I did not know how I felt about William. My feelings changed about him, they went up and down like the tides. But William was very often not there in a certain way, and it reminded me of when I was married to him, and how often I had felt that. Sometimes now when I wanted to talk—I have always liked to talk—he would roll his eyes and put his computer down and say, “What is it, Lucy?” And I hated that. So I would say, “Nothing. Forget it.” And he would roll his eyes again and say, “Oh come on, Lucy. There was something you wanted to say. So say it.”
So I might tell him about how Tom was often sitting on his front steps smoking. “Have you seen him? Do you know who I’m talking about?” And William nodded. “I like him so much,” I said. And then I would not be able to go on, because William was so clearly bored. Even when I said that Bob had suggested it was Tom who’d left the sign on our car, William simply shrugged.
At such times, I could not stand him.
But there were other times, often right before we went upstairs to our rooms, where he would soften and talk to me pleasantly. I told myself: His wife just left him last year, he has not seen any of his daughters for a few months, we are in the middle of a pandemic, he can no longer really work. Go easy on him, Lucy.
* * *
—
But then this!
One night as we sat in the living room together—William was typing on his computer—I said, “William, did you always wash your jeans so often?”
William stopped typing and looked straight ahead. Then he closed his computer rather hard, I thought, and looked out the window at the dark. He glanced at me and said, “I had my prostate out, Lucy. I had prostate cancer in late October. I found out a few weeks after you and I had gone to Grand Cayman. And I had it out.”
I waited a moment, and then I said quietly, “You did?”
William sank farther down into his chair and started to jiggle his foot, which was crossed over his other leg, and he said, “I did. Yes, I did. And I went to the guy who was supposed to be the best, and he botched it, Lucy.”
I said, “What do you mean, he botched it?”
William passed a hand down over his lower middle and said, “It doesn’t work anymore. I’m through. No pill can help me. The dickwad surgeon said to me—I was still in the recovery room—he said, ‘I had to cut the nerve.’ And I knew.” William added, “I sometimes still pee in my pants a little bit.”
I sat watching him. Finally I said, “Do the girls know this?”
And he looked surprised and said, No, he had never told them.
“You had cancer and you didn’t tell us?”
“Don’t accuse me, Lucy.”
“No, no,” I said. “No, I’m not. But I’m so sorry, William! Oh my God, I am just so sorry! William, this is—”
And he put up a hand as though to stop me.
So I stopped.
* * *
—
But William stood up a little later and said, “Here’s a good piece of news, though.”
“What?” I asked.
He went to the refrigerator and took out an apple. “Bob Burgess got me in to see his doctor, and my PSA is fine. I found out last month. I was due to have it checked and I was getting worried, but turns out it’s okay.” He bit into the apple. “For now.”
* * *
—
I could not sleep that night. I kept thinking of William and how he had had cancer and had his prostate out and how he had never told anyone. “No one?” I had asked him cautiously, and he said that Jerry had been there for him in the hospital, and after, when he returned home. I’d asked—tentatively—if Estelle knew, and he’d said, No, why would he tell her?
Oh William, I thought— Oh my God. William.
What a thing for him to go through—and to go through alone!
And that dear Bob Burgess had helped him out— Oh Bob, I thought. Oh William!
No wonder William didn’t care about my dream of Elsie Waters. No wonder he could not listen to me often. What a thing he had been through! Swiping his hand down toward the lower middle of himself, “I’m through,” he had said.
William through?
Oh William. Oh dear God. William.
vii
And then a little past the middle of May, this happened: The Second Rescue Story.
* * *
—
William had just gotten off the phone with Bridget and we were getting ready to eat supper when his phone rang; I saw on the front of his phone that it said CHRISSY. I sat at the table while they talked. William’s face looked concerned. “So what time will they be in Connecticut?” He listened, and then he said, “But tell Michael to tell them to go to a hotel.” Then he said, “Okay, I’ll call him.” He listened more, then said, “Right, and she lives where? That’s not far. She is? Okay, get me Melvin’s phone number, Chrissy. Bye.”
* * *
—
William walked around and then he banged his hand hard on the arm of the couch, and he said, “Goddamn piece of crap.” He sat down at the table and looked at me. “Melvin and Barbara are on their way back from Florida tomorrow. They told the kids today. Turns out it’s too hot down there for Melvin to play golf, so they’re coming home. He’s been in restaurants and at the golf club, stupid Barbara has been playing bridge with her fucking bridge club— Jesus Christ, Lucy! They know Michael has asthma! Are they really that stupid?”
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. Finally I asked, “Do they want the kids to leave?”
“Oh no! No, not at all! They’ll just live there as one big happy family—until they all get sick with Covid.”
“But won’t they go to a hotel for two weeks to quarantine?”
“Apparently that’s not their plan,” William said.
After a few minutes Michael called to give William his father’s cell number, and I heard Michael speaking quietly to William. “Not your fault,” William said. “We’ll talk soon.”
But Melvin did not answer his cellphone. William left him a message saying something to the effect of “Melvin, you’ve been an excellent lawyer all your life. But I am a scientist and I am asking you to quarantine yourselves for two weeks before you see the kids. Your son has asthma and this is not a good thing to have at this point in time.” He said, “Go to your mother-in-law’s condo, Michael said it’s empty. And please call me back.”
* * *
—
I had somehow not thought of Barbara’s mother, who was still alive, that she lived a few miles away from Melvin and Barbara, she had lived alone with two healthcare workers who came in to attend to her; her condo was a one-bedroom and the healthcare workers slept on the couch, I remembered that. But William told me she had just gone into assisted living right before the pandemic and the condo was not yet on the market.
Melvin did not call back.
* * *
—
After supper we sat silently in the living room until eight o’clock, and then William stood up and said, “Okay, Lucy, we’re driving to Connecticut tomorrow. These are our kids, Michael is our kid. You’ll have to pee your brains out first, because you’re not using any public bathroom on the way. We’ll make sandwiches and take them, and we’ll leave at five a.m. I suggest you take a sleeping pill, because I’ll need you to help drive on the way back, and I would like half a pill myself.”
I asked him if we should have Estelle drive and meet us there with Bridget, but he shook his head and put up a hand as though to stop me.
* * *
—