“And it sucks you guys have been fighting,” Cam said, not looking up.
We all let that sink in. It felt like our collective sadness made the whole house sag on its beams.
“Boys,” Chuck said, “can you give your mom and me a minute?”
On their way out, Chuck gave them each a hug. “I love you, Jed.” “I love you, Cam.”
Chuck closed the door and sat back down on the carpet. Why didn’t he sit next to me?
“Hi, Nancy,” Chuck said.
“Hi, Chuck.”
“Ana’s gone,” he confirmed.
“Gone,” I said, like I was still getting used to it myself.
“She’s not coming back?”
“No,” I said, “she’s not coming back.”
“Okay,” Chuck said. And that was it. He didn’t say, I was right. He didn’t remind me of how she’d put a snake in his car. He just left it. Which astonished me. It was so kind.
I looked at my fingers. Green from the necklace. “Chuck,” I said, “do you think you’ll stay sober this time?”
“I hope so,” Chuck said. “It feels different this time.”
I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. It was impossible to tell, because I don’t think he knew either.
“How do you know when it feels different? Doesn’t every time feel different in the beginning?”
“This might sound ridiculous,” he said, picking at the carpet like Jed had, “but the other night, I saw you and Ana sneaking off to go somewhere, and I had no idea where you were going. And I just had this feeling that I had lost you, or that I was losing you. That you were about to be gone.”
My hand covering my mouth. Tears in my eyes. He had seen us leave that night. If he hadn’t been drunk, maybe he would have figured it out.
Chuck stood up. He took my hand. I was still holding the necklace. “Oh,” he said, “did it fall off?? I can put it back on for you.”
“No.” I slipped it into his pocket. “You can get rid of it.”
“No problemo,” he said. Oh, Chuck.
I wrapped my arms around his body like my arms belonged there. He smelled like the soap they used at Tyke’s, and I still didn’t know where that was. I squeezed him. I squeezed him so hard.
How the elements needed each other, she had said. How the sky needs the earth, how fire needs water, how wind needs stillness. How the two halves of the necklace fit together perfectly to make one whole. How I had always needed that other piece to feel like I was surviving.
What it was like to hug Chuck. He was so much taller than I was. My head didn’t reach high enough to settle on his shoulder. His belt pressed into my ribs. But it was fine. Because I knew how to make it work. I knew that if we held on tight enough, we could keep going.
40
In the morning I went back to her.
I followed the nurse to her room. She didn’t see me at first. She was talking to the old woman parked in a wheelchair by her bed. She’d somehow rigged the hospital gown to give her more cleavage, and she was saying, “If you don’t have a Jacuzzi, deep tissue massage is your new best friend,” and the old woman, wide eyes, was tilting her head so her hearing aid could pick up Ana’s voice more clearly.
I set her duffel bags on the floor. The Buddhas clanked. Their conversation stopped.
“Nan,” she said. The flicker of blue light in her eyes. She smiled. All those sparkling white teeth. Her pink cheeks, her alabaster skin. Even without the wig, she looked healthy. I could see now that she’d looked this healthy the whole time. “I didn’t know if you’d come,” she said.
“I brought you your things,” I said, looking at the old woman.
The woman pointed at me with a shaky finger. “Is this—”
“Yes,” Ana told her.
“Oh,” the old woman said, “I’m sorry about your house. To lose everything in a fire. It must have been devastating.”
“I told Glenda about how your house burned down,” Ana said. “And how I have nowhere to live now that you’re moving back to San Diego.”
“Aaah,” I said, amused.
“So we’ve decided”—Glenda set her trembling hand on Ana’s leg—“that Ana will move into my house.”
“Glenda’s my new best friend,” Ana explained.
“Ohhhhh,” Glenda said, and blew Ana a wobbly kiss.
“You are!” Ana told her.
“This woman,” Glenda said to me, “has been through so much. It’s incredible. Isn’t it incredible?”
“Incredible, yes,” I said. “Beyond credible.”
“You’re a survivor, Ana,” Glenda told her.
Ana smoothed her palm up the side of her head. All those tiny black hairs. Even since yesterday, it seemed they had grown. Soon it would be a buzz cut, and people would think she was edgy. “I am a survivor,” Ana said. When she looked at me, her eyes were alive and glimmering and totally empty.
The nurse appeared in the doorway. “Glenda, time for your appointment.”
Glenda looked for a clock on the wall but didn’t find one. “Already?” she asked.
The nurse, in a rush, took the handles of Glenda’s wheelchair and popped the brake. “Nice to meet you, Nan,” Glenda said.
“It’s Nancy, actually,” I said. “My name is Nancy.”
Glenda smiled as though she hadn’t heard me, and then the nurse wheeled her away.
Ana leaned back into her pillows. “Nan,” she cooed.
I folded my arms across my chest. “You look well.”
“I feel great here. They have the best food and—”
“You look well because you’re not dying of pancreatic cancer.”
She stared straight at me, looking bored, and said, “A miracle it went away.”
“And you never had breast cancer either.”
She said nothing.
“How could you lie about cancer?”
“I didn’t want you to leave me.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you.”
“Everyone leaves,” she said, and flicked something off the sheets.
“Everyone leaves because you lie to them,” I said. “You’re a liar.”
She chuckled. “So are you.”
I sounded like a child when I said, “No I’m not.”
She tapped her IV. “I expected you to turn us in.” Her eyes flashed. “But you didn’t.”
“Because I don’t deserve to be punished for you.”
“Yeah, Nan.” That sly smile. “Whatever gets you to sleep at night.” She kept tapping the IV. “But don’t walk out of here thinking you’re better than me. You’re not. We are the same.”
“We are not the same.”
“Oh but we are. You might have a cute mountain house and a sweet, troubled husband and two beautiful—beautiful—children. Sorry about Jed, by the way, that was not nice of me. But your little family and your little house on the prairie—none of that means you’re better than me. You’ve just had more luck.”
I laughed. “You believe in luck now?”
“Who doesn’t believe in luck?” she said.
I looked out the window. The palm trees. The blue morning light. It was a perfect sunny day. I didn’t know why it felt necessary to ask. “How long have you been taking antidepressants?”
The way she looked at me, the way her hooded eyelids blinked so slowly. What she had just understood about me. Why I still cared. “Oh, Nan,” she said.
I shifted my weight. “What?”
“If I tell you, it will hurt.”