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No way was my selfless Jim Blake one of those.
“I live in a brownstone,” I said. “A doorman is a distant dream.”
Lola pulled me toward the park. I raised my hand to wave goodbye and curved my lips into a seductive smile. Shocking me in a thrilling sort of way, Jim moved with us. In a quick swipe, I ran my tongue over my teeth to make sure I’d remembered to brush. I had. Thank you, God.
Hearing only the clicking of Lola’s toenails on the sidewalk and the thumping of my heart, I ransacked my brain for something pithy to say. I felt like I knew him. We’d been through so much together. Yet tumbleweeds blew through my brain. In my peripheral vision, I was startled to see that the pediatrician wore orange shorts and white socks with brown sandals. His short-sleeved shirt was as wrinkled as a shar-pei. Was he on his way to the hardware store? Repainting his apartment on such a hot day? Didn’t physicians have people do such things? Surely Juan Carlos, his doorman, could suggest someone. Also, when Jim had gripped my hand to shake it, I couldn’t help but notice the dark line beneath his—longish—fingernails. Had he been organic gardening at dawn that morning on his upstate farm? Maybe volunteer weeding in Riverside Park?
“I can only imagine how hot it is in Africa,” I said, finally, glancing at Jim with compassion. “Or the southern tip of Asia. That’s where Sri Lanka is, right? Global warming must be torture there.”
“Pfft. That hoax.”
“What hoax?”
“Historically, the earth always gets hotter or colder. It’s nature, not anything man-made. Nature will fix herself. That’s what she does.”
My lower lip flapped open. “How can a scientist say that?” I stared at the pediatrician, agog.
“Exactly. How can a scientist say that? How does he know?”
Jim began a rant. “Fake news media will print or say anything. Our country is full of sheep. They’ll believe whatever they are spoon-fed.”
Tempted to remind him that I’d seen him reading the New York Post, a newspaper that regularly reported UFO sightings, I stopped myself. I didn’t want to sound too, well, sheepish. Like I only read the New York Times because every smart person I knew did.
“At my shop—”
“Shop?” I asked. Did pediatricians have a storefront?
“Locked and Loaded. On Broadway.”
I lurched to a halt right there on the sidewalk.
“You’re a . . . locksmith?”
Admittedly, it came out snootier than I’d intended. There’s nothing wrong with the honest work of a locksmith. In fact, one had saved my rear end last month when my key broke off in our downstairs door and Paul was having a meltdown. But Locked and Loaded? I’d walked past that sliver of a shop many times, too scared to go in because it sounded like they secretly sold guns under the counter. Or that the locksmith would have beer on his breath at ten in the morning.
“My father started the business years ago,” Jim said. “He left it to me.”
“So you repair locks as, um, a hobby?”
He laughed.
“Like, when you’re not at the hospital?” I ventured. “Or in the Middle East?”
“Middle East? Who would go to that hellhole?”
My head was spinning. I looked at Jim and suddenly noticed that his glasses weren’t tortoiseshell at all. They were brown plastic.
Jim flicked his head back toward you—the stately building that still made me burn with desire. “Only in America, am I right?” he chuckled. “A guy like me can live in a building like that. And get this: My apartment is rent controlled. Not stabilized. Controlled. Beautiful!”
No kidding, I heard my upper lashes hitting my lower lids. I looked up to see if I could spot a hidden camera.
“I played it smart,” Jim went on. “The minute my mother got sick, I changed my mailing address to hers. Got rid of my landline, all that. You have to prove you live there, you know? Not that I did, of course. But, after she passed—God rest her soul—I sneaked my stuff in little by little in the service elevator. Now, they can’t get me out. Ha! Guess what I pay in rent? You won’t believe it. Guess.”
A wave of nausea gripped my stomach. “I’d rather not,” I said.
Together, we crossed Riverside Drive into the park. My forehead felt sweaty. I’d forgotten my sun hat. I began to wonder if Jim was going to tag along the whole way.
“Whoa, girl,” I said to Lola, extending my arm as if she were tugging at the leash. For once, she wasn’t. Her entire head was poked into a hedge. The leash looked like a limp jump rope.
“Here’s a hint,” said Jim. “I pay more each month for a two-hundred-square-foot shop than I do for my two-bedroom with one and a half baths.”
A dry heave constricted my airway.
“Interesting,” I croaked, hoping he would peel off.
He didn’t.
By the time we reached the crab apple grove, and the dirt path next to it, I was plotting ways to escape. Jim blabbered nonstop. He did live on a high floor—though not the penthouse, he told me with his lower lip protruded as if he’d been robbed—and he did have a wraparound river view.
“Of course, my landlord hates me. He pays triple in maintenance what I pay in rent. And it’s locked in for life. Sweet! All the co-op owners in the building hate me, too.” He laughed meanly. Ha. Ha. “The co-op gets a hefty flip tax if I move out and the owner sells. Not that I would ever move out. Unless I decide to live full-time at my summerhouse in Montauk.”
“Nice meeting you.”
Abruptly, I stopped and extended my hand. Though I didn’t want to touch Jim again. I stood inches from his face. How had I never noticed how permy his hair looked? His horse teeth were the color of old mac and cheese. He made Paul look like a college student. Where was Blake’s selflessness? His air of kindness? I waited for Jim to take my hand so I could pump it once and let go of it—and my fantasy—forever. Stunning me, Jim grabbed my palm and pulled it toward his body like he was catching a line drive. He held on, even when I tugged a little.
“See you around the neighborhood,” he said. Only, it was more of a question. See you around the neighborhood? As if he hoped we’d meet and walk and chat again.
“Oh. Well. You know.” I smiled with my lips alone. “Lola, come.” She had plopped down in the dirt and was chewing on a stick as if it were a porky Slim Jim. When I pulled on the leash, she rolled over and went limp. I was familiar with her passive resistance. She often used it when she didn’t want to go home at the end of her walk. Nonetheless, I dragged her sixty-pound body sideways through the dust. Stubborn mule.
Out of nowhere, a squirrel darted across the path. Its tail flicked like a question mark on a hot grill. Instantly on her feet, Lola lunged for it, nearly popping my shoulder out of its socket. Some things never change. I yelped in pain. But it was worth it. Off we flew.
“Bye, Freckle Face!” Jim called after us.
As a final goodbye, I flapped my hand in the air behind my head. Then I wiped it on my shorts.
Even after the squirrel was up a tree, mocking us, we ran. Sweat dribbled down my temples; Lola’s tongue hung sideways out of her mouth. Still, we kept up the pace until Jim was out of view and the pediatrician was out of my head—and heart—forever. Slowing at last, I gulped the warm, wet air. I gasped, “Good girl.” Lola raised her heavy eyelids. It may have been my imagination, but I think I saw her twitch her head as if to say, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ve got your back.”
We continued our walk the way we did every day. Lola in the lead. Top dog. At the end of the promenade, beneath the shade of a mature elm, we sat on a bench and soaked in the beauty of our park. Like a poet, Lola sighed and gazed at the glistening Hudson River. I grinned. Then, I bent down to kiss my beautiful headstrong dog on the tip of her lovely speckled nose. With a lap of her skinny pink tongue, Lola kissed me back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
MY EYES FLUTTERED OPEN AT FIRST LIGHT. AS THEY ALWAYS did, whether I slept well or not. I stretched both elbows out
, rolled my neck. Lola sat on the floor beside the bed, staring at me. I reached down to run my thumb up and down the space between her eyebrows—my favorite spot—then stopped. The silence was alarming. No whooshing of Paul’s CPAP. No snoring from the sleep apnea that had finally been diagnosed and treated. My heart dropped like a stone in a still lake. A flash of fear engulfed me. I pressed my eyes shut. But, of course, sleep was impossible.
Biting down on my molars, I steeled myself. I swallowed my rising panic. Gently peeling back the covers, I swung my legs onto the floor. I rested my warm palm on Lola’s head.
“Stay close to me,” I whispered. For once, she obeyed.
Too frightened to turn around, I walked to the window and slid the bedroom curtains all the way open. I smoothed them into pools of fabric on either side of the sill. It was the most beautiful fall morning. The birch leaves in our backyard trees were the color of pumpkin flesh; sunlight filtered through them in flickering diagonal lines. My heart broke. Paul loved this time of year. Almost as much as the dusting of first snow.
Barefoot, feeling the cool roughness of our wood floor, I tiptoed around our bed to Paul’s side. Lola’s toenails click, clicked beside me. She leaned against my leg. Inch by inch, we approached. With my hand pressed on my chest to keep my heart from busting apart, I looked up. First, I saw a lump of bedding. It was the body pillow I’d placed along the edge of the bed to keep Paul from falling off. Lola and I crept forward, onto the large memory-foam mat I put on the wood floor at night in case he fell anyway. My husband often thrashed in his sleep.
In the gauzy light, I saw my love’s outline. Then I saw him. In peaceful stillness, with both hands on top of the covers, Paul was where he always was when a new day began.
“Mmkaw.” A guttural sound lanced the silence. Then the snorting gasp I knew so well. Paul’s snoring revved up like a lawn mower.
At my feet, Lola rotated in a tight circle. She dropped heavily onto the soft mat. Contentedly, she sighed. One of my favorite sounds in the world. That and the sound of Paul breathing.
“My love.” Gently, I brushed back the wisps of hair on my husband’s forehead. I inhaled his Paul smell. His CPAP, I noticed, had been thrown to the floor. Careful not to wake him—though I did—I removed the body pillow along the edge and climbed into bed with him. I tucked myself under the covers next to my man. When he opened his eyes, I whispered, “It’s okay. It’s me.” He stared blindly at the ceiling. One hand reached up to pat his face. He knew something was missing.
“Your CPAP is off. It’s okay.”
Taking my husband’s hand in mine, I intertwined our fingers. With my thumb, I massaged circles in his palm. He loved that. It calmed him. I stretched my neck to kiss the soft spot beneath his chin. The spot that I owned. Quietly, I said, “Go back to sleep, my sweet. Day is still on its way.”
Paul opened his mouth, then closed it again. He no longer had words. Almost everything he’d once been was gone. He was now frail, skinny, silent. Paul was never hungry anymore, but he was often thirsty. The water pitcher on the nightstand that Nathan built had been replaced with a giant sippy cup full of fruit juice.
“Sugar is so toxic,” Kate whined to me. To Paul, she said, “Here, Dad, try this coconut water.”
More than once, Paul had thrown the contents of his sippy cup in his daughter-in-law’s face. “Don’t take it personally,” I told her, even as I glanced at Paul and sometimes noted a twinkle in his eyes.
From time to time, Paul’s eyes would flash white. They would dart wildly around the room. A hallucination, I knew. Sometimes frightening, sometimes not. Once, when he still had words, he told me that he saw his father sitting at the family’s piano. Cigarette dangling between his lips, its ash curved and ready to fall, he played and winked at his son. Paul had laughed like a boy. Enchantment brought color to his cheeks.
Other times, his hands would flail. He’d rip at the covers, my hair, his crotch. I learned how to interpret his body language. Amoy taught me how to step into Paul’s reality. “When he’s frustrated, join him there,” she said. “Tell him, ‘It must feel awful right now.’ When he’s scared, reassure him he’s safe with you. The monsters will go away.”
Month after month, I did just that. Even as my fear of losing him was always the beast lurking beneath my side of the bed.
With my husband’s hand in mine, I stroked the flesh between his knuckles and the ropy tendons that ran down to his bony wrist. I kissed each fingertip: pop, pop, pop. The rise and fall of his chest was as soothing as the ebb and flow of the ocean. Like Lola, I sighed contentedly.
Suddenly, Paul opened his eyes. When I looked into their gingerbread depths, I saw him. My man. My there kind of guy. Sucking in air, I gasped, “My love, have you come back to me?”
He smiled and squeezed my hand. Words weren’t needed for me to understand: I never left.
Acknowledgments
To my amazing agent, Laura Langlie: Thank you, my friend, for always being there when I need you, and when I don’t yet realize I need you. You’re the best.
To the editor of my dreams, Carrie Feron: Without you, I never would have seen the forest for the trees. Again, you saved me from myself. Gratitude is an inadequate word.
Heartfelt thanks to: Etta Phifer for her friendship and generosity, the extraordinary women at Dorot in New York City for their unwavering support, and Valentina Harrell for her ear, her brain, and her heart.
To the loyal friends I’ve neglected while burrowed into this book—Linda, Su, Rosemarie, Kathy, Karen, Carol, Tony, Joanna, Bill, and others—your understanding and patience mean everything to me.
A whopping “Wahoo!” to everyone at William Morrow, especially marketing director Molly Waxman, who is as nice as she is smart; Carolyn Coons, who is always gracious and helpful; and an art department that never fails to design book covers I am gaga over. Lucky me to have a great publisher like you.
To my creative genius brother, Chris Barbera, and his awe-inspiring wife, Jill: My love is deeper than the ocean and wider than the sky.
Finally, my Bob, my love, my there kind of guy. You floor me with your resilience and ceaseless love. I am yours—in sickness and in health—for as long as we both shall live.
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About the Author
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Meet Mary Hogan
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Behind the Book
About the Author
Meet Mary Hogan
MARY HOGAN is the bestselling author of Two Sisters (William Morrow) and the historical novel The Woman in the Photo (also Morrow), about one of the largest disasters in American history: the Johnstown Flood. Two Sisters is slated for film production soon. Other novels include the young adult titles The Serious Kiss, Perfect Girl, and Pretty Face (HarperCollins), as well as a series of four teen books beginning with Susanna Sees Stars (Delacorte Press). Mary lives in New York City with her husband, Bob, and their leggy supermodel dog, Lucy.
To Skype or FaceTime Mary into your book club, contact her via maryhogan.com. For all library or bookstore book clubs, Mary will happily join you in person, if possible. Contact her via maryhogan.com. See you soon!
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About the Book
Behind the Book
I dedicated this novel to my dad who died of Alzheimer’s disease. He spent the last year of his life in a beautiful, sunny memory home. Flowers blossomed in the central courtyard; the luscious aroma of freshly-baked cookies floated through the air. It was the sort of place designed to please both visitors and residents. Yet, Dad hated it there. He was separated from the one person he remembered: his wife. She lived several miles away, in the elegant elder community where they had planned to remain for the rest of their lives. Everyone who knew my dad and stepmom assumed they would both pass away in the night, holding each other’s hand. Life, as I’ve come to see many times since, has its ow
n plan.
Near the end, Dad didn’t recognize me or my brothers. He forgot that his eldest daughter, my sister, had passed away. His grandchildren never once entered his mind. Yet his wife—even a city away—was the centerpiece of his life. He lived for her visits. Over and over, he asked everyone why she wasn’t with him. Love, I would see through my father, is the last thing to leave a failing mind.
Since my dad’s passing, I’ve had intimate experience with the many forms dementia can take. Cognitive impairment, it seems, is a family legacy. First, you cry. Then, you blow your nose and figure out ways to make life worth living for your loved ones and you . . . their caretaker. I never thought I could do it. Love, I now know, makes anything possible.
Today, more than 47 million people live with dementia. That’s the equivalent of the entire population of Texas and New York combined. That enormous number will double by 2030 and triple by 2050. Today, every sixty-six seconds, someone in the United States will develop Alzheimer’s. It’s the elephant in the living room for our health-care system. Medicare doesn’t cover memory care. Families are on their own. And few can afford a flower-filled residence that smells like cookies. Remember, Ronald Reagan lived a full decade after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. And he had symptoms—as everyone does—for years before that.
This story—a love story—is dedicated to my dad, but was written for the army of quiet heroes who take care of their moms, dads, husbands, wives, grandparents, etc., at home. With help, and without help. Even though it sometimes feels like it, you are not alone.
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Also by Mary Hogan
The Woman in the Photo
Two Sisters
YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
The Serious Kiss
Perfect Girl
Pretty Face