Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [26]
“Yes,” April says emphatically. “Rude.”
Choosing my words carefully, I say, “I don’t know. I suppose so ... But . . . at the same time . . .”
April absentmindedly reaches up to shift her long ponytail from one shoulder to the other. Her looks, I have always thought, do not match her true personality. Her curly auburn hair, combined with her smattering of freckles, perky nose, and athletic build, conjure a laid-back, outdoorsy type—a former field-hockey player turned gowith-the-flow soccer mom. When, in fact, she is as uptight and indoorsy as they come—her idea of camping is a four-(rather than five-)star hotel; and to her, ski trips are about fur coats and fondue.
“But at the same time, what?” she asks, pressing me to put into words what I’d rather leave to implication.
“But her son’s in the hospital,” I say bluntly.
“I know that,” April says, giving me a blank stare.
“Well, then?” I make a gesture that would be captioned, Well, then, what is your point?
“Okay,” April says. “I’m not saying Valerie should be all buddy-buddy with Romy or anything . . . but would it kill her to return a simple phone call?”
“I suppose that would be the right thing to do—at least the nice thing to do,” I say reluctantly. “But I don’t think she’s really thinking much about Romy. And I don’t think we really know what this woman is going through.”
April rolls her eyes. “We’ve all had sick children,” she says. “We’ve all been to the ER. We all know what it’s like to be scared.”
“C’mon,” I say, appalled. “Her kid’s been in the hospital for days. He has third-degree burns on his face. His right hand—the hand he uses to write and throw a ball—is totally messed up. He’s had one surgery already and there will be more to come. And he will probably still have some functional impairment. And scars. For the rest of his life.”
I almost stop there, but can’t help adding a footnote. “You know what that’s like? You know that kind of worry? Really?”
April finally looks sheepish. “He’s going to have scars for the rest of his life?” she asks.
“Of course,” I say.
“I didn’t know . . .” she says.
“C’mon. He’s a burn victim. What did you think?”
“I didn’t think they were that bad. The burns. You didn’t tell me.”
“More or less I did,” I say, thinking of the numerous times I’ve given April vague updates.
“But I’ve heard Nick say he can do skin grafts that are . . . unnoticeable. That burn surgery has become totally sophisticated.”
“Not that sophisticated . . . I mean, yes, they’ve made a ton of progress over the years—and yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard him talking his big surgeon game about how seamless his grafts are ... But still. As good as Nick is, he’s not that good. That little boy’s skin was still badly burned in places. As in burned off. Gone.”
I bite my tongue from contrasting this to Olivia’s fall off her front porch last year, when she chipped a baby tooth, reducing April to tears for weeks, as she lamented all the many photographs that would be ruined before her adult tooth came in and Googled “gray, discolored dead teeth” ad nauseam. A cosmetic blip as far as injuries go.
“I didn’t know,” she says again.
“Well,” I say softly, carefully, “now you do. And you might want to pass the word along to Romy and tell her that maybe . . . maybe this woman just needs some time to herself. . . And Jesus, she’s a single mother on top of it. Can you imagine dealing with this kind of crisis without Rob?”
“No,” she says. “I can’t.”
She purses her lips and looks away, out the window next to our table to a very pregnant woman strolling along the sidewalk. I follow her gaze, feeling the same twinge of envy that I always feel when I see a woman about to have a baby.
When I turn back to her, I say, “I just don’t think we should judge this woman unless we’ve walked in her shoes. And we certainly shouldn’t be vilifying her . . .”
“Okay, okay,” April says. “I hear you.”
I force a smile. “No hard feelings?”
“Of course not,” April says, dabbing her lips with the white cloth napkin.
I take a long sip of coffee, eyeing my friend, and wondering