“Well, wasn’t that nice of Daphne to come,” I said.
“I’m pretty good friends with her. She lives in Raleigh now,” Max said.
“Oh. Did she ever finish her undergraduate degree?” I said.
“Not yet. She’s taking courses to be a dental hygienist and working at Quail Ridge Books on the weekends,” Max said.
“Yeah, remember her friend Kelly?” Luke said.
“Yes, I do,” I said, remembering the summer of Kelly’s tattoo—and oh, by the way, she’s a Leo.
“She lives in Atlanta,” Luke said.
“What a coincidence,” I said, and then I knew exactly what my boys were up to. “You should never try to pull a fast one on your mother.”
And to think I’d ever given their love lives a moment of concern. What was I thinking? Of course they had girlfriends. They’d probably had a hundred, for all I knew.
“Good morning!” I said to them all. “How’s Adam doing? Any change?”
“None,” Carl said. “But here’s what I’ve learned. Luke? Max? You’re off the hook. So are you, Eliza. I, however, am type O. So is Adam. I am a match.”
Oh, dear God! I started to panic. Would Carl be willing to be Adam’s donor or not? Eve looked like she might start crying. Ted was pale. He had to be thinking that what he had accused Carl and me of doing wasn’t going to help his case now. In fact, he had given Carl a reason to walk away from all of us. Cookie, for once in her life, was silent.
“Why don’t the three of us go get a cup of coffee,” I said.
“Good idea,” Carl said.
Eve, Carl, and I left the others there and went down to the cafeteria where we could speak in relative privacy. We all got coffee and sat a few tables away from the people who were there reading and eating. We took a seat and Carl cleared his throat.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t feel so great about giving part of my liver to a guy who’s been mooning over my wife for years.”
I was speechless. Absolutely without words. And then Eve spoke.
“You listen to me, Carl Landers. I’d had it up to here with all the accusations flying around us. How long do you think it took Cookie to tell me about the two of you being in Greece together? Two seconds, that’s how long! And do you think I believed that you were sleeping together? Hell, no, I didn’t. I know the two of you! So you were both in Greece. So what? You’re not sleeping with Eliza any more than I was sleeping with Adam. If I’d wanted to sleep with Adam I would’ve said, I’m sorry, Carl, I want a divorce. I had a million opportunities to do that over all these years and I never did. You want to know why? Because I love you. And I love you, Eliza. And I know Adam loves both of you too. Carl, he’s the closest thing to a brother you’ve ever had. This is ridiculous. Adam’s up there hanging on to life with a wing and a prayer. And he needs you now. And Eliza needs you too. And no matter what Cookie thinks with her stupid mind games and insinuations, she’s wrong, just like she’s been wrong all my life. And Ted?”
I said, “He’s not thinking straight right now. Clarabeth’s hardly cold and Adam’s as sick as he can be. He’s scared to death.”
“Carl? You know Adam loves you and has looked up to you all these years,” Eve said.
I said, “It’s true, Eve. Everything you said is true. Please, God, don’t let Adam die. Not like this. Not because of Cookie’s lies.”
“They’re not all lies,” Eve said. “There was a time when we were practically babies, that Adam and I knew each other in an intimate way. Now, and every time he sees me coming, he remembers being so young and carefree. But listen to me, he’s not in love with me. He was just infatuated with a ghost of the past. He’s not that young man anymore, and I’m not that young girl! We’re not even who we were when we first met each other, that first summer when our children were so young and you were whipping Adam’s self-esteem on the golf course! We are who we are now, and we’re still together because of the nearly twenty years of love between all of us. Real, deep, and abiding love. If you want that all to end, Carl, it can end right now. It’s your call.”
I’d never heard Eve speak so eloquently and with so much passion. She was right. That ditzy blonde I met at Wild Dunes decades ago was long gone.
Eve and I stared at Carl, waiting for him to say something.
After what seemed like an eternity, he finally spoke.
“I never said I wouldn’t give him part of my liver. I just said I didn’t feel so great about it. I’m a little nervous, you know?”
“I can’t blame you for that,” I said.
“He’s a doctor,” Eve said. “He knows too much for his own good.”
“No more blame,” Carl said. “Let’s get these wheels in motion.”
I was so overcome with emotion and gratitude that I threw my arms around Carl and cried.
chapter 20
eliza
The worst part of major surgery for the family is always the waiting. According to the transplant surgeon Carl’s surgery would take about five hours. They were going to take only part of his right lobe, but still—five hours under anesthesia was no small thing. Most of his liver would regenerate in two weeks, and his hospital stay would be five to seven days. That didn’t sound so awful, but we all knew Carl would have significant discomfort. But he was willing to withstand it for Adam’s sake. Saving your friend’s life was the most heroic thing I could imagine a friend could do, and I loved Carl for it.
“Greece would’ve been more fun than this,” he said.
“Adam and I owe you a vacation there,” I said. “We’ll foot the bill.”
“Eve, I want to show you the cottage where I stayed, right on the ocean,” Carl said.
“And I want to see it with you. Greece. Something for us to look forward to!” Eve said.