Helen steered Phoebe’s car with ease. When Phoebe had called, after hearing the initial garble of words, her friend said simply, “Give me the name of the hospital.”
“I’m sorry you had to rescue me again.” Phoebe leaned against the cool window glass, her headache still throbbing, though at a softer beat. “Kate wanted to come, but there was nobody to watch the girls and Noah . . . well, Noah isn’t doing well and—”
“Let’s not call it a rescue, and please don’t apologize. It’s friendship. Hey, Alan and I got to listen to an entire audiobook on the way up. After all these years, that’s practically sex for us.”
“Eva spoke to me the other day. She’s not that angry at me.”
“Why would she be?” Helen’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Jake’s the bad guy, remember?”
Helen, not having lost anything through the Club, didn’t understand how anger at him fell on her. But that worked out well, giving Phoebe one friend with whom she could be the same person as always. “The woman appointed to oversee the bakery isn’t that awful, apparently. She let them stay on as managers, but eventually the feds want to sell the place.”
“Why don’t you get involved?”
“How?”
Helen squeezed her arm. “There’s your first step. Figuring it out.”
A wave of interest came through for the first time in too long. Swift adaptation saved you, not wallowing in the muck. Bianca had freed her.
“I left Jake,” she said. “Although considering he’s in prison for his next two lifetimes, that’s a tough one for me to claim.”
“No. Prison or not, you were still tied to him. Strangle-tied.”
Phoebe opened a sleeve of Oreos, handing two to Helen before stuffing one into her mouth. She crunched the brittle cookie and comforting cream, grateful to be shooting down a dark road. Highways were built for confessions.
“Noah is locked in the past,” Phoebe said.
“The past isn’t far away. You shouldn’t be surprised.”
“I don’t think he’s trying to get out. I don’t mean he’s enjoying it, but an undertow of depression is pulling at him. I’m worried about him. About Kate too, of course, but Noah is drowning in everything. Kate says he’s online all day, seeing the awful things being said, worrying about the case against them—”
“Is that going anywhere?”
“The lawyers are confident criminal charges won’t be filed, but public perception is killing him. All their money is tied up. Kate’s also, but it’s worse for Noah. They only had his income. His wife is back to teaching, but they can’t live on what Beth brings in.”
Drifting thoughts floated on the Valium cloud where Doc Bunyan had sent her. “Jesus. The book! I have to get in touch with Kate and Noah.”
“Call. Now. From the way you described it, they’ll need as much preparation as possible. Call Kate first.” Helen didn’t have to say why.
Kate answered the phone saying, “How are you? Helen called.”
“Did you realize your father had mistresses?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “That came out just awful. Can I blame the drugs they gave me at the hospital? Baby, we’ll have to hunker down for another humiliation.”
When she finished telling a G-rated version of Bianca’s story, Kate sighed. “He’s humiliated himself, Mom, not you, but this will be bad for Noah. He confronted Dad about other women in the past. Guilt ate at him, as though he hid something for Daddy. When is the book coming out?”
“Next month,” Phoebe said. “I need to see Noah. Help me.”
? ? ?
Bloat obscured Noah’s fine features. He wore rumpled chinos and a too-small sweatshirt she recognized from college. Nevertheless, he was there, and the sight of him meant everything.
“When are you going to tell him you’ll never see him again?” Noah asked. “You’re not going there again, are you?”
“I went there to tell him, honey, but that’s when I fainted. I’m not sure—”
“Did he get the message?”
Phoebe thought of the letters still coming daily. The phone calls she didn’t answer. “Sort of.”
“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
“It means he heard, but didn’t accept it.”
Noah paced in a small circle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art seemed like a good place to meet when she proposed it—Beth thought they shouldn’t be at their house, not with the kids still so confused—a neutral space where they could sit and not be faced with Noah having to say yes or no to alcohol, but it had been a horrible choice. They avoided the museum restaurant that served booze, leaving only the cavernous cafeteria or sitting on uncomfortable benches, facing first the sentimentality of American impressionist Mary Cassatt—a reminder of just how shitty their lives were in comparison to her subject—and then Salvador Dalí’s Crucifixion, a message of life’s cruelty.
She tucked her arm in his. “Walk with me.”
They strolled past a wealth of brilliance, seeing nothing.
“Just write him and say fuck off,” Noah said as they waited for the elevator.
“I’m tempted.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
They walked a bit farther, until she’d found her way to the Chinese courtyard. They settled on one of the graceful benches, Phoebe grateful to sit someplace peaceful.
“I’m not joking, Mom.” Noah twisted on the wooden seat, straddling it so he could face her. “You don’t owe him a thing. Just send a short letter. A note. ‘Fuck you; leave me alone.’ Tell the prison you don’t want to hear from him. Get off the list of people he can call, or write. Damn it, Mom. Don’t offer him another ounce of kindness.”
She wanted to gather him into her arms, her poor son, his sweetness eaten up with shame and bitterness. “It’s not about him, honey. It’s about doing it right for me.”
“That’s a lie.” He swung his legs back around and rested his head in his hands.
“How am I lying?”
“Writing means you’re trying to do one last thing for him. Same with seeing him or calling. Do you still think something can get through? He’s fucked up and useless.”
Noah moved closer, and she put her arms around him. He leaned toward her, coming to rest his head on her shoulder. “Everything hurts.”
“Oh, baby,” she murmured. “Sweetheart, let me help you find your way out. You can do it. For you, for Beth, for the girls.”
He shook his head as though telling her he was lost. “I feel as though I’m being crushed.”
“By who? By what?”
“By the hate directed at us. Don’t you feel it? Have you seen what people say about us? The cartoons? The comments? I want to stand up to it, answer them, tell the truth—but I don’t know how.”
“You can’t take on the world one person at a time, Noah. Especially not when you’re like this.”
“Like what?” he asked.
Phoebe wasn’t sure if he’d become truly disconnected or if he was in denial about how low Jake had knocked him. “Baby, your drinking is out of control.”
“Beth told you?” He drew away. “She doesn’t understand.”