have to go without him. Go, she said; she’d run the store for him. She had tons of vacation time, and if ever she needed a change in her life, it was then.
“It’s weird,” Karen was saying. “He’s older, of course, but he stills looks the same. It’s like nothing’s changed. Like not having his license, like nothing’s happened, nothing’s left its mark on him. It’s like he’s not really real, you know what I mean?”
“Did he know who you were? Did you say you were my sister?”
“I did, but he was, like, out of it. He just sat in a corner, staring down at the floor while they worked on her.”
“Is she all right? She didn’t die, did she?” Poor Gordon, having to go through that alone.
“No. They took her up to Cardiac Care, but the whole time he’s like, wringing his hands together, and all I can think is, Oh, my God, they’re so huge, that poor Janine