“You stayed a long time for a woman who had no trust and very little love.”
“While I might not have looked too closely, Chad was a good partner. Until just lately. As I told you, a few months before the accident he started to complain of not being happy enough. He said his life was unfulfilling. He was missing something. I was furious, hearing that! After I’d made the commitment to stay despite the imperfections, he had a nerve! That’s why I suspected an affair.” She laughed hollowly. “When I saw her at the service, I thought his pregnant daughter might’ve been his mistress.”
“And he was a good father, in spite of his shortcomings,” Joe said.
“His children loved him very much,” she said. “I suppose I have to tell them...”
“Do you?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “God knows I don’t want to.”
“Why? Are you worried about how it’s going to make them see their father?”
“No. I’m worried about how it’s going to make them see me.”
Anna and Joe talked for a long time, through at least three glasses of wine each and some Thai takeout. Anna told him she had always seen her life and her marriage as fairly simple. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but compared to the relationships some of her clients struggled with, hers was uncomplicated by comparison. She knew Chad well; she knew exactly what she could trust. And she knew exactly what she didn’t want to know.
She didn’t want to know just how unfaithful he had been because that would inevitably lead to just how little he valued their relationship. Their marriage. Before Bess was conceived, while they were still knocking around the idea of divorce, Chad continued to praise her, but he didn’t tell her he loved her. She would ask him from time to time and he would answer, “Of course I love you, Anna. I will always love you. You’re the mother of my children.”
She had been asking herself for more than twenty years if that was a compliment or more the lesser of evils.
Joe’s expression changed slightly when she said that. “What?” she asked. “Why did you suddenly look uncomfortable?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “What a bastard,” he said. “You were the wronged party and he didn’t do much to make you feel vindicated.”
“From that time on I always suspected I was just one of many. He might not have been sleeping with many women, I’ll never really know. But you know Chad. He was a flirt and a man who thrived on the attention he got from women.”
“That much is true,” Joe said. “Who among us hasn’t been guilty of that? You don’t have to answer, but did you take a lover?”
She just shook her head. “I took a career.”
And no ordinary career. She became a popular talk show guest and experienced expert witness. Eventually, she was appointed to a superior court justice position. Her honor.
Chad became quite well-known in the city, having done a great deal to support charities. And Anna became well-known for her position as a judge whose verdicts were thoughtful and fair.
It was after ten when Anna reclined on the couch and nodded off. She was vaguely aware of Joe covering her with a throw, which she pulled around herself as she yielded to sleep. In the early predawn, the house dark but for a stove light in the kitchen, she rose, found her sweater and purse and set about leaving. After a visit to the bathroom, she went to the kitchen and began scribbling a note on the notepad that listed eggs, bread, mayo and laundry detergent.
“You’re leaving?” Joe asked from the shadows.
She jumped. “Oh! Did I wake you?”
“Not really. I heard you moving around. You’re leaving?”
“I thought I’d go home, curl up in my own bed.”
“You can stay. You can have my bed if that would be more comfortable.”
“Thanks, but I think I’d rather find my own bed. And I’ve taken enough of your time and sympathy.”
“I didn’t mind, you know. Any time you need me...” He gently grabbed her shoulders. “Are you all right to drive?”
“Sure. It’s been hours since I’ve had alcohol.”
“Will you text me when you’re home safely?”
“Okay. It’s a long drive, you know.”
“I know. I’d appreciate the text. And I’d like to say, when this storm passes, remember that it’s all right for you to be happy. To think of yourself sometimes instead of putting everyone else first. That’s what you’ve been doing, I know. This next stage, this can be yours.”
“Thanks, Joe,” she said. “No one has ever said that to me before.”
SIX
Jessie McNichol was a beautiful woman, so the only person surprised that Dr. Patrick Monahan was attracted to her was Jessie. People often told her she was beautiful but Jessie thought of herself as vulnerable and naive. She fell in love quickly, totally and frequently. And, usually, tragically. She had tallied up a string of heartbreaks a mile long, starting with Ryan Siverhorn in the sixth grade.
Patrick Monahan was sexy and enormously accomplished in his field. Even though he’d been single for years, she had never heard any hospital gossip about him dating or being involved but she instinctively knew she would be the envy of every woman who knew, maybe even the married ones. And for the ninety-secondth time, she thought, Maybe this is it. She was not the least troubled by their age difference.
He phoned her as he said he would, and even though it was very late when he called, they chatted for an hour. He sent her a text in the morning saying he very much enjoyed their chat. He wasn’t due any time off for a few days after returning to town, but he called and their talks grew more personal and entertaining. It took exactly two days for her to begin to look forward to his calls and she learned so much about him. For one thing, he was so kind and tender. He asked repeatedly how she was doing with missing her father, something she needed to be asked. She really needed someone besides her mother to care. And he told her what sorts of things made him happy. Good fiction lit him up; he looked forward to having a great story to read and hated to see it end too soon, but of course he read too fast—a by-product of medical school. He loved live music, as did she. And movies. They began a list of books, concerts and movies they wanted to see together.
And about five calls into their new relationship, she asked him what happiness meant to him. He said, “Successful surgeries, good sailing weather, minimal conflict in the neurosurgery department and it always feels good to be madly in love.” He seemed to add that as an afterthought.
She was in a fever of longing.
Finally the night of their dinner out arrived. They were going to a nice restaurant in the city and would walk around San Francisco after. She lived a quick commute to the city while he lived in the city so they arranged to meet. He waited outside the restaurant, and when she approached him, he smiled and stood stock-still, just staring at her. His eyes glittered. “My God, you’re beautiful.”
She smiled back and said, “So are you.”
He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her toward him, giving her cheek a kiss. “Thank you for going out with me.”
And Jessie thought, Are you kidding me right now?
Here he was the most attractive, smartest, most successful doctor she knew and he was thanking her? She was just a thirty-one-year-old internist with a string of failed relationships in her past, and yet he was thanking her?
That fast, she was a goner.
He took her to an exquisite seafood restaurant in Union Square. It was elegant, dimly lit with plenty of dark corners and fancy specialty drinks. Other diners in the room would immediately know they weren’t married because of how intently they talked and talked. They entertained each other for a while with med school and internship tales.
They walked around the city after dinner, confessing to each other that it was such a nice change from last year when COVID had been raging and the streets and sidewalks were barren. Now there were more people about, though most restaurants had kept their occupancy lower than capacity. About half the people out and about still wore their masks in public, including Patrick and Jessie, especially in crowded places, though they had both received the vaccine and the virus was now so low in numbers it was no longer required. They talked a little about what a dark time that had been, especially for people in medicine. “For a while I was so lonely I answered the spam calls,” she told him, making him laugh, and he pulled her close for a squeeze.
“My house isn’t far from here,” he said. “I cleaned up before coming to get you just in case you’d accept my invitation for a nightcap. Or, if you’re not comfortable with that, I’d be happy to take you home.”
“Not comfortable? I know where you work,” she said with a laugh.