“My grandfather was one. I admired him, and I knew it would be a good career for a provider. It’s certainly helped us cover your exorbitant medical expenses.”
“That’s not exactly my fault, Dad.” Harry spoke quietly, but his deep scowl suggested he had a great deal more to say on the subject. His right leg jerked sideways.
“I’m not blaming you. I’m merely stating a fact. I enjoy my work, I’m good at it, and we’ve all benefited. I’m not highlighting a problem.” So please think before you say anything critical.
A blue jay jeered in the forest, and Harry gave his throat-clearing tic.
“Do you think Mom ever regrets giving up work to be a full-time parent?”
“She does work. Bloody hard, as I’ve discovered this week.”
“You know I didn’t mean that.”
“Then you should have been more specific.” Felix sipped his tea. It was too weak, but Harry was trying. They were both trying, and the effort was exhausting. “Your mother made choices, as did I. She didn’t ask me to move to the States before you were born. I didn’t ask her to give up jewelry design.”
“What do you mean about moving to the States?”
“Pretty obvious, I would have thought. You know your mother was pregnant when we got married.”
“I thought I was planned.”
“Have you ever talked about this with your mother?”
“Yes. But I’m not asking her right now—I’m asking you. Was I planned?” Harry stood and stared at Felix without blinking.
“No,” Felix said. “You were an accident. I assumed you knew this.”
“And you followed Mom to America and married her because it was the right thing to do.” There was no question in Harry’s voice. And still, he stared.
“Harry, I have to get to Home Depot so I can fix the hole in the house before the light goes. I don’t see the relevance of this conversation. I married your mother because I wanted to, and I have no regrets. I’m quite sure she doesn’t, either.”
“But did you love her?”
“I was passionate about her. I was obsessed with her, and I made a choice. Turns out I made the right one. And through that choice, I discovered what it means to be in love. Do I love your mother? Yes. With all my heart.”
Harry turned and slid open the glass door. “I just can’t believe neither of you ever told me the truth,” he said, and disappeared.
Felix looked up at his house, disfigured by the large piece of silver flashing he had attached temporarily to cover up the hole. An ugly metal Band-Aid. The men from Critter Rescue had struggled to accept that Felix preferred they not seal up the hole—“Really, Mr. Fitzwilliam, it’s part of the service.” Really, but no thanks. He was the only person who worked on this house. If necessary, he would rip out and rebuild the entire bathroom. His eyes moved across the siding to the glass doors. Harry was stomping back and forth in the living room, yelling the f-word and playing the part of the disaffected teen Felix had just informed Robert did not exist. Dealing with squirrels was definitely the easiest part of this brave new world.
SIXTEEN
Felix looked up from his lined legal pad. “I have questions.”
Ella, sitting upright in her hospital bed, picked at the weave of her white cotton blanket while her monitor bleeped.
“Of course you do.” The corners of Dr. Beau Carlton Beaubridge’s all-American smile wavered. Unlike Felix, Dr. Beaubridge had applied hair gel. Just another day at the office with the critically ill, the dying, and those unfortunate enough to be his patients.
An image flashed in Felix’s mind, a perverted image of him ripping out Ella’s tubes and bashing the monitor with the fire extinguisher. Or was it Dr. Beau-Beau he wanted to bash?
“Let me get this right.” Felix crossed his legs. “My wife’s stent got clogged on your watch.”
“Unfortunately, these things happen, Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
“Incompetence, you mean?” According to his research, a clog was a rare occurrence with a drug-eluting stent and, when combined with a widow-maker lesion, extremely dangerous. Someone was to blame—someone was responsible—and Felix was staring at that someone.
“Stent thrombosis is uncommon, but it can occur subacutely in the first thirty days. As I have explained before, your wife has been incredibly unlucky. A seemingly healthy woman with a dormant genetic condition. And now this second setback.” Dr. Beaubridge shook his head.
“I hope you’re not implying that luck plays a part in her medical treatment.” Felix tossed the pad aside. “So what next? We hold hands and pray, because prayer seems a better option than Raleigh Regional at this point.”
“Felix, please.” Ella’s voice competed with the bleeping of that bloody monitor.
Felix began scratching, the anger a mass of chigger bites inside and out, searing through his gut, burning off his skin. It was lack of reason; it was insanity.
Ten, nine, eight . . . to hell with counting down from ten. Try one hundred.
Ella started coughing, and Felix stopped breathing.
Dr. Beaubridge whipped the stethoscope free from around his neck and listened to her heart. “Can you tell me how you’re feeling, Ella?”
“A bit breathless. That’s all.” Ella rested her head against her pillow with a hesitant smile. Her skin was ghostly gray, and her voice was cracked like a worn-out record.
He wanted to go backward in time. He wanted before.
“Mr. Fitzwilliam, I understand your sense of frustration, but we need to keep your wife calm.”
Felix continued to count silently.
“Having this artery become occluded twice within such a short period of time was far from ideal.” Dr. Beaubridge tugged down the cuff of his white coat. “Ella’s heart is severely damaged as a result.”
Felix nodded, kept counting.
“However, she did well over the weekend. We’re moving her back to the cardiac step-down unit this morning, and our focus now is on adjusting the medications to their optimal doses. But it could take two weeks.”
“And during that time she will be here, in this hospital.” Felix spoke slowly, calmly. It was no different than walking: left foot, right foot; one word, next word. “Then what happens?”
“We often see remarkable results with careful medical therapy, watching, and waiting.”
“And the cases that don’t fit the remarkable-results category?”
“The heart can also continue to get weaker.”
“What are my options if that happens, Doctor?” Ella said.
“Possibly an implanted battery-powered device called a left ventricular assist device, or an LVAD for short. This would be a bridge to a transplant.”
“Transplant?” Ella whispered.
“You would make an excellent candidate, Ella. You’re young and healthy—”
“Why not bypass surgery?” Felix said.
Dr. Beaubridge laced his fingers together, palms down, and placed them on his thigh. “Unlikely in your wife’s case. Her initial infarction was extensive, and muscle damaged to that degree will likely not recover. This recent incident extended the MI, and given the anatomy of your coronary arteries, Ella, I believe you would not benefit from a bypass operation. The arteries are diffused and narrowed, and there isn’t enough normal heart muscle left to save. To be blunt”—he looked at Ella; she nodded—“we’re talking inoperable heart disease, which is why a heart transplant might be the solution.”
The door banged opened, and a cleaning lady began to wheel in a large trash can.
“Not now, please,” Dr. Beaubridge snapped.
“Sorry, y’all,” the woman said, and backed out of the room.
Did this cleaner have family, a husband? Did she understand what it meant to stare into the abyss of unimaginable loss? Were there other spouses in this building, maybe even in the room next door, in the same state of utter despair as Felix?
“Thank you, Dr. Beaubridge,” Ella said.
The do
ctor walked toward the door. “I’ll leave the two of you alone. Ella, I hope you’ll consider going on the transplant list. I’ll see you tomorrow on my rounds. Keep up the good work, and be assured that we will continue to treat you to the best of our abilities.”
And he left.
What if Ella started crying? She hardly ever cried, and when she did, she took these huge, gulping breaths that jabbed his heart like red-hot pokers. Leaning over the bedrail, Felix took her hand and raised it to his lips. His mouth lingered on her wedding ring. “I love you, Ella Bella,” he said. Why hadn’t he told her that every day? People said I love you all the time. Look at the way Harry tossed it into the air like a badminton shuttlecock. I love you, Mom! Love you, Maxi-Pad! I love Sammie.
I love you: the three hardest words to say, unless you believed your wife was dying.
It was a death sentence with a timer. There were no guarantees that her heart would hold out until she could get a new one. She knew it; Felix knew it. Why else would he say I love you, words he rarely spoke?
Ella grabbed a tissue from the box by her bed and dabbed at her eyes.
“Don’t cry, darling, please.”
“I’m not. The air in here is too dry. Makes my eyes water.”
Felix gave her one of his laser looks; he wasn’t falling for it. But if she told him the truth, if she screamed, What else do you expect me to do, it would be harder for both of them. He would fall to pieces, and that wasn’t an option. Finally, it was his turn to be strong enough for two. He had to be the strong parent, because otherwise, what would happen to Harry? And what would happen to Felix? Her thoughts circled like turkey vultures. Who should she worry about first?
“I think it’s time to call Dad.” Once she told her father, there would be no going back. She was stepping up to the plate, admitting she could die. Until the clogged stent, it hadn’t felt real. This was as real as it got.
“Do you want me to take care of it? I could call him from home.”
Ella shook her head. “If it comes from you, he’ll worry more. He’ll want to hear my voice, gauge how I’m coping. I have to be the one to tell him.” After Felix left, she would sit with this, try her death sentence on for size, find words that wouldn’t bring a rush of memories for her dad. Then she would pick up the pieces and discover her fighting spirit. Tell herself that she was a good candidate for a transplant. If she’d been lucky to survive on the plane, she was lucky still. Unlike Felix, she had no problem with luck.
“And what if you break down on the phone?” Felix said.
“I won’t do that to him. I can fake it when I have to.”
“That’s not a reassuring thing for a husband to hear.”
Ella stared at the tissue. “For the record, I’ve never faked anything with you.”
Felix shot up and darted around the hospital room as if the walls and ceiling were closing in on them, shrinking. “Please consider transferring to a better hospital. If I pull every IOU, I can get you a bed at Memorial before the end of the day. I’ve played golf with the chief of cardiology. I’d prefer to get you moved to Duke, but—”
“No. We’re done with that conversation, Felix.” Ella closed her eyes. “I’m still competent to make my own medical decisions. I’m not starting over with a different team. I like the staff here, and I want to continue the conversation with Dr. Beaubridge about a heart transplant.”
She reached for Felix, pulling him down until his head rested on her chest. She buried her face in his hair. “I like the nongel look.” His hair, so soft, smelled of lavender. Had he been using her shampoo?
“Once I get home, things will seem brighter.”
Felix straightened up, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “I think you’re being overly optimistic.”
“Please, Felix. I need you to support me in this. I’m not changing hospitals, and I don’t want to argue.”
“Because life’s too short?”
“Quite frankly, yes. I could croak at any time.”
“Ella, that’s not remotely funny. Nor is it appropriate.”
“Seems to me we can laugh or cry. Right now, I choose laughter. Is that so wrong? You can’t control every situation, Felix.”
“Neither can you.”
“Touché.”
“I can’t lose you.” His voice was so heavy that she nearly caved, nearly cried.
“Not ready to trade me in for a younger model with bigger boobs?”
“I’ve never wanted anyone but you, Ella Bella. There is no one else for me. I should have told you that a thousand times a day since we met.” Felix mussed his hair. “Why didn’t I?”
“Hey, I’m not planning on going anywhere. I’m young, I’m in good shape. You heard the doc—I’m healthy. Apart from the defective heart. Honestly, I believe that getting home will be the best medicine. How are you and Harry getting on?” She coughed to cover up the wheezing. Hard to breathe after all those words.
Felix squirmed.
“Want to tell me what happened?”
“You should have told me Harry thought your pregnancy was planned.”
“Our pregnancy,” she said softly, then listened as Felix explained.
“Let me talk to him,” she said. “I’ll call as soon as I get my new room assignment.”
“No. This is my problem to sort out. I have to say, though, he outmaneuvered me like a pro.”
“He’s good at reading people. He always has been—ever since he was little. He probably picked up on some hesitancy.”
“And went for the kill?”
“Followed his instincts. Harry’s not shy about asking for what he wants or needs.” She turned her head away from those icy-blue eyes, from the perfect bone structure that made her husband a classic male beauty, from the expression that was a mirror of their son’s. Everyone said Harry resembled her, but that was because of the mop of dirty-blond hair. When you looked deeper, when you watched his mannerisms, he was all Felix. A child laughed outside her door, and she ached to hold her son.
Felix pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat. “You’ve lost a lot of weight.”
“The food’s crap.” I’m nauseated all the time, Felix. I can’t eat. “Tell me what Harry’s doing today.”
“I could go home and get him if you want me to, since there’s no school.”
“There isn’t?”
“Martin Luther King Day.”
She nodded. It was so easy to lose track of time in the twilight of hospital living. “No. Bad enough he’s seen me in the hospital once. I don’t want him stuck with images of me like this. Is he at home playing on the Xbox?”
“I believe Eudora’s giving him a cooking lesson.”
“Ah, so you’ve finally met our newest neighbor. Interesting, isn’t she?”
“She turned up like Mary Poppins and refused to move on.” Felix paused. “Harry seems to like her, though.”
“He helps her from time to time with odd jobs, carrying in groceries, that sort of thing.”
“He does?” Felix frowned.
“That’s how we met. Harry saw her unloading groceries one day and rushed to her aid. All very sweet.” Ella paused to catch her breath. “Of course, Eudora has a spine of steel and doesn’t need help with anything. But I do think she’s lonely.”
“She has a gun.”
“Most people in the South do, sweetheart.”
“She’s not some retired ax-murderer hiding out in a Durham neighborhood, is she?”
“Have you started watching Criminal Minds since I’ve been in here?”
“I don’t know anything about her, Ella. And she’s in our home, teaching our son to cook.”
“She moved in last spring. Had a huge historic home in Chapel Hill, but decided to downsize for her seventy-fifth birthday. My guess is that she came from old money. She’s a retired horticulturalist. Famous in her field. Single, and had a scandalous affair with a married Duke professor a few decades back.”
Felix looked horrif
ied.
“She’s a good soul, and she’s alone. Since we started walking together in the mornings, I’ve gotten to know her pretty well.”
“Why did you never tell me about her?”
“When did I ever tell you anything about my day? I don’t ask about your work; you don’t ask about mine.”
“We haven’t done a good job of keeping up with each other’s lives, have we?”
Ella shrugged. “We did what we had to do. Most families like ours end up in the divorce courts, but we didn’t.”
“Any regrets?” Felix said quietly.
Ella looked him in the eye. “Not one.”
Felix seemed to think for a few minutes. “Do I need to put Eudora on my to-do list?”
An unexpected feeling grew in her throat like an iridescent bubble blown through a wand: laughter. “If anything, she’ll put you on her list. You, Felix Fitzwilliam, may have met your match in Eudora Jenkens.”
SEVENTEEN
Several hours later, Felix sat on the patio with Eudora Jenkens, retired horticulturalist of questionable morals. Spring had apparently arrived early in North Carolina. A chorus of spring peepers, jingling away like sleigh bells down in the creek, seemed to agree.
Eudora had welcomed him home with a glass of iced tea. In seventeen years of southern living, Felix had refused to drink iced tea as an abomination against the tea gods. And the stuff Eudora served him was sweetened. Felix never added sugar to anything. Except, of course, to English strawberries served with double cream. Real cream that was too thick to pour. Not the synthetic rubbish American supermarkets sold in spray cans.
Felix raised his glass, closed his eyes, and swallowed. If he could have pinched his nose without offending his elderly neighbor, he would have. And yet . . . this sweetened iced tea was surprisingly good. Quite pleasant, even refreshing. “I’m afraid I have rather a lot to take care of this afternoon.”
“Of course you do,” Eudora said. She turned her face to Duke Forest, where the sinking sun ignited the treetops with an orange glow. “And I haven’t touched today’s New York Times. Not always a pleasant experience, reading the newspaper, but I choose to not fret about things I can’t control. Don’t you agree? We can always find plenty to fret about.”
The Perfect Son Page 15