“We’d call the cops!”
While Mary Kay and Carol went to the bathroom, Beth took the opportunity to call Marc. She didn’t like to interrupt him while he was writing, but all that talk about Amalfi had made her homesick.
“Well, hello!” Marc said, delighted. “And how are we feeling this fine morning?”
She glanced at the phone suspiciously. What was up with him? “Fine. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.”
“I called to say I love you.”
“I know.”
“You do?” She eyed the pump as the numbers flipped upward: $12.46, $13.10. The price of gas was out of control.
“Yes. You said so last night over and over and over again. Marc, I love you sooooo much.”
Oh! She cringed, completely forgetting that she’d drunk-dialed him after a few too many lemon martinis. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was adorable.”
“But drunk-dialing? It spells pathetic loser.”
“No, it doesn’t. I haven’t heard you that gleeful in weeks.”
“I didn’t have that much to drink, actually. It’s that I went for a run with Carol and I was a little dehydrated.”
“A run, you say?”
Beth could picture him sitting with his legs up on the dining-room table, the laptop open before him, drinking a cup of coffee and loving this. “That’s right, wiseguy. A run. Carol took me three miles, and you know what? It wasn’t that bad. Think I might do it again tonight. Also, what would you say if I colored my hair? Nothing wild, just some highlights.”
“No matter what you do, you’ll be beautiful to me.”
Somewhere along the way someone must have handed Marc the magic guidebook for how husbands should respond to their wives.
“Listen, I’m glad you called. I just got off the phone with your sister jabbering a mile a minute about Chat’s test results tomorrow.”
Right. Maddy had called last night during their impromptu party, but Beth hadn’t heard the phone so she’d left a message on voice mail.
“I told her that I’d go with your parents to his appointment tomorrow, but apparently that’s not enough. She says she needs to talk to you ASAP.”
“I’ll call her as soon as I get off the phone. How is Dad, by the way? Have you heard anything?”
“All I heard was that he went out for nine holes of golf yesterday and shot two under par.”
Beth smiled. That was her father, all right. No clucking hens like her mother or sister would keep him off the links on a sunny autumn day. “Trying to squeeze in what he can before the snow falls.”
“You got that right. And Beth?”
The pump turned off, but she cocked the nozzle to deposit the final drops, as she’d learned in her penny-pinching research. “Yeah?”
“Come home safely, OK? It’s been disturbingly quiet without you around.”
“Promise.” She hung up the nozzle, got her receipt, and called her sister. “Finally!” Maddy exclaimed. “I called over and over last night. Where were you?”
“In our hotel in Pennsylvania.” Beth caught her reflection in the gas pump. The long hair wrapped in a messy bun, the old turtleneck and cardigan. No makeup. With this level of frump, she was giving librarians a bad name. “I must not have heard the phone, what with the music turned up full blast.”
“Music! I thought this was supposed to be some sort of dharma trip.”
Maddy could get herself so worked up over nothing. “It’s not a dharma trip. It’s a trip to fulfill Lynne’s last wishes, and Lynne wouldn’t have minded if we cranked a few tunes and drank a couple of martinis in her memory.”
“If you ask me, that sounds like just another girls’ night on the town.”
“Trust me, Mahoken’s not much of a town. Is everything OK? We’re about to get back on the road.”
“Everything’s fine. I’m just worried about Dad’s appointment tomorrow. I got absolutely no sleep last night worrying that he’ll get the results and he’ll need some kind of procedure. I know you and I have gone over and over this, but I just don’t feel right about him staying at Grace when the finest heart surgeons in the world are only a commute away.”
“It’ll be OK, Mad. Marc will be there. He won’t let Mom or Dad make a decision without first running it by us.”
“I know, but what if they need to make a life-or-death decision on the spot? What if they need to do an emergency angioplasty or open-heart surgery or a triple bypass? Mom has trouble choosing between a plaid or floral couch slipcover by herself, and no offense, but Marc’s in no position to call the shots about Dad’s heart. It’d be a weight off my mind if you were there tomorrow.”
Beth was starting to get frustrated. These were routine tests in a reputable hospital, and Marc was perfectly capable of handling the situation. If Maddy was so concerned, then why wasn’t she hopping a plane from L.A.? After forty years, Beth was getting tired of putting up with her sister’s bossiness. And she was sick of putting everyone else’s needs ahead of her own.
“Calm down, Maddy, and take a deep breath. I’m not going to overreact and run home. There’s no reason. You know everything will be OK with Dad, and if Marc needs us, he’ll call us. Besides, I’m only a few hours away if there’s an emergency. But right now, this is what I need to do for my nearest and dearest friend. Go forward, not back.”
There was an icy silence.
“OK, Beth. I guess you win.”
A begrudging victory. Madeleine had never let her win at anything, not in their ice-skating races or Monopoly or even in school.
“Just cross your fingers that nothing bad happens, because it’ll be on your watch.”
And with that, Maddy hung up the phone.
Mary Kay and Carol emerged from the truck stop in their suits, looking fresh as daisies, their hair neatly pinned back, pearls in their ears. Handing Beth the keys, Mary Kay said, “You wanna drive after you get fixed up?”
Beth shook her head, her hair falling over her eyes. Maybe Maddy was right. What had she been thinking leaving Dad alone with Mom when they had these tough decisions to make? What had come over her? She shouldn’t be dancing around a hotel room like some eighth-grader on a class field trip.
“I’m thinking maybe I should rent a car and drive back to Connecticut,” she said quietly. “Dad’s getting those results tomorrow and I need to be there. I should have followed my instincts and let you two take this trip alone.”
Mary Kay said, “Did you just get off the phone with Madeleine?”
Beth nodded.
Mary Kay sighed. “This is Maddy’s way of working off some of her anxiety. She can’t take it out on your parents, so she takes it out on you. Meanwhile, your dad’s in good hands at Grace, and Marc’s there. He’s no slouch.” She wrapped an arm around Beth’s shoulder. “Everything will be fine.”
“You think?”
“I don’t think. I know. Now, go get yourself all dolled up and I’ll call Steve Applebaum, the head of Grace’s cardiac unit, and ask him if he wouldn’t mind stopping by when Chat gets those results tomorrow. Steve and I go way back and he’ll give your dad extraspecial attention. Does that make you feel better?”
Beth nodded, feeling overwhelmed and thankful that she had a friend like Mary Kay. “It helps. It really does. You’re the best, MK.”
“I’m better when I’m bad.”
As they headed toward their rendezvous with Eunice, Beth thought about the week after she gave birth to David, when Maddy breezed in from the West Coast bearing delicate baby clothes that had to be hand washed in cold water and then reshaped on a drying rack. She’d bought them on Rodeo Drive, a hop and a skip from the home she and her movie-producer husband shared in Beverly Hills.
Beth remembered the afternoon clearly. Elsie perched on the edge of the couch, rapt as Maddy rattled off a list of celebrities she’d met at this party and that. Ron Howard and “the Winklers,” Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, and some actors they didn’t k
now then, but would.
Beth nursed David and listened to her sister, trim and chic, her pale bleach-blond hair yanked tight into a chignon, wearing a silk pantsuit of such a perishable winter white that holding her infant nephew—the supposed reason for the impromptu visit—was out of the question. Beth seriously doubted Maddy was actually on a “firstname basis” with Julia Roberts—or “Jules” to her and everyone else in L.A.—but what could she say? The only option was to suck it up and look impressed.
Maddy took a breath and put a delicate hand to her throat, turning to Beth as if she’d just noticed her presence. “Do you have some water? Those cross-country flights are so dehydrating.”
“In the kitchen.” Beth thumbed over her shoulder. “Good ole Connecticut well water. Remember that?”
Elsie was about to fetch a glass when Beth saw her chance for escape from Maddy’s Hollywood name dropping. “That’s OK, Ma, I’ll get it,” she said, getting up with David still at her breast and heading into the kitchen.
With one arm, she got down two glasses and then flipped on the faucet.
That’s when she saw Lynne shoveling snow off her front steps, singing “I Feel Pretty” at the top of her lungs. Having moved only a couple months before, she and Lynne hadn’t had a chance to meet, really, aside from exchanging friendly waves. Just a couple of pregnant women passing each other in the night.
Beth filled the glasses and then knocked on the window. Lynne turned right and then left. Her face broke into a brilliant smile. She pointed to David in Beth’s arms. “Congrats!” she yelled. “Me too.” She held up two fingers. “Twins.”
“Beth?” her sister called from the living room. “Mom and I were just talking about my schedule. Do you know if you and Marc can get the baby christened this weekend, or will I have to return later in the summer?”
Rolling her eyes, Beth looked back at Lynne, humming and shoveling. She put David over her shoulder, buttoned up, grabbed her coat, and went outside to introduce herself, leaving Elsie and Maddy in the living room, gossiping, while she and Lynne spent the rest of the afternoon talking and playing with their babies.
That was the beginning of her friendship with Lynne and the end of her relationship with Madeleine.
As she stepped out of JJ’s in her suit, her hair tidy and lipstick neatly applied, ready to greet Eunice, it broke Beth’s heart to think that, in the end, she had lost them both.
Chapter Eleven
The Beckwood Landing Assisted Living Center was a collection of interconnected white clapboard buildings set in a wooded vale, protected from the hustle and bustle of the workday world. Each unit sported its own lawn marked off by railroad ties. There were flower boxes on some of the windows and pinecone wreaths on a few of the doors. The main building anchored the center of the complex. To the left, a low building with ramps suggested a nursing wing.
Beth parked the car in the visitors’ lot and the women sat for a while contemplating what lay in store for them beyond its tidy exterior. It was so quiet here, so peaceful. Somewhere inside, Lynne’s mother was, perhaps, chatting with friends or reading a book, never suspecting that by nightfall she would be in the throes of unfathomable grief.
As a NICU nurse, Mary Kay was all too familiar with the horrors of informing parents that their child had died. Granted, the children were babies and the parents usually young, but if there was anything she’d learned in her long nursing career, it was that there was no mandatory age maximum for grief. A mother is a mother from the moment her baby is first placed in her arms until eternity. It didn’t matter if her child were three, thirteen, or thirty. When a child passes before the parents, it is devastating.
They got out and were heading toward the entrance when Mary Kay stopped them. “Hold on,” she said, reaching for Beth’s and Carol’s hands. They made a small circle in the parking lot.
“We all know this is going to be heart-wrenching,” she said. “But we have to keep our focus on Lynne and remember that our job is to be her representatives. We’re delivering a message she was too sick to deliver herself.”
“In a way, it’s almost as if we’re reuniting Lynne with her mom,” said Beth.
“Exactly.” Mary Kay gave each hand a squeeze. “We can do this because we are strong and we are together. Lynne would never have asked us if she didn’t think we were capable.”
And with that, they ventured forth.
The automatic doors parted and they entered a warmly lit lobby lined with original artwork. The faint strains of a Mozart concerto played over hidden speakers as they approached a mahogany reception desk. It was not what they’d been expecting when Lynne wrote that her mother was in a nursing home. Here, no detail had been spared in the preservation of dignity.
“May I help you?” A middle-aged woman in a sweater decorated with autumn leaves and a brass pin that read APRIL ANSEL, VOLUNTEER, looked up from her Parade magazine.
Mary Kay introduced them by name and said, “We’re here to see Eunice Swann. We come on behalf of her daughter, Lynne.”
April put the magazine aside, her smile both sad and welcoming. “I’m so sorry. Lynne alerted us that you’d be on your way.”
Beth wondered how Lynne could alert them when she was dead. “Pardon?”
“She called us a while ago in preparation for your visit.” April spoke slowly and deliberately. “She said there’d be three of you and that we should check in on her mother after you left.”
Carol asked if she happened to remember what day that was when Lynne called.
“Thursday. The Thursday before last.”
“That was the day Lynne died,” Beth said. “Did you know that?”
“We heard. What a tragedy. Lynne was such a giving soul.”
“So you knew her?” Beth asked.
“We never met in person, but she contributed generously to our foundation and she painted that, in fact.” April nodded to a watercolor by a fountain. “She had quite a gift.”
Beth inspected the painting of a light-green willow bending over a babbling brook. It was of Shepherd’s Creek by the Marker farm, about three miles from their houses. Was it possible? Yes, she remembered the spring Lynne had painted that. Late May during one of her better remission seasons. Seeing it here, miles away from home, was like stumbling upon a signpost pointing them in the right direction.
“If you’re ready,” April said, coming around the desk, “I’ll take you to Eunice.”
In quiet procession, they headed single-file down the carpeted hall, past a library and reading room. April’s footsteps padded softly, her hands folded in front of her like a nun’s.
This is fitting, Carol thought, trying to be mindful of what Mary Kay said in the parking lot. Even if telling Eunice would be difficult, it was better than her learning about Lynne’s death from someone who’d never met her daughter.
They arrived at the door marked MRS. E. SWANN. April said, “How about I ring the buzzer, since she knows me?”
Anything to make this easier on her, Beth thought.
April pressed the button and, after a short delay, an elderly voice said, “Yes?”
“It’s April, Mrs. Swann. I have some friends here to see you.”
“Friends?”
April pressed the intercom again. “Friends of your daughter, Lynne.”
There was another delay and then a click. April nodded. “You can go in. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Carol opened the door to a small apartment. A white galley kitchen was off a living room with windows on two sides. It was overstuffed with dark tables, oriental rugs, and upholstered furniture left over from a larger house, from a fuller life gone by.
Mrs. Swann sat by the far window wearing a bright pink sweater, a frilly white blouse, and large faux pearls, and her hair appeared to have been newly styled. There was a book in her lap, the Bible, reminding Beth it was Sunday. Possibly, Eunice was dressed up because she’d spent that morning in church.
“Mrs. Swann?�
� Mary Kay said, introducing each of them.
She waved them closer. “Come in. Have a seat.”
Beth slid into a wing chair. “I hope we’re not disturbing you.” A meaningless statement. Another tactic to buy time.
“Just going over this morning’s reading. The twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.” Eunice closed the Bible. “So, you’re friends of Lynne’s.”
“That’s right.” Beth gripped the arms of the wingback. Mary Kay and Carol took the couch. Though Mary Kay was supposed to do the talking, Beth suddenly felt compelled. “Lynne and I were next-door neighbors in Marshfield, Connecticut.”
She’d used the past tense. Shooting a panicked look to Mary Kay and Carol, she added, “I don’t know if you knew that Lynne moved to Marshfield.”
Eunice folded her hands over the Bible and said nothing.
“Mrs. Swann,” Mary Kay said, taking over. “Lynne asked that we give you a letter she wrote.”
Beth brought the envelope from her purse and handed it to Eunice. But Eunice didn’t move. Her hands remained clasped over the Bible. Awkwardly, Beth set it aside on the table, next to a framed black-and-white photo of Eunice and her husband in sunnier days.
Eunice said, “I don’t understand. Why would she write me a letter?”
“She’s your daughter,” Carol said.
“I have no daughter,” Eunice snapped, then turned to look out the window. The three women glanced at one another, trying to determine if Eunice might be suffering from mild dementia.
What to do now? The women tensed. Should they get April? Should they leave the letter there and just go?
No. They couldn’t, Mary Kay decided. That would be copping out of their sacred duty. They’d come this far. They couldn’t turn back. “Mrs. Swann,” she said gently. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this, but Lynne has been very sick for eight years with cancer.”
Eunice’s left pinky twitched.
“And a week ago Thursday, she finally . . . passed.”
Eunice closed her eyes. The women remained still. Outside a car went by, its headlights sending a beam across the room, illuminating the tears on a mother’s face.
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