The Replacement Wife (8 page)

“I only struck out
twice.
” Zach beamed at his dad.

“Looks like we have a future MVP on our hands.” Edward turned to smile at Camille, who didn’t smile back. She wasn’t in a forgiving mood at the moment. “I would’ve gotten here sooner if I could have,” he told Zack, bending down so they were eye level. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know.” Zach’s tone was matter of fact.
He shouldn’t be so used to it,
Camille thought.

“But, listen,” Edward went on, “I have a surprise for you.”

Zach’s eyes widened. “Bigger than the bike?” His main present was the razor bike he’d been begging for since he was six.

“No, but it’s one I think you’ll like,” Edward answered with a wink. “Instead of boring old cake, how would you feel about us all going to Serendipity for frozen hot chocolate sundaes?”

“Awwwwwesome.” Zach jumped up and down in his excitement. “Can we go now?”

“Sure, as soon as you finish your pizza.”

“Great,” Camille muttered to her husband after Zach had run off to give the good news to his friends. “Now all we have to do is figure out a way to fit six kids and two adults into one cab.”

“So we’ll take two cabs,” Edward said with a shrug. Problem solved.

If only it were as simple as that. Now she had to phone the other moms and inform them of the change in plans, then pray it wouldn’t be too long a wait once they got there. The popular eatery was always packed this time of day; it could be an hour or more before they got a table. Which meant six rowdy boys jammed into the waiting area, or worse, racing up and down the sidewalk in front.

Why did mothers always get stuck with the boring details while fathers got to play the hero?
she thought with frustration. It wasn’t intentional, she knew; they
meant
well. Still. The upshot was, while Zach would remember this day as one filled with fun and surprises, her memory of the last birthday of his she was likely to celebrate would be of her husband neglecting to do the one thing she’d asked of him and then compounding it by making even more work for her. She sighed again. Maybe it wasn’t so unintentional. Maybe, deep down, he wanted to punish her.

“You’re angry with me, aren’t you?” She confronted him while the boys were in the restroom washing up.

Edward looked at her, a play of emotions flitting over his handsome face like wind-chased clouds across a winter sky. “Angry? Why would I be angry at
you
? I’m the one who screwed up.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” she said through gritted teeth. “You blame me, don’t you?”

His eyes flashed, and in that instant, she caught a glimpse of what he’d kept under wraps in the days since she’d come to a decision about whether or not to seek treatment. After a second opinion, from Edward’s oncologist friend at Sloan-Kettering, confirmed the original prognosis, she hadn’t seen the point. For what? Another three to six months shackled to a hospital bed, so shot full of painkillers she wouldn’t know what planet she was on? She and Edward had discussed it, of course, until they were both blue in the face, but he refused to accept her decision. As if she hadn’t agonized over it herself! As if she were doing this for her own selfish reasons! She couldn’t make him understand. So much was being taken from her—the opportunity to grow old with her husband and watch her children grow up, see them graduate and get married and have children of their own—why squander a single, precious moment of the time she had left?

“Camille, I don’t think this is the time . . .” He lowered his voice, glancing over at the restroom as if he expected the boys to come tumbling out that very moment. “Can we talk about this later on?”

“Talk about
what
? Why don’t you just say it?” she hissed. “You’re mad because I’m not doing what you want. I’m not choosing to subject myself to torture on the practically nonexistent chance I’ll live to see our son’s next birthday.”

She’d been witness to her own mother’s slow, agonizing death. She knew what it was like. The hospital bed in the dining room. The nurses coming and going at all hours. Each night, she’d lay awake in bed listening to the creak of footfalls in the hallway and voices speaking in low tones, wishing she still believed in Santa Claus so she could believe, too, that her mom would get better.

“I have patients who’d be grateful for any chance at all,” he said in a tight voice. “How do you know what’s possible unless you try? Miracles do happen. We doctors think we know everything, but we don’t. We—” He broke off abruptly as the boys trooped noisily out of the restroom.

They didn’t speak of it again.

THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY,
they sat the children down and told them a modified version of the truth. At the stricken looks they wore, she reassured them, “I don’t want you worrying. I’m in good hands.” Her doctor had started her on a mild dose of chemo, just enough to slow the cancer’s spread. It would buy her more time and meant she could go about her business as usual for the next few months, barring any side effects. Her children wouldn’t have to know how serious it was until it was absolutely necessary.

Zach’s eyes filled with tears. “Are you going to die, Mommy?” he asked, his voice quavering.

Camille darted a helpless glance at Edward, who was quick to step in. “We all die sometime. You know that,” he reminded their son, his voice gentle. “It’s part of the circle of life.” They’d explained it to Zach when he’d come to them with questions after watching
The Lion King
for the first time. Then he’d been too young to know the meaning of death. It had helped having a vehicle to make him understand.
Thank God for Disney,
she thought now with irony.

“But I’m not going anywhere so fast,” she put in, “so I don’t want to see any moping. I’ll still be there to cheer you on at soccer games. And to embarrass your sister at her piano recitals,” she added with a wry glance at her daughter, who always complained that she clapped too hard. Kyra only gave a wan smile in response.

Zach wriggled onto Camille’s lap, which he hadn’t done since he was small. Never mind, at nine, he weighed almost as much as she did—he would be tall like his father. “Will you have to go to the hospital like the last time?” he asked with his scruffy head buried against her chest.

“I hope not,” she told him, wondering if he could hear the sound of her heart breaking. “We’ll see.”

She glanced again at Edward, who she could see was struggling with his own emotions. She watched him swallow before saying in a hoarse voice, “Your mom is getting the best care possible. That much I can promise.”

“Plus, I’m counting on you guys,” Camille said. “Hugs and kisses are the best medicine, as we all know.” She looked pointedly at her teenaged daughter, who sat with her arms crossed over her chest scowling at no one in particular.

“It’s so
unfair
!” Kyra burst out.

Camille put an arm around her. “I know, honey. But life isn’t always fair.”

“We’ll just have to pull together like the last time,” Edward said.

“You mean like when you were in charge and we had pizza every night for a week?” Kyra gently reproached. “Dad, I’m sorry, but you’re hopeless.”

They all laughed, and Camille breathed a sigh of relief. The children were taking it in stride. They seemed fine. Mostly. That night, when she tucked Zach into bed, he wanted his teddy bear in addition to the night-light on. And Kyra ignored the usual flood of phone calls and text messages from her friends, choosing instead to cuddle with Camille on the sofa while they watched TV.

Dara and Holly were the only ones to whom she’d confided the whole truth. Dara, after the initial shock wore off, had the right attitude. Instead of projecting an air of gloom, she used gallows humor to lighten the atmosphere around the office. Like when she quipped, after Camille had gotten off the phone with a client who’d whined that there were no “truly hot” guys left, “Maybe you could have a word with Heath Ledger when you get to the other side, and see if you can get him to come back.” Trust Dara to keep the elephant in the room in plain sight. Holly was trying her best, too, though it was more difficult for her. If Dara made bearable what would otherwise be awkward and oppressive, it was Camille’s sister who provided a sounding board.

“Edward’s pissed at me,” Camille told her. It was the last week in April, and they were at the obstetrician’s, Holly seated on the examining table dressed in a paper gown while they waited for her doctor. Holly had asked Camille along because today was the day of her first ultrasound: She wanted her sister to share the experience when she got her first look at her unborn child.

“If he is, it’s at the situation, not you,” Holly replied.

“No, it’s more than that,” Camille insisted. “He acts like I have a
choice.
”

Holly sighed and reached for Camille’s hand. “It’s hard for us all, Cam. Here I am feeling guilty for bringing a new life into the world while you’re—” She broke off, her eyes welling with tears. “Damn. Now look what you made me do.” Camille snatched up a box of what at a quick glance looked to be tissues, and they both laughed when Holly withdrew a latex examining glove instead. She held it up, limp and wrinkled, observing, “Reminds me of a condom. Though it’s a little late for that, in my case.”

“I won’t have you feeling guilty,” Camille said after they had both dried their eyes. She gave her sister an admonishing look. “This is supposed to be the happiest time of your life. I, for one, am thrilled about the baby.”
I just hope I live to see it born
. “It certainly took you long enough.”

“God, remember that pregnancy scare I had in high school? I was scared I was going to end up pushing a stroller while all my friends were graduating. I was never so happy to get my period. Now I’ll probably be the only one in Mommy and Me who got knocked up from a one-night stand.”

Camille smiled and shook her head. Her sister had always gone her own way. Why should this be any different? Camille recalled how scandalized she’d been when Holly lost her virginity, at fourteen, to a popular senior at their school whom she’d known all of three weeks. “He won’t respect you now,” Camille had cried angrily. “He’ll tell all his friends.” To which Holly had replied nonchalantly, “Who cares? I don’t have anything to hide. Anyway, I liked it as much as he did.”

By the time Holly was in her twenties, she’d been living on her own for years, traveling the country with the nineties grunge band Wrath, as personal assistant and sometime girlfriend to its lead singer, Ronan Quist. Camille had despaired of her ever getting a real job or settling down. But Holly had surprised everyone by enrolling in college at the age of thirty, taking a job managing a small radio station to make ends meet while she worked toward her degree. After that, she started her own online business selling rock-and-roll memorabilia. Fittingly enough, the Web site’s address was rockon.com.

Camille smiled now at the sight of her thirty-nine-year-old sister, who at twelve weeks pregnant was now convex in all the places she’d been concave. Her speed bumps, as she used to jokingly call her breasts, were fuller and her face rounder. Her porcelain skin, once the envy of the Goth crowd she’d hung out with in high school, was peaches and cream. With her curly light-brown hair, wide blue eyes, and dimples, she looked positively angelic. If not for the tattoo on her left butt cheek—a pear with a bite taken out of it—no one would guess Holly was a former bad girl.

“Well, at least you got something out of it,” Camille observed wryly, her gaze dropping to her sister’s barely discernible baby bump.

“Besides the sex, you mean. God, the sex . . .” Holly’s expression turned dreamy. “Did I mention it was the best I ever had?” And that was saying a lot, given the multitude of lovers through the years.

“Only about five zillion times.”

Holly had been smitten with Curtis McBride after just one date, despite the fact that they had little in common—he was a banker and she’d made it a rule never to date a man who wore a suit and tie to work—but when he told her he was being transferred overseas to his bank’s London branch, she preemptively broke it off. Transatlantic relationships, she claimed, were strictly for the Very Rich or Very Deluded. The phone bills alone would be enough to bankrupt her. It wasn’t until after Curtis left for London that she discovered she was pregnant. She briefly considered terminating it, but after the shock wore off, she came to the realization that this might be her only shot at motherhood. She had since grown excited about having a baby.

“Can I help it if my baby’s father is an amazing lover?” Holly placed a hand over her belly.

“Speaking of which, have you told him the big news yet?” Camille eyed her sternly, strongly suspecting she hadn’t. Holly, among other things, was a procrastinator.

Holly became suddenly absorbed in the display of baby photos stuck with colored pushpins to the bulletin board on the wall. “I will. I just haven’t gotten around to it,” she replied with an airy wave of her hand, as if they were talking about a friend of a friend, not the father of her child.

“And just when
do
you plan on telling him? When it’s time for him to kick in for college tuition?”

“There’s no rush. I still have five more months to go. Besides, he’s not all that easy to get hold of.”

“You could leave a message on his voicemail.”

“I would, but apparently he switched carriers. I don’t have his new cell number.”

Camille just looked at her. “Why do I get the feeling you’re just making excuses?”

Holly shrugged, unrepentant. “Wouldn’t you, if you had to tell some guy you barely knew you were having his kid? I mean, what’s the protocol here? You’re the expert, you tell me.”

“You’re hopeless, you know that?” At the same time, Camille didn’t doubt Holly’s child would turn out fine despite what was sure to be an unorthodox upbringing. At least, he’d always know his mother’s love. Would the same be true of her own children? She felt a pang at the thought.

“Maybe, but I always manage somehow,” Holly replied, adding in a gentler voice, “It’s
you
I’m worried about. You need to stop fretting about your pregnant sister and whether or not your husband’s pissed at you, and start taking it easier. Because I am
not
having this baby without you. Is that understood?” She paused to dab again at her eyes, saying, “I don’t want Dad to be the one holding my hand in the delivery room.”