“And I’ve apologized for that.” His voice is measured. He’s trying to keep it under control, but he can’t quite believe she wants to rehash all of this again. It happened almost a year ago! “How many more times can I say I’m sorry?”
“It’s not just that time, and you know it.” Her eyes flash at him. “Do I really need to list all the times for you? The broken glass? The computer? The guy in the bar with the Confederate flag? Last week with Gary? At the museum the other night?” She leans back against the railing. “Jesus, Jason. Don’t you see a pattern here?”
“Mmm, not really,” he says, but inside, he can feel something in him shift. From disbelief to incredulity to frustration to annoyance. “But if you want to go ahead and list all your grievances—”
“They’re not grievances!” she shouts, and he takes a step back. “They’re all about you! How can you not see that?” She’s full on crying now. “I love you, Jason, and I swore to myself that I was going to give you another chance, but this can’t work. Especially if you’re hurting your students now.”
“I already told you—I didn’t do it.” He’s talking between gritted teeth because she’s really pissing him off now. How many times can he tell her? How can he make her believe in his innocence? She’s making him out to be some kind of creep when she knows that’s not who he is. She should have seen his dad! This is nothing, this list of grievances she’s apparently been carrying around with her for quite some time.
She takes another step away from him, turning her shoulder toward him, her face in profile while she gazes out on the harbor. And for a second, her beauty stops him—the delicate mole on her right cheek, the thick lashes, the aquiline nose that he used to tease her meant she’d descended from royalty.
“Gwen, be careful,” he says gently, more softly now, moving toward her. “I don’t want you to fall.” And before he realizes what he’s doing, his hand reaches out to grab her.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Claire watches the couples who wander lazily back to the hotel. The early-afternoon sun glances off the water like a machete, bright and dazzling. After her scare at the aquarium this morning, she’s perfectly content up here on the balcony, feeling the sun warming her face, a Bloody Mary in hand, thanks to room service. Hair of the dog that bit you, she thinks. One of Walt’s favorite sayings. Maybe she won’t feel so hungover if she has a little cocktail. One or two little cocktails to calm her nerves. Scrub away the panic that had fallen over her like a second skin this morning.
She’s just hung up with Amber. A call she’d made to let her daughter know that she got back to the hotel safely and not to worry about a thing. But Amber had suggested driving up to Boston later this afternoon when she gets off work. She’d pitched it as a fun girls’ night out on the town (she could sleep over in Claire’s room), but Claire, while forgetful, isn’t dense. She knows full well that her daughter is worried, concerned that maybe her mother is losing her marbles. Already Amber has alerted Ben to her incident, as she called it, this morning. Claire knows this because Ben texted her a little while ago to ask if she’s all right. Eventually, she knows she’ll have to tell her daughter.
Because what Amber doesn’t know and Claire does—and so does Ben—is that this isn’t just a hiccup, another senior moment that will evaporate, right itself in time. Nor is it merely a panic attack. It’s oh-so-much more than that.
They happened slowly at first, the senior moments. She’d started noticing them probably a couple of months after Walt’s passing. Around the house, little things started to go missing. A container of ice cream returned to the fridge instead of the freezer. Her hairbrush left behind in the laundry room. A half-eaten pear abandoned on a bookshelf, as if she’d been called away to the phone and had forgotten to return for it. A neglected cup of coffee she’d reheated in the microwave only to discover it the next morning. Typical absentmindedness, she told herself, for someone who was recently widowed. She’d been guilty of the same forgetfulness when she was pregnant.
But then she’d started losing words, which had been more concerning somehow. At an editorial meeting back in January, she’d gotten stuck on the word halo while presenting. Imagine! Such a simple thing. And yet it was nowhere accessible in her brain when she’d faced her colleagues around the massive oak table, a place where she’d attended meetings for more than thirty years. She’d made a joke of some kind: Oh, you know, that little circle thingy an angel wears over her head. And right away someone guessed halo, and everyone laughed. Happens to me all the time, an associate editor fifteen years her junior said. And after that, Claire got skilled at playing off her memory lapses. Just wait till you get old, she joked. Or There goes another senior moment.
Eventually, though, the things that went missing around the house got stranger, grew more anomalous. One day in April, she’d found her toothbrush in the refrigerator. Another day a flip-flop in the basement and its match on top of the TV in her bedroom. It reminded her of that Norwegian memory game, Husker Du, that she and the kids used to play. A game that required finding two matching objects—a ribbon or a cat or a lamp—hiding behind a black checker-like circle on a game board. If the picture under the second black checker you picked up didn’t match the first, then you had to return both checkers and wait for another turn. Claire had lost hundreds of times to Ben and Amber, who both had an uncanny knack for remembering where they’d last seen that ribbon or cat. Well, now she was playing it by herself in her own home.
When she stumbled upon something out of place, she’d struggle to remember where it was meant to go exactly. Some days it would come to her right away. Oh, the TV remote belongs next to the television, not in the bathroom! Or Why on earth would this carton of orange juice be sitting on top of the piano? It belongs in the refrigerator! Sometimes she let herself believe that it was Walt’s spirit playing tricks on her, a mischievous elf hiding the very things he knew she’d be searching for later.
On bad days, though, when she couldn’t figure out the appropriate place for an item, it would end up on her kitchen counter, where similar mismatched items had begun to collect. A random screwdriver. A coaster. A miniature sewing kit. A slipper. An envelope of coupons she’d been saving for something but couldn’t remember what. Her kitchen counter had become the Land of Missing Stuff, much like the Island of Misfit Toys. Funny she had no trouble recalling that sad little jack-in-the-box in the TV Christmas special from years ago, and yet she couldn’t fathom where her other slipper had gone yesterday.
One day last month she’d overhead two colleagues at the watercooler talking about her.
“Does Claire seem off to you?” one asked.
“Yeah, something’s not right. Maybe she’s coming down with that flu bug that’s going around?” Claire had hovered just beyond the doorway, too afraid to move.
“No, this seems like something else. The other day I watched her at the copying machine, and it was so strange, like she couldn’t remember which way the paper was supposed to go in.” Claire, astonished to hear this, had nearly forgotten the episode herself. But when her colleague mentioned it, a wave of heat rode across her face as she recalled how flustered she’d gotten trying to make copies. She’d concluded the machine was broken.
And finally there’d been that time, just last month, when Amber stopped by on a Saturday night to drop Fiona off for their sleepover party, and Claire, already in her pajamas, had completely forgotten about it. It was a turning point, really. Amber and Jeff had been planning on a date night.
She didn’t let on to Amber or Fiona, of course, but it had shaken Claire to the core, she who planned days in advance for every sleepover with her granddaughter, buying ingredients for homemade cookies and supplies from the crafts store. When she’d gone to check her datebook, sure enough, there were the words scribbled as plain as day on Saturday’s square: Sleepover with Fiona! When she confessed to Ben the next day, he insisted she make a docto
r’s appointment to get checked out. “Just to be safe. It’s not like you, Mom, to forget a sleepover with Fiona.” And she had to agree. Maybe it was more than a few senior moments she’d been experiencing. But did she really want to find out if it was something more than old age? Something worse?
Ben promised he’d go with her, and he had, loyally pulling up in her driveway an hour and a half before her appointment at MGH so she wouldn’t feel rushed. Some tests and then a follow-up scan had revealed troubling spots on her brain. When she reviewed the scan herself, the thickening plaques brought to mind the lit-up phosphorescence she’d seen in the ocean when she and Walt had gone snorkeling in Puerto Rico for their honeymoon. It was almost pretty, a work of art. She made Ben promise not to tell Amber, her most emotional child. Not until Claire was ready. But now, she thinks regrettably, her secret is out. How she wishes she hadn’t called Amber at the aquarium! She should have phoned Ben when the fogginess first began to descend. But it was the matter of Fiona that had made her reach out to Amber instinctively. Amber, she’d reasoned, would know where to find her own daughter.
Claire sips her Bloody Mary (her second, but who’s counting?), watching the tiny boats parade across the harbor. The doctor had warned her about these kinds of episodes becoming more frequent, though he couldn’t say when, exactly, they might ramp up. Mental eclipses he’d called them, and Claire had clung to that lovely image, envisioning the moon getting in the way of her sunny brain for a brief moment before moving on to bother someone else.
Ben has been encouraging her to tell her boss, Julian, what’s going on. Especially after the latest debacle, the flubbed article on McKinnon. But Claire hadn’t been quite ready to do that. Her memory problems, she reasons, are her own. And she doesn’t want anyone’s pity. Not yet, at least. Because as soon as she tells Julian, pity will be all she’ll get—from him and her colleagues. Besides, how could she tell her boss before her own daughter?
But she’ll need to have a conversation with Amber soon. Maybe even tonight, if she drives up from Providence. A talk where she’ll reveal that the brain that has served her so well for sixty-one years is starting to let her down, shirk its responsibilities. It’s disappointing. No way around it, she’ll say, but crappy things happen in life—everyone’s dealing with something, right? She’ll do her best to downplay it so that her daughter, always a worrier, won’t worry incessantly. Maybe she’ll even ask her to return Marty’s blazer that Claire rediscovered in her bathroom this morning, forgetting that he’d lent it to her last night. Because Claire doesn’t have the strength to reach out to him again.
She sighs. It won’t be easy talking to Amber. She’s been dreading this conversation, which is probably why she has postponed it for so long. Amber has always been her most apprehensive child—and her most responsible. Maybe because Ben is Claire’s baby, when something needs doing it’s typically Amber who has risen to the challenge. Even when the kids were little, this was the natural order of things. But Ben, her quiet, reserved child, has surprised Claire these last few weeks, shuttling her back and forth to appointments, shouldering the bulk of responsibility when it comes to her health.
And while the doctor talks, Ben takes copious notes, asks thoughtful questions. At each appointment, he calmly files away any new information as if it’s the same as keeping track of the flurry of baseball statistics he used to memorize as a young boy. It’s astonishing how much he reminds her of Walt during these sessions! So matter-of-fact, respectful. Not one mention of chakras or crystals. The doctor said she might have anywhere from one to several more years to enjoy, years when the graceful contours of her children’s faces will remain familiar to her. When Fiona will visit and Claire will remember her sweet granddaughter’s name and might even recall her favorite kind of cookie—chocolate-chip oatmeal—and will know that the dollhouse Fiona loves to play with (Amber’s old toy house) is upstairs in the guest-room closet waiting for her. Even though the more mundane details of daily life—like remembering whether or not she has showered, turned the kettle off, returned a phone call—might begin to slip away. Naturally, the doc can’t make any promises.
It’s the thought of not knowing, not recognizing the people who are most dear to her that breaks her. She can handle losing a word here and there. She can even come to grips with leaving her job. And an episode, while terrifying when she’s in it, is short-lived. Somehow she knows that if she’s patient enough, she’ll reach the other side of it. But once those episodes become permanent, when she’s not even aware that she’s staring blankly into the eyes of her own children? Well, that part she can’t let herself consider right now. Not fully. It’s simply too terrifying.
Her secret, though, is one that she knows she won’t be able to hold on to much longer.
* * *
When the man dressed in a hotel uniform knocks on the door of room 1018, the guest who opens it smiles gamely at him. She’s holding a glass with a celery stick in it that could be tomato juice or something stronger, perhaps a Bloody Mary.
“Hello,” she says and tucks a piece of hair behind one ear. “Can I help you?”
He’s immediately struck by how young she appears up close—and how attractive she is. He’s been told she’s sixty-one, but the past few days he’s been following her from afar so it’s been hard to tell. Her skin is smooth, and her eyes are a bright, bright blue. The effect is almost startling. She’s wearing a yellow sundress with daisies embroidered along the bottom. He nearly forgets his speech. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he says. “I was checking to see if you needed a set of fresh towels?” He holds out a stack of crisp, white towels.
“Oh, no thank you. I have too many as it is. Thanks, though. I appreciate it.”
“No problem at all. Is there anything else I might get you?”
She tilts her head, as if considering, then says, “No, don’t think so. I’m all set. Thanks, again.”
“You’re welcome. Have a nice day, ma’am.” When she shuts the door, the man moves swiftly to the elevator and punches the button for the ground floor. As he exits the elevator, he tosses the fresh towels into a rolling cart of soiled linens and heads out to the Seafarer’s front lawn, where he places his call at exactly 11:45 a.m.
“Hello, sir. I just checked in on your mother. She’s safely back in her hotel room, as she told your sister. She had a drink in hand, perhaps a Bloody Mary?” He listens to the response. “Yes, she gave us a bit of a scare there, didn’t she, among the fishes? But she made her way back to the hotel all right. I would have intervened, if needed.” He hesitates. “I should add that your mother appeared to be in good spirits and had her wits about her when I spoke to her briefly.” He waits for the response on the other end. “Very well. I’m glad to have been of service. I’ll stay until your sister arrives at the hotel, then. Once I see that Ms. O’Dell is with her, I’ll conclude my services. You’re very welcome. Take care. And, sir? My best to your mom. She seems like a lovely person.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Later that evening
Riley watches the evening news from the comfort of her couch at home. She’s changed into her gray sweatpants and a Jessica Simpson T-shirt, which Tom loves for some reason that’s probably twisted up in teenage fantasies and other stuff Riley doesn’t care to know about. When the newscaster announces the story of the woman who jumped at the hotel today, she calls Tom in from their study, where he’s working. Though, how he can be getting any work done after the afternoon they’ve recently endured, she can’t imagine.
“The story’s on the five o’clock news,” Riley says, pointing to the TV, and Tom sits down next to her. On the screen, the hotel manager stands off to one side while the police commissioner addresses the reporters. Riley and Tom listen to his every word.
“What’s a ‘death investigation’ mean, I wonder?” she asks when the report wraps up. “Could it be a homicide, then? Like maybe someone pushed her? I k
ind of assumed she’d jumped.”
“I’m not sure,” Tom says. “I think it means it could go either way.”
“Ugh. It’s so awful. I can’t believe we were there.” She curls up closer to him and rests her head on his shoulder. “Do you think your poor mom will ever recover?”
After being questioned, they’d found Marilyn sitting in the hotel lobby with Gillian, the wedding coordinator. Riley had never seen her future mother-in-law looking so pale. “Hello, there,” Tom said, helping her to her feet. “Thanks for your help, Gillian. We’ll take it from here. Let’s get you home, Mom.”
After they’d arrived back at Newbury Street, Riley brewed Marilyn a cup of tea and sat down across from her at the dining-room table. The view out her in-laws’ second-story brownstone was gorgeous this time of year. The tree-lined street was bursting with bright green leaves, a stark contrast to the somber mood in the room. “That poor woman,” Marilyn said into her tea. “Do you think she had any family?”
“I don’t know.” Riley was being honest and wasn’t sure what Marilyn wanted to hear. Would it be worse if the woman had family because there would be people left to grieve? Or would it somehow be better if she didn’t? Her death an isolated incident without any ripple effect.
But everyone had family of one kind or another, didn’t they? Even if the woman hadn’t been old enough to have her own children, she was somebody’s daughter, probably someone’s sister or aunt or fiancée. “It’s so hard to understand why anyone would jump from the balcony of one of the most expensive hotels in Boston. Do you think she was trying to make some kind of statement? I mean, assuming it was a suicide.”
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