Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  Charlotte shook her. “What is it, Nicki?”

  Nicole put both hands to her head and pressed, her eyes suddenly confused.

  “Please tell me,” Charlotte begged gently.

  “I can’t.” A whisper, pleading. “I can’t.”

  “I’m here to help. I want to. It can’t be that bad.”

  Nicole exploded. “MS not that bad?”

  Charlotte gasped. “You?”

  “Julian!”

  * * *

  The words echoed. Nicole looked around, thinking that someone else had said them, because if she was the one, it would be a betrayal of the worst kind.

  But the only person in sight was Charlotte, who couldn’t have known about this, and wouldn’t have yelled it at her anyway, and Charlotte’s face was blank.

  Nicole felt a great sinking inside.

  “He has what?” Charlotte whispered, cupping her shoulders.

  She couldn’t say it again. Julian hadn’t wanted her to tell anyone, least of all Charlotte. Hadn’t he specifically asked that last night? Now she’d gone and done it. She hadn’t planned to, but that didn’t matter.

  He would be hurt, disappointed, angry. Their relationship had been rocky lately. This wouldn’t help.

  Thinking that she simply wouldn’t tell him, which meant another secret to keep, she felt a great wave of despair and, sinking to her knees, burst into tears.

  Chapter Five

  CHARLOTTE WAS STUNNED. OF ALL the possibilities to explain what was going on, she hadn’t imagined illness. The Julian she remembered was too active, too fit. He was too dedicated, too famous—which, of course, was an absurd thing to say. Famous people got sick all the time. Famous people died all the time.

  Not that Julian would die. MS was doable. Charlotte knew this for fact. But it was chronic, and chronic illness changed lives.

  Kneeling, she wrapped her arms around Nicole, but her friend didn’t allow it for long. Pulling back, she said in a voice that was broken but urgent, her eyes a haunted green, “You can’t tell anyone, Charlotte. Promise you won’t?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Not a single person. If Julian finds out I told you, he’ll divorce me.”

  “He will not. He loves you.”

  She pulled a tissue from her pocket. “I used to be so sure of that, but he’s changed.” She pressed the tissue to her nose. “He used to be open. He used to be easy-going and confident, and he’s still that way with everyone but me. With me, all the worry comes out. I’m the only one who knows—other than you now.”

  Charlotte didn’t understand. “You can’t be the only one. His dad’s a doctor.” She remembered meeting the senior Dr. Carlysle at the wedding. While not as academic as Julian, he had been impressive in a quiet way.

  “Not his dad, not his mom,” Nicole said. “No one but his doctors, and they aren’t even in Philadelphia—and I totally understand that his future depends on people not knowing, but do you know how hard this is for me?”

  Charlotte struggled to imagine. She was self-sufficient, but Nicole? Nicole was more dependent, more social. To be under a gag order with friends? “How long have you known?”

  She brushed the tears from her eyes. “Four years.”

  “Years? Omigod. Through everything with Bob? Angie must be devastated.”

  “Charlotte. Listen to me. Mom doesn’t know.”

  “But she’s your mother.”

  Nicole stared at her.

  “He wouldn’t let you tell your own mother?” Charlotte asked in dismay, then held up a hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t criticize him. I haven’t walked in his shoes.” She tried to take it in. “I thought … I thought maybe you guys were estranged, like he had an affair or something.”

  “Julian? Not Julian. He’s totally loyal, but me? I didn’t make it a day without blabbering.”

  “You shouldn’t have waited even that long,” Charlotte scolded. “You should have told me the second I got here.” She was puzzled. “Four years, and no one could see?”

  “That’s the thing. You don’t see fatigue, which is what he feels most of the time, and the other symptoms come and go. No one looking at him sees a problem.” Her voice went higher. “But MS is progressive. He isn’t responding to medication, so we know where he’s headed. And sometimes I think I’m being totally selfish because his symptoms are still mild—but think of what he does. He’s a surgeon who works on the smallest creatures, and if his hands start to shake at the wrong time, it’s a disaster. He isn’t operating now, he just teaches, and he’s dying inside, and no one knows that or knows why. It’s like he’s leading two lives—one in public, where everything is normal, and one in hiding, where he’s worried and angry.” She stopped, eyes welling again. “I shouldn’t have told you, but you and I always talked about everything, and now, here we are, with everyone asking when he’ll be back.” She caught a breath. “He made me promise not to tell you. Is this disloyalty, or is it not?”

  There it was again, that word. Charlotte might have said a thing or two about Julian and disloyalty, if that hadn’t been the last thing Nicole needed to hear, and she wanted to help, needed to help. So she gentled. “Not disloyalty, Nicki. Survival. You’re human. You have feelings and needs. You’re a saint for having kept this to yourself for so long.” Tugging her down so that they were sitting with their backs to a boulder, she said, “Tell me everything.”

  * * *

  Once started, Nicole couldn’t stop. The cork had popped, and four years of agony poured out. In the telling, she relived it: being in their condo when Julian had first told her the results of his tests, being with him in New York when his doctor laid out a course of treatment and again, repeatedly, when one regimen was abandoned and another begun, living on the roller coaster of hope and disappointment, hope and discouragement—and through it all, long night after long night at her computer, reading way too much about MS.

  Boats creaked at their moorings far below as the surf washed the pier, the fishing shed, the shore. Though the stone protected them from the brunt of the wind, the salt air still circled, mixing with wood smoke from every building in sight. It was soothing. More soothing, though, was the unburdening. Julian would be furious. But she was human. She had acceded to his needs for so long, but this was her need.

  Charlotte didn’t have answers. She just listened. She didn’t call Nicole spoiled and self-centered when she cried that it was unfair, that Julian had such a promising future and why did this happen to us. Nor did she sugarcoat things, like Nicole’s mother would have done. Her questions were brief and to the point. And afterward? Charlotte drove back to the house—just took over, and that felt wonderful, too—while Nicole summed it up. “It’s a juggling act. We need to find a treatment that slows the progression of the disease, but doesn’t throw him into cardiac arrest in the process.”

  “Has that happened?”

  “Not yet, but only because they watch him closely. With one drug, he had to sit there for six hours after the first dose, and then his heart slowed so much that they refused to give him a second dose. That’s been the story. Some of the most promising treatments cause such a bad reaction in him that he has to stop. That cuts the options way down. If nothing works—ever—the whole thing is … omigod, so awful. When I think of where we could be in a few years, I go into an all-out panic, which would be so bad for Julian that I try not to think, but I can’t escape it, y’know? He comes home, and he’s down. He’s thinking it’s only a matter of time before the wrong thing happens at the wrong time. I mean, he’s already removed himself from the OR, but no one’s figured out why so he’s still in demand. And there’s another thing,” she hurried on. “He likes being on TV or onstage doing symposiums in front of thousands of doctors. He likes being invited to London and Paris and Beijing. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s totally flattering. But once they learn he’s sick, they’ll assume he’s lost his edge and won’t call.”

  “How bad are the flare-ups?”

>   “Not awful. They only last a day or two, so he cancels things in Philly, and we take the train to see his doctor in New York.”

  “Corticosteroids?” Charlotte asked.

  Nicole was startled. “How did you know that?”

  “I did a piece once on a small clinic in the English countryside—”

  “I read it. It was about cancer.”

  “I know, but for a little while afterward, I dated one of the doctors there. His specialty up to then had been MS. It was a bad relationship, but I learned a lot. Corticosteroids are used to treat flare-ups.”

  “They help,” Nicole confirmed, “but you can’t take them forever. Julian has to find something that prevents flare-ups in the first place. The thing with MS is that what helps one person won’t always help another. We hear success stories about a new medication, then either he has a bad reaction to it or it does nothing for his symptoms.”

  They were back at the house, on the patio again, sharing a single lounge like they did when they were eight, now sipping hot tea under a finally warming sun, when Charlotte asked, “What about yoga?”

  Nicole studied her, relieved—so relieved—to be able to finally share all this and with someone in the know. “Your doctor must’ve really talked.”

  “Mostly about himself,” Charlotte replied, only barely amused. “At least the MS part was interesting. He mentioned yoga as an alternative treatment.”

  “Not alternative for us. Complementary, like with meds, not without. Julian isn’t taking chances. Same with diet. There are so few studies to prove that things like macrobiotics will help, so he’s just careful about what he eats. He always has been. And he exercises. He runs, he works out.” She understood Charlotte’s surprised look. “Sure, he falls. He blames his sneakers or the treadmill or the curb. It terrifies me.” She felt terror even in the telling, though it wasn’t as jagged as usual. Isolation magnified things, but Charlotte knew now. She understood. “He goes for a run, and I wait for the police to show up at the door to tell me he fell and was hit by a car.”

  “You can’t do that to yourself.”

  “How not to? I know that it’s selfish of me, when we’re so much better off than most—”

  “Hold it, Nicki. Don’t say that again.” Charlotte turned to fully face her. “Pain is pain. You have a right to feel it. You didn’t ask for this.”

  “But I’m not handling it well. I don’t know what to do. Tell me, Charlotte. I want to help him, but I don’t know how. He says I hover, but I hover because I want to help. Then I say the wrong things … do the wrong things. I really am a very small person.”

  Charlotte looked genuinely astonished. “Are you kidding? Another person would be paralyzed, but not you. Look what you’ve done in the last four years—helping Angie, mothering Kaylin and John, blogging well enough to win a book contract. Give yourself credit, Nicole.”

  But she had trouble doing that. She tried to hold it together when she was with Julian, but when she was not, she worried about everything. “The blog takes my mind off MS. Maybe he’s right about my needing to get away. And he’s been pushing for this book. He is totally supportive.” She was intense now. “I need it to be a success, Charlotte. Oh, not for my name—I don’t want recognition—but if the book sells, there could be others.” She framed hopeful headlines in the air. “‘Nickitotable does Quinnipeague.’ ‘Nickitotable does Chicago or San Francisco, or New Orleans.’ It’s about…” Not fame. Not even distraction. “Security.” The word popped out. Now she considered it. “I’m spoiled. I took it for granted that Julian would always have a job.”

  “He will.”

  “But he won’t earn what he used to,” she said, hearing the words aloud and feeling their impact. “I can’t talk about this with him. He goes nuts when I try. But if nothing works and he gets really bad … I need a source of income, Charlotte. I mean, I know this is just a cookbook, and cookbooks don’t sell a gazillion copies, but I need it to sell well.” She felt a qualm. “Am I setting myself up for failure?”

  Charlotte smiled. “What did your dad always say?”

  “Aim high, hit high,” Nicole reeled off. “But look what happened to Julian.”

  “Right. He aimed for a great practice and got it. He aimed for a close family and got it. I’d say he did pretty well.”

  “Okay. He got his dreams,” Nicole conceded. “But what about mine? I had dreams, too.”

  She saw the exact moment when Charlotte got it—a certain tick in otherwise steady brown eyes. “That’s why you haven’t had a baby?” She seemed stricken. “He can’t have sex?”

  A week before, Nicole would have minded the bluntness, but not now. With everything out in the open, she was feeling so relieved that Charlotte could have said anything and she wouldn’t have minded.

  “Oh, he can. It’s not that. The crazy thing is, we deliberately put off having kids. Kaylin and John needed attention, and I could give it, and they gave me back so much. Now, Julian’s the problem. He’s afraid he won’t be able to pay for clothes and education—he’s afraid he won’t be able to physically hold a child—and I keep telling him it’s okay, that we’ll find a way to make it work, that people with MS have kids all the time, but he doesn’t want to hear it.”

  “Is MS hereditary?” Charlotte asked.

  “They don’t know for sure. I mean, there’s so much they don’t know—like why women get it more than men … like whether there’s a relation between MS and mono … like why there’s more MS in the northern U.S. than down south. Julian’s had every test in the book, and they have no idea why he got this. He won’t tell his friends or his parents. And he won’t tell Kaylin and John. He says there’s nothing they can do. Maybe he’s right.” She was thinking about that, trying to move on, but something still rankled. “The power couple? Not quite. We may look happy and successful and powerful to the world, but inside we’re not. Julian is sick, and I am a fraud.”

  “You are not a fraud.”

  “Writing a cookbook to fill a hole in my life? Pu-leeze.”

  “That’s how half the world works, Nicole. You’ve always been passionate about organics, and the farm-to-table movement is right up your alley. What you’re doing is called sublimating, and it can produce the best things.”

  Nicole let the words float around her, wanting so badly to believe. This was why she had brought Charlotte here. Feeling a swell of gratitude, she studied her friend as, cupping her tea, Charlotte studied the sea. She was somber, brooding even, and Nicole didn’t question it, after everything she’d dumped on her. It was a lot to take in.

  For her part, though, Nicole felt lighter than she had in months. Impulsively, she gave Charlotte a hug. “I’m lucky to have you. Your coming here has saved my life.”

  “That’s melodramatic.”

  “I’m serious. I’m glad I told you. I feel so much better. It’s like … it’s like the sea shadow moved,” she said and felt her father’s presence. “Dad talked about that, too. Remember? Directly under clouds, the black patches on the water where it’s dark and freezing cold? Well, I just moved. I can still see the shadow, but it’s warmer and brighter where I am now. Thank you, Charlotte. You’re the best.”

  Chapter Six

  YOU’RE THE BEST, NICOLE HAD said. But Charlotte didn’t think so. While she had been traveling around the world, picking and choosing assignments in a carefree, self-indulgent spree, her friend was at home going through hell. And if she’d known it, would she have hung around? Hanging around would have meant seeing Julian, and she wasn’t sure he would have wanted that any more than she did.

  Now that Nicole had confided in her, though, she shared the burden. Needing to know everything about MS—part refresher, part update—she spent the afternoon on the patio with her laptop. There was no fog now, and the only clouds were fluffy ones. The sun warmed her arms and legs, allowing her to unbundle, but the warmth didn’t spread far inside. The advances in the five years since she’d broken up with Graham, her
British doctor, were marked by new drugs, new theories, new trials. For every blog post touting a miraculous recovery, though, there was one claiming a hoax, and side effects were a recurrent issue.

  Then came stem cell transplants, which had been niggling in the back of her mind. Graham had mentioned them as an MS treatment with future promise, and from what she read now, they were coming into their own. The process involved taking adult stem cells from bone marrow, tissue, or organs, and infusing them into the body to replace diseased cells with healthy ones. In the case of MS, a malfunction in the immune system caused damage to nerve coverings, disrupting the sending of electrical signals through the brain and spinal cord. This disruption was what caused MS symptoms. The aim of a transplant was to give the body fresh, new, healthy cells that could generate healthy nerve coverings.

  Current thinking leaned toward autologous transplant, which entailed using a patient’s own cells in the hope of minimizing the risk of rejection. Beyond that, embryonic stem cells held hope, though these cells carried a slew of political issues. Not so umbilical-cord stem cells, though from what she read, use of these remained experimental.

  The whole thing was chilling. It took everything she had to hide her worry at dinner. But Nicole, in cookbook mode now, had recreated individual seafood potpies from a Chowder House recipe. She set places at the trestle table—bright orange place mats on the pickled oak, napkins in shell rings, and an aged Vouvray in unetched goblets—and again she insisted on photographing the whole thing before allowing Charlotte to eat.

  “What do you think?” she finally asked after a period of pensive chewing. The absorbed look on her face said she was breaking down elements of texture and taste, pitting one ingredient against another, weighing their proportions against the whole.

  This was the Nicole that Charlotte knew—the detail person, who remembered every subplot of every book she had read and could cite a reason why it worked for the whole. Charlotte, who usually moved on without looking back, had alternately loved and hated her for that.