Husbands & Lovers

Chapter Twenty-Two Mallory

July 2022

Boston, Massachusetts

I’m sitting in a chair in a hospital room, watching my son’s urine drip into a plastic bag, and it’s the most beautiful sight in the world.

Paige has dropped off to sleep in the chair next to me, curled into an awkward ball. The morning sun lights the metal blinds in the window, casting long, slanting stripes on the opposite wall. Some sports highlight show flickers soundlessly on the television mounted to the wall. Sam’s also fallen back asleep. The machines beep next to him. I rise to adjust the pillow at his back and a nurse opens the door behind me.

“Mrs. Dunne?”

I’m too tired to correct her. I notice the lines between her eyebrows and ask, “Yes? Is something wrong?”

“There’s a Mr. Peabody asking for you at the desk? I told him visiting hours don’t start until ten, but he’s…”

“Persistent?”

“Very. And he brought coffee.”

“Ah.” I look at Sam, sleeping peacefully. Paige, her head crooked at an angle that makes me wince. The urine bag at the side of the bed, filling with beautiful yellow pee.

“If you want to step out for a few minutes,” says the nurse, “we’ll keep an eye on him.”

Sedge Peabody rises from a chair in the waiting room and holds out a bouquet of fragrant blush-pink roses. “You look like shit,” he says, kissing the bare patch of skin between the mask and my ear.

“I haven’t slept since I woke up in your bunk bed yesterday morning. Sorry if I smell.”

He nods to the hallway. “How’s the kid?”

“He’s doing great. The surgery was textbook. His vitals are superb, doc says. And he’s peeing! Into the catheter, I mean. It’s like a miracle.”

“I will never take pee for granted again.”

“You shouldn’t. Trust me.” I look at the flowers. “I’m not sure these are Sam’s color.”

“They’re for you. For the other night.” He reaches for a Starbucks cup on the coffee table. “And this is for this morning. I guessed caramel macchiato. I figured you could use the double whammy. Sugar and caffeine.”

I unloop the mask from one ear and roll the first sip over my tongue. “You are an angel of mercy, Sedge Peabody.”

“That’s how I like to think of myself. Sit?”

We settle down on a pair of plastic chairs. The fluorescent hospital light bathes us in a sickly glow.

“So, I won’t keep you,” Sedge says. “I know you have more important stuff to do. I just wanted to check in and make sure you were okay.”

“I’m definitely okay, thank you. More than okay. Can’t-wrap-my-head-around-it-yet okay. I mean, it’s a long road ahead. He’s going to be on immunosuppressants basically all his life. Anything could go wrong at any time. But the kidney was a perfect tissue match, so that’s a start. Six out of six.”

“Sorry, that means nothing to me. But I’m eager to learn.”

“Basically, it’s good news. Great news. I’ve been trying to get hold of his dad, but he’s away on business, so…”

“How’s that going? With the dad?”

“Good.” I sip my coffee. “We’re friends now. It’s good.”

“Good,” he says.

We stare together at my coffee cup. The flowers on my lap.

“I guess that was kind of a dumb idea,” he says. “Flowers are the last thing you need right now.”

“They’re beautiful. And sweet of you. I’m sure they have plenty of vases around here. I’ll get them in some water and put them in Sam’s room to remind me I’m a human being. Not just a mom.”

“And maybe, when you’re out of the hospital, life getting back to normal again…”

I meet Sedge’s gaze over the top of the coffee cup. He gives me a sheepish smile, looks at the fake potted palm across the room, meets my gaze again.

“I was thinking maybe I could take you out to dinner or something,” he says. “Get to know each other a little better.”

I lift my eyebrows. He laughs.

“All right,” he says. “Get to know each other in a different way. But also the same way. Well, not exactly the same way. Maybe just forget the whole thing and start all over? Sorry, I seem to have lost my legendary charm. What I’m trying to say is, I’m having a little trouble getting over what happened between us, or I guess you could say what didn’t happen between us, and I’m starting to think that, no, it’s not a plus for me at all.”

“What’s not a plus?”

“That you’re not looking for anything more serious.”

I lift the roses from my lap and hold them to my face. The scent is delicious. Expensive.

“From my grandmother’s garden,” he says. “She let me have them. But I had to beg.”

I reach out to squeeze his hand, where it rests on his knee. “Mr. Peabody. I would be delighted to have dinner with you at some unspecified future date.”

When I return to the hospital room a few minutes later, Sam’s eyes are open and fixed on the television screen.

“Hey, bud. How are you feeling?”

“Weird.”

“That would be the painkillers.” I brush his hair with my fingers. “Doctors say everything is going great. You’re peeing again! Can you believe it? No more dialysis.”

“I think I might barf.”

“So, that’s pretty normal. Bowl’s right here if you need it. And your water bottle. If you need anything else, I’m right here.”

“Nice flowers.”

“You like them? They’re for me, believe it or not.” I wink. “An admirer.”

“Nice. Where’s Dad?”

The word Dad jars me. In my head, Monk is—well, Monk. Not Dad, the way parents sometimes call each other Mom and Dad even when the kids aren’t around, out of habit. So I pause for a second or two, run my hand over the blanket, and say, “You know what? I’ll just see if he’s responded to my messages yet. He’s been on a business trip. I’m sure he’s on his way. He’s going to be over the freaking moon about this.”

My phone’s buried deep in my handbag. Paige has been handling communications with the few family members and close friends who need to know, so I can concentrate on Sam. I burrow for it now and pull it free.

“No wonder,” I say. “It’s out of battery. Let me see if I can find a charger.”

“A charger for what?” Paige says sleepily from her chair. She tries to lift her head and grimaces. “I think I broke my neck.”

I reach over and massage the base of her skull. “My phone.”

“I should have one in my handbag.”

“Of course you do.”

I plug the phone into the wall. While I’m waiting for it to revive, I smile across the room at Sam. He’s pale and kind of bleary-looking. But alive. Well. Whole. My heart swells generously. “Your dad’s probably in a car from the airport right now. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Sure,” says Sam.

“Buddy. I mean it. Maybe he’s only known you for a few weeks, but already he loves you more than anything.”

Sam manages a half-smile. “Mom, that’s you. He loves you more than anything.”

“What? Why do you say that?”

“Because he told me.”

Paige stands up. “I’m going to go see about some coffee. Mallie? Coffee for you?”

“I just had some. Sam? When did he tell you that?”

“I don’t know. While you were in Ireland, I guess. We talked a lot. I asked him why things didn’t work out with you and stuff, and he said he wasn’t sure, but he loved you more than anything in the world and he still does.”

“Oh.” I thump down on the chair. “Well, that’s nice of him to say.”

“Mom. Like, he meant it.”

“Not the way you’re thinking, honey. I promise. That was so many years ago. We’re both different people now. He’s engaged to Lee, remember? They’re going to get married and have their own family. Plus, like I said, You’re the light of his life now. I promise you that for sure.”

My phone comes to life in a never-ending pulse of beeps and buzzes. The alerts flash and pile on one another—texts, phone calls, news, a bank deposit from my Etsy storefront.

“Hold on a second, buddy. Everything’s loading.”

Sam’s attention shifts back to the television. I give up waiting for the alerts to end and click on my text messages. Scroll down to Monk’s number.

Nothing. No reply to my last message, sent late last night, right after Sam came out of surgery.

I check my phone log. Nothing.

I look up at Sam and smile. “Nothing yet, bud. I think his phone might be off or something.”

“Okay,” Sam says.

I drop my gaze back to my phone. The euphoria bleeds out of me, replaced by the old unsettled feeling I’ve grown used to, ever since Sam ate that fucking mushroom three years ago. That edge of dread. Something terrible lurks offstage, waiting for a cue.

By themselves, my thumbs flip from app to app, searching for something to land on. Back to my text messages, of which there are dozens unread. I scroll until one catches my eye—Luca. Five new messages, the most recent sent just this morning in shouty caps.

GIRL PLEASE I AM DYING HERE

I blink a few times and open at the oldest message.

Check this out girl. In house expert says look at the tail of the cobra and see if you can unscrew the tip

Beneath the text, Luca attached a photo enlargement of the bracelet that showed a fiber-thin line circling the snake’s tail, about a quarter-inch up from the tip.

The next message said—

This was a typical device for SPIES to carry messages!!!!

Then, a couple of hours later—

hurry up girl, am in SUSPENSE

At midnight—

going to bed now but expect reply manana!!!!!!

I set down the phone and work the bracelet off my wrist. All these years, all my life, the head of the cobra has mesmerized me. The tiny emerald eyes, the flickering ruby tongue. The intricate decorative engraving of the hood. The way it seems alive, the way the face captures you. I don’t think I’ve ever glanced at the tip.

But that’s what snakes do, don’t they? They mesmerize their prey, so you can’t look away. Even to save yourself.

I turn the cobra upside down and peer at the tail. I don’t see a line, but even in the photograph, magnified several times, you can hardly tell it’s there. I try to loosen the tip with my thumb and finger, but it doesn’t budge.

I move to the window and hold the bracelet to the mid-morning sun. There! You can just see it. The thinnest possible fiber, a delicate ring almost at the tip.

I fix my thumb and finger securely to the end. Lefty-loosey.

Stuck fast.

Well, it’s been seventy years, right? I wipe my fingers on my sweatpants and try again.

Paige sweeps through the doorway, carrying two cups of coffee. “What the hell are you doing?” she demands.

“Luca texted me. His jewelry guy at Sotheby’s thinks the tip is hollow. For carrying spy messages or something.”

“What?”

Sam looks over from the television. “What did you say, Mom? Your bracelet is, like, a spy gadget?”

I realize my heart is thumping against my ribs. My palms are sweating. I hold out the bracelet to Paige. “Here, you try. I’m too nervous.”

She rolls her eyes and sets down the coffee cup. Wipes her fingers and applies them to the tip of the snake. Her face turns pink with effort.

“We need pliers,” she says.

“You’re not touching my bracelet with pliers! You’ll dent it!”

“Please. My jeweler can fix the dents. If there are any.”

Sam says, “Can I try?”

I shoot Paige a look and carry the bracelet to Sam. He turns it over in his hands, gets a grip on body and tail, and strains to loosen the tip. With a grunt of frustration, he bends over to put some weight into it.

“Stop that! You’ll burst your stitches.”

I snatch the bracelet back. Paige hands me a set of folding pliers. At my look of surprise, she shrugs her shoulders. “I keep a pair in my handbag.”

“Of course you do.”

I carry the bracelet back to the window and carefully apply the prongs of the pliers to the tip. Bit by bit, I increase the pressure.

“Is it coming?” Paige asks.

“Almost,” I gasp.

The tip gives way.

With shaking fingers I unscrew it the rest of the way and turn the hollow tail over. A small piece of rolled paper drops into my palm.

“I think I’m gonna puke,” says Paige.

“Open it!” says Sam.

“I can’t. My fingers are shaking too hard.”

Paige takes the paper and hands it to Sam, who unrolls it on his lap.

“What does it say? What does it say?” Paige begs.

Sam holds up the paper between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and reads:

I named you Lucile for your father, Lucien Suarez Beck, who gave his life to save you.

Hannah Countess Vécsey (Ainsworth)

“That’s in parentheses.” Sam looks up. “Ainsworth is in parentheses.”

“Holy shit,” says Paige. “She was a countess?”

“Don’t swear in front of the kid,” I tell her.

My phone rings. In shock, I answer the call without looking at the screen. Without thinking.

A firm, businesslike male voice replies to my greeting. “Good morning. Am I speaking to Mallory Dunne?”

“Yes. Speaking. You are.”

“Mrs. Dunne, this is Dr. Grenardo at Massachusetts General. I understand you hold medical power of attorney for Benjamin Monk Adams?”

The blood drains out of me. I crash down on the seat of Paige’s chair, the nearest one. “I what?”

“According to his registration forms, he’s granted you medical POA in the event of incapacitation during surgery and recovery. We’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.”

“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Paige turns in my direction. “What’s going on?”

The voice continues in my ear, as dulcet as a newscaster. “I need you to remain calm, Mrs. Dunne. Listen to me carefully. I regret to inform you that Mr. Adams went into cardiac arrest on the operating table yesterday afternoon, due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition. He’s currently receiving treatment in the ICU here at Mass General, under strict security. I’m afraid we’re going to need you to transport yourself to this hospital as soon as possible in order for you to make informed decisions regarding his care.”

In the Uber, staring dazedly ahead.

“He’ll be fine,” says Paige. “The operating table is the absolute best place in the world to have a heart attack. The doctors and the lifesaving equipment are right there.”

The Uber lurches to a stop. Traffic. I gaze at all these cars, all these fucking cars. Who are they? Don’t they understand? Can’t they get out of our way?

Paige scrolls her phone. I glance at the screen.

“You’re on the ’Gram, Paige? Seriously?”

“Sorry. Nerves.” She turns the phone facedown on her lap and looks out the window. “Who the fuck are all these people? Can’t we get them out of our way?”

“Boston traffic.”

“How are you so calm, Mallie? Jesus.”

“I’m not calm.” I look at my hands in my lap, my white knuckles, like they belong to someone else. The bracelet catches a flash of sunlight from between a couple of buildings. The words return to me—I named you Lucile for your father, Lucien Suarez Beck, who gave his life to save you.

Your father. Gave his life to save you.

I grab the edge of the seat and swallow hard to shove back a wave of dizziness. “Has Jake texted?” I ask Paige.

She picks up her phone. “He’s there with Sam. Sam’s fine. Jake’s parents have the kids. Everything’s covered, don’t worry. Just—we can just focus on this.”

The Uber hurtles forward again. Paige scrolls her phone.

“What the fuck,” she says. “What the actual fuck.”

“Honestly, Paige—”

She turns the screen toward me. “You have to see this.”

Because of security, we’ve been given detailed instructions regarding our arrival. Already the news seems to be spreading. People are milling around Cambridge Street, checking their phones, dazed faces. Traffic is at a standstill.

The Uber driver turns down the talk radio. “Sorry, ladies. Some rumor going around about that singer being here. Monk Adams? Like he OD’d or something.”

“I heard he had a heart attack on the operating table, donating a kidney to save his love child,” says Paige. I drive an elbow into her side.

The driver laughs. “Or some shit like that, right? You said around back?”

“Blossom Street,” I tell him. “There’s a side entrance. Someone’s meeting us there.”

“Good plan. Avoid all this crap.”

Finally we break free of the gridlock around the emergency entrance on Cambridge Street and whip around the corner to Charles Street, then right on Blossom. I scan the side of the building until I spot a pair of men in security uniforms, standing next to a small metal door.

“Right here,” I tell the driver.

When we arrive at the ICU, the first person I see is Lennox Lassiter.

She sits in a small waiting area, otherwise empty except for a pair of security guards like the ones who’ve accompanied Paige and me and the doctor. Her thumbs fly away on the phone she holds before her face. (She told me once that she always keeps her phone at eye level to avoid neck wrinkles.) Her hair is gathered back in an uneven, sun-streaked ponytail; the lightbulb beneath her skin is switched off.

“Hold me back,” mutters Paige.

I grab her arm. “Later, okay?”

“It’s her fault all these people are here.”

The movement catches Lee’s attention. She shifts her glance from her screen to us, and the look of concentration transforms into shock. She jumps to her feet. “Where are you going?”

But the security men are already whisking us down the hall to the last room, where another pair of officers stands before the door. The doctor nods; the guards stand aside. One of them opens the door.

You think you’re prepared for a sight like this. The doctor meets you upon arrival for a briefing—heart arrhythmia, previously undiagnosed; full cardiac arrest on the operating table; heart restarted; heavily sedated; three units of blood; next twenty-four hours critical—and there is all this time to tell yourself you will be calm, they will open the door and you will see Monk in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed; his eyes will be closed; he will be surrounded by machines that make alarming noises, by tubes hooked up to his arms that once held you, his mouth that once kissed you.

But then the door opens and you see him like this.

Paige grabs me around the waist just in time. I turn my head into her shoulder, just for a second or two. Just to gather myself. When I look up, a man and a woman rise from the chairs near the bed.

“Mallory?” says the woman, slight and honey-haired, shadows beneath both eyes.

“Yes?”

“Thank God you’re here,” she says. “Remember me?”

I cover my mouth with my hands. “Blue!”

The young man walks forward and folds me up in a hug.

“Chippy,” I sob.

“Is that bitch still out there?” asks Blue. “Did you see what she posted?”

“The hashtags were the worst,” says Paige. “Hashtag stepmom? Really?”

Blue leans forward and whispers to me, “We stopped visiting because she drove us nuts. But Monk was, like, devoted. He wouldn’t hear a word.”

Dr. Grenardo says, “I’m sorry. I understand everyone’s upset, but could we keep this kind of conversation outside the room? Mrs. Dunne, when you’ve had a moment to assess Mr. Adams’s condition, I’d like to have a few words with you.”

Chippy looks at me. “Hey, how’s the kid?”

“Sam is great,” I tell him. “He’s got one hell of a new kidney.”

He looks like wax. I imagine if I touch his skin, he will be cold and hard, like a candle. So I stand there and tell him about that time we were on the beach together with the twins, before we had even kissed, when I was sketching a seashell. Do you remember that, Monk? Something hooked me about the grooves of the shell, the way they mimicked the waves on the ocean’s surface. The patterns of nature, the way they repeat themselves elsewhere, the way they repeat themselves into eternity.

And you asked me what was it about patterns that I loved, and I said it was the rhythm, like we all shared this fundamental living beat, plants and animals and people and everything else, the earth and the stars, physics, radiation, electromagnetic waves, and you nodded and said, Like music.

And all along, your heart was hiding this secret. Arrhythmia. Out of sync with the beat of the universe.

It hurts, Pink. Like a pain in my chest, like it’s too much to hold.

I reach out and touch his forehead, the only patch of skin that’s bare of tubing and bandages. It’s warm, of course. Flesh, not wax.

I’m sitting in the chair next to Monk’s bed, watching the steady drip of urine down the catheter. The afternoon sun rims the edges of the blinds. The machines beep on, keeping him alive.

The door creaks. Paige walks in with a pair of coffee cups. She hands one to me and sits in the other chair.

“Chippy and Blue are taking one for the team,” she says. “Told Lee she needed to get some rest and dragged her to a hotel.”

“They’re not wrong. She could definitely use some rest.”

“So could you, honey.”

I shake my head. I’m beyond sleep.

“She does love him, though.” I lift my gaze to Monk’s nose, outlined against the wall. “She does.”

Paige makes a noise. “She walked right out the front entrance, Mallie. Right into the crowd of paps, one pretty tear streaking down her left cheek. But at least she took down that selfie of her and Sam. She said it was all a big misunderstanding.”

I sip the coffee. Thin and bland. Keurig, probably. But at least it’s hot, I think.

It gets you through the night.

I glance down at the hand on my lap. The snake coiled around my wrist. One tiny, watchful emerald eye. “I keep thinking…”

“What’s that, honey?”

“If I had told him earlier. I mean, he was a perfect tissue match. I could have told him earlier and Sam wouldn’t have spent three years on dialysis. I don’t know, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

“You don’t know that. His heart might have stopped on an operating table three years ago.”

“But if Monk were in the picture, Sam wouldn’t have gone to summer camp at all. He never would have eaten the mushroom to begin with.”

“So he might have fallen off a sailboat aged five. Hit in the eye by a lacrosse stick. You just don’t know.”

I stick my face in the hollow of my two hands. “I ran away, Paige. I ran away and hid. I should have been braver. Monk’s suffering, I made him suffer. Maybe even killed him. And for what.”

“Exactly,” says Paige. “For what. I know you walked away for a reason. I know you, Mallory. You wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“I was just a dumb kid, Paige.” I lift my head to stare at the machines keeping Monk alive. “A dumb, scared kid who made a stupid mistake.”

Paige sets her coffee cup on the floor and picks up my hand.

“So explain. Tell him about it.”

“What, now? It’s too late. He can’t even hear me.”

“How do you know that? He’s on medication, he’s not asleep. Anyway, it’s not for him, is it? Not really. You know how confession works. This is for you.”

The door rustles. A nurse comes in. We sit quietly while she checks the machines, the tubes. Changes the IV bag. She nods to us as she leaves.

“Here’s the deal,” I say. “The catch-22.”

“What are you talking about? What catch?”

“If I tell him, if I get this off my chest, give him his fucking closure, he’ll never—I mean, that’s it. Whatever chance we still had, it’s gone.”

Paige makes a noise of exasperation. “Jesus, Mal. Will you just wake up? There are only two outcomes here. Two. Do you understand that? And the best of those two outcomes is, he pulls through and marries his fiancée and lives happily ever after. The you train? The you and Monk train? That left the station a long time ago. And you don’t even want to be on it. Where that train is headed, you don’t want to live there.”

I pull my hand from Paige’s hand and rise from the chair. The reassuring beep of Monk’s heartbeat on the monitor draws me forward to the edge of the bed. When I find his hand on the soft ecru blanket, I could swear the fingers twitch against mine.

Or maybe that’s my imagination. Wishful thinking.

“Hey, Monk.” With my other hand I push at a curl of hair that threatens to droop on his forehead. “It’s me. Mallory. I’m here. Not going anywhere this time, I promise.”

There is no sign that he hears me. Not a flicker of eyelids or fingers or anything. The machine beeps on in the same steady rhythm. I put my other hand around Monk’s hand, so I’m clasping his fingers between my palms, like when you pray.

There was this time. I think it must have been the night before the afternoon Monk kissed me for the first time. The end of June. Warm, muggy day. I’d just put the kids to bed and a text arrived from Monk. Bike ride?

Five minutes later we were coasting down West Cliff Road, draft coursing through our hair. Flying past the golf course, the guard shack, the fields, the houses, the village. Gleefully I followed the white flash of Monk’s T-shirt, all the way to the airfield at the other end of the island. The old bunkers set into the dunes, left over from the war. We tossed the bikes into the grass and staggered to the beach, where we threw ourselves into the sand. Monk produced a bottle of champagne he’d smuggled out of his dad’s cellar. We passed it back and forth and talked about…I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. We talked ourselves to sleep, so that I opened my eyes to some unknown hour, to the bruised night, the stars, the warm sand under my skin, my hand clasped in Monk’s hand. I don’t know how I knew he was awake, just that he was. Just that I knew he knew I was awake.

We didn’t look at each other. That would have wrecked it. We stared at the sky together, breathed the damp air together, floated together on our champagne cloud.

Hand in hand. Each of us pretending that the other one was asleep.

Now I look down at Monk’s hand between mine. The same old hand. The same Monk.

“Monk,” I say. Soft voice. “I need to tell you something.”