They stared at each other for a terrible, incredulous moment. She couldn’t absolve him of responsibility for what he’d done. Then again, Caroline had been just as proud. Too proud to fight harder, to do anything but silently scream as he slipped away. Those years after college were tough. The terror of what everyone called “the real world” was real, particularly on the heels of the “happy little bubble” of Athens. They’d been so young, bent on getting things right.
He forced a laugh. “Do you know I used to think it was lucky I ran into her? I thought that accidental talk ended up saving you and me from making a mistake.”
“I guess if you were so easily swayed, it wasn’t meant to be.”
He took her in, head cocked again, measuring his words.
“It wasn’t easily,” he said quietly. “And I’d been taught that if something seems too good to be true, it is.” His voice broke, and something in her did, too. This was not what she’d wanted to hear. What she’d wanted was proof that whatever ill-considered things Mom had said, they’d been secondary to the deciding factor. Not that her own mother had made Keaton believe Caroline was throwing over her goals for a man—while waiting for him to change, no less. A cringeworthy cliché any way you looked at it. No wonder he’d left.
His eyes were wet. “But you have a family now. We should be talking about your life.”
“We are talking about my life.”
“The part that’s still relevant, I mean.”
“This is relevant, Keat. You don’t know what I went through.” She caught a glimpse of what it meant to him to hear her say that before he tucked it behind the more accepting bygones be bygones expression he’d been wearing.
She’d needed him to know what had been true for her, before. Now he did.
But what did she really expect, want, in return? Other than the sad truth?
“If I could do it again, Caro, I—”
“There you are!” She looked up, dazed, to see Maureen rushing at them.
“Mo.” Keaton straightened, flushed pink. “Good to see you.”
Caroline met Mo’s eyes, expecting a mischievous gleam. But all she saw was sorrow.
“Your phone’s off.…” Mo puffed, out of breath. “I told them I’d get you.”
Not sorrow. Controlled panic. Caroline scrambled to her feet. “What’s happened?”
“It’s your dad. He’s had a heart attack.”
12
Sela
An unfamiliar nurse greeted Sela and led her down a long corridor of numbered exam rooms to the back area where lab collections were done. “Where’s Marie?” Sela asked, just for something to say as she walked obediently through the last open door and plunked into the gray vinyl chair, reminiscent of the dentist’s office—high back, padded arms, reclining function in case anyone felt woozy.
“She’s at Disney World? In Florida? With her family?”
Sela barked a surprised laugh, then clamped a hand over her mouth. It seemed wrong to poke fun at the woman with her colleagues, and yet …
“Spot-on,” she said, raising an approving eyebrow.
The nurse glanced furtively into the hall, then flashed Sela a mischievous grin and sat down at the computer alongside the chair. “There’s more where that came from, if you like impressions. Amateur Night at the Grey Eagle, this Sunday.” She tapped at the keyboard, presumably pulling up Sela’s lab order, while Sela squinted, trying to discern whether she was kidding. This woman seemed about her age and about as plain. Her ponytail hung down the back of her scrubs, small silver hearts dangled from her ears, and her face was bare aside from a little mascara and lip gloss. Tough to picture her in a spotlight, at a mic, but you never could tell about a person just from looking.
“You do stand-up comedy?”
“I try.”
She cocked her head, wondering if this should make her more at ease with the woman or dramatically less so. “Any patients ever make the act?”
“Fear not. I have no need to cross that line. My coworkers give me plenty of fodder.” She winked. “Though I limit myself to the ones I’m confident would never show up to support. So don’t bust me.”
“Your secret’s safe with me. I could use a little comic relief.”
What was she doing? This kind of friendly chitchat violated her rules. Sela sniffed and sat up straighter, ready for business.
“Couldn’t we all,” the nurse said, scrolling through her screen. “Okay, so when I haven’t seen a patient before, I like to look over…”
Sela saw the instant the words escaped her—the way her expression flickered and froze. What had caught her eye? New test results, or something in her history? The nurse caught her watching and adjusted her face back into a smile.
“The whole picture,” she finished. “I’m Janie, by the way.”
“Hi.”
Janie’s chatter did not interfere with her efficiency. She moved Sela through the usual in record time—whipping on and off the blood pressure cuff, mercifully finding a vein on the first try—all while answering the questions Sela had wondered but not voiced. She didn’t aspire to be a comedian instead of a nurse, it was just a fun outlet on the side. She’d been at it a couple of years, met some great people on the circuit. Didn’t have kids, so didn’t mind the occasional travel. Didn’t have a boyfriend, so didn’t mind the occasional fanboy. At that, Sela laughed.
“What about you?” Janie asked. “Married?”
“Divorced. Almost.”
“Ah.” Janie’s eyes glanced almost imperceptibly back at the screen as she adhered labels to the vials of Sela’s blood. If she was calculating timelines, she was kind enough not to show it. “Do you have an anthem?”
“An anthem?”
“Say you walk into a pub and there’s your ex, perched on a bar stool. What perfect song would start blaring on the speakers when you stride past him?”
“It’s been strongly recommended I avoid pubs.”
Janie frowned. “Oh, come on. Play. Your kidneys have no role in this fantasy.”
What a question—she’d never thought about it. “Hmm. Fleetwood Mac, maybe? ‘Go Your Own Way.’”
“Ooh. Layered.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“But fierce. That drumbeat? Plus, you can shout that song.”
“You can’t not shout that song.”
“‘You can call it an-other lonely day,’” Janie whisper-shouted in tune, and Sela dropped her chin to her chest and punched her fist in the air.
“Take that, ex,” Janie said, standing. Sela thought that they were done, that Janie would show her out, but instead she shut the door and sat down again, turning serious. “There’s a note here that you don’t want to know about your progress.”
“That’s—” Sela wriggled in her chair. This was exactly why she never let her guard down at these appointments—it invited scrutiny. Then again, if that’s what Marie had written, she’d need to clarify. “Not what I said,” she finished.
“Good. What did you say?”
She held her palms out: Nothing shady here. “I just don’t want the play-by-play on these monthlies. I thought I’d do better on a need-to-know basis.” She made a Please don’t say I can’t face, but Janie didn’t laugh.
“This isn’t a monthly,” Janie pointed out. “It’s a recheck.”
Sela bit her lip. “I know.”
Janie smiled then, more sympathetic. “Since I haven’t seen you before, I haven’t reviewed your entire file. But if we’re talking about redirecting your energy to something productive, have you started asking around? For potential donors willing to get tested?”
Sela sighed. It was far too complicated to explain that she was redirecting her energy toward the one untapped relationship that had a worth-mentioning chance of being a match. Or that, for human decency reasons, she hoped to separate that relationship from the matter of her health for as long as possible. Never mind that telling Caroline all this later, even if they did forge
some bond, would not necessarily make her more decent. “Sort of. But my antibodies are what’s known in layman’s terms as oversensitive assholes.”
Janie laughed, but her expectant expression didn’t change. “That’s exactly why it’s never too early to pound the pavement for a match. I love when my patients are able to circumnavigate dialysis entirely. Doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s like beating the system, you know?” My patients, she’d said, implying that Sela was now one. That she felt responsibility toward her. Sela hadn’t felt that from anyone in a while, and though she’d been actively avoiding it, she couldn’t honestly say it felt bad.
She cleared her throat. “Um. Yeah. So, my ex volunteered, my best friend got tested…”
“With sensitization issues, I’m sure you were told family might be your best bet.”
She nodded. “After my mother’s funeral, some relatives kept in closer touch. Her family isn’t large, or close, but they were concerned that she was gone and I was—” Sela’s voice broke. Over a year later, and she wasn’t sure what she hated more—that she had to talk about Ecca in the past tense or that whenever she did, she wound up sounding like a child. “Once my grandmother caught wind of the way this was headed, several of them stepped up. My grandfather is an alcoholic, so he was out, but my grandmother got tested, even though she’s way older than recommended. Also my mother’s brother and his grown kids, even though they live on the West Coast and barely know me. It was very kind. I don’t know if anyone would’ve gone through with it, but no one matched anyway.”
“And your father’s family?”
She’d already given an uncomfortable level of detail. “Not in the picture.”
“Sometimes it’s appropriate—” Sela held up a hand, and Janie took the hint. “Okay. I’m sorry to hear about your mom. Do you feel as if it’s worth asking around again, family-wise? Or do you get the sense everyone who was going to step up did?”
“Definitely that everyone willing did. My grandmother was persistent. I think she felt bad about the state of her relationship with my mother and hoped to make up for it.”
“Has she been a support to you beyond that?”
“She tried to be, but I—” She shook her head, looking down at her lap. She tried so hard to keep her disease separate from everything else—her marriage, parenthood, family, friendships—but there was no separating it. It made no more sense to try than it did to keep the nurses at arm’s length so she wouldn’t feel like the regular patient she was.
“Okay. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to get overly personal.” Janie touched her arm gently. “Have you been to one of the Big Ask seminars yet?”
Sela shook her head. “Since my best chance is family…”
“Best, but not only. There’s always a chance—you only need one match out there, right? When it comes to this particular need, if you’re not trying, you’re effectively giving up. And if you’re going to be in my rotation, you can’t give up. It’s bad for my act.”
Was she going to be in her rotation? Maybe someone like Janie would be better for Sela after all. She tried for a smile. “Hey, I thought you left your patients out of it.”
“Out of the joke, not out of my mind? And I’m supposed to be funny? So you gotta work with me on this? So I can sleep at night?” The Marie impression was so damn accurate, it almost made her wish Marie were here so she could hear them side by side.
Almost.
“I’m not giving up,” Sela said. She wasn’t going to get into it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. “And my ex went to the workshop. He’s been using the … approaches.”
“Did he run it all by you? Before he put out bulletins or whatever?” Bulletins? Good grief.
“He told me about it after,” she said. “I mean, during. He told me he was doing it.”
Janie cocked her head. “One of the things discussed in the seminar is to obtain the patient’s permission before employing the suggested strategies. This is your story to tell. Not anyone else’s. It’s great to have help, but from your expression—it should be on your terms, or at least terms you’re okay with. He should not go his own way with this.”
This was news to Sela. The Fleetwood Mac faded from the white noise in her mind.
“It’s okay,” she said awkwardly. “I wasn’t mad.” As soon as she said it, she realized it wasn’t true. But she hadn’t wanted to seem ungrateful. Not even when Leigh poked fun at his outreach.
“I can tell you don’t feel comfortable with this idea of asking,” Janie said softly. “That’s why I think you should go. That’s what the seminars are for. There’s one Friday, in fact.” She spread her arms wide. “Go and see what they say. What do you have to lose? Besides a poorly functioning kidney?”
What did she have to lose?
She gave a nervous laugh. “I’m kind of a textbook denial case, I guess.”
“You told me your situation in plain terms. That’s not denial. It’s normal to not want to shout it from rooftops. But even though you’re just coming in for lab work at this point, it can help to have someone here who you feel connected to. Marie, me, whoever. That’s one thing the dialysis patients have on the rest of you—the only thing they have that’s worth envying: They spend so much time with the staff and each other that it’s one big support group over there. Made me want to become a nurse, in fact. And a comic, come to think of it.”
Become? Sela blinked at her. “You were a patient?”
“Got my first living donor kidney twenty-two years ago.”
Sela gaped at her. Janie couldn’t be past forty—at least, not much.
“Third time’s a charm, as they say. This one’s going strong ten years in. Belongs to my sister. We take a girls’ trip on the anniversary every year to celebrate.”
“Wow.” Sela didn’t know why she felt she should’ve somehow sensed this.
She also didn’t know why she was crying. Maybe it was the shock of seeing someone so capable out on the other side. Or maybe it was the mention of Janie’s sister—that not only had she been willing but it was something they celebrated. Something bringing them even closer. Janie handed her a tissue from a wall-mounted dispenser. “I had no idea anyone here had been through it themselves,” Sela managed.
“You’d be surprised how many of us have. Like I said, that ‘big happy family’ vibe really carries you through those dialysis days. Especially young. A lot of people have this sense of wanting to help others that way—or feeling we’d be good at it, because we get it, you know?” She fixed her eyes on Sela’s. “I won’t pretend to know what you’ve been through. Everyone’s experience is different. But I can tell you that at a base, gut level, I do get it.”
Sela’s head bobbed in manic agreement, like a doll on a dashboard. Janie gave her hand a squeeze, and Sela felt the folded brochure slide into her palm.
“Promise you’ll think about going Friday.”
The people on the glossy trifold cover smiled, arms around each other. Through the blur of her tears, she recognized one of them as Janie.
“If I do, any chance of you moving me from Marie’s book to yours?” A whisper was all Sela could manage.
“Already done,” Janie whispered back.
13
Caroline
Mo did not say, That looked like some intense shit I walked into with you and Keat. She did not say, Holy fuck, not fair that he looks that good. She didn’t say, Tell me everything on the way. She didn’t say much at all, other than insisting Caroline not drive herself to the hospital.
That’s how Caroline had known it was bad.
What if Dad was already gone by the time she got there? The last thing she ever said to him would have been—what?
She couldn’t remember the words but knew the emotion behind them, felt it still. Disappointment. Distrust. Disbelief. All of it, though, borne from the infinite depth of her love for the man who had raised her, shaped her. Always been there for her, so dependably and so well that she
resented having to think of who else he might have failed along the way.
They drove in silence, while Caroline fumbled with her phone, shame mounting at the way she’d scoffed like a melodramatic adolescent at Mom’s incoming call. While she’d been caught up with Keat, she’d missed nine calls from Mom, three from Walt—who’d given up and texted that he’d pick up the kids from school and meet her at the hospital—and two from Mo. None from Dad, no matter how long she stared at the log, willing his name to appear. She dialed his number, just to hear his voice on the outgoing message. Tears filled her eyes.
She should have foreseen something like this. Should have known better than to have the nerve to be glad she hadn’t heard from him this week. Should have sensed the danger in her marrow, instead of focusing on the wrong worries. The selfish ones.
“Don’t worry about responding,” Mo said gently. “Hannah’s phone can’t get service in the waiting room.” On my way, Caroline texted anyway. With a silent plea: Let it not be too late.
Mo dropped her at the main entrance and went to park the car. Caroline rushed through the hospital’s maze of corridors as fast as her sling-backs could carry her, skimming the wall-mounted signs, following the shaky instructions Mo had relayed. Above her, fluorescent lights emanated the aggressive artificial glow of a bad dream.
She loathed everything about this place. The way every event that had previously brought her here had started out as routine, then escalated in spite of assurances to the contrary: Walt’s “food poisoning” that revealed itself to be appendicitis. Riley’s broken arm from an innocuous-looking sliding board tumble. Owen’s jaundice, days after discharge from maternity. She loathed the way it made her bargain with God even when the odds were in her favor, the way it smelled of antiseptic desperation, the way it hummed and beeped and vibrated, a conduit for things she’d never understand. The way it held the people she loved in its grasp and decided unilaterally whether to let them go.
Never before had she stepped inside and thought that maybe they had done something to deserve this turn. But even as she ran toward her dread, she couldn’t help wondering.
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