“It was an accident,” she said.
“Let’s get it under cold water,” he said to Nicole.
Estelle grabbed his arm. “I’m sure she can take care of it herself, can’t you, Nicole? We have to get going. Just wrap the painting for me and I’ll pick it up next week.”
It was well after eight when he reached the condominium. He’d managed to nap for two hours in the sleeping room at Blair, but he was hardly refreshed.
Estelle was waiting for him, wearing a lacy white robe he’d never seen before, her hair a rich auburn against it. “You poor thing,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt in the hallway. “What’s the chance you won’t get called back in tonight?”
“No chance.”
“Would you like to soak in the tub a while?”
He shook his head. He’d showered at Blair a few hours ago to try to wake himself up. He looked into her eyes. “We have to talk.”
“Not now, Cole,” she pleaded. “That can wait. There are clean sheets on the bed. Why don’t you crawl in?”
He sighed. The last thing he wanted was a fight. He put his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “If you’ll crawl in with me,” he said.
She led him to the bedroom. The sheets were white and crisp, and he could hardly wait to get between them. He let her undress him, let her stroke his body with those cool, familiar fingers.
“You just lie here,” she directed him, kissing his hair, the tip of his nose, the weary smile on his lips. “Let me take care of everything.”
“Do you remember the good old days, Estelle, when we’d stay in bed for twenty-four hours at a stretch?” Her head was on his chest and her hair felt like satin under his fingers.
“Mmmm.” Her voice vibrated against his ribs.
“We’d argue about whose turn it was to go out for sausage sandwiches, and then we’d eat them in bed and get crumbs and green peppers all over the sheets.” The memory hurt.
She laughed, deep and throaty. “Ugh. We were disgusting.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, wondering when they’d changed. “We had no problems then.” He was talking more to himself than to her.
“We have no problems now, either.” Her warning was clear. He let it die. He had no strength for an argument.
He fell into such a deep sleep that he didn’t even hear the phone ring.
Estelle woke him. “Darling, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Blair called. Marion somebody is about ready to deliver.”
He groaned. The heroin addict. His head was foggy, and he was a little nauseated. He sat up and saw the concern in her eyes. He must look like hell.
“Can’t someone cover for you?”
He shook his head. “Kevin will be able to off and on next week. I just have to make it through the next few days.”
“I think you age six months every September,” she said, helping him find his clothes.
In the bathroom he splashed cold water on his face and avoided looking at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror above the sink. Marion somebody’s had a rotten day, too, he thought to himself. He’d make her delivery as good for her as he could. He’d even ask her to call him Cole if she liked.
13.
“I’m amazed you made it through this meal without falling asleep.” Kit was watching him from across the kitchen table.
He’d dragged dinner out, savoring the anticipation of his first uninterrupted night’s sleep in a week. “I can’t wait another second for bed,” he said now, as he carried his plate to the sink. He felt as if he were sleepwalking.
The phone rang as he started to leave the room, and he froze from force of habit.
“Go,” Kit said as she picked it up. “I’m sure Kevin has things under control at Blair.”
But it was his father. His father never called him. He took the phone from Kit and frowned into the receiver. “Dad?”
“Cole, your mother’s in the hospital. There’s . . . uh, a lump in her breast.”
Not Mom, he thought. Things like that didn’t happen in his family.
“What kind of lump?” He felt Kit and Maris exchange looks across the table.
“Well . . . I think . . . I mean they told her it’s cancer. She’s known for a while, I guess, and she had . . . I don’t know, some kind of test and didn’t tell me. I don’t think she told anyone. They’re doing the surgery tomorrow morning.”
“God.” He let his eyelids fall shut for a few seconds. “Are they just planning to excise it?” he asked hopefully.
“She said she’s going to sign for them to . . . do a . . . you know, take it all if they need to.”
Cole pictured his father nervously doodling on a piece of paper as he talked, a pen gripped in shaky fingers that not so long ago handled the controls of commercial jets. Hundreds of people depend on me for their lives, he’d say. He always took that responsibility very seriously.
“Is she at St. Catherine’s?” Cole asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ll come up tonight and see her.”
“Good, good.” He heard the relief in his father’s voice. The vision of his dark bedroom, the waiting bed and feather pillow, moved across his mind and gave him a panicky feeling.
“And, Cole?”
“Yes?”
“Could you call Corinne? I can’t talk to her about this.”
Why the hell not? he thought. Why did they always have to treat Corinne like a china doll?
“Okay.”
He set the receiver down slowly in its cradle. The women were staring at him, waiting for him to say something.
“My mother.” His throat constricted. He looked down, poked at a scrap of paper on the floor with the toe of his shoe.
“I’m sorry, Cole,” Kit said. “Is it absolutely necessary for you to go up there tonight? You’re exhausted. What good can you do right now?”
“It’s malignant, Kit. She’s having surgery tomorrow. I have to see her tonight.”
“You’d better go, baby,” Maris said. “You won’t be at peace with yourself unless you do.”
He turned back to the phone and called his sister, who put on her usual performance. “Oh my God!” she said. “Oh my God!”
Cut the hysterics, he thought. His patience was ready to crack. “I’m going up there tonight. I can pick you up on the way.”
“Cole, you know that’s impossible. I hate hospitals. I could never visit her there.”
“Don’t you think you could put your neuroses on the shelf for one night, for Mom’s sake?”
“I can’t.” She was crying.
“You’re so used to saying you can’t that you don’t even think about it before you answer. What if she doesn’t make it through surgery? How will you feel then?”
Kit sucked in her breath as though she’d been wounded. Was he being cruel? He didn’t care.
“I can’t do it, Cole. I can’t go to—”
“Good-bye, Corinne.” He hung up and saw that his hand was shaking. He headed for the stairs. He’d need to change, splash some water on his face. He turned back to the women. “Could one of you make me a thermos of coffee, please? Black and very strong.”
He let the radio blare to keep himself awake in the car. But then his head started to throb. He drove past the turnoff to Corinne’s house and held up his middle finger to the window, feeling a little ashamed of himself.
A sudden image came into his mind. He was seven or so, standing in front of the gas stove in the house in Watchung. He was making pancakes, and he wanted to learn how to flip them in the air the way his mother did. She put her hand over his on the spatula to guide him. He remembered how it felt, her big hand wrapped around his small one, her calm directions in his ear. He pretended to have great difficulty with the task so he could have her hand covering his for as long as possible.
Why was he thinking about that now, for Christ’s sake?
Another image. He was seven again. In school, making a Mother’s Day card for her. Lacy paper doilies
and blue construction paper. He cut designs and pasted them carefully onto the card, trying to make the edges meet perfectly, because things had to be done very neatly for his mother to like them. He thought it looked pretty good, but he wasn’t quite sure.
She had a friend over, in the kitchen. He handed it to her quickly, before he had a chance to get too nervous.
“Oh, Cole, this is so nice!” A quick kiss on the cheek while he stood with his hands knotted behind his back. “Thank you, honey.”
When he left the room he heard her say to her friend, “Another little gem to clutter up the front of the refrigerator,” and they both laughed.
He’d stayed in his room all that evening, too embarrassed to come down to dinner. For a week, every time he thought about the card, he felt his cheeks burn.
He shook his head to get rid of the memories, but they were rooted to the inside of his forehead. He took a long drink of bitter coffee and wiped at his eyes with the back of the hand that held the thermos.
In the parking lot of St. Catherine’s he took the time to study his eyes in the rearview mirror. Even in the dim light he could see that the whites were bloodshot. If she asked, he’d tell her he hadn’t slept in a long time. It was the truth, anyway.
His mother was sitting up, her back against the raised white square of the hospital bed. She wore the familiar hospital gown with its faded blue diamond design. His first thought was to tell his father to bring one of her nightgowns and robes from home. She shouldn’t look like this, like any other patient.
He pulled a chair close to the bed. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
She shrugged. “I was hoping it was nothing. Apparently I was wrong.” She reached for his hand. Hers was bitter cold. “I’ve never felt this way before, so helpless and powerless. I’m so used to taking charge, you know.” She sighed. “And I’ve never been so frightened. I can’t tell that to your father. He thinks I’m doing fine.”
He wished she could tell his father. Anyone other than him. He felt burdened by the weight of her fear.
She wanted him to feel the lump in her breast, as though she hoped that when someone who loved her touched it, it would turn out to be no more than a little bump in the skin. She put her right arm behind her head. “It’s just below my armpit,” she said.
He ignored the queasiness he felt at touching her breast. He felt the round, hard mass, so firmly attached to the skin, and the little hope he’d been clinging to left him.
“It’s large,” he said, taking his hand away. “You’ve had it a while.” He heard the blame in his voice.
“You get scared, Cole. I never thought I’d react that way. I always thought that if I found a lump I’d go to the doctor right away, but I found it and . . .”
“When? When did you find it?”
“Oh, a month ago. More like two, I guess.”
“Mom.”
“Don’t give me a lecture. That’s not what I need. Listen, Cole.” She sat forward, gripping his hand tightly. Her nails pressed into his palm. “Your father is handling this very poorly. I don’t know what to tell you to do to help him. Just be there for him, okay?”
“He’ll be all right.”
“And, Cole? If anything . . . goes wrong, if I don’t make it through, please—”
“Mom, you’re going to be fine.” He knew he should let her talk, but he wasn’t made of steel as she seemed to think. “Kit wanted to come with me,” he said, changing the subject. He’d thanked Kit but told her he wanted to be alone. He needed some time to fall apart.
His mother leaned back. “I guess I won’t be having lunch with her for a while. I’ll miss that.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “I think she loves you.”
He nodded. “I love her, too,” he said, purposely missing her point. “She’s become a good friend.”
“Is that all?”
“Of course that’s all.” He stood up and kissed her cheek, eyeing the door.
“Sometimes I think you’re a fool, Cole,” she said, as simply as if she were saying the day had been cool for September.
His eyes stung. He thought of telling her to have some respect for his decisions, to realize that he couldn’t always take whatever she dished out to him. But what good would it do? And now was certainly not the time.
Kit sat next to him on the ottoman in the library, her arms wrapped around him as though she were trying to hold in his anger. It was black outside the library windows, and there was no sound at all from the ocean, no sound in the room except Kit’s breathing and his own. The phone was balanced on his knees. He’d hung up on Corinne again, couldn’t stand to hear one more self-serving excuse out of her mouth for why she couldn’t visit her mother. For the first time he needed his sister’s help, really needed it. He couldn’t handle this alone.
His father was useless. He’d left the hospital after his mother’s mastectomy, said he needed some air.
“You should be here when she comes out of it, Dad,” Cole had said to him.
“You do it, Cole. I’m not feeling too well right now.” He didn’t look well. So old.
Cole sat at his mother’s side in the recovery room for nearly two hours, talking with her in whispers, trying to think of what he would say when she asked for his father. But she never did.
He was shaking beneath Kit’s arms, he was so angry. She set her cheek on his shoulder, and he could smell whatever it was she used on her hair. He connected that scent to her. Sometimes a patient would come into his office and he’d catch a whiff of that same scent, and he’d immediately like the woman. It didn’t matter who she was.
“You know,” Kit said softly. “You have so much patience with the rest of us. We’re always turning to you with our little problems and you’re always there, ready to listen. But when it comes to your sister, you tune her out.”
He put his arm around her waist. “She taxes me,” he said. “Do you know what it was like growing up with her? We never went anywhere as a family because Corinne couldn’t go. She cost my parents thousands of dollars for doctors and shrinks. If she ever ventured out, to a party or something, she’d call and beg me to pick her up, she couldn’t stand to be there another second.” His body tensed to remember that time in his life, when Corinne absorbed all his parents’ attention. They’d had nothing left over to give to him. “I’m afraid she’ll make Wendy and Becky as crazy as she is.”
“Does she have friends?”
“You can’t have friends when you refuse to leave your house.”
“Then she needs you even more than most sisters need their brothers.”
“Are you purposely trying to make me feel guilty?”
She shrugged.
“Right now I’m sick of being needed,” he said.
She didn’t move. Her cheek was still on his shoulder. Her hair smelled so good.
He sighed and began to dial Corinne’s number with his left hand, still holding Kit against him with his right.
“I’m sorry,” he said when Corinne answered.
She was still sniffling. “I’m afraid I’d cry in front of her.”
“So what? I cried in front of her, too.” He hadn’t really, hadn’t even come close to it today. “She knows we’re sad. You don’t have to hide it. It would mean so much to her to have her daughter with her.”
“I’ll try, Cole, I really will.”
“I’m sorry I lost my temper before, Corinne. I love you.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said those words to her. Maybe when the girls were born. Maybe not even then.
14.
It was dark when she went running in the morning now. She felt like a knife, cutting through chill, black air. Two and a half weeks left until the Somerville Marathon. She’d have to get her speed up, but she was certain she could. She always had something in reserve.
She walked around to the front of the house to look in the garage for Cole’s Mustang. Still not there, poor guy. He’d gotten some sleep the night Kevin covered for him, but
last night he’d been up and down. The phone woke her three times, and after the third call she heard him moving around his bedroom, talking with Estelle. Then his heavy footsteps on the stairs and the sound of his car starting in the still night, sputtering once before it turned over. She had lain in her bed, wishing she could go in for him, do whatever needed to be done at Blair. He’d changed in the past week. His face was lined and pinched, and his smile, when it was there at all, seemed forced.
She went upstairs, took a shower, and put on her bathrobe. The smell of toast and coffee filled the upstairs hallway. God, she was ravenous. She couldn’t stop eating these days. And she never gained an ounce.
She made herself smile at Estelle in the hall. “Cole’s had a rough few days, hasn’t he?” she said.
“Don’t you worry your little pea-brain about Cole,” said Estelle. “I’ll take care of him. Or do you think you could be doing a better job of it?”
Kit felt the hair on her neck rise. “I’m sorry I mentioned it.” She tried to walk past her, but Estelle caught her arm.
“You always have your nose in his business, don’t you?” she said. “Maybe you’d better concentrate a little harder on Sandy. How long do you think he’s going to stick around when you wear Salvation Army specials like this?” Estelle lifted the tie to Kit’s seersucker robe and dropped it as though it were infested.
Kit clenched her fists. “Do you want me to hate you, Estelle?”
“Though he’s quite a slob himself,” she continued as if Kit hadn’t spoken. “What’s it like to share your lover with other women?” she asked. “Aren’t you disgusted when you think of him being in someone else’s cunt just hours after he’s been in yours?”
“You are such a bitch.” Kit turned on her heel and escaped down the stairs, Estelle’s throaty laughter behind her.
She found Janni in the kitchen, laying another log on the fire.
“I hate that goddamn bitch!” Kit felt her whole body shaking. “You wouldn’t believe what she just said to me. How can Cole stand her?”
“Kit.” She saw the warning look in Janni’s face too late. Cole stood in the doorway of the pantry, a can of coffee in his hand, his eyes unsmiling.
Secrets at the Beach House Page 10