Charley blinked. ‘So?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Will you be OK until they get here?’
‘I’m OK now.’
From the look he gave her, she wasn’t a very good liar.
‘Seriously, I’m gonna crash. They said Heath won’t wake up until morning. By the time we’re both coherent, they’ll be here. You go on. I’m good.’
Charley seemed like he wanted to argue, but she let her eyes flutter as if she could barely keep them open. She wasn’t even acting – much.
‘OK.’ He stood, then hovered as if he wasn’t sure if he should hug her.
If he hugged her, she just might cling, so she shut her eyes. ‘Bye.’
‘I’ll call tomorrow.’
‘Mmm,’ Hannah said.
Charley left, but almost immediately he came back.
‘Charley, I told you …’ Hannah opened her eyes.
A doctor stood in front of her with a patient chart. He looked a little sick himself. ‘Are you Mr Cartwright’s next of kin?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but …’
For a minute she thought Heath had died and she couldn’t breathe right. Then the doctor finished his sentence and Hannah didn’t think she breathed right ever again.
Frankie
‘If what he doesn’t remember didn’t happen,’ Frankie said, ‘then my dead daughter shouldn’t be dead any more.’
How many times had she wished, hoped, prayed and dreamed that? More than she’d wished, hoped, prayed and dreamed that Charley would come back to her.
‘Frankie.’ Dr Halverson sighed. ‘You can walk away, let the wife handle it.’
‘Great.’ Frankie started to do just that.
‘But he’ll be confused, hurt.’
‘About time,’ Frankie muttered, but even she heard how petty she sounded. She paused, turned. ‘One of the perks of divorce … I don’t have to deal with this, or with him.’ She’d been finding a lot of perks in divorce lately when she never had before. ‘I don’t have to watch him die.’
‘Who said he’s going to die?’
In the past, Frankie would have made some sort of quip about the doctor having gotten her hopes up only to dash them again. Except the idea of Charley dying just wasn’t as much fun to contemplate as it used to be.
Was that because he might? Or because the Charley in that room behind her wasn’t the Charley she’d wished dead, but the one she’d loved so much she thought she might die when she lost him?
‘Brain cancer isn’t known for being one of the “good ones to have”,’ Frankie said.
Dr Halverson glanced away. ‘Wait until you hear a prognosis from Dr Lanier before you start throwing dirt on his grave.’
‘Who’s going to tell the wife the prognosis?’
‘I tried to find her but she’s left the hospital.’
That was weird.
‘I can give you her number.’
‘I can’t talk to her about his medical condition.’
‘She’s his wife.’
‘So she says.’
‘So I say too.’
The doctor spread her hands. ‘On his intake forms, he lists you as his wife, not her.’
‘He’s got a mass in his brain.’
‘Unless you have documented proof she’s who she says she is and that she’s his wife, my hands are tied.’
Frustration bubbled so hot and acidic in her throat, Frankie wondered if the ulcer she’d always expected was finally here. ‘Which means the only way she’ll know Charley’s condition is for him to tell her, and he isn’t going to because he thinks she’s a nut.’
‘You could tell her.’
Frankie rubbed between her eyes. ‘I just knew you were going to say that.’
‘Your other option is to walk away. The wife will be screaming for information. Charley will be freaked out that you’re gone, that she’s here.’
‘That sounds more like your problem than mine.’
‘We can’t prevent him from leaving and when he does, won’t he come home to you?’
‘Not his home.’
‘Tell it to Charley.’
Frankie’s jaw was starting to ache from clenching her teeth. ‘Fine. I’ll talk to Hannah.’
‘Good.’ Halverson fled.
Frankie was getting very sick of seeing the ass end of Halverson. She was getting pretty sick of seeing the front end of her too.
And she’d always been so fond of the woman.
Frankie pulled out her cell and tapped in Hannah’s phone number, even though she’d only seen it once on Charley’s phone. She’d always had a good memory. A blessing when she wanted to recall something like a phone number. A curse when she could remember the exact way that Charley had smelled the first time he’d kissed her.
She almost hung up and fled as she’d threatened. She could pack her bag and abscond to Irene’s. Although Charley knew where Irene lived too.
The phone was picked up on the other end of the line. ‘Francesca?’
Frankie nearly complimented Hannah on her excellent guess, though with a 414 area code, who else could it be?
‘How is he?’
Frankie suddenly realized she shouldn’t be telling Hannah the news over the phone. Although why she was being considerate of the woman, she wasn’t quite sure. Hannah had never done the same for her.
‘You OK?’ Hannah asked.
Frankie hadn’t really been OK since the summer of ’91.
‘Where are you?’
‘Hyatt.’
‘Downtown?’
‘Is there another one?’
Frankie managed, barely, to keep from snapping something equally sarcastic back.
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
‘I didn’t invite you.’
‘I didn’t ask you to.’ Frankie hung up.
She glanced at the door to Charley’s room. Should she tell him where she was going?
No. That would only lead to a head-splitting discussion of Hannah’s identity, or lies to avoid the same. However, if she just left, he might start searching for her.
Odd, since when he was Her Charley he hadn’t been all that concerned where she was or what she was doing when she wasn’t in his sight. No more than she’d been concerned about what he was doing when he wasn’t with her.
Of course she’d been a dumbass but—
‘Shit.’ Frankie strode to the door, then stood there frozen.
Charley had fallen asleep. That, combined with the lights being low and the sun having gone down, had taken a lot of the age off his face. She needed to stop thinking of him as Her Charley, even sarcastically, because when he looked like this she could easily start believing it.
It had taken her years to get over the man; for a long time she had thought she never would. She’d entertained crazy ideas, including drug use and a lobotomy. Actually those two had been the least crazy in an arsenal of crazy. She’d settled for alcohol and overwork. She wouldn’t recommend them.
On the way out, Frankie stopped at the nurses’ station and told them that if Charley woke and asked for her, to tell him she’d be back in the morning.
‘You’re his wife?’ asked the twenty-something with the brunette braid and John Lennon glasses who sat behind the computer.
Frankie almost explained, then decided she was too tired and likely to get a lot more so since Frankie’s Day of Fun wasn’t over yet.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Sure.’
She turned south on to Lake Drive to add a few minutes to her commute. Besides, the navy blue expanse of Lake Michigan, stars seeming to dance gently atop the waves, was a soothing sight, and she needed one.
Frankie left her window open; a soft breeze that smelled faintly of fish stirred her hair. She flicked the radio from the classic rock station, which was playing Duran Duran’s ‘The Reflex’ – she didn’t think that was funny – to soft rock, then turned up ‘A Horse With No Name’
so loud she didn’t have to think. That song had always fried her brain.
The downtown streets were busy, especially around the Hyatt. Considering the high heels on the women and suits on the men, there must be an event at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. The last time she’d been there it had still been referred to as the plain old PAC – Performing Arts Center, and she’d been on assignment for the Milwaukee Journal, which still lay directly across Kilbourn Avenue from the Hyatt. Except for the sign, which now read The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the place appeared exactly the same despite the two-plus decades that had passed since she’d worked there.
Frankie dialed Hannah again. ‘Room number?’ she asked when Hannah answered.
‘I’ll come down.’
She hung up before Frankie could suggest that what they had to talk about Hannah probably didn’t want to do in public. Apparently Hannah didn’t want Frankie in her room and who was Frankie to argue? She’d prefer Hannah wasn’t in her state.
Frankie waited for Charley’s wife to step off the elevator and see her loitering in the lobby, then she went into the bar, found a table in the darkest, loneliest corner and took a seat.
Hannah joined her wearing loose jeans and a Washington Nationals sweatshirt. She’d put her hair in a ponytail and washed her face. The lack of make-up made her look older somehow, though she’d never look Frankie’s age.
Well, eventually she would, but Frankie wouldn’t be around to see it.
The waitress arrived before they could say a word.
‘Glenfiddich,’ Frankie ordered. ‘Oldest you got on the rocks.’
‘Same,’ Hannah said.
The waitress sped toward the bar on spiky kitten heels. She must be new at the job. Every other waitress wore flats.
‘You don’t seem like a Scotch kind of girl,’ Frankie said.
‘Not a girl. What do you want, Fancy?’
Everything inside Frankie tensed. ‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Isn’t it your nickname?’
‘No.’
‘Francesca then.’
Few people had called Frankie by that name. Strangers. Her mother when she was angry and then, later, Charley. One of the most difficult things to get used to in their break-up had been when he’d started calling her by her first name. From what she could recall he’d never called her Francesca in all the years she’d known him.
Until after.
‘Frankie’s fine.’
The waitress brought their drinks. Both of them took a healthy sip.
Frankie waited for Hannah to choke, but she didn’t, proving she’d imbibed expensive Scotch before.
Hannah wasn’t at all like Frankie had imagined, back when she’d still imagined things like that. Had she changed? Most likely. Frankie certainly had.
‘Charley has brain cancer.’ Frankie hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. Then again, wasn’t it best to rip off the Band-Aid?
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Isn’t it?’
The idea of Charley Blackwell getting sick, sicker, sickest was ridiculous.
‘Why did you say it then?’ Hannah sipped her drink.
‘Because he does.’
‘Were those the doctor’s exact words?’
‘She said he has a mass. She made an appointment for him with an oncologist. You do the math.’
Hannah drank more of her Scotch. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
Quickly Frankie explained the path that had brought her to be sipping fifteen-dollar-a-shot Scotch in the lobby of one of the finest hotels in town.
When Frankie finished, Hannah stared into what was left of her drink. She didn’t seem upset. Then again, Frankie had no idea what Hannah upset was like. Maybe she was the type who stepped up in an emergency, handled everything with the detachment of the hired help then lost her shit in private.
Charley would love that. He certainly hadn’t loved how Frankie had fallen apart.
‘He should see the best there is.’ Hannah pulled out her phone and started texting.
‘How do you know Lanier isn’t it?’
‘Because if he was he wouldn’t be in Milwaukee.’
Frankie drank more Scotch. It was that or throw it in Hannah’s face.
‘I can hear your teeth grinding.’ Hannah lifted her gaze from her phone. ‘Do you really believe that the best oncologist for brain cancer – if that’s even what this is – would be practicing here?’
‘You say that like this is Bumfuck, Wisconsin with only one ancient GP who works out of his home office. Did you know that Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin is number four on the list of best children’s hospitals in the country?’
The only reason Frankie did was that she’d sold some stock photos to several hospitals in town to use on their websites.
‘If Charley were a child that might impress me.’
‘Froedtert Hospital has been on the list of the top one hundred hospitals for four years running.’
‘If it isn’t the number-one hospital for oncology, then don’t waste my time.’ Hannah set down the phone and leaned forward. ‘This is Charley we’re talking about. You want to entrust that brain to just anyone?’
‘I don’t think Lanier is just anyone. Oncologists at Froedtert don’t get their degrees off the Internet.’
‘I’m not entrusting the brain that can see the world the way his does to anyone but the best,’ Hannah said. ‘And if you don’t agree, we’re gonna have problems.’
That startled a laugh from Frankie. All they had were problems.
‘Who’s the best?’ Frankie asked.
Hannah’s phone chimed an incoming text and she read it aloud. ‘Dr Arnold Kettering at the Mayo Clinic. Voted number one by America’s Top Physicians.’
‘Is that a club or something?’
‘America’s Top Physicians is a series of books, updated every year. Each specialty is voted on by its peers.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Have you ever needed to find a medical specialist?’
‘No.’
‘I have.’ For an instant her cool, competent façade faded and the shy, lost young woman Frankie remembered peeked out.
Her brother, Frankie thought.
‘Hannah,’ she began, but Hannah’s phone chimed again and whatever Frankie might have seen was gone as fast as it had come.
Hannah peered at the screen.
‘How are you going to get an appointment with a guy like that?’ Frankie asked.
Hannah smiled. ‘I just did.’
‘How?’ Frankie repeated.
‘My mother publishes America’s Top Physicians.’
‘Convenient.’
‘Today? Very. Charley has an appointment tomorrow afternoon. My assistant got us on a plane to Rochester in the morning, so …’ She slammed the rest of her Scotch. ‘Thanks for your help.’ She left.
Frankie kept sipping her Scotch. It wasn’t until she was done that she realized two things.
One, Hannah had been adamant that Charley’s brain be saved because of its brilliance; she’d never mentioned saving him because she couldn’t live without the man she loved. Which was damn strange in Frankie’s opinion.
‘Not my monkey,’ Frankie murmured. Not her problem, not her business.
Not hers, and he hadn’t been for a long, long time.
The second realization was that Hannah had walked out and left Frankie with the check.
She couldn’t decide which realization annoyed her more.
Charley
Beirut, 1983
‘I thought you were dead.’
Charley heard no tears in his wife’s voice; he heard no anger either. He heard no emotion whatsoever and it scared him.
‘Baby—’
‘Don’t.’
Still no emotion, but the word sliced through his own like shrapnel had sliced through over two hundred Marines.
‘You know what they’re showing on the news?’
; He did. He’d been seeing it firsthand all day.
‘I’ve been staring at the television for some sign of you. I don’t know, maybe a foot? An arm?’
The words were furious now, but the voice? Still nothin’.
In the past, Frankie would get angry – she had a temper, courtesy of her Italian roots – but that anger burned out pretty fast. Flash-bang. He almost wished she’d flash-bang now. That he understood. This … he had no clue.
‘I was on my way to call when everything …’ He paused. What was the right thing to say now?
‘Went boom?’ she asked conversationally.
‘Uh … yeah.’
‘Well, I understand how that might put you off your game. Except it didn’t, did it? I’m sure you’ve been on your game like you’ve never been on it before.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘For doing your job? No, you aren’t.’
He’d meant he was sorry he’d scared her. Except she didn’t sound scared either.
‘And you shouldn’t be,’ she continued. ‘I don’t want you to be.’
‘What do you want, Fancy?’
The silence that came over the line made him remember the silence that had followed the explosion. His heart seemed to stop, then start with a painful jolt. There was no sound, because there was so much sound. Everything seemed so slow, and then it went so fast.
‘I want you to call me so I don’t …’ Her voice broke.
Though he hated to hear her cry, he was thrilled that she’d stopped being so … He couldn’t come up with a word for what she’d been. If he’d been with her, he’d have photographed her face with black and white film – stark and stunning. She no doubt looked both beautiful and terrible right now.
‘So you don’t what?’ he asked softly.
At first he didn’t understand what the click was. He kept waiting for her to answer his question. When she didn’t, he called her name. He was glad he was in his hotel room, alone, because he would have appeared pretty foolish repeating ‘Fancy? Frankie! Francesca!’ for as long as he had before he figured out she’d hung up on him.
Beirut was a war zone, literally. Every day he thought about leaving; every day he became caught up in a new panorama of sight that he couldn’t help but record. Charley didn’t get back to Milwaukee for weeks. He called Frankie each morning, sometimes twice, tried again each night.
Just Once Page 11
