Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [48]
“It will turn back to a normal flesh color as it regains vascularity. And it will move like normal, too, after the skin heals and adheres to the underlying facial tissue and muscle.”
Say something, she tells herself as she sits on the edge of Charlie’s bed.
“That’s why we’ll need that face mask, which should be here today or tomorrow. To keep constant pressure—to keep things in place as he starts to eat solid foods, talk, that sort of thing. It will also help control his pain—”
Valerie looks up at him, alarmed into finally speaking. “He’s going to be in pain? I thought you said there were plenty of pain meds?”
Nick points to the IV and says, “There are. But there will still be some discomfort—and the pressure helps with that.”
“Okay,” she says, the dizziness and terror clearing as she gathers facts she will need to help her son. “So he can drink now?”
Nick nods. “Yes. He can sip liquids, and we’ll go to soft foods in the next day or so. And other than that, he just needs rest. Lots of rest.
“Right, big guy?” Nick says as Charlie opens his eyes again.
He blinks, still too drowsy to speak.
“Right,” Valerie says for him.
“Okay then,” Nick says as he removes his gloves and shoots them, basketball style, into a wastebasket in the corner. He makes the shot, looking satisfied. “I’ll be back.”
She feels a sharp pain, wishing he weren’t going yet. “When?” she asks, instantly regretting the question.
“Soon,” Nick says. Then he reaches for her hand, squeezing it once, as if to tell her again that everything is going exactly as he hoped, exactly as it should.
13
Tessa
I hate to say ‘I told you so,’” April calls to tell me on Monday morning while I maneuver my way down the crowded cereal aisle at Whole Foods.
“Nice try,” I say, laughing. “You love to say ‘I told you so.’”
“I do not,” April says.
“Oh, yeah? How ‘bout the time you told me that if I let Frank play in a public sandbox, he’d get pinworms?”
April laughs. “Okay. I loved that one—but not because he got pinworms! But because you and Nick mocked me for being paranoid.”
“You are paranoid,” I say. I often tease April about her incessant hand sanitizing and remind her that she does, in fact, have a few white blood cells. “But you were right... So what else were you right about?”
April pauses for a few seconds and then says, “Valerie Anderson. I was right about Valerie Anderson. What a bitch”
“What happened?” I say, bracing myself for the story to come, wondering if April somehow knew that Charlie was having surgery this morning.
“You won’t believe it,” April says, gearing up for her tale. Always colorful with anecdotes, even those involving minutiae of her life, April carefully sets the scene, describing the third-try care package that she and Romy so lovingly put together, how they had carefully selected the most exquisite bottle of wine from Romy’s wine cellar and the perfect bouquet from Winston Flowers.
Careful not to sound vitriolic, I say, “I thought you were going to lay off with that stuff? Give her some time and space?”
“We did. We waited a week or so, just like you suggested . . .And then Romy thought she’d give it one last college try.”
I toss a box of raisin bran into my cart, thinking that the expression college try really should be reserved for hitting on girls in bars, or negotiating a good deal on a used car, or running a six-minute mile. Not contacting the mother of a hospitalized child when she clearly doesn’t want to be contacted. I am also thinking that giving advice to April is like giving advice to Ruby—in one ear, out the other. The only difference is, April pretends to listen first.
“You know, extend the olive branch,” April says.
“Hmm,” I say, thinking this, too, is a very telling expression—and something of a contradiction to Romy’s spin that her efforts to reach out to Valerie are about sympathy and support for a fellow mother, rather than a blatant and unabashed quest to absolve herself.
“So Valerie didn’t take kindly