“We’ll get to you as soon as we can,” the nurse said.
“Sooner would be better.” Winnie looked around. “It doesn’t look too busy here.” Winnie hobbled away and sat in a chair as far away from Charlie as she could get. He stood and went to the window.
I sat on the sofa beside Max. Without thinking, I touched his leg with my fingertips.
“What does the doctor say?” I asked.
“She has some internal hemorrhaging. They don’t know what the prognosis is yet.”
Heather gripped the arms of her chair.
“Has anyone called the Maples?” I asked.
“Oh God, the Maples,” Max said.
“Should we wait?” Heather asked. “Until we know more?”
“That’s up to you and Charlie,” I said.
The nurse called Winnie’s name and Winnie, without help from any of us, got up and went through the double doors.
Heather walked over to Charlie, then came back.
“Charlie and I think someone should call our parents,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” Max said.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll do it,” I said.
“It’s my responsibility.”
“No it isn’t.”
Of course, Charlie or Heather could have called, but I was afraid they’d make the Maples more upset than necessary. Someone calm had to call.
Max put his hand over mine and I felt the warmth and hardness of it. I slipped my hand away and stood up. The phones were down the hall.
I went to make the call. It was a good thing I did, because, as I suspected, Marion didn’t take it well.
“We’ll leave immediately,” she said.
“It’s snowing pretty heavily up here,” I said. “Maybe you should wait until morning.”
“I can’t,” Marion said.
Charles Sr. got on the extension. “You think we should wait, Jane?”
“I don’t know, Charles. The weather isn’t very good up here and it’s getting worse.”
“We’re going to leave right now and see how we do,” he said.
“What about the boys?” I asked.
“Charlie and Winnie will have to come home.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“In the meantime, we’ll call Gabriella. I’m sure she’ll come,” Marion said. “Heather and Charlie, why didn’t they call?”
“They thought it would be better if I did,” I said.
“They didn’t want to upset us even more,” Charles Sr. said.
“That’s right,” I said.
I hung up the phone and went back to the waiting room. Charlie was still at the window. I walked over to him, touched his shoulder, and told him his parents were on the way.
“Thank you, Jane,” he said. “What would we do without you?”
“You’d manage.” I smiled. He turned toward me, hugged me, and held on to me. I felt a tear against my cheek. When he released me, I turned from the window and saw Max looking at me.
Basil blustered in. “It’s getting almost impossible to drive,” he said. “I don’t even know how we’ll leave the hospital.”
“I’m not leaving,” Max said.
“How is she?” Basil asked.
“She’s in surgery.”
“I stopped at the Franklins’ and they’re ready to take you all in,” Basil said.
“We still have the house,” I reminded him.
Charlie returned from the window.
“The snow’s thick on the ground.”
We sat and we sat some more.
Eventually Winnie came back out through the double doors. She was on crutches and her ankle was wrapped in an Ace bandage.
“It’s a sprain,” she said.
“I’ll bet you all wish you didn’t wake up this morning,” Basil said.
“If we didn’t wake up this morning, we’d all be dead,” Max said.
Heather laughed, a snort of laughter, short and loud.
Basil looked at the floor. I followed his eyes toward the pocked linoleum.
Three hours later the doctor came down to tell us that Lindsay was out of surgery. He looked at Winnie. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. No one knew what that meant, but I could only imagine what had gone on behind those double doors.
“We just have to wait,” the doctor said. “You never really know with head injuries.”
“Can I see her?” Max asked.
“No one can see her yet. You should all go home. You can’t see her till morning.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Charlie said. He shook the doctor’s hand.
After the doctor left, Max said he had no intention of leaving.
“Me either,” Heather said.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Winnie said, “though I am so uncomfortable.” She looked at her ankle. “It would be nice to get into bed.”
“We’re staying,” Charlie said, “at least until morning. Then we have to do something about the kids.”
“They’re with your parents.”
“My parents are coming up right away. They’re going to try to find Gabriella to take care of the boys.”
“They didn’t ask me if I approved of that idea,” Winnie said.
“No, they didn’t,” Charlie said.
I didn’t think we should all spend the whole night in this waiting room if no one could see Lindsay until morning. Maybe one of us should stay in case she woke up, but there was no need for everyone to stay, certainly not Basil Funk. I went to the window to check the weather. It was bad.
I returned and spoke to Basil.
“Basil, could you do us a huge favor?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Well, at least now I knew why he was there.
“Take Heather and Winnie back to the house. There’s no reason for them to sit up all night.”
“I’m not leaving,” Winnie said.
“Neither am I,” Heather said.
I sat beside Heather. “You’re going to need to be strong for your parents and it won’t help if you’re exhausted. I think Charlie should get some sleep too. Even Max.”
“I’m not leaving,” Max said.
“Jane’s right,” Charlie said. “There’s no point in all of us staying through the night if we can’t see Lindsay, so long as someone is here in case she wakes up.”
“I think one of the family should stay,” Winnie said.
“We couldn’t get Max out of here with a crowbar, so he might as well be the one to stay,” Charlie said.
“But what if we get stuck and can’t come back? What if the weather’s too bad?” Heather asked.
The nurse behind the counter spoke up.
“There’s a motel across the street,” she said. “Why not stay there?”
So it was settled. Rooms were rented across the street.
They rented a room for me, but on my way out I turned and saw Max sitting there by himself staring into space and I couldn’t leave him. The others went on and I returned to the waiting room.
We sat there side by side like two old people waiting for a bus.
“It’s all my fault,” Max said.
“Stop saying that. It’s not your fault.”
“I should have stopped her.”
“We went after her as fast as we could,” I said.
“I wasn’t thinking about her, the way she is, what she’d do. I was just thinking of myself. That’s all I ever do. I’ve spent the last fifteen years being a selfish bastard.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is. You don’t know. Even this,” he said, “this Lindsay thing. It was all about me, what I wanted. I’m like that with women. Some of the stories are true. Not all of them, but some of them. I dated a lot of women, but I never got really serious with any of them. Strange, I know. When I met Lindsay, it started the same way, just another conquest. I thought maybe I could change. She comes from a nice, solid family. I thought tha
t maybe this could be it, but I never even really knew her.”
He took my hand.
“I don’t know what we would have done without you today,” he said.
“You would have managed.”
At about two o’clock in the morning Max fell asleep with his head on my shoulder. He snored softly. I was wide awake, listening to every breath.
At five, he blinked his eyes open and smiled at me. He seemed unaware of where he was at first and with whom, because he turned to me and gave me a soft half-asleep kiss.
“Morning,” I said.
“I fell asleep.”
“You did,” I said.
He sat up straight.
“Any news?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Chapter 24
Lindsay wakes up confused
Lindsay remained in a coma for three days. In that time, the senior Maples came up and traded places with the junior Maples, and Winnie and Charlie returned home to the children. Winnie was not too pleased at being sent away. She wanted to remain where the action was—even if the action was merely sitting around in a hospital waiting room.
I checked out of the Inn at Long Last and into the Moon Dairy Motor Inn across from the hospital. I tried to be there for Max, but it’s hard to be there for someone who walks around like a bombed-out shell. He was a zombie, and all I could think was that his love for Lindsay had blindsided him, that she had become more to him than he imagined.
When Lindsay woke up, she was foggy and confused. She didn’t recognize Max. For some reason, she recognized Basil. She didn’t know the Franklins or Heather. She knew Charles Sr. but not Marion. She didn’t know me.
The doctors said that Lindsay’s recovery would take time, that she’d have to remain in the hospital for several weeks, and even after that, she shouldn’t travel unless we wanted to medevac her.
“Head injuries are unpredictable,” the doctor said. “The patient can experience a complete personality change.”
When he said that, Marion, despite her heft, put her head between her knees and started to hyperventilate.
There was no reason for me to delay my return to Massachusetts any longer. I drove back to Dover, packed my things, and went to stay with Priscilla, who had returned to Boston after Christmas. Winnie offered me a home with her for as long as I wanted it, but I was restless. I couldn’t remain the unmarried aunt in my sister’s house forever. I wasn’t sure how Priscilla’s condominium would be so much better, but I didn’t plan to stay there long. I had to make some arrangements of my own.
I found a parking spot on the street near Priscilla’s building—no easy task—and dragged one suitcase up the stairs and into her sunny second-floor apartment.
Priscilla met me at the door.
“Set the bag in the hall,” she said. “You can deal with it later.”
I put the bag down and followed her into the living room, where I sank into a deep armchair.
“What an ordeal,” she said. “Was it very bad?” Priscilla picked up her knitting and turned down the Mozart CD she had been listening to. I looked around at her impeccable apartment, everything in its place. No wonder she had never married again. Everything was exactly as she wanted it. Maybe I could get used to this kind of small and comfortable life, but I wasn’t willing to resign myself to it just yet.
I smelled coffee and went into the kitchen to get a cup and brought one back for Priscilla. Her cups were bone china, strong but delicate. I longed for a good hefty mug like the ones in Max’s chalet.
“Tell me everything,” she said again.
“Being with Max again was hard.”
“You did the right thing all those years ago.”
“How can you say that? How can you look at the reality of my life and say that? I am alone. I haven’t had sex in—I don’t know—I stopped counting, but it’s probably been about nine years. How can you say I did the right thing?”
“It’s just that you never learned about men,” she said. “That’s all it is.” She took a neat sip of her coffee.
I sipped mine. Priscilla made bad coffee. I didn’t want to fight with her. I wanted to fall into the safety of our comfortable routine. Looking at her with her chignon, her smooth and beautifully made-up face, her clothes—all from Talbots—I realized there was no going back. I wasn’t even sure I liked Priscilla anymore. Her absolute conviction that she was right never wavered. She was an ice queen, never allowing herself to be touched by anything. Maybe that’s what she had wanted for me, but now I was sure that it wasn’t what I wanted for myself.
“I’m seeing someone,” Priscilla said. She looked a little like a teenager with a secret.
“Oh?” I said. I had always feigned interest in her parade of paramours, but I wasn’t in the mood to do it now.
“I met him at a self-defense course.” She put down her cup and saucer on a side table and punched out her arm as if she were about to take down an assailant. She looked ridiculous. “He was the teacher.”
“Why are you taking a self-defense course?” I asked.
“Got my purse snatched. Walking down Charles Street. Can you imagine? This city isn’t what it once was. He’s coming over tonight. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
Jason, Priscilla’s self-defense instructor, had a baby face. According to Priscilla, he was twenty-seven. Priscilla, however, was sixty-two, and although I didn’t want to let the age difference bother me, it did. Jason wore all black—black T-shirt, black leather jacket, black jeans. He looked a little like I had imagined Jack Reilly might look, only younger. Jason’s stomach rippled in a six-pack under his tight T-shirt and I offered him a drink, all the time wondering why a six-pack was still a priority for Priscilla, who had lost hers—if she had ever had one—eons ago.
Though Priscilla had said she had wanted me to meet the karate kid, I felt very much in the way and decided to take a walk, even though it was very cold and windy outside.
“Oh, don’t go,” Priscilla said. She was snuggled into Jason so securely, she was almost glued to him. But the good single guest never stays when she knows she is in the way, and I was “the good single guest.”
I walked around the neighborhood and past my own house. The lights were on inside and I wanted to ring the doorbell, but people didn’t just stop by anymore for a visit. It was rude not to call first, especially since I didn’t know the Goldmans well.
The light came on in the front hall, and against my better judgment, I started up the walk and rang the bell. I don’t think I’d ever rung the bell to that house before. I didn’t really know what I was doing there, but there I was.
Emma answered the door.
“Jane, how lovely of you to stop by. Come on in.” I followed her into the sitting room. There was a fire in the fireplace. It looked like she had just vacated my favorite chair, because a book and a pair of reading glasses were perched on a table beside it. “Sit, sit,” Emma said. She leaned toward me. “What can I get you?” For a moment, it didn’t occur to me that she was offering me something as simple as a drink. I had the briefest fantasy that she was offering me something more—a different life perhaps.
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
“Just tea,” she said.
“That will be fine for me too,” I said.
She went into the kitchen and I sat there waiting to be served in my own house. A new sensation. She brought back a tray with tea and some fancy chocolate cookies.
We sat for a moment and sipped our tea. I stared into the fire, but Emma was looking at me.
“Where’s Joe?” I asked.
“He had to fly back to California for a few days on business,” she said.
“You must miss him,” I said.
“I don’t mind having time to myself.” She smiled.
“Have you heard from Max?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How is he?”
“He’s confused. You know, he’s a man, so he do
esn’t share all that much with me. He feels so responsible for Lindsay’s accident.”
“He wasn’t, you know.”
“Oh, I know that and you know that, but maybe if he worries about that, he doesn’t have to worry about other things.”
“Like what?”
“Like that he might have gotten himself in too deep with Lindsay. She’s a nice girl. She’s not the kind of girl he’s been playing around with in New York. He set out just to play and he got stuck.”
“He told me he wanted to marry her,” I said.
“We’ll see about that,” Emma said. “You hurt him badly, Jane, you know. It took him a long time to get over you.”
I was surprised that she was being so candid.
“You said he didn’t share his feelings with you.”
“He was different when he was younger. He used to tell me everything,” she said.
“So you know about us,” I said. She nodded. “He blamed me.” She nodded again. “Well, he had a right to.”
She sipped her tea, then looked up at me.
“I’m certainly glad you came to visit,” she said. “Oh, by the way, a man came by here looking for you a few days ago. I sent him to Priscilla. Did she tell you?”
Priscilla and—I supposed—Jason were already asleep when I got home.
In the morning, they were eating pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream in the kitchen.
“Where did you go last night?” Priscilla asked. “I was worried about you.”
“Did someone come by here looking for me a couple of days ago?”
“Oh yes,” Pris said. “I forgot. Someone did come by. I wasn’t here, but he left a note. Now, where did I put it?”
Priscilla, in a silk peignoir that made her look a little bit like Auntie Mame in the musical, wafted out of the kitchen.
I looked at Jason. He looked back at me. We didn’t say anything to each other. He took a huge bite of his pancakes and stared at me as he chewed. I couldn’t tell whether his look was one of mischief or disdain and whether it was directed at me or Priscilla. And I didn’t want to know.
Priscilla came back with a thick cream envelope and handed it to me.
The Family Fortune Page 16