Chris and Mike seemed to be having a good laugh when Kassie returned to Mike’s room.
“How much did you tell him?” Kassie teased.
“Enough to know that congratulations are in order. Good for you,” Mike said, nodding toward Kassie. “And good for you too, Chris. You did this all on your own. Without my help.”
“Your help?” Chris said.
Mike asked if Kassie had been home yet, to Annie’s. Oh, so she hadn’t seen the package he’d sent. He explained he’d sent duplicate letters, one to her and the other to Chris, in one envelope.
“While you guys were canoodling in Europe, I made a minor change to my will. I know you won’t mind that I carved out a small percentage for Bill. I wrote a letter, had it all notarized, and had copies sent to you, Kassie. I gave one to Bill and sent others to Stephen and my accountant. Actually, I met with Stephen on Monday. He drew up and filed a codicil so everything’s square if something happens to me.”
“Nothing’s happening to you. You heard Cecilia. You’re in the best-est place in town.” They shared a laugh.
“Anyway, Chris, I had this bright idea, a ploy, if you will. If I sent both of the letters to Kassie, she’d be forced to get in touch with you. Then, nature would take its course. You’d find each other again, and I would be the catalyst that brought you together, making up for how I caused you to split last year.”
Kassie looked at Chris. They both looked at Mike.
“That’s a touching story, but you’re full of shit.” Kassie admitted to herself that it felt good to laugh. “A romantic you are not, not now, not ever.”
Mike shrugged his shoulders; one of the monitors beep-beeped, then settled to a regular pace. “Well, you can’t fault a guy for trying.”
“Your heart,” Chris said, placing his fist on his chest, “was in the right place. If I hadn’t found her in Venice, I would’ve been grateful for your grand plan. I needed all the help I could get. She’s not easy to pin down. Even still. I’ll let her tell you all about that.”
Kassie gazed at the ceiling and scratched that little obscure area behind the ear where the back of an earring rubs. She ached to tell Mike her good news, believing his reaction would be different than Chris’s. With respect to Chris, though, she’d prefer knowing he was all on board before doing so. She didn’t want to jinx it.
“Not sure what Chris is talking about, but if you’re causing a ruckus for my son . . .”
Kassie caught Chris tilting his head with an ear-to-ear grin. Since she’d been absent from both of their lives over the past year, she wasn’t sure if Mike’s reference to Chris as his son was an everyday common occurrence. Given Chris’s reaction, she assumed this could be a breakthrough moment.
“Nothing we can’t sort out and bring to an equitable solution, Dad.”
“All righty, then,” Mike said, clasping his hands into a steeple. “Now, if you don’t mind, Chris, I’d like to talk to my wife alone.” He laughed. “May be the last time I say something like that, eh?”
35
The Forgiven
Once Chris left the room, Mike motioned Kassie to put her rear in the chair right up close to him, the one Cecilia had occupied.
“Get your ass over here, young lady. We need to talk. While I still can.”
“Just because we won’t be married in a couple of months doesn’t mean we won’t talk. There’ll always be the Chris connection. Holidays may be a little weird, but we’ll get used to it.” She chuckled, and so did he.
Mike asked her what Chris meant when he said she was difficult to pin down. “I see a ring on your finger I don’t recognize. You want to tell me about that, Mrs. Ricci?”
Kassie flushed, briefly covering her face with her hands. “All it means is we’re engaged to be engaged. I told Chris I’m still Mrs. Ricci.” She waved her left hand high enough for him to see she still wore his engagement and wedding rings, though she couldn’t help noticing the tan-less imprint of his wedding band on his finger, but no ring.
“I’m just kidding with you. Let me see that ring.”
She leaned in as Mike held her hand close to his face and kissed it. “A nail. Is it really a nail?”
“Exquisitely unique. Like our relationship, don’t you think?”
“Shame on you, Kassie. With all your fascination with witchcraft, I’d think you’d have caught the symbolism of the ring, beyond the whole engagement thing.”
“Oh my God, you’re right. With all the hullabaloo over the last several days, I hadn’t given it much thought.”
Mike tutored her on the connection of the nail to the crucifixion and then added, “See, I did learn something during catechism class.”
“The passion story, right?”
Mike nodded. “In the Bible, passion is thought to mean suffering. Over time, passion has obviously evolved to connote desire, especially of the sexual kind. Ooh la la.” He inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled out his mouth, gazing down at his hands folded on his lap, contemplating his own sexual future.
“Witches take it a step further, if I recall correctly,” Kassie said, adding to the story. “Consider what a nail does. It binds one thing to another.” She twirled the ring. “Protects whatever it’s fastened to from being harmed. So there you have it.”
“I prefer the witches’ view,” Mike said.
“I do too.”
Kassie’s phone buzzed. Unknown caller. “She’ll leave a message,” Kassie said, sensing it was her mother working her witchcraft from heaven above.
“You still haven’t told me what Chris meant. You did say yes to his proposal?”
“Yes, but first things first. You must know I would never deliberately slight you by getting engaged before we were officially not Mr. and Mrs. any longer. And then there’s this other itsy-bitsy complication.” Kassie touched her thumb and index finger together.
“Which is what?”
Kassie began the story from her vantage point, starting with the co-conspirators commonly known as Chris and Annie.
“Oh, that explains why she was at the concert.” Mike shook his head.
Kassie continued with being whisked away to Paris on the craziest tourist weekend of the year, maybe of the century. The cryptic letter from Tom. The shopping spree. Tanya, the leggy queen of Uber who happened to appear whenever they needed a lift. Mike would’ve loved to get a gander at her. Oh, and the rash. Remember how she was allergic to pomegranates? Chris’s proposal—she made him do it twice. And then the crux of the matter.
“I went to the meeting with rash and ring, but no business cards. Can you imagine me with no business cards to meet Mimi? You remember, I’d met her years before?”
“Wasn’t she pregnant? I recall you freaked out about that.”
“Guess what? She’s pregnant again. With twins.” Kassie reached her hands toward the ceiling.
Mike threw his head back. “You’re kidding me. Did you think someone was playing a mean joke on you?”
“Uh, no. I’m really trying to get past all of that pulling-at-my-heart-strings kind of stuff. At my age, there’s not much I can do about it. I came to realize a few years ago mother is not in my bio.”
“I’m sorry, Kassie, truly.” Mike reached for her left hand, held it as long as she’d let him. “If I could live my life over, that’s the first thing I’d change. The vasectomy was cruel and selfish. Knowing I’d walked away from one child, I thought being a father, especially a good father, was not in my bio.”
Mike frowned when Kassie tucked her chin. He lifted it and wiped a tear trickling down her cheek.
“Not as much over it as you think, me thinks. I am so sorry. Will you ever forgive me?”
“I will, if you will. When I first met Chris, I was lonely and deeply saddened by how our marriage had drifted. At the beginning, I couldn’t have predicted where you and I, and he and I, would end up. I’m sure my wandering ways hurt you. . . .” Kassie traced an A on her forehead.
Mike bit his lo
wer lip. “I was hurt then, and since. . . .”
“Since? Not by me, I hope. I tried to make amends when I tracked down Karen—”
Mike’s eyebrows rose toward the top of his forehead. “Bingo.”
“Karen? Hurt you? How? Where is she, by the way? Why isn’t she here? We ran into her in Charlestown just before we headed over.”
Now it was Mike’s turn. Just as Kassie had, he started with Friday, omitting his romp with Amelia. No reason to give Kassie any fodder to defend Karen, as if she ever would. He told her about dinner with the Gaineses and Bill and Nancy. Karen’s surprise dye job. The smoke and the game Charlie wanted to play, but that they didn’t. His changing the will, the trip to the bank and FedEx. Sarah’s supposed headache. Provincetown on Sunday. The proposal on the dunes.
“Oh, Guy and Dolly send their regards.”
Kassie smiled and said she’d have to drag Chris out there. “Wouldn’t they get a kick out of my ring?”
Mike chuckled and went on. Funny thing, though not humorous, was that even after he’d proposed to Karen, she’d declined to stay at the house that night. Again, he omitted their quickie in the back seat of his SUV. And then there was this teeny-tiny complication: Red Sox tickets.
Not surprisingly, Kassie bolted upright when he mentioned Red Sox. It was a Pavlovian response.
“She did what?”
“Shredded them. And then lied about it.”
Kassie buried her head in her hands. He didn’t know which had gotten her goat more—the destruction of the tickets or Karen’s prevarication.
“That was a mean thing for her to do to Bill. Wonder what that’s all about? She must’ve had a good reason.”
Mike gave her the Reader’s Digest version of the little bit he knew about the breakfast conversation involving Sarah and Karen . . . and of course, Chris. From what he’d heard, Bill had put his two cents in. But Mike digressed.
He wrung his hands together as he proceeded to the events of Monday. He said he had this big idea of showing up at Karen’s apartment unannounced to give her a chance to explain away the ticket fiasco. It was the least he could do. He owed her that much.
“So what did she say?”
“Nothing. It’s not what she didn’t say, but what she did.” Mike felt a sudden tightness in his chest and kneaded it with his fist.
“What’d she do?” Kassie leaned in, wide-eyed.
“She was with Charlie.” Mike flinched and his eyes flickered.
Kassie slumped in her chair and bombarded him with questions about what he meant by “with Charlie”—was he sure it was him? Maybe he’d gone to the apartment looking for Chris and ran into Karen instead? Maybe he was just passing time while Sarah was at her museum thingamajig?
“Maybe Sarah was in the car, picking him up on the way to the airport?”
“No maybes about it, sweet optimistic Kassie. I know what I saw. I stood there with my eyes bugging out and watched them kiss, long and deep. Tongue had to be involved. And then Charlie patted her on the ass. This was no see-you-soon-pal goodbye. More like wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, catch you later. I know. Been there. Done that.”
“Then what? Did you walk right up to her and give her the what for?”
“I should’ve, huh?”
“Damn right.”
“I think I was in shock. Couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d just proposed to her on Sunday. On Monday she shacks up with Charlie. Charlie of all people.”
“Of all people? Of anyone.” Kassie stood and paced the room. “And so, what happened? You went home and had a heart attack?”
“That about sums it up. In all my years, I guess I never learned how to handle confrontation well. Still don’t.”
“Does she know you know?”
“Yesterday, I asked her how Charlie was. I told her to leave. She did without a word. She didn’t even ask how I knew. And she’s not been back since.”
“Do you want to see her? See if you can fix things before they release you from here? Sounds like the ball’s in your court.”
“Not sure. Now I’m angry. At first, I felt hurt, betrayed. Now I’m pissed. When I think back over the years I supported her, behind your back, and all that she and I have been through in the last year or so, I can’t help but wonder if she was playing a game.”
“What kind of a game? Everyone knew she wanted you in the worst way.”
“The worst way is right. In her mind, giving me her kidney was the key to the castle. Literally. She got me, Chris, a job, my continued generosity. The signs were there. I just denied them. What is that saying? If it’s—”
“If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
“That’s the one.”
“Don’t be so tough on yourself.”
“I did push back on one thing, though. She wanted you scrubbed from my life in every which way. Last weekend she asked me to promise to get rid of everything in your office. I told her I would, but I didn’t mean it. Huh. Can’t imagine her reaction to you and Chris being back together.”
Mike heard a light knock on the door as a nurse walked in.
“This isn’t teatime here, Mr. Ricci. You need to rest. Visiting hours are over for now.”
“But, but—” Mike tried to argue.
Kassie leaned toward Mike and gave him a kiss that he’d swear lingered more than a friendly peck.
“But you didn’t tell me what happened in your meeting with Mimi.”
“Tomorrow. I’ll be back tomorrow. It’ll wait until then.”
Mike cocked his head to the side, pouting, as Kassie lifted her left hand and waved a slight salute with a twist goodbye.
36
Movin’ On
On her way past the nurses’ station, Kassie stopped and asked for the name and phone number of Mike’s cardiologist. She’d call him the next day to get the lowdown on Mike’s condition and prognosis. With Karen’s dubious status, Kassie decided as his wife it was still her responsibility to be sure Mike was well cared for.
She texted Chris to meet in the lobby. She had no clue how she’d tell him about Karen and Charlie. His mother and his adoptive father were getting it on when his mother supposedly was engaged to his father. Did you get that? Would Chris?
The one common denominator in that triangle was Karen. She was the perpetrator. The only one positioned to correct the situation. She needed a comeuppance. The question was who would give it to her? Not me. Not my job. Would Chris step up to the plate to defend Mike . . . and Sarah?
Oh, no. Sarah. With the image of Charlie and Karen embracing on the streets of Charlestown swirling through her head, Kassie had forgotten about Sarah. She was the innocent party in this scenario. Chris would go apeshit. No wonder Mike asked him to leave the room before telling Kassie what happened. Not sure who Chris would attack or blame.
“There you are,” Chris said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as they headed out through the automatic sliding doors, stepping aside to let a woman wheel in an elderly man who probably should’ve come through Emergency instead of the main lobby. Briefly, Kassie considered offering to help, but she quickly conceded there were more than enough professionals in the lobby to handle whatever the problem was.
Instead Kassie said, “Can we just go home now?” Kassie searched her purse for her sunglasses. She needed them not only to block the blinding sun but also to hide the rising panic Chris would more than likely read in her eyes. “Think the jet lag is finally getting to me.”
“Home? To my place?”
“For a while. I need to see Topher . . . and Annie tonight. Okay?”
“That works. While you were with Mike, I talked with Annie. We’re having dinner there tonight. There’s no food in my fridge.” Chris shrugged his shoulders.
“You two are good buddies these days. Seems like you guys talk more often than Annie and I do.” Kassie slung her purse in the back seat of the car, contemplating all of the strange bedfellows that popped up that day—Mike and Cecil
ia, Karen and Charlie, Chris and Annie.
“You have a problem with that?”
“Guess not. Not anymore.” She reached across the front seats and rubbed his arm.
“So, what was Mike’s reaction?” Chris said as they pulled out of the parking garage.
“To what?”
“Paris. The job, silly.”
“More importantly, how are you feeling about it today—after wearing the idea for twenty-four hours?”
“Still working it through my psyche. I don’t relish the idea of you and me apart again. Like I told you.”
“Less than a year, Chris. Come on. What’s ten months after what we’ve been through?”
“It’ll take us that long to plan . . .” Chris paused at an intersection. “If you go, first we’ll need to set a date for the wedding.”
“Wedding? Sounds strange. But okay, I think I can handle that. From Paris. I can have Tanya take me back to see Gabriella for the perfect dress.”
Chris asked her again what Mike’s reaction was. Kassie stared out the window, not ignoring him, just lost in the moment. His question forced her to replay Mike’s story and feel his pain. At some point she knew she’d have to transfer that pain to Chris. Mike didn’t ask her to keep it a secret. Was that his plan all along? He couldn’t tell Chris, couldn’t hurt him, but he was confident Kassie would break the news gently, as a woman would. Of course, that depended on which Kassie accepted the nearly impossible mission. No matter how she conveyed it, she was certain Chris would freak.
“We didn’t talk about Paris. Didn’t get around to it.”
“What? You were up there for more than half an hour. What did you talk about?”
What’s Not True: A Novel Page 21