The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [79]
“He’s still alive?”
“He’s in intensive care.” He tells her to go home for the rest of the day.
Inside her empty house, she flops on the couch in the den, turns on the TV, and is able to stay awake just long enough to pull an afghan over her shoulders before she falls into a deep, restless sleep. Now and then she hears the voices on television and tells herself she ought to wake up but can’t. Two hours pass before she fully opens her eyes. Her head aches. Her tongue feels swollen and fuzzy. But the fear she’s harbored all along, that the episodes of blackness signal a visitation of madness that will be harder to return from each time, is gone. There was no break from reality here. The invasion of blackness was real. Harold Fetterman’s heart attack was real. Julianne is more grounded in reality now than she was during the other two episodes or during that fearful time years ago, when she was wrested from the brink of madness by Paisley. She is not insane, and she won’t be. She’ll be all right, even though sooner or later, probably before the end of the workday, someone will call to tell her that, despite the hospital’s high-tech efforts, Harold Fetterman has died.
She forces herself up and into the kitchen. She’s going to cook a meal for herself and for Toby. Meatloaf. Mashed potatoes. She can’t remember the last time they had that. But there are no potatoes in the bin. She puts on her coat to go out to get some, just as the phone rings.
“How are you doing?” Denise asks. “Everybody at the office was worried about you.”
“You called to tell me Mr. Fetterman died,” Julianne says.
“No. I called to see how you are. Things are still dicey with him, but he’s holding his own.”
Julianne thinks she’s heard wrong. “He’s going to recover?”
“He’s not out of the woods yet. You know how it goes. But at least he’s in the hospital. At least he has a chance.”
Julianne isn’t so sure. Her fingers haven’t lied yet. The dark lightning that runs through her signals decay and death, not recovery. If Mr. Fetterman has been granted a reprieve, what does that mean except that he’ll be around long enough to let the gravity of his condition sink in: the ominous portent of the most innocent sensation in his chest, the slightest shortness of breath, the terror that comes with knowing his weakened heart must eventually give out, as Julianne knows it will. Her first experience, with Eudora Nestor, also foretold a death that didn’t arrive until months later. Julianne doesn’t like to think what those months might have been like. It’s going to be the same for Paisley . . . although Julianne doesn’t allow herself to think of Paisley in this context. She doesn’t allow it because if she did, it would make her feel, not like the concerned neighbor she wants to be, tries to be, intends to be . . . but like the angel of death.
She means to turn away from these thoughts entirely. She needs to do this for simple self-preservation. Tonight, she’s going to carry through with what she planned before Denise’s phone call. Cook dinner for herself and her son. She combs her hair, puts on a jacket, and drives to the supermarket for a five-pound sack of potatoes, pretending she has nothing else on her mind. Ignoring the dull, throbbing headache that’s still with her, she drives home. Headache or not, she’s going to share this meal with Toby, be grateful when he offers to help her clean up, then excuse herself to crawl into bed. But a shadowy figure is pacing in her driveway when she pulls in, half hidden by the hood of a sweatshirt. “Andrea?” she asks, trying to mask her resentment.
“Sorry if I scared you.”
“I wasn’t scared. I just didn’t see your car.”
“I walked.”
Andrea never used to walk. Maybe this is her secret for losing weight. A walking regimen prescribed by one of those women’s magazines? Not something she would have expected from Andrea, though she looks almost shapely. Julianne leads her in through the garage, shouts a quick hello up the steps to Toby, who must have come in while she was gone, and pours two large glasses of wine for them to