The Last Original Wife

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “What’s your favorite meal of all time?”

  “Whatever you’re in the mood to fix,” he said.

  “So if I made fricassee of calves’ liver and onions stuffed in the spleen of an iguana with boiled Brussels sprouts on the side, you’d be thrilled?” It was the weirdest combination I could think of at that moment.

  “I’d eat mud pie made from real mud if you put it in front of me.”

  “You’re so full of it!” I laughed.

  “Yes. Yes, I am. In any case, give me a clue on the menu and I’ll bring the wine.”

  “Deal. I’ll call you after I shop. But I was thinking mousse of sole or whatever whitefish I can find, with a lobster sauce, little potatoes, and a nice salad, and maybe some kind of fruit for dessert? How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like a lot of work. I don’t want you to go to so much trouble.”

  “Jonathan? I’ll throw burgers on the grill another night. You’ve taken me out to dinner so many times that I need to put on the dog for you. Besides, my brother’s kitchen has every gadget you can think of, so modern inventions will be doing most of the work.”

  “Well, this dog appreciates it. I’m already starving. Look what you’ve done to me. It’s only ten thirty and my mouth is watering for lunch.”

  “Okay, my dear. I’ll call you in a bit.”

  “Great! I’ll talk to you later.”

  I got my things together and made a list for the grocery store. Just as I was pulling my phone off the charger, it rang. It was Wes. I had not heard from him since I e-mailed him I wasn’t coming home, which was further proof to me that I shouldn’t be married to him. Since I’d told him I didn’t want to hear him scream ever again, I thought, Well, if he’s calling me now, he’s probably not going to scream. So I answered it.

  “Wes?”

  I thought I heard a man sobbing on the other end of the phone. Was it Wes?

  “Wes? Talk to me! Are you all right? Is Charlotte okay? Dear God, nothing’s happened to Holly! Wes! Answer me!”

  “I have cancer,” he said with huge gulping sobs.

  “Oh, my God! Wes! What are you telling me?”

  “I have to have an operation.”

  He sobbed some more, and I said, “Oh, Lord, Wes. I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me what kind?”

  “Testicular. I’m scared, Les! I might die!”

  “You’re not going to die, Wesley. You’re going to be fine.” I didn’t know that obviously, but my reflex was to reassure him. “Did your doctor say it spread?”

  Wes cleared his throat and regained control of himself. “He’s not going to know until they take out the tumor, and I guess some tissue around it?”

  “Who’s your doctor? I mean, are you sure it’s the best guy?”

  “Yeah, he is. This guy is Harold’s client and he’s the top urologist in Atlanta for this kind of thing. Don’t worry, I checked him out too. He’s the one to get. Jesus, Les.” He sighed so powerfully I could almost feel his breath. “I wish you’d come home and take care of me.”

  I knew that was coming.

  “When’s your surgery?”

  “August thirteenth. It was the first date I could get.”

  “I’ll try, Wes. Let me think about it.”

  There was dead silence. Then he exploded.

  “Think about it? Really? Well, that’s nice! I’m your husband, Les! You’re supposed to take care of me!”

  “Excuse me, but I’m no longer taking orders from you!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really! And lower your voice or I’m hanging up.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do either!”

  “Hey, Wes? Why don’t you ask Cornelia to come sit with you like you asked her to sit with me in Edinburgh?” I couldn’t believe I’d said that to him, but at least he quieted down.

  “Let me ask you something, Leslie. Just who’s the man you’re having a nice cozy dinner with in the picture I saw in the Atlanta Journal Constitution?”

  Oh! My! God!

  “What? Oh, please. He’s just an old friend I grew up with. Besides, he’s got nothing to do with you and me.” When did I learn to lie like that?

  “Okay, Leslie. Have it your way. Your husband’s got cancer and you’ll think about whether or not you want to see him through major surgery. Very nice. Sorry I bothered you.”

  The phone went dead.

  I collapsed in a chair, practically breathless. It wasn’t like I hated Wes or anything remotely close to that and I was really sorry to hear his news. But I really didn’t want to walk back into that life, get trapped in the quicksand of it, and disappear. I just didn’t want the anxiety of being there or of leaving again. I didn’t need it, and to tell the truth, I was so happy in Charleston, the happiest I’d been in years. Why would I throw it all away? To go home to a screaming maniac? I don’t think so. What was I going to do about Wes?

  For the moment, I was going to put it all out of my mind and concentrate on making the most beautiful dinner I’d ever prepared. I needed to get my bearings again.

  “I’ll be right back, Miss Jo! Just going to the grocery store.”

  I would swear on a stack of bibles that the dog speaks English. She practically nodded at me and hopped on her dining room bed.

  Of course, it was ridiculous to think I could temporarily ignore Wes’s phone call. It was all I could think about. I drove Harlan’s crazy car down to Harris Teeter, and as I went up one aisle and down the other, dropping things into the cart I’d never eat, I thought about how frightened Wes sounded. He probably really was scared. On the other hand, we weren’t on the phone for two minutes before he was yelling and pushing me around again. And what did I know about testicular cancer? Nothing except that it was pretty rare. I’d google it. I’d ask Jonathan. I wondered what he would say when I told him the news. I paid for my groceries, pushed the cart outside, and starting loading the bags into the trunk.

  My cell phone rang and I looked at the caller ID. It was Charlotte. Even though cars were backing out and pulling in all around me, I answered.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m just at the grocery store in the parking lot. It’s one hundred degrees in the shade. I’ll be home in five minutes. Can I call you back?”

  “Mom! Don’t hang up! You know Daddy has cancer, right?”

  “Yes, I spoke to him this morning.”

  “Mom! This is a very big deal!”

  “Of course it is! Did you hear me say it wasn’t?”

  “He told me you weren’t even coming home for his surgery!”

  “Charlotte, listen to me. Don’t get involved with this. It’s between Daddy and me.”

  “Mom! Even Bertie is flying home from Kathmandu!”

  “Which your father probably demanded?”

  “I don’t know, but Dad’s terrified. You’ve got to be here!”

  “Guess what? I don’t need you to tell me what I have to do. I told him I’d consider it.”

  “Oh, nice. I bet that made him feel better.”

  “It is no longer my job to make him feel better. Or to take any lip from you. Is that clear?”

  Silence.

  “Mom? What’s happened to you?”

  “Charlotte? What newspaper do you read?”

  “The AJC, like everybody else. Why?”

  “Who do you think might have called your father and told him to check out a picture with Mayor Reed in the foreground?”

  Silence.

  “Did he tell you I told him?”

  “No. He did not. You just did.”

  Pause.

  “Mom? Look, I probably shouldn’t have told him, but I did because I think the two of you are in trouble. You’re my mother . . .”

  “I’d still be your mother if I moved to Mars.”

  “Daddy is so short tempered and miserable since you’ve been gone. I don’t care what he says or how he acts, he loves you, Mom. And now he’s got this horrible cancer. You can tell me to min
d my own business if you want, but I really think you ought to come home. I mean, please come home because if anything happens to him I couldn’t take it if I didn’t have you to help me get through it.”

  “Charlotte? I never told him I wouldn’t come. I said I’d think about it. Okay? And nothing’s going to happen to him. He’s going to be just fine.”

  “Mom, I know Dad’s being very dramatic about this and I’m sure you’re right, but what if the anesthesiologist gives him too much juice and his heart stops?”

  “Now who’s being dramatic?”

  “That’s how Jim Henson died, you know, the guy who created the Muppets? If it could happen to him . . .”

  “Charlotte, come on now. And besides, Jim Henson died from pneumonia.”

  “I’m just saying a million things can go wrong. People die in hospitals all the time. There’s this disease called MRSA? And there’s C. diff?”

  “Let’s talk later, okay?”

  We hung up and I looked at my phone.

  “You’re just like your father,” I said, threw it in my purse, and got in the car.

  So Bertie had been guilt tripped into getting on a plane and coming home. As I was driving back to Harlan’s, I thought, Wes must have really laid it on thick. But if Wes knew anything, it was how to work your gizzards until he got what he wanted. And he had to have an audience. Why had it taken me so long to see that? In any case, it would be awfully nice to lay my eyes on my only son. I had not seen him in almost a year. But there was also nothing to stop Bertie from making a side trip to see me in Charleston, was there?

  I brought all the groceries inside the house. Someone had set the table, and it was set perfectly as though they already knew what I was going to prepare.

  “Thank you!” I called out to the thin air. “I wish you would iron.” Then I laughed.

  My mind was still glued to Wes. I put everything away as quickly as I could and booted up Harlan’s computer. I googled testicular cancer and got thousands of sites offering information in seconds. Memorial Sloan-Kettering had tons of information and I felt much better after I read it. The odds were that Wes was going to be fine. But still, the Big C was scary like all hell.

  I called Danette while I sliced and diced. She answered on the third ring.

  “Hey!” I said. “Did you hear the news?”

  “What news? I was just going to call you!”

  “About Wes?”

  “No. What?”

  I told her the whole story about Wes’s cancer and she said, “Why in the world didn’t Harold tell me?”

  “Because he’s probably focused on his life. Anyway, I have to figure out whether or not I’m going to come back and get Wes through his ordeal.”

  “Well, I probably would if I were you.”

  “Really? I guess I probably will.”

  “Yeah. You have to. I mean, who’s he got? Charlotte? Harold? Paolo? Look, if you decide to come to Atlanta, you know you’re welcome to stay here with me. And I think I heard they do that surgery practically on an outpatient basis. It’s pretty routine.”

  “Unless it’s spread,” I said.

  “Let’s hope not. Meanwhile, on a lighter note, I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Um. My coat’s shiny.”

  “Girl?”

  Then we really laughed.

  “Well, I’ve got to run too. Jonathan’s coming for dinner, and I’ve got a ton of things to do.”

  “Poor Wes. I’ll say a prayer for him.”

  “Wes sure needs prayers. Lord knows he does.”

  I took a shower and blew out my hair, and threw on a sundress with my most comfortable sandals. The problem with cooking was that you stood on your feet while you cooked and then you stood some more while you served and then you stood again while you cleaned up. By the time the night is all over, you’re so tired and your legs hurt so badly that you could lie down and die. Did I mention my lower back? Hence, the comfortable shoes. God, was I middle-aged or what?

  But I was smarter that night than I normally was, perhaps because the fuel of family conflict put my brain in high gear. Everything was quickly put together, and all the prep dishes were washed and put away except for the bowl of salad and the platter of fresh fruit in the refrigerator. And the fish mousse was chilling in an oiled mold, ready to slip into the water bath in the roasting pan in the oven. The lobster sauce was in a saucepan (I was using premade lobster bisque that I reduced—much easier!) and only needed to be warmed up, and the potatoes were in another pot, ready to boil. My parsley was minced, and I was ready for a lovely night with Jonathan. This was one of those menus that looked hard but wasn’t.

  I hadn’t made a meal like this in eons, but Jonathan was more than worth the effort. It was pretty obvious to both of us that we were more than old friends, but I still had these moments when I felt like we really shouldn’t have been fooling around in the sack until I got divorced. If I divorced Wes, that is. But on the other hand, what was Wes going to do? Send me to my room? Jonathan was so nice and so smart, he had gorgeous manners, he was attentive, and he made me feel beautiful. Did Wes offer any of those qualities? No, he did not.

  I opened the French doors and Miss Jo scampered past me, running around the courtyard and garden as though she had been held in captivity for days. She was so joyous! Once I figured out what I was going to do with my life, I was definitely going to get a dog. Maybe I’d get a rescue. I liked the idea of an older dog that was already broken in and just needed a loving home. The irony was, that wasn’t too different from how I was feeling about myself.

  It was only four o’clock, so I decided to finish Barbara Bellows’s biography on Josephine Pinckney, as I only had thirty pages left to read. When I turned the last page and put the book down, I was left with an odd combination of admiration for Pinckney’s long list of accomplishments and sadness too because I felt like she was a lonely woman in many ways. Although her relationship with Tom Waring was satisfying in many ways, he never married her. She was always left a little bit out in the cold, and ultimately, she wound up alone with no children. And worse than that, she faced the hour of her death alone. Was that where I was headed? What if I divorced Wes and Jonathan moved to California and I never saw him again?

  “How terrible,” I said, as though Jo Pinckney herself was there in the room and I was sympathizing with her. Something gave me a chill.

  By the time Jonathan arrived, I was teetering on the edge of a funk. Between Wes and Charlotte and poor Jo Pinckney, I felt pretty blue. Jonathan appeared right at seven with a bottle of white wine and a bottle of red. Miss Jo raced to the door and jumped up, walking on her hind legs, waiting for Jonathan to acknowledge her.

  “You never called me, so I just brought one of each. Hey, princess!”

  Miss Jo yipped and Jonathan handed me the wine and leaned down to scratch her behind her ears. She hopped into his arms.

  “Oh, Jonathan, I’m sorry. It’s just been a crazy day.”

  He gave me a peck on the cheek and then stood back and looked at me seriously. “Okay, what’s going on with you?” he said. “I sense an aura of annoyance or something slightly darker.”

  “Today the world is proving to be far more sinister than I hoped,” I said, following him and Miss Jo to the kitchen where he put her down and took the corkscrew from the drawer. “I’m all right. Really.”

  “No, no. I know you, Leslie. What happened today? Red or white?”

  “Red. Save the white for dinner. Well, Wesley called to tell me he has testicular cancer. That was the first bummer. He has to have surgery and he screamed his head off at me to come home and take care of him.” I slipped the fish in the oven and set the timer.

  “Wow. That’s too bad. Did they stage it? If he wants to send over his tests, I can get a second opinion from the head of urology at MUSC.”

  “No. Wes probably won’t want any favors from you because he also saw a picture of us in the newspaper.
Remember that night at FIG? Apparently, we looked too happy for his blood.”

  “So one of those pictures made it to the paper. Great. Well, I can understand why he was in foul humor. But one of the reasons you’re here is to be happy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. But my happiness makes Wes unhappy. And then my daughter called, accidentally revealing that she was the one who brought the picture to Wes’s attention.”

  “Nice. Kids are overrated, I think.”

  “There ain’t no I think about it.

  Jonathan smiled. He’d been accused of causing narcolepsy back in high school. But after talking to Wes? Please. Maybe Jonathan was too reserved sometimes, but he was sane, a greatly undervalued quality in Wes’s world. I’d take his brand of reliable, dependable, and predictable sanity any day over Wes and his screaming.

  “So you’ve had a helluva day. How about some music?” he said. “Harlan always has such great music playing whenever I’m here.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea. The CD player is sitting on a shelf in the den, and all his music is in the cabinet underneath it.”

  “Great! I’ll dig around and find something.”

  Soon the sounds of Johnny Mathis crooning “Chances Are” filled the house and I thought, Oh, boy, I remember parking on the Battery and steaming up the car windows with Jonathan in like 1970 or something to this exact same song, sung by Johnny Mathis on an oldies station.

  “Remember this?”

  “And your daddy’s Chevrolet?”

  “It was a Pontiac. With very long bench seats.”

  “Now, how could a girl forget something like that? We had no idea what we were doing.”

  “What are you talking about? We knew exactly what we were doing! It was the intense exploration of your body that made me interested in medicine!”