*
ONE AFTERNOON, DURING the lull between PT and dinner that I had come to regard as a sacred napping period, I had an unexpected visitor. Chip’s mom, Evelyn.
She arrived while I was sleeping, and noisily scooted the visitor chair around until I opened my eyes.
“Oh,” she said, “were you sleeping?”
She knew I was. “Yes.”
“You seem surprised to see me.”
I was. I hadn’t seen anyone outside a very small inner circle since I’d been in here. On purpose. “I have a no-visitors policy.”
“I told them I was your mother-in-law. To-be.”
“Guess that worked.”
She hadn’t seen me since the ER. “You look much better.” Her words were kind, but her eyes were critical as she took me in. The way she was studying me made my face start itching. She went on, “Except for those scabs on your neck, and—oh, God!” She’d caught a glimpse of my skin grafts. She looked away and tried to regroup.
“Did they have to shave your head?” she asked after a while, like of course the answer would be yes.
“No,” I said. “It’s just a pixie cut.”
“I’m sure it’ll grow out again soon.”
“I’m going to keep it this way. I like it.”
“Oh, don’t!” she said. Then, “It’s a little masculine.”
“I think it’s cool.”
“I’m sure you’ll change your mind once you’re back to your old self.”
Chip’s mother was a lot like my mother. Overly put-together. Overly focused on how things looked instead of how things felt. Overly hard on both herself and others, but too gracious to say it in polite conversation.
Still, sometimes it leaked out in funny ways.
I’d known her long enough to know what she was thinking. She and my mother played tennis together, and got pedicures together, and had a genuine friendship that they each treasured. They’d lived next door to each other for ten years, and in that time I don’t think they’d ever had a disagreement. It was a remarkable coincidence that two such women should wind up neighbors. They shared the same thoughts on almost everything, and the principal gist of every conversation was to validate each other’s worldview. What are the odds?
Of course they were rooting for Chip and me. Of course they wanted us all to be just one big, happy family.
Which is why I didn’t see it coming when she frowned, pulled her chair a little closer, and said, “I want to talk to you about Chip.”
It was funny to hear his name. He had started showering again, I noticed at his last visit, which felt like progress. He’d also sent several flower arrangements, and even though I’d left instructions for all flowers to be sent down to the children’s wing, the ones from him managed to make it through.
My mother liked to arrange and rearrange them on the windowsill.
He was making an effort. I had to give him that.
“He seems better,” I said to Evelyn. “He’s showering again, I think.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “And he’s not out all night at bars anymore.”
“Progress,” I said.
“But,” she said then, taking my hand and squeezing it, “I don’t think he’s happy.”
Happy? Was that an option? I was just shooting for “conscious.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she went on. “I’m worried about him.”
“I’m worried about all of us,” I said.
But she had something to say, and she was going to say it. “He’s been so crushed by what happened. It really has torn him to shreds. He has to force himself to come here every time he visits. Every time he looks at your poor face, the guilt is just overwhelming.”
“Are you asking me to feel sorry for Chip?”
Her voice took an indignant turn. “It’s been hard on him, too, Margaret.”
“I’m sure it has. Hard on his liver, at the very least.”
“Not everyone is as strong as you are.”
“I’m not strong. I’m just trapped. My body keeps breathing against my will.”
She wasn’t having it. “Don’t be dramatic.”
I leaned back against my pillow and squeezed my eyes shut. I was giving up my nap for this.
Evelyn took that moment to get herself back on track. “Chip’s father and I have talked about it, and we’d like to ask a favor of you.”
I opened my eyes. “A favor?”
“You know how loyal Chip is. You know how important it is to him to do the right thing. You know he would never, ever let himself call off your engagement.”
“I’m not even sure that we are technically engaged,” I said. Had we settled that?
“You’re wearing my mother’s two-carat diamond. I think that counts.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m just not sure what your expectations are—given your situation.”
Where was this headed? “My situation that Chip caused?”
“You wouldn’t want him to marry you out of guilt, would you?”
“What are you saying?”
She sat back a bit. “He’s in a very strange predicament.”
“Aren’t we fucking all?”
“Please watch your language.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
She blinked at me for a second. “We’re all coping the best we can.”
“Some of us better than others.” My thoughts started spinning. “Hold on—did he send you here? Did he send his mother to break up with me?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“So you just decided this was any of your business?”
“My child is my business.”
“He’s not a child!”
She sat up a little straighter. “A marriage—starting a lifetime together—needs a strong foundation of…” She seemed to cast around for the word. “Desire.”
Desire? Were we talking about sex now? “Desire?”
“Among other things.”
A strange, acid anger started burning in my chest. She did not just walk into this room and creepily tell me her son no longer wanted to screw me. “Oh, he’s got plenty of desire,” I said. She really wanted to get into this? This was where she wanted to go? Fine. We’d go there. I could go there all day.
“He’s got desire in the golf house at the club,” I said. “And in his childhood bedroom. And on the garden bench beside your weird little cherub statues. And in your master-bath Jacuzzi when you’re on vacation. And even in the kitchen pantry during Christmas dinner. Your ‘child’ is a tenth-degree horn-dog. He’s got more than enough desire. I think he’ll find a way to manage.”
I wanted it to feel good to attack her like that, but it didn’t.
Evelyn stayed still as stone. “That was before,” she said at last. “Things have changed.”
“Yes they fucking have.”
She turned her face away at that word—again. “Chip’s father and I feel that he’s looking for something else now. Something he can’t find in you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you?”
Her face was solemn. “He says he wants to be with you, but we can plainly see his actions.”
“What actions?”
She closed her mouth as if I’d asked some wildly inappropriate question. As if she wasn’t the person who had brought the whole thing up in the first place.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I demanded. “What actions are you talking about?”
I could see that she realized she’d said too much.
I leaned forward. “Tell me,” I said, my voice menacing.
She turned away.
As she did, we both caught sight of a figure in the doorway.
Chip.
If I could have slapped him across the face right then, I would have. “Did you send your mother to break up with me?”
Chip looked at his mother. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to help you.” Her voice suddenly got wobbly. “Your father and I are very worried.” She lifted her hand to her face, and I realized she was wiping away tears. All at once, she looked very fragile—and I regretted, a little, how many times I’d just said “fuck.”
A son can’t be angry with his crying mother. His voice got tender. “Mom,” he said. “You can’t help me. Don’t help me, okay?”