I shifted on my chair. “But you think I should remove mine.”
“Look. Let me put this simply.” His fingers raced along the edge of the desk between us, back and forth, constant motion. “There’s a big difference between you and that Russian engineer. His bullet wasn’t bothering him. Yours is. Plus, you’re young and healthy. A much better candidate for surgery.”
He walked me through what surgery would entail. One operation, lasting four to five hours. I pressed him for details, best-and worst-case scenarios. We talked for another thirty minutes.
As I stood to leave, I posed the question that doctors must dread: What would he do if it were him? Or his daughter, or his wife?
Marshall Gellert did not mince words. “If it were me, I’d want it out.”
“I thought you would say that.”
“Sorry to be predictable. You know what they say. Show a surgeon a problem, he’ll want to operate on it. It’s what we’re trained to do. But, Ms. Cashion? As an added bonus in your case, it’s also the right thing to do.”
I studied his eyes. Studied his hands. Felt myself arrive at a decision.
“Will it come out intact? I’ll be able to keep it?”
He looked at me strangely. “As a souvenir?”
I thought of Beamer Beasley. Of the little house on Eulalia Road, and the horror that had played out there. As I’d slept on the plane this morning, I had dreamed of Sadie Rawson, of her smile—so like mine—beaming out from the faded newspaper photograph.
“Something like that,” I said.
Twenty-two
* * *
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2013
I spent the weekend alone.
I had let everything slide, and now I devoted myself to restoring a semblance of order to my life. Mail was sorted, houseplants watered, bills paid. I got the car washed and collected my dry cleaning. Will and I texted each other, flirty “thinking of you” messages. I phoned him on Saturday, but he did not come by, and I found that I was fine with that. The thing about being an introvert is that people get on your nerves after a while, even people you like. Whether Will could sense this, or whether he was just busy, I didn’t know. But after the demands of interacting with so many new people in Atlanta, I was grateful to retreat and spend time on my own.
The exception to this—and one of the reasons I’d always considered myself closer to them than to anyone else—is my parents. They didn’t exhaust me the way other people did. Sunday afternoon I drove over and let myself in the kitchen door as usual. My mother cooked; my father leaned against the counter, scratched Hunt behind the ears, and chatted about the Le Carré novel he was reading. They seemed determined to carry on as though nothing had happened. To preserve the rhythms of our prior life. I understood. Informing this display of nonchalance was a desperate, almost tangible current of love. You could read in their eyes the words they were not saying out loud: You are our daughter, this is your home, nothing has changed.
I watched my mother shake an ungodly amount of salt into a bubbling pot. She glanced around, held out her hand, said nothing. I passed her the pepper grinder. When you’ve cooked beside someone for thirty years, you know what ingredient she wants before she knows it herself. My mother scowled at the pot. Stirred, sniffed, hesitated. Nutmeg. I passed it over. The glorious smell of chicken browning in butter filled the kitchen. For the thousandth time I marveled at how she stayed so slim when she cooked like this every night. Seventy-four years old, but from the back you would mistake her for a girl. Her movements had a lightness, a nervousness, like the skittish peck-and-hop of a sparrow. So different from the way I moved. I had never thought about it before. She held out her hand. Paprika.
Over bowls of chicken and dumplings, I shared a heavily edited account of my trip to Atlanta. They already knew the headlines. I told them about my visit to Sibley Hospital, about Marshall Gellert and my decision to go ahead with surgery. They seemed to take this as a given. Apparently I was the only one who had needed time to come round to the idea.
My mother’s chief concern appeared to be timing. Were the surgery and the convalescence going to conflict with my birthday dinner? My birthday fell late next month. The Cashions do not take birthdays lightly. My brothers, their wives, all my nieces and nephews, would be under strict orders to appear.
“Do you think we should push the date for the party forward?” Mom asked. “I need to know to get the food ordered. I’m planning a surprise for dinner.” If the last twenty years of birthday dinners were any guide, that meant baked potatoes and grilled T-bones. Mom is an excellent but exceedingly predictable cook. Creative menu planning is not her strength.
“I’ll pick up some merlot to go with the steak,” said my father.
“Tom! It was supposed to be a surprise.”
From across the table he winked at me, then said, “Change of subject. I found a great new running trail down along Rock Creek. Four-mile loop. You should come with me one of these days.”
That was what he said.
What he meant was I love you, I will take care of you, I am so sorry.
Twenty-three
* * *
I wondered whether I’d hear from you.”
“I figured you’d been waiting thirty-four years, another three days wouldn’t kill you.”
On the other end of the phone line Beamer Beasley chuckled. “Fair enough. How you holding up?”
“Okay. Considering. I’ve been thinking.” I had turned things over in my mind as I drove home from my parents’ house, had called him the moment I walked in my own front door. “I’m going to get the surgery to remove the bullet.”
“Course you are.”