Chapter 26
I was the one who accompanied Callie on the field trip that had induced combat. Callie made a huge deal to her class about how I had traveled all the way from Florida to accompany her, talked about it so much one kid asked if I had hiked from Florida.
I sought out Babette George. I buddied up to her. I mentioned what a great agent Di was, came short of handing her Di’s card. Babette told me she knew Di, but her own brother-in-law was a broker. She didn’t fool me. People said, My brother-in-law is in the business to avoid pitches. In Florida, I had a brother-in-law who was an insurance agent, a lawyer, a trainer, a travel advisor. I had brothers-in-law up the wazoo when I didn’t want to be sold a bill of goods in person or over the phone.
When I arrived home after leaving Callie at school, Arlo from the country store was in Lisa’s driveway. I hesitated before greeting him. I couldn’t afford to stir up drama with Di, who was jealous for no reason.
“Come with me,” he said, pointing to his black Bronco.
I shook my head. Had he not understood the “I am married” message?
“Can’t,” I said. “I’d like to be friends, but I don’t want to anger Di.”
“Di is the reason I’m here. She’s been taken to the hospital by an ambulance.”
Hospital? She was an ox the day before. Maybe she got sick at the thought of being nice. “Was she in an accident?” I asked Arlo.
“I’ll fill you in on the way. I need you to come with me.”
I checked my watch. It was two o’clock. Callie would be off the bus at three. I dialed up Annie.
“Annie, it’s Jodi. I don’t know where you are, but can you be at the house when Callie gets home today?”
“Are you okay?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes, but something has happened to Di.”
“What?”
“No idea. She’s in the hospital.”
“You go. I’ll take care of Callie. And I’ll bring avocado.”
“Annie, please don’t tell Callie that Di’s in the hospital. She doesn’t need to know for now. Let me see what’s happening first. It’s probably no big deal.” I refused to upset Callie. She’d been through enough. And it was my fault. I prayed Di was okay.
Arlo’s spotless Bronco smelled like new—or as though he had sprayed it with the fragrance that makes a car smell that way. I asked what he knew about Di’s condition.
“She was with a buyer’s agent, preparing for an open house north of here. She blacked out in the attic. The other agent dialed nine one one. An ambulance took her to the hospital.”
I imagined her being carried slowly by EMTs down a rickety staircase. “How did you find out about this?”
In an unpleasant tone, as though I had asked for way-too-personal information, he said, “Do you understand how small this town is? A bird poops on a windshield, and everyone knows about it, next day it’s the headline in the paper.”
“I do know that, and why are you annoyed with me?”
“I’m not annoyed with you. I’m annoyed with me.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m on again, off again with Di, and we are currently off. She keeps bringing up the morning she walked in on us in the store.”
“I see bare feet every day of the week.”
Arlo didn’t respond.
“So does she have reason to believe you’re a player?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, there you go.”
“After my wife died, women were after me. The casseroles kept coming.”
“In Florida, we call that the brisket brigade.”
“My wife told me before she passed on, she wanted me to meet other women. She hung a list of possibilities on the cupboard.”
I often wondered how quickly Jake would find a replacement model once I kicked the bucket. On the way back to the house from the funeral home after maxing out a credit card to pay for my plain pine casket? I imagined him bringing a date to my funeral. Me, reaching up from the grave to pull her down.
“Was Di on the list?”
He snorted. “No way. My wife wanted someone to take care of me. Mother Teresa was on the list.”
“Well, maybe you’ve changed since your wife passed away. Maybe you need to make your own list.”
“Di isn’t whom I expected to wind up with. She’s nothing like my wife.”
“But you like her.”
He accelerated, shooting through a yellow light.
I looked at the speedometer. “Please, slow down.”
“I’m only doing fifty in a forty-mile-per-hour zone.”
Exactly what Jake would tell me. Why did male drivers always say something like that? “My point exactly.”
He let up on the pedal as we passed a high school. He turned left, then steered up a hill, following the H and the arrow. “The truth? Di had the hospital call me.”
“You’re her person, the one to call in case of an emergency?”
Why not Brian? Or Lisa? I wondered.
He shrugged, but something about the shrug seemed off.
“Everybody knows her. She has legions of friends,” I said. “It’s hard to believe she’s lived here only a few years. She might as well be a lifer.”
He shook his head as if telling me something he didn’t want to say aloud.
“Then who are the people who don’t discuss books at her book club?” I asked.
“Those aren’t friends. All business. She needs them, and they need her. Look, Di is a remarkable real estate agent. She could sell a one-level ranch with a below-code ceiling to the tallest man in New England. When a newcomer buys a home, Di recommends lawyers, title companies, doctors, landscapers, plumbers, hair stylists. Her clients frequent the businesses she recommends. Then, when someone asks anyone about real estate ... voilà.”
“Now I feel bad.”
“For Di?”
“For me. I thought Di liked everyone in town except for me.”
He laughed. “No way you’re that special.”
I reached for my cell. “I need to contact the kids, tell them what’s happened.”
Arlo held up a finger and thought for a moment. “Wait until you see her. No need to set off alarms.”
“Brian should know. He’ll head home from Boston.”
Arlo became stern. It didn’t suit him. “Take my advice, Jodi. Wait.”
The hospital loomed as though a fortress on top of a towering hill. At the main entrance, Arlo stopped the Bronco but kept his hands on the steering wheel. I assumed he was dropping me off, going to find a spot in the visitor’s lot. Instead, he motioned to an arrow pointing to the entrance. He said, “Okay, good luck.”
I was astounded, agitated. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Not into the hospital,” he said. “I won’t be her savior again. I’ll be hanging out in the diner downtown. Call me when you need a ride home. I’ll be here in minutes.”
“What?” I was flabbergasted. He had picked me up, driven me, yet had no intention of visiting Di, of seeing what condition she was in?
“Been there, done that. I can’t continue helping her. It’s bad for my sobriety.”
“But you don’t have an alcohol problem, do you?”
“I will if I keep rescuing the damsel in distress. Call me. I’ll be in the diner.”
“But I don’t know how long it will take,” I pleaded.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “There’s a jukebox.”
I was going in. Di, Annie, and I had started over after our terrible mistake, our childish blowup that distressed and hurt the kid we all loved. I was so ashamed by what had happened. The moment Callie saw Di and Annie and me and the tarantula would burn in my memory forever. I hoped my granddaughter would forget it. But would she? I recalled infinitesimal moments from my unremarkable childhood, and the argument we’d had the night before was colossal.
I knew I had to maintain my footing with Di. Whether Arlo came up or not, I had to see her. She needed someone to show up, to visit. I was a doctor. I understood the importance of an advocate. I opened the Bronco door. “Okay,” I said.
Arlo careened off as though being chased.
What a chicken, I thought.
But I knew he liked her too much to stay away for long.
In the lobby, I asked the receptionist where to find Diandra Summer Lake. I rode the elevator alone, reading the occupancy sign as though it were biblical. Di was in a double, next to the door, no roommate. My eyes shot to the small, low metal table on wheels beside the bed. I blinked. I reconfirmed. There, on the nightstand, topping a box of tissues, was a thick mane of blonde hair—as well as a very familiar bloodred headband. I heard myself whisper “wow,” twice. Di’s flawless, “stay in place in a tsunami” style was not real. She wore a wig. Stop me. How had I never noticed?
I gave Di silent kudos, a bevy of points for hoodwinking me. I smiled to myself as I contemplated how Jake would love those points if he could exchange them for a flight on an airline.
Di lay in bed in a loosely tied hospital gown patterned with little blue diamonds. I saw she was connected to two IV drips and a heart monitor. What hair she had was a light-gray fuzz. I wondered if anyone else knew she was bald. My guess was no. Maybe Arlo? I’d never mention it. I wondered if she had taken the wig off her own head. I doubted she would leave it askew. Maybe a nurse or a medical technician had removed it. Di would be embarrassed to find the wig off and out like that, her head bare when she stirred.
I wandered to the window facing the autumn hills to buzz Lisa in Boston, let her know Di was hospitalized. She might even be with Brian. I hoped she was. She’d ask what had happened, but I had no clue why Di had been taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Before I dialed Lisa, my cell went off. It was Annie, who began speaking before I said a word.
“I have Mac. We’re doing homework.”
The kid bellowed, “Hi, Grandma Jo.”
“Hi, you!”
“Tell Grandma the news,” Annie said.
“I won the spelling bee! The word was hard. Chihuahua. ”
“That’s amazing,” I said. “My granddaughter is smart!”
“Smart as a dart,” Annie rhymed. “Way off the chart.”
It was considerate of Annie to call me. She was a good kid, but I didn’t have to be a clinical psychologist to understand she didn’t value herself. There she was—living with a schmuck , Yiddish for “you know what,” who never saw a woman too young for him.
Annie took the phone from Callie.
“Annie, did you know Di wasn’t feeling well?”
“No. Why?”
“Wondering.”
Who would I have reached to watch Callie if not Annie? The only people I knew in town besides Arlo were Melody and Sally from chair aerobics. I wouldn’t bother them. Anyway, I guessed they were likely in a bar, drinking lunch. I could have called Lisa’s neighbor Alison, but when we’d chatted briefly on the nature walk, she’d mentioned she was going to Vermont to pop in on her ninety-five-year-old grandmother, who still lived in her house on her own. I’d love to pull that off. Ninety-five and well enough to rule my own roost. My kids would tell me I needed assisted living, and I would pretend I couldn’t hear. What’d you say?
You need to move, Mom.
You’re moving? At ninety-five years old, I’d be entitled to a bit of fun.
“How is she?” Annie asked.
“She’s resting. I haven’t spoken to her yet.”
“Please tell me if there’s anything I can do. Even though, ceasefire or no ceasefire, let’s face it, Di hates me.”
“You’re doing something. You’re taking care of Callie. Di doesn’t hate you.”
“Oh, come on, then what?”
I thought fast. “She’s jealous of you. She wishes she was young. What’s the story with Di and Arlo?” I asked, fishing.
“He loves her.”
“How do you know?”
“The entire town knows.”
A nurse stopped in. She was wearing spotless white clogs, scrubs with a playful Charlie Brown print. The motif indicated she was affable. Her badge said Leonie. She checked the equipment. I told Annie I had to go.
“Hi. I’m a big Peanuts fan myself,” I said.
“Who isn’t?”
“I’m Dr. Wexler. Call me Jodi.” It was my custom to tote out the doctor card in medical settings. I was about to explain how I was related by marriage to Di when I realized the nurse might not answer questions without a closer connection, so I said, “I’m Diandra’s sister. Diandra’s younger sister. By many years.” Had Di been awake, that delineation would have made her skin crawl. “I’m concerned. How’s my sister doing?”
“Dehydrated upon arrival.”
“From?” I thought maybe it was alcohol. Or her potassium might be too high. There were plenty of reasons for dehydration.
“Well, chemotherapy, of course.”
My heart vaulted. Chemotherapy? That explained the wig. The word “cancer” lit up in my brain. Flummoxed, I took a deep breath and gained control. I had told Leonie that I was Di’s sister. Surely, if I were her sister, I would know she was going through chemo. I’d know all about it. I didn’t have a sister, but if I had one, she’d be at my side through such an ordeal, take me to appointments, come by to visit the day after my treatments. Alternately, my make-believe sister might loathe me since we were kids because she had to drag me everywhere she went. She might have moved to Seattle, the farthest she could be from me while residing on the mainland. With sisters, who knew? I turned my attention back to Leonie.
“Oh, that’s right, chemotherapy. I’m such a ditz. How are the treatments going?”
“I’m sure you’re a good sister,” she said. “Her final treatment was earlier this week.”
How bad was it? What kind of cancer?
“No radiation?” I asked, so Leonie would continue our conversation.
“She’s fortunate. I’m sure you know the endometrial cancer was found at an early stage.”
I clung to the words “early stage.” I guessed chemotherapy was a follow-up to surgery.
I was wearing a woven ivy scarf over my heather crewneck sweater. I removed the scarf. “My sister is vain—about losing her hair. The doctor removed her wig. Is there a chance you can tie this scarf around her head? I’m not good at things like that, or I’d do it myself. She’d be upset to wake up and find herself exposed.”
“I understand,” the kind nurse said as she tied the scarf until it resembled a sophisticated turban. She wished me well, carried on to her next patient.
I perched on the edge of the visitor’s chair. All disease was dreadful, but Di’s illness had a strong survival rate. I googled for information, had become an expert on endometrial cancer by the time Di stirred. I was relieved because I hankered for her to know I’d come to see her—although I had as good as been kidnapped into it. I imagined Arlo in a diner with a hamburger and a shake. Or a tuna melt. I didn’t know him well enough to presume to guess what he ate.
“Jodi?” Di said quietly. Di was meek, downright docile. “Some mess I’ve gotten myself into.”
“What happened?” Would she tell me? It’s a grind when you know something for certain—and hold your fire to see if the party involved will tell you about it.
“I passed out. Well, at least I didn’t pass on.”
“Is that your idea of hospital humor?” I said, smiling.
“Why are you here?” she asked, as baffled as if I were a visitor from Mars.
“Arlo got in touch with me.”
“I knew it,” she said, irritated. “He’s into you. There’s no denying it. What do you think he sees in you?” she asked.
“Wow. You really are up! Is this what you want to discuss when you’re ill?”
“I’m curious,” she said. “Tell me.”
“Di, I’m married. I’ve been married longer than Moses wandered in the desert.”
“Of course, you bring up Moses.”
“Di, I love my husband.”
I waved my phone in her direction. “I can’t stay long. I’ll call the kids, let them know you’re here.”
She jerked herself fully awake. “You will not. Absolutely not.”
“What? Why not?”
“They don’t know.”
“I know they don’t know. That’s why I was calling.”
“They don’t know I’ve been unwell. No one knows.”
What? She must have had surgery to remove her uterus. Was she saying no one knew about the surgery either? I poured water from a pitcher into a paper cup, handed it to her. She thanked me as though saying thank you was a huge favor. She fiddled with a knob, adjusting the hospital bed into an upright position.
“Well, Arlo knows. Arlo. I wonder where he is. We’ve been on and off for years, but he’s the one I count on. I can always turn to him. We argue. But that’s the way we are.”
Painful. I didn’t have the heart to tell her he had dropped me off. That he was hiding out in a diner listening to a jukebox, waiting to pick me up.
“Why are you off and on?”
“His wife left him a list. Every woman on it was demure.”
I laughed. “And you’re not?”
“Surprise. Surprise.”
I stepped closer to her. “I know,” I whispered.
“You know what?”
I pointed to the blonde wig.
She sighed. “Oh, yes. What’s more, I’m also bald.”
“From chemo?”
“No. Alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease. I’ve had it a long time.”
She felt her head, the scarf.
“Where did this come from?”
I lied. “I don’t know. The turban was on when I arrived. Nice pattern. I had no idea you wore a wig.”
“You understand this is confidential.”
“I understand you have cancer.”
“Are you planning to give Nicki Nussbaum the news?”
“Maybe?”
“I never went for checkups.”
I thought of my visit to the gynecologist. Jake waiting for me. It was good I had gone, reassuring to know I was in the clear.
“Did the doctor tell you about the cancer?”
“The nurse. For some reason she thought I was your sister.”
“My older sister, of course,” she said.
“Younger.”
“How much younger? Sister or not, she had no right, no business revealing my illness. Don’t you tell a soul. Haven’t these people heard of HIPAA? I could sue that blabbermouth.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“You have to promise,” she replied in desperation.
I crossed my heart. “However, there’s a problem. And it’s not me. You were wheeled on a stretcher into an ambulance with flashing lights and a siren in the middle of the day. Word is likely out.”
“No one can know about this. Illness kills business. I can hear it: ‘Don’t go to Diandra. She’s in poor health. Here’s another name.’ You’re a doctor, Jodi. Come up with something, a reason I would’ve been in an ambulance.”
Okay, you needed an ambulance for your athlete’s foot. “Blame it on dehydration.”
She puckered her lips as she considered my suggestion. “And if anyone asks, you’ll say it was dehydration.”
“Whatever you want, Di,” I said as I started toward the door. “If you’re here tomorrow, Di, I’ll visit. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
“Wait. Stay a moment. I want to ask a question. Will Macallan ever forget the argument we had last night?”
I took a step back, surprised she was stewing about what had transpired.
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“I wouldn’t want her to remember me that way.”
“Well, then do what the doctors tell you, live a little longer, and you can make it up to her. I’ve got to run. Annie is watching Callie.”
“No problem. Annie always cares for Macallan,” Di said. “I babysit when my son or Lisa asks, but generally, I’m disinterested. Or is it uninterested? Maybe both?”
Disbelief. How could Di not be captivated by Callie? Her first and only grandchild. I had friends—other grandmas—who weren’t as invested as I was, but none would say what Di had said to me. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course, you don’t. Here’s the thing. I had my children and—let me point out—I was a single mom. I love Callie. But I’m not a babysitter. I’m in real estate. And I’m good at it. What I enjoy is selling houses. Know what I’m planning to do when I retire?”
“No idea,” I said.
“Sell houses.”
“Then why did you move here from North Carolina?”
“I thought you knew.”
“Out of the loop.”
“I had nowhere to go. I had to leave Chapel Hill because of what happened with my youngest son. Lucky had been struggling for years, troubled, became homeless out West. He came back to North Carolina. I let him move in. Brian had forewarned me it was a dangerous idea. I didn’t listen. Even Milton, whom I hadn’t spoken to since Brian’s wedding, emailed. He cautioned me, advised me to find another place for Lucky. But I’d already done it. He was back in his childhood room.”
I was positive Di could see I was breathless to hear more of the story.
“Didn’t Lisa tell you about this?”
I shook my head.
“Funny. I thought you two were close.”
Bull’s-eye. The woman had to throw a dart.
“My son burned down my house,” she said.
I gasped. I wondered if she was in the house when it caught fire. But I didn’t say it.
“I wasn’t in the house.”
“Thank heavens,” I said, grasping the railing along the hospital bed as my shoulders dropped.
“But he thought I was,” Di said.
Decades of conversing with my patients about their lives—and not one had ever told me a sadder story. My heart broke for her. No wonder she was tough. She had been toughened. Her son aimed to kill her. He was willing to burn down the house to do it. I wondered why Lisa had never told me about what had happened.
“Let’s change the topic,” Diandra said. “I didn’t mean what I said the other day about Lisa. She works hard.”
“I know,” I said.
“Anyway, that’s not what was really bothering me.”
“I understand. You have cancer.”
She leaned toward me. “Lisa and Brian are not getting along.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Diandra.” Was she going to tell me Brian was having an affair? I strove to appear neutral so she would unload. “They say it takes two to tango.”
“No, actually, in my experience, it takes three,” she said.
“Are you saying there’s someone else?”
She touched the turban, adjusted it a bit. “I’m not going to say another word.”
She didn’t have to. I could never forget the story Lisa had told me about Brian and the woman who met him in the diner. I even recollected Lisa saying that the woman liked rice pudding.
Brian was Milton’s son. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Lots of apples fell under the tree. He was having an affair. I wondered if Lisa knew. Maybe she did but couldn’t face it yet. Maybe that’s why she went to Boston, where he now lived. Maybe the woman he was having the affair with lived in the city. Maybe, maybe, maybe. My head was spinning. If they got divorced, how would Callie handle it? Where would she live? I had to stop this train of thought.
Lisa had scads going on. I wondered how she managed it all. But unlike me, who agonized about problems, pondering every possible scenario at once, Lisa had a talent. My daughter kept her troubles in compartments.
I was overwhelmed by Di’s stunning information. I thought about Arlo waiting in the diner, running out of coins for the jukebox. I told Di I had to leave. She asked why. I said I was expecting a Zoom from my office. For me, Zoom had become the finest excuse for cutting out since my children were young and I white lied at parties by saying the sitter had to be home.
In the main lobby, I found a water fountain, took a breath, proceeded to the exit. As I turned through the rotating door, Arlo entered. We smiled in recognition. I went around another time, catching up with him back inside the hospital.
“You’re here,” I said.
“You were with her a long time. I never expected that.”
“Di had a lot to tell me. She doesn’t want anyone to know she’s ill, but she’s desperate for someone to talk to.”
“She has me,” he said as though he’d had a revelation in the diner.
“She does? Did you see a vision in your burger?”
He grinned. “Not going to be easy.”
“Ahh. Easy is no fun.”
I did what I thought would help. I pointed to the far side of the lobby. There was a volunteer selling flowers from a wheelbarrow—next to the kiosk for Berkshire’s Best Coffee.
“She likes roses,” he said. “Must be the thorns.”
I waited in a bucket chair, watching as Arlo made his way to the florist, bought red roses in a glass vase.
I thought of my husband, praying he was all right. Last time he sent me flowers, I had agreed to resettle in Boca Raton.
Di would remain in the hospital overnight, be released in the morning. Arlo was on it. He would pick her up. The man was a goner. His late wife, who had left him the list of possibilities, was turning over in her grave.