A Month of Summer (19 page)

“I see.” Raising a brow, the doctor wrote something in the file and frowned. “I will need a list of everything he has been taking.”

“I don’t know what he’s been taking,” I admitted, impatient with the cat-and-mouse game of who was responsible for my father’s care. Bad daughter? Bad doctor? What did it matter now? “I’ve just come into town, and with my father’s wife in the hospital, there isn’t anyone to tell me. I’m doing the best I can to get a handle on the situation.”

“As are we all.” The doctor made one last notation, then turned away and started down the hall. “We can admit him to the hospital for a day or two and correct his medications. Then we will know more. The nurse will give you the paperwork you need, if this is the way you would like to proceed.”

I didn’t argue. After the Herculean effort of getting my father fully dressed this morning, into the car, and to the doctor’s office, I was ready to agree to almost anything. All along, my father had been intensely worried about
those people
. He wouldn’t go out the front door, because
those people
had put locks on there, and they knew when he tried to open them. He wouldn’t go out the back door, because
those people
peered in from behind the privacy fence. Sometimes they gathered on the patio and talked about him. They tried to get him fired from the company. They said he’d stolen money from the pension fund—a miniature Enron scandal.

I’d finally pulled the car into the garage and convinced him that
those people
were not in there, and we could slip into the car secretly and drive away without being noticed. The dementia being what it was, I couldn’t bring Teddy along with us, so I’d left him home, after making him promise he wouldn’t wander off while I was gone. All morning long, I’d been subconsciously checking my watch, counting the hours, worrying. What if Teddy forgot his promise? What if something tempted him into going on another walkabout? What if he was gone when I got home?

I can’t keep doing this,
I thought. Pausing by the door, I braced a hand on the frame.
I can’t keep doing this. I can’t. It’s insane.
I’d awakened feeling sick this morning. Sick, and tired, and mildly dizzy. Exhausted.

I went to tell the nurse to proceed with the admission paperwork. At least in the hospital, my father would be safe. Without him constantly moving stuff and hiding it at home, I could work on returning the place to a reasonable state of organization.

Dr. Amadi’s nurse was matter-of-fact and efficient. She let my father believe he was going in for the broken ribs he’d suffered in the oil field accident. He liked the nurse because she was young and attractive. By the time all the paperwork was finished and I took him two miles down the street to the hospital, everything was in order. They’d given him a mild sedative to help him make the transition calmly.

He was falling asleep, exhausted by the day, when a nurse and an orderly helped him into his hospital bed. A queasy feeling oozed over me as they unwrapped an IV needle. I stepped into the hall, walked down a few doors, and sank into a chair in the mini-lounge by the elevator. It was only four thirty, but every muscle in my body was throbbing, my lungs filled with medicinal-smelling air, my mind racing with details. Hanna Beth was just a few miles down the street in the nursing and rehab center. Mary had told me she was doing better, regaining some language. Maybe she could explain why there was no recent record of my father having received treatment from a doctor. Maybe she could tell me how to reach Kay-Kay. Then again, maybe the questions would be too stressful for her. The nursing center administrator had repeatedly cautioned me not to expect too much, warned me that Hanna Beth’s symptoms could worsen under stress.

My cell phone rang, the sound seeming unreasonably loud in the marble corridor. I dug the phone out of my purse and opened it quickly.

“Rebecca Macklin.”

There was a pause on the other end, during which I heard Kyle telling one of the clerks to pull a file for him. I entertained the temporary notion that he was wondering about me. Amid the recent craziness, I hadn’t called home in two days. Except for one short conversation with my paralegal yesterday and a text message bedtime kiss to Macey last night, California and the office seemed a million miles away.

“Sorry about that.” Kyle came back, still using his all-business voice. “What can I do for you?” His mind was elsewhere, clearly.

“You called me, Kyle.”

“Oh, Rebecca, sorry.” I heard the squeal of his chair as he got up, probably to close the door. “I need to tell you something before you hear it thirdhand.”

A rapid pulse bolted into my throat. I imagined him calling to tell me, via cell phone, that he’d been having an affair, and word was out, and he was leaving me—us. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I couldn’t hold up under one more catastrophe.

“I meant to call you earlier, but I got tied up in a meeting.” His voice had the mollifying tone he employed to give skittish clients a false sense of security just before he served up a dose of legal reality, the don’t-panic-but-the-bridge-is-out-and-the-brakes-are-gone voice. “I didn’t want you to hear it from Macey first.”

My God, Macey knew? He’d involved our daughter? I gripped the arm of the chair, squeezed hard. “What’s going on, Kyle? Just tell me.”

“Don’t panic.”

“Don’t pacify me,” I snapped. The words echoed against the sterile white walls, and an elderly couple strolling with an IV stand glanced my way. I turned toward the wall, rubbing my forehead and shielding my face. “Just tell me, Kyle.”

“Everything’s been taken care of. There’s nothing for you to do. . . .” I pictured the purposefully calm facial expression that would come along with that artificially sedate tone. To emphasize the fact that there was nothing to panic about, he would rock calmly back in his chair, twirl a pencil in his fingers, look out the window, his sandy brown hair falling neatly over his collar as he surveyed the ocean in the distance. In that light, his eyes would be blue, like the water. If I walked past his office door in a moment like that, I would think that he looked perfect for the cover of
Forbes
—an accomplished man surrounded by the markers of success, oozing self-confidence. I admired that about him. He’d grown up the brilliant, athletic golden boy, the caboose baby with loving parents and older siblings admiring his every move. He was always secure in his position, as a good lawyer should be. “It’s already handled, all right?”

“Macey had a little accident in phys-ed class this morning. She doesn’t want to admit to the details, but as nearly as I can gather, they were in the gymnastics room, and Macey was showing off for the other kids, doing flips off the beam without a spotter. She landed on the edge of the mat and popped a tendon in her ankle.”

I felt sick. “Is she all right?” I pictured my daughter lying in some emergency clinic alone while Kyle was in meetings. Why was he still at work?

“She’s fine. I told you everything is fine.” Clearly, he’d caught the insinuation that he couldn’t handle the situation on his own.

“Where is she? Who’s with her?”

Kyle huffed into the phone, as in,
If you’ll just shut up and let me talk. . . .
“She’s home now. Mace’s going to be out of commission for a little while. She has a temporary brace on the ankle. The doctor will put a walking cast on in a couple days, when the swelling goes down. Mace is actually kind of excited about it. She’s never had a cast before. She called me to ask what color I thought she should get.”

My mind whirled through the barrage of information—popped tendon, doctor visit, swelling, temporary wrap . . . Macey would miss the state gymnastics meet in two weeks. How did she feel about that? She’d been working for state all year. “You let Isha take her to the doctor? ” How could he send our daughter to the emergency clinic with a twenty-two-year-old au pair? What was he thinking?

“My parents came up and took her.” He said it as if it made all the sense in the world that someone else would bring our daughter to the emergency room. “It was Macey’s idea. She knew I had to meet with a client in LA today.”

My chest clenched at the idea of my daughter lying in the school nurse’s office with a popped tendon, trying to make herself less trouble to her father. The day compressed around me. Air wrenched from my lungs in a sob, and I stifled it with my hand. “I’m coming home.” I’d have to hire somebody here. Now. Today. I could pay from our bank account until I gained access to my father’s funds, either through Hanna Beth or a power of attorney.

Where would I find someone who was willing to clean stacks of mail and newspapers, and patrol for rotten food underneath the beds and inside the closets? How could anyone be expected to deal with Teddy hiding in the backyard, my father wandering the house at night,
those people
coming and going without warning? How would it affect Teddy if I left? What about Hanna Beth. . . ?

“Macey doesn’t want you to come home.” Kyle’s reply stopped the whirling in my mind. “She knew you’d say that, and she told me to tell you that Grandma Macklin is going to stay with her for a few days, so she won’t be alone.”

A pinprick stung somewhere in my mother’s heart. Macey didn’t feel she needed me there? Nine years old, and she was already making her own arrangements? “Where’s Isha?”

Kyle hesitated, and I sensed another bomb about to drop. “I fired Isha last night. She left this morning.”

“What . . . wait . . . Kyle, what are you talking about? Isha’s been great so far. Macey adores her. Why in the world would you fire her, especially when I’m out of town?” I tried to imagine what he could possibly be thinking. “She’s over here on a work visa, Kyle. Without her job, she’ll be deported.”

“I found her another job.” He paused to thank Bree for bringing him a set of depositions, then told her she’d done a good job. I listened intently, trying to decide if the tone conveyed friendly office conversation or something more. I pictured Bree, fly-away ringlets of hair sailing in the window breeze as she drove me to the airport. She was twenty-four, gorgeous, gullible, a teenager rattling around in a woman’s body, in a man’s world. What man wouldn’t be attracted to that? “I had a client who was looking for someone to watch her kids,” Kyle went on. “She’s going back into the real estate business now that her divorce is settled, and she needed someone who could be there at odd hours. Two little girls. Isha’s a perfect fit.”

“You
gave
our au pair to one of your
clients
?” I thought of Susan Sewell, the blonde in the café. Kyle was handling property issues in her divorce case. . . .

Kyle huffed into the phone. “I didn’t
give
her away. I’d already fired her, so I did the nice thing and found her a new job. I think she’ll get along fine at Susan’s house.”

Susan.
Susan Sewell. Susan . . . who now had Macey’s au pair.

I wanted to demand answers, to say,
I saw you in the café holding hands, smiling at each other, intimate, like it wasn’t the first time. What’s going on, Kyle? I want the truth. . . .

Instead, some legally savvy defense mechanism I’d inherited from my mother was warning,
Not now, not now. Don’t tip him off that anything’s wrong. You can never trust a man to do the right thing. . . .
Another part of me, the emotionally raw and exhausted part, was saying,
If it’s true, I don’t want to know. Not right now. . . .
“Kyle, if the problem with Isha was bad enough to fire her, why would you recommend her to someone else? Especially someone with young children. If she’s not doing her job . . .”

“She’ll do fine at Susan’s. Don’t worry about it, all right? It’s handled. My mother is going to stay here for a few days until Macey’s back on her feet. I’ve already called the agency and they’re sending information on a couple of au pairs they have available. If none of that works out, they can provide a temp nanny until we come up with the right person.”

I swabbed my forehead, trying to wipe away the images of Kyle interviewing new au pairs, and his mother helping in the decision. As much as I loved Kyle’s parents, his mother would pick somebody like Mrs. Beasley—a sweet, cookie-baking, coddling, bun-wearing nanny who would tiptoe around behind my back, giving Macey snacks she wasn’t supposed to have, letting her stay up late to read stories and play board games and instant message with her girlfriends, just like Grandma Macklin did.

“Kyle, you can’t leave me with
it’s handled
. What happened? Why did you fire Isha? You never had a problem with her before.”

“Why do you always have to harp on things?” The frustration, the disgust in Kyle’s tone, jerked me back against the chair like a sudden slap. That was the bitter, sharp-edged voice couples shot at each other from across negotiating tables during divorces. “Why can’t you just trust me to handle it? I’m not an idiot. I don’t need a manager, Rebecca.”

“I’m not trying to
manage
you, Kyle.” As usual, he was attempting to put me on the defensive, to imply that the problem was
me
and my unreasonable need to control things. I hated it when he intimated that all of our marital disagreements stemmed from my having trust issues due to some Freudian reaction to my childhood—as if
he
was perfect because he came from an ideally intact family with two parents who never fought about anything, at least not in front of people. “Pardon me if it seems strange that I want to know what’s going on at home. I’m sure if it were you, you wouldn’t give us a second thought.” I winced as soon as the harpoon went out. I could feel it spiraling toward the target. A fight wouldn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted . . . I didn’t know what I wanted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just . . . tired.”

“I understand that, but I . . .” Whatever he was about to say, he held it back. I heard the chair squeak, the office door close. “I know that what you’re doing down there is hard. I wasn’t even going to tell you Isha was gone, but Macey had her accident, and I knew she’d want to call you tonight, so I figured I’d better bring you up to speed first.”