‘Where did you get this?’ His gaze flickered over the others. ‘Where did you get all of these?’
‘Our apartment.’
His eyes narrowed, blue fire blazing between the partially closed lids. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘I am,’ she agreed. ‘I’m also your wife.’
He stood up so fast his chair fell over, then he had to grab at the table’s edge to keep from falling over too.
‘It’s not true,’ he said, but his voice wasn’t as certain as it had been the first time she’d told him, and that gave her hope that this might work.
She snatched up a random photograph. ‘Us with the Waz. You had a job for Time magazine in Minneapolis and I went along. You wanted me to meet him. We stayed at his house with his second wife. Maybe his third.’ She held out the photograph. ‘Remember?’
He clenched his teeth so hard, they crackled. The corners of his mouth glistened.
She wanted to wipe the spittle away. Instead she picked another photograph. ‘You and my brother, Heath. You did an essay on him. He was …’ Her voice broke and she cleared it impatiently. ‘He died of AIDS. You published a book. Had a show in Soho.’
‘Has this happened before?’ His eyes flicked from the pictures, to her, to the window and back. ‘I feel like this has happened before.’
Encouraged, she found another picture. Her sitting in his lap with a big, goofy smile; he was kissing her neck. They were both so young.
‘It’s not 1989, Charley. You aren’t married to Frankie. You haven’t been for over twenty years. And Lisa …’ She bit her lip.
‘Do you see those flashing lights?’
The picture fell from her fingers and drifted gently downward. ‘Charley?’
He swayed then tumbled to the floor, eyes blinking rapidly, limbs jerking in a staccato rhythm.
‘Charley!’
By the time the paramedics arrived, the seizure was winding down. Charley had stopped jerking. His eyes had stopped darting here, there, everywhere. The spittle had become drool down his chin. She kept herself occupied wiping it off, in between whispering, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
She told the two young, buff men who arrived what had happened, leaving out how she’d pushed him to remember until he’d had a seizure to forget.
‘He has brain cancer?’ The one with slightly longer dark hair than the other and blue eyes instead of brown scribbled on a clipboard.
‘Yes.’
The second took Charley’s vitals. ‘He seems to be coming back pretty strong.’
‘We should still take him to the hospital,’ Clipboard Guy said.
‘No.’ Charley’s voice was weak, a bit slurred. ‘No hop-ital.’
‘Sir, it wouldn’t hurt to get checked o—’
‘No!’
‘I guess that’s a no.’
‘But …’ Hannah began.
‘Patient refused transport. Nothing we can do.’
‘Help to bed,’ Charley said.
His stroke-like speech scared the shit out of her. If she started screaming for them to take him to the hospital, would they? They’d probably take her there instead.
‘That we can do.’ The young man scooped Charley into his arms as if he weighed no more than a teenager. Perhaps now he did. ‘Which way?’
Hannah pointed down the hall. ‘First door on the left.’
He strode off.
‘You his wife?’ asked the remaining paramedic.
‘Yes,’ she said softly.
He handed her another clipboard. ‘Sign here.’
Frankie banged through the front door, her gaze flicking around the room as frantically as Charley’s had. ‘What happened?’ she cried, but didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she raced for his room.
Hannah followed, just in time to see Frankie throw herself into Charley’s arms.
Huh, that was new. Or perhaps very old.
‘I thought you were his wife?’ Paramedic Two, who had also followed, asked.
‘I am.’
‘You sure?’
She cast him a sharp glance and he held up his hands. ‘Sorry. Not my business. Just looked like …’ His gaze went to Frankie, who was whispering to Charley and holding his hand. ‘Never mind.’
The paramedics left.
Hannah remained in the hall. She couldn’t take her eyes off them. She waited for the jealousy, the anger. Neither came.
He was no longer Her Charley. He would never be Her Charley again. She knew that now. She just had to figure out what to do about it.
Every movement Frankie made, Charley followed with his eyes. He stared at her like a devoted dog stared at its blessed master – at least until he fell asleep.
Frankie walked into the living room. ‘I’m calling Dr Lanier.’
Why hadn’t Hannah thought of that?
Frankie filled him in on what had happened, or what she thought had happened. A seizure for no reason at all, beyond the brain tumor.
Hannah wondered how long she could keep Frankie believing that.
‘All right,’ Frankie said. ‘Thank you.’ She disconnected. ‘Lanier says as long as he’s comfortable, there’s nothing he can do.’ Frankie wandered the room listlessly. ‘I shouldn’t have left.’
At the kitchen table she paused, staring at the pile of Hannah/Charley pictures. She picked one up. ‘What the hell?’
Hannah stared at the floor. ‘Just once I wanted him to see me and remember.’
‘This is what caused his seizure, isn’t it?’
Hannah didn’t answer.
Frankie tore the photograph in two.
‘No!’ Hannah protested.
Frankie picked up another and held it ready to rip. ‘Isn’t it?’
Hannah nodded.
‘Honestly.’ Frankie tossed the picture back on the pile unharmed. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘A lot,’ Hannah admitted. ‘I love him.’
And he was dying. What could be more wrong than that?
‘How much?’
‘What kind of question is that?’
‘A legitimate one after this stunt.’ Frankie waved at the photographs.
‘I just wanted …’
‘Exactly. You wanted.’
‘I’m going to be here with him; you’ll be gone. What’s he going to think when that happens?’
‘Funny, I was wondering that too.’
‘I don’t follow.’ And it wasn’t funny.
‘You don’t want to stay with him. Who would?’
‘I love him.’ Hannah swallowed as the rest of the words tried to stick in her throat. ‘Of course I want to be here for him at the end.’
She did; she didn’t. She wasn’t sure. What she was sure of was that she’d been there for Heath; she could do no less for Charley. It was her right, but also her duty. For better or worse. She’d promised.
‘But Hannah,’ Frankie said softly. ‘Is being with him at the end for Charley, or is it for you?’
Frankie
Frankie held her breath.
The answer to the question was obviously ‘for me’, but would Hannah see that? Would she insist on remaining at Charley’s side until the end, upsetting him even more than he already was?
Frankie couldn’t allow that, though she wasn’t sure what she’d do besides shove Hannah out of the cottage and refuse to let her back in. She’d prefer not to, not only because Hannah would make a racket that would disturb the dead, or the almost dead, but she might even call the cops.
Then Frankie would be the one shoved out of the cottage. She didn’t think she could stand to hear Charley calling for her, confused, frightened, sad. Not understanding why she wasn’t there, why she didn’t come, why she’d let a stranger hold his hand as he died.
Once she’d imagined him dying in agony, calling for her. Then she’d imagined how she would laugh and walk away. The memory made her slightly sick.
How could someone who was so brilliant, so vibrant, cease to exist? Charley was lar
ger than life; shouldn’t he be larger than death too?
‘He’ll be confused.’ Hannah’s eyes sparkled with tears. She swallowed and started to shove the photographs into the envelope. ‘He won’t know me; he’ll only want you.’
Once Frankie had wanted Hannah to experience the pain of losing Charley to another woman. She’d figured it would happen. Once a cheater always a cheater, right? Except, it hadn’t happened. Until now.
Hannah’s losing Charley to Frankie should be the perfect revenge, but somehow it just wasn’t. Was Hannah really losing if Charley didn’t know he’d been a prize in the first place?
Was Frankie that shallow? She had been. She might still be, except she didn’t feel triumphant. She felt …
‘Sorry,’ Frankie said. ‘I know it’s hard. But …’
‘This is about him. You’re right. I’ll … go.’ Hannah retrieved her bag and headed for the door.
Could it be this easy?
There was no way this was going to be easy.
‘I can call you,’ Frankie said. ‘When he’s close. He probably won’t know who’s here then. You can come and say goodbye.’
‘I’ll say goodbye now.’ Hannah crossed the room at a fast clip for someone with such short legs.
Frankie got to the door just as Hannah leaned over and kissed Charley’s lips. She caught her breath, waiting for Charley to wake and stroke out this time.
He didn’t move. If she hadn’t seen his chest rising and falling in a steady, encouraging rhythm Frankie might have stroked out herself. How was she going to watch him die?
‘Goodbye.’ Hannah gently touched his face. ‘For me, it’s always been you.’
Her voice was thick with tears. However, when she walked out again, Frankie didn’t see a single one.
‘Wait!’ Frankie hurried after, catching up as Hannah retrieved her bag and the envelope. ‘I will call you when it’s time.’
‘OK.’ Hannah moved toward the door.
‘You’re doing the right thing.’
Hannah gave one short, sharp bark of laughter. ‘Am I?’
‘You know you are.’
She nodded, still not looking at Frankie.
Frankie wasn’t sure if the nod meant she agreed that she was doing the right thing, or that she’d given up arguing about it.
Whatever worked.
‘I was always jealous of you.’ Hannah tucked the envelope beneath her arm and set her hand on the doorknob.
‘Why? He left me for you when I needed him the most.’
‘Yet you’re not leaving him when he needs you the most. Why?’
‘Because I know what that feels like.’
Hannah glanced at Frankie over her shoulder. For an instant she resembled the young girl Frankie had first seen in Soho. ‘Were you jealous of me?’
‘God, yes.’
Hannah’s lips curved, but the smile was so, so sad. ‘Good.’
She opened the door and left.
‘I like her,’ Frankie said to the empty room.
Charley
Sometimes he woke in the night and he didn’t know where he was. Vietnam? Beirut? New York? DC? In the rubble of the World Trade Center, which still felt like it had happened, even though he knew it had not.
Then he’d catch the scent of lemons and it wouldn’t matter where he was as long as he was with her.
Since he’d had the seizure, he hadn’t been out of his room much. He couldn’t remember what had happened that whole day before he’d woken in this bed. Frankie showed him the photographs of Washington Island. They didn’t help. It was as if the trip had never been. He could tell that upset Frankie, so he stopped asking about it.
Frankie had dragged a mattress into his room and slept there. He’d tried to make her stop.
‘You can sleep with me.’ He lifted the sheet, waggled the place on his face where his eyebrows used to be.
‘I’m too big to share a single with you.’
He didn’t understand why she kept saying she was big, heavy, large. ‘You look exactly the same size as you did when I married you.’
Her eyes got teary and she touched his face. ‘Charmer.’
Days passed. Maybe weeks. He lost track. He slept a lot, even without the morphine, which he tried not to take too much because it made life foggy and he had precious little life left to live it like that. With morphine he wasn’t sure where he was even in the daytime.
He wasn’t in that much pain. Sometimes he had a headache. Once in a while they got bad. But mostly he just felt weak, as if he were fading bit by bit until he’d at last fade away.
‘Take some pictures,’ he said.
Frankie, who’d been dozing in the chair, started. ‘Of what?’
‘Me.’
‘Why would I do that?’ she asked. ‘Why would you want me to?’
‘I’ll be gone soon.’
‘No,’ Frankie began.
‘Baby, you know it’s true.’
She pursed her lips, wrung her hands.
He hated himself for doing this to her. He should make her leave, but she wouldn’t, and in reality, he couldn’t make anyone do anything, not even himself these days.
‘You might want a last picture of me. If you don’t take it, you won’t have it. Maybe Lisa will want one. Where is she again?’
He could tell from Frankie’s face that he’d asked that before. He couldn’t remember what she’d said.
Frankie went to the window and opened it. ‘She’s away.’
‘At camp!’
She turned back. ‘You hungry?’
He wasn’t but because she appeared so hopeful he said yes.
She returned with grilled cheese and his Nikon. ‘You want to take some pictures of me?’
He discovered he didn’t want to take pictures of anything. All he wanted to do these days was sleep and stare at Frankie. Those were the only times he felt at peace. Otherwise his mind spun, trying to remember … something. But he just couldn’t.
‘I thought maybe … you missed taking photographs,’ Frankie said when he didn’t answer.
‘Mostly I miss Lisa.’
She sighed and handed him his camera.
He tried to lift it, couldn’t and set the thing aside.
Frankie bit her lip.
‘Maybe later,’ he said. ‘Hand over that grilled cheese.’
That seemed to please her, so he tried to eat it and failed. Everything he put in his mouth these days was hard to get down, even water. The last time the visiting nurse had come she’d said she would hook up an IV soon and give him nutrients that way.
Charley hoped Lisa arrived before that happened. He’d prefer to refuse. No reason to prolong the inevitable unless he had to.
‘Where is this camp?’ he asked.
‘Who wants ice cream?’ Frankie left the room so fast she seemed to be fleeing.
Charley drifted off before she came back.
He saw Lisa. Here, at the cottage. She laughed and ran and jumped and swam; she threw herself into his arms and hugged him so hard he could have sworn she was real.
He stood on the hill and watched a big boat trail oil across the blue water. He lifted his camera; he became transfixed by what he saw through his lens. Then he saw something through that lens that changed everything.
Charley woke up shouting, ‘Lisa!’
‘Charley.’ Frankie sat on the bed, took him by the arms. It was dark, the silver light of the moon just beginning to trail through the window and across the floor. ‘It was a dream.’
He tried to crawl into her lap. He wasn’t proud. ‘It … I … She …’
Frankie got into bed with him and held him against her chest. ‘Shh. I know.’
‘She was floating in the water off the dock. I was taking pictures of a boat.’
Frankie stiffened for just an instant, then started to stroke his head. ‘It was a dream, Charley.’
‘You promise?’
She swallowed. ‘Yes.’
Someth
ing about her voice made him turn so he could see her face. ‘Are you crying?’
‘No.’
He swiped the single tear from her cheek. The drop shimmered on the edge of his finger for an instant before falling down.
She took his hand and held it tight. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You aren’t.’
‘Shh,’ she said again and pulled him closer.
He could almost forget he was dying while lying in her arms, the scent of lemons surrounding him, the night so cool and dark and still.
‘I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you,’ he said.
For a long time she didn’t answer and he thought she might have fallen asleep. He started to drift too, then her words brought him back.
‘I’ve never loved anyone but you.’
‘And Lisa.’
She took a long, deep breath, her chest expanding at his back, lifting his body and lowering it like a gentle, rolling wave. ‘And Lisa,’ she agreed.
Charley floated on that wave. His eyes fluttered closed as he whispered, ‘Where is she?’
Frankie
Frankie slid out of the bed.
Charley didn’t stir.
She grabbed her cell phone and went into the living room. The nearly full moon spread a path of light from the hall to the sliding glass doors of the deck. She stepped through them.
The night was cool. Autumn had arrived on the peninsula. She couldn’t believe she’d been here all summer. Time had flown. Too fast, considering.
Without thought for the hour, she dialed Hannah.
Hannah answered on the second ring. ‘Is he …?’
‘No.’ She hadn’t thought either of what Hannah might think to receive a call at this time of night. ‘But soon. You should probably head back.’
‘OK.’
‘Like now.’
‘Sure. You bet. Be right over.’
‘I just meant …’ To her horror, Frankie started to cry.
‘Crap, Frankie. I’m sorry. My sarcasm button, you always push it.’
‘How did you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Watch someone you love die?’
It occurred to her that she’d just told Charley’s wife that she was in love with him. But she figured Hannah already knew and, really, Hannah was the only one on this earth who could understand.
Just Once Page 40
