Chapter 37 – James
JAMES
The text comes in just as I’m about to get on the elevator and go to the poker room on the third floor.
Beau
Change of plans: no poker night. Nate and Ryan got dragged into a double date.
Meet the single losers at Terrace, we’ll have some steak instead.
I rub my temples, frustrated. I've been a mess ever since we got back from Greece, and poker night would've been the perfect distraction.
Going into a smaller group is dangerous.
It'll make it easier for the guys to spot what a mess I am, and the last thing I want to deal with now is being grilled about it.
Because I haven't processed the news about Maura’s illness at all.
In fact, I've hardly slept for the past week.
As soon as I drift into slumber, I jerk awake in a panic, convinced I just heard Maura scream for help.
She never does. Every time I sneak into my wife's bedroom to check on her, she's sleeping peacefully. At least that makes one of us.
Oh, well. It's too late for me to back out of boy’s night now. I just have to go to dinner and hope nobody picks up on how broken I feel.
As I walk into the steakhouse, I send my silent thanks to Beau’s lighting designer. It's dim and atmospheric enough in Terrace that the guys might miss the bags under my eyes.
The hostess directs me to a table in the back. Beau and Luke are already sipping beers and snacking on a basket of fries. When Beau sees me, he frowns.
“Dude, you look like shit,” Beau says.
Luke elbows him. “Don't be an asshole.”
“What? I'm not being an asshole, I'm being observant. He looks like he hasn't slept since…when did you land?”
“Five days ago,” I manage.
“Five days. James, that's not healthy.”
“Thank you for that medical assessment.”
“See? He's still sarcastic. That's a good sign.”
Luke shakes his head. “That's his baseline. If he stopped being sarcastic, that's when we'd worry.”
“I'm right here,” I point out.
“We know,” they say in unison.
“What is it, man? Something with Sequel? Is Maura okay?”
I should answer him. Words form in my mind, but my tongue goes dry and I can’t say them.
For a moment, I just open and close my mouth like a fish.
Then I just…shut down. I can't bring myself to speak.
The edges of my vision blur, and I feel like I'm at the end of a very dark cave. Luke and Beau’s voices sound distant and hollow.
“Shit,” Luke says. “It's happening again. I haven't seen him like this since—”
“His parents. Fuck,” Beau mutters.
“How do we snap him out of it?”
“I don’t know. That was always Nate’s department, not mine.”
It’s cold in the back of the cave. My muscles convulse in some imitation of a shiver.
“Well, we’ve got to do something.” Luke’s voice sounds frantic. “Should I slap him?”
“That’s not how you get someone out of a panic attack. What do you think this is, a movie from the 30s? What’s next, should I get the smelling salts?”
“You’ve got a better idea?”
“Let’s get him into the kitchen,” Beau says firmly. “I have an idea.”
Somehow, the two of them maneuver my body into standing.
Some deep, distant part of me knows we must look insane, Beau and Luke bodily shoving me through the restaurant like we’re in Weekend at Bernie’s.
Fortunately, I don’t have the capacity to feel embarrassed right now.
I feel…nothing. Nothing except cold and hollow and complete apathy to this moment.
The lights in the kitchen are white fluorescents, and my eyes narrow at the sudden brightness. The restaurant’s atmospheric music disappears, replaced by clattering pans, chopping knives, and the occasional shouted instruction from a chef.
Beau stops me in front of a counter in the back and shoves something into my hand. “Now, peel,” he says firmly.
I glance up at a large pile of brown potatoes, then down at what apparently is a peeler. Luke groans.
“This is your big idea? Peeling potatoes? James grew up with an army of private chefs. He hasn’t peeled a vegetable in his life.”
“It’s fine. He can’t mess it up. We can always buy more potatoes.
Here.” Beau’s cool hands maneuver mine until I’m grasping a potato in one hand and putting the peeler against it with the other.
“Light pressure, break through the skin. Then push away from your hand, like this. That’s it. You got it.”
To my surprise, I do. The motions are slow and awkward at first, but after a few tries, I get the hang of it.
I'm peeling potatoes. This is new. It takes several minutes for me to fully remove the skin.
Beau hands me another potato, and I peel that one, too.
My hands figure out what to do, and they take over.
The blur at the edge of my vision vanishes.
The fluorescent lights feel less bright, and my body feels like it belongs to me again.
Beau doesn’t have to hand me the next potato. I reach for it myself.
“You snapped him out of it,” Luke says in wonder. “How did you do that?”
“It's called a flow state,” Beau explains. “You do a repetitive task, and you slip into a different state of mind. I like to come in and do restaurant prep myself when I'm having a bad day. Keep going, James. You don't have to tell us what happened if you don't want to.”
But I do want to. I have to, really. I don't know if I can survive not telling anyone.
“Maura’s sick.” As miserable as I am, my chest still feels the tiniest bit lighter the second the words are out, even though they swell in my chest and burn on their way out of my throat.
“Oh, shit,” Beau blurts. He quickly follows it with, “God, I’m sorry, not the right thing to say.”
Luke, with his perfect manners, smoothly says, “I’m so sorry. That must be hard, for both of you. Can you tell us what it is?”
“It's her heart,” I mutter. “She’s had all kinds of treatments, and she had a cardiac episode when we were in Greece. She—she has a shortened life expectancy.”
“Fuck,” Beau says, then slaps himself in the face. “Sorry, I keep saying the wrong fucking thing.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, reaching for another potato. “‘Fuck’ is about the only thing you can say to that.”
“How long has she been sick?” Luke asks.
“She had her first surgery when she was a kid.”
“And she's just now telling you?” Beau says with something like horror. I nod.
“Motherfucker,” Luke and Beau say together.
For a moment, there’s silence except with for the quiet click of my potato peeler.
“How do you feel about it?” Luke asks.
“At first, I felt betrayed. Then angry at myself, for not knowing somehow. None of that feels important now, though.” I think about my parents. When they died, my life shattered into two different halves. Before and after. Childhood and adulthood. Happiness and survival.
I remember that night at the charity gala when I was eleven. I'd wandered off, bored, and found a girl hiding in a storage room. She was drawing horses. She had the saddest eyes I'd ever seen, but when she showed me her drawings, they lit up like she'd found something worth living for.
The memory has become clearer since I realized on the plane to Greece that that girl is now my wife.
I remember I brought her cake. I sat with her while she drew. I didn't want to leave.
I never saw her again. I never even learned her name. But on several occasions in my life, when I’ve thought about people who understand what it's like to be lonely in a crowd, I pictured her.
She’s still the same as she was then. That same fire behind the sadness. That same determination to create something beautiful despite everything.
“It’s crazy, but I used to think sometimes that maybe life could've been better if I never had parents. If I never knew what there was to miss.”
Luke puts a supportive hand on one of my shoulders, and Beau clasps the other.
“I was wrong, of course,” I continue. “I wouldn't trade my memories of them for anything in the world. That's how I feel about Maura, now, too. However little time I get with her, I want every second. It’s crazy because of how this all started, but I think…I think knowing her will be worth any future pain.”
Beau blows out a breath. “Damn, man. That’s…that’s beautiful.”
“We’re with you, man,” Luke says, squeezing my shoulder. “Whatever you need. Just say the word.”
I nod toward the table. “I could use some help with the potatoes.”
“Nah, those are going straight to the compost,” Beau says with a laugh. “Total health code violation. I didn’t even make you wash your hands.”
“So I just peeled all those for nothing?”
“If it makes you feel better, you could give them to Ryan. I’m sure he’d cook them up into something horrifying.”
I shudder. “Never mind. Compost it is.”
After we’ve disposed of the potatoes, the guys drag me back into the restaurant for dinner. I feel—not better, exactly, but decided. My panic has dissolved in favor of certainty. I might not know what the next few years will bring, but I know how I want to spend them.