Same Beach, Next Year

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “I’m thinking you couldn’t be more vague, Mom. But, hey, that’s okay. And you know, Max and I aren’t stupid.”

  “I know that. Let’s just get Dad well. Then I can kill him.”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  In the morning, I was surprised to see that I had slept until almost eight thirty, which was very unusual for me. But I’d crossed so many time zones in the last weeks that my body had no clue when it was time to wake up. I scrambled out of bed to find that Luke and Max were still sound asleep. I stood there in the hallway outside of their bedrooms just looking from one of them to the other, remembering them when they were little boys and shared a room. Now they were so tall and filled out that they looked like men from where I stood. How old would they have to be before my rational mind would recognize them as adults? And, I asked myself for the millionth time, where did all the years go? I felt like so many years had blitzed right by me. I made a pot of coffee and went back to my bedroom to dress and to put together some things for Adam. I put his pajamas, his Dopp kit, and a picture of all of us in a tote bag by the door, and then I started cooking breakfast.

  The smell of bacon frying brought Luke and Max back to the conscious world. Bacon, by-product of the almighty pig, worked its irresistible magic on everyone. Luke kissed my cheek, then Max. I loved being with them and it made me deeply happy to have them under my roof, even if they were here for another absolutely terrible reason.

  “Scrambled okay?” I said, referring to the eggs I was about to crack into a bowl.

  “Anything’s okay,” Luke said, and filled an iced-tea glass to the top with orange juice.

  “I’ll make toast,” Max said.

  “I’ll set the table,” Luke said. “Anybody else want juice?”

  We ate breakfast as quickly as we could and almost threw the dishes into the dishwasher in an effort to return to the hospital as early as we could. Despite our best efforts, it was still ten o’clock by the time we all got into my car.

  As we were walking down the hall toward Adam’s room we could see Ted, Cookie, Eve, and Carl there with someone else. It was Daphne, Eve’s daughter. She looked like an adult. When did that happen?

  “Well, wasn’t that nice of Daphne to come,” I said.

  “I’m pretty good friends with her. She lives in Raleigh now,” Max said.

  “Oh. Did she ever finish her undergraduate degree?” I said.

  “Not yet. She’s taking courses to be a dental hygienist and working at Quail Ridge Books on the weekends,” Max said.

  “Yeah, remember her friend Kelly?” Luke said.

  “Yes, I do,” I said, remembering the summer of Kelly’s tattoo—and oh, by the way, she’s a Leo.

  “She lives in Atlanta,” Luke said.

  “What a coincidence,” I said, and then I knew exactly what my boys were up to. “You should never try to pull a fast one on your mother.”

  And to think I’d ever given their love lives a moment of concern. What was I thinking? Of course they had girlfriends. They’d probably had a hundred, for all I knew.

  “Good morning!” I said to them all. “How’s Adam doing? Any change?”

  “None,” Carl said. “But here’s what I’ve learned. Luke? Max? You’re off the hook. So are you, Eliza. I, however, am type O. So is Adam. I am a match.”

  Oh, dear God! I started to panic. Would Carl be willing to be Adam’s donor or not? Eve looked like she might start crying. Ted was pale. He had to be thinking that what he had accused Carl and me of doing wasn’t going to help his case now. In fact, he had given Carl a reason to walk away from all of us. Cookie, for once in her life, was silent.

  “Why don’t the three of us go get a cup of coffee,” I said.

  “Good idea,” Carl said.

  Eve, Carl, and I left the others there and went down to the cafeteria where we could speak in relative privacy. We all got coffee and sat a few tables away from the people who were there reading and eating. We took a seat and Carl cleared his throat.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t feel so great about giving part of my liver to a guy who’s been mooning over my wife for years.”

  I was speechless. Absolutely without words. And then Eve spoke.

  “You listen to me, Carl Landers. I’d had it up to here with all the accusations flying around us. How long do you think it took Cookie to tell me about the two of you being in Greece together? Two seconds, that’s how long! And do you think I believed that you were sleeping together? Hell, no, I didn’t. I know the two of you! So you were both in Greece. So what? You’re not sleeping with Eliza any more than I was sleeping with Adam. If I’d wanted to sleep with Adam I would’ve said, I’m sorry, Carl, I want a divorce. I had a million opportunities to do that over all these years and I never did. You want to know why? Because I love you. And I love you, Eliza. And I know Adam loves both of you too. Carl, he’s the closest thing to a brother you’ve ever had. This is ridiculous. Adam’s up there hanging on to life with a wing and a prayer. And he needs you now. And Eliza needs you too. And no matter what Cookie thinks with her stupid mind games and insinuations, she’s wrong, just like she’s been wrong all my life. And Ted?”

  I said, “He’s not thinking straight right now. Clarabeth’s hardly cold and Adam’s as sick as he can be. He’s scared to death.”

  “Carl? You know Adam loves you and has looked up to you all these years,” Eve said.

  I said, “It’s true, Eve. Everything you said is true. Please, God, don’t let Adam die. Not like this. Not because of Cookie’s lies.”

  “They’re not all lies,” Eve said. “There was a time when we were practically babies, that Adam and I knew each other in an intimate way. Now, and every time he sees me coming, he remembers being so young and carefree. But listen to me, he’s not in love with me. He was just infatuated with a ghost of the past. He’s not that young man anymore, and I’m not that young girl! We’re not even who we were when we first met each other, that first summer when our children were so young and you were whipping Adam’s self-esteem on the golf course! We are who we are now, and we’re still together because of the nearly twenty years of love between all of us. Real, deep, and abiding love. If you want that all to end, Carl, it can end right now. It’s your call.”

  I’d never heard Eve speak so eloquently and with so much passion. She was right. That ditzy blonde I met at Wild Dunes decades ago was long gone.

  Eve and I stared at Carl, waiting for him to say something.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he finally spoke.

  “I never said I wouldn’t give him part of my liver. I just said I didn’t feel so great about it. I’m a little nervous, you know?”

  “I can’t blame you for that,” I said.

  “He’s a doctor,” Eve said. “He knows too much for his own good.”

  “No more blame,” Carl said. “Let’s get these wheels in motion.”

  I was so overcome with emotion and gratitude that I threw my arms around Carl and cried.

  chapter 20

  eliza

  The worst part of major surgery for the family is always the waiting. According to the transplant surgeon Carl’s surgery would take about five hours. They were going to take only part of his right lobe, but still—five hours under anesthesia was no small thing. Most of his liver would regenerate in two weeks, and his hospital stay would be five to seven days. That didn’t sound so awful, but we all knew Carl would have significant discomfort. But he was willing to withstand it for Adam’s sake. Saving your friend’s life was the most heroic thing I could imagine a friend could do, and I loved Carl for it.

  “Greece would’ve been more fun than this,” he said.

  “Adam and I owe you a vacation there,” I said. “We’ll foot the bill.”

  “Eve, I want to show you the cottage where I stayed, right on the ocean,” Carl said.

  “And I want to see it with you. Greece. Something for us to look forward to!” Eve said. />
  We were more worried for Adam. He was fifty-three years old and until now, he had been in excellent health. Or so we thought. Hepatitis C had been working on his liver for a long time. But even though otherwise he was pretty strong, a million things could still go wrong. Immune system rejection. Bile duct complications. Internal bleeding. Infection. I knew the risks involved, but it wasn’t like we had a choice. My hand shook as I signed the consent form allowing them to perform the surgery, since I was Adam’s medical proxy. Still under heavy sedation, Adam was wheeled to the operating room to wait for Carl’s liver. I kissed Adam’s forehead before they took him in. I even kissed Carl’s cheek and squeezed his hand, thanking him a thousand times. Eve and I stood together as they rolled our husbands away. We tried to look brave and we smiled, but our insides were gelatin. Well, mine were anyway.

  We were all there, gathered in the waiting room, the elders all second-guessing ourselves to death. The kids were fixated by their iPhones, doing Facebook and tweeting or whatever it was that they did these days. I’d finally upgraded from a flip phone last year because Max and Luke told me it was an embarrassment. Now the wrong phone is an embarrassment? I was beyond redemption in all areas of cool, but it didn’t bother me, which was probably another confirmation that I was seriously over the hill. So, to let them know I wasn’t completely out of it, every now and then I’d send them a text. Sometimes with an emoji. Or I’d upload one of their baby pictures on their birthdays and leave a comment with it on their Facebook page, expecting to be unfriended. I thought it was hilarious, and oddly, they didn’t really complain. To me, so-called social media and all that stuff was just a colossal waste of time. I had better things to do. Like worry.

  Now Adam was in one operating room and Carl was in another. I was so frightened, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d looked in a mirror and saw that my hair had turned white.

  Ted said to Eve, “I cannot begin to tell you how grateful—”

  “I know that, Ted. We are all so grateful to Carl.”

  “Oh, my God, are we ever!” I said.

  I looked up to see a hospital volunteer approach. There was an official badge featuring her smiling face hanging from a lanyard around her neck. She was a lovely woman. I would’ve put her age somewhere in the sixty-five area, a little younger than Cookie for sure. She was dressed very stylishly. For whatever reason, she zeroed in on Ted.

  “Mr. Stanley?”

  “Yes?”

  Ted all but jumped to his feet.

  “I’m Judy Linder, the head of our patient-family support group here at MUSC.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” he said.

  “I just wanted to know if I can bring y’all some coffee or a cold drink? Or today’s paper? Waiting is so hard. We try to make things a little easier for the family.”

  It was obvious to me from the way that Mr. Stanley preened that he found Ms. Linder to be quite attractive. Seventy-eight and still preening.

  “What can we bring you, Eliza?” Ted said.

  “A bottle of cold water would be great. Thanks.” But a bottle of wine and five milligrams of valium would be better, I thought and did not say.

  The kids—I call them kids even though they’re all twenty-one—wanted water too.

  Eve said, “So would I. Thanks!”

  “Cookie?” Ted said and looked at her. She was suddenly visibly annoyed.

  “I’d like a bottle of Evian.”

  “Everyone is so health conscious today,” Ted said to Judy. “In my day, I drank Cokes by the dozen!”

  “Oh! So did I!”

  “Why don’t I come with you and help you carry everything back?”

  “Why, thank you. That would be so nice! You know, ever since my husband passed away—”

  Cookie interrupted. “Everyone’s husband is dead these days.”

  “Mother!” Eve said.

  Claws in, Cookie, I thought.

  Ted and Judy walked away, and as soon as they were out of earshot, Cookie said in a high-pitched whine, “Oh! So did I!”

  “Mother! What is wrong with you?” Eve said in nearly a whisper.

  “Nothing,” Cookie said.

  I remembered the distinguished older gentleman she’d brought to Clarabeth’s memorial dinner. What was his name? Reggie? Reginald?

  “Cookie? What happened to that nice man you brought to our dinner at Cypress?” I said.

  “Well, nothing, I imagine.”

  I said, “Oh, I was just wondering if you saw him again.”

  “No, ma’am. It turns out that he wasn’t as available as I was made to believe. Unlike some people, I don’t fool around with married men.”

  “That’s enough, Mother!” Eve said.

  “Why don’t you kids take a little stroll down the hall?” I said to Max, Luke, and Daphne.

  Despite the fact that they were so mesmerized by their phones, they’d all been around Cookie long enough to smell trouble. They got up and walked away.

  “Mother? All this talk and innuendo about me and Eliza and Adam and Carl has to stop this minute. We are friends, Mother. Nothing more than friends. But we are friends on a level that you’ve never enjoyed because you’re always saying terrible things about everyone and looking for the worst in people. Think about it.”

  “Friends without boundaries! That’s what you all are!”

  I had to jump into the fray. She was now gone over the top of incredible rudeness.

  “No, Cookie, that is not who we are,” I said. “We are very respectable middle-aged men and women who have known each other for decades. Eve’s husband is in there trying to save my husband’s life. If Carl didn’t hold Adam in very high esteem, do you think he’d undergo this surgery?”

  “How should I know how a man thinks?” Cookie said.

  I don’t know. Because you’ve had enough of them in your bed to write an encyclopedia on the male species? I thought.

  “Well, Cookie, here’s the bottom line. We are responsible adults, not philandering fools. You need to stop this ugly talk right now,” I said, and realized that I was surprised at myself. It was the first time I had ever called down an elder, but what was she going to do? Spank me?

  “You’re just projecting your mean-spirited behavior onto us, Mother. The four of us are practically family. You’ve turned into an old crone.”

  “Don’t you dare speak to me this way,” Cookie said. “I’m your mother!”

  “Yes. You brought me into the world. But I sure don’t like who you’ve become. No matter how badly you’ve behaved—whether it was drugs, alcohol, or just starting trouble—we always showed you respect. It’s time for you to give us the respect we deserve.”

  It was like trying to drill some sense into a spoiled, stubborn child. There was no use in it. I got up to rescue the kids. They were just down the hall at the next waiting area. Daphne stood and looked at me.

  “My grandmother is not very nice,” Daphne said. “She’s always making up awful things about other people. It’s totally embarrassing. Why does she do that?”

  “Well, honey, if I had the answer to that I’d bottle it and sell it and probably be a very rich woman. I think some people are just the glass-is-half-empty kind.”

  “I guess. She used to be so sweet when I was little.”

  “Well, those were difficult days for her as well.”

  “Yeah, like when she tried to nail her drug abuse on me! Who does that to their only granddaughter?”

  “Hurt birds,” I said. “But Adam and I and your parents? We all love you to pieces! And you’re awfully nice to be here with all of us today.”

  “I’m glad I could come. I figured, God forbid, if something happened to my dad I’d better be here for my mom. Cookie would probably say it was Mom’s fault.”

  “You’re right. She might.”

  “And I didn’t want Luke and Max to be here without me either. I mean, this is happening to both of our families.”

  Luke looked up.

&n
bsp; “Any word?”

  “No, sweetie, I think it’s going to be a while,” I said. “Let’s go back and join Eve and Cookie.” And pull Cookie’s claws out of Eve’s throat, I thought, but kept it to myself.

  Eve and Cookie weren’t speaking. Cookie was flipping through a six-month-old People magazine and Eve was pacing the floor.

  “I’m so worried,” she said. I could see it in her eyes.

  Something had changed in Eve’s demeanor since the three of us had that cup of coffee a few days ago. The lines between us were no longer blurred and never would be again. Eve, who surprisingly assumed the lead, was reclaiming Carl. And Carl was stepping up to validate the worth of our relationships with each other with conviction, nobility, and great personal sacrifice. Adam was unaware still that it was Carl who was going to save him. Somehow, I knew though that when Adam woke up and learned what had transpired he would be a changed man for the rest of his life.

  “You know, Eve, you told me something years ago. Do you remember when Max had that awful fall and Carl stepped in? You said to me, you don’t know Carl. If something terrible is happening, Carl can make it right. I believed it then and I still believe it now. Carl is going to be fine. I just hope Adam will be fine too.”

  “Yeah, except this time, Carl’s taking a bullet.”

  “You’re right. But Carl knows how to judge the risk, don’t you think?”

  “I think so. I mean, Carl knows Adam is in real trouble and that the odds of Adam living without a transplant are nil. And waiting for one would take too long, at least that’s what Carl told me. Of course, if we’d known this just a few weeks ago, we could’ve taken Clarabeth’s. But who knew? Anyway, she was probably too old to be a donor. I don’t think your organs are transplanted after sixty.”

  “Clarabeth was close to ninety!”

  “Well, then, Carl had to be the man,” Eve said. “And that’s that!”

  “Too late to change his mind now,” I said.

  Eve scowled and I thought to myself that I’d painted a gruesome picture for no reason. I should learn to keep my mouth shut.