Five Days Left Page 21

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited wordlessly until finally she sighed and handed him the key. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. She opened her mouth to thank him, but he raised a finger to his lips and shook his head. Then he turned and walked to his cab, raising a hand high in salute as he went.

  28.

  Scott

  Scott was showered and changed and waiting for Laurie when she arrived home.

  “Wow,” she said. “Sport coat and dress shirt. And those shoes I love. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m taking my wife to dinner. Some would call it a date.”

  “Twice in a row?”

  “Pffft. Takeout hardly counts as a date. And even if it did, why not? You deserve a break. You need anything before we go? Our reservation is for six.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, turning to walk back out the door. She seemed to prance down the porch steps and into his car. “Oh my gosh, I can’t remember the last time we did something spur-of-the-moment like this! I love it! It’s been at least . . .” She paused. “Never mind.”

  “You can say it, Laur.”

  “No. It’s insensitive. You’re still—”

  “Laur. It’s okay. You can say it.” He waited, but she refused to speak. “Fine, I’ll say it,” he said. “It’s been at least a year. Since Curtis moved in. We haven’t been able to do anything so last-minute since then. You’re allowed to be excited about it.” He kissed her, and started the car. “You’re allowed to tell me how you feel. You don’t have to pretend not to be relieved to have our lives to ourselves again, when we both know you’ve been looking forward to it.

  “And so have I, for that matter. It’s not like if we refuse to find a silver lining to the situation, it’ll change, right? He’s gone. We can be morose or we can find a way to look on the bright side. Either way, he’s still gone.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t add to what he’d said. They held hands and sang to the radio, and when he looked at her, he saw a new radiance he hadn’t noticed before. Whether it was the late stages of pregnancy or the fact that he’d gone to the trouble of planning a date night or the peacefulness of having time without the four-foot-high third wheel who’d been with them every minute for the past twelve months, he couldn’t say. But she looked beautiful.

  “You look beautiful,” he told her, raising her hand to his lips. “You look . . . content.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel.” She closed her eyes, and they stayed that way for the last ten minutes of the drive—holding hands, Scott glancing from the road to his wife and the two of them singing along softly with Elton as he mourned Daniel’s departure and the red taillights.

  Midway through dinner, she set her knife and fork down. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m relieved.”

  He lifted his eyes from his steak and found her looking uncertainly at him, as if wondering whether she’d made a mistake in taking him at his word. He gestured for her to continue. Not so much because he wanted to hear what he knew she was going to say, but because he felt he owed it to her. She hadn’t been wild about the idea of taking the boy in, but she had done it anyway, for an entire year, for Scott’s sake. The least he could do was let her express how she felt about it.

  “I am,” she said. “Relieved. Content, like you said in the car. Utterly, completely relaxed for the first time in forever. I mean, oh my God, Scott. Remember how easy last night was? Dinner on the couch, our feet up? Remember the quiet? No arguments about table manners or talking back? And after, while you were grading your papers, I read six chapters of that book and started another, all in glorious, uninterrupted silence. No pausing to negotiate about homework or showers or bedtimes or whether someone could have seconds on dessert when he didn’t finish firsts on vegetables. It was heaven.”

  She regarded him closely, a tentative look on her face. He knew she was waiting for him to tell her she could keep going. He felt a pang of disloyalty to Curtis in listening to her list all the ways in which they were “free” of the boy, and he almost raised a hand to stop her. But letting her say it out loud didn’t mean he had to agree with her. He waved his fork, granting permission.

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, after I got to bed and then you went—where’d you go, anyway? Downstairs, I think? Were you on that forum of yours? Anyway, I was lying there thinking that for the next three months, every single night will be like that. Just you and me and enough quiet we’ll actually be able to hear our thoughts.”

  She paused again, and he nodded. “It was definitely quiet,” he said.

  “Was it ever,” she said, missing, or maybe ignoring, the fact that his tone was more wistful than grateful. “So quiet, I couldn’t get over it,” she said. “And you know what else?” He raised his eyebrows, inviting her to tell him. “The idea of all this time,” she said. “It’s incredible to me. Time together, time alone. Time to take afternoon naps! Or to sleep in on weekends without being woken at six by stage-whispering, ‘TROOPS, FALL OUT! BUT STAY IN THE HALLWAY! NO GOING INTO THE ADULTS’ ROOM AND WAKING THEM UP!’”

  Scott laughed. The kid never had gotten the idea. Or maybe he had, since the stage whispers were always followed by Laurie nudging Scott until he dragged himself out of bed and went downstairs with the noisy boy so Laurie could keep sleeping.

  Laurie laughed, too, her relief evident in the lightness of her voice. She reached for his hand, grazed a thumb across his knuckles and gave him one of her dazzling smiles, the kind that made him feel more liquid than solid. “We’ve had . . . not the easiest few years, you and I, is that fair?” she said. He nodded and she grazed her thumb in the other direction.

  “And I’m not saying we can repair in three months all the strain we’ve built up in that many years,” she continued. “But we can repair a lot of it, don’t you think? With all this time alone before the baby comes, think of all the date nights, the movie nights on the couch with no little body between us, keeping us from cuddling. All the lazy mornings in bed.” She flashed him a seductive look and now he was more vapor than liquid.

  “Three months,” she said. “It’s enough time to get ourselves back on track before we have a third body in the house again. Enough to get ourselves melded more solidly together, like we used to be, before this little one comes and adds sleepless nights and anxiety and all the things that can pull people apart. And I guess, although I’m furious with LaDania and heartsick that we didn’t get to say goodbye to our little man like we wanted to, I see these few extra days as a gift, because it’s that much more time for us.” She looked at him nervously. “Is that . . . okay?”

  “Of course it’s okay,” he said.

  Because really, what other choice did he have?

  After dinner, she asked if they could stop by her favorite baby store, Bundles of Joy, and pick out a few things for the registry. He called up an imitation of the most excited voice he could think of, and even though it rang hollow to him, she ran with it, either because of her own excitement about their mission or because she was letting him coast awhile longer on his date-night win.

  She did not, however, run with it when she was trying to show him 0-3-month dresses and he was looking the other way at infant-sized baseball gloves and glaringly boyish Tigers uniforms. Taking him by the arm, she pulled him to the dresses. “I need you to look at these,” she said. She took one off the rack—pink gingham with a butterfly on the stomach—and held it toward him, her eyes instructing him to remark about how cute it was.

  He smiled wanly and she shook her head.

  “Not good enough,” she said. “I need you to be excited about this.” She shook the dress toward him. “I need you to point out the adorable butterfly on this one. And”—she reached for a yellow dress with a big daisy on the front—“the cute flower on this one,” she said, holding it toward him.

  She set the dresses back on the shelf and put a hand on each of his
shoulders.

  “I need you to act and feel over the moon about the fact that we’re having a daughter. I need you to convince me that the most important thing in your life is not the family living in an apartment in Detroit, but the one you and I are creating in Royal Oak. I need to see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice and feel it in your kiss that this family, our little family of three, is your priority. I don’t think that’s too much for me to ask. I don’t think it’s too much for you to give. But if I’m wrong about that, this would be the time for you to tell me.”

  She let go of his shoulders and turned back to the dresses. Scott examined the floor. Could he really promise, right here, right now, that as of this minute, he would get over the loss of his little man and move on? Just like that, be excited about the baby and not show another bit of lamentation about the boy?

  He raised his eyes and took in his wife’s legs, her bulging belly, her face. Even annoyed, she still glowed. God, she was gorgeous. And there was something about her, about the two of them together, that was nothing short of electric. How many times had she reduced him to non-solids tonight alone with a mere swing of her hair or a flash of her eyes? For him, she was it. The only woman he would ever love.

  What she had asked of him right now was, as she had said, eminently reasonable. And paled in comparison to what he had asked of her that night last April when Bray showed up on their porch, younger brother in tow. He could imagine what Pete would say—2boys, too, for that matter—if they were witness to his internal debate about whether he should promise the love of his life that he would act from this moment on as though she were exactly that: “Uh, what the fuck is the dilemma here?”

  “You’re not wrong,” he said, reaching for the pink dress with the butterfly and holding it up away from them, appraising. “So what—do they make miniature clothes hangers for all this stuff? Because no way is this kind of thing going to fit on the ones from our closet.” He held the registry scanner toward the tag, waiting for her go-ahead before he added the dress to their list.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  29.

  Mara

  Mara waited on the porch for the school bus to arrive. There would be no standing at the curb anymore.

  “Laks, sweetie,” she said when the girl reached her. Mara bent unsteadily, bringing her face to the level of her daughter’s so she could look in the girl’s eyes. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened today.”

  “It’s okay, Mama.” The girl studied her shoes. “Can I have a snack?”

  Mara’s breath came easily for the first time in hours. “Sure.”

  “I told you,” Tom said when he arrived home and Mara relayed Laks’s behavior after school. Mara had called him right after Harry left, sobbing, telling him she was certain Laks would never speak to her again after what had happened. “Nonsense,” he said. “She’s far more resilient than you’ve ever given her credit for.”

  But later, Mara was carrying clean bath towels to Laks’s linen closet—only two at a time, since carrying a large pile of laundry had become too difficult—and Tom, she thought, was on the couch, reading a magazine. But as she neared her daughter’s doorway, she heard his voice asking, “Laks? What’s wrong?”

  Mara peeked through the small opening between the door and the frame. The child was facedown, sobbing into her pillow. Her father was sitting on her bed, stroking her hair.

  “Laks, talk to me,” he said.

  He was answered with more sobs, and Mara watched as he studied the crease of his pants. After a moment, he asked, “Is this about what happened today at school?”

  Mara took a sharp breath as the dark head on the pillow moved up and down.

  “I see. I want you to talk to me about it. When you have big feelings, it’s best to get them out. Not keep them inside.”

  Laks turned, her face scrunched and red with anger. “I am not friends with Lisa,” she sobbed. “Anymore. I am never talking to her again.”

  “Oh!” he said, and Mara shared the relief she heard in his voice. “This is about Lisa? What happened with Lisa?”

  “She said”—Laks paused to catch her breath—“mean things,” she choked, before breaking into more sobs.

  “What mean things?”

  The small face turned to the wall.

  “Lakshmi. Answer me. What mean things?”

  Still facing the wall, she mumbled, “She called Mama a ‘drunken lady.’”

  “Drunken lady?” Tom said, and Mara heard the strain in his voice as he tried to make it light, forcing a half laugh. A feeling of dread crept into her chest. “Well, that’s a silly name,” he said, “and a strange one for a kindergartner to come up with, but I don’t know if she meant it to be mean—”

  Laks looked sharply at her father. “She got it from the fourth graders. And she meant it mean.” And in an instant, her sharp look collapsed into a pained one and fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks. Her tiny shoulders started to shake and her voice took on the choking, gasping sound of someone trying to fit words around sobs. “They all. Said it,” she panted. “Everyone but Susan.”

  She took another breath. “She’s the only one. I’m still friends with.” She paused again to let more sobs out. “And they all. Meant it mean. The big kids. Too.” She gulped in more air and sniffed. “They all started calling her that. ‘Drunken lady.’ Because she was. Walking. All funny,” she panted. “And the big kids said. She looked. Drunk. And I asked. Teacher. What ‘drunk’ means and she. Said it’s. Bad.” The little body convulsed and she threw her arms around her father’s waist, burying her head in his lap.

  Drunk. Mara looked down; the towels she was holding were moving back and forth, up and down. She hadn’t noticed her arms moving.

  Anosognosia. The complete lack of awareness some HD patients have about the way their bodies are moving. She remembered Dr. Misner explaining it to her. Then Tom. Then Dr. Thiry.

  She’d heard of HD patients being arrested for public drunkenness because of their awkward, listing, bent-over gait and arguing that they were walking just fine—which never helped their case with the police. And now Mara had done the same. Only instead of embarrassing herself in front of the police, she had humiliated her daughter in front of a hallway full of children. Had it only started today, at the school, she wondered, or had she been walking strangely for longer?

  Suddenly it hit her: the boy and his mother in the grocery store had looked at her like there was something wrong with her—more, even, than the fact she’d wet herself. Harry had fairly jumped out of his car and sprinted to her after he watched her take a few steps at the car repair shop. And the salesgirl at the clothing store seemed to be staring at her, too. She had written it off at the time—she was acting oddly herself at each of those times—and assumed everyone’s puzzled looks were a reaction to that.

  Now she knew what all the gawking was about. She’d been walking like a drunk all week long.

  Only her family and friends had acted like nothing had changed. She knew she was supposed to love them for that, but the sound and sight of her daughter bawling made it difficult not to feel the opposite.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tom said to Laks. “And Mama is so sorry. But it’s not her fault. Remember when Mama and I told you about how she wasn’t feeling well? How she had something called Huntington’s, and that’s why she stopped working? That’s why she used to be a little angry sometimes, until she started taking medicine? Remember that? Remember how we talked about how when people have a disease, they can’t help it? So when the disease makes them act in ways we might not really like all that much, we need to try hard not to be mad at them, because it’s the disease’s fault, and not theirs? Do you remember all of that?”

  They hadn’t said much to Laks about Mara’s condition. It wouldn’t be unusual if they decided to keep it from her completely, given her age, the s
ocial worker at Dr. Thiry’s clinic had told them. But that’s not how they did things in their family, Mara said. They were straight shooters. Tell-it-like-it-is types. The kind of parents who referred to body parts by their real names. So, last summer, when Laks, then four, asked her mother, “Why do you take all those pills every morning?” they sat her down and told her why.

  Against Mara’s wishes, Tom had added the piece about being understanding, not being upset with Mara for acting out, dropping things, falling. Mara wanted the girl to be able to express anger, frustration, at her mother, if that’s what she was feeling. Burying it because of some promise she’d made to her father was the exact opposite of what Mara wanted for her daughter. It was lucky Tom hadn’t been in the hallway at school today, Mara thought; Laks might have felt pressured to walk Mara out to the curb even though what she’d really wanted was to pretend she didn’t know her.

  Laks nodded. “I remember.”

  “Good,” Tom said, running a hand over the top of her head. “So you remember we need to be sure not to be mad at Mama for what happened, since it’s not her fault, right?” Laks didn’t answer. “Right, Lakshmi?” Tom said, his voice stern now, instructing her to agree.

  But the girl didn’t nod in agreement. Mara didn’t blame her.

  And Tom didn’t push again, but sat quietly, letting her cry in his lap while he rubbed the shoulders that rose jerkily up and down with sobs. And now Mara saw the glistening trail on her husband’s cheek. She raised a hand to her mouth to cover her own sob and stepped sideways, leaning against the wall as the towels slid from her hand and dropped to the floor.

  She had spent hours ruminating with worry that one day her condition might embarrass her daughter. That dealing with the effects of her illness, helping their daughter try to deal with it, might become too much for her husband. But she had not, in any of those hours, come close to realizing how she would feel if either of those things actually came true.