Suddenly

by Barbara Delinsky

  “What’s so bad about Kate Ann?”

  “She’s from around here, for one thing. You always went for women from the outside. The natives knew you too well.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Aw, you know, Pete.” He waved it off. “You were such a little runt of a kid. I can say that because you made good. You look good. You do good. You’re smarter than any ten people in this town put together.”

  “Not Kate Ann. She’s smarter than people think.”

  “She’s a little mouse.”

  “She’s shy. She’s frightened of people. So she keeps to herself, and what happens? People think she’s strange. They think she doesn’t have a brain in her head. When she ventures out, she gets nervous and does things wrong, so what people think is reinforced. Then they laugh at her, which makes her more nervous, so she makes more mistakes. I’m telling you, beneath that mousy little front is an intelligent and sensitive woman. Not only that, but she’s grateful for every little thing you do. I bought her a robe so that she wouldn’t have to lie in the hospital all the time in those ugly wraps, and you’d have thought I’d bought her a diamond.”

  “You bought her a robe?” Charlie echoed.

  Peter hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t even realized he’d blurted it out until Charlie had caught him on it, but he wasn’t backing down. “I sure did. It’s about time someone in this town showed a little kindness to the woman. And respect. She does a job here. She keeps the books for a whole bunch of our businesses. You didn’t know that, did you.” It was a statement that Charlie’s surprised look upheld. “Well, she does. And you didn’t know it because no one wants to admit to it. How did you think she supports herself? She sure doesn’t come from money.”

  Charlie sputtered out a laugh, but it was on the feeble side. And Peter wasn’t stopping. He was on a roll.

  “So maybe it’s time we acknowledge that in her own quiet way Kate Ann Murther does a service for this town. We could start by showing a little sympathy for the state she’s in. She’s paralyzed. She’ll never walk again. So here’s this frightened woman, who’s totally alone in the world—who isn’t old at all but hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a man, especially now—and she’s facing a future in a wheelchair. How’s she going to get into her house? How’s she going to get around it, once she’s inside? How’s she going to get in and out of the shower? How’s she going to get in town to buy food? Do you have any idea the panic she’s feeling lying there in that bed all day asking herself these questions over and over again?”

  “You sound like you’re running for office,” Charlie said, sounding mildly put off.

  Peter threw up a hand. “Christ, it’s common decency. The woman has lived a pathetic life to date, and now she faces one that’s even worse. What would you do in her situation?”

  “Probably go out back and put a gun to my head.”

  “Yeah,” Peter breathed. The word hung in the air. “Well. One of my friends did something along that line, and she did it because the people around her—including me—didn’t care enough to take her life’s worries seriously.” His voice was rising again. “I’m not letting that happen again.”

  Charlie patted the air. “Okay. Okay. I believe you.”

  “You’d better. Because as far as I’m concerned, sticking up for Kate Ann Murther isn’t something a loser does. It shows character! And compassion! And you can tell Duke to tell his sister-in-law that if she wants to keep her job, she’d better make sure that Kate Ann Murther has the best possible care. I’ll be watching!”

  “Okay. Geez, Pete, calm down.” He looked around uncomfortably. “So. Are you having Thanksgiving dinner with us, or are you flying the coop?”

  “I’ll be here.” Peter had a brainstorm. “And I’m bringing Kate Ann. It’ll be good for her to be out of the hospital and with people for a few hours.”

  Charlie gaped at him for a minute. Then, with a look in his eyes that said he feared for his brother’s sanity but wasn’t about to get him going again, he said, “Whatever you say, Pete. Whatever you say.”

  Angie slid onto the seat by the window and fastened her seat belt. Beside her, on the aisle, Ben did the same. She caught his eye. He caught her hand.

  “Nice weekend,” he said softly.

  “Mmmm.”

  “Like old times?”

  She thought about that. “A little. But better. I wish we had another day.”

  He nodded and studied their hands.

  “You’re not looking forward to going back, are you?” she asked. She had been aware of his reluctance for hours. It was flattering. And exciting. But unsettling.

  He shrugged. “I have mixed feelings.”

  When he fell silent she said, “Go on. You have to tell me about them.” That was the promise they had made to each other, and not in the heat of passion, though there had been plenty of that.

  “This has been a special time,” he said. “I’m worried that when we get back it’ll all just…pffft, be gone and I’ll be right back in the same old rut.”

  “If you know the rut’s there, you should be able to do something to avoid it.”

  “I should. Only for the life of me, I don’t know what to do. How do you fight boredom in a place where there isn’t a whole lot to do?”

  “I’ll plan to be home more.”

  “So we’ll both be bored.” He looked at her then. “I don’t mean that as an insult, Angie, but think about it. Tucker is Tucker. We can talk for hours, and make love, and have candlelight dinners, but after a while, Tucker is still Tucker. There’s only so much we can do there.”

  “Then we’ll go away more.”

  “Enough to fill the gap?”

  “We could do it once a month,” she urged. She wasn’t letting him give up. Not after the weekend they’d had. Not after the progress they’d made. “We could plan ahead, plan to go somewhere we both wanted to go or do something we both wanted to do. The anticipation would be worth millions.”

  But he was shaking his head. “Maybe boredom is the wrong word. I need to be with people. Different kinds of people. Interesting kinds of people. Tucker just doesn’t have those kinds.” His tone sagged, as though what had been holding it up had simply dropped away, leaving the raw truth. “I miss New York.”

  “We’ll be back there with our families for Thanksgiving.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean for work.”

  Angie knew that. She had been feeling the undercurrent of it longer than she cared to think. Longer than she had been willing to think. She had chosen to ignore it because it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  “There’s something about being where the action is,” he tried to explain. “Fax machines are great, and E-mail, and conference calls, and Federal Express, but those don’t put me where it’s at.”

  A flight attendant passed, closing overhead bins and checking seat belts. Ben waited until she moved on, then said softly, “When you were in med school and doing your residency, we were in the city, so I had all that. Same when Dougie was born. Then we moved to Tucker, and I lost it.”

  Angie felt a thudding deep inside. “Are you saying you want to move back to the city?”

  He looked up the aisle forlorny. “I’m saying I miss it. And if there were any way we could arrange it, yes, I’d move back.” He shot her a quick glance before deflecting his gaze to her hand. He brushed her wedding band. “But there’s your practice.”

  The thudding inside her picked up. After two months in which certain basic aspects of her life had been turned upside down, another loomed.

  “Your career isn’t portable like mine is,” Ben reasoned, playing devil’s advocate to his own thoughts. “You’re established in Tucker. You know the people. You like the people.”

  “Don’t you?” she asked in dismay.

  “Yes. Definitely. They are really nice people. They’re kind. They’re friendly. Once they get to know you, they’d give you the shirt off their
back.”

  He grew still when the flight attendant started talking about emergency measures.

  Angie leaned closer. “It’s more than just the people. It’s the way of life. It’s the ease. The slower pace. The peacefulness.”

  “If I could have those things and intellectual stimulation, I’d be in heaven.”

  “Maybe there’s another solution. Montpelier’s not far away. Could you tie up with a newspaper there?”

  He shot her a telling look. “The Gazette isn’t exactly the Times.”

  “What about teaching? You could go to UVM, or Bennington, or Dartmouth. There’d be plenty of intellectual stimulation at any of those places.”

  “Maybe,” he admitted, though skeptically. “If they’d want a cartoonist on their staff.”

  “Not any old cartoonist. A prize-winning political cartoonist. You’re tops in your field. If they don’t want an entire course devoted to it, what about a series of seminars? You could coordinate with an art department. Or better still, with political science.”

  “Maybe,” he said again.

  The flight attendant had taken her seat. The plane pushed back from the jetway.

  “What if I were to commute to New York?” he asked.

  Her mind buzzed. Three-hundred and thirty-some miles. Five hours without traffic, upward of seven hours with. “Uh…”

  The plane moved forward.

  “What if I spent three days a week there?”

  She swallowed. Three days a week when she wouldn’t see him at all? A bachelor pad in New York? Evenings doing God only knew what with God only knew who? “Sounds kind of like a separation,” she said uneasily.

  He looked her in the eye and spoke with the quiet assurance that she had always loved. “That’s not what I mean at all. Especially after this weekend. All I’m doing is trying to think up ways to preserve your practice, my mental health, and our marriage at the same time. Three days a week might do it. Three days every other week might do it. Three days once a month might do it. I won’t know until I try.”

  She wanted to say that it wouldn’t work, that it would break up their marriage for sure. Except that many husbands traveled on business. Their wives got used to it. And it wasn’t as if she’d be doing nothing the whole time he was away.

  Besides, she knew he was restless. That was what Nora Eaton had been about—that, and a frustration that Angie had turned a deaf ear to. But she wanted to think she could learn from her mistakes. She wanted to think she could grow.

  So, rational creature that she was, she said, “I could live with three days once a month.”

  The plane bounced over a seam in the tarmac and rolled on.

  “Would you join me for a couple of days before and after?” Ben asked.

  “I could.” Rational creature that she was, she went a step beyond. “Or I could look for a job closer to the city.”

  Ben stared at her. “You’d consider doing that?”

  “If it was the only way this would work.”

  “You’d leave Tucker?”

  “You left New York for me once.”

  The pilot announced that they were second in line for takeoff.

  “That was different, Angie. I can work anywhere. You—you have a successful practice in Tucker. You’d have to start over.”

  “Not completely. I’d have you. And my skills and my reputation. And Dougie, for as little or as long as he isn’t at school.” She smirked. “I’d also have my mother, and my brother and his wife and their five kids, and your mother, and your sister and her significant other, and your aunt Tillie.”

  “On second thought,” Ben hedged, only half in jest.

  “Why don’t I look,” Angie suggested. “I’ll put out feelers to doctors I know in the New York area. If there’s an opening in a small hospital in one of the suburbs, or with a group in the country north of the city, it might be interesting.”

  “You’d really do that?”

  The plane turned onto the runway and waited.

  Angie thought about it. “A pediatrician’s practice is, by definition, transient. Children grow up and move on. New ones come along.”

  “But you love your families.”

  “Yes. And I’d love others just as well.” She had the confidence to know that others would love her, too. “If I could find a comfortable setting and a group of doctors I respect, I could move.”

  “What about Paige? And Peter?”

  “I’d miss them. Like you’ve missed the guys from the Times. But you’ve kept in touch. So I’d keep in touch with Paige and Peter. They could visit us. We could keep the house in Tucker and use it as a ski place. Or a weekend retreat.”

  “What about Doug?”

  The plane started forward.

  Angie’s first impulse was to say that he would simply enroll in the school system wherever they were. Then she thought of all that had happened that fall. “He’s doing well at Mount Court. If he wanted to stay, I’d let him.”

  “Even if we were a distance?”

  “We didn’t see him this weekend, and we’ve survived.”

  The plane picked up speed. She sat back in her seat.

  “Do you want to move?” Ben asked.

  She turned her head on the headrest. “No. But I do want you, and if moving is what it’ll take to keep you, so be it.”

  The plane went faster. The front wheels left the ground, then the rear ones, and as it climbed steadily into the air, Angie wondered at her calmness.

  She guessed it had something to do with the way Ben had laced his fingers through hers.

  twenty

  FOLLOWING THE ANNUAL GRIEF OF HER BIRTHDAY, Paige always liked Thanksgiving. Over the years she had taken to spending the day with friends in Tucker, a group of twenty, give or take, all transplants like her. They were an eclectic surrogate family, diverse in age and background. Each brought unique talents to Tucker and a unique contribution to Thanksgiving dinner.

  The festivities, which were held at a different house each year, began with hors d’oeuvres at one in the afternoon and ended with dessert at ten at night. In between, while a fire roared in the hearth, they came as close to capturing the feeling of going over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house as most families ever came.

  Nonny was a bona fide member of the group, having attended enough of its Thanksgivings to know to bring along doubles of her pecan pie and leave her potato stuffing at home.

  Sami, who was just starting to walk along furniture, was the center of attention this year. Paige had bought her a sweet denim jumper with a soft print blouse and matching tights. Between that, and the bow in her dark hair, and her sober face that lit brightly when she smiled, she was precious. The other children fought over who would play with her.

  Paige had been half hoping Noah would join them, but he had gone to Santa Fe to see his folks while Sara visited her mother in San Francisco. And it was for the best, Paige knew. She had seen him nearly every day since her birthday. Either he caught up with her at the hospital after dropping the Mount Court group there to work or he came by at night. Several times he had slept with her—crept in after Nonny had gone upstairs and crept out at dawn—and as guilty as Paige felt, she couldn’t turn him away. Being in his arms felt too good.

  That was why this Thanksgiving breather was important. So much had changed in Paige’s life that fall. She needed a reminder that some things, like Thanksgiving with the aliens of Tucker, as they called themselves, would be there long after Noah Perrine left.

  Snow started to fall on Thanksgiving night and continued into the morning. Paige forged her way through it to get to the office. She and Peter were the only ones around, what with Angie and Ben in New York and Cynthia home in Boulder, and though the schools were out for the holiday, colds, allergies, and flus took no vacation at all.

  She worked a long day, stopped at the hospital to visit with Jill, and went home feeling bushed. She decided that it had to do with the festivities the day
before and the letdown the morning after.

  She wondered if Noah had had a festive day, wondered if he had felt any of the same letdown. She doubted it. He hadn’t called—not that he had said he would, but she had thought that if he was thinking of her at all, he would have picked up the phone. Clearly he was home with his family and in his element. No matter how much he claimed to be a man of all seasons, she knew him well enough to know that he adored New Mexico. The letdown for him would be returning to Tucker.

  Sami was feeling something or other, too, because she pushed away far more of the supper that Paige put on her high chair tray than she ate. She even pushed her bottle away. She didn’t want to bounce in the swing that hung from the ceiling in a corner of the kitchen. She didn’t want to roll a ball to Paige. All she wanted to do was to be held, which Paige did gladly. When the phone rang at eight-thirty—not Noah, though Paige’s pulse had been skipping—with an emergency call, she rushed to the hospital to treat a four-year-old whose leg had been spattered with boiling water, then rushed home.

  Sami remained fretful. By the time Paige put her in her crib, her nose was starting to run. Paige wasn’t surprised when she awoke in the middle of the night warm and sweaty. Children caught colds from other children. It was inevitable, and important in terms of building up immunities. It was also heartbreaking. Sami was small and helpless. She didn’t understand why she felt lousy, and no amount of explaining on Paige’s part made sense.

  Paige bathed her and gave her baby Tylenol, then sat with her on the rocker humming the lullabies Nonny used to sing. Sami dozed and woke up crying. Paige wiped her face with a damp cloth. She gave her a bottle of apple juice, of which Sami drank barely half. She changed her sleeper and combed her hair. Then she sat with her in the rocker again, thinking that for all its wonders, modern medicine had yet to do much for the common cold.

  It was a long night. For the first time, Paige understood the frustration her patient-parents had been talking of all these years when their children were sick and there was no way to help. “They’ll sound worse than they are,” Paige always told them, just as she told herself now. “Keep them as comfortable as you can. Encourage liquids. Definitely do not panic.” And last, “Make sure that you get enough sleep yourself. A run-down parent is no good at all.”