Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  The invitation was all it took for Nicole to let loose about the worry, the frustration, the anger. If she repeated herself at times, she didn’t care. Charlotte hadn’t seen Leo since Saturday, so Nicole felt like she had her back. “I have this sense of impending doom,” she concluded.

  “That’s melodramatic.”

  “I’m serious. Impending doom.”

  “More now than before?”

  Nicole considered that. “No. But doom can only be impending for so long. At some point, it has to hit, right?”

  “No,” Charlotte said. “Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease. It can go on for years with little change.”

  Julian wouldn’t put up with that, she knew, but she didn’t want to repeat it. Better to try to believe what Charlotte said. “You’re right. Definitely right.”

  “You’re working yourself up for nothing.”

  “I am. You’re right. And I shouldn’t criticize Julian. He’s doing the best he can.” She took a deep breath. “That’s better. Thank you.”

  “Want to go to Rockland?”

  “Today?” she asked, liking the thought. “To play?”

  “Absolutely. I didn’t bring enough clothes. Besides, tomorrow’s the holiday, so there’ll be extra ferries shuttling guests in today. We’ve done a lot on the book. We deserve a day off.”

  * * *

  They took the early boat to Rockland and spent the day shopping, viewing the Wyeth collection, even catching an afternoon movie at the Strand before heading back to the dock. In a different place, Nicole had an easier time focusing, though she regularly glanced at her phone. By the time they returned to Quinnipeague, every bit of her worry was back.

  * * *

  Charlotte was on edge simply because Nicole was. She didn’t believe in the business of impending doom, but Nicole was so serious about it that she wondered if there were things she didn’t know. There had been moments in Rockland when she was the same old chatty Nicole, other times when she was silent. Charlotte couldn’t force her to talk. All she could do was to stay close.

  That said, her mind did wander occasionally when she saw a man who was of the right age and build to be Leo’s father. She didn’t mention it to Nicole. Leo remained a sore spot with her.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon when they got back. They were dropping their things in the kitchen when Nicole’s phone rang. Her heart was thudding even before she saw Julian’s name. He didn’t usually call this early. “Hey, Jules,” she said in breathless surprise, praying that he had either changed his mind and was coming after all, or simply missed her enough to want to hear her voice. When he didn’t speak, she asked a frightened, “Everything okay?”

  His voice was quiet. “No. It’s out.”

  She gasped. “What do you mean, out?”

  “I was at a grant meeting with half a dozen surgeons when my right hand started to shake. I tried to put it in my lap, but it was pretty obvious.”

  “Maybe they didn’t see.”

  “They were staring at it, Nicole. Surgeons don’t like hand tremors.”

  “But these doctors don’t know you. Maybe they think that’s just how you are.” The argument was absurd, of course. Shaking was shaking. “At least it wasn’t in front of your team in Philly.”

  “Dan Ewing was there,” Julian said quietly. “He flew down last night and was at the meeting. He stayed behind when the others left and asked point-blank. When I didn’t immediately answer, he said he knew something was wrong—that he’d known it for a while—but didn’t know what it was. So I told him. I didn’t have a choice, Nicki. Giving evasive answers is one thing, lying outright is another.”

  “I understand,” she tried, “but Dan’s a friend. He’ll respect your need for privacy. He won’t go blabbing all over the hospital.”

  “Not all over the hospital, but he has an obligation to make sure certain people know. He’s head of the department. That puts him in a precarious position vis-à-vis responsibility and liability.”

  “But you haven’t operated in four years.”

  “It’s about transparency. He said I needed to tell Antoine. I just called him.”

  Nicole gasped again. “Omigod. What did he say?”

  “He went through the mumbo-jumbo about legalities and ethics, only it isn’t mumbo-jumbo. It’s what any hospital would do.”

  “He can’t ask you to leave.”

  “He can, but he didn’t. He was sympathetic.”

  “Like, upset?”

  “Stunned. He asked all the right questions. But friendship only goes so far. As president of the hospital, he has to put certain wheels in motion.”

  “What wheels?”

  “Whatever’s needed to protect the hospital. I won’t have to leave. I just have to pull back from everything related to treating patients. There’s paperwork involved. I have to notify my insurers. I have to document the history of my illness, so that if there’s a patient problem from two or three years ago, I can show that I’d already stopped holding the scalpel.”

  “It’s all there in the records, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it’ll take some digging to put it together. I took every precaution, Nicole. I was careful even before the diagnosis, because I wasn’t sure of my hands.” His voice shook. “The point is, it’s over. I need to talk with the department head here. I can assure him that I haven’t gone near patients, but he’ll have lawyers at his back, too. He may or may not want me to stay.” He exhaled. “Oh God. The consequences keep mounting. They may not want me here. I won’t be asked to talk at conferences. Same with being on TV. My career is done.”

  “No, Julian,” she argued, though her eyes had filled with tears, “it isn’t done. It’s just shifting.”

  “Same difference.”

  “But how are you feeling? You won’t tell me that.”

  “Because you don’t want to know.”

  “I do,” she insisted.

  “Okay, then. I’m feeling like this drug is having no effect at all. There’s no improvement. It’s just getting worse. The tremor today lasted for a good long time. The hand was shaking in my lap.” Nicole swallowed, about to speak when he added, “If this drug was going to help, it should have done so by now. I’ve read the literature, baby. The old ‘give it time’ routine won’t cut it, so save your breath. Once the holiday’s done, I’m calling Hammon.”

  Remembering his remark about Mexico, she felt a tiny spark of hope. “You haven’t gone looking elsewhere, then?”

  He was silent, then very quiet. “No. I said I would. But I’ve had to think about it. This isn’t an easy choice for me, Nicole. You think it is, but I do know the risks.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t. You don’t know what I’m feeling inside.”

  “You won’t tell me!”

  “No man likes to tell his wife that he’s scared.”

  Nicole’s heart broke for him. “You have a right to be scared. I’m scared, too! It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “It is if it paralyzes you. I don’t want to be paralyzed. I’d rather be a guinea pig.”

  Her stomach was churning. “Julian—”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t happen tomorrow. He’ll want to try an autologous transplant first.”

  Using his own cells was less risky, but her stomach continued to churn. “What would that entail?”

  “Maybe nothing. If my blood counts are too low, it’s a no-go.”

  “Then what?”

  “We use donor stem cells.”

  And if he resorted to donor cells, she knew exactly which ones he’d go for. “You want to try umbilical cord cells, but that’s so experimental,” she cried.

  “I have nothing to lose.”

  “You do,” she argued, frantic. “You react badly to these things. Okay, so this drug isn’t showing improvement yet, but if you’ve been tolerating it well—”

  “I haven’t. I’m jaundiced. Even Dan saw that. Jaundice means liver
problems, which is what the blood work is starting to show. It’ll only get worse if I stay on this drug.”

  She hadn’t known about the blood work. He had kept that from her, knowing she would panic. Struggling for control, she tried to think. “What does Keppler say?”

  “I haven’t told him yet. This is beyond him now, Nicki. Mark will search cord blood banks to find as close a match as he can.”

  “There has to be another drug—”

  “I’ve tried the best.”

  “Then something off-label.”

  He made a frustrated sound. “This isn’t nicotine addiction. I’ve made up my mind, Nicole. I want treatment with umbilical cord stem cells.”

  “You could die.”

  “I could live. Either way, I’ll have done something for medical research. Look at it from my point of view. I can’t treat my own patients anymore. This is one way I can still give.”

  My point of view. My patients. I, I, I. “What about me?” she shot back. “What about our marriage?”

  “Our marriage means the world to me, baby, but look at me. I can’t be the kind of husband I want to be,” he said with such defeat that her anger dissolved.

  “I’m flying down,” she said. “If I can’t get a flight tonight—”

  “Don’t,” he ordered, then entreated, “Please. I need to talk with Kaylin and John. And I need to call my parents. Explaining it is going to be hard for me. I need to be alone with it for a bit.”

  Nicole would have argued, if she hadn’t been so devastated. She was losing him, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to stop it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  CHARLOTTE HAD BEEN ROOTED TO the spot, barely breathing lest she miss a word. If it was wrong of her to be listening in on a discussion between husband and wife, her personal stake justified it. Besides, Nicole hadn’t turned away, though she wondered if Nicole even knew she was there. Her eyes were glazed, her hand trembling as she very quietly lowered the phone.

  Charlotte waited. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she whispered, “What?”

  Nicole looked up. Her face was ashen, her eyes the palest ghost of green. She moistened her lips, then swallowed.

  Rounding the table, Charlotte reached for her cold hand. “What happened?” She had been able to piece together parts of it, but not all.

  Nicole’s eyes welled. “It’s over.”

  “What is?”

  “Everything.”

  Horrified, Charlotte said, “He wants to kill himself?”

  “Not directly. But that’s what it amounts to.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “He’s just giving up.”

  “Because someone found out.”

  Nicole nodded. She seemed numb, which was nearly as frightening to Charlotte as anything else. Pulling her friend down into a chair, Charlotte took the one beside it and, holding both of Nicole’s hands tightly, said, “Talk to me, Nicki. Tell me what he said.”

  Nicole let out a long, tremulous sob and, in a broken burst, told her what had happened. By the end, Charlotte was holding her, trying to comfort her as she had done that first morning in town, though this time without success. Nicole was shaking all over when the story was done, eyes bleak, cheeks streaked with tears.

  “I can’t help him,” she whispered, looking helpless and confused. “He won’t let me in. Is that fair, Charlotte? Shouldn’t this be a decision we make together?”

  “It should be,” Charlotte said, though her mind was rushing in a frightened direction. If Julian was determined to use umbilical cord stem cells, she had a decision of her own to make.

  “He’s become totally selfish and self-absorbed,” Nicole cried. “I don’t know this man.”

  “You love him.”

  “Not this man.” Her eyes held shock at the words, then instant grief. “You’re right. I love him. I’d do anything to help him. But I’m out of the picture.”

  “You’re not—”

  “He doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Maybe there is,” Charlotte begged, desperate to give her hope. “Maybe he’s right about trying something totally different.”

  “He’ll die!”

  “He doesn’t have to.”

  “Like you can prevent it.”

  “Not me, but maybe—” She stopped. She wasn’t ready for this, knew that it would cause damage and that once out, it couldn’t be taken back. She didn’t know if it was the right thing to do at all. But remembering the sense of purpose she had felt in returning to Quinnipeague, she had to believe it was tied to this.

  “Maybe what?” Nicole cried, then begged, “Tell me, Charlotte. Anything.”

  In mere seconds, with Nicole looking at her like she was the only one who could possibly help, Charlotte wavered a dozen times, weighing the knowledge that Nicole would be hurt against the possibility that Julian might be saved. In the end, it was a moral issue. Hurt could be handled; death could not.

  “Umbilical cord cells,” she said with barely a breath.

  “No no! That’s what I don’t want! I don’t care how close the match is, Julian’s body will reject it. It’s rejected everything else. If I’d had a baby, we’d have frozen the cord blood and had a better chance with that, but I don’t have a baby.”

  “I do,” Charlotte mouthed, afraid to say the words aloud.

  Nicole’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “I had a baby,” Charlotte said softly. “I gave her up for adoption, but there’s cord blood. I own it until she turns eighteen.”

  Nicole let out a frustrated breath. “That won’t help. You can’t just take any cord blood and think it’ll work, not with Julian’s body.”

  Charlotte stared at her, frozen in a last minute of indecision. There was still time to take it back, just say that she’d gotten pregnant after she left here.

  But she couldn’t say that. It would have been an outright lie—and through all of this, ten summers before and now, she had never lied outright to Nicole. Sweet, innocent, generous, and kind Nicole. Impending doom? Absolutely. It was ready to hit. But as painful as the truth was, life was life and still the most precious thing in the world.

  So she didn’t take anything back, simply stared at Nicole until she figured it out.

  * * *

  It took a minute, not because the idea didn’t come, but because it was so off-the-charts impossible that Nicole couldn’t believe it. But Charlotte had to know she was thinking it and didn’t correct her. Not impossible, then. But wrong, so wrong that she had trouble taking it in. “Julian’s baby?”

  Charlotte’s nod was so small that Nicole might have missed it if she hadn’t been watching closely.

  Sitting straight, she put a hand on her chest. “You had Julian’s baby? You and Julian … together?”

  “Just once. Before you were married.”

  In a sickening instant, Nicole saw a tangle of arms and legs, the lock of undulating bodies. With the scrape of chair legs on the tile floor, she rose and stepped back. “You and Julian?”

  “It was an accident. We were drunk.”

  Nicole wanted to misunderstand, but the guilt on Charlotte’s face wouldn’t let her. She backed up farther, needing to distance herself from the words, but they didn’t fade. Barely able to breathe, she continued to stare at Charlotte, seeing something totally different from what should have been there, someone she didn’t know at all. And Julian? Her husband?

  For a minute, she felt faint enough to pass out. All it took to recover was Charlotte coming toward her and she shot out a hand, stop.

  “Don’t touch me,” she whispered and fled into the Great Room, which was as far as her legs would take her. Sinking against the edge of the sofa, she tried to take in what Charlotte had said, but her thoughts were fragmented, torn by questions that had nowhere to go but out.

  Jumping up, she ran back to the kitchen. Charlotte hadn’t moved.

  “When did this happen?” she asked. She needed to
know. Didn’t know why. Just needed to know.

  Charlotte looked terrified. “A month before the wedding. It was like a circus here. We were painting guest rooms, moving furniture, trying to decide where the tent would go.”

  It was a blur to Nicole. “What night?”

  “Saturday, I guess, because he left the next day. You have no idea how sorry—”

  “What time?”

  Charlotte flinched. “I don’t know. We were all exhausted. Julian had been making margaritas.”

  “Where was I?”

  “You were with us for a while.” She swallowed. “Then you went to bed. We could feel the margaritas, so we switched to wine. We were drunk, Nicki. It didn’t mean anything.”

  And that was supposed to make it all right? Nicole stared at her in disbelief. Unable to even begin to respond, she walked out. Seconds later, though, she was back. There were more questions. Asking them seemed her only link to sanity. “When did you know you were pregnant?”

  “Not until after I left here.”

  “And you’re sure it was Julian’s?”

  “I hadn’t been with anyone else in ten months.”

  “Ten months,” Nicole echoed. “Exactly ten months.” Were there that many men? “You keep count?”

  Charlotte held her gaze. “Not the way you mean. I agonized afterward. Getting drunk isn’t my style. I wanted to know why I did it that night. So I dug back. I remember feeling lonely. There was so much happiness here, but I remember feeling alone.”

  “We included you in everything.”

  “Yes, you did, but you were planning a wedding. I had been planning one the year before—not planning, just dreaming. I’d done a piece in Sweden and met a guy and thought that was it.”

  Nicole was skeptical. It sounded like just another excuse. “You never mentioned it.”

  “It ended badly. I couldn’t talk about it. I didn’t want to think about it. But after a few drinks, I must have been. I must have been wondering if I was right to break up with him and if there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t find love and if I’d ever have my day walking down the aisle.”

  “So you screwed my husband instead.”