by Wendy Wax
There were benchmarks as small as Emma’s first trip to the bathroom alone, an accomplishment she clearly relished and which won her an entire half hour of privacy there interrupted only by Nadia’s gentle (for her) knock. “Just checking you not on floor in pool of blood.”
When Emma managed to dress herself, she received one-third of a white wine spritzer, which she savored with two of Martha’s fudge brownies, a reward Emma admitted she would go to great lengths for. And about which Nadia observed, “Next time put brownie crumbs on stair steps. Get down faster.”
On the tenth day, physical therapy moved from the front porch to the yard and Emma sweated through it in an ancient one-piece bathing suit and a battered baseball cap over the thickening red-gold stubble that now covered her head. Her efforts were focused on what she announced as her ultimate goal: getting to the beach and into the lake, which Bob Fortson agreed would be a great place to build strength.
They gathered in Emma’s bedroom at night to watch television. There Emma claimed to feel like Rocky Balboa training for his first big fight—a movie Serena chose the first night—only minus the raw egg and the sweat clothes. Rocky was followed by Chariots of Fire, Braveheart, Seabiscuit, and Miracle, films Emma said she appreciated but mostly slept through. Mackenzie was cueing up The Rookie the night Emma called a halt. “Enough. I promise I’m fully motivated. I need some escape here.” At which point Serena pulled out Ethan’s gift basket so that they could binge-watch I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke episodes. Emma didn’t necessarily stay awake all the way through these programs either but, Mackenzie noticed as they tiptoed quietly out of the master bedroom, at least they put Emma to sleep smiling.
But even as Emma improved, Zoe’s worry never seemed to lessen. “Would you like another cookie?” Mackenzie asked her one afternoon when Emma had gone up to rest.
“Yes, please,” Zoe replied.
“Do you want to come to the grocery with me?” Serena asked.
“No, thank you,” Zoe replied. “After Mom gets up, I’m going to sit with her.”
Mackenzie and Serena exchanged glances.
“Colleen McAfee called,” Mackenzie said, putting the cookies on a plate. “She wanted to know if you’d like to go to the club with them tomorrow.” The Lake George Club, which the Michaelses had been members of since the original Valburn had been built, was maybe a half mile away.
“No, I’m good here, thanks.” This had been Zoe’s response to every invitation and opportunity to leave the cottage no matter for how short a time. Even an invitation to go out on the Jet Ski with Jason had been politely turned down.
When Emma was with them Zoe positioned herself inches away from her. When they ate, Zoe watched each forkful that went into Emma’s mouth as if figuring out calories and nutrients and checking them off on a list.
“Am I the only one who’s finding this behavior of Zoe’s alarming?” Serena asked when Zoe had gone upstairs to see if Emma needed anything. “She’s practically superglued to Emma’s side and she’s scarily polite.”
“Her mother almost died,” Mackenzie said. “Did you expect her to be out partying all night and engaging in shouting matches with Emma?”
“I’m just saying it seems like a little acting out would be more normal. She’s become like some Stepford child. And have you noticed she hasn’t gone farther than the cove? Not once. Not to the store. Not for a walk. Not even for an ice cream cone. And you know that club has to be filled with teenage boys right now.”
They were lingering on the porch one afternoon after lunch the day Zoe turned down an invitation to go out on a local friend’s family boat to see the Thursday night fireworks.
“I don’t want to go. I want to be here,” Zoe said to Emma. “With you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Zoe,” Emma said softly. “Really. I’m getting stronger every day. Even Nadia thinks so. Tell her, Nadia.”
“Is true. Not exactly ready for Soviet team, but better.”
“Tomorrow I’m going in the water even if I have to crawl the last few yards on my belly to get there,” Emma said. “I’m serious, Zoe. I want you to go out and have some fun. You deserve it.”
But after Nadia helped Emma upstairs to rest that afternoon, Serena and Mackenzie found Zoe pacing the beach. They led her to a trio of Adirondack chairs and motioned her into the middle chair, trapping her between them in a fairy godmother sandwich.
“Zoe, you’re going to have to let go a bit. You heard your mother. She wants you to leave occasionally, have a good time,” Serena said. “I think she’d even welcome a little bratty teenage behavior.”
“I can’t do it.”
“I know you can see how much she’s improved,” Mackenzie said soothingly. “She’s never going to be left here alone.”
Zoe shook her head. “Every time I look at her I see her lying there on the street. In that coma in the hospital. Fighting off that infection. All of it’s my fault.”
“No. It’s not,” Serena replied. “It was an accident, Zoe. One she doesn’t even remember.”
“But one day she’s going to.” Zoe stared out at the lake as she talked. “I see her concentrating sometimes, trying to remember things. Like she knows there’s stuff there and she’s trying to get it back. I know you’ve seen it, too.”
Mackenzie nodded. Every once in a while Emma would startle when she walked into a room, then stare at Mackenzie intently as if something were hovering there and if she only held still long enough, it would come to her.
“Dr. Markham seems certain she’ll never remember the day of the accident or even most of what happened in the hospital.” Mackenzie reached a hand out and placed it on the back of Zoe’s neck.
“Dr. Markham deals with head trauma all the time,” Serena added. “The more-distant past is all there, but even the things happening now get kind of jumbled for her.”
“But what if he’s wrong?” Zoe whispered. Her arms wrapped around her bare midriff, and her eyes stayed on the distant shore of the lake. “What if one day she looks at me and it all comes back to her? What if she remembers our fight about that stupid movie and all the nasty things I said to her? What if she remembers chasing after me? What if she remembers that van that hit her?”
Tears streamed unchecked down Zoe’s cheeks. Mackenzie ached for her. “Aw, Zoe, honey. You need to let go of this. Your mother loves you more than anything. She wouldn’t want you to feel this way even if she remembered every single detail.” Mackenzie might have been denied the daughter she’d dreamed of having, but she knew this with absolute certainty.
“I can’t go out and have fun like nothing happened. I can’t do it. I don’t want to.”
They sat in silence for a time as gulls wheeled overhead and boats crisscrossed each other’s wakes out in the lake.
“Interesting,” Serena said. “I don’t remember Emma or your grandmother ever mentioning any Catholic or Jewish ancestors, so I’m not sure where all this guilt is coming from.”
Zoe turned to look at Serena. So did Mackenzie.
“But I’m wondering, is there a certain amount of penance you’re planning to do? Or is this a lifetime commitment of misery?”
Zoe blinked.
“Are you thinking two weeks? A month? Until your twenty-first birthday?”
Mackenzie raised an eyebrow, impressed with Serena’s calm logic.
“You might want to give this some thought,” Serena said. “The timing of it, I mean. Because if you’re not going to be available to come in and record your part on As the World Churns next week, I’m going to have to let Ethan know so that he has time to find someone else.
“Oh.” Zoe’s face registered her surprise. Her eyes were still wet, but the tears had stopped falling.
“I figured we’d stay over in the city. Maybe go see Once on Broadway. A good friend of mine has the second lead.” Mack
enzie could see that Zoe was trying not to react. She herself was trying not to smile. “We’d come back the next day.”
Serena shot Mackenzie a wink over Zoe’s head. The woman might not know anything about parenting, but she seemed to understand how to make an offer that was too good to refuse.
“We’re going to go check on Em,” Serena said. “ But I’ll give you an hour to think about the New York trip. If you just don’t feel like you can do it, let me know. And I’ll call Ethan.”
They left Zoe sitting in the Adirondack chair staring out over the lake. They were careful not to look back as they made their way up the yard and the porch steps. “Wow, I have to say that was really impressive,” Mackenzie said.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Serena said. “Who knew watching The Godfather so many times would come in so handy? If I weren’t afraid she’d turn around and catch me, I’d be patting myself on the back.”
On the porch, they turned for a quick look. Zoe was hunched over seemingly staring at her feet. “Do you want to lay odds on what she decides?” Serena asked.
Mackenzie shook her head. “I don’t want to take a chance on jinxing anything. And I guess it’s safe to assume that whatever she decides, no one will be finding a horse head when they wake up tomorrow morning?”
Emma lay prone on the L-shaped dock, the brim of her baseball cap pulled low, one hand shielding her eyes from the late morning sun. The fingers of her other hand trailed in the water. “This is one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ moments. Why did I think I wanted to do water exercises?”
“Good question.” Mackenzie lay head-to-head, their bodies stretched out in opposite directions on the thin stretch of dock.
“What kind of masochist am I?”
“I don’t know,” Mackenzie said. “How many kinds are there?”
Emma smiled. “I thought it would hurt less in the water.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Kind of. But I still feel like I just ran a marathon. I’m so tired of being tired all the time.”
She could hear Bob on the beach packing up the floaties and other equipment he’d brought with him for the water workout. Nadia sat under a tree nearby talking softly, for her, in Russian on her cell phone. From the lake came occasional shouts and the whir of engines.
“I’m glad Zoe went with Serena,” Emma said. “I was afraid she was going to sit here all summer worrying.”
“Yeah.”
They fell silent. Emma heard the low hum of an engine, felt the vibration of a boat stirring the water as it approached. She was too tired and too comfortable to move.
“Ahoy there, matey!” A male voice called out.
Before Emma could get her eyes all the way open and her arm out of the water, Mackenzie had sprung to her feet. Other feet pounded toward them on the dock, causing it to shake. Before the boat had reached them, Bob and Nadia had moved to either side of Emma.
“No, it’s . . .” Emma began.
“Stop right there,” the physical therapist shouted to the driver of the boat, who’d cut speed but made no attempt to stop.
Nadia helped Emma up then tried to put her behind her broad back, but the deck was way too narrow. “Nyet! Halt! Don’t closer!”
The driver idled the engine then turned it off completely. The boat floated in on its momentum, horizontally aligned to the dock, an impressive parallel parking job relying only on wind, current, and experience. Emma reached out to grab the side of the boat.
“No, don’t!” Bob lost his footing and fell into the water with a loud splash. Nadia windmilled her massive arms. Just when it looked as if she’d regained her balance, she fell to the side, pulling Mackenzie in with her.
“Some bodyguards you’ve got there.” The voice was wry with amusement. “Kind of reminded me of a Three Stooges movie I saw one time.”
Emma caught and tied a line to the cleat on the dock. “How have you been?”
“That’s what I came here to ask you,” Jake Richards, longtime neighbor and first crush, said as he stepped onto the dock.
Nineteen
Serena and Zoe had just relaxed into the backseat of the limo that Ethan Miller had sent for them, when Serena’s cell phone rang. A glance confirmed that it was the call she’d both anticipated and dreaded, the one she’d convinced herself was not going to happen. The one that had been placed from a Charleston, South Carolina, number that she’d recently memorized, and that happened to belong to one Brooks Anderson II.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Zoe asked, looking up from her own cell phone.
Despite the anticipatory dread, Serena had not completely decided the answer to Zoe’s question. She knew she should just drop the call. Except that there was a tiny part of her that wanted to at least hear his voice and what he had to say, so maybe she should let him leave a message? Her thumb began to move, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. Instead of hitting the drop button it accepted the call.
“Hello?”
She glanced at Zoe. If she’d been alone, Serena would already be speaking with some foreign accent. Pretending to be someone else so she could hang up the phone.
“Serena?” The voice was rich and full and confident.
She hadn’t heard it for more than two decades except in her memory. Yet it was exactly as she’d remembered it, maybe better. Warm and husky with the long, drawn-out vowels and prep school delivery of home.
“Serena? Are you there?”
Her hands felt clammy. Her heart beat too fast. Her breathing turned shallow but there was no way in hell she’d let him know that. Just as she did before stepping on a stage, she drew a deep calming breath, tuned out everything else, and imagined her mind cleansed of all the excess debris, like a desk that’s cleared, so that only the essential remained. “Who’s calling?” Serena asked impatiently.
“It’s Brooks.”
She said nothing.
“Brooks Anderson.”
He had placed the call. He had some purpose she did not want to speculate about for getting in touch. It was, in essence, his dime. She would not make it easier.
“I . . .” He paused and she half expected an apology, which she could either reject or pretend to accept before ending the call, getting herself off the line. Out of harm’s way. “I’m calling because I’ve accepted an assignment in New York. I arrived yesterday and I’m going to be here for the next six weeks.”
Her thoughts skittered to a stop. Restarted. He’d called before he flew up and had continued to call after he arrived. She could not imagine why. Did not want to imagine why.
“Ironic, I know.” His tone turned self-deprecating. But he didn’t add any of the things she realized she was hoping to hear. That he’d made a huge mistake not coming twenty-odd years ago. That he’d married the wrong woman. Lived the wrong life. All he said was, “I’d really love to take you out to dinner to catch up. It would be great to see you.”
Serena exhaled the breath she’d been holding. Now was the moment to tell him she had no interest in anything but an apology. Except asking for an apology would indicate that she still thought about him, that he still mattered. Did she want him to know that his choice, his rejection of her, had altered the course of her life every bit as much as it had his? That it had left her feeling, not really worth marrying, not truly desirable, just not enough, no matter how many times she’d denied it to everyone but James Grant, MD, PhD? No way in hell.
“Why? What would be the point?”
She sensed the surprise in his silence and smiled grimly.
“I don’t know that I’m interested in a walk down memory lane,” she said in an intentionally casual tone. “Plus I’m staying up at a friend’s place on Lake George. I’ll only be in and out of town for work on occasion.”
“Yes,” he said. “I read about Emma Michaels’s accident and release fr
om the hospital. I’m glad she’s okay. I remember you mentioning her the last time we spoke.” So he remembered that last call, the night she’d drunk dialed him and cried so pitifully.
“I understand if you don’t want to see me, Serena. It’s been a lot of years. But I’m here for the next six weeks. I’m happy to meet at your convenience when you’re in town. Or I can come to where you are. I know it’s not the Lowcountry, but I hear the Adirondacks are quite spectacular. My time is my own.”
What the hell did that mean? Was he divorced? Separated? Or simply an adulterer? No, her mother would have told her if he were any of those things.
She felt Zoe’s eyes on her and realized she hadn’t said anything for some time. Neither had Brooks Anderson. She stared out the window watching the scenery flash by. Now was the moment she’d been waiting for and didn’t think would ever come. Her opportunity to cut him off at the knees, to tell him that the next time she’d see him would be in hell, or better yet, when hell had frozen over. She could close the loop right now. She could have her say and then finally move on.
But before she could open her mouth, she was waffling, wondering. Wouldn’t it be better to do this in person so that she could see his face when she told him what an asshole he’d been? What he’d missed out on?
She averted her head so that Zoe wouldn’t see how hard this was for her. Despite everything she was ridiculously tempted to see Brooks one last time. Thank God Zoe’s presence helped her resist that temptation.
Mackenzie lay in what she’d come to think of as “her” hammock, her laptop propped on her stomach, watching Emma do her water exercises. Smiling over Emma’s protests and attempts to get Nadia into the water and working out alongside her, Mackenzie checked her email. There was no word from Adam just as there’d been no phone calls or messages since their last conversation. She’d just spent thirty minutes trying to come up with a blog post that would address what a separation could do to a couple and ideas for how a determined twosome might overcome the obstacle of distance, but she had not been able to write the first word.
