Changes (38 page)

As they sat in the living room on Christmas night, Mel groaned at the thought of packing again. It seemed as though she had done nothing but for the past month but at least she wouldn't need much in Puerto Vallarta, and all the children were excited about going. And that night there was much scurrying between rooms as they giggled and teased and took things from each other, and Matt bounced on Val's bed, and Pam on some of Jessica's sweaters, at her new sister's invitation.

Peter and Mel could hear the racket from their room and Mel smiled.” I think they're gonna make it.” But she was still aware of a certain mild tension between the two groups. There was something very real about all this, and there was no escaping it now.

“You worry about them too much, Mel. They're fine,” he told her with a smile as he answered the ringing telephone. And then he sat down at his desk with a frown, with the phone still in his hand as he asked a series of rapid-fire questions. He set the phone down again and grabbed his jacket from a chair, explaining quickly to Mel what had happened. “It's Marie. She's rejecting again.”

“Is it serious?”

He nodded, his face pale. “She's in a coma. I don't know why they didn't call me earlier today. They gave me some bullshit story about it being Christmas and not wanting to disturb me since I wasn't on call. God damn it.” He stood in the doorway looking unhappily at Mel. “I'll be home when I can.”

As he left, she saw their trip to Mexico going out the window. When the children came to say good night a while later, she didn't say anything, not wanting to upset them. She said only that he'd gone to the hospital to check on a patient. But once they'd left the room again, she found herself thinking about Marie, and praying for her. Peter never called to give her any news. And at last, at two thirty, Mel gave up and went to bed, hoping he'd be able to leave on the trip. Otherwise they would have to cancel it. She didn't want to leave without him. This was their honeymoon.

She felt him slip into bed beside her just after five o'clock, and when she reached out to him he felt distant and stiff. It was so unlike him that she opened an eye, and then moved closer to him.

“Hi, sweetheart. Everything all right?” He didn't answer, and she opened both eyes. Something was wrong. “Peter?”

“She died at four o'clock. We opened her up and she was just too far gone. She had the worst case of hardening of the arteries I've ever seen, and with a new heart, dammit.” It was obvious that he blamed himself. They had given her seven months and no more, but it was seven months more than she would have had without it.

“I'm sorry.” There seemed to be so little she could say, and he was shutting her out. He resisted all her efforts to console him. And finally at six o'clock he got out of bed. “You should try to get some sleep before we leave.” Her voice was gentle and she was obviously worried about him. But she felt it too. Marie had been someone important to them both, right from the first. Mel had watched the transplant. And she felt the girl's loss now. But she was not prepared for what Peter said next. He sounded like an angry unhappy child.

“I' m not going. You take the children.” He looked petulant and upset as he sat down heavily in a chair in their bedroom, and as it was still dark outside, Mel turned on a light to see him better. He looked exhausted and there were dark circles under his eyes. It was a hell of a final note to their wedding and a rotten beginning for their honeymoon.

“There's nothing you can do here. And we won't go without you.”

“I' m not in the mood, Mel.”

“That's not fair. The children will be so disappointed, and it's our honeymoon.” He was being unreasonable, but she knew that he was too tired to make much sense. “Peter, please …”

“Dammit”—he leapt to his feet, glaring at her—“how would you feel? Seven lousy months, that's all … that's all I gave her.”

“You're not God, Peter. You did what you know how to do, and you did it brilliantly. But God makes those decisions, you don't.”

“Bullshit! We should have done better than that.”

“Well, you didn't dammit, and she's dead.” Now Mel was shouting too. “And you can't stay here and sulk about it, you have a responsibility to us too.” He glared at her and stalked out of the room, but he came back half an hour later with two cups of coffee. They didn't have to be at the airport until noon so there was still time to convince him. He handed Mel a cup of the steaming brew with a sour look and she looked into his eyes as she thanked him.

“I'm sorry, Mel … I just … I can't ever feel good about it when I lose a patient, and she was such a sweet girl … it's not fair …” His voice drifted off and Mel set down her cup and put her arms around his shoulders.

“You're not in a fair business, sweetheart. You know that. You know the odds each time you go in. You try to forget them, but they're still there.” He nodded, she was right. She knew him well. He turned to her then with a sad smile.

“I' m a lucky man.”

“And a brilliant surgeon. Don't ever forget that.” She didn't ask him about Mexico again until after he'd had breakfast with the children; he was strangely subdued and Mark asked Mel about it as they walked back upstairs side by side.

“What's wrong with Dad?”

“He lost a patient last night.”

Mark nodded, understanding. “H e always takes that hard, especially if they're transplant patients. Was it?”

“Yes. The one he did when I interviewed him in May.” Mark nodded again and looked questioningly at Mel.

“Are we still leaving for Mexico?”

“I hope so.”

Mark didn't look too sure. “You don't know how he gets with this kind of thing. We may not be going.”

“I'll do my best.”

He looked at her then and seemed about to say something else but Matt came along and interrupted them. He couldn't find his flippers and wanted to know if Mel had seen them.

“No, I haven't, but I'll look around. Did you check out at the pool?” He nodded, and Mel went on to her own room after he went his way and she found Peter there, sitting in a chair and staring into space, looking suddenly older than his years. His oldest son knew him well. He was taking Marie's death very hard, and Mel was beginning to doubt that they would be going anywhere that day. “Well, sweetheart”—she sat down near him on the edge of the bed—“what'll we do?”

“About what?” He looked blank, he was thinking of how her heart had looked when they'd opened her up.

“The trip. Shall we go or stay?”

He hesitated for a long moment, looking into Mel's eyes. “I don't know.” He seemed incapable of making that decision at the moment.

“I think it would do you good, and the kids too. We've all been through a lot lately, a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes, and there are more to come. It seems to me that a trip might be just what the doctor ordered.” She smiled and didn't point out to him that she was starting work at a new network in a week and would be under tremendous pressure herself. She needed a vacation even more than he did.

“Ail right. We'll go. I guess you're right. We can't disappoint the children, and I've already arranged for someone to cover for me.” She put her arms around him and hugged him tight.

“Thank you.” But he barely responded, and he spoke to no one on the way to the airport. Once or twice Mel and Mark's eyes met, but they said nothing until they were alone for a moment on the plane, after takeoff.

Mark filled her in on what to expect. “He could be like this for a while, you know.”

“How long does it usually last?”

“A week, sometimes two. Sometimes even a month, it depends on how responsible he feels and how close he was to the patient.”

Mel nodded. It didn't give her much to look forward to, certainly not on their honeymoon. And Mark was right. They landed in Puerto Vallarta and piled into two Jeeps to take them to their hotel where they had three rooms reserved, which looked out over the beach and water. There was an enormous open-air bar downstairs just below their windows, and three swimming pools filled with laughing, shouting people. And above all the other noises were the sounds of a steel band, interspersed from time to time with mariachis. It was a festive atmosphere and the children were thrilled, especially Jessica and Val, who had never been to Mexico before. Mark took them all downstairs to swim and have a soda at the bar, but Peter insisted on staying in their room. Mel tried to woo him out of his mood.

“How about a walk on the beach, love?”

“I don't feel like it, Mel. I'd really like to be alone. Why don't you join the children?” She wanted to snap at him that it was their honeymoon, not the children's, but she decided that it was wisest to say nothing at all. Maybe he would snap out of it quicker. So she left him.

But as the days rolled on, he didn't seem to improve. She went shopping in town with Pam and the twins and they bought beautiful embroidered blouses and dresses to wear in L.A. at the pool, and Mark took Matthew fishing twice. She took everyone except Matt to Carlos O'Brien's for Cokes and people-watching several times and she even took the older ones to a disco one night, but Peter never joined them at all. He was obsessed with what had happened to Marie, and several times a day he would spend an hour in the room trying to get a line to L.A. to check on his current patients.

“It really wasn't worth coming, for you to sit in your room all week long, calling Center City,” Mel finally snapped at him toward the end of their stay, but he only looked at her with empty eyes.

“I told you that at home, but you didn't want to disappoint the children.”

“This is our honeymoon, not theirs.” She had finally said it. She was bitterly disappointed. He had made no effort all week, and they hadn't even made love since Marie had died. A honeymoon to remember it was not.

“I'm sorry, Mel. It was just rotten timing. I'll make it up to you later.” But she wondered if he ever could. And suddenly she realized that she didn't even have her own home to return to when the trip was over. She suddenly missed the house in New York more than ever, and thinking of it reminded her of the photographs of Anne she wanted to put away when they returned. And she wondered what Peter would do with her portrait. It was her house now too, and she didn't want to look at Anne every time she turned around. That seemed normal, at least to Mel, but she wasn't going to broach the subject until they returned to Los Angeles. She still called it L.A. whenever she spoke of it, and never home, because it wasn't home yet. New York was. She noticed that with the twins too; when they were at Carlos O'Brien's, some boys asked Jessica where they were from and she answered “New York” without thinking and then Mark teased her and she explained that they had just moved to L.A. But other adjustments came more quickly. Mel noticed that they referred to each other as brothers and sisters, except for Mark and Val, who had reason not to adopt those titles.

And the only one to get sick was Valerie, on the last day. She bought an ice cream on the beach, and when Mel heard what she'd done she groaned as she stood by Val, while she threw up for hours and then had diarrhea all night. Peter wanted to give her something but she absolutely refused to take it, and when Mel finally came to bed at four in the morning, he awoke, his medical instincts alert.

“How is she?”

“Asleep at last. Poor child. I've never seen anyone so sick. I don't know why she wouldn't take the Lomotil you offered her, she isn't usually that stubborn.”

“Mel, is she all right?” He was frowning and thinking of something.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. I don't know her that well. But she looks different than she did in Aspen, and at Thanksgiving.”

“Different how?”

“I'm not sure what I mean, to tell you the truth. Just a feeling. Has she had a checkup lately?”

“You're making me nervous. What are you suspecting?” She expected nothing less than the threat of leukemia, but he shook his head.

“Anemia maybe. She seems to sleep a lot, and Pam says she threw up after Christmas dinner.”

Mel sighed. “I think it's nerves. Jess looks lousy to me too. I think the move was a big change for them, and they're at a tough age for that. But maybe you're right. I'll take them both to the doctor when we get back.”

“I'll give you the name of the internist we use. But don't worry about it.” He kissed her for the first time in days. “I don't think it's serious, and I think you may be right. Girls at that age tend to nervous upsets. It's just that ever since Pam had anorexia last year, my antennae go up every time something seems off to me. It's probably nothing.”

But in Pam's room, Mark was sitting beside her bed. He had waited for hours for Mel to leave, and Val was awake now, and terribly weak from her bout with
tourista.
She was crying softly and Mark was stroking her hair, as they both whispered so as not to wake Jessie or Pam.

“Do you think it'll hurt the baby?” Val whispered to Mark, and he looked at her miserably. She had found out two days after she arrived from New York. He had taken her for a pregnancy test. And they both knew when it had happened. When they finally made love for the first time, on Thanksgiving. Val looked terrified now. They hadn't decided what to do about it yet, but if they decided to have it, she didn't want to have a deformed baby.

“I don't know. Did you take any medicine?”

“No,” she whispered. “Your dad tried to give me some, but I wouldn't take it.” Mark nodded, but that was the least of their problems. She was only five weeks pregnant, but that meant that they had less than two months to do something about it, if she would.

“Do you think you can sleep now?” She nodded, her eyes already half closed and he bent to kiss her, and then tiptoed out of the room. He had wanted to tell his dad, but he couldn't with Christmas and the wedding and everything, and Val had begged him not to. He had to take her to a good doctor, if she was going to get an abortion, not to some crummy clinic, but he was waiting to talk to her about it until they got back to L.A. There was no point discussing it here. There was nothing they could do, and it would just make her more nervous.