The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [46]
“What about at the picnic last summer?” Ginger asks. “I sat in the lawn chair right next to her, and she was holding a glass of wine.”
“Holding a glass, maybe. But not wine. Or if it was wine, she wasn’t drinking it. She knew people were used to seeing her with a glass in her hand. She didn’t want anyone to think she was making a big deal of going on the wagon. That would have gotten back to the kids, too. So she’d walk around with a glass of apple juice or seltzer, and people wouldn’t know the difference. They still don’t.” Andrea’s voice is infused with a kind of gentle admiration. A kind of love.
This makes Julianne feel foolish—no, ashamed—for wanting so badly to join Ginger in analyzing Paisley’s illness into a neat equation. Over a period of years, too much liquor in an alcohol-sensitive person equals cancer. So simple. If that were the case, how would you explain Courtney? She got sick when she was three.
The soup comes, very hot, and with the spice wafting up. Julianne puts all her energy into shutting down her mind. She’s lunching at a restaurant, away from sick people, and she intends to eat.
Julianne goes to the gym after work, then shares a pizza with one of the women, not in a hurry to get home. She doesn’t want to feel there’s plenty of time to stop by Paisley’s. Toby is with Bill, their weekly dinner out.
They’re back when she gets in, sitting of all places in the living room, usually reserved for Christmas parties and the insurance guy. They’re laughing. What do they talk about, a father and his seventeen-year-old son? At that age, the other two boys wanted nothing to do with their parents. Toby rises when she walks in, gives Bill an odd little salute. “Next week,” he says and saunters into the den.
So that’s it. He’s leaving her with Bill in the living room. Trying, after all these years—despite Julianne’s three years with Doug, despite Bill’s happy marriage and seven-year-old daughter—to get his parents back together. Bill sees it, too. He raises his eyebrows. “I think he’s matchmaking.”
“Not going to happen.” She feigns comic distaste.
He laughs, but she knows they both find it sort of sad—not their failure to kiss and make up, but Toby’s hope.
She sits down on the other end of the couch. She never feels quite at ease with him. “We’ve been decent parents.”
They share a moment of silent agreement before he speaks. “So how’s it going?” he asks.
“Crappy.”
“Crappy? Why?”
For a second Julianne thinks she’ll make a joke, but then, like a tub of water overflowing, she confesses the whole business about her tingling fingers, about Paisley, the whole damned mess. If anybody ought to understand, it’s Bill. He’s a surgeon. He knows.
Bill hears her out, alert but noncommittal. “And this has happened twice?” he asks when she has finished.
“And it was just as awful each time. I thought I was dying.”
He nods. As far as Julianne knows, this could be the prelude to his suggesting a psychiatric evaluation. “Maybe,” he says after a time, “you felt that way because you didn’t want someone else to die.”
“Don’t humor me, Bill.”
“I’m not. You saw things wrong with these two women. You might not think you noticed anything different, but you did. It happens to me, too, sometimes, in surgery. I know when someone’s in trouble before they are. Sometimes seconds before. It’s not a case of ESP. It’s a case of being a surgeon for a long time. Of subconsciously picking up subtle changes before anyone else does. It’s not a negative thing.”
“That’s because you don’t feel like someone’s injected poison into your veins.”
“It’s meant to be uncomfortable. A jolt of adrenaline. Something that helps you act fast enough to help them.”
“This is no jolt of adrenaline. I haven’t helped anybody. I’m just the messenger.”
“You don’t know that. Not after just twice.”
“Yes. Well. Kill