Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Are you okay?” she asked him at first, but after a few days, it was more a statement of affection than a question demanding a response. No, he was not okay. He was on a train that was picking up speed, headed to a place none of them knew. He was physically shaky and increasingly tired. He missed seeing patients, worried about his kids, and couldn’t talk about any of it. She might have asked if he wanted to see a counselor, if she hadn’t known the answer. Her Julian prided himself on being self-contained. With Hammon’s team scrutinizing his every bodily function and the dignity he lost in the process, she couldn’t force him on this.

  * * *

  Sunday was a rest day. Hammon ordered it, and Julian was tired enough not to argue, but it did mean that he had idle time in a strange hotel with little to ward off unwelcome thoughts. While on Quinnipeague, he had kept in touch with people at work, albeit with declining frequency. They knew where he was now and why, and sent notes of encouragement. But his passion in life was working with patients. Since the satisfaction of that had been taken from him, contact with colleagues was only a reminder of what he missed.

  Had he been stronger, Nicole would have taken him to the Art Institute. She had never seen the Modern Wing, though she had studied much of the art housed there and might have been able to distract them both by playing the docent.

  But Hammon had suggested he catch up on sleep, and he seemed exhausted.

  So, leaving him with the bedroom drapes drawn, she settled in the living room of the suite to catch up on work, which was a touchy subject itself, now that he was without his. But she did have a deadline, and her work was her joy.

  Focusing on immediate experience, she blogged about defying convention by having eggs, sunny-side up, with bacon and wheat toast for dinner at the hotel restaurant the night before. She talked about what made organic eggs organic, how organic bacon differed from regular bacon, and where pork could be found that was antibiotic- and hormone-free.

  When Julian continued to sleep, she turned to the cookbook. Charlotte had been sending files, both edited and new, but she hadn’t had the wherewithal to look at them until now. With that deadline only eleven days off, though, she read each file, made counteredits, and sent them back. These are awesome, she wrote in the accompanying note. Had she really not written those new chapter introductions herself? Hard to tell. Did Michaela come through with the recipes we wanted?

  She did, Charlotte replied with barely a moment’s lag. I sent them on to New York.

  Why are you working today?

  Same reason you are.

  I doubt that. Unless Leo’s sleeping.

  She sent off the last, wondering if Charlotte would answer. Leo’s name had been conspicuously absent from their notes, and it wasn’t that Nicole was fishing for information. But Charlotte had been unfailingly solicitous in the last few days, texting to ask about her, Julian, the tests. A small mention of Leo seemed only right.

  Not sleeping. Reading Sue Grafton, Charlotte wrote back as though discussing him was the most natural thing in the world. He knows I want to get this done. Is Julian sleeping?

  Out cold. Two days of tests did him in. At least they’re done. We get the results tomorrow. Hold your breath that Hammon doesn’t see a problem that will nix the trial. Nix the trial, kill the hope, destroy stem cells that then could not be refrozen. I lose sleep thinking about this.

  Why? Charlotte wrote back. His liver was the only question, and those symptoms are gone. Hammon wouldn’t have come this far if he didn’t think Julian could go all the way. He’s still culturing the cells, right?

  Right. They could be ready by Thursday. He’ll have to medicate Julian first, but if that goes okay, he’ll do the infusion Friday. Her stomach turned at the thought. Five days until the reckoning.

  Medicate how?

  He’ll give him a chemo drug to suppress his immune system and lower the risk of rejection. The cells aren’t a perfect match, only four out of six, which is totally consistent with his being the father, she added, lest Charlotte think anyone questioned that. Hammon actually prefers a partial match like this. I’m not sure why. I know that if a baby inherits a genetic condition, his own cells won’t help him because they would carry that condition, so maybe with Julian, it’s the mismatched cells that hold the most hope. Hammon actually thinks T Reg cells may work with no matching at all, but at this stage, the FDA won’t let him use a total mismatch. They want the extra precaution.

  She sent the note, thinking how much she knew about this and how little it mattered if the experiment went wrong. She had to be strong for Julian. But those dark private moments kept coming.

  Her e-mail dinged again. Is the Wi-Fi there good enough to handle a super big file?

  Absolutely, she wrote back, suddenly in desperate need of a lift. E-mail marble macadamias, and I’ll eat every one. Warm, soft, fragrant brownies would go a long way toward covering up the smell of hospital that had taken over her life.

  Of course, Charlotte couldn’t e-mail brownies. Wondering what would be in a super big file that hadn’t already been sent, she waited for the computer to ding again. When it did, she found a photo album waiting. She caught her breath at the title. Cecily Cole’s Garden. Inside, one after another, were portraits of plants, some individual, some grouped into thick clusters of herbs and flowers, captioned left to right like guests at a party. Some were tall, some short, some broad of leaf, others narrow, some spiked, some feathered. They covered the spectrum of green, from olive to pea to lime. The flowers were in different states of bloom, but all looked rich, healthy, and so … so Quinnipeague that Nicole felt a wave of homesickness that brought tears to her eyes. What a comfort it was to be back there for these few virtual moments!

  And oh yes. The pictures would be amazing in the cookbook.

  Grabbing her phone, she pressed in Charlotte’s number and said a breathless, “He let you do it.”

  “I wore him down.”

  “And we can use them in the book?”

  “Of course. He wouldn’t have let me shoot them if he wasn’t okay with that.”

  “Do I have to pay him for the pictures?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Are there any conditions?”

  “Only that we not use his name. We can label them as Cecily’s plants, but the implication should be that the pictures were taken all over the island. Obviously, he doesn’t want readers coming to his house—not his readers or ours.”

  “I understand,” Nicole said, willing to grant him as simple a request as that. At the start of the summer, she had feared he would sabotage the cookbook, which he could have easily done, since his herbs were at the heart of island cooking. To this day, she believed he might have been the one inhibiting those early contributors. The fact that he was helping them out now spoke either of remorse for that, his feelings for Charlotte, or generosity. If the latter, he was also forgiving. Nicole hadn’t been particularly nice to him.

  Admitting that to herself, she was humbled. But the sound of Charlotte’s voice more than compensated. It warmed her, soothed her. She did want Charlotte to be happy. What had happened ten years ago was at this moment very far away, and totally aside from the stem cells, Charlotte had been beyond-belief-helpful this summer. These photographs would make the cookbook special.

  “He’s not a bad person,” Charlotte said softly.

  Nicole wasn’t ready to fully concede that, but she offered a conciliatory, “Please thank him for me. And Charlotte?”

  “Yes?”

  She lowered her voice. “Pick another clover for me?”

  “I do. Every day.”

  * * *

  Nicole insisted that they have lunch in the lobby restaurant, where she had a grilled salad to Julian’s short rib sliders. She took notes and snapped pictures of both, telling him that this was food for a blog, which was a good excuse for having gotten him up and out for a little while at least, but she didn’t push for more. If Hammon wanted a quiet day, there was nothing mo
re quiet than golf. Julian loved the game, and the PGA Championship was on. So they went back upstairs after lunch to watch in their suite.

  Since he was with her now, she wasn’t comfortable working, and since she didn’t want to leave him, she couldn’t shop, walk, or go to a movie. Not being a lover of golf, she sat beside him, trying to get caught up in the game, but her mind wandered.

  She didn’t like where it went.

  Opening her iPad, she downloaded what sounded like a good book, but when she started reading, the characters didn’t grab her. So she pulled a magazine from her growing collection and flipped through. Magazine articles were usually short enough to hold her attention. But she had already read the good ones.

  She pulled up the pictures Charlotte had sent and showed them to Julian. Needless to say, pictures of herbs intrigued him about as much as golf intrigued her, which meant he was quickly back to watching the game.

  Staying with the photographs, she found comfort in the profusion of green. That led her to think about Quinnipeague, which led her to think of the house that apparently wouldn’t be sold. Her feelings about that had changed since returning to the island with Julian. In the past, her parents had always been around, but if she could have time alone there with Julian, it wouldn’t be bad at all. That had been nice—or would have been, if there hadn’t been a sword hanging over their heads.

  The weight of that sword grew heavier as Sunday slowly ticked away.

  * * *

  Monday morning, with a report that the test results were good, the ticking sped up. Once Julian nodded his agreement, Hammon produced a ream of release forms.

  I didn’t expect that, Nicole e-mailed Charlotte a short time later. Julian did, since his patients have to sign releases, too. He says it’s as much about educating the consumer as it is about avoiding a lawsuit, but, geez, is it intimidating. You sign your life away in multiple copies. I mean, we knew about most of the potential side effects, but seeing them in print? It was bad.

  Anything would probably seem bad to you right now, Charlotte replied, making total sense as Nicole knew she would, which was one of the reasons Nicole had been quick to e-mail her. He plans to do it Friday?

  Unless something goes wrong between now and then, but he doesn’t see that happening, Nicole wrote. I guess I’m glad, since this is what we came for. And I’m being calm. You’d be proud.

  Do you FEEL calm?

  Are you kidding? I’m terrified!

  Is Julian?

  Nicole considered that. Not right now. It’s strange. He’s been so out of it since we got the call to come here, like the reality of it hit him over the head and he was stunned. He’s been in a daze. Then, as soon as he signed the papers, he woke up. Just like that, he’s lucid. And eager. I thought it was just being there in the office with Hammon, but when Hammon left the room and Jules looked at me, his eyes were clear and he smiled, like he was back.

  Does he worry about the risk?

  He does, but it’s a measured worry. He says it’s like with his own work. He’s scared when he tries something new on a patient, but if he’s done the testing and practiced the technique, and if he knows the risks and has plans for handling them, he’s excited. That’s what he says. But how crazy is it to be excited about something that could kill you?

  He believes in the trial.

  Oh yeah. He and Mark get what this could mean for people everywhere with MS, and it’s true, only Julian isn’t just “people” to me, he’s my husband. The old Nicole returned. She needed reassurance. What if it goes bad, Charlotte?

  It won’t. It can’t. When does he start the drug?

  They just did! It’s called fludarabine. The infusion takes a little while, and they’ll keep him here for a couple of hours to make sure he doesn’t have an allergic reaction. Me, I’m the one who reacted. I got light-headed and turned green. They told me to wait out here in the hall. I should probably go back in now.

  He’ll do fine, Nicki. So will you.

  Keep telling me that.

  I will. Xoxox

  * * *

  Charlotte clicked SEND and, whispering a what-a-nightmare groan, raised her hands high in the air and stretched to ease the tension from her shoulders. Suddenly Leo was behind her, leaning between her arms to read the last of the exchange on the screen. Looping her hands around his neck, she watched him read. Talk about light-headed? From this angle, she couldn’t see more than a square chin and jaw and his neck, but the neck was strong. She loved that, loved how clean he smelled and how solid he felt.

  When he finished reading, he held her arms and looked down. “Bet you want to be with her.”

  “I do. She’s been hit with a lot, and she’s been so strong. I know she’s with Julian. But the frightened part of her is all alone.”

  “Why don’t you go?”

  “Because you won’t.” When his eyes grew ocean-turbulent, she said, “Would it be so bad? You could wear a ball cap and your Ray-Bans. No one would know who you are—not that anyone knows you’re Chris Mauldin or even what Chris Mauldin looks like. And you’d be with me. I know my way around.”

  “I don’t like off-island,” he said in his old, flat, stubborn voice. It was an old, flat, stubborn wall, she decided, and, twisting, went up on her knees on the chair.

  “You don’t know off-island. You know prison. You know a construction crew headed by a bitch. You know the father who ignored you. But there’s a whole other world out there, Leo, and it isn’t bad. I could show you that.”

  His eyes were clouded. “Don’t you like Quinnipeague?”

  “I love Quinnipeague. But I also love New York and Paris. And Juneau and Rio and Oslo. I love the variety.”

  He thought about that, clearly troubled. “Do I bore you?”

  Feeling helpless, she breathed. “Never. But a person can love clams cooked a dozen different ways, and still love steak.” She framed his face with her hands. “Know what the best part is about going different places?”

  He knew the answer. He had read enough, dreamed enough. He was certainly smart enough. But he was in the moment, a silently turbulent package of pigheaded fear. Eyes holding hers, he shook his head.

  “Coming home,” she chided softly. “My place in Brooklyn is tiny. It’s shabby, and it smells of whatever my downstairs neighbor is cooking, and clouds in New York aren’t like clouds here. My furniture is secondhand, my refrigerator may be dead when I get back, and there are roaches.” Mention of those made her shudder, in response to which his mouth quirked, but she went on. “Brooklyn is nothing like Paris or Tuscany, or Ireland or Bali, but right now it’s where my roots are.”

  He didn’t blink. “Roots can be moved. Look at the herbs. We transplant them all the time.”

  “Right,” she said with meaning and held his gaze.

  Still he resisted. “I am who I am. If you loved me, you wouldn’t want to change me.”

  Deep inside, she felt something deflate. If he didn’t know she loved him after the last few days, he was thicker than that wall he had built to protect himself from the outside world. She had certainly said it enough, and not only when they had sex.

  But it was test time. She let out a quick breath. “I could say the same to you.”

  “I never said the words,” he said.

  She sat back on her heels. “Right again.” But he got an F. Shifting around in the chair, she rose and headed for the office door.

  “Where are you going?” He sounded afraid.

  “To the dock.”

  She barely made it halfway before he caught her arm and pulled her against him. “We don’t fight. It’s not who we are.”

  “Who are we?” she asked weakly.

  The ocean rolled in, washing over the sand before being sucked back.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said against her ear. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

  * * *

  Charlotte didn’t sleep well that night, but found herself obsessing over the larger picture. She fe
lt fear for Nicole and guilt at not being there. She worried that she had inherited her parents’ dysfunction in matters of the heart. And when she projected herself into the future and tried to anticipate adventure in Bordeaux, all she could think of was the weirdness she always felt the first day in a new place.

  Between each thought came Leo. She imagined spending a lifetime here on Quinnipeague and realized she had a problem: She could do it in a heartbeat. While she lay here in bed, curled to his back and held there by his hands, which grasped hers in the dark, she could feel the pull of nascent roots. She had come to know the island more this summer than ever before, thanks to the cookbook, thanks to Leo, thanks even to her own maturity. She liked the people, liked the pace, liked the sweet salt air. She also liked the feel of those roots.

  But there was still the rest of the world, which she loved. And the fact that she was tired of going places alone. And the realization that if downtown Quinnipeague counted for anything, she liked going places with Leo, which brought her right back to the rest of the world. She wanted to travel with Leo.

  He knew how she felt, but wasn’t budging. And when she was no longer here? That might get him going. He might be lovesick enough to act. Or he might just suck it up and do fine alone again, might even get another book out of it. If his writing was his catharsis. If he wanted revenge for her leaving. If he really didn’t love her all that much.

  The last possibility was like … like the pea under the mattress of the princess. And where had that thought come from? She had to dig back to remember. Her mother. Her mother had been into fairy tales. She would have liked Quinnipeague for that reason. With its wood smoke curling, its mystical herbs healing, and its symbiosis with the sea, it was the ultimate fairy tale.

  How to fold that into real life? Lacking an answer that would work for Leo, she could do nothing but lie there and listen to the soft, steady sound of his breath.

  * * *

  Nicole did the same thing, though she didn’t take the steadiness for granted. Hammon hadn’t expected that Julian would react to the light dose of fludarabine he had prescribed, and the nurses who monitored him in the hours after the infusion had seen no cause for alarm. She was the one who had visions of sudden death, to which end she kept one body part or another—arm, leg, or hip—touching him at all times on the premise that as long as he was warm, he was fine.