by Jodi Picoult
He draws me back at arm’s length and examines my scar critically. “Nice work,” he concedes. “Who’s the surgeon from North Carolina? When do the staples need to be removed?”
Suddenly, Wyatt is at my side, holding two coffee cups. He smiles widely, trying to figure out how to extend a hand for a shake while still holding the lattes.
“You must be Kieran. I’m Wyatt Armstrong. I’ve heard so much about you.” He passes me my coffee. “Here, Olive.”
“He doesn’t know your name?” Kieran murmurs. “Did he have a head injury, too?”
“He knows my name. It’s a long story.”
Stunned, Kieran shakes Wyatt’s hand. “I didn’t realize he came back with you…”
“He came to meet Meret. He’s her biological father.”
Kieran’s eyes widen. “Did not see that one coming.”
“That makes two of us,” I murmur.
The nurse behind the desk looks up. “Ms. McDowell?”
“Back to the maiden name?” Kieran muses.
While I change into a hospital gown and robe, Kieran waits outside the little dressing room. “So let me get this straight,” he says. “You brought your boyfriend home to your husband?”
“Shut up, Kieran.” I step out of the dressing room and let him lead me to the imaging suite. “I had a plan. And then I wound up having brain surgery.”
“If I had a dime for every time I heard that excuse…” He talks to the radiology assistants, who help me climb onto the table and lie down. I am covered with a sheet. Kieran steps into the glass booth, his arms crossed, watching me as I slide into the metal tube.
“Okay, Dawn. This won’t take long.” I hear his voice over a speaker. It’s even and calming, but I know him well enough to hear the thread of anxiety. He is just as afraid of what he might see as I am. “Hold still. Don’t move.”
As if I am not already paralyzed.
I close my eyes and hope that whatever Kieran is seeing on that computer screen is normal, and clear, and perfect. Please let it be all right, I pray.
I’ve only just found him again.
After a few minutes, I am wheeled back out. Kieran pushes a button and speaks to me through the glass. “I never thought I’d say this, but your brain is perfect.”
I let out a long breath of relief. Now if I only could figure out my heart.
“On the other hand,” Kieran continues, “your hair looks like a freak show.”
I sit up, clutching the sheet to my chest. “Dr. McDowell,” I say. “Fuck you.”
* * *
—
THE NEXT DAY, when Brian is at work, Wyatt comes over. He uses my laptop to write a draft of an article while I read a novel; we take a slow walk around the reservoir. We pick up Meret at camp. In the late afternoon, Wyatt and Meret play Monopoly until he insists he’s going to die of boredom and begs me for a deck of cards so he can teach her Spite and Malice. “Okay, the goal of the game is to clear your personal deck,” Wyatt says. “You’ve got five cards in your hand. You have to play your aces and twos. Jokers are wild, but can’t be an ace, two, seven, or king…” He laughs. “Get ready to throw shit.”
Meret’s eyes light up when he swears. “Dammit. I’m probably not supposed to curse,” he says, and he smiles twice as wide.
We are careful not to touch each other when Meret is nearby. Or maybe I am careful, and Wyatt respects my space. It lets me hover at the edges of their conversation, pretending to do things like clean the kitchen counter or answer email.
I am sitting in an armchair, chipping away at the mountain of unanswered messages in my inbox, when they finish their game and Wyatt shuffles in preparation for another.
“That was beginner’s luck,” he says sourly.
“You’re a sore loser.”
“That’s what you think. You’re going down, sukar.”
“Sukar?”
He looks surprised to have said it himself. “It’s Arabic. For sugar.” His cheeks redden. “Like a…nickname.”
Over the edge of my laptop I watch the blur of cards in his hands—a waterfall, a fan, rising against gravity.
“Are you going to go back to Egypt?” Meret asks, and the cards fly all over the place.
He glances at me sidelong as he begins to gather them together. “I plan to, eventually.”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I hear Meret’s response: “Can I come?”
Wyatt grins. “I’d like that.”
“I want to see the Great Pyramid.”
“No, you don’t,” he insists. “It’s cramped and touristy. I’ll take you to see tombs that haven’t seen the light of day in thousands of years—”
“But the Great Pyramid is the one where they found that new inner burial chamber by using muons.”
“Using what?” I ask.
They both turn to me. “Muons,” Meret repeats. “They’re subatomic particles. Kind of like electrons, but with more mass. They hit Earth all the time and they can go through stone and solid matter, but then they peter out. Physicists used them in the Great Pyramid to see places where they were zipping through empty space.”
“A Japanese and French team carried out the tomography in Giza. But,” Wyatt argues, “it didn’t really tell us anything. Rather than being a new burial chamber, it’s likely to be an architectural feature, taking the weight off the Grand Gallery of the pyramid.”
Meret shrugs. “Still, you have to admit it’s a really cool tool, using natural radiation for mapping.”
“And bloody expensive,” he counters.
I watch them argue amiably. Wyatt’s eyes are dancing as he matches his daughter’s verbal parries.
I let myself imagine it. Maybe we three will go to Giza, and shuffle into the cramped tunnel of the Great Pyramid, breathing in sweat and stale air until we stand in the center of the Grand Gallery, surrounded by history.
Glancing down at my screen, I open an email from Abigail Trembley. The subject line is WIN.
Before I left for England to find Thane, I had called my social worker friend. Although Win had absolved me of my duties, I didn’t feel right leaving her and Felix without someone to watch over them. Then I had emailed Abigail from Egypt, but I hadn’t heard back.
I click on the message, waiting for it to load, expecting the worst.
Wyatt is dealing a new hand. Out of the blue, Meret asks, “What should I call you?”
Don’t say Dad, I think silently. She isn’t ready for that.
“Mighty is the Ma’at of Re, Chosen of Re?” Wyatt suggests, giving the translation of Ramesses II’s Egyptian name.
Meret’s lips twitch. “I was thinking Wyatt.”
“That works, too,” he says.
The body of the email loads.
Dear Dawn,
When I last spoke with Brian, you were still out of town. In case you are checking your mail, you should know that Win is still with us. Fading, unresponsive, but here.
I think she’s waiting for you.
Let me know when you’re back.
X
Abigail
I look at the date of the message: this was sent two hours ago.
I stand up so abruptly that both Meret and Wyatt turn in unison. “Everything all right?” he murmurs, getting to his feet.
“I need to go see someone. A client.”
“Now?” Wyatt looks down at Meret. “Don’t cheat,” he says, and he pulls me into the hallway. “Someone who’s dying?”
“Yes,” I reply, impatient. “That’s what happens to my clients. I need to sit vigil.”
“Olive, is that really a good idea? You’re barely out of surgery—”
“I’m not dying,” I say simply. “She is.”
He nods. “All right. Get what you need
and I’ll take you.”
It never occurred to me that he would think to come. But there are things I have to say to Win, confidences that can only stay between us.
“I need you to stay here,” I say gently. “To babysit till Brian gets home.”
Wyatt rubs the back of his neck. “It’s not babysitting when it’s your kid,” he replies.
* * *
—
THE UBER DRIVER drops me off at Win’s house and I find the key that they used to leave for me under a flowerpot to let myself in. “Hello?” I call out. “Felix?”
The rooms are dark, musty. But the kitchen is clean and the dishes are all rinsed on a rack. It’s clear that Abigail has been taking care of them, as the inevitable hurtles closer.
“Dawn?”
Felix has gotten so thin that his clothes hang from his shoulders and hips. His hair is matted down on his scalp, and I would guess that he hasn’t had a shower in a couple of days. His eyes are red, with weariness and tears.
I fold him into my embrace, feeling him shudder against me. “It’s going to be all right,” I murmur. “I’m here to support you both.”
He draws back, as if he hasn’t trusted his own eyesight. His gaze locks on my scar and the shaved swath of my head. “What…what happened to you?”
“It’s a very long story and it’s not important right now,” I tell him. “You are. Win is. I’d love to see her, if that’s all right.”
Abigail is sitting beside Win when we enter her room, reading aloud from a novel. Her eyebrows fly up to her hairline as she looks at me, at my angry red wound, but she is a professional. Instead of making this about me, she says, “Win, Dawn’s come to see you.”
She puts the book aside and stands up, relinquishing her chair to me. A host of unspoken communication passes between us—gratitude, curiosity, and acknowledgment. I reach for Win’s hand, which is a canvas of skin stretched over bone. Her eyes are dark hollows, her cheekbones are blades. We are the same age, but she looks double her years. Her breathing is erratic and soupy. “Cheyne-Stokes?” I murmur.
Abigail nods. “All morning. She’s been unresponsive about twelve hours now.” She squeezes my shoulder. “I’m glad you made it.”
Because there isn’t much more time.
She turns a soft smile on Felix. “Why don’t you freshen up, and I’ll make some fresh coffee while Win and Dawn visit?”
He nods, grateful to be told what to do. Following directions is so much easier than staring the unknown in the face.
I settle in beside Win. Her son’s blanket has been spread over her. The door closes behind Abigail.
“I told you I’d be here when it happened,” I say softly, when I am really thinking: Thank you for waiting for me.
Her skin is cold and dry. Her breath saws from her lungs in gusty, uneven wheezes. “I found him for you,” I whisper. “He’s so handsome, Win. He had just come back from biking and his cheeks were red.”
Beneath her closed lids, her eyes shift. “I have something to confess. I didn’t give him your note. I know I promised. But you see, he has a daughter, and a son, and a wife. When I saw that, I thought, That’s not what Win wanted. And then I thought a little more, and wondered if maybe it was. I think that what you really hoped I’d get for you was knowledge, which you could take with you, when you go. The understanding that he’s all right. That he was as happy in his life as you have been.” I smile sadly. “I mean, who gets such an embarrassment of riches? One love that sends you into orbit…and then another that guides you home?”
I let go with one of my hands to wipe away a tear. “If you want to hate me for not carrying out your wish, I understand,” I tell her. “But I hope you don’t. Because even though I was the one who was supposed to be giving you the tools to make the most out of the life you had left, you turned out to be the better teacher. What I did…what I found…Oh, Win. There’s really no such thing as a right or wrong choice. We don’t make decisions. Our decisions make us.”
I bite my lip. “You asked me once what it was like, when we die, and I said I didn’t know. But now, I do. I almost died in a plane crash. I’ve been trying so hard to remember it, to feel every minute of it again, so I could tell people in the future what to expect. I felt like I had to go somewhere, but it was so hard to stick to the path. It’s like when you finally reach the top of a mountain you’re hiking, but look down and realize how small you are by comparison. Your heart is in your throat, because it’s beautiful and terrible all at once, and if anyone asked you to describe it, you wouldn’t be able to find the right words, because how can you be so alone and insignificant and also so full and complete at the same time?” I shake my head. “I know this isn’t what you were hoping for. You want to know if there’s a white light, or a hundred dogs, or an angel who comes to get you. I don’t know any of that. But I do know that all the answers were there, to questions I would never even think to ask.”
Win’s chest stops moving. I stare down at her, waiting. I search for the broken thread of her pulse.
“But I came back,” I tell her. “Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear those answers.”
I feel it then, the slightest squeeze of my hand.
One more shallow breath. A long pause.
“Felix?” I call out. “I think you should come now.”
I lean down and press my cheek to hers. “It’s okay to let go, Win,” I whisper.
The door flies open and Felix stands there, wide-eyed and frightened. “Is she…?”
“Not yet,” I tell him. “But now would be a good time to say whatever you need to say to her.”
Felix sinks onto the edge of the bed. He leans down, whispering something into her ear that I cannot hear. Her breath rushes out, a soft susurration stirring his hair, and then she is gone.
He folds himself into her, an origami of grief.
I step outside the room to give them a final moment of privacy. I take my phone from my pocket and add Win’s name to my list of ghosts.
* * *
—
ABIGAIL TAKES ONE look at me and my scar and tells me she will take care of contacting the funeral home but she’d really like it if I didn’t keel over myself, so I should go home. She calls me an Uber and even though the ride is only fifteen minutes, I fall asleep. Sadness sits with me, another passenger.
I text Wyatt to tell him Win has died, and then I text Brian, but neither of them responds.
When I enter my house, I witness something I never expected to see. Brian and Meret and Wyatt are all sitting around the kitchen table, eating pizza. Wyatt and Brian have bottles of beer, and Wyatt is telling a story about how, as a graduate student, he licked something fossilized to figure out if it was bone or rock, and had a coughing fit and inhaled it. “I’m likely walking around with a piece of a pharaoh in me,” he says, and then he looks up when I walk through the doorway.
Immediately he gets to his feet, reacting to something written across my features. He takes two steps forward, and there’s only one more before he can reach me and let me fall apart in his arms—but then he stops abruptly and jams his hands in his pockets, remembering where he is. “Your client…?”
“Died,” I say, and for the first time the word is not a statement or a fact but something as delicate as an egg that I have to deliver over rough terrain.
“I’m so sorry, Olive.” The endearment slips out. Brian’s eyes narrow when he hears it.
Brian rises, too, and takes a plate from the cupboard. On his way back to the table, he squeezes my shoulder. “Sit down. I’ll get you a slice.”
Even Meret is sympathetic. She brings me a paper napkin and hugs me. She is the glue, I realize, that connects this oddly shaped group of people before me.
I push my grief behind a curtain, the ugly sweater I will take out and try on later, before closeting it for the next tim
e. I force a smile. “I hope you got sausage.”
“God, Mom,” Meret says. “You realize pigs have been taught to play videogames and are smarter than chimpanzees?”
And just like that, everything should be back to normal. As normal as it can be to have Wyatt and Brian sitting on either side of me at a table. To be methodically eating pizza even though a wide swath of my hair has been shaved away. And the most important point: I am here. Win is not.
I hope that Abigail takes care of Felix. I hope he can make it through this first night in an empty house, which is always the worst.
If my clients are afraid of dying, then my clients’ caregivers fear being alone. There is something bleak and barren about a world that is missing the person who knows you best.
As Brian relays an explanation of an experiment in his lab, I stare at him. He would win, if that were a contest. He knows the tiny details that make up a life: where I hide the gingersnaps, so no one else will eat them and leave me with an empty box. Which drawers hold my socks, my bras, my sweaters. How to pick the cilantro off my food, because it tastes like soap. Where my back always hurts the most, when he offers to rub it. How to undo the clasp of the necklace I can never manage myself.
But Wyatt, he knows who I could be. An academic. An author. An archaeologist.
A colleague whose ideas he seeks out, whose vision he trusts.
A woman who comes apart so easily in his bed that I have to sink my teeth into him, sometimes, just to stay grounded.
The mother of his child.
The person he sees first in the morning, and last at night.
When I remember to pay attention to the conversation again, Meret is talking about her next tennis match. “I’m not great, but—”
“You’re not great yet,” Wyatt corrects.
She rolls her eyes. “There are kids who’ve been playing since they were three.”
Brian lifts his beer. “Then the fact that you’ve improved so fast in so little time is even more impressive.”
