I hit redial.
“Ellison, it’s Marcy. Candy is in Saint Mordecai Hospital for surgery. I’m in the cafeteria, waiting for her.”
“Surgery? What kind of surgery?”
“She didn’t want to tell you.” Then I lied. “It’s nothing big, but I thought you should know since you called.”
Half an hour later, Ellison was standing at my table by the window in the cafeteria. He didn’t ask a single question about what was wrong with Candy. He just sat and waited with me. I tried not to talk much, because I was afraid I might slip and say what the problem was.
“Do you want some Fritos?” I said, holding out the bag to him.
He shook his head. “No, thanks. I don’t eat chips.”
I was right. He was perfect for Candy. Then, suddenly, there was Jon.
“Jon? What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I was in the neighborhood,” Jon said.
“I’ll bet you were.”
I could hear Ellison thinking, “Marcy’s boyfriend knew about the surgery, but I didn’t?” Someone else might have said that, but not Ellison. He was tactful.
“How much longer?” Jon asked as he joined us at the table.
“I don’t know. They always tell you less time than it is going to take.”
“Pass the Fritos,” he said as he sat next to me.
Dana called.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Is she out yet?”
“No. I’m waiting. Jon and Ellison are here.”
“I just left the agency. I’m on my way.”
I thought about how Candy always thought she had no family to care about her. But it seemed she did have a family, a new kind of family. And I did too.
There was a text from a nurse. Candy was out of surgery. She was in the ICU and would be taken to room 1012. I was filled with anxiety as I realized that was the room her father had been in the day I ran into her at the hospital for the first time. I remembered that room as though it were the one I had grown up in. Candy had decorated it for her father. She had brought him his own quilt. She had installed matching curtains. There had been framed photographs of her son, Jumper.
I left Jon and Ellison in the cafeteria and went directly to the nurses’ station. There were two women behind the desk. One appeared crotchety and exhausted. The other one had her hair in braids on top of her head. She was wearing scrubs featuring all the characters from Frozen. I asked if I could speak to her privately. She came out from behind the desk. I told her I loved Frozen, but the truth was, I had never seen it. She said her daughter loved Elsa and wore her Elsa costume to day care.
I explained about Candy being assigned her father’s room and how I didn’t think that was going to go over well. She said that Candy was already in the room, asleep. I asked if she could have Candy moved before she woke up. She said that was highly irregular, and the hospital was at full capacity.
I smiled at the nurse, knowing I wasn’t going to let things go just like that.
I hurried to the gift shop. There was a Frozen balloon. I bought it and went back up to ten.
“This is for your daughter,” I said to the nurse.
“You think moving your friend is that important?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She called over two orderlies.
Candy was still asleep. I looked at my phone. Jon and Dana were in the lobby, but Ellison was gone. A text said, I’ll wait until she tells me herself. I wondered whether he was annoyed that not only Jon knew about the operation but also Dana.
I waited in her room. A few minutes later, Candy opened her eyes.
“You’re here,” she said with a struggle of a smile.
“I’m here,” I said. “Dana and Jon are downstairs.”
“Oh, I can’t believe they came.”
“You have a following,” I said. “Do you want water or anything?”
“No. I am happy you are here.”
“Someone else was here.”
“My cousin Donna? I don’t know how she knew. I only told you.”
“Ellison,” I said.
“You told him?” she said from her stupor. I swear my comment could have overcome the lingering effects of anesthesia.
“He called looking for you, and I said you were in surgery, but I didn’t say anything else.”
She smiled, serenely, and fell back to sleep.
Later, I found out that the tumor the size of a Ping-Pong ball was actually the size of a tennis ball. It was easy to remove, malignant but contained. The doctors suggested radiation as a precaution. I told Candy I would take her to radiation when she needed to go. She said I was a horrible driver and that Ellison had offered to take her as well.
Chapter 20
Amanda called while I was at Jon’s apartment. She was kvetching about Elisabeth. She said Elisabeth was thinking small—once again—planning the bachelorette party in a restaurant in Manhattan when what Amanda wanted was a four-day event in New Orleans. None of the bridesmaids lived in the Big Easy, but apparently, they were all willing to take days off from work and drop a grand on airfare and some more on hotel rooms and beignets. Agree to be a bridesmaid and you might as well declare personal bankruptcy at the same time.
When I hung up, I held my hands to my head. I would have pulled my hair out, but with each wedding “incident,” I was running out of hair.
Jon looked at me and said, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go sit on the rocks in Maine. Then we’ll go to Portland, and you can meet my family. As far as I know, none of them are planning a wedding. My eldest niece is fourteen.”
I was excited to meet his brother, his brother’s wife, and the girls. I asked Jon for the age of each of his nieces and bought gifts at a store that specialized in teenage treasures like lip balm kits and fuzzy fur pillows.
We took Jon’s Subaru, crawling local routes dotted with white-steepled towns no bigger than pinheads on a map of New England. We looked like typical Maine tourists in jeans and polo shirts—mine navy blue, Jon’s green. We wore brown baseball caps with moose antlers, and were swaying to the music on the radio. The song was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” And I was. I was having fun.
Jon didn’t need a map, but I was enjoying the one with advertisements featuring attractions. I had plucked it from a stand at a tourist information stop in Massachusetts.
I had always been a big fan of tourist information stops in New England. When the kids were young, Harvey would pull over at the “Welcome to Whatever State” sign, and Ben would take a copy of every appealing brochure and free tourist magazine in the place. He’d say, “Look, Mom, I have mail.” Also, I really liked the vending machines—especially the selection of ice cream. Often, it was Blue Bunny, the brand name that could double for the alias of a porn star. Who names ice cream Blue Bunny? I needed to know, so I looked up the company. It turned out that no one makes more ice cream than Blue Bunny. Their ice cream sandwich is the best.
The map covering my lap in the car had funky advertisements with lots of curlicues for attractions, lodgings, and eateries along the road.
“We should stop at 5,000 Souvenirs,” I said, joking as I looked at a group shot of balsam potpourri, beaded moccasins, pine tree deodorizers, moose T-shirts, and lobster-cracker sets.
“Yes. And if we buy a souvenir, they will have to replace it or change their name.”
“To 4,999 Souvenirs,” we said in unison.
Jon stopped at a beach on the rockbound coast. Without saying a word to each other, we both jumped out of the car, thrilled to be at the ocean.
All the time I’d lived with Harvey, I’d forgotten how much I loved going to the ocean. But Jon had made the ocean mine again. It’s hard to find fault in a man who gives you an ocean. Each time we went to Maine, I loved it more.
We walked for a while, then Jon returned to the car for two chairs. He placed them next to each other, facing the sea, but far back.
I wondered why he always sat so far back, why
he did not place the chairs closer to the water. I guess he could hear me thinking.
“In Maine,” he explained, “when the tide rolls in, there is often no beach left, so I sit back to start with.”
I thought about that. I thought that I would rather sit close to the water and then retreat when I had to.
“So you sit far back, even when you don’t have to?” I said. “That’s crazy.”
“Why?”
“It’s not that big a deal to move.”
“What would you do?”
“Go to the front and only move back when it is absolutely necessary.”
“Okay, let’s try that,” he said.
We moved the webbed chairs close to the water, a yard from the current surf.
On the beach, I saw a mother and a father and a toddler in a windbreaker. The boy ran in circles near the shore, kicking up seaweed, picking up rocks. After a while, he sat down on his knees to shovel sand with his hands. The parents joined in. I heard the father say, “We’re digging a hole to China.” I used to say that to my kids. My dad used to say it to me.
I thought, This is life. This is what life is all about. Life is a family on a beach.
But I had a new life.
“Do you like it here?” Jon asked smugly, knowing the answer.
“I could sit here forever,” I said. “Or at least until it snows.”
“Can you sit here long enough for me to run into town to get sandwiches?”
“Turkey with lettuce, tomato, and mayo on rye,” I said.
“Bread, no wrap?”
“I’m an old-fashioned girl.”
He kissed me. “I’ll be back soon.”
I stared at the ocean, thanking it for Jon.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep in the hazy sun.
Suddenly, a huge wave rushed over me. My jeans and the bottom of my shirt were wet. Before I could stand up, my chair turned, and I tipped over. As I sat in the wet sand, I heard laughter.
I turned to see Jon standing on the strip of cement dividing the parking lot from the beach.
“Tide’s in!” he called.
I laughed.
“You’re shipwrecked!” he shouted as he approached me, holding our lunch in a bag.
“I guess I sat close enough to the water,” I said.
We grabbed the chairs and started walking away from the tide. He went to the car and returned with a beach towel as well as a hoodie from the back seat.
After I dried off, I put on the faded Price College sweatshirt. I liked that it was his go-to sweatshirt, sitting in the back of the car, helping him through life’s emergencies.
“Are you too cold to stay?” he asked.
I didn’t want our time at the beach to end, so I said I was fine.
He placed both chairs against the rocks.
Engulfed in the sweatshirt, I noticed everything he did for me. He did it effortlessly. I didn’t have to ask. Or worse yet, repeat myself. Repeating myself was the worst of all. I hated asking for favors, so I rarely did, but on occasion I had no choice.
“Elisabeth, before you leave, can you see why the TV won’t turn on?”
No verbal affirmation. A while later, I ask again.
“Elisabeth, you’ll check the TV, right? I think it’s something with the remote.”
As she is about to leave, I am forced to repeat myself.
“Mom, I don’t have time now. I have to go.”
With Jon, I had the feeling someone was taking care of me, and it had been such a long time since I’d felt that way that I was overcome by the thought of it.
“Are you too cold?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Actually, I feel exhilarated.”
We sat on the chairs in the thickening haze. The horizon was now difficult to see through the fog. I had something I had to tell him, but I was procrastinating. Putting off telling people important things was a habit of mine, a habit that often got me into trouble.
“This is perfect,” I said. If only I didn’t have to tell you something that will ruin it.
“Don’t tell me anything that is going to ruin it,” he said.
“How did you know I had something to tell you?”
“Marcy, your face is an open book.”
“Look at me,” I said. Then in jest, I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt. “Chapter thirty-four. Marcy is happy.”
“And you know what?” he said as he held my chin and looked into my eyes.
“What?”
“Happiness looks good on you.”
I decided I wouldn’t tell him about the wedding. It was much better to torture myself thinking about telling him. I was on a mental roller coaster ride, and my face must have changed completely.
“Okay, what is it?” he said, frustrated, dropping his hands.
Get it out now, Marcy.
The big blurt. “Amanda would prefer it if I didn’t invite you to the wedding.”
I tried to read his eyes, but he looked at the ocean. “Why not?”
“She says it’s not right, because Harvey and I are still married. She says it will be too disruptive.”
“That’s me,” he said as he pointed to himself. “I’m very disruptive. You never know when I will bop down the aisle in the buff at a wedding. Immediately before the bride, of course.”
“Come on,” I said as I watched his face deflate.
He stared at me as if to say “Explain this one, and it’d better be good.”
“Maybe it’s about Harvey. He is her father. I don’t think he’s doing well. All he thinks about, apparently, is getting back together with me.”
“Well, if I go to the wedding, he will realize that is not going to happen.”
“Harvey is tough. When he wants something, he goes and gets it.”
“Well, when I want something, I keep it. Besides, I think Amanda is using Harvey as an excuse. She’s the one who doesn’t want me at the wedding.”
“Could be,” I said softly. If I said it softly, would it hurt him less?
“Listen, Marcy, I need to know. Are you planning to let your children come between us?”
“No,” I insisted, shaking my head. “They have nothing to do with us.”
He responded with a guffaw. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Why?”
“Because they have everything to do with us. I saw you looking at that family, those happy parents with the little boy. You were mesmerized, as though they had the answers to life.”
“Look, I think Ben and Elisabeth like you. At least, they haven’t keyed your car yet.”
“And Amanda has yet to meet me.”
“It’s not about you—personally. She wants Harvey and me to walk her down the aisle.”
I could see the hurt in his face. When is Amanda going to grow up?
I stalled by taking lunch out of the brown bag. We ate quietly, watching the beach, staring at the horizon. A woman jogged by with headphones. She looked so determined. A teenage boy threw a ball, and his terrier ran for it and brought it back.
I balanced my turkey on rye on the arm of the chair. I threw up my hands. “To be honest about the wedding, I’m confused. I wanted you to come. I kept thinking how much fun it would be. I thought about us dancing. I knew Amanda would ask the band to play a lot of old-time rock ’n’ roll. And, considering the way Harvey carried on in the recent past, I didn’t think it would matter to a soul whether we were divorced or not. I just didn’t think anyone would care. But apparently, Amanda does care. And now I think it may be wrong to put my good time ahead of her feelings.”
He stared at me.
“So I guess you shouldn’t come,” I said, relieved for me but knowing I had just put a dagger in Jon.
He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Why didn’t you tell me that weeks ago?”
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t say it. You’ve been watching me make all these plans, and it seemed hurtful, like you were the only kid in class I wasn’t inviting to my bir
thday party.”
“I am the only kid you aren’t inviting.”
I stood up and I lost it, rat-a-tat, like a machine gun. “Why do you care so much? Have you never been to a wedding? It’s a bride and a groom. It’s no big deal. And why are you making this so hard on me? I’m in a bind. It’s an awkward situation. If I were you, I would be thrilled I wasn’t invited. Why aren’t you relieved you don’t have to go?”
“You know what?” he said. “I think you’re correct. I don’t belong at the wedding. You and Harvey are not divorced yet. And, until you divorce Harvey, nothing is right.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, even though I knew exactly what he was talking about.
He came closer to me, lowering his voice, pointing his finger. I had never seen him point his finger before. “No more discussions about when I will meet Amanda or whether I will or will not be on the sacred guest list for the wedding.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, about to reach for his arm.
“Marcy, I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” he said.
Suddenly, I felt as if the beach were a sinkhole and my shoulders were barely above the sand.
“Because you’re not invited?” I said, as though that wasn’t reason enough.
He pointed his finger again. “Because you’re still married.”
“Jon, I am sorry.”
He put his sandwich back in the bag and folded his chair. “Nothing to be sorry about, Marcy. You simply pointed out the obvious. Guess what? I’m not interested in seeing a married woman. Harvey did you wrong, so wrong. And amazingly, you still haven’t called a lawyer. What’s with that? Take a good look in the mirror, and think really hard.”
I was wet and cold and uncomfortable. My jeans felt heavy. As he headed to the car, I reached for the back of his polo shirt. I pulled on it, tugging. He turned.
“Get a divorce,” he said.
Silently, he piled the chairs back into the car. The beach and the ocean looked dark, but I knew it wasn’t about the sky. It was about me. I was dark. And cold. I had hurt him. Badly. And it was hurting me.
We got into his car without a word. Jon pulled out of the beach lot and followed the local road to Route 1. He didn’t turn on the radio. It was so quiet. We passed someone mowing a lawn, and the sound might as well have been an A-bomb.
Husbands and Other Sharp Objects: A Novel Page 18