The Half-Life of Everything

by Deborah Carol Gang

  Eve and Bill sat on the couch and studiously avoided making eye contact. Kate sat in an armchair kitty-corner from them, and David balanced on one arm of Kate’s chair. He could see she was beginning to lose patience.

  “I don’t have a better way to explain this,” David said. “I don’t really have any way to explain it.” He found it never helped to repeat things when someone is angry. First, Kate laid it out for them, and then he told them the same few truths: that it was Kate’s idea, and that he never would have left her. They could believe him or not. “Look, this might last for one more month. It might be a terrible idea. But we didn’t want to hide it from you.”

  Eve opened her mouth but then pressed her lips together and Kate spoke instead. “If things were reversed, who knows if I would have gone all these years without someone? You do not have permission to question his loyalty. You could hardly even bear to come see me. David didn’t tell me that. I’ve seen the visitor logs. I understand, and it’s fine. I’m glad you didn’t torture yourselves more than necessary, but…” She was slightly out of breath. “But do not judge him.” Her voice softened. “It wasn’t my fault that I got sick, but it isn’t anybody else’s, either. They love each other. He can’t just fire her. I don’t mean that he couldn’t, but that isn’t—” She stopped and sat back in her chair. “I agree with David that this could turn out to be impossible, or short-lived. I mean, how often does this kind of thing ever, ever happen? Back from the dead?”

  Her parents inhaled sharply at those words, and then Bill, looking only at David, said, “This is insane.” He looked from David to Kate. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “I don’t want you to begin. We understand that you hate this. We know it might not work. We’re not foolish people, no matter what you think.” Kate looked her father square in the eyes. “We’re going to look at photo albums now. You can help me label some of them, and…there may be a few of Jane in the most recent one.”

  “Then we are not looking at photographs,” Bill said.

  At five o’clock, Kate and her parents emerged from their cloister and joined David in the kitchen, where he had the ingredients for gin and tonics lined up and ready to mix. He studied Bill and Eve, their expressions changing from moment to moment as they alternated between the euphoria of yesterday and the depressingly unwelcome news of today.

  “The kitchen held up well,” Eve observed. She had helped with the last remodel many years ago. “I don’t think you’ll ever need to do much to it again.”

  Kate laughed. “Are you saying we’re getting on in years?” Eve placed her palm on Kate’s cheek. “You are still so young. Trust me on that.”

  David served the cocktails, with a plain tonic for Kate. “Unless you’d like a real drink, Katie.”

  “I think I would—a half-strength real one.”

  “Do you think it’s all right?” Eve said, but Kate didn’t respond.

  David moved everyone and their drinks from the counter to the kitchen table, which was set with flowers her parents had brought, along with crackers and nuts he had arranged. Everyone was still standing and David must have had that look that people get before making a toast, because Eve said, “Wait, I want to say something.” Without looking at her husband, she took a gulp of air and said, “I don’t want to fight about this anymore.”

  David almost jumped, surprised again at the speed with which Kate’s mother changed sides.

  “I don’t want to be angry anymore. I hate it, but I can pretend she doesn’t exist—and maybe after awhile, she won’t.” Eve finished and waited.

  Bill looked only at his daughter. “I think you deserve more.” He didn’t sound angry. “I think you deserve everything. This is a bad bargain for you.”

  Now David could see that Bill was angry—furious in fact, despite the lack of drama in his comment. He’d had a boss like that once and had been fooled a few times before he learned every tic and tell. Bill’s eyes narrowed and something throbbed in his neck. David sensed he was trying to come up with a threat, but what threat did Bill have except to withhold his love?

  “How can you be so sure how long either of you would have waited?” Kate asked. “And it wasn’t even really waiting! It was… hopeless.” She looked in her lap. “And I’m not sure I could dispose of someone I loved. Could you? How can anyone know what they’ll do? More important, I shouldn’t be defending him because you shouldn’t be criticizing him. David was—I mean is—a wonderful husband.” She looked only at her father and asked, “Why would you want him to lose somebody again?”

  Bill shook his head slightly but didn’t speak.

  “Daddy, do you remember the first night of our honeymoon, when David and I missed our flight to Mexico because neither of us had noticed the gate change?” She went to kneel beside her father’s chair. “Do you remember what I said when I called you?”

  “You thought it was an omen, that it meant you’d made a mistake.”

  “Do you remember what you said?”

  “I hope it was something wise.”

  “You said, ‘Don’t be an idiot, Kate.’ Then you said, ‘I hope David didn’t hear what you just said to me. He’s the best human male you’ve ever dragged home.’ ”

  One quiet sob, then another, escaped Kate.

  “At one point, you did have the most terrible taste in men,” Eve said.

  Bill stood, drew Kate to her feet, and held her. “Please don’t cry, Katie. I can’t watch you cry.”

  David wondered if Bill’s anger had been calculated—a negotiating stance—though what they were supposed to be negotiating he couldn’t imagine. No, he realized, the anger was real. Bill and Eve’s submission was only about not making Kate sick again, about not causing her stress—about never running the risk of being the one who did or said something that could later be seen as pivotal. It wasn’t genuine agreement. It was more like a game of hot potato—I won’t be the one to trigger a relapse. You can disagree with her if you want, but I’m just going to say, “Yes, Kate. Whatever you want, Kate.”

  No one could stomach what he and Kate were doing. Maybe Dylan hated it less than Jack, and somebody would hate it the most, but no one was going to feel even neutral about it. They were tolerating it because they loved Kate. She had never been an easy person to win an argument with, and now she was untouchable.

  Bill said, “Katie, this…situation is for—it’s not really our business. I don’t ever need to meet her.” He gave the start of a smile and added, “Unless it’s to catalog the many ways she is inferior to my daughter.”

  Eve was crying now too. Bill let go of Kate, though they stood hip to hip for a long time, and then all four of them began to move about the kitchen.

  A few days after her parents left, Kate and David went together to Kate’s outpatient appointment. Impossibly, there was already a sense of routine about it. They agreed later that neither of the researchers seemed tense.

  “Dr. Tsang said that he couldn’t tell me how the others were,” Kate reported. “But he had a big smile when he said he couldn’t tell me.”

  “Did he ask you about sex this time?”

  “He did. So, I just gave him a smile. And he laughed.”

  David dreaded Claire’s visit less than Bill and Eve’s. Still, he was glad when she took an international call that occupied the short trip from the airport. “I can’t go.” Kate had begged off. “I cannot do this in public.” It was only after they pulled up in front of the house that he took Claire’s hand and said, “We don’t need to go over to the L. Kate’s inside. She’s been home on a trial basis. There’s been some improvement.” He saw her begin to take it in. “Actually, Claire, there’s been a lot of improvement.”

  They got out of the car and walked slowly towards the house. She seemed frightened.

  “It’s okay. It’s not a joke. I would never joke about this.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Once in the living room, it seemed at first that Claire was at least
going to be able to stay standing. Then he saw the telltale signs of someone blacking out and ran to grab her. Seated, her head cleared. “Jet lag,’ she said. “Yes,” he said. “That must be it.”

  Kate watched, her tears diverted by Claire’s collapse. Claire, though, began to cry and cried for fifteen minutes, only stopping when she got the hiccups. Kate comforted her and helped her hold her breath, but Claire was too wrung out to manage it. Finally, David went to the kitchen and brought back the sugar bowl and a spoon. “It’s kind of disgusting, but it works.”

  It did work and, when the women were settled and ready to be alone, David left for Ian’s house, where his friend, lonely while Daphne was in England, was glad to see him.

  “If I go out and have any fun, my delinquent kids will have a party,” Ian predicted. “And you haven’t seen a teenage party until your house is Facebooked.”

  Ian and Jane had spent one morning and two evenings in each other’s company and he approved of her. “If Kate’s mother is ‘old twin, then Jane is kind of ‘dark-haired Kate,’ don’t you think?” he asked David after the first meeting. “Kate would be flattered,” Ian had said. “Of course, if she could be flattered, then she’d be well, and the flattery would lose its appeal.” He had seemed to be seriously trying to follow this line of reasoning.

  All Ian knew now was that Kate had a new diagnosis, was responding to different treatments, however temporarily, and that her time at home was going well. Someday, David would tell him the real version. After their first beer, when David said, “We need to talk,” Ian said, “Christ, please don’t make this bad news.”

  “You decide,” David said, and then he told him.

  Ian stared at him. “You fucker. You crazy, lucky genius. I do not believe it.” He squinted at David. “I do not believe it. A mare and a spare.”

  “Jesus, Ian. It’s not like that at all.”

  “Oh, it is. It is so flippin’ like that.” Ian studied his beer label. “But not together, right? Strictly couple stuff?”

  “Yes, Ian.”

  “You sure you have time for all this?”

  David didn’t answer, just looked at his friend until they both grinned. David had no idea if he could manage all this. Would Kate find the idea worked for her but not the reality? Would Jane tire of it soon? He wasn’t about to say any of this.

  “All right then, just don’t frighten the horses, mate, and you’ll be fine.”

  David had to laugh. More horse metaphors. Then he remembered.

  “There’s one more thing.”

  Ian looked at him dubiously.

  “If this thing works out, it will become known, but not by you. If I hear that you’ve gossiped about this, I will personally beat you up.”

  “Oh, come on, David. Have you ever even hit anybody?”

  David thought for a second. “No.”

  “You do have those large sons, though.”

  “Ian, I know you’ll tell Daphne, but if she gossips…”

  “You going to beat her up?” Ian gave a short laugh and then went silent. David wasn’t sure how to read his expression. It wasn’t critical. And he didn’t sense any envy. It was wonderment, he decided. Just neutral wonderment.

  Claire was gone. “She went out,” Kate said. “She’s mad. She seems to think we’ve agreed on this plan in order to mess with everything she believes in. “I waited all this time to have a man of my own—an unencumbered man—and now you say that isn’t important? You’re more evolved? You’re too amazing to be confined by marriage?”

  Kate took a breath. “There’s more. She’s always admired our marriage—though she made it sound more like a punishment—admiring us, I mean. ‘I’ve had to hear about your marriage for 25 years. I’ve waited for the right man so I could be you and David. And now you say it was nothing?’ ”

  He took a seat next to her.

  “What I’m thinking is that I do not want to be the big sister anymore. And I don’t think I should have to be. If I lost…whatever…five years, six, then we’re kind of the same age. I do not want to be a role model. I do not need to be admired. I don’t even need for you to be admired.”

  “That will come in handy,” he said, “because, except for Ian, I am slipping way down the list of admired—”

  Claire came through the front door just then, carrying wine-shaped bags, which she put down carefully on the coffee table. She gave David a stiff smile and pulled an ottoman close to her sister.

  “I’m obviously not about to lose you again—even to this. Maybe we don’t need to talk about it anymore. Maybe we can pretend just a little bit. I plan to pretend that there’s zero chance you’ll get sick again. I can pretend about this too. I know that’s probably word for word what Mom said, but I don’t care.”

  David stood up and collected the bags. She looked through him, but he said, “Thank you,” then left them. For the rest of the afternoon, he heard periodic laughter and excited conversation, just below audible. In the early evening, he went into the living room where Kate and Claire were curled up, each on an end of the couch. When he returned with a water pitcher and three glasses, the sisters were asleep, their feet intertwined, both with a cat insinuated in the small space between their backs and the couch. Neither stirred as he covered them with the oversized cashmere blanket Claire had brought them many years before.

  He doubted she would ever come for Thanksgiving.

  Dylan wished he felt more excited about his parents’ visit. He supposed he was happy for whatever peace they had found in their domestic triangle, but today’s get-together was poor timing for him. He was in a good relationship, which must in part be influenced by his parents’ marriage, but now what he had seemed to have a tameness to it. He felt kind of prematurely old and staid. No, to be accurate, he only felt that way when thinking about his parents—or in their presence. He knew he didn’t want anyone else instead of Lily. He was sure he didn’t want anyone else along with Lily. It must be vanity. He just didn’t like feeling more conventional and less adventurous than his mom and dad. It wasn’t natural. It made him want to do things he never did, like get seriously drunk. Or high. Or try the four-year old ecstasy that was in the freezer back at his apartment. What he wasn’t going to do was talk to Lily about it. At least not today.

  He made his way to the living room in time to hear his parents as they reached the last few creaky steps and stood in front of Apartment 4B. He thought he heard his dad panting slightly. “I’m not knocking until I catch my breath.” He definitely heard his dad say that. Dylan opened the door and said, “We heard you staggering up the stairs,” as he gave his parents quick hugs.

  “This is Lily,” he announced and she stepped forward to be introduced. “They grandfathered in those stairs,” she said as she shook their hands. “They’re not the right rise. Sometimes I sit and rest halfway—not if Dylan’s watching, of course.” Everyone laughed.

  “So I hear it’s only to be ‘Lily’ and not the long form,” David said.

  “I was thinking maybe it could be Lilana on first reference, like they would do in the New York Times,” Lily said. “But only Dylan can sing it.” She smiled at Dylan.

  “Sing it?” David said, looking at his son.

  “Later,” Dylan said, and Lily led them into the living room, which was decorated nicely in a post-graduate but not fully grownup style. “I’m good at finding things on Big Trash Day,” Lily said in answer to Kate’s compliment. “And you wouldn’t believe what students throw out at the end of each semester—or maybe you would. I forgot you live in a college town too.”

  “We made tea and cute sandwiches,” Dylan said. “So we can stay in for lunch. It happens to be Parents’ Weekend and there’s no parking anywhere.” They toured the small apartment—a tour empty of embarrassment about the fact that Dylan was more or less living there. No attempts had been made to collect and hide his belongings. Though really, David thought, by the time he and Kate were halfway through college, some of that fuss
about living together had died down already, except for a few fundamentalist parents, and the only thing their disapproval seemed to gain for them was a gap of years when they didn’t see their kids.

  During lunch, Kate and Lily talked intently, somehow drifting into a private conversation despite the small party of four. Dylan and David suspended their own desultory discussion a few times and just watched, trying to overhear enough to identify the topic—it seemed to be Lily’s doctoral program. Dylan helped with the dishes, gathered two textbooks and his laptop, and the three of them said goodbye to Lily. He rode with his parents to the small apartment that he had cleaned for their visit. He still felt the need to flee back to his place sometimes, though he was learning that if he just waited out the feeling, the anxiety that he sometimes felt by being close to Lily began to seem like a normal thing—a price everyone pays for letting their life depend on someone else.

  “The sheets are clean. Well, I haven’t slept on them since they were washed. Is that the same thing?”

  “It’s good enough,” Kate said.

  Dylan got them settled in and left for the library. “Lily is too distracting—she hardly has to study and keeps talking to me. I tell her I don’t get this stuff by osmosis the way she does, and she pretends to understand, but it’s just better if I go to the library.” They made plans to meet downstairs to walk to the restaurant Dylan had called two weeks before, worried about all the other parents in town. He showed them how to make coffee and then left them to themselves. David and Kate settled in at the kitchen table with mugs and the newspaper.

  “So?” David said.

  “She’s lovely…and easy to talk to. She treated me like a person instead of a mother—and like a person in full possession of her faculties.”

  “Our daughter…do you think we’ve met our daughter?” David’s tone was light and they both smiled, but he saw the telltale glint in her eyes and knew he looked the same. Embarrassed, each reached for a section of newspaper and they read quietly until Kate put her cup in the sink and moved to the living room, where she curled up on the futon, which was neatly folded, couch-style.