Chapter 28
“Are you sure that Cait's specialist is the best person to treat her? Mason and I were discussing her treatment the other day, and he mentioned Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. He spent time at boarding school in the United Kingdom and remembers the building while being driven.”
“Sabrina, are you having some kind of moment?”
“No, Mom, I—”
“United Kingdom? We live outside Trenton, in case that thought slipped your mind. Are you hungover, lass? Your brain doesn’t seem connected to your mouth today.”
My brain is connected. In fact, it’s whirring through the probability of Cait seeing a renowned specialist in London.
While her doctor seems to have all the correct qualifications, the jellyfish aren’t budging, and she’s endured three rounds of injections into her eyeball since.
Still in great spirits, she sent me a photo of a poem she wrote for English.
She was so proud of her B+. So was I until I zoomed in and read it.
No more rainy days, or Milky Ways.
No more sunrise sky kissed pink and gold.
No Netflix shows, or complete rainbows,
Or vintage photographs, yellowed and old.
There is no more room from the jellyfish bloom,
Their brownish tentacles are all I can see,
A new alphabet to touch, a dog or a cane,
Is what the future holds for me.
You could have knocked me over with a muffled sneeze.
First of all, B plus? B fucking plus for a kid pouring her fucking heart out through prose?
She may appear stoic and unperturbed on the surface, but under those outer layers, she’s shit scared of going blind.
No more rainy days or milky ways, or Netflix shows.
How the fuck does life go on when hers, for all intents and purposes, is crawling to an end?
I think I’d rather be deaf than blind. And I’d rather be dead than both.
Fuck those fucking jellyfish and their stupid tentacles. Fuck it all.
“With my next bonus, I could probably get flights to London.”
“Brina, stop. Oh, that is so darling. I got you a little sunflower like that from South Dakota.”
I follow her inclined chin toward a woman with a baby in a pram, so the baby must still be tiny.
The woman is paying for clothes at the register where Mom and I are also lined up with most of the Northeast readying for Christmas.
I take in her profile and will down the rising bile.
Mom bounces on her feet, just itching to go over and see the baby dwarfed by blankets.
The baby of the woman whose husband I had unwittingly formed a relationship with and given her my flower when she was all tear-stained and heartbroken next to my desk. Fu-ck!
“Let’s find another checkout. This line is too long.”
“There are two people in front of us. The line won’t be shorter anywhere else.”
“Mom, come on. Please.” I step out of line, met by her furrowed brow. Not now, not here. She looks set to join me, to fall into step so we can run away to a check out in another department. Only the woman spots her dickhead husband and calls out to him. “Ben, Ben! We’re here.”
Mom stops moving like a petulant toddler about to throw a tantrum.
Ben strides over blissfully unaware, always so fucking unaware, and places his hand on the stroller handle, right on top of his fucking wife’s.
Their gleaming gold bands look a gaudy yellow in these unflattering lights, and can those fucking carols take a rest for one goddamn minute?
“Ben?” she said, "Ben, as in…” Her tone may be hushed and hesitant, but her mind is completing equations quicker than a supercomputer.
“Yes, she said Ben,” I snapped, ready to dump the damn gifts next to the nearest mannequin.
I don’t dare look back as I power stride past eager shoppers and staff arranging new displays.
With my neck craned and head on a swivel, I locate another register across the other side of the store.
We take our place in the line behind the four other shoppers because, of course, this line is longer!
“Anything you want to tell me, Brina?”
No, Mom, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to share any of it with you, and you are better off not knowing. “Bubble?”
“I didn’t know.” It comes out on a choked sob.
“Okay. You didn’t know. Didn’t know what, exactly?” That he was married, that he had a gorgeous, pregnant wife at home.
“He is a twin. You remember that, right?”
“Aye, okay. Is the twin brother also called Ben then?”
“No.” The shame washes over me like a fog, creeping in to cover and conceal.
“I didn’t fucking think so. So, tell me this, why did Ben, the same Ben that sat in our kitchen for tea back in May, suddenly have a wife and wee baby with him in December?”
“I didn’t know he was married, okay?” The tears well.
“What about the baby?”
“Of course not. He didn’t have a ring and told me he was separated from his wife pending divorce proceedings. I took him at his word, and I feel like an idiot.”
“All you can do is take someone at their word, Brina. Whatever fantasy he created around his life and circumstances, you are as much a victim as his wife and child are. I hope you realize that.”
“I want to believe you. But I still feel like a shitty person every day because of it. She came to work to see her brother-in-law, the one who set us up in the first place, mind you. She was convinced he was cheating because he was! With me! I heard it all: how she was pregnant and her husband was out at all hours. With me, Mom. I heard her call me every filthy name under the sun, and I wanted to sink under the weight of her words. They were true. All of them.”
“Oh, Bubble.”
“She stopped by my desk and commented on the flower. I panicked, so I gave it to her.”
“Brina, I understand, love.”
“Do you? Christ, I’m a failure.”
“You’re not a failure, Bubble. You have a tremendous heart and a sense of right and wrong. I know you didn’t set out to hurt anyone. Men can be right dicks sometimes. He told you what he wanted to be true. He created the illusion, not you.”
Fat drops pour down my cheeks, the dam having lost the struggle to contain the tears.
“Hey now, don’t cry. Everything happens for a reason, right?
You were approached by that media company and offered a promotion.
That’s some silver lining, Brina. It’s no wonder you left publishing and went to work with Mr. Fancy Pants.
Life has a funny way of working out the way it is supposed to.
Remember that the next time you beat yourself up over something totally outside of your control. Aye?”
“Yes, Mom.”