The Replacement Wife (11 page)

“So I’m not to be trusted to make my own decisions, is that it?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“This is what comes of being married to a matchmaker, I guess,” he muttered angrily. “No one’s safe from your meddling.”

“If the situation were reversed and I came to you for some lifesaving operation, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to save me?” she reasoned.

“I don’t see how you can compare the two.” She heard the throttled fury in his voice. “You’re talking about
playing
with lives, not saving one. And who the hell appointed you God all of a sudden?”

“Would it hurt just to meet with her?”

“
Her?
You mean you have someone lined up already?”

“No, of course not. I’d never do that without your permission.”

“Well, when you put it that way, how can I refuse?” he replied sarcastically.

“Is it any crazier than us getting married when we didn’t have two nickels to rub together?” she persisted. “Everyone said we were too young, that we should wait until we were both out of school. But we didn’t listen. We were determined, even if it meant living in a fifth-floor walkup with cockroaches coming out of the woodwork and a toilet that didn’t flush properly.”

“Stop.”

“My point is—”

“Just . . . stop.” His eyes flashed. “I wanted tonight to be about
us
.” He looked down at the jeweler’s box caught in a fold of the lap robe, then he picked it up and with a violent jerk his arm sent it sailing into the shrubbery alongside the path. When he brought his gaze back to her, she saw the hurt on his face. “Why are you so eager to palm me off? Should I be worried about that, too?”

Mournfully, Camille shook her head as she regarded her husband of twenty years. “I love you with all my heart,” she told him. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to die.”

He was silent for so long she didn’t think he would respond. At last, he gave a deep sigh and said in a hollow voice that seemed to rise from the depths of a well, “I know. I know.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“H
ow are you feeling today, Mr. Szegedy?” Edward inquired.

His elderly patient looked like Yoda from
Star Wars
sitting scrunched in his chair, his head, covered in spun-white hair so sparse it hovered like a fine mist over his freckled skull, seemingly too big for his shrunken body. The old man answered in a barely audible rasp, “Not so good.”

“How long has it been since your surgery?” Mr. Szegedy, his hand trembling, held up two fingers. “Two weeks?” A slow nod in response. “And do you remember how long were you on ventilation?”

The old man shrugged. His wife answered for him, “A few hours maybe? He doesn’t remember so good. You’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t you, Georgie?” she said in a louder voice to her husband, who in addition to having difficulty with his speech was also hard of hearing. The old woman reminded Edward of his grandmother, with her ruddy complexion and high cheekbones, her old-country articulation. There was something beautiful, too, in the way her movements blended seamlessly with those of her husband—the pas de deux of a couple who’s lived together so long they’ve lost track of where one leaves off and the other begins.

He tried to imagine Camille at that age, with silver hair and wrinkles, but he couldn’t quite picture it. A familiar heaviness descended on him. “When did you lose your voice, Mr. Szegedy?”

Again, it was the wife who answered. “Right after the surgery. Before that, he could talk just fine. You couldn’t shut him up! Isn’t that right, Georgie?” She gave her husband’s shoulder an affectionate pat. Edward could see the lines of worry on her face, and he smiled to put her at ease.

“Loss of speech isn’t uncommon after an aortic valve replacement,” he explained. “During the operation, the vocal cord is displaced, which can cause it to become temporarily paralyzed. I can’t say how long it’ll take, but it usually corrects itself with time. Let me have a look. . .” He nodded to Dev Patel, the male intern who was currently acting as his assistant. Dev administered a topical anesthetic before carefully threading a thin plastic tube through the patient’s nasal cavity. A minute later, they were looking at a live camera feed of the vocal cords on the computer screen connected to the rhino-laryngeal stroboscope, which confirmed the diagnosis.

Soon Mr. and Mrs. Szegedy were on their way out the door of his office, the old lady clutching a slip of paper with the name and number of a speech therapist written on it. Edward handed the chart to his assistant, asking if Mr. Szegedy had been the last of his morning’s patients.

Dev nodded in response without having to consult the Palm Pilot that Edward jokingly referred to as Dev’s third hand. A slightly built young Pakistani with an infectious smile, Dev was known for his efficiency. “Your two o’clock called to cancel, and your next one’s not until two-forty,” Dev informed him, breaking into a grin. “You’re free for a whole two hours. Lucky you.”

Lucky? Edward couldn’t recall when he’d last felt lucky. But he kept his tone light as he replied, “If my luck holds, maybe I can get the old man to pledge some of his millions.” He was having lunch today, at the Knickerbocker Club, with Liam McPhail, a former patient and potential donor for the West Harlem Clinic where Edward donated his services two afternoons a week.

“That might be pushing it. I hear he’s a real tightwad.”

“In that case, maybe I should send you as my emissary,” Edward joked. Dev was also known for his charm.

“No, thanks. He’d eat me for lunch.”

“Speaking of which, no more skipping lunch—doctor’s orders. Can’t have people start thinking you have a slave driver for a boss.” Dev reminded Edward of himself when he was that age: ambitious to a fault. Not much had changed in the intervening years. He wasn’t as ambitious—his only goal these days was to help other people, though the irony didn’t escape him that it was often at his family’s expense—but he was just as absorbed in his work. It wasn’t unusual for Edward to look up from his desk and see that it had grown dark outside and realize he hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

Dev just laughed. “They already think that.”

Minutes later, Edward was striding out the entrance of the Harkness Pavilion on his way to the building that housed the Neuro-Psych Center. He had half-an-hour to kill before lunch and was overdue for a visit with his old friend and mentor, Hugh Lieberman. He hadn’t told Hugh the bad news about Camille yet; he’d wanted to get a grip on his emotions first, which so far hadn’t happened. He couldn’t get past his anger and frustration. As a doctor, he understood Camille’s decision not to seek further treatment, but as her husband, it was unfathomable. Yes, the odds were slim. But how could she not want to fight to stay alive? She had once before. Why not now?

As if that weren’t bad enough, she was talking about lining up his next wife. It was as if she’d become a stranger to him overnight. The Camille he knew and loved would never have asked this of him. Not that he doubted her motives: She believed it to be in his and their children’s best interests. But what did that say about their marriage? Why wouldn’t she want to make the most of the time they had left together instead? He understood her fears regarding the children—she’d lost her own mom when she was fourteen, and her dad had pretty much dropped the ball when it came to caring for his kids—but that, too, had left a bitter taste in his mouth. Did she honestly think he was like her dad, that he’d neglect his kids the way Larry had? Jesus. At the same time, Edward felt a niggling disquiet knowing he wasn’t entirely above reproach in that regard.

A memory surfaced, one that seemed to sum up his inadequacies: Camille in the hospital and the kids hungry for supper while he, Edward, stood in the kitchen dolefully contemplating a block of frozen hamburger. He’d meant to take it out to thaw before leaving for work that day. Just as he’d meant to buy groceries on his way home and pick up the dry cleaning and write a check for his daughter’s glee club fund-raiser. None of which had gotten done. As a result, there was only the food that Camille, sick as she was, had stockpiled in the freezer. He wouldn’t soon forget the resigned look on his then thirteen-year-old daughter’s face when she’d wandered in at that moment, as if she’d expected nothing more from him but loved him anyway. She didn’t comment; she just reached for the stack of takeout menus by the phone, asking, “Pizza or Chinese?”

Edward liked to think he would do a better job of raising his kids on his own, if it came to that, than Larry had with Camille and Holly. But was he only deluding himself? The thought made him pull up his coat collar as he hurried along the sidewalk, as if to ward off a sudden blast of chill air.

THE HARKNESS PAVILION
was part of a loose sprawl of buildings over several city blocks that comprised the vast medical complex of New York–Presbyterian. Edward was winded by the time he reached the Neuro-Psych Center, where he rode the elevator to the fifth floor. Hugh was on the phone when he walked in.

A massive bear of a man seated at an even more massive desk with a view of the East River, Hugh broke into a grin as he hung up the phone. Edward had been assigned to Dr. Hugh Lieberman as an intern, during his psych rotation, and had formed a lasting bond with the older man. Hugh was the wisest person Edward knew, which was underscored by the fact that he looked like a shrink from Central Casting, with his squirrely Einstein hair and sharp blue eyes caught in nets of wrinkles. “So, my friend, what gives?” he said. “I don’t see you for weeks, and now here you are looking like something the cat dragged in. Whatever’s eating you, it’s got teeth.”

Edward shrugged, attempting to make light of it. “What is it with you guys? Does everyone who walks in your door have to have a problem?”

Hugh eyed him closely, as if he suspected there was indeed a problem in Edward’s case, a big one, but he refrained from any further comment. He heaved himself out of his chair and shambled around to clear the chair opposite his desk of its pile of books and files. “Sit down, sit down.” It was only midday, but already his tie sported a stain and the lapels of his corduroy blazer were dusted with what was either dandruff flakes or powdered sugar from the doughnuts he consumed by the dozen. “How have you been? How’s Camille?” he asked as he stood leaning against his desk, looking like another of its untidy stacks. Hugh’s organizational system was one of controlled chaos, but he could pluck any given item from the jumble at a moment’s notice. “Ruth was saying the other day we’re way overdue to have you two over for supper.”

“Love to. But can we take a rain check? Some . . . stuff has come up.” Edward was purposely vague, but when the older man just stood there, shaggy eyebrows raised, waiting for him to continue, Edward knew it was no use. He gave a sigh. “It’s Camille. Her cancer’s back.”

He saw dismay register on the older man’s face. “I see.” Hugh pushed a hand through his squirrely gray hair. “And this is why you’ve been avoiding me?” Every Wednesday, they had a standing date to play racquetball at Hugh’s athletic club, but Edward had made excuses the past few weeks.

“It’s not just you. I haven’t told anyone.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad.”

“Gottenyu,”
Hugh muttered to himself, shaking his head. As a psychiatrist he was trained not to show emotion, but now there was no hiding how he felt. He was fond of Camille and like an uncle to Kyra and Zach. During Camille’s last bout with cancer, Hugh and his wife, Ruth, had been a godsend, delivering home-cooked meals and taking the children with them to their country house in Rhinebeck on weekends. “What course of treatment does her doctor recommend?”

“Dr. Hawkins says another stem cell transplant is really the only option, and my friend Mitch at Sloan-Kettering concurs, but it’s a moot point, I’m afraid.” Frustration welled in him as he explained that Camille had opted not to seek further treatment, even though it was her only hope.

Hugh nodded thoughtfully but gave no indication of whether he approved or disapproved. He only commented, “I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision.”

“Yeah, well, I sure as hell didn’t get a say in it.” Edward recalled how powerless he’d felt watching his grandmother slowly wither away and die. He’d vowed to never again let that happen to a loved one. And here he was, all these years later, once more with his hands tied behind his back.

“I know this isn’t easy for you, either,” Hugh said gently. “If there’s anything I can do . . .”

“Say a prayer. That’s about all there is left.”

“Never underestimate the power of prayer, my friend.” Hugh was an observant Jew, with a mezuzah on the door frame at the entrance to his office to show for it. But he was also a man of medicine, evidenced when he asked, “What about a clinical trial? Is that something worth exploring?”

“Sure,” Edward replied dully. “But there’s nothing right now.” The past few weeks, he’d spent every free moment making phone calls and scouring the Internet, to no avail. “I haven’t given up, but if something does turn up, it’d have to be soon.” He didn’t need to say it: Time was running out.

“I know some people. I can ask around,” Hugh offered. “In the meantime, if you ever need to talk, you know where to find me.”

“What’s the use of talking about it? Her mind is made up.” Edward looked down and saw his hands were balled into fists. He flexed his fingers, but they felt stiff, as if they’d been in that position for a while. He shook his head, saying bitterly, “She won’t listen to reason. It’s like she
wants
to die. She even has my next wife all picked out.” The last part was stretching the truth a bit. Camille hadn’t acted on her suggestion. He didn’t think she would go that far, not without his go-ahead, but then, what the hell did he know? He didn’t know his own wife anymore.

Even Hugh, who’d no doubt heard it all as a psychiatrist, couldn’t imagine a scenario as bizarre as the one Camille had sketched out—he must have interpreted it as an overstatement brought on by extreme frustration—because he only said, “It’s not unusual for people who are terminally ill to find comfort in knowing their spouse will find happiness again after they’re gone.”