Suddenly

by Barbara Delinsky

  She didn’t answer. There were too many things she had to think about, not the least of which was sitting in a high chair with mashed banana all over her face when Paige walked in the door. When Sami gave her a mucky grin and said through the mess, “Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma,” Paige wondered if there was a conspiracy afoot. They were trying to snag her by the strings of her heart and tie her down.

  She was thinking that she was going to have to steel herself by immersing herself more deeply in those other things that made up her life, when the hospital called to say that Jill was in labor.

  Peter called out to Paige as she ran down the hospital corridor, but she simply held up a hand and was gone. So he continued on to the office. Angie was really the one he wanted to talk to anyway.

  He caught her an hour later, between patients. “Got a minute?”

  She tucked her stethoscope in the pocket of her lab coat and motioned him into her office. “What’s up?”

  “I need your opinion on a patient.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Not one of ours, just someone I helped at the hospital after the accident. It’s a thirty-four-year-old female in otherwise good health. She was in the balcony and fell clear of the worst of the debris, but she landed on her lower back. X-rays show a lapse in the spinal cord between T-twelve and L-one. She was a questionable red-code at the time. They considered flying her out, but since it appeared to be an isolated spinal injury and there were so many other patients with multiple injuries, they kept her here. She’s had repeated CAT scans. The initial swelling responded to the drip they gave her, but she can’t move.”

  “Not at all?” Angie asked.

  “Not from the waist down. She doesn’t have any sensation. No pain. No pressure. No tingling.” Peter had done his own little tests when he’d seen her. “The neurosurgeon has been in and out. He says it’s a done deal. Paralysis. I want to know if he’s right.”

  “Was this Mike Caffrey?”

  Peter nodded.

  “He’s good,” Angie said.

  But Peter hadn’t liked his bedside manner. At a time when she had no one at all with her, he had bluntly told Kate Ann that she would never walk. Peter had come in hours later and found her in tears. He couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

  “What do you think about the case?” he asked Angie.

  “I’m not a neurosurgeon.”

  “But you remember every detail of every rotation you did, and you know the neurosurgeon’s bible by heart. Should I call in a consult, or is it a done deal?”

  She thought for a minute. “The CAT scan says there’s no swelling?” He shook his head. “But she has no feeling at all?” He shook his head again. Sympathetically she said, “Then it doesn’t look good.”

  That was what he was afraid of. Too much time had passed with no physical response to suggest that movement might return on its own. “What about physical therapy?” he asked.

  “Is that what they’re suggesting?”

  “They’re not suggesting much. The poor woman is lying there all alone, day after day, not knowing what in the hell’s going on.”

  “Does she have family?”

  “Nope.”

  “Friends?”

  “Nope.”

  “She was at that concert all alone?” Angie asked in surprise.

  Peter sputtered out a facetious half laugh. “Yeah. That’s the joke of it. She’s the quietest, shiest woman in the world, but she happens to love Henderson Wheel. She’d never been to a rock concert in her life before this. It took every bit of her courage to buy the ticket, much less show up.” Not that anyone had taunted her. Peter had asked. In the midst of the music and the lights and the beat, she had simply faded onto her paid seat in the balcony, which was largely the story of her life. Even now she lay in her hospital room, quiet, undemanding, and nearly invisible. Peter didn’t know how anyone couldn’t feel sorry for her.

  “Physical therapy,” he said, hauling his mind back on track. “Will it do much good?”

  Angie shrugged. “It’ll develop and strengthen the muscles in her upper body. It’ll keep her lower body limber so that she can handle it better, and if there is a return of sensation, she can capitalize on it. Will it fix what’s been broke? No.”

  Peter ran a hand up the back of his head. “That’s what I thought.” He swore softly. He had no idea what Kate Ann was going to do. Neither did she—and she wasn’t dumb, by a long shot. He was fast coming to understand that. She knew what she faced.

  “The Spinal Cord Center in Rutland is a good one,” Angie suggested. “Or the Rehab Center in Burlington. If she’s willing to go to Springfield or Worcester or Boston, she’ll have even more to choose from.”

  Peter knew all that. What he didn’t know was how she was going to pay for the care that she needed. She didn’t have medical insurance, hadn’t been able to afford it.

  “Who is she?” Angie asked curiously.

  He took a deep breath, slipped his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and exhaled. “No one important.” He took another breath and said more hesitantly, “There’s something else. I’m thinking of suing Jamie Cox.”

  Angie looked startled.

  Peter was instantly defensive. “You don’t think I should?”

  “I think you should. I’m surprised. That’s all. He’s one of yours.”

  “He’s sleaze. Do you know what he’s going around town saying? He’s saying that the reason the balcony collapsed is that there were too many people up there. That there were more people than tickets he sold. That people snuck in and were sitting in the aisles and standing up in back and on the sides. He’s saying that what happened was their own fault, and that no jury in the world would find him guilty. He’s saying that no one can possibly prove that that balcony was structurally unsafe, and that anyone who tried would be a fool.”

  “A threat if ever there was one.”

  “And untrue. People can prove the balcony was unsafe. Any laborer in town who’s done incidental work there has seen the weaknesses. The problem is, most of them won’t come forward because Jamie owns the houses they live in. He’s got ‘em by the balls.” Peter tucked his hands behind his suspenders. “But he doesn’t have me that way. I own my own place. And he has money that can help those people who need care and can’t pay for it themselves.” Like Kate Ann. She was a perfect example. She had paid full price for a ticket and mustered up her courage to go to a concert for the very first time. Now she was a paraplegic. No one could give her back the use of her legs—it was too late for that—but someone could sure as hell make the life that she had left a little easier.

  “The question,” he went on, “is how to get that money. I was thinking I’d ask Ben if he knew of a lawyer, someone out of town, who’s good and would be willing to take on the case. Maybe someone in Montpelier who knows how the state courts work. Think he’d give me a name?”

  “Of course he’d give you a name. And in any case, I’m sure he’d like to see you. You don’t stop over anymore.”

  Not since Mara had died. He used to like seeing her there. She had always been more laid-back in a family setting.

  And then there was the matter of the trouble between Angie and Ben. That had started up soon after. Dropping by to see Ben would have been awkward.

  “Why don’t I mention it to him tonight,” Angie offered.

  “I’d appreciate it,” Peter said, and started to leave.

  She touched his arm. “Are you doing this for Mara?”

  He considered that. “Maybe.” And maybe a little for Lacey, though she had gone back to Boston, and he was just as glad. He didn’t want her back. She had pricked his conscience, was all.

  He shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe I’m doing it for me.” He grinned. “Maybe I want to be a new kind of hero. With you ladies giving me a run for my money on the medical front, I need a new niche. Peter Grace, civic activist. Sounds impressive, don’t you think?”

  nineteen

  ANGIE SAW THE LA
ST OF HER PATIENTS shortly before three, left the office soon after that, and drove straight home. She was disappointed when Ben’s car wasn’t there, but not surprised. It was the third day this week that she’d come home early. He hadn’t been there once.

  Sometimes she drove around; sometimes she waited. This time she decided to make use of the time by going to the fish market in Abbotsville. Fresh fish was trucked there every morning from the coast of Maine, and the prices were high. But Ben loved lobster. As she saw it, the expenditure was an investment in her marriage.

  Back home again, she waited. With the coming of darkness, she turned on the lights. She did a load of laundry, set the table, put the lobster pot on the stove, made a salad, spread garlic butter on bread that was ready for toasting. She read Newsweek. She called Dougie and left a message when he wasn’t in the dorm.

  It struck her that Ben might have gone to see him. The eighth-grade class was going to Acadia National Park that weekend, so Dougie wouldn’t be home, but if he had called, needing something, Ben might have dropped over whatever it was. He might have taken him for ice cream. No, not ice cream. Hot chocolate.

  He might have wanted to talk with Dougie about school. About Thanksgiving, which was approaching fast. About Angie.

  She wondered what he would say about her.

  Then again, maybe he was with Nora. He claimed it was over between them—the times she had driven around, she had driven by the library first and his car wasn’t there—but if he wasn’t with her, where was he?

  Angie pulled the newspapers from the day’s mail, one from Chicago, one from Seattle, one from New York, and opened to the editorial pages. Ben’s cartoon was the same in each, a single-frame tongue-in-cheek drawing of three prominent members of the House of Representatives, each wearing a Boy Scout uniform, a halo, and a benevolent grin, each hiding a knife marked, in turn, THE POOR, THE ELDERLY, and THE CHRONICALLY ILL.

  It was something he might have drawn twenty years before. His priorities hadn’t changed. Not politically, at least. She trusted that he would always root for the underdog. But she wasn’t sure what else she could trust.

  She heard the Honda turn into the driveway and stayed where she was. Although he must have seen her car, he looked startled to find her sitting there when he opened the kitchen door.

  “Hi. When’d you get home?” he asked.

  “A while ago.”

  He glanced at the counter. “Wow. You’ve been working. What’re you making? Hey, those are lobsters in the sink!”

  “I bought them in Abbotsville. I thought they’d be fun.”

  “We haven’t had lobster in ages.”

  “That’s why I bought them.”

  He studied her. Innocently he asked, “Is something wrong?”

  Was something wrong? Was something wrong? It was the wrong thing to ask her, in the wrong tone of voice. Something snapped inside, only this time there were no tears. “Is something wrong? You’re damn right something’s wrong. I came home early to see you. I’ve come home early three times this week, only you’re never here. Where have you been?”

  He pursed his lips, seeming defiant for a minute, before shrugging. “Here and there.”

  “Where’s here and there?” She didn’t care if she sounded shrewish. They had been walking politely around each other, pretending that everything was all right. Only it wasn’t.

  “You want a rundown?” he asked, defiant indeed.

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  He leaned against the counter and started ticking off his stops in a robotic tone. “I started off at the post office. George Hicks was there. He suggested we go for coffee. I didn’t have anything else to do. As far as I knew, you’d be at work. So we had coffee. Then I went to the hardware store and talked with Marty. While I was there, the Freemans came in. They said they were on their way to an estate sale in White River Junction, so I followed them there.”

  “An estate sale?” Angie asked. “Since when are you interested in antiques?”

  “I’m not,” he said in his own voice, looking her in the eye, “but the house the antiques were in was gorgeous. And there were other people looking around just like I was. That means human contact, which is a damn sight better than sitting here all by myself.” He braced his hands on the counter behind him. “If you’d told me you were coming home early, I might have made a point to be here.”

  “You wanted spontaneity. I was trying to surprise you.”

  “Surprise me? Or check up on me? I told you before, Angie, I go out. I stop in town, I drive around, I do whatever I can to keep busy. And don’t look at me that way. I wasn’t with Nora. I told you that before, too.”

  “Okay.” Angie held up a hand. “Fine. You weren’t with Nora.” Her hand fell. She felt overwhelmingly discouraged. “But this isn’t right, Ben. Something’s not working. I wasn’t coming home to check up on you. I was coming home to spend time with you. I’ve been trying to change, really I have. I’m not telling you what to do or think. I’m not orchestrating our lives anymore. So what do we do? Nothing. We don’t go places. We don’t do things. And we don’t talk. Not the way we used to. Not honestly. Not impulsively. Certainly not about hopes and dreams, the way we used to when we were younger.”

  He swore softly, let out a long, tired sigh, and looked away. “I don’t know what those hopes and dreams are anymore. Seems like we should be living them out now, only we’re not. And suddenly I’m forty-six. More than half of my life is behind me. What’s ahead? I just don’t know.”

  “What do you want to be ahead?” Angie asked with some urgency. Her future lay in the answer.

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem. If I did, I could act on it. I just feel this goddamned…inertia. Like I wake up in the morning and see this guy in the mirror who has a successful career and makes lots of money that he’s stashing away for a rainy day that may not ever come. I see the same road stretching before me, day after day after day. It’s so fucking boring.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “So maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe the problem was me after all.”

  “Not completely. The things you said about me made sense. I didn’t hear what you were saying. I was a doctor first, a mother second, and a wife third. I’m trying to change. But I need help from you. You were always the lighthearted one of us. You had the exciting ideas. I was the realist, the pragmatist, and that is boring if it dominates the other all the time.” She paused, then asked in frustration, “So why did you let me do it?”

  “Because it was easy,” he shot back. “It seemed the thing to do. I knew my life would change once I left New York. I surrendered to the inevitable.”

  Angie felt a spark of anger. “Then what happened is your fault.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” he answered, which took the wind from her sails and set them back to square one.

  Rising from the table to stand at the window, she thought about what he wasn’t saying. He wasn’t saying that he wanted a divorce. He wasn’t saying that he was bored with her. Taking courage from that, she went to where he stood and, shyly almost, slipped her arm through the crook of his. She had always found reassurance in his nearness; she still did; this was what she had missed most in recent weeks.

  “So where do we go from here? You have to give me a clue.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Now,” she goaded. “Right now. If you had your choice of doing anything, anything at all, what would you want? What would give you a boost? What would be exciting enough to pull you out of this funk?”

  She knew she was taking a chance. If he said that he wanted to see Nora Eaton, she was sunk.

  He thought for a minute, then said, “Go somewhere.”

  “Me?”

  “Us. I want us to go somewhere.”

  Relieved, she asked, “Where?”

  He thought again. “Williamsburg, Virginia.”

&
nbsp; She grinned. “Yes?”

  “When we were in New York, we used to talk about going, but you were always so busy and then we had Dougie, and somehow we never found the time.”

  “Okay.” Her grin faded. “Let’s do it now.”

  He looked surprised. “Right now?”

  She nodded. “Right now.”

  “What about Dougie?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “What about work?”

  She didn’t have to think about it. She had put in more than enough hours to compensate, and now there was Cynthia to cover. Angie had a right to the time. This was a family emergency of sorts.

  “They’ll be able to function without me for a long weekend,” Angie said. “How about you?”

  “I’m always ahead a few days. I can swing it.”

  She left his side and went to the phone. But whereas in the past she would have been the one to make the arrangements, now she held out the receiver to him. He stared at it for a bemused minute. By the time he took it, his eyes held a hint of excitement and his lips a touch of the smile that never failed to curl her stomach.

  He looked empowered—and Angie didn’t care how much Mara would have denied it, an empowered man was a sexy man. With that thought and a smile of her own, she went upstairs to pack.

  Paige didn’t put on scrubs. She wasn’t needed in the operating room. Jill was under general anesthesia and wouldn’t know who was there and who wasn’t. Her mother, on the other hand, was alone and frightened in the waiting room.

  They sat together quietly, holding their breath each time the door opened, releasing it when the doctor who emerged wasn’t Jill’s. Paige thought of the parents she saw in prenatal sessions, the ones getting a head start on pediatric care, who came to her with questions shortly before their babies were to be born. Their excitement was always contagious.

  There was no excitement now—just dread that the baby might be deformed, or too small to live, or ill in some way that demanded prolonged and expensive medical treatment, and fear that Jill, whose insides were already battered, would react adversely to surgery.