The Half-Life of Everything

by Deborah Carol Gang

  Halfway down the first block, he thought he saw Jane’s Audi. He remembered being surprised at her choice. “Expecting a Prius?”

  “Yes,” he had answered truthfully.

  “It’s a fussy nuisance,” she admitted. “But very fun to drive.” Of course, this wasn’t Jane’s car. What’s the opposite of a stalker? He couldn’t think of a word. Except Jane—Jane was the opposite of a stalker.

  David would have said he had no plans to call her, that he brought his phone only in case Kate needed him. Without making a decision to call her, he did, expecting to show up as the lonely message of a missed call, but Jane answered on the second tone, and he stuttered twice before saying, “I don’t know why I called.”

  “You miss me,” she said. “And you need to talk about Kate. I’m one of the few people you can trust.”

  “I do need to talk. I feel like I’m useless to her. She’s happy sometimes, but she’s so sad too. I can’t stand to see her grieving over the years she missed with the boys … or any of it. I keep acting as if she’s been away on a long trip.” His words came out in a rush. “I know I’m useless trying to cajole her out of her loss.”

  “Which is almost as big as a death,” she said.

  “I know that, but then another soothing platitude comes out of my mouth.” He stumbled on a curb. “Why are you talking to me about this? How can you be willing to do that?”

  “I love you.”

  David refrained from saying something self-effacing.

  “And I feel sorry for you,” she added quietly.

  “For me?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t envy you.” David waited for the walk sign, and Jane asked hesitantly, “Do you have any sense of how much of her pain is due to me?”

  “I can’t tell. Look, Jane, I’m no less in love with you than the day Kate—”

  “Hence my compassion, Dr. Sanders,” she said with a mock British accent, and he knew better than to continue.

  Jane resumed the loop of reviewing their love affair from start to finish, beginning with her surprise at finding herself in a relationship with him at all. He was so unhappy and mournful that she had guessed, wrongly it turned out, that he would remain loyally bound to the ambiguous state of his marriage. Instead, his pursuit of her had been an unshakable straight line, as if he knew that he needed to be certain enough for both of them. The combination of his loyalty to Kate, muddled by his determination to have her, Jane, wooed her as nothing else could have. She had even felt something close to pride that she could set propriety aside.

  She had gambled—not a stupid gamble, but a gamble nonetheless. She would be happy for him. She would not hope for the drugs to fail. She would certainly not hope for David to choose her. And, on some unidentifiable day, she would be happy for him.

  When he got back to the house, Kate and Martha were lounging on the couch, with two piles of Kate’s old clothes between them. They looked happy, but he could tell there had been more crying.

  “I know Kate used to like to keep everything,” Martha said. “But she’s merciless now.” She stood and faced David. “I’ve tried to get her to explain more about the new treatment. She seems short on details. Usually, Kate likes to talk about medicine and science. What’s going on?”

  David forced himself not to look at Kate. He’d always had the impression that Martha saw through him almost as easily as Kate did. “Science Girl understands more than she’s letting on,” he said. “But we both feel superstitious about discussing it.”

  “Yes,” Kate agreed. “Superstition is our philosophy of life right now. Anyway, David, Martha offered to bring over dinner tonight. And Don. I said yes. I tried to call you but it went to voicemail.”

  Kate was in the kitchen, showered and dressed, before David made it downstairs the next morning. He stood in the doorway watching as she paged through the Times.

  “Is it worth the ink on hands?” she said to herself, not him.

  “Don’t you miss your parents?” he said. “Don’t you want to see them, and Claire?”

  “Of course I do.” She closed her eyes for a full second. “But I feel kind of like a runaway teenager who’s afraid to come home because of all the pain she’s caused.”

  He almost argued. Don’t be silly. Instead, he said, “I’m going to call them and tell them what the doctor told me the first time—that you’re responding to a new drug, you’re more alert, and they should come visit.” If it were his parents, they’d arrive and then need to be consoled for suffering such upset, but her parents would behave.

  “You have to tell them a little more than that, or they’ll stroke out when I start talking.”

  “All right, I’ll try to prepare them. But we need to decide which story to tell—the real one or the fake one?”

  “The real one,” she said. “Though not on the phone. They’ll understand the need for secrecy. The investigators are hoping to do a larger clinical trial before they make any announcements. Did I tell you that? I can’t remember if I told you that.” She sounded fretful at the possibility she’d forgotten something. “They would never do anything to hurt me or compromise this,” she added. “Anyway, I do really need to see them. And Claire—ask Claire to plan a trip. North Africa will have to get along without her.”

  “Should I start mentioning to more people that you’re doing better and at home?”

  “Yes,” she said, though she said it slowly. “It scares me to make it official, but I don’t want to be trapped at home.”

  “And you shouldn’t have to keep announcing yourself.” David tried to sound genuinely cheerful even though he knew he would hate every encounter. Worse, he realized, some of these people would know about Jane. “I’m going to tell Greta and Tucker personally, and then I’ll tell the others at staff meeting.”

  “Do they know about Jane?”

  “Who?”

  “Tucker and Greta.”

  “Yes. They know.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize. The department—”

  The phone rang just then, and she checked caller ID, took the call, and chatted for a minute. He could tell it was Martha. When she got off, he motioned for her to come to him. He leaned close enough to kiss her, but she put her fingers lightly on his chest and moved to the farthest end of the counter.

  “I can’t do that right now.” She began to slice oranges with precision.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want to be well again and causing sorrow.”

  “You haven’t caused anything!”

  She scooped the orange slices into a bowl, glanced at him standing by the sink, then wiped her hands on her jeans rather than move towards him to reach the water.

  “I can’t think about you yet. And I can’t think about Jane. Have you told Ian yet? About me? I imagine he knows about Jane. You need to talk to Ian. That would be constructive.”

  David took his cell with him to the front porch. When Kate first moved to the L, David assumed it would be Ian’s wife who might visit, and she did, once, but it was Ian’s name he had seen in the log every three or four weeks, later stretching to six, but still month after month. David started to mention it once and Ian stopped him.

  “Too much emotion. You Yanks, always emoting. Besides, it’s literally the least I can do.”

  He gave Ian the laundered version of the story and finished with, “She’s been home for two days.” This time it was Ian who cried.

  Sunday, Kate researched cars online, not bothering to ask his opinion. She knew cars bored him. A car needed to start every morning and not embarrass him by being too old or too new. Twice her cell chimed, first Dylan and then Jack. He tried to eavesdrop on her end but only heard murmurs, as if, unlikely though it was, the boys were doing all the talking.

  This new intense closeness between Kate and their sons was proving to be a challenge for him. Once the boys had left babyhood, he thought of them, only by virtue of gender, as slightly more
his kids than Kate’s. When she got sick, the three of them became closer, for unlike divorce, there was no one to blame. Now it seemed a new club had formed.

  Kate’s busyness was a challenge for him. When he was in the same room with her, he was calm and he felt that everything was sufficient. He knew the word might sound damning if he used it out loud, but to him it was a good status. When he left her so that she could talk in private to one of the boys, or because he sensed his presence was irritating, he would feel an ache. He couldn’t write or read the paper. He ached for Jane. He tried to pretend he was worried about her, but he had the sense Jane knew exactly how to end something.

  Clearly, Kate had limited appetite for his presence. He sought her out with one practical detail or another, such as how to share the car until they bought a second. She was always polite, letting him interrupt a radio show or the article she was trying to finish. He watched her cut out the occasional story, date it, and then carefully place it in a folder. He had the sense she would just as soon be alone, and he didn’t want to provoke her into saying it. Several times he looked up from the journal he was skimming to find her watching him with an expression that might seem neutral to others, but which he recognized as her appraisal—the look he had seen so often when she was deciding if a fever was worrisome or a child was lying.

  “I wanted to ask you something.” She finally spoke, with a note of encouragement to her voice. “Do you want to go to the animal shelter with me tomorrow? If I promise not to look at any dogs?”

  “Definitely,” he said, his spirits immediately lifted by the idea.

  He knew she wanted to get back to whatever mysterious things she was doing. How could she already be busier and more focused than he was? “I’m going to the gym,” he said. “Are you up for it?”

  “The gym? I can hardly stand the thought of leaving the house. It’s like this is the only place where I exist right now.”

  “Then I’ll stay.”

  “No! It feels safe here. I don’t need you babysitting me to feel safe.”

  He changed his angle so he could get a good look at her face, but she wasn’t giving away anything.

  He grabbed his gym bag and left, but he didn’t call Jane and he didn’t drive by her house. He went to the gym for an intense workout—the kind that courts injury. Twice, acquaintances stopped by to chat and to ask after his family. Each time he said that Kate was a little better and might be ready to try a visit at home. He would have told them she was already home, but then they would wonder how he could have left her alone. Or would they even think about it that much? Regardless, Kate needed a gradual re-entry into the world—one that didn’t scream miracle cure. He realized he was becoming a much better liar.

  He drove home, tired in a virtuous way. It was, he realized, his fifth week without Jane. He didn’t apply an adjective to it, just stated it to himself. Five weeks without Jane.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  David corralled Greta and Tucker. They would be the hardest of his colleagues to lie to but, as he explained the details of the fake diagnosis and new drugs, he forgave himself. Necessary lies. Greta and Tucker showed the expected mixture of bewilderment and delight, though their delight was muted by David mentioning relapse three times.

  “You mean to say they’re not certain why she’s better or what to expect from here on out?” Tucker sounded ready to make phone calls and demand better information.

  “The boys?” Greta said. “How are they handling all this?”

  He looked at her, helpless. He couldn’t describe that reunion, or anything about the boys, without crying.

  “Of course,” she said.

  After he described Kate’s first days at home, Tucker and Greta became quiet, as if in a moment of silence for Jane. That was probably his imagination. He ended the long pause by giving them permission to spread the word.

  “In fact, please do. You’re the only ones here I’m making a point of telling directly. I was thinking I’d say something at the department meeting, but I don’t want to.”

  “You do have a Facebook page,” Tucker said.

  David’s account, created many years before, languished unchanged for months at a time unless Greta went in and added something. Once, she found six-month-old private messages and suggested he email the senders to explain he was too old to alter his mailing habits.

  “Well, you don’t use Facebook either,” he said in his retort, which she answered in that generous way people do when they know they’re completely right, “Yes, but I don’t pretend to use it.”

  “No,” Greta said now. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

  He stood to end the conversation. He usually didn’t like promiscuous hugging which made him want to say I just saw you a few days ago, but when Tucker and Greta hugged him in turn, it seemed fine.

  Kate circled the cat room slowly, not speaking, even to the cats. She circled a second time and stopped in front of seven-month old gray tabbies, one male, one female, and both sterilized young, according to the index card on their cage. The card listed today’s date as their release day. The larger of the two noticed Kate and stopped pummeling its sibling. Both cats sprang to attention at the front of the cage and, though he knew it was impossible, David would have sworn they had recognized her.

  She talked steadily to them as they presented their heads to be scratched. First, she petted one while the other squirmed, then she used one hand on each until David slipped in next to her and took charge of one cat. He whistled the notes do you believe in a love at first sight and Kate leaned against him, then sang, it happens all the time, though she didn’t take her eyes off the animals.

  The cats switched positions and continued to offer their ears and cheeks and chins.

  “Do you want to take them out? She said we could.”

  “No, I can’t bear to have the others see that.”

  That’s why she hadn’t spoken to any of the other cats. It might indicate to the others that now was their chance, and that would be cruel. Even after all she’d been through, Kate was still faster than he was at figuring this kind of thing out.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll go do the paperwork, and we’ll pack them up. And then the pet store.”

  After getting fully supplied, they pulled into their garage and he said to Kate, “What are we doing right now?”

  Without a pause, she answered, “We’re bringing home our first baby. Except it’s twins.”

  “You’ll be a great mother.”

  “And no college to worry about.”

  After she said this, she winced. Jack’s years of high school were almost entirely blank to her and, though she had accompanied him when they went shopping with the list he and David had constructed of what a boy takes to college, she couldn’t remember, and she hadn’t really helped, but just watched, smiling pleasantly.

  He put his right hand over her left one and said, “We can talk about it. The cats are fine right here.”

  “I don’t need to talk about it.” She swallowed hard. “It just is.”

  “Still.”

  “Still what? Those years are still gone. Is that what you meant? They’re gone and it’s nobody’s fault. I know these things.”

  He caught the menace of the word still. It had been his close companion during her descent. Kate is still at home. Still manageable. Still able to communicate.

  She leaned across the gearshift and he put his arms around her. They sat together as she cried, wetting his shirt and undershirt both.

  David went into work for the whole day. Kate insisted she was content at home, even though she was stranded without a car. “Go,” she had told him. “Work a full day. My days are plenty busy, especially since I need to take at least two naps a day, like the newborn baby that I am.”

  He and Ian, out of touch for too long, had planned a quick lunch, but David had to call before noon to say he couldn’t get away. Instead, they spoke for a few minutes and then Ian, his voice turning seriou
s, said, “Do you see Jane at all?”

  He seemed careful not to imply a right or wrong answer, so David answered truthfully. “We’ve talked a minute here and there. That’s it. She’s stepped back. She said she’s the understudy and her star-turn is over.”

  “Jane would, wouldn’t she? She’s a bit of all right,” Ian said. In a softer voice, he asked, “Is it okay?”

  “Usually.” David knew he should stop, but there wasn’t another human being to whom he could tell these things. “And then I think of her when I’m not prepared for the idea, and it lays me flat, as you would say. You know, ‘the last time we did this—the last time we did that’—and then I’m done for, as you would also say. I think I see her car. I think I hear her voice behind me in the grocery store.”

  “You and she…the real thing.”

  “I thought I was so lucky. I thought I was lucky again.” Christ, had he said that? He was lucky. Kate was back.

  “I don’t envy you. I do not.” Ian sighed. “Well, there’s time and all that.”

  “Yes,” David agreed politely, not bothering to mention that absence seemed to be a terrible cure.

  Kate sat on the floor, leaning back against the couch David was stretched out on and, with no preamble said, “Was it great with her? Like it was with us?”

  “I hadn’t touched a woman in years. It was going to be good no matter what.”

  “So it was great?”

  He didn’t answer. He sat up, dumping the kittens off his lap. They gave small cries of protest, then went to the other end of the couch. “Come here, Katie. Tell me what you want.”

  She thought a moment and said, “I want to be remembered.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.”

  “I need some help here.”

  “I mean, are you thinking of her? Am I mixed in with her right now?”

  “Oh, Kate, does it really matter?”