“Are you blind, Ted? Don’t you see what’s going on here?” she said.
“Lower your voice, Cookie. Whatever is going on is none of your business,” Ted said firmly. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
She turned on her heel and blustered away to the ladies’ room. I looked at Ted.
“There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,” I said.
“Let me explain it to him, Eliza,” Carl said.
While we waited for the bags Carl talked and Ted listened. As Carl finished talking, Ted crossed his arms and let it all sink in. Then he spoke.
“That’s a good story, but it looks like monkey business to me. Sorry, but it does.”
“Ted! I’m surprised at you,” I said. “I’ve been your faithful daughter-in-law for almost twenty-five years and you know it. I’m not interested in Carl! He’s my friend! And that’s all there is to it!”
“Right. Okay. Now, why don’t you two just get your bags and let’s get to the hospital. My son is a very sick man.”
Cookie returned with her jaw locked up as tight as a clam and refused to make eye contact with either of us. The bags came up and we took them from the carousel. We rolled them to Ted’s car in silence and rode to the hospital in silence. Finally, Carl broke the tension.
“This is absurd,” he said. “Never once have I touched Eliza or any other woman, with the exception of my wife, in all the years I’ve been married. I wouldn’t be here if Adam wasn’t one of my dearest friends. By the way, where is Eve?”
“Why, she’s by Adam’s bedside! Where else would she be?” Cookie said.
“Sweet Jesus,” I said.
“That figures,” Carl said.
“Look,” I said, “Carl and I don’t need anyone to accuse us of something we didn’t do. So why don’t we all just cool it and focus on Adam.”
Carl and I looked at each other. They were accusing us the same way we had accused Adam and Eve, because on the surface it probably did look like there was some monkey business going on between Carl and me. But this was different. Wasn’t it? Although a tiny little bubble in my conscience gave me a nudge to remind me that if Carl and I had been in Corfu for an extended period of time and Adam and Eve were out of the picture, something might have happened. No, something would’ve happened eventually.
We pulled into the MUSC driveway and gave the keys to the valet parking attendant. We got out and hurried to Adam’s room in the intensive care unit. Ted pushed the door open and there was Adam in the bed with an IV and all sorts of machines monitoring his status. Eve was in the chair by his side. Her face was all blotchy from crying. Adam was asleep. The whole scene was surreal.
“I’m not a match,” she said quietly and began to cry again.
“You were going to give him part of your liver?” I said. At first blush, the idea seemed as extraordinary as it did inappropriate. She thought it would be a good idea to put her liver in my husband’s body? Was she crazy?
“Wouldn’t you?” she said.
In that moment, everything changed between us. Of course she would offer to be a donor! So would I and so would Carl. Any one of us would do anything to save the other.
“Of course I would,” I said.
“As would I,” Carl said. “I’m going to go find the doctor in charge and see what I can find out.” Carl looked at the machines and all their readings and shook his head. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Cookie said to Eve, “Why don’t we go get some coffee and let Eliza have a few minutes with her husband, hmm?”
If there had been a news ticker crawling across Cookie’s forehead, it would’ve said, My daughter’s such a slut, she doesn’t see anything wrong with weeping on someone else’s husband who she’s still in love with, and she’s such an airhead she thinks no one knows.
Ted said, “I’ll come with y’all. Eliza? Would you like coffee or something?”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
Not until you apologize, I thought. He shrugged his shoulders and left.
Ted, of all people I’d ever known, should’ve been the last person to suspect me of having an extramarital affair with anyone, much less with his son’s friend. He and Cookie thought they had caught us red-handed at the airport, as if Carl and I on the same flight proved a single thing. If it hadn’t been so absurd I might have laughed it off. And it struck me then that at that very moment, Cookie was telling Eve about Carl and me flying to Charleston on the same plane, that we had been in Greece together, most likely having sex every five minutes on a beach somewhere, even though it was winter, and chugging ouzo the way she’d done with some Greek stud years ago. Oh, Cookie, I thought, I’m buying you a muzzle for Christmas.
I leaned over Adam and kissed his cheek. He was warm to the touch, but his color was off. Yellow. Jaundiced.
“I’m here, sweetheart. It’s me. Eliza. I love you, Adam. We’re going to get you back on your feet.”
There was no response. I sat in the chair beside him, reached into my purse for Kiki’s worry beads, and began to pray.
Soon, Carl returned and motioned for me to come out into the hall with him.
“The hepatologist’s report says that Adam was admitted with severe abdominal distress and heavy bloating. And he was agitated. That’s why he’s so heavily sedated. If we can find a donor quickly we can save him quickly. I just got tested to see if I can donate. Do you want to get tested too?”
“Yes! Right this minute! And I’m sure the boys will want to be tested too.”
“Have you spoken to them?”
“I left a message for Max and I sent Luke a text. Luke is already in his car. I’m sure Max will show up by the end of the day.”
“Okay, so if you’re a match, there are several tests to be performed. Mainly, you have to swear you have a close personal relationship with Adam, if you are not a family member.”
“We can check that box.”
“And you have to be made to understand all the risks involved. But basically, your liver would be completely regenerated in just a few weeks.”
“Too bad my neck can’t regenerate.”
Carl looked at me like I was crazy.
“Gallows humor?” I said.
“Of course. And you’d have to get an MRI so the surgeon has a road map of your internal organs. We don’t want any unnecessary poking around in your gizzards.”
“Please!” I must have looked horrified at the thought that the surgeon might not know where to find my liver. “MRI! No big deal. I’ll take two!”
“Well, first we have to find out if you’re a match. Since Adam is critical, the labs will be on it.”
I went back down the hall with Carl to a lab where a technician took blood from my arm. While I sat there with a very tight tourniquet just above my left elbow, Adam’s predicament and the horrific possibility of his dying weighed heavily on my mind. I’d do anything I could to save him. He would move the world for me and I knew it.
“Carl?”
“Yes?”
“I’m so afraid for him.”