Chapter Thirty-One #2
“Thank God,” Frankie said, pulling him into the house and back to her bedroom. Her whole body was shaking.
It would be okay. Finally.
He leaned toward her for a kiss. She met him more than halfway.
Autumn on Coronado Island came late this year, and gradually, a turning of the leaves, a need for sweaters at night, an emptying of the beaches.
Once again, the restaurants on Orange Avenue were filled with locals instead of tourists.
School buses had returned to their routes in the first week of September; to Frankie these were the things that would always mean fall.
On this cool late November day, almost ten months after Rye’s return from Vietnam, Frankie put on a jacquard-patterned knit dress, parted her long, straight hair down the middle, pulled it back into a ponytail, and then drove to the hospital.
At the director of nursing’s office, she was instructed to wait.
Frankie was ready for this meeting, more than ready.
In the two months since Rye’s proposal, she had started to become herself again.
They had talked about wedding rings, and honeymoon plans, and a ceremony on the beach.
Kauai for their honeymoon, for another week at the Coco Palms. He was ready to merge into her world, talk to her parents.
She couldn’t wait to tell her friends and family.
Barb and Ethel. Oh, they would look askance at first, maybe wonder at her morality, but she would never tell them that she and Rye had slept together before his divorce. That shame she’d bear alone.
“Frankie? She’ll see you now.”
Frankie stood up. Holding her purse close, she walked into the office and took a seat when directed.
“Hello, Mrs. Stone,” she said, sitting in the ladylike way she’d been taught a lifetime ago when the world had been softer, different.
Back straight, chin up, legs crossed at the ankles.
She knew she looked better than she had the last time she’d been here.
This morning it had taken only one pill to rouse her spirits.
In the past month she’d cut back. “I wanted to thank you for suspending me,” she said.
“I know that sounds odd, but you were right. I was underwater. I might have made a mistake in the OR, and I couldn’t have lived with that. ”
“You’re one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with,” Mrs. Stone said. “But the last time I called you for work, you sounded impaired.”
Frankie hoped she didn’t flinch. “Just before my first coffee. Moving a little slow. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” she lied.
“I know about the pain of a miscarriage. And my husband served in Korea. He’s told me that some… experiences settle in our bodies as well as our minds. Perhaps you need help dealing with some things?”
“I’m fine. Truly.”
“Even if one’s experience isn’t as traumatic as combat, I’m told wartime can rather upend a man for a time.”
A man.
“I’m ready to go back to work, ma’am,” Frankie said. “I may soon even have some good news to share that will put your mind at ease.”
Mrs. Stone studied her for a long moment. “All right, Frankie. In fact, Karen Ellis called in sick today. Can you finish out her shift?”
“Of course. I still have scrubs in my locker.” Frankie stood up. “You won’t regret it, ma’am.”
“See that I don’t.”
Frankie left the office filled with hope.
This was the first step to recovery. She would be herself again in no time. Marry Rye and wear white. Not some off-the-rack prom dress this time. With Rye, she wanted it all: the gown, the veil, the church, the cake.
A week later, Frankie stared down at a display of wedding rings in the jeweler’s case.
“May I help you, miss?” the clerk asked her.
Frankie glanced at her watch. Her shift at the hospital started soon.
“No, thank you. I guess my fiancé has been detained,” she lied.
Next time she came to this store, she would bring Rye with her, see what kind of ring he wanted and show him her favorites.
There was nothing wrong or weird with her looking by herself, was there?
Leaving the store, she drove across town to the medical center, which rose tall and white against the morning’s cloudless cerulean sky. Inside, she changed into her teal-blue scrubs, covered her long hair with a cap, and headed to the surgical floor.
She assisted on one surgery after another for hours. At the end of her shift, she checked on her patients, and then headed down to the first floor.
In the lobby, she saw a crowd of men in suits gathered around the desk. Most were scribbling in open notepads.
Reporters.
Probably some famous local resident had given birth; like Raquel Welch, who had been Raquel Tejada back when she’d been crowned the Fairest of the Fair at the San Diego County Fair. Or maybe an actor had died.
Frankie headed for the door. As she passed the clot of reporters, she heard someone say, “Lieutenant Commander Walsh.”
Frankie stopped, turned back. Pushing through the reporters, she got to the front of them just as the woman at the desk was saying, “We respect our patients’ privacy. You know that. You may not speak to them yet. I’ve called security.”
“But it isn’t every day a former prisoner of war—”
Frankie edged around the reporters, ducked behind the front desk, and sidled up to one of the women seated there. “The reporters. They want to see—”
“Some famous guy’s wife. A prisoner of war. Walsh.”
His wife. “Is she okay?”
The woman shrugged.
“Where is she?”
“Four-ten B.”
Frankie went to the elevator and pushed the button impatiently. It wasn’t until she stepped inside that she realized where she was going.
The fourth floor.
Ping! The doors opened.
She walked slowly down the hallway, feeling suddenly sick; at the last door, she saw the patient’s name and stopped: WALSH, MELISSA.
Frankie pushed the door open just enough to see Melissa Walsh, sitting up in bed, surrounded by balloons and flowers and baskets of candy. A soccer ball balloon said IT’S A BOY!
A bassinet was at her bedside; through the clear sides, Frankie could see a baby swaddled in blue.
Frankie backed away quickly, hit something, and turned around.
Rye stood there. “Frankie,” he said, too softly for his wife to hear. “I meant to… it doesn’t mean—”
She shoved him out of her way, ran out of the hospital, and got into her car, slammed the door shut. Her hands were shaking so hard she dropped the keys. She opened her purse, took out two Valium, and swallowed them dry, then bent down, tried to find her keys on the floor mat.
Someone banged on her window.
She couldn’t look… had to look.
Rye stood there, looking as destroyed as she felt. “I’m sorry,” he yelled.
She started the car, stomped on the gas.
She had no idea what to do, where to go. She’d fallen for his lies again. Again . Melissa must have gotten pregnant soon after Rye’s return. With Frankie, he’d used condoms. Always. Never a mistake.
All these months, while he’d been sleeping with Frankie, his wife had been pregnant.
When he’d proposed, Melissa had been nearing term.
He’d dropped to a knee, said, “Marry me,” and Frankie had believed him.
She’d believed every smile, every touch, every promise.
Believed blindly, believed when he said, Soon, baby.
Soon we will tell everyone we’re together.
Oh my God.
The only person she hated more than Rye was herself.
She needed a drink.
It was all she could think of. She couldn’t go home, to the bungalow where he had clothes in the closet, where he’d dropped to one knee and proposed marriage.
She drove past the bar frequented by the hospital staff and drove to San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter and found a parking spot on the street in front of a tavern where she would be anonymous. She went inside, found it already half-full of patrons who looked like regulars.
She slipped up onto a barstool. “Gin on the rocks,” she said. “And a pack of Virginia Slims.”
When the bartender returned with her drink, she barely looked at him. Her hand was trembling as she reached for the glass.
It’s a boy! crashed through her like a wrecking ball, destroying every fragile block of herself she’d tried to rebuild.
“I deserve this,” she said.
“Huh?” the bartender said.
“Nothing. Another drink, please.”
She took the second drink and downed it, then ordered a third. When a good-looking man sat beside her, said, “Hey, foxy lady,” she snagged her purse and headed out again. In the car, she cranked up the music on “I Am Woman.”
She drove out of the crowded quarter.
She should slow down; she was going too fast.
She sang along with the song, realized she was crying. Ahead was the bridge. She hit the gas, rocketed forward; a stanchion of concrete in front of her, a wall of gray to her right, and then nothing but water. She turned the wheel, just a fraction of an inch.
A man on a bicycle came out of nowhere. She slammed on the brakes, felt the car spiral out of control on the road, saw handlebars in her headlights. She yanked on the wheel, tried to turn the other way.
Too late.