by Noah Bly
I feel as if I have a fever. My head is throbbing, my mouth is dry and a thin layer of cold sweat is covering my skin. As much as I’ve grown to loathe Arthur in the last year, one thing is certain: I do not want him to die in this dreadful place, with his chest opened up under hot bright lights, and tubes sticking from his body, and the smells of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant filling the air.
He’s Arthur Donovan, and he deserves better than that.
Oh, Arthur.
Don’t you dare die on me yet, old man. If anything kills you, it should be me.
Caitlin glares over my shoulder at Alex and Eric. “You two don’t belong here. This is a family matter.”
I face her down. “Alex is with me, Caitlin, and he isn’t going anywhere. And Eric drove us here, and will likely need to take us home, too.”
Martha shifts in her chair. “Good God, Hester, you’re drunk! I can smell it from here.”
I look down at her with as much courtesy as I can muster. “Hello, Martha. How are you holding up?”
The question seems to startle her. She studies my face for a long time, and her lovely pointed chin quivers. “Not well,” she mutters at last, reluctantly. She pauses again before forcing her next words out. “And you?”
I have some idea what those two syllables cost her, and for an instant the blistering hatred I feel for her cools the tiniest bit.
I shrug. “About the same.”
She nods and drops her eyes. “I know.”
She picks up a New Yorker magazine from her lap and pretends to read.
Thank God that’s over. As long as she stays quiet and continues to ignore me from here on, there’s a chance she may live to see the end of this day.
Caitlin was attempting to flay Alex with her gaze as Martha and I were speaking, but now she returns her attention to me.
“I understand Paul’s in jail.” She snorts. “I assume you had something to do with that?”
I unbutton my coat. “You assume incorrectly. Paul assaulted Evan this afternoon in their shack, and Evan called the police.”
She grunts. “I see.” A flicker of what might be amusement passes through her eyes. “With any luck they’ll execute him.”
“Amen,” Alex whispers behind me.
Caitlin stiffens, and I intervene before she can begin her attack.
“Hush, Alex,” I say over my shoulder. “Why don’t you and Eric go get some coffee?”
“Okay.” He touches my arm. “But I’ll check back in a few minutes and see how you’re doing.”
I smile at him. “Thank you, dear. Please do.”
The boys exit, in a hurry, and I watch them through the glass as they pass out of sight down the hall. Eric clearly has no desire to be here, and is probably regretting his decision to function as our designated driver. In the car on the way here he was quiet; when Alex asked him if he needed to be someplace else anytime soon, he said he was supposed to meet some young lady named Sofia for supper, but he could change those plans if necessary. Alex’s jaw tightened at this information, and for the rest of the ride he was silent, too.
Poor Alex. No amount of jealousy on his part will alter Eric’s sexual orientation, and wishing for things to be otherwise will only make him miserable. Still, it’s good to see that Eric has apparently forgiven him, and is willing to be friends after all.
I wonder what made him change his mind since their conversation this morning.
“Hester?”
Caitlin recaptures my attention. My mind is wandering about like a ferret.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
She makes a face. “Don’t call me that, please. I wouldn’t want anyone to think we were close.”
Martha snickers into her magazine.
It seems the gloves may be coming off, after all.
No. I recall my resolution, and keep a bridle on my temper. I will not make a scene.
“Very well,” I sigh. “What shall I call you that will meet with your approval?” I remove my coat and sit in the row facing them.
Caitlin stares down at me for a moment then sits again as well, in the chair next to Martha.
“Caitlin will do,” she mutters. There’s a long pause, and when she speaks again, she’s slightly less antagonistic. “Anyway, I hate to say this, but do you think we should attempt to bail Paul out of jail so he can be here?”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It seems the decent thing to do, don’t you think?”
I shake my head. “As intoxicated as he was this morning, I’m fairly certain the police won’t be releasing him for many hours yet, even if we were foolish enough to post his bail.”
She leans forward. “So you did see him earlier today.”
“Yes. He stopped by the house before his brawl with Evan, to bully me into evicting Alex. He also insisted I relocate myself to the gulag.”
I almost tell her about Paul’s confrontation with Alex in the street, then decide not to. The fewer people who know about that, the better.
Caitlin sniffs. “You should evict Alex, Mother. You had no business letting him move into the house in the first place.”
It’s clear she wants a fight, and it’s all I can do not to give her one.
I search in my purse for a mint. “Let’s not argue, please. This isn’t the time or place for it.”
The reality of that statement creeps up on me, and I take a shaky breath as another wave of anxiety over Arthur surges through my chest.
Dear God. I really may never see him again.
I recoil from that thought, and nearly retch. Life without Arthur in my house is acceptable, but life without Arthur at all is unthinkable. I couldn’t bear to lose him. Not this way.
The night Caitlin was born, Arthur was on tour in Australia. (Caitlin was premature by over a month, and so caught us by surprise.) When I reached him with the news, he immediately cancelled the rest of his performances and flew home to be with us. He came stumbling into town two days later, exhausted from the journey but carrying roses for me and a koala bear and kangaroo mobile for Caitlin’s crib, and he cried as he held her for the first time.
When Jeremy got in a fight in second grade with an older, bigger boy who gave him a black eye, I had to pry the phone out of Arthur’s hand to keep him from challenging the other boy’s father to a duel. And when Paul got a severe case of food poisoning, Arthur sat by his bed in the hospital all night, reading to him and watching old westerns on the television, and pestering the night nurse with anxious questions about Paul’s condition.
My Arthur.
Arthur in my bed, Arthur in the shower. Arthur lifting me off my feet and kissing me on the staircase at the conservatory, the day I was given tenure. Arthur attempting to dance, Cossack-style, at a Russian festival in St. Louis, and knocking four other men down, like dominoes, when he fell. Arthur pursuing me around the house with his violin, playing sappy, gypsy love songs by way of an apology for an argument we’d had; Arthur on the front porch with three-year-old Jeremy, trying to teach him solfeggio syllables for an aria by Bizet. Arthur in the kitchen one midnight, wearing nothing but a Batman beach towel and a pair of dress socks, lecturing Paul about upholding the dignity of the Donovan name by respecting the family curfew rule—then bursting into laughter when he realized how absurd he looked.
So many, many good moments, just like these. Thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands. Can this truly be the end of all that?
If it is, I won’t be able to stand it.
What good is my life without Arthur?
Unfortunately, Martha chooses this exact moment to drop the magazine in her lap and begin to blubber. “I simply don’t know what I’ll do if Arthur dies,” she sobs. “He’s my whole life.”
Caitlin and I stare at her for a moment, then we look at each other and she rolls her eyes.
Martha puts her face in her hands and convulses with grief, and there’s no power in the universe that can make me hold my tongue any longer.
“There, there,” I say dryly. “I daresay you’ll soon find another woman’s husband to fornicate with.”
Her head snaps back on her neck so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t fly off her torso and take out the vending machine behind her. She balls her hands into fists, and her chair creaks as she leans forward.
“I will not put up with any more of your ugliness, Hester. I’m warning you right now.” Her mascara is a mess from weeping, and when she squints at me she looks like a demented raccoon. “I have more of a right to be here than you, and you know it, and if I have to, I’ll have you thrown out.”
I laugh. “If that’s the case, why was I the one who just filled out all the insurance forms? Could it possibly have anything to do with my last name still being Donovan, while yours isn’t?”
She fumes. “That’s only because your divorce isn’t final, and Arthur hasn’t yet had time to make the appropriate changes.”
I nod. “No doubt that’s true. Nonetheless, I’m still legally married to Arthur Donovan, and you’re not. Shall we speak to the nurse and see which of us she chooses to remove?”
She clutches at her sweater and beads of sweat sprout on her upper lip. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I glance over at the admitting desk and raise my hand. “Oh, yoo-hoo! May we have a moment of your time?”
“Hush, Hester,” Caitlin admonishes.
The nurse is on the phone and doesn’t notice me. I open my mouth to call out to her again.
“Stop it, Mother,” Caitlin insists. “Don’t be malicious.”
I blink at her in disbelief. “Surely I didn’t just hear the word ‘malicious’ from you. Aren’t you the same woman who once told her ailing grandmother her breath smelled like the inside of a diaper pail?”
She blinks back. “For God’s sake, Hester. I must have been sixteen at the time. How long have you been waiting to use that against me?”
“Ever since the moment it came out of your mouth, of course.” I resume my search for a mint. “I knew I’d eventually get a chance.”
Martha isn’t through with me yet. “You may be Arthur’s wife, Hester, but we both know who he loves.”
I study her closely. “You have food caught in your teeth, dear,” I lie. “It’s very unattractive.”
She closes her mouth and runs her tongue over her teeth, checking. I can tell that Caitlin is entertained by this, but she tries to cover it up by patting Martha’s arm in a kindly fashion.
“You’re fine, Martha. Don’t pay any attention to her.”
“You are such a child, Hester,” Martha huffs. “I have no idea why Arthur put up with you as long as he did.”
Alex and Eric are coming back down the hall, walking slowly. Eric is only carrying one styrofoam cup but Alex has two; presumably they found a coffee machine, and he’s bringing some for me. Coffee sounds wonderful right now. The elevator doors open behind them, and they make room for a pair of orderlies who exit the elevator, pushing a bearded male patient on a table with wheels. It’s not Arthur, but he looks similar enough to spin my mind out, yet again.
Somewhere else in this building are the operating rooms, and in one of these operating rooms is Arthur, being dissected like a frog. He’s a supreme violinist and a brilliant man, a teacher and a father, and his damaged heart is literally being held in someone else’s hands at this very moment, as the surgeons try to save his life.
And meanwhile, I sit in this godforsaken waiting room, exchanging insults with this frivolous, beastly woman. In my mind’s eye I can see him there, under the knife, as surely as if I were standing beside the doctors and nurses as they cut into his big, burly body.
His body. I know every hair on his chest, every wrinkle on his brow, every muscle and pouch of fat on his abdomen. I know every scar, every mole, and every freckle on his back, and I know the soles of his feet and the nails on his fingers, and I know the contour and texture of his penis, and I know where he’s ticklish on his aging, ample bottom. There is no part of him I haven’t touched and fondled a thousand times, no spot on him I haven’t kissed and stroked and tasted.
Every inch of his body belongs to me—up to and including his sick, weak old heart. I hold it in my hands, too, this very instant, just like a surgeon, and feel it beating.
I have no doubt Martha loves him, but there is no way on this earth she can feel his presence right now the way I do. She may have been his mistress for a long time, but I have been his wife for close to half a century, and I will not allow her to pretend that what she has with him can ever compare to what Arthur and I have meant to each other, regardless of how this last year has pulled us apart.
I finally find a mint and pop it into my mouth, framing a reply to Martha as the boys enter the waiting room.
“I don’t know how he put up with me, either,” I tell her. “But let me tell you what I do know.” I gaze into her eyes without pity. “I do know we had thirty good years together before he began his relationship with you, and in those thirty years we raised three children together, and we shared a house and a bed, and a great deal of love. I know that even after he began cheating on me, he was still coming home to me for another fifteen years, night after night, when he could have chosen to leave me at any time and move in with you.”
I pause to take a quick breath and go on before she has a chance to offer a rebuttal. “I also know the only reason he finally decided to divorce me was because he’s afraid of getting old, and afraid of dying, and being with a younger, prettier woman allows him to pretend he isn’t nearing the end of his life.”
My voice is gruff as Alex and Eric come to stand by my chair; I summon my last bit of courage to finish my speech. “And most of all, I know that he’s with you, Martha, because the guilt he’s been carrying all these years for Jeremy’s death finally caught up to him last year, and being around me makes it impossible for him to repress or avoid his part in our son’s suicide.”
I’m referring, of course, to what Arthur finally chose to reveal to me only last year, on the same night he told me was leaving me. And just like that, the memory of that terrible evening comes crashing back all at once, and I’m helpless to block it out.
Arthur was in his office, mourning, when I found him. I was on my way to the attic to get another box of Jeremy’s things for Goodwill, because we had finally gotten around to preparing the attic apartment for use as a rental unit. I stopped at the office door and asked what was wrong.
I was struggling to hold back my own tears at the time, too. Getting rid of Jeremy’s things was taking a major toll on me, even though by then he’d been dead for more than twelve years. It was especially difficult because Arthur hadn’t been able to bring himself to help. The attic had been unused all this while, and though we both knew it was for the best to convert it into a rental space—instead of letting it continue to serve as a tomb for the dead—the actual act of removing our son’s belongings was proving to be far more traumatic than we had anticipated. Arthur had gone up with me once to look around at the wreckage, but he had bolted for the stairs after one glance through the window in the kitchen that overlooked the driveway.
Now he had his face in his hands and he glanced up, startled to find me standing there. He had aged so much in the last decade, I could barely fathom the change. His coal-black hair had turned solid gray, and he was stooped in his chair, and his skin was pallid and loose on his face. He looks so old, I remember thinking. Then again, I reflected, the years had treated me no better.
It took him a while to register that I’d asked him a question. “I don’t really know what’s wrong,” he answered. “I came up here to do some work, and …” he broke down again.
I walked over to him and pulled his head to my breast. He clutched my waist and wept, and I kissed the top of his head and hummed to him until he quieted.
He pulled back finally and raised his face. “There’s something I have to tell you, Hester,” he rasped. “I should have said something a long time ago, but it was
too hard.”
His expression was so earnest and sad, it wrenched my heart. I stroked his hair and nodded. “All right. I’ll listen.”
His jaw tightened as he fought for control. “I knew Jeremy was going to kill himself before he did it.”
I flinched. We hadn’t spoken about Jeremy or his death since the days following his funeral. It was too painful for both of us.
I shook my head. “Of course you didn’t, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Jeremy and I kept you in the dark about all the times I found him up there.”
Nine times. I found him up there nine times, to be exact. And there was still hardly a day that went by when I didn’t recall all nine of them, one after another, and think about the things I should have said, and what I should have done differently.
I called my mind back to the present. “How could you have known what he was going to do?”
He winced. “Because he came to talk to me about it the month before he died.”
My hand stopped moving in his hair. “He did?”
He nodded against my stomach. “Up at Carson. In my studio.”
I couldn’t have been more stunned. Until then I’d believed Jeremy had no other confidant but me, and I had no idea why Arthur had never said anything about this before.
I disengaged myself from him with a weary sigh and seated myself on a leather footstool near his desk. (The chair he was ensconced in was the only one in the room. Arthur liked it that way, to discourage visitors from staying overlong in his private domain.) I was suddenly bone-tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor to sleep, but I squared my shoulders and tried to prepare myself for whatever it was he had to tell me.
“What did you speak about?” I finally asked.
He smoothed his hair and dropped his eyes. “He was distraught about several things.”
“I’d imagine so.” I crossed my legs and looked around the room. Arthur’s office was a mess; there were piles of paper everywhere, and hundreds of books overflowing the shelves and taking over the floor. Many of them were open and face down, as if he’d begun reading them and been forced to abandon them mid-sentence. I took a breath and focused on him again. “What was upsetting him the most when he came to see you?”
