“Okay. Sure. For a minute,” he says.
Valerie takes Nick’s coat, hangs it in the hall closet, and leads him into the living room where he sits in a chair he has never chosen before—an armchair from her grandmother’s house and her grandmother’s house before that. It is not a good antique—just an old chair covered in an unappealing mauve paisley, but Valerie can’t bear to reupholster it for sentimental reasons. She keeps her eyes fixed on the design now, as she takes a seat on the couch opposite Nick. Meanwhile, Jason selects another chair, completing their triangle. His expression is inscrutable, but Valerie senses judgment in his silence, and wonders if it is about Nick’s being here—or her keeping a secret from him. Secrets have never been something that existed between the two—other than the one she kept for the three days that followed her positive pregnancy test.
“So how are you doing?” Nick asks, glancing from twin to twin. They both tell him they are fine and Valerie launches into a nervous, detailed account of Charlie’s day—what they did, what he ate, how many times she changed his dressings. She finishes by saying, “He’s going back to school on Monday.” As if the instruction didn’t come from Nick himself.
Nick nods and tosses out another question. “What are you doing tomorrow? For Thanksgiving?”
“We’re all going to Jason’s house,” Valerie says—which, of course, Nick already knows. “Jason’s boyfriend, Hank, is quite the cook.”
“Is he a chef?” Nick asks.
“No. A tennis pro,” Jason says. “But he knows his way around the kitchen.”
“Ah. Okay,” Nick murmurs. “Nice perk for you.”
Valerie can tell her brother is resisting a smart-ass remark, probably something about the perk of dating a doctor—when he stands, rubs his hands together, and says, “Well. As much as I’d love to stay and chat, Hank and I have a turkey to baste.”
Nick looks relieved as he stands and shakes Jason’s hand again. “Good to see you, man,” he says a bit too robustly.
“You, too, Doc,” Jason says, flipping up the collar on his leather jacket. “It was a ... nice surprise.” On his way to the door, he shoots his sister a bemused look and mouths, “Call me.”
Valerie nods, locking the door behind him, and steeling herself for the awkward exchange to come.
“Shit,” Nick says, still sitting rigidly in her grandmother’s chair, one hand gripping each armrest. “I’m really sorry.”
“For what?” she asks, returning to her spot on the couch.
“For coming tonight. . . For not calling first.”
“It’s okay,” she says.
“What are you going to tell him?” he asks her.
“The truth,” she says. “That we’re friends.”
He gives her a long look and says, “Friends. Right.” “We are friends,” she says, desperately clinging to this version of their story.
“I know we’re friends, Val,” he says. “But. . .”
“But what?”
He shakes his head and says, “You know what.”
Her heart stops and she considers a last-ditch effort to change the subject, get up, hurry out to the kitchen to finish her casserole. Instead she whispers, “I know.”
He exhales slowly and says, “This is wrong.”
She feels her hands clench into two fists in her lap as he continues, a note of panic in his voice. “It’s wrong on several levels. At least two.”
She knows exactly what those two levels are but lets him spell it out.
“For one, I’m your son’s doctor—there are ethics involved. Ethics and rules designed to protect patients . . . It would be unfair of me to ... take advantage . . . of your emotions.”
“You’re Charlie’s doctor, yes . . . But that’s not what this is about,” she says adamantly. She has thought about it often, and although she feels endlessly grateful to him, she is certain that she’s not confusing gratitude with anything else. “Besides, I’m not your patient.”
“You’re his mother. It’s actually, probably worse,” Nick says. “I shouldn’t be here. Jason knows it. You know it. I know it.”
She nods, staring down at her hands, aware that he is referring to his second point, the one she has yet to address. The small issue of his marriage.
“So does that mean you’re leaving?” she finally asks.
He moves to the couch, next to her, and says, “No. I’m not leaving. I’m going to sit here next to you and continue to torture myself.” His eyes are intense, almost angry—but also resolved—as if he hates to be tested and refuses to lose.