Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [64]
The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others’ shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?
The phone rings, saving me from my runaway thoughts and an unwrapped Twix bar. I see that it’s Nick and answer hurriedly.
“Hey!” I say, feeling as if we haven’t talked in days.
“Hey, honey,” he says. “How’d it go tonight?”
“It was fun,” I say, sharing the highlights of the evening—how Frank kept saying, “Treat or treat.” How Ruby would remind him to say thank you. How proud she was whenever the big girls complimented her costume. “But of course it wasn’t the same without you. We missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” he says. “All three of you.” I take one small bite of chocolate, knowing that I’m screwed with this fatal, first bite. “Are you coming home now?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Pretty soon,” Nick says. “But don’t wait up . . .”
I swallow, feeling a wave of disappointment and defeat, followed by guilty relief that I have no witnesses to observe the look on my face now, as I hang up the phone, finish my candy bar, and go to bed alone.
20
Valerie
Valerie knows she’s in trouble on Halloween. Not because of her deep-down knowledge that she called Nick, in part, just to hear his voice, and in part, so that he’d have her number. And not because he insisted on coming to the party, arriving in full Darth Vader garb. And not even because he stayed in their room long after Charlie fell asleep, leaning on the windowsill, talking in a hushed voice as they both lost track of time. Of course, all of those things were signs of trouble, especially the following morning when she played the reel back.
But the moment of certainty came when he called her on the way home to tell her “one more thing.” It was something about Charlie—that much she would remember later—but all professional pretenses were erased by the hour of the call, and the fact that they didn’t hang up when that one thing was communicated. Instead, they talked until he pulled into his driveway, some thirty minutes later.
“Happy Halloween,” he whispered into the phone.
“Happy Halloween,” she whispered back. Then she forced herself to hang up, feeling a mix of melancholy and guilt as she pictured his house and the three people inside. Yet she still went to sleep that night hoping that he’d call her in the morning.
***
Which he did. And then every day after that, except for the days when she called him first. They always began their conversation with a discussion of Charlie’s graft or his pain meds or his mood—but they always ended with one more thing, and often one more thing after that.
And here it is, six days later, the phone ringing again.
“Where are you?” he begins, no longer announcing himself.
“Here,” she says, watching Charlie sleep. “In the room.”
“How is he?” Nick asks.
“He’s good . . . asleep . . . Where are you?”
“Five minutes away,” he says, talking to her until she can hear his voice in the hall.
“Hey,” he says, rounding the corner, sliding his BlackBerry into his pocket, a broad smile on his face as if they’ve just shared an inside joke.
“Hi!” she says, feeling herself grin back, overcome with gladness.
But ten minutes of light conversation later, Nick’s expression becomes grave. At first Valerie worries that something has gone wrong with Charlie’s graft, but then realizes that the opposite is true, that it is simply time for Charlie to go home. She remembers Nick telling her it would be about a week for the new skin to adhere, remembers how he kept his eyes fixed on hers as if offering a guarantee. Yet she still feels shocked and overwhelmed, as if she never saw this moment coming.
“Today?” she asks, her heart racing with dread and the dawning, shameful realization that she does not want to go home. She tells herself it is only the place—the security of a hospital—but deep down, she knows that there is more to it than that.