“You feel tense,” Grady said. He deepened the pressure with his hands. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked, not stopping.
“No,” she said. Grady could be tender when he wanted something. Sara closed her eyes, knowing the path his hands would travel and the sounds they both would make.
They rolled over in bed and briefly kissed; a fleeting flirtation between tongues. Sara always wished the kissing lasted longer. She longed for a deep, passionate exchange of fluids, instead of the brief mingling of their minty fresh toothpaste.
Grady entered her, his movements accelerating, as if it was his job to pump up their passion. Sara’s mind wandered. She was suddenly reminded of Julia’s father cranking the arm of their old-fashioned ice cream maker. Professor David had made peach ice cream every summer on the patio in their backyard. Julia and Sara would eat so much of it they would get ice cream headaches and collapse into their hammock together.
Julia’s dad had taught European History at Smith College. He looked like a professor and always had a beard, even in the summer. Julia’s mother had been her dad’s teaching assistant and was twelve years younger. She was beautiful, as Julia was beautiful. Flawless skin highlighted by auburn hair that looked perpetually shiny, framing perfectly proportionate features.
“Why are you smiling?” Grady asked, his movement uninterrupted.
Should she tell him that she suddenly had an urge for peach ice cream? She reeled in her smile. “I was just enjoying you,” Sara said.
Grady smiled. A drop of sweat rained down on where her right breast used to be. Perhaps I can grow a new one from scratch, Sara thought.
Grady’s breathing deepened as their ritual advanced. Sara imagined Julia in Florence. Was she married? Did she have children? Perhaps not. She had kept her maiden name.
“Grady, can you go deeper?” Sara said softly, surprising herself with this request.
Grady lifted up and decelerated, like a car shifting down a gear. “What?” he asked. His face was red. Sweat had gathered around his temples.
“Can you go deeper?” Sara whispered. She wanted deeper contact, deeper penetration. She wanted him to touch the part of her that was lonely and scared.
Grady groaned with enthusiasm and began again, putting more effort into his motions. It reminded her of the first time they had made love, a month after Julia had moved away. They had rocked the back of his red Chevy, as if the friction of their bodies might somehow be the magic to conjure Julia up again. Over the years they had graduated from cars, to dorm rooms, to their marital bed, which now creaked loudly with every thrust. Since the children had left there was a certain enjoyment to being louder than they used to be. Loudness, Sara supposed, that could be misinterpreted for passion.
Seconds later, the creaking bed stopped. Grady rolled to his side of the bed with a smile on his face and turned toward her. “That was amazing,” he panted. “How was it for you?”
“Wonderful,” she said, as she always did when he asked this question.
Grady kissed her lightly on the lips, and then rolled over to his side of the bed. Minutes later, he began to snore lightly. Hot tears filled Sara’s eyes.
“I had hoped for better results,” Doctor Morgan said. The head of the oncology department, he sat behind his large mahogany desk, more of a fortress than a piece of office furniture.
Absentmindedly, Sara stuck a finger into the pot of a plant on the edge of the desk to see if it needed water. She was always sticking her fingers into pots at home, afraid that she would find the evidence of her neglect. But in this instance she discovered that the plant wasn’t real. Was the man in charge of her treatment someone who couldn’t even keep a plant alive?
A framed photograph of a smiling boy in a blue baseball uniform sat next to the plant. She wondered briefly, given the status of the plant, if the picture had come with the frame.
Doctor Morgan removed his glasses to reveal brown eyes that matched the crescent moon of hair hugging the back of his head. “I recommend we repeat the series and up the dosage this time.”
Sara smoothed her skirt and rested her hand on her right leg that had begun to shake. She took a deep breath. “What should I do in the meantime?” She sounded surprisingly calm at hearing she would not be retiring her bandanas anytime soon.
“What you’re already doing,” he said. “Eat right, exercise.” He paused and walked from behind his desk to sit in the chair next to her. Sara automatically leaned back. It felt strange to have him so close. He patted her hand three times and then added a fourth, as if to fulfill the prescriptive measure. Had he learned this gesture in medical school during a crash course on bedside manner? Several awkward moments passed before he put on his glasses again and returned to his desk. She glanced at the fake plant which looked as robust as ever, a prop in the play that was her life.
Sara left his office and walked down a long white hallway and waited for the elevator. Once inside, she pushed L for Lobby and thought: Life. Life Lost. Loser. The cancer was back.
The doors opened in the expansive white lobby subsidized by cancer. It was filled with floor to ceiling windows, an assortment of larger fake plants, and a waiting area full of people flipping nervously through magazines. Life is so tenuous, she thought, and we fool ourselves into thinking it isn’t.
Her footsteps echoed in the parking garage, strangely deserted in the middle of the day. Sara called the school to tell them she wouldn’t be back that afternoon and went home to an empty house, except for Luke, who was ecstatic to see her.
Sara grabbed his leash in the pantry and hooked him up for a walk. Walking helped her process things. It helped her think. Luke led the way around a large block in their neighborhood lined with older homes. He sniffed and revisited his habitual places, a favorite bush, the elm tree at the corner, and a concrete lion on a driveway at the end of the road.
Her appointment with Doctor Morgan played over in her mind. He had not said the words but the implication was there: to get her affairs in order. But what affairs? Except for her grandmother’s ring, she didn’t really own anything apart from Grady. He would take care of everything. If anything, they were over-insured, over-prepared for external disasters. It seemed the things Sara needed to get in order were internal things. But how do you make peace and assign meaning to a life that was spent merely sleepwalking?
You’re being too hard on yourself, the voice said.
Well that’s a switch, Sara thought. If the critical voice in my head is defending me, I must really be in trouble.
Back at the house, Iris Whitworth, an elderly neighbor, watched Sara from her dining room window. The old woman seldom bothered to hide her interest. Sara waved and the curtain closed.
“What will she do if she doesn’t have me around to watch?” Sara said to Luke. She pulled her jacket closer. The weather was changing. Clouds covered the sun.
Sara went inside and filled a tall glass with tap water and drank it completely, hoping its basic elements would ground her. Out the kitchen window, snow with large, moisture-laden flakes filled the sky. Winter had arrived.
Minutes later the kitchen door slammed. Sara jumped as Grady walked into the kitchen.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.
“I was just deep in thought.” Sara could count on Grady not to pursue what she had been thinking.
He placed his canvas briefcase on a kitchen chair and removed the bands from the legs of his pants that he wore when he rode his bicycle home. Flakes of snow melted at his feet. He sifted through the stack of mail on the table and asked about her day, not even looking up.
“It was uneventful, really.” She lied. She would not tell Grady what the doctor had said, at least not yet.
For the first time Sara noticed that she and Grady were dressed alike. He wore a white shirt with his khaki pants. She wore a white sweater with her khaki skirt. Their pale faces emerged from an unintentional forest of yuppie camouflage.
Grady loosened his green tie
dotted with small red peppers, a Christmas gift from their daughter, Jessica. Grady often received ties as gifts. His growing collection had taken over their closet. Despite the vertical strip of color dividing his chest, he always looked the same.
Birds visited the feeder outside the kitchen window. Sara made dinner, numb to her surroundings. During their usual silence at the dinner table Sara’s finite life felt unending. News reports blared on the small television that sat on a nearby counter. Voices on the television took the place of their own. Far away disasters distracted them from the quiet one right there in the room.
She thought of the sparrows in the rafters of the home improvement store and pushed the winter squash from one edge of her plate to the other. “You know, I’ve never liked squash,” she said, to break the silence.
Grady looked up. He chewed thoughtfully and then swallowed. “Then why do you fix it so often?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I guess because you like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” he said.
They grinned at each other, as if they had caught themselves in the lie they had been living.
After dinner, Sara retreated to her office to grade term papers. With felt-tip pen in hand, she began with the paper on top; Molly Decker’s dark critique on the book Little Women, where she insisted that hidden within the pages of the classic was Jo March’s Goth agenda.
Was I ever this intense? Sara wondered. Perhaps her life would have gone better if she had been.
Two hours later, she had only finished eight of the twenty-four she had to grade. She rubbed her eyes and turned on the computer. She checked her email. A new message from a J. David appeared in her Inbox.
Sara gasped. “Julia?” she asked, as if the email might answer her.
Dear Sara,
What a wonderful surprise! Of course I remember you!! How could I forget? We were practically joined at the hip when we were growing up.
HOW ARE YOU??
Sorry I haven’t answered sooner. I have an art show coming up and I’ve just been swamped with getting pieces ready. But it is so great hearing from you after all these years.
What have you been up to?
Did you do all that traveling you wanted to do when you were a girl?
TELL ME EVERYTHING!
On a different note, I sent you something in the mail last week. You should get it soon if you haven’t received it already.
Your friend,
Julia
P.S. So can I assume from the Stanton on the email that you married our old friend, Grady?
Sara smiled and searched her memory for details about Julia: the way she laughed, the way she wore her hair. She wondered if they would still be friends if she had never moved away. As it was, their friendship had ended quietly, like two boats drifting away from a dock, each carried by a different current. After she left, Sara had ignored Julia’s efforts to contact her. She had secretly hated her for moving away the summer before their senior year, even though it was through no fault of her own. Her father had accepted a prestigious teaching position in England. At the time Sara hadn’t been the least bit happy for her. She had been too devastated at being left behind.
Sara hit reply.
Dear Julia,
It’s so nice to hear from you! I’d convinced myself my email had never arrived. Or that you’d long ago trashed it because you didn’t remember me. . . .
Grady cleared his throat as he stood at the door watching her.
Sara jumped for the second time that day. “I didn’t hear you there,” she said. “Did you finish?”
“Everything I wanted to get done tonight,” he said.
Grady had been in his workshop building new kitchen cabinets. He pulled off his T-shirt and wiped the sweat from under his arms. The dark hair in the middle of his chest was slightly graying. There were flecks of sawdust on his arms, earthy glitter held in place by the sweat. Sara’s memory flashed on a younger Grady. Skinny, with a chest devoid of hair, and prominent ribs—even though he had eaten as much as her and Julia combined—and an even more prominent Adam’s apple.
“Did you make an appointment to get the car fixed?” Grady asked.
“Not yet,” she said. It had been weeks since her little run-in with the tree. Grady had been very calm about it when she had finally told him, his only comment being about how good their insurance was.
“Is there some reason you don’t want to get it fixed?” he asked.
“Of course not,” Sara said. But was there? Perhaps it was proof that she had almost gotten away. “I’ll get it done next week. Dented cars just aren’t high on my priority list right now.” Her number one priority was simply getting through the day.
“Are you coming to bed?” he asked.
“As soon as I finish.”
“Tons of papers to grade tonight?”
“The usual.” What wasn’t usual was for Grady to be this inquisitive. If she didn’t know better she would think that some part of him had intuited that Julia had been in touch.
“Well, goodnight then,” he said.
“Goodnight,” she answered. Sara listened for his footsteps ascending the carpeted stairs before continuing the email.
... I did marry Grady. After you left we stayed friends and we both ended up going to U Mass. We have three children. They’re all grown up and have left home—two boys and a girl. Sam’s the youngest, he’s 22. Jessica’s 23 and John is 24. Jess and Sam work in New York City at the same investment firm and John is in law school in Boston. They’re great kids. I think you would like them. It’s still hard for me to believe I had any part in creating such beautiful, smart human beings. It’s also hard to believe that part of my life is over now. The house is very quiet these days.
Sara debated what else to say. There had been a time when Sara could tell Julia anything. Should she tell her about the cancer? Or about how her life just didn’t make sense anymore?
She wrote a paragraph about her illness and then quickly deleted it. It was too soon to share something so intimate. She began a new paragraph.
… Julia, I love thinking about you being in Florence. Remember my obsession with Italy years ago?
It is wonderful to hear from you again. I look forward to getting whatever you sent. Meanwhile, tell me anything and everything about Italy!
Your friend,
Sara
Sara sent the email and then turned off the computer and the light. As she climbed the stairs an unexpected lightness filled her. She smiled again. Julia had remembered her.
Sara grabbed Luke’s leash, deciding to give him a quick walk instead of just letting him out in the backyard. It was dark. An inch of snow covered everything. Luke peed on the dogwood close to the porch, a standard practice, while Sara retrieved a bundle of mail in the brass mailbox mounted next to the front door. She sorted through a stack of junk mail. The light bulb on the porch had burned out weeks before but neither Sara nor Grady could seem to remember to replace it. The nearby streetlight helped illuminate the sorting.
Hiding behind a pizza coupon was a blue envelope. Sara ran a finger along the letter’s parameters. Its blue elegance stood out in glaring contrast to the junk mail and bills in her hand. She admired the precise handwriting and lovely color of the envelope before realizing that the letter had an Italian postmark. This must be what Julia was talking about, Sara thought.
Inside the envelope was an invitation to an art opening along with a handwritten note.
Dear Sara,
I know it’s a long shot but I thought I’d send you an invitation to my art opening in April.
It was so nice to hear from you recently. I have been thinking of you and remembering the things we used to do as girls. We had a lot of fun, didn’t we? I hadn’t given my past much thought until now. I guess I’m becoming more reflective in my old age. (Ha! Please don’t tell me we’re getting old!)
Ciao,
Julia
Luke tugged at the l
eash and Sara crammed everything back into the small brass mailbox except Julia’s letter. She clutched the envelope to her heart. Her energy increased with each step down the walkway. Sara had to resist the urge to skip. What if she went to Italy?
Don’t be ridiculous, the voice in her head chimed in.
But the mere possibility caused Sara’s joy to bubble into a laugh. She walked several blocks in the dark moving in and out of the glare of streetlights, a clear destination in mind. She stopped in front of Julia’s old house while Luke sniffed the rose bushes and christened them.
Sara remembered an earlier time when she and Julia had caught lightning bugs in the front yard. One summer they put them in jars thinking they would light up Julia’s bedroom. Instead, they had all died by morning. Sara still felt bad about that and had not let her children participate in the practice.
Sara stared into her past. She and Julia had sat on those very steps swearing on a blood oath—well, not really a blood oath, Sara thought, she had been too chicken for that—but they had squeezed the promise into each other’s clasped hands that they would move away from their little town some day and travel the world having adventures.
I didn’t keep my promise, Sara thought. But maybe it wasn’t too late. She jogged back to the house with more energy than she had had in months, and greeted Grady in the kitchen with an embrace.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grady was in the kitchen having his habitual nightly bowl of Rocky Road. This meant it was eight o’clock.
“You’re in an awfully good mood,” Grady said. “Did we win the lottery?”
Sara ignored his sarcasm. “I just heard from an old friend of ours, and she’s invited me to come to an art opening in Italy.” The boldness in her voice surprised her.
Seeking Sara Summers Page 3