“It’s almost been worth it to go through this horror,” I said, “because I don’t believe I can ever again look at the lowliest angleworm without rejoicing in its suppleness and complexity and sheer life.”
“Speaking of worms,” said Helen, “would you care to give me a tour of the grounds? Will they let you?”
“I’m not permitted to be alone,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. But with you as my escort, they’ll allow us to stroll around the Gardens of Insanity. Your timing’s perfect, too. These drugs make it hard as hell to sit still.”
She helped me to my feet, we returned our cups, and Helen signed me out with the front-desk nurse. We set out among the trees and walking paths and birdbaths; the air was clear and tinged with the loamy defrosting smell that follows a long winter. Thanks to the Thorazine I moved slowly, with stiff shuffling steps, but I didn’t mind; it just meant more time to look.
On one secluded loop in the trail I halted Helen so we could watch a pair of eastern phoebes—elfin and gray, big-headed and fearless, pumping their tails like prizefighters—as they snatched black ants from a redbud’s trunk.
“I wouldn’t wish my troubles on my deadliest enemy,” I said after they’d flown away. “Sometimes I think it would be better never to have known how beautiful the world is. Just to be able to pass calmly by rather than pay the admission fee for a ringside seat. But here I am, ringside again.”
“If you had a deadliest enemy,” Helen said, “which seems unlikely, then I can’t imagine that person could manage to see any beauty in anything at all.”
Unbidden, Olive Dodd popped into my head; I hadn’t thought of her in ages. I recalled the harsh whistle she sounded through my halcyon days, and my wincing contempt for her, but I found that I could no longer feel it. In its place was a sad sympathy, a suspicion that she never managed any happiness.
I was about to ask Helen if she knew what ever became of Olive, when she spoke.
“You can tell me, if you want, that it’s none of my beeswax,” said Helen, taking my elbow to help me around a puddle in the path, “but has Max been to see you yet?”
“Yet?” I said, and laughed. “That’s a good one.”
“I’m sorry, Lily,” she said. “I oughtn’t to have brought it up.”
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “It’s one more thing I’m gearing up to face after I emerge from my cocoon. Max and I are getting a divorce.”
“I’d thought you might be,” Helen said. I could feel her eyes on the side of my face, but I couldn’t look at her directly while we talked about that. “I’m sorry that’s happening, Lily.”
“We’ve been heading down that road for a while, as I think everyone who knows us knows,” I said. And then, because it was clear that Helen was saying both that she was sorry that it was happening and asking more about what was happening, I added, “Even before Julia, Max and I had gotten stuck in a tiresome spiral. I got sadder and Max couldn’t handle it and flung himself into the younger arms of his workplace subordinate. I found out and we tried to fix it, but I got worse—more drunk, more distant. He kept seeing her until finally I just broke and the rest is pretty well on the record. They’re out and official now, at least, and I can look at my situation honestly, as well as at theirs.”
“Dwight and I thought you might patch things up.”
“No,” I said. “No. The new-girlfriend rift is sadly unpatchable. But do you know what’s funny? Looking back, I can’t understand how or why I suffered such intense melancholy when I found out about Julia.”
“Well,” she said. “It was frankly a snaky thing for Max to do. Taking up with her the way he did, with you in such a state.”
“My reaction was out of proportion, though,” I said. “That’s my point. I can see that now. As much as I loved Max, as much as I still do, it’s still not comprehensible that such an estrangement of affection could cause a person to literally shut down. To make them unable to pack a suitcase, or to get on a plane or train alone. Barely able to do it even with the aid of as faithful a friend as you.”
“I should never have let you board that ship,” said Helen, stopping in the middle of the path. “I could tell. I knew you weren’t well. And look what happened.”
“That incident, dear Helen, is something I cannot talk about,” I said. “But it’s not your fault. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s nobody’s but mine. Even Max, blameworthy though he may be in other respects, isn’t indictable on this count. Not really. Please don’t forget that.”
She was silent.
“Want to hear one more fun fact about Max’s new lease on life?” I asked.
“Probably not,” she said. “But all right.”
“He called me up last week,” I said. “The day I got back from Greenwich Hospital. And asked if I could fly to Reno.”
“Reno?” said Helen. “To expedite the breakup?”