Dr. Truman called in the morning to ask how Kathleen was feeling. They would meet the following Monday to review the pathology report. “Don’t worry,” Dr. Truman said. It was a stupid thing to say, and Kathleen tried to forgive her for it.
Kathleen did nothing but worry. It was a school vacation week, and it rained. The phone rang and she told her sons she was doing fine. That’s what she said to Madge and Fiona, and to Louisa, her next-door neighbor, who brought over a pie.
“Waiting is hard,” she admitted when they asked how she was feeling, but she said nothing about the ugly bruises from the intravenous lines, or about how the steady beat of fear kept time with the dull throbbing of the incision. She certainly didn’t talk about how she woke up sweating, the sheets twisted around her arms and legs, or about how she was trying to get used to the idea of never seeing her sons married, never meeting her grandchildren.
Buddy rented movies he thought Kathleen might like. Eating popcorn and fruit for dinner, they watched a succession of recent comedies, which neither of them found especially funny. Finally, after a damp weekend that included — on Buddy’s insistence — a long walk through a crowded mall, and a nearly silent dinner at the White Horse Inn, they were ushered into Dr. Truman’s office for the verdict.
The doctor was smiling. “Good news, Kathleen. The best news I could give you today. The margins were clean, and there was no evidence of invasive cancer cells anywhere.” She looked down at Kathleen’s chart. “Of course, given your family history, we want to be extra careful. After the radiation, you’ll need to be checked every six months. But it looks good. And you understand that the surgery confirmed that your diagnosis and prognosis are completely different from your sister’s.”
The doctor closed the chart and talked about radiation treatment, but Kathleen had stopped listening. Her ears pounded. For a moment she thought she might faint. She wasn’t going to die. At least not this summer. She wasn’t going to die.
“Is it okay to get the radiation closer to home, instead of down here?” she heard Buddy ask. Thank goodness he was paying attention, taking notes on the little pocket pad he used for orders at the store. Kathleen tried to look interested in the conversation. But she was busy reclaiming the summer. The light, the garden, the beach.
Thank You, God, thank You.
Dr. Truman recommended a radiation oncologist in a new clinic near Beverly. Buddy wrote as she described the probable treatment: every day for six and a half weeks.
I’m not going to lose my hair or throw up or turn yellow and die like Pat. Forgive me, Pat, Kathleen prayed silently, lying on the table while the doctor examined her incision and pronounced her a “good healer.”
Walking to the car, Buddy said they could schedule her treatments to start after school let out for the summer. Kathleen would likely be fully recovered from the surgery by then. He would map out the quickest route to the clinic. She’d be done early in August, so the summer wouldn’t be a total loss. Come September, she’d be rested and ready to go back to school.
Kathleen said almost nothing all the way home. How did I get away with this? she wondered. Why Pat and not me? I’m sorry, Pat. You didn’t deserve to die. God forgive me, but I’m glad to be alive. You’ll forgive me, too, won’t you, Pat?
They approached the end of the “mainland,” passing the last of the malls and condo developments. Then there was nothing but trees to look at, all on the verge of green.
Kathleen rolled down the window and took a deep breath, letting herself feel how much she wanted to be in school next fall. The kindergarten class included several “grand-students” — children born to parents she had taught. At the open house last month, she’d met SueEllen Puello’s daughter, Jasmine, a delicious girl with big black eyes. And she had a feeling that Alex Maceo would be a lot like his dad, an active boy she’d turn into a reader.
Then they were at the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge, which meant almost home. Hal and Jack used to compete to see which one of them could say it the most times as they drove over.
“A. Piatt Andrew?” Buddy asked, grinning. “A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew.
“How many was that, Mom?” he asked, the way the boys would ask, every time.
The tide was high and bright in the midday sun.
She might yet see grandchildren. Please, God. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Please. And thank You.
MAY
JOYCE groaned when she found out that her book group had chosen Anna Karenina. She groaned again when she opened it and faced the barrage of -evitches, -ovitches, and -ovnas. She couldn’t keep any of the names straight and, after one hundred pages, put the book down.
“I give up,” she said.
Frank, beside her in bed watching the news, said, “Does it matter? You always say Marie dominates the whole conversation, anyway.”
It was true. “The whole group feels more and more like homework, anyway,” Joyce said. “Other women’s book groups seem to have more fun.”
Frank, apparently mesmerized by the weather report, said nothing.
“Hello? Frank?”
He turned to her. “So quit and find another one that’s more fun.”
“What a rotten thing to say.”
“What? If you don’t like this group, why not make a change?”
Joyce turned her back on Frank, switched off the bedside lamp, and fumed. She’d missed a few meetings, but she couldn’t afford to quit her book group entirely.
She was lonely. After four years of working at home, she had started to feel like a hermit. Her coworkers at the magazine had stopped inviting her to lunch a while ago; she’d just said no too many times.
But that wasn’t the main source of her isolation; she hadn’t been all that close to the people at work, anyway. Her two best friends had moved: Lauren and her husband were in Atlanta, and Pia’s assignment in Paris had been extended twice.
Joyce was down to her second string, which was unraveling. Missing book group yet again would only add to her funk.
When she walked into Heidi’s living room for the meeting a few nights later, Marie was, indeed, holding forth. Four women were gathered around the blond Danish coffee table, where cups and plates were artfully arranged around an uncut cake. But Marie wasn’t talking about Anna Karenina. For a moment, Joyce wondered if she’d been in an accident; the circles under her eyes were so dark they looked like bruises. But no, it was just the exhaustion, as Marie was explaining, of taking care of a nearly three-year-old with absolutely no interest in using the toilet, while at the same time contending with her teenage twins. “Forty-seven is just too old to be doing this,” she said.
Heidi, a fifty-two-year-old pediatrician married to a shrink, was the oldest member of the group. Joyce, at forty-two, was the youngest member. The rest of them had started when all their kids were in elementary school. Now, Heidi’s oldest was in college, and their occasional non-book-related conversations revealed the changes. A few months back, before Heidi — the group’s schoolmistress-cum-den-mother — could rein them in, there had been a hilarious debate about whether there was a causal relationship between hormone replacement therapy and the exponential increase of VW Beetles in Boston’s western suburbs.
But no one was laughing tonight. In the long pause that followed Marie’s confession, Alice blurted, “I moved out of the house.”
Marie’s mouth dropped open. They could hear a door close upstairs.
“What happened?” asked Heidi, her long, blue caftan swishing around her legs as she sat down next to Alice.
“Nothing happened,” Alice said slowly. “There was nothing left with Tim. It was just . . . empty.”
“What will that do to Petra?” Marie said a little too quickly. Alice winced at Marie’s typical rush to judgment.
“Joint custody.”
The room went silent again.
“I had no idea you were unhappy,” said Joyce, who ha
d always liked Tim, who seemed like such an easygoing guy; Frank liked him, too.
“Did you guys try counseling?” Heidi asked gently.
“No. It’s me. I’m in therapy,” Alice said. “Actually, I’m, um, taking Zoloft.”
Joyce giggled. Four pairs of eyes turned to her, and she felt her face redden. “I’m sorry. It’s just so much, isn’t it? All at once, I mean. Isn’t anyone here having a torrid affair? Then we’d have a complete set of midlife crises.”
Marie tried to lighten it up and, with a mock leer, pointed at Joyce. “Hey, I figured that’s what’s been keeping you away.”
“Not me,” Joyce said, “maybe that’s why Susan’s not here,” trying to deflect attention away from herself.
“Actually, Susan is in Cleveland to help move her father to a nursing home,” said Marie. “The Alzheimer’s got to be too much for her mom to handle.”
“Oh, God,” Joyce said, “I haven’t talked to her in ages.” She and Susan used to walk around the high school track twice a week, but that had stopped when Susan went back to school last fall.
Heidi headed for the kitchen and returned with two bottles of wine. “I don’t think decaf is going to cut it tonight,” she announced.
Alice didn’t want to say more about her problems, so Marie took up where she’d left off. They all knew the story of her last pregnancy; her husband hadn’t wanted another child, and her fifteen-year-old boys weren’t the least bit interested in baby-sitting for their little brother. “I think I had a baby so I wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of my life,” Marie said, as close to tears as any of the women had ever seen her. “But now I’m bored out of my skull at home all day with Ryan. Al is working eighty hours a week, and the boys are going to spend the whole summer at my sister’s house on Nantucket. I think I made a terrible mistake.”
Diana, the therapist, put an arm around Marie. Diana had a “challenging” son, too, a thirteen-year-old who was perpetually failing in school. “Hang on, Joyce,” Diana said by way of warning. “I, too, have a tale of woe.
“I didn’t tell you before, but Dylan was arrested for shoplifting a couple of months ago. The judge ordered tests, and they came back with a diagnosis of ADD and depression. Herb insisted we try Ritalin and his grades are up. He’s hanging out with other kids more.” Diana paused. “He’s happier. He even said so.” She raised her glass for a refill. “All those years I wouldn’t let him be evaluated because I thought the teachers and counselors just wanted to drug my creative, free-spirited boy. God forgive me.”
The phone rang and Heidi hoisted herself off the couch to answer it. Joyce used to think Heidi carried her extra weight stylishly in her long skirts and Navajo jewelry, but tonight she just looked dated and tired.
There was a pause as they waited for Heidi to return. Then, Alice turned to Joyce and asked, “So, what’s really up with you, Tabachnik?”
“I, um, wrote a novel.” Joyce’s timid announcement was met by an outburst of congratulations and questions. Did she have an agent? A publisher? Who? When?
Joyce smiled weakly. “It’s signed, sealed, and available in a supermarket near you.”
The faces around her went blank. Taking a deep breath, she said, “It’s a romance novel.”
That shut them up. Joyce figured that these women might read the occasional British mystery, but they were more likely to subscribe to Soldier of Fortune than pick up a romance.
She felt herself begin to sweat. “You guys know that none of my nonfiction projects panned out. Three different agents tried on the last one, but no one wanted to buy a book about the Children’s AIDS program. Too depressing. Too many AIDS books.”
Joyce was ashamed for parading her “serious” credentials, but she continued anyway. “I decided to go commercial.”
She entertained them with a description of the how-to-write-a-romance workshop she’d attended, quoting sample phrases from handout sheets: “Her body vibrated in response to his presence.” “He felt a numb certainty that the moment was wrong.”
She told them about her lunch with Mario Romano, but stopped short of revealing her pen name.
Joyce emptied her glass and excused herself. The buzz from the wine was starting to turn into a headache. Serves me right, she thought, as she walked out of the bathroom. I’m such a hypocrite.
They agreed to postpone the discussion of Tolstoy until after the summer. Marie offered her house for the September meeting, and the women said good-night to each other.
Joyce and Alice walked out together. “That’s great news about your book,” Alice said. “But you seem a little tense. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What about you? And how’s Petra taking this?”
“Petra will be okay,” Alice said as she unlocked her car. “Kids are resilient. I stayed with Tim for a lot longer than I should have, for Petra’s sake. But I just can’t anymore. My marriage is empty, and I know it sounds stupid, but all I really want is to fall in love again. I want to feel alive like that again. Besides, it can’t be good for her if I’m miserable.”
“Alice, I wish you all the best,” Joyce said. “It takes a lot of courage to do what you’re doing.”
“Yeah. Or mental illness.”
Joyce’s scalp prickled. Hadn’t Alice said she was taking antidepressants?
“Call me?” asked Joyce.
In the car, Joyce switched off the radio. She felt like a rat about the way she’d made fun of her own book. It’s not a bad book, she thought. It’s pretty good, actually. “Magnolia would spit on me,” Joyce muttered, glancing at herself in the rearview mirror. “And she’d be right.”
Alice was a wonderful woman, a sweet person, but no great beauty. Her skin was leathery from all the years of working in her father’s landscaping business. What were the odds of her finding a new love?
Joyce recognized the fantasy, though. After eighteen years, who didn’t? Her marriage was stuck in its own mud. All the conversations she and Frank had these days turned into skirmishes about Nina. They hadn’t been to a movie for ages. She could count on one hand the number of times they’d had sex in the last year.
Sex with someone new. Conversation with a man whose eyes locked on hers. Shopping for new sheets hand in hand. She’d seen women her age in love, glowing like lanterns. Was it endorphins or gratitude? God, it would be great to feel like that again.
But it would kill Nina. All that “resilient kid” stuff aside, Joyce could imagine the scene at the kitchen table: “Your father and I have decided . . .” Her daughter would crumble.
Frank didn’t deserve that, either. He was a good husband. Not hostile, like Marie’s. Or arrogant, like Heidi’s. As for Alice’s Tim, Joyce had to admit, he was dull, bordering on dumb.
The big problem with Frank was the way he withdrew into things — his work, his gardening, whatever book he was reading, or even a TV show. When they’d first met, Joyce had fallen in love with his self-sufficiency — especially after two high-maintenance boyfriends. But now his independence felt like distance. Most of the time, he seemed a million miles away. The only thing they seemed to share anymore was Nina. And the mortgage. And a billion memories.
Back in her own driveway, Joyce sat in the car looking at the dark windows. To be fair, she wasn’t exactly knocking on Frank’s door these days, either. He’d probably respond if she said something, but she couldn’t muster the energy.
They’d had these long dry spells before, and each time Joyce had been the one to insist they find their way to water. One time, she’d shanghaied Frank — left Nina with a sitter, picked him up at work, drove them to New York City for dinner, a play, and a night in a hotel. Once, she insisted they talk to a therapist.
But this dry spell was starting to feel like the Sahara. Joyce was tapped out and pissed off that it was up to her to make the effort, start the conversation, take the initiative. Wasn’t it Frank’s turn yet?
Oh, well. At least she wasn’t as bad off as the women in her book grou
p. Nina was a pain in the ass, but soccer was going to get her daughter through the “Ophelia” years. Frank was not stupid or hostile. Hell, she’d bought a house in Gloucester.
It’s all relative, right? Joyce thought. And things are relatively good.
Then she remembered the blank, almost frightened expressions on her friends’ faces when she’d said “romance novel.” Not one of them had asked the name of her book. Not even Alice.
Joyce brushed her teeth, swallowed two aspirin, and picked up Anna Karenina again. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Joyce couldn’t remember if that sentence had seemed wise when she’d read it in college.
She left the book on the couch and crawled into bed, careful not to wake Frank. She tucked herself into the far side of the comforter and thought about her book group. Compared to them, her family seemed rock solid. But Joyce wasn’t so sure she would go as far as “happy.”
KATHLEEN COULDN’T remember the last time she had used the Sabbath candlesticks. Buddy’s parents had worked in the store seven days a week, so her husband had no childhood attachment to the Friday-night rituals of wine and bread and candles. But Kathleen loved the weekly celebration she’d studied in her conversion class, especially the candles. As a little girl she’d looked after her grandmother’s votives, which burned in every room, sending up prayers to the Blessed Mother, to Saint Jude, to Saint Teresa, the Little Flower. At Christmas, there were red and green candles everywhere — even the bathroom.
She welcomed the Jewish routine and made it her own. Every week when Hal and Jack were growing up, she’d polished the candlesticks, warmed a challah bread in the oven, and polished the sideboard with lemon oil. Her sons told her they still associated those smells with Fridays.
Holding a match to the bottoms so they would stay in place, Kathleen wondered if her candle lighting was for Jewish purposes or out of Catholic nostalgia, but decided it made no difference. “Light is a symbol of the Divine,” she said, quoting a line from a long-ago sisterhood Sabbath service.