Skipping a Beat

by Sarah Pekkanen

  * * *

  Thirty-two

  * * *

  WHEN I WAS NINE or ten years old, my father and I went out on a Sunday afternoon drive and saw a woman standing by the side of the road. She was wearing a sensible brown coat, a brown loafer on her left foot and, on her right one, a fuzzy pink bedroom slipper. Her hair was disheveled on the right side, too, but combed on the left, as if someone had drawn a line down her middle to create two completely separate people.

  “Isn’t that Mrs. Underwood?” I asked as Dad slowed the car. She’d taught me ballet for a couple of years, until I decided I liked kicking around a soccer ball with the neighborhood boys better than pliés.

  “Mrs. Underwood?” Dad rolled down his window. “Can I help you with anything?”

  She looked at us, and I saw relief flood her face. “I can’t seem to find my way.” Despite her smile, her voice shook, and she was gripping her pocketbook with clenched fists.

  “Hop in,” Dad said cheerfully, gesturing for me to get in the backseat. He got out and walked around the car and gently took her by the elbow. “Here we go. Julie and I will get you home safely, don’t worry. You were just out for a walk, weren’t you?”

  Mrs. Underwood nodded unsteadily. “A walk.”

  “Why did you go so far?” I asked, and even before I’d finished speaking, my father cut in, his voice loud enough to drown mine out.

  “Well, I don’t blame you for waiting for a ride back. The weather turned unexpectedly cold, didn’t it?”

  By then I understood nothing about this made sense: not Mrs. Underwood’s fuzzy slipper or Dad’s implication that she was waiting by the side of the road because she was expecting someone to come along and offer her a ride.

  “What was your name again, dear?” she asked me, twisting back to look at my face.

  “Julie,” I said quietly, and then I knew better than to ask any more questions.

  “I’ll just see you inside,” Dad said as he pulled up in front of her little bungalow. “Julie, can you wait here?”

  He jumped out of the car without waiting for my answer, and I watched as he approached her front door, which was wide open despite the chill of the day. He stepped inside and didn’t emerge for about fifteen minutes.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” he said as he climbed back into the car. “We’re going to have to wait a bit longer.”

  “Is Mrs. Underwood okay?” I asked.

  “Come on up front with me,” Dad said instead of answering. He waited until I was seated, then he twisted sideways on his seat to face me. His eyes were wet, I realized with a jolt. My dad, who was always laughing.

  “Sometimes when people grow older, they have problems with their memory,” Dad began. “It’s normal to forget things. Your grandpa once put his hat in the refrigerator. Grandma asked him if he wanted her to heat it up for dinner.”

  I giggled, and Dad smiled, too, even though it didn’t erase the sorrow from his expression.

  “But most people just forget little things here and there. Maybe a name of someone they knew long ago, or where they put their keys.”

  “You do that now,” I pointed out.

  He pretended to swat at me. “It gets worse when you’re older. But what’s happening to Mrs. Underwood is different. It’s a disease called Alzheimer’s.”

  “Is there medicine she can take to get better?”

  Dad shook his head. “No, honey. And she’s going to get worse. She’s going to keep forgetting more and more things.” He peered out the window and raised an index finger. “Hang on a second, okay?”

  He jumped out of the car and walked over to a blue Honda that had pulled up in front of Mrs. Underwood’s house. A young woman stepped out, then opened the back door and picked up a toddler. I saw Dad approach them and talk for a few moments, then the woman turned her face away from her little boy’s and wiped away a tear.

  Dad put his hand on her back and patted it a few times, still talking, then she finally nodded and went into Mrs. Underwood’s house.

  “Who was that?” I asked when he climbed back into the car.

  “Her daughter,” he said. “I found her phone number taped up on the refrigerator and I thought she should come over and check on her mom.”

  “Does she live alone? Mrs. Underwood?” Sometimes I still got scared of the dark, and I imagined Mrs. Underwood lying in bed alone, looking around and clutching the top of her sheet with both hands, just as she’d been clutching her pocketbook. Suddenly ending up in a strange place and not remembering how you’d gotten there sounded terrifying.

  “She lives alone now,” Dad said. “But she’s going to move in with one of her kids. They’re worried about her. They’re going to take care of her.”

  “She looked afraid,” I said in a small voice.

  Dad nodded. “It’s scary to lose pieces of yourself, which is kind of what’s happening to her. Try to remember that she had a good life, Julie. And she still has people who love her, no matter what happens.”

  Brightly colored cards wishing Scott Braverly a happy twenty-fourth birthday were still displayed on a table in the living room.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, giving me an easy smile. He was a big guy with a close-cropped Afro that didn’t hide the thick scar curving around the top of his right ear. He wore a burgundy Redskins’ football jersey and jeans, and I could see him passing Sunday afternoons around the television with a group of friends, shouting directions at the athletes and gobbling down buffalo wings and nachos.

  “It’s Julia,” I said. It was the third time he’d asked.

  His wife, Kimberly, gave me an apologetic smile. I couldn’t believe it when she’d opened the door and shaken our hands and fussed about putting away our coats. She was treating us like we were invited guests in her house. I don’t know what I’d expected—maybe that she’d slam the door in our faces instead of offering us squares of an Entenmann’s coffee cake and some decaf.

  I hadn’t known Scott was married. Would that make things better or worse for him? I wondered. Physically he and his wife weren’t alike—Kimberly was petite and had dainty features—but somehow, sitting side by side on their blue denim couch, they looked right together. There was a photo on the mantel with younger versions of them at what looked to be their high school prom. So they’d been together for a long time. Would Kimberly stay with him and learn to compensate for his condition, or would she eventually grow so frustrated and overwhelmed that she’d walk out?

  They lived in a condo in Alexandria, Virginia, in an area halfway between million-dollar luxury waterfront town houses and a run-down public housing complex. Their home reminded me a bit of the second apartment Michael and I had rented together—the nicer one, without the bugs. The living room was a good size, and the kitchen looked as if it had recently been remodeled. Kimberly worked as an administrative assistant at a trade association, she told us.

  “His mom comes over during the day,” she said, as casually as if she were discussing child-care arrangements for a toddler. “We’re lucky she lives close by.”

  I saw Michael close his eyes for just a moment. He hadn’t been able to eat any dinner before we came here.

  “Do you have a big family?” I asked Scott. I wanted him to say yes, to hear that there were brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins who’d step in to help him. But he shook his head. “No, not really.”

  Michael cleared his throat and wiped his palms on his pants legs.

  “I came here to tell you how sorry I am,” he began. Kimberly watched him with sharp brown eyes, and I saw then that, although she’d welcomed us inside, she hadn’t yet made up her mind. She didn’t know who to blame for what had happened to her husband.

  “I never should have signed those papers,” Michael said. “I failed you. You deserved more.”

  Silence hung in the room. I wondered if Scott would remember bits and pieces of this conversation, or if it would be wiped clear from his mind, like when a teacher erases a blackboard to
create a fresh slate for the next morning.

  “But it isn’t over yet.” Kimberly frowned. “I thought that was why you were here. About the lawsuit.”

  Michael shook his head. “I understand you want to sue. I don’t blame you. I’m just here to apologize.”

  Kimberly let out all her air with a whoosh. She was still frowning. “You didn’t come here to offer us more money? To see if we’d settle?”

  Michael shook his head. “I wish I could. But I’ve promised everything I have to other people. But if there’s anything else I can do—”

  Kimberly batted her hand at him, cutting off his words.

  “That other man told us to sue. He said we might get more money from you.”

  No one said anything for a long moment.

  “Other man?” Michael finally asked, his voice perfectly even.

  “The black-haired one who works with you? He came here a few weeks ago. What was his name? Dan? Dave? Something with a D. “

  Dale.

  A small, high-pitched noise came from the hallway, and I spun around, almost expecting to see Dale standing there, rubbing his hands together and cackling like a cartoon villain. But it was just a tiny girl in pink footsie pajamas, yawning and stumbling down the hallway. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of her.

  Kimberly stood up and reached for her daughter, but she ran to her father.

  “Ashley’s a daddy’s girl,” Kimberly said fondly. “Always has been, from the day she was born.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Michael said. I just nodded and watched Ashley nestle her head into the crook of Scott’s neck.

  “Hey, sweetie,” he was saying, his voice as gentle as a lullaby. “Did we wake you up? Want me to get you a bottle?”

  “Well. We should go and let your daughter get some rest.” Michael stood up quickly, and so did Scott and Kimberly. Scott was still holding Ashley in his left arm.

  Then Scott did something that surprised me; he stretched out his right hand. Instead of shaking it, Michael clung to it, sandwiching Scott’s big hand between his smaller ones.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said one final time, then he almost ran out of the apartment.

  I caught up to him by the elevator.

  “Can you drive?” Michael asked.

  “Of course.” His hand trembled as he passed me the car keys, making them jingle.

  We got into the car and drove toward home in silence. In the distance I saw the Washington Monument, pale and majestic against the night sky, and I remembered how it had felt to arrive in this town with Michael for the very first time. How our entire lives had stretched out before us, and anything had seemed possible.

  Bitterness rose in my throat as I realized I wasn’t surprised that Dale wanted to hurt Michael, to shame him. I could picture Dale considering different methods, as if he was turning around a ripe red apple, contemplating where to sink his sharp teeth first. Dale knew the new Michael cared more than anything about being a good person. Encouraging Scott to sue was the worst thing Dale could do to Michael, but not because of the money. It was because a lawsuit would force Michael to think about the type of man he’d been before.

  We were pulling into our driveway when Michael finally spoke.

  “The papers from the lawsuit? They were delivered to me today, when you were in the shower. Scott isn’t just suing the company, Julia. He’s suing me personally.”

  * * *

  Thirty-three

  * * *

  REGRET SEEMED TO BE eating Michael alive. Gaunt spaces were developing beneath his cheekbones, and his pants were starting to sag around his hips. His high-speed metabolism peeled the weight off of him so quickly it was shocking. I kept offering him bland foods, like bananas and grilled cheese sandwiches, but he never managed to choke down more than a few bites before he pushed his plate away. His insomnia was back, too; whenever I woke up in the middle of the night, I heard him restlessly moving under the covers.

  Ever since Michael had collapsed in the conference room, it was as if a new man, who was in many ways his emotional opposite, had slipped inside his skin. But now Michael was more haunted than ever. The difference was, the focus of his obsession had flipped from success to his failures.

  “I wanted so badly to fix things,” he’d whispered once when his movements woke me up and I asked if he was okay. His voice sounded raspy and worn in the darkness of our bedroom. “But I can’t.”

  Michael had always been visually oriented; once he’d told me that, when he read a novel, he saw the scenes skimming by, as if on a movie screen. I knew that trait must be tormenting him now as images of Brad and me entwined together played out in his head, and as he imagined little Ashley nestled in the crook of her father’s neck.

  As the days passed, Michael started to make an effort to act normally, to sit with me on the couch and sip the cup of coffee I’d poured for him and talk, but the questions he peppered me with during odd moments revealed his inner torment.

  “Did you stop loving me?” he asked me one morning right after I finished brushing my teeth.

  I wiped my face with a warm, wet washcloth to buy time while I thought about how to answer him as gently as possible. “I don’t know,” I finally said as I wrung out the washcloth and hung it over a towel rack. “I guess I didn’t feel like there was much love left in our marriage. I loved the you from long ago, and I loved what we once had, but …” My voice trailed off.

  “I was so oblivious,” he said. “At work I was on top of everything. I knew every single thing that happened at my company. I had the figures on how many units we sold in Connecticut every month, and I could tell you exactly how our social media expert was going to leverage Twitter to appeal to younger consumers. But with everything else, with everything that mattered …” He shook his head.

  I thought again of Noah’s illusion, and how my point of view had shaped the words on Roxanne’s e-mail, molding them into the picture I’d expected to see. The same was true for our marriage, in a way; Michael and I had switched vantage points, and now I was the cheater, the one who’d lost faith in us, while Michael had held tight to it all along. I thought back to the endless nights when I’d imagined Michael and Roxanne together as sickening feelings flooded me. Now I’d passed along all that pain to him.

  “We stopped talking,” he said. He wore a T-shirt and boxers, and his legs looked thin and pale in the bright light. He was still standing next to me in the bathroom, like we used to long ago when we got ready for the day ahead. Our eyes met in the mirror, and I wondered if he was thinking back to those times, too.

  “I know we did,” I said. “I used to blame you, but we were both at fault. I should’ve fought harder for us, for our marriage. I think having all the money, having this house—I viewed it as a trade-off. If you didn’t work so hard, I wouldn’t have gotten all of this, so I let your late nights slide. Maybe on some level I was scared we’d lose it if you slowed down.”

  Michael nodded slowly. “I know you haven’t understood why I wanted to sell the company, but do you see now? Just a little bit? It was toxic for us, Julia. The way we were living—it ruined our marriage. If I hadn’t—”

  The phone rang, cutting him off.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, keeping my voice casual.

  I hurried into the sitting area off our bedroom, before the caller could leave a message. I’d turned off the ringer on the downstairs phones yesterday after the third reporter called, but I’d forgotten about the upstairs phones.

  “Hello? He isn’t in right now,” I lied, keeping my voice low. I turned my back to the bedroom, hoping Michael couldn’t hear.

  “Who is this? His wife? What do you think about the lawsuit?” The reporter’s questions were as quick and fierce as the rattle of a machine gun. I hung up while she was still speaking.

  Michael’s story had barely faded from the headlines, and now it was back. Reporters had discovered the papers filing the lawsuit. It hadn’t taken long; maybe they’d
been tipped off by Scott and Kimberly’s lawyer, or perhaps Dale had placed a few anonymous calls. The latest twist in Michael’s saga had proved irresistible to the press: I’d picked up the Washington Post yesterday to see a quote printed on an inside page in big, bold letters: HE CAME TO VISIT, BUT HE DIDN’T OFFER US ANY HELP. HE JUST SAID HE WAS SORRY. The story also showed a photo of Scott with his daughter.

  As I put down the phone, I sensed someone behind me, and I turned to see Michael standing there.

  “You don’t have to hide what’s happening from me,” he said. “Kate called on my cell yesterday. She wanted to warn me because she’d gotten messages from the press, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought I was helping.”

  “You know what’s crazy? Six months ago, the bad press would’ve killed me. I would’ve been launching a huge offensive, trying to shut down all the stories. But now I could care less. All I can think about is that it doesn’t matter how much money I gave away. I helped some families, but look at how badly I hurt one. It erases everything good I did.”

  “Michael, it doesn’t,” I said. I’d never seen him like this; he looked beaten. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his posture was weary.

  He made a little gesture with a shoulder that wasn’t quite a shrug.

  “Do you want to go somewhere today?” I asked, trying to distract him. “We could go out to the hammock again. Or to Great Falls. Noah might be there.”

  “Sure, maybe in a little while,” Michael said, but there wasn’t any enthusiasm in his voice. He turned away from me and stared out the window. And I realized that I was losing my husband all over again.

  * * *

  Thirty-four

  * * *

  MICHAEL HAD ASKED ME for three weeks, and I was passing by our kitchen calendar when it hit me: Less than one remained. I stopped and stared at the four white squares marching across the page. They were all blank, which seemed fitting. I never could have anticipated what had happened to us in the past seventeen days—how could I plan for what lay ahead?