Heart of the Matter (7 page)

“Yeah,” I say. “I can imagine.”

“And of course this is totally off the record, but Romy and Daniel are freaking out about a potential lawsuit. . .”

“Do you really think they’ll
sue?’
I say, thinking of the drama chat would unfold if one parent in a class sued another. And I thought it was bad when a little boy in Ruby’s class bit another child last week.

“She,”
April says. “There
is
no father. She’s a single mother . . . And nobody really knows her too well. . . Of course, I sent out an e-mail to the other mothers and teachers, letting everyone know what happened . . . But so far, nobody has spoken to her . . . at least as far as I know . . . So it’s really anybody’s guess what she’ll do.”

“Right,” I say, feeling myself tense for a reason I can’t quite place. “I’m sure she’s not even thinking along those lines right now.”

“Of course not,” April says, realizing that her focus, too, might be insensitive. As such, she quickly adds, “So how’s he doing? Charlie?”

“Um . . . I’m not really sure,” I say. “Nick and I haven’t really discussed the specifics . . . I didn’t realize there was... a connection.”

“Oh. Well. . . can you ask him?”

“Uh . . . yeah . . . hold on a sec,” I say. Then I look at Nick who vehemently shakes his head, clearly sensing the direction of the conversation. This is no surprise; when it comes to ethics, Nick is by the book.

Sure enough, he whispers, “C’mon, Tess. You know I can’t discuss my patients like that. . .”

“Should I tell her that?”

“I don’t know . . . Just tell her something general—you know, that I haven’t declared the burns yet. That it’s too soon to tell.”

“Declared?” I say, recognizing the terminology but forgetting the exact meaning.

“Whether they’re second or third degree. Whether he’ll need surgery,” he says, his voice becoming impatient.

I nod and then walk into the family room, just out of Nick’s earshot, and say, “Hey, I’m back.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, from what I understand,” I say, clearing my throat, “the boy’s face and hand are burned pretty bad . . . but that’s off the record. You know, patient confidentiality and all.”

April sounds the slightest bit defensive as she tells me she totally understands. “I just hope he’s okay. I feel so bad for
everyone
involved . . .”

“Yeah. It’s really awful. Things can happen so quickly,” I say, wondering why I feel conflicted in this conversation. I tell myself that there are no sides to be taken.

“I think Romy’s going over to the hospital tomorrow,” she says. “To bring a care package and try to speak to the boy’s mother . . . And I’m going to organize a dinner drop-off or something. Pass along a sign-up sheet over at the school. People will want to help. It’s such an amazing community—a really tight-knit place.”

“Have you met her? Charlie’s mother?” I ask, identifying with her rather than Romy, although I’m not sure why.

“No. Although I remember her from the open house the other night.” April then launches into a physical description, saying, “She’s very petite . . . and pretty in a plain sort of way. Dark, straight hair—that slippery wash-and-go kind. She looks young, too . . . so young that you wonder if it wasn’t a teenaged-pregnancy sort of thing . . . Although I could be totally wrong about that. She could be a widow for all I know.”

“Right,” I say, feeling sure that April will get to the bottom of things soon.

She continues, as if reading my mind. “I don’t want to get overly involved, but I
am
involved . . . You know, as Romy’s friend and a mother at the school. . . And, in a way, as a friend of yours and Nick’s. Jeez, I can’t believe what a small world it is. . .”

“Yeah,” I say, returning to the kitchen for a much-needed sip of wine.

“So anyway,” April says, her tone lightening suddenly, dramatically. “Do you need help with those skewers? Just went shopping and our fruit bowl is bountiful—I could run some over?”

“Thanks,” I say. “But too much effort. I think I’ll just pick something up in the morning.”

“You sure?” she asks.

“I’m sure,” I say.

“Okay,” April says. “But no Oreos.”

“No Oreos,” I repeat, wondering how I could have been so stressed, even for a moment, about something as trivial as a preschool snack.

6

Valerie

The
view outside Charlie’s third floor room at Shriners is a pleasant one, overlooking a courtyard planted with pink and white hydrangeas, but Valerie prefers to keep the blinds drawn, the thin northern exposure allowing virtually no light to work its way through the plastic slats. As a result, she quickly loses track of day and night, in a way that is a bittersweet reminder of Charlie’s infancy, when all she wanted to do was be near him and take care of his every need. But now, she can only watch helplessly as he endures dressing changes while bags of fluids drip nutrients, electrolytes, and painkillers into his veins. The hours pass by slowly, punctuated only by Dr. Russo’s twice-daily rounds and the endless cycle of nurses, social workers, and hospital staff, most of whom come for Charlie, a few to check on her, some simply to empty the wastebaskets, bring meals, or mop the floors.

Valerie refuses to sleep on the stainless-steel cot that one of the many nameless, faceless nurses wheeled in for her, its pilled white sheets and thin blue blanket stretched and neatly tucked into the sides. Instead, she stays put on the wooden rocker near Charlie’s bed, where she watches his narrow chest rising and falling, the flutter of his eyelids, the smile that sometimes appears in his sleep. Every once in a while, despite her best efforts to stay alert, she dozes for a few minutes, sometimes longer, always awaking with a start, reliving the call from Romy, realizing once again that her nightmare is real. Charlie is still too drugged to fully understand what has happened, and Valerie both dreads and prays for the moment she will explain everything to him.

On the fourth or fifth day, Valerie’s mother, Rosemary, returns from Sarasota where she had been visiting her cousin. It is another moment Valerie has been dreading, feeling irrationally guilty for cutting her mother’s visit short when she almost never gets out of Southbridge, and guiltier still for adding another tragic chapter to her already tragic life. Widowed twice over, Rosemary lost both husbands—Valerie’s father and the salesman who followed—to heart attacks.

Valerie’s father had been shoveling the driveway after a particularly large snowfall (stubbornly refusing to pay the teenaged boy next door for something he could do himself) when he collapsed. And although it was never confirmed, Valerie was pretty sure her mother’s second husband died while the two were having sex. During the funeral, Jason had leaned over to Valerie and opined about the number of Hail Marys it would require to pay for the sin of nonprocreative, lethal carnal relations.

It is one of the many things Valerie loves most about her brother—his ability to make her laugh in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Even now, he attempts casual one-liners, often at the expense of the more zealous or chatty nurses, and Valerie forces a smile as a way of thanking her brother for his effort, for always being there for her. She thinks of her earliest memory, the two of them in a red wagon, flying down the steep, grassy hill near their house, laughing so hard that they both wet their pants, the wagon filling with the warm liquid that they blamed on their next-door neighbor’s dachshund.

Years later, he would be the one to hold her hand at Charlie’s first ultrasound; and drive her to the hospital when her water broke; and take on night duty when she couldn’t stand it another second; and even support her through law school and studying for the bar exam, insisting again and again that she could do it, that he believed in her. He was her twin brother, best friend, and since the falling-out with Laurel, only real confidant.

So it is no surprise that he handles things now, too, bringing Valerie toiletries and clothing, phoning Charlie’s school and her boss at the law firm, explaining that she will need an indefinite leave of absence, and, just this morning, picking up their mother at Logan Airport. Valerie can hear him debriefing Rosemary, gently suggesting the right and wrong things to say. Not that it will do much good, for despite the best intentions, their mother has an uncanny knack for saying the exact wrong thing, especially to her daughter.

So it is no surprise that when Rosemary and Jason return from the airport and find Valerie in the cafeteria, staring into the distance with a fountain soda, an untouched burger, and full plate of crinkly fries before her, her mother’s first words are critical rather than comforting.

“I can’t believe a hospital serves such junk food,” she says to no one in particular. It is an understandable position after losing two husbands to heart disease, but Valerie is not in the mood to hear it now, especially when she has no intention of eating anything anyway. She pushes the red plastic tray away and stands to greet her mother.

“Hi, Mom. Thanks for coming,” she says, already feeling exhausted by the conversation they have not yet had.

“Val, honey,” Rosemary says. “There is no need to
thank
me for coming to see my
only
grandson.”

It is the way she always refers to Charlie—which Jason once joked is the saving grace of Valerie’s single motherhood. “Charlie might be a bastard,” he said, “but he’ll get to pass on the family name.”

Valerie laughed, thinking that she would not have tolerated that word from anyone else in the world. But Jason had a free pass, good for life. She could count on one hand the number of times he had angered her. Lately, the opposite seemed to be true of her mother. She initiates a reluctant hug with her now, one that Rosemary awkwardly reciprocates. The two women, with their willowy builds, are mirror images of one another, both self-contained and stiff.

Jason rolls his eyes, having recently posed the question of how two people who love each other could have such a hard time showing it. Valerie feels a wave of envy toward her brother, remembering the first time he brought a boyfriend (a handsome stockbroker named Levi) home to meet the family, and how taken aback she felt watching the two casually touch, hold hands, even, at one point, hug. Valerie’s surprise had nothing to do with her brother being gay, which she had known for years, maybe even before Jason knew it himself, but rather his ability to show such easy, natural affection.

She remembers Rosemary glancing away at such moments, seemingly in denial about the nature of their “friendship.” She had stoically accepted Jason’s news when he broke it to her (more stoically than she had received the news of Valerie’s pregnancy) but had not acknowledged it since, other than to offhandedly mention to Valerie that he
sure didn’t seem gay,
as if hoping there had been some sort of mix-up. Valerie had to admit this was true, that Jason did not hew to the usual stereotypes. He talked and walked like a straight man.

He lived for the Red Sox and Patriots. He had little fashion sense, dressing almost exclusively in jeans and flannel shirts.

“But he
is
gay, Ma,” Valerie said, recognizing that part of love is acceptance—and that she wouldn’t change a thing about her brother, just as she wouldn’t change a thing about her son.

In any event, Valerie has feared her mother’s reaction to Charlie’s injury, anticipating either breezy denial, a stockpile of guilt, or endless
if onlys.

She picks up her tray now, dumping the contents into a nearby wastebasket and leading her mother and brother to the cafeteria exit. By the time they’ve arrived at the elevator, Rosemary has asked her first loaded question. “I’m still a little hazy here . . . How in the world did this happen?”

Jason gives his mother an incredulous look, as Valerie sighs and says, “I don’t know, Ma. I wasn’t there—and I obviously haven’t talked to Charlie about it yet.”

“What about the other little boys at the party? Or the parents? What did they tell you?” Rosemary asks, her angular face moving back and forth like an old-fashioned windup toy.

Valerie thinks of Romy, who has left her multiple voice mails and has been by the hospital twice, dropping off handmade cards from Grayson. Despite her desire to know every detail about that night, she cannot bring herself to see Romy, or even call her back. She is not ready to hear her excuses or apologies, and she is certain that she will never forgive. Valerie and her mother have this in common, too, Rosemary holding grudges more firmly than anyone she’s ever known.

“Well, let’s go see him,” Rosemary says, exhaling ominously.

Valerie nods, as they ride the elevator up two floors and then walk in silence to the end of the hall. As they approach Charlie’s room, Valerie hears her mother mumble, “I really wish you had called me straightaway.

“I know, Ma . . . I’m sorry . . . I just wanted to get through those first hours . . . Besides, there was nothing to be done long-distance.”

“Prayer,” Rosemary says, lifting one eyebrow. “I could have prayed for him . . . What if, God forbid . . .” Her voice trails off, a wounded expression on her heavily lined face.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Valerie says again, keeping silent tally of her apologies.

“Well, you’re here now,” Jason says, flashing Rosemary his most captivating smile. It is no family secret that Jason is her favorite child, his homosexuality notwithstanding.

“And you,” Rosemary says, giving Jason a once-over that he would later joke to Valerie looked like a search for signs of AIDS. “You’re way too thin, honey.”

Jason drapes one arm over Rosemary’s shoulder, further charming her. “Oh, come on, Ma,” he says. “Look at this face. You know I look
good.”

Valerie considers his statement and feels herself tense. Not so much because Jason is talking about his handsome, unscarred face, but because of the glance he shoots her afterward. It is a look of worry, of sympathy, of realizing that he, too, just said the wrong thing. Valerie knows this look of pity well and feels an ache in her heart that her son will now come to know it, too.