“What? Who are you thanking? Where are you anyway?”
“Warren Tavern. Nice place. Have you been here?”
Many times, she told him, pouting at the thought of his having a good time without her. Even in its infancy, this new arrangement was not playing out the way she’d envisioned. Come to think of it, nothing was.
“Did Nancy ask you why you were at the hotel?” Chris turned the conversation back to the situation at hand, unaware of Kassie’s long face.
“She asked me who the lucky guy was. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about. I’m sure she hoped I’d share some deep dark secret with her. Which it is, of course. But I wouldn’t budge. Wild horses, and all. You know, if three people know a secret, it’s not a secret anymore unless two of them are dead.”
“Uh-oh. Would I be the one who would die in this scenario?”
“You’re not dying, Chris. Mike is.”
There she said it. It took all day, but the reality of Mike’s diagnosis finally emerged from her lips. She’d never be able to get it back.
“What?”
“Not today or tomorrow, but some time . . .”
“Aren’t we all?”
“But we don’t know how. Now Mike knows his fate, though he could die of something other than chronic kidney disease.”
“I’m confused. You knew about the kidney thing on Friday, but you didn’t pronounce him dead then? Why now?”
“It’s Stage Four, Chris. Not Stage Three like he thought, we thought. Heading for either dialysis or transplant. Most likely dialysis. No family around to give him a kidney.” Who would want to? Bad Kassie wanted to say but swallowed the thought.
Chris questioned whether that diagnosis was really a death sentence. With modern medicine, don’t people live longer today?
“Ten, twelve, fifteen years. Depends,” she mumbled scratching her head.
“What are you saying? Depends on what?”
“His commitment to whatever treatment his doctor prescribes. Like a better diet and not smoking.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“One thing I’m certain of. I’m one hundred percent committed to making sure Mike does whatever he needs to do, on his own, without me. I’m not staying married to a man who deserted a pregnant woman, gave the baby up for adoption, and then concealed it from me before and during our marriage.”
“On second thought, make it a double.”
Enough was enough. Kassie heard all she needed to realize this exchange was doomed if it continued with her sitting in a car and Chris in a bar. Kassie noticed the time. She’d already been away from the house for an hour and had done nothing but talk on the phone. And even with that, she’d accomplished nothing. Who knew if Mike was still knocked out in his chair or if he was up and about conspiring how he’d confront her about the Westin.
“Hey, I’ve gotta get groceries and get back.” Kassie excused herself from the conversation. “Think you’ll be at the apartment tomorrow afternoon?”
He said he’d arrange his day so he’d be there.
“Good. My meetings are done at noon. I can fill you in on everything then. We won’t solve anything tonight.”
“You sure you’re okay? You sound like a ticking time bomb.”
“Welcome to my world.” Kassie shut off her phone, gathered the dry cleaning, and retrieved three canvas grocery totes from the trunk.
Kassie strolled around Stop & Shop in a trance as though she were a Stepford Wife, stopping along each aisle selecting the usual weekly items.
What a freaky day. Why did organic bananas cost thirty cents more?
She stared at the grapes display. Green with seeds. Red with seeds. Finally, red seedless. Did they really care if she sampled them? And why do they put three pounds in heavy plastic bags when I only want two pounds? What’s with the holes?
Next stop vegetables for the stir fry. Onions, peppers, zucchini, broccoli. What else could he eat? She searched her purse for the list she’d made, removing her wallet, phone, brush, lip gloss, notebook, Post-it notes, an expired Barnes & Noble coupon. Nothing. Damn it. It must’ve fallen out in the car when she hunted for a tissue. No way she was going out to the car to get it.
She closed her eyes and visualized herself sitting at the kitchen table making the list. What color ink? What was on the first page, the back page? You can do this. You don’t want Mike calling you useless again. Not today. Never again.
Convinced she had succeeded without the list, she got in the checkout line, always busy in the evening. A woman with a navy-blue shirt bearing the store’s logo suggested she move to the self-checkout line. It’d be faster. Though she hurried to get off the call with Chris, in all honesty, she wasn’t in a rush to get home. Anyway, she preferred interfacing with a real live person rather than a scanner. Job security for them, friendly personal interaction for her, which she relished on Mike’s cranky days.
Kassie didn’t realize soon enough that she should’ve listened to the woman in the navy-blue shirt, who was after all only doing her job, and chosen the scanner aisle. While she waited and waited for two shoppers ahead of her to unload their overflowing baskets and pack their groceries in plastic bags, she bent over and pressed her head on the cold bar of the metal shopping cart, seeking relief from a day that started as a bad dream and evolved into a raging nightmare. Even talking to Chris didn’t help. In fact, it may have had the opposite effect.
Lapsing into a habit she’d adopted from her tai chi practice, she stood on one leg for about a minute and then the other. Balance work like that not only strengthened leg muscles, but was supposed to instill calm and focus. She wasn’t feeling the groove that evening, although it did help pass the idle time while her mind was on overdrive.
While Nancy’s call set her off in a tizzy, she knew that was a minor part of her anxiety. Searching for the source of what was distressing her most, she relived the day starting at the hospital. As was her ilk, she sorted the problems into three buckets—Karen, Mike, Chris.
Karen was at the nexus of what was ailing Kassie. Her influence on Mike after all these years had to stem from the common bond of their son. Was that why Mike refused to adopt when she couldn’t get pregnant? Why wasn’t he honest with her? Did he think she couldn’t empathize with what must’ve been a difficult decision for both of them?
What to do about Mike? She’d meant it when she told Chris she’d do everything she could to ensure Mike would get the medical care he needed so he could live without her. Yesterday, the chance their marriage could be saved was slim to none. Now, the chance was even less, if that was possible.
Who was Christopher Gaines anyway? Since he’d arrived on Friday she’d begun to question if she’d made a mistake having him come out there. Could she survive his constantly defending Mike, let alone his working for him? A worst-case scenario she could’ve never predicted no matter how clairvoyant she was.
Kassie felt pressure within her ears as her cheeks warmed and a bitter bile seeped into her throat. She clung to the cart handle as she vaguely heard the checkout clerk say, “Next?” She hadn’t noticed the woman ahead of her had finished checking out. The conveyor belt moved grocery-less. She saw the clerk’s lips moving, but it was as though she’d pushed a mute button. She lost it.
The red insulated canvas tote used for freezer items captured Kassie’s lunch. The woman in the blue shirt and the checkout clerk caught her as she collapsed onto the scuffed yellow linoleum. A fellow with a bucket and a mop showed up out of nowhere.
So did a voice from above. “Oh my God, Kassie, are you all right?” Like the angel she was, Annie appeared, pushing her way to her side.
She sat helpless on the floor and let Annie take charge of the checkout process. About fifteen minutes later, after sitting near the service desk sipping a ginger ale, Annie wiped her face with a wet cloth. Kassie groaned at the haunting smell of antiseptic.
“How embarrassing was that?”
“It’s okay. No on
e cares. They were thrilled you missed the tabloids and candy display.”
“You’re my hero, Annie.”
“If you’re looking for a hero, thank your red tote bag.”
“Oh, no. My favorite.” They laughed.
Annie asked what she thought caused her collapse. Was she sick? Something she ate?
“Three words. Mike, Chris, Karen.”
“I can understand how Mike could make you heave. But not Chris. He’s too yummy. Oops wrong word, sorry, Kassie. But who the hell is Karen?”
With the back of her hands, Kassie wiped her watery eyes still recovering from the ordeal. “Are we’re done here? Did you get what you needed? Walk me out to my car and I’ll fill you in.”
What would normally take about three minutes to walk to Kassie’s car took fifteen, though not nearly enough time. Kassie gave Annie the condensed version of the day. Every twenty paces, they’d stop, huddled together in the parking lot lanes among the white and silver SUVs and foreign sedans. Kassie threw her hands in the air. Annie covered her mouth with hers. Kassie rocked from side to side. Annie steadied her.
“Come stay with me,” Annie said, as she finished loading Kassie’s groceries and slammed the trunk. “You know you’re always welcome.”
“Funny isn’t it? I have three places I could live, and none feel like home.”
29
Match Point
As soon as Kassie walked out the door to go shopping, Mike whirled into action. He located the clicker that had slid between his butt and the chair’s cushion and muted the television. But he waited until he’d heard the heavy steel garage door clang shut and the kitchen door rattle before he turned it off and flipped the lever of his Pleasure Chair forward.
Taking two stairs at a time, he made it to the bedroom without realizing he’d huffed and puffed his way there. He had money on his mind. Fifty-two hundred dollars to be exact. She better not have taken it.
What a fool he was to think she wouldn’t have found the box. He’d kept her out of his bureau forever. But this was his fault. He’d gotten sick and, almost like he’d dropped breadcrumbs, had led her right to it. There wasn’t anything he could’ve done to prevent her from finding it. He needed clothes at the hospital after all.
Except the box was locked. She couldn’t get into it without the key. But he’s the one who placed the key right into her palm when he told her to go to his office. How ingenious of her to notice two lockbox keys on his carabiner and then go hunting for the other one. Whoever said women aren’t smart didn’t know Kassie.
Still gasping for breath like a train trudging up a hill, Mike retrieved the box from his bureau and set it next to him on the bed.
Though he’d seen this movie before, Topher was as curious as any cat would be. He’d skulked up the stairs in Mike’s wake, leapt onto the bed, rocked back and forth as it sloshed, and stuck his white button nose between Mike and the lock on the box.
“Move over Beethoven.” Mike shooed him away.
Topher swatted Mike’s arm and released his distinctive alley cat mewl as if to say, “That’s not my name.”
Mike tried to open the box, but the key wouldn’t work. No problem. He knew the other one would.
“Ah-hah! That’s how she figured out there was another box somewhere.” Mike pursed his lips and smiled though he wasn’t happy.
“She’s not as smart as I thought after all.” Mike shot a glance at Topher, who had curled up against Kassie’s pillow, resting his head on his crossed paws. “Listen you, don’t tell her I said that.”
Mike closed his eyes and turned the key. He held his breath expecting it to be empty.
“Thank you, Lord.” The money was still there.
Mike picked up the stack to count it when a green Post-it note with red tulips stuck on the bottom of the box caught his eye. He recognized Kassie’s calling card and perfect penmanship, courtesy of St. Mary’s elementary school. He read the message.
“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. Ralph Waldo Emerson”
“What the fuck are you doing with $5,200? Kassie O’Callaghan”
He read the note again. He’d heard the first quote before. Echoes of her mother. She was always quoting somebody. How crafty of Kassie to involve her mother in her snooping. But it wouldn’t work. Her influence on them was limited, if negligible, given she was six feet under.
Patricia had taken to her grave the one secret that would destroy his marriage. Karen and the money, or failing to tell her about his kidneys, were mere transgressions. Hell, Karen and the kid happened before he’d met Kassie. They weren’t even violations of their marriage vows. He was even confident she’d make allowances for Amelia, since she hadn’t touched him in years. She’d probably be thrilled that he was getting it from somewhere. He certainly was.
But if Kassie learned about his vasectomy, it would be curtains for him. The only other person, besides the doctor, who knew his original sin was Patricia. And if he hadn’t bumped into her in the elevator as he left the urologist’s office carrying a pamphlet about care after a vasectomy, even she wouldn’t have known. Fortunately, he’d been able to persuade her that it was in her daughter’s best interest not to know. He’d sweet-talked her into believing that one day he’d be willing to adopt. It would all be good. He promised to keep Kassie happy.
Mike took the money, left the note in the box, locked it, and returned it to the drawer as if untouched. Next stop, a hot shower.
His last had been in the hospital the day before. A lot had gone down since then. Dr. Singleton’s Stage Four diagnosis was not as great a surprise to him as it was to Kassie. He’d googled the symptoms and knew they were getting worse.
He could tell by the look on her face when Dr. Singleton gave them the news that she was shocked.
“This can’t be,” she’d kept repeating, shaking her head. She wrapped her arms around herself and walked in circles, as if she was trapped in one of Boston’s rotaries, before Dr. Singleton convinced her to sit down.
“It was not supposed to happen this way. Please, tell me it isn’t true.” She seemed to beg the doctor to change his diagnosis.
The good doctor took great pains to assure them that it was too soon to decide whether dialysis or transplantation was the best alternative for Mike. His near-term treatment would include medication and nutrition. They’d monitor him and lay out plans for both courses of action so they’d be prepared when and if either became necessary.
“Mike is not going to die tomorrow, Kassie.”
“You mean I don’t have to call my priest or my lawyer?” Mike tried to make light of the situation.
He’d done his research and had resigned himself that dialysis would be his treatment of choice, if not necessity. Chances of his getting a kidney from the national donor list were slim to none, and he had no viable relatives who’d be able to give him a kidney. Even if he did, who’d be willing to donate one of their kidneys to him?
Kassie’s reaction in the hospital and in the hours since his release disappointed Mike. He expected more moral support from her even if she was angry at him. All she wanted to talk about when they’d gotten home was food. He knew from how she’d handled her mother’s illness there’d be a point she’d snap out of denial. Whenever that time arrived, he needed to be ready to handle whatever her frame of mind.
He wasn’t totally an insensitive bastard. He’d concede that he laid some heavy shit on her that morning. Besides his CKD, Kassie had to reckon with his revelations about the baby, Karen, and how he’d been “bankrolling” her for eight years, to use Kassie’s words.
“It’s like I have my own trifecta. The mother, son, and holy money.” He laughed as he washed his hair. “She’ll get over it.”
He wondered what upset Kassie more. Karen and the baby were from a by-gone era in his life, with no impact on their marriage. What’s done was done. Most likely she was pissed about the money. It’s not like he’d given away “their” money. For
years, they’d compartmentalized their finances. There was his money, her money, and their money. What he’d given Karen wasn’t child support or alimony, but it was a payoff all the same, even if Karen didn’t see it that way. To tell the truth, it helped relieve the deep-seated guilt he’d carried for forty years.
“I should’ve been man enough to stand up to her parents. I deserted her and that child. Forgive me,” Mike confessed to no one who mattered but the shower tiles and Topher who’d stretched out on the fluffy green area rug in the adjoining dressing room.
All this kidney stuff could be a good distraction for Kassie. He’d make sure she went with him to the nutritionist. He’d assign her the responsibility of planning and preparing his meals. Right up her alley. That’ll take her mind off all this talk of divorce. He plotted as he toweled himself dry.
“Right, big guy?” Mike snapped the towel toward Topher. “No one’s getting a divorce in this house if I have anything to do with it.”
He checked his watch. Time to take control. He dressed, grabbed his keys, and drove to the office. It was after five. By the time he’d get there, everyone would be gone for the day. Job One was to make sure there was no more incriminating evidence around for inquiring minds to find and muck up the works.
The hot shower and drive to the office invigorated and transformed him. He felt pumped like Hulk Hogan, unchained from both the confines of the hospital and the house that was the source of the latest conflict with Kassie. He knew he’d made a grave mistake by leaving the money in his bureau in the first place.
Nevertheless, he rationalized the process of telling Kassie all about Karen lifted a heavy burden. No more crosses to bear in that regard. From that day forward with all of that secrecy off his back, he’d be able to concentrate on preserving his marriage and his life. In retrospect, Mike reckoned the events of the day weren’t as tumultuous as they appeared, and even her escapade to the Westin wasn’t worth obsessing about. He was convinced Kassie would see the error of her ways in due time.
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