My Husband's Sweethearts (15 page)

It's become a habit that I find myself sitting
in the armchair next to Artie's bed watching
him sleep every night. And tonight is
no different. I walk up the stairs in the quiet house once
again.

I wish I could come here during the day, like any other
nicely dressed ex-sweetheart, to praise him or to scream at
him. But I'm as afraid of my own anger as I am the sudden
turns of love I have for Artie (and the sudden turns of
weakness I have for John). It all makes me feel wildly out
of control. But when Artie's sleeping, I can feel whatever I
want. I can just let it wash over me. I don't have to
decide
how I feel. I don't have to
decide
what gentleness or anger
Artie deserves at any one moment. I don't have to
decide
anything.

But on this night, after my day with John Bessom, my
realization that I belong to the Generation of Confused
Women, I stand over Artie, lying in bed, and he looks
completely different. Two oxygen tubes now hang over
his ears like a fake Santa mask, and two feeders are fitted
under his nose. The tubes are connected to an oxygen
tank on wheels purring in the corner. His head is turned
toward the door, but it looks gray, slack. I want to save
him from this new turn, this weakening of the body. I
stumble and catch myself on the side of the bed.

He wakes up, turns, and finds me in the dark so
quickly that I wonder if he knew, in his sleep, that I was
there.

"You're here," he says.

And then there's a voice behind me. "Oh, Lucy, you're
here!" It's Elspa. She's sitting in the armchair.

"What happened?"

"It was awful," Elspa says, looking worn out. She
stands up and grabs my arm with a shaky hand.

"It wasn't awful," Artie says. "It was fine."

"Your mother left messages on your cell phone and a
note on the door," Elspa says. "Did you see the note?"

I shake my head. "What happened? What went
wrong?" I want to add:
while I was gone, while I left you
alone.

"This has been a long time coming," Artie says. "No
surprise. All part of the process."

"The process," I repeat, under my breath. The truth is
that Artie will die of congestive heart failure, in the end.
He has an acute heart infection caused by the Coxsackie
virus. I hate these details and have tried to avoid all cold
clinical medical-speak, but I know that his heart has been
compromised. The heart no longer contracts as it should,
and so fluids build up. They make their way to his lungs,
and eventually his heart will flood his chest, his lungs, and
he'll no longer be able to breathe—despite the oxygen.
He's taking morphine for the pain in his chest, but this is a
losing proposition. It will make him feel less pain, but it
will weaken him, too. Either he will die of a stroke in the
night or he will drown inside his own body. This is the
truth that I cannot bear.

"It's like being Michael Jackson, with his obsession for
pure air, but minus the talent and his other perversions,"
Artie says.

"That's not funny," I say. "Nothing's funny."

"Or like an oxygen bar." He smiles. "Pretend we're in
a bar."

I nod. "A bar." I look up at Elspa.

"I'll let you two have some time together."

"Is he stable now? Is everything okay?"

"He's fine now," she says. "The nurse is downstairs,
too. He has a buzzer set up." She points to a knob with a
red button clipped to the pillow.

"Thanks, Elspa," I say.

She smiles and walks out of the room.

"Why don't you come up and visit me during the
day?" Artie asks. "We should talk more."

I sit down in the armchair, trying to act less startled.
"You're a busy man. There's always a waiting room full of
visitors."

"Only because you made it this way," he says. "Are
you trying to avoid me?" His tone is all Artie. There's no
real weakness in his voice.

I try to play my role, too. "I think so," I say.

There's a pause.

"I hear you're going to help Elspa get Rosie back.
That's a very nice thing you're doing for her."

"Did she tell you?"

"She visits me—while I'm
awake.
"

I don't respond.

"She's fragile," he adds. "I hope it works."

"She's tougher than you think."

The room is quiet, but it feels a little haunted by the
sweethearts who've come and gone throughout the day.
"What do they say to you in here?" I ask, pulling my
knees to my chest.

"It's strange," he says.

"How?"

"There is this one thing that comes up over and over.
It wears different hats, but it's kind of the same thing each
time." He thinks for a moment. "What do they call it?
Variations on a theme?"

"What's the theme?"

"Well, if they don't completely hate me, the theme is
that I tried to save them, to cure them, of something.
Some heartache. And that despite my betraying them, I
helped them. Their lives were better for having known me
even if I made them worse for a while in the process."

"And if they hate you?"

"Well, they say I tried to fix them or change them and
that I made a promise to them, and the promise is what
would make their lives better. The promises made them
feel, well, safe, for example. And when I failed them or
betrayed them, they ended up with two problems instead
of one, or I made the one problem worse. It's always
complicated."

"You made the problem worse how?"

"You know."

"Worse how? I don't know."

"Well, I didn't exactly help anyone get over their belief
that no man can be trusted. There was a variation on
that theme: all men are bastards. If you taped all the
women, you could play it as a chorus."

I stand up before I even know it. "And is that what
you thought when you married me? That there was something
wrong with me? That I could be some project for
you—a lifelong one? That you could save me?"

The room goes completely silent, aside from the oxygen
tank. I don't move and neither does he. I can barely
see his face in the dim light. "No," he says, his voice cracking
as if he's shouting, but he's speaking in barely a
whisper. "I thought that maybe you could be the one to
save me."

I'm not sure what to say to this. It breaks my heart, but
hardens it, too. I never signed up to save Artie Shoreman
from himself. He never told me he needed saving. It
seems unfair to throw this at me now—after the fact.
"How could I save you when you were making a mockery
of our marriage? Haven't you given me good cause to
really believe that all men are bastards?"

"I have. I know. I'm sorry . . . I just want to—"

I raise up one hand. "Stop," I say. "Don't." I sink into
the armchair, cover my face with my hands, and take a
moment to regain my composure.

"When are you going to get Elspa's daughter? Soon, I
hear."

"I can't go away now." I sit up.

"You have to."

"No, I don't. I wasn't here when you needed me. I'm
supposed to be here."

"I know you better than you think," he whispers.

"What do you mean?"

"I know how your brain works. From a bad situation,
you want to make something good. You want to make
something that will last. That's why you want to help
Elspa. Am I right?" He pauses only a moment. "Don't tell
me. I know I'm right. It's that thing inside of you that got
my son here." He smiles. "I'm right. I know I am."

"Elspa has waited this long. She can wait a little
longer," I tell him, refusing to give him credit for reading
me so closely. I wonder what else he knows about me.
Does he know things that I don't?

But then his voice goes rigid. "No," he says, almost as
if he's afraid of something. "No."

"What? No what?"

He lets his face tilt toward me. "It means too much to
her. It means too much to you. Your way is the right way.
Make something good from something bad. Turn the
thing with the ending into the thing that will last."

"Okay," I tell him. He looks like he might cry.

"Promise me," he says.

"I promise."

"Go and get some real sleep," he says.

"I don't think I should . . ."

"I'm a man on my deathbed. That carries some
weight. Go. Get some sleep. You're weary."

I am weary. I stand up unsteadily and move to the door.

"Next time you come in at night, wake me up," he
says. "First thing . . . please."

"I'll try to."

"Thanks for bringing me my son," he says. "I'll never
be able to repay you for that."

And, once again, there is an enormous shift. Artie is
indebted to me? Artie
is
indebted to me. I can't bear to
say
You're welcome.
I'm afraid I'll start to cry and that
once I start, I won't be able to stop. I slip out of the room,
down the hall, down the stairs. I pause for a moment in
the hallway, but suddenly it doesn't feel like my hallway. It
doesn't feel like my house. I grab my car keys and walk
out the front door. I turn and see the note that my mother
has written me, taped to the door. I don't read it. I don't
take it down. I walk quickly to my car. The night is cool.

By the time I've pulled out of the driveway, I am crying,
and I was right, I can't seem to stop.

I'm standing at the front door of Bessom's
Bedding Boutique. I can see John through
the plate glass storefront windows—the
jutting angle of his shoulders as he sleeps in one of the
showroom beds. I knock on the door, watch him rustle, sit
up, rub his head. When he sees me there on the other side
of the door, he rears for a moment. I've frightened him.
But then it registers that it's me. He stands up quickly and
rushes down the aisle, works the series of locks, and opens
the door.

"You scared me. I thought you were a polite burglar,"
he says, but then quickly he sees that my face is red and
wet with tears. "What is it?" he asks. "What's wrong?"

"We've got this all wrong," I say in jagged breaths.
"He's dying. He's dying
now.
"

John reaches out and holds me—my arms are folded
to my chest. He doesn't say anything. He smells like fresh
sheets and sleep. He leads me into the store and sits me
down on a bunk-bed display with a baseball motif.

"I can tell you about the past as much as you want, but
it doesn't matter," I say. "It doesn't matter because he's
dying now, and when he's gone, it'll all be gone. I don't
want it to all be gone."

He still has his arm around me. He rocks me a little,
just a soft sway. "Tell me anyway," he says. "Tell me about
the past."

I look up at him. "But it doesn't matter."

"But what if it does?"

I take a deep breath and blow it out toward the
ceiling.

"Tell me one more thing."

I think for a moment. I see Artie in his tux, beaming at
me from the altar. "Our wedding," I say.

"That's right," John says. "You never told me about
your wedding."

"Artie started crying first and that got me going, but
then I started to laugh, while crying, and he did, too." I
take another breath. "And it became contagious until the
whole church was filled with people laughing and crying.
It was strange," I tell him, "to feel like laughing and crying
all at the same time."

"It sounds like real life. Funny and tragic at the same
time," John says. "Real sadness has to also include joy.
Doesn't it? Someone famous said something like that
once, the idea that there can't be sadness about an ending
without having known real happiness along the way."

He's caught me off guard. I look up at him. He has a
strong profile, but soft eyes, thick lashes.

"It's going to be okay, Lucy." He holds on to me
tightly and it feels so good to be held with that kind of
gentle strength. I realize how long it's been since I've had
a man's arm wrapped around me like this. He kisses me
on the forehead, and then his face is right there, right next
to my face, still wet with tears. And I don't know how or
why, but I lean in and kiss him softly on the mouth. It isn't
a long kiss. It isn't heated or rapturous. But he has a wonderful
mouth, and he doesn't shy away from the kiss. And
although this kiss could almost pass for a peck—the kind
you'd give a hostess at a cocktail party—it lingers just
enough to become something else. And, I should say that
it doesn't seem wrong—not in the moment, not within the
kiss itself.

But then I pull away. I open my eyes and I'm calm. I
know it won't last. I know I will have to deal with the consequences
of this moment—the guilt that will surely follow—
but right now I'm serene.

"We have to pretend we didn't kiss," I say.

"I don't like pretending."

I stand up. "But you will, for me. I need to pretend
right now."

"Okay," he says. "I'll pretend, but it won't be easy."

"It wasn't a real kiss," I say, and it's almost true.

"What kiss?" John says, true to his word.

"Right," I say. "I'm going home."

"Are you okay to drive?"

"I'm fine." And I am. In fact, I'm strangely serene. I
turn and walk to the door. I know that I'll go home and
take my spot in the armchair, watching over Artie while he
sleeps, that I might cry again, or I might not. Real sadness
has to also include joy. It's all part of the bargain.

Before I head out, I ask John, "Did you wear a jean
jacket in high school?"

"Yes, I did," he says. "All the time. Stonewashed
denim."

"I thought so," I say. "I thought you did."

The kiss plays out in my mind like a reel of
film caught in a loop, but with all its physicality.
I can feel his lips on my mouth, and
each time, heat starts in my chest and flares up into my
cheeks. I can be washing the dishes at the sink, brushing
my teeth, getting mail out of the mailbox, and then suddenly
for no reason apparent to anyone but me, I'm blushing.
And then there is the blush of—Artie's son? His very
own son? And that's a different kind of heat in my chest, a
different kind of flush. Can I look at this any other way
but as punishing Artie—even if he doesn't know, even if
he never knows? When I'm with Artie—even when he's
asleep and I'm puttering around refolding blankets—I
feel like a traitor. But I'm a traitor in the traitor's den, and
so I rationalize quickly. I pretend Artie's found out and
he's furious, but I just tell him in a calm (exhausted) voice,
"I know how you feel."

The guilt is only part of it, of course. More pointedly,
there's plenty of confusion. What did the kiss mean?
Didn't it exist in a moment of kindness and sadness? Does
it have to be wrapped up in all the stuff that comes with a
kiss? Was it a real kiss or not? Basically, I isolate the kiss in
my head, and I put it in a corner of my brain, and try to
treat it like it's only a dustpan.

I make a few excuses on the phone with John in the
morning attempting to avoid the Tour d'Artie. I find myself
piling them on, each one less convincing than the one
before. The third excuse has to do with shopping for
shoes. John calls me out on it. "You're making things up.
You're stalling," he says. "Are you quitting the Tour
d'Artie?"

Doesn't he feel guilty? Do men lack the guilt gene?
"Why do you always call him Artie?" I ask. "When are
you going to call him your father?"

"You're not answering the question," John says.
"You're tap-dancing."

"You're not answering
my
questions," I say. "
You're
tap-dancing." We're both tap-dancing.

"It's okay if you're quitting the tour. I just want you to
know and I want you to know that I know."

"Okay," I tell him. "I know and now I know that you
know."

"Okay."

"Okay, okay."

He's been coming over in the afternoons to spend time
with Artie, and this afternoon is no different. I think that
I've run errands long enough to avoid him, but when I
walk into the house overloaded with grocery bags, I nearly
walk right into his chest.

"You're here," I say.

"You missed dinner. Your mother invited me to stay."
He grabs one of the bags. "Let me take this." He takes
another and another until my hands are empty. I can see
into the kitchen, which is bustling with women—Elspa,
Eleanor, my mother.

I grab his arm. "I haven't really been avoiding you," I
whisper. "I mean, I'm happy to see you. I've just been . . ."

"Avoiding me," he says. "It's okay. I get it. There's a lot
going on."

He walks into the kitchen and I follow him. The
women are wrapping up bowls of leftovers, doing dishes,
talking all at once. He and the grocery bags are absorbed
into the scene. I find myself standing in the doorway,
watching all these people move around the kitchen with
a certain ease—Elspa, Eleanor, my mother, John. And I
should include Bogie in all this. He's found a quiet
corner and flattened out on the floor, sound asleep. I
don't know when the ease took over, but here it is. And
even with John, since he's called me out on my excuses—
twice now—I feel a certain ease, too—as much as possible
with the dustpan kiss lurking in the corner of my
brain.

I decide to join them. I get a wineglass out of the cupboard
and pour myself a glass from the bottle that's already
been uncorked.

Eleanor wants to discuss how Artie's demeanor is changing.
"Do you think it's really working?" she says. "These
women are sending him a message, aren't they? He's been
a serial cheater. How much longer can he deny it?"

John asks, "What's your story with Artie, again? I
don't know if I know it."

She waves him off. "I was just another woman to
Artie. That's it. Nothing more to it."

The doctor was here earlier, reporting a slow downward
spiral. My mother is still in a small dither, having
spoken to the doctor, having at one point reached out and
touched his hand—for no apparent reason. She is using
her leftover frenetic energy to tend to us. Seeing John pull
a glass from the dishwasher, she moves in and starts unloading
it. "I think the doctor has a wonderful bedside
manner. He's very calming."

All this business—the tending, the infatuation with
the doctor—is not part of the plan I have for my mother.
"You're supposed to be trying to
be your own person.
Remember?"

"Speak English, dear," she says to me. "No one knows
what you're talking about when you say things like that."

"I do," Elspa says.

My mother sighs. "It's generational."

Elspa turns to John. "You tucked Artie in tonight.
Was that strange? To tuck your father into bed?"

He isn't startled by the question. He says, "It was
strange. I thought of him tucking me into bed many times
as a kid. Imagined it."

"Interesting how things turn around in life," my
mother says, and then she glances at me. "The child can
become the parent at some point when you aren't paying
attention."

"And the lover can become the enemy," Eleanor adds,
almost under her breath.

"I'm still confused," John says, having poured himself
a little Scotch, and sitting down. "When did you and Artie
date?" he asks Eleanor. "Was it decades ago? Was it more
recent?"

"Well, it wasn't like the situation with Elspa," she says,
meaning, I suppose, that she wasn't one of the other
women while Artie and I were married. It hits me that I've
never even considered Eleanor as one of the women Artie
cheated on me with—which isn't really fair, in a strange
way. Is it because she doesn't strike me as a cheat or because
she's older or, maybe even because of her leg, which
is an awful thing to think? "No offense, Elspa, Lucy."

"None taken!" Elspa says, and she wholeheartedly
means it. She's eating a bowl of ice cream, perched on a
stool by the kitchen island, sitting cross-legged.

"None taken," I say, with a little less pep.

I walk up to my mother by the sink, deciding to get a
bowl of ice cream myself. "Don't play dumb with me," I
whisper, meaning
be your own person.
"You know exactly
what I mean."

She looks at me a little startled and then she smiles and
shrugs. "Me no speak your language!" She quacks one
hand at me.

John says to Eleanor, "Have you gone in and had your
heart-to-heart with Artie like the other women?"

"I wouldn't give him the satisfaction," she says gruffly,
crossing her arms.

"If you did, though, what would you say?"

Everyone has stopped what they're doing. I'm holding
my ice cream bowl and the Häagen-Dazs container. We've
all turned to look at Eleanor. It dawns on me that I don't
know the answer to any of John's questions—maybe because
I never found Eleanor to be a real threat to me,
which is an awful thing to even half admit to myself, but
true nonetheless. Artie so clearly dislikes her. But now I
wonder why she is so invested. When did her orthodontist
husband die? How does she know Artie well enough to
hate him so much? Honestly, I've admired her hatred of
him. It's always struck me as so pure and honest—where
mine is so complicated, like an enormous elaborate
hedge maze.

Eleanor doesn't say anything for a moment. She
glances at each of us, defensively, as if she's been accused
of something. And then she says, "I was the woman—the
widow—who Artie dumped when he met Lucy." She
looks at me and then quickly away. She takes a seat at the
breakfast nook. "So now you know."

It's quiet a moment. I'm not sure what to say. I had no
idea Artie had been seeing someone when he met me. I
had no idea that he'd dumped someone for me.
"Eleanor," I say, "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry," John mumbles. "I didn't mean to . . ." He
glances at me apologetically, and I think he may be saying
sorry to me as much as to Eleanor. But just this small moment,
our eyes catching, is unsettling. The kiss is there. It's
stubborn. But right alongside it, there's the image of
Eleanor and Artie—a couple—and oddly enough, I can
see it clearly. All that fire they have for each other, now
anger—once upon a time it was something else.

"It's okay," Eleanor says. "I don't blame you." She's
wiping down the counter with a dish towel, and once
again, I don't know who's apologizing to whom. She
doesn't blame John Bessom for bringing it up? Or she
doesn't blame me for stealing Artie away? "It was a long
time ago. I should be over it."

"It must have been serious," my mother says, and I
wish she hadn't.

"We'd talked about getting married," Eleanor says.
"He called me his spitfire. He said that I was good for
him. Someone his own age, who could understand him."
She shrugs. "But then he changed his mind."

I'm stunned. I feel awful. It's not my fault. I know that.
But, still, I'm the thief, the young thing Artie tossed her
aside for. I shake my head. "Eleanor," I say again. It's all I
can manage.

And then Elspa says, "This is all so good."

We turn in unison and stare at her like she's crazy.

"I mean, we're all bound together, some way or another.
Like a real family. I've always wanted a family like
this." And then she adds, as if this is an unexpected
bonus, "And in all screwed up ways, too." She looks at us
earnestly. "I think maybe each of us has wanted a real family
for a long time—Artie, too."

She's right—each of us in our own way. We all have to
agree. The room is quiet—a strained silence.

"I want you all to come with me and Lucy," Elspa says.
"To help me get Rose back. My daughter. I want you all to
come. So my family can see that I have a family."

"Are you sure?" I ask, a little panic in my voice.

Elspa says, "I know Artie can't come. But I want
everyone else to. It would help give me courage. Will you
all come?"

Eleanor says, "Yes, of course. I'll have to shuffle some
of Artie's sweethearts, but Artie's sweethearts are used to
being shuffled."

"I don't know about that. I mean, you have everything
so scheduled," I say. She ignores me.

John says, "Are you sure you mean me, too?" He
shoots me a sideward glance.

Elspa nods. "Yes, of course!"

"Wait," I say.

My mother smiles. "You need me, dear. Of course I'll
come." She walks over to Elspa and squeezes her shoulders.
"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"This might be overwhelming for you though. All of
us? Are you sure that's what you want?" I ask Elspa, hoping
she'll change her mind.

"Yes," she says. She takes a spoonful of ice cream and
shoves it in her mouth, smiling. "I feel much better now.
Much better."