A Night at the Operation (20 page)

Escorted by Gregory.

That wasn’t acceptable, either. But there was a grand total of nothing I could do about it. I stood.

“Are you okay?” I asked first.

Sharon nodded. “We need to talk,” she said.

“That doesn’t sound good,” I answered. It was the very sentence she’d used to tell me she wanted a divorce. Come to think of it, Gregory had been involved in that one, too.

“Let’s get out of here,” Gregory offered. He put his hands on Sharon’s shoulders to guide her out the door, but she patted his hand and stepped away from him.

“I’m okay,” she said.

We walked outside and were immediately overcome by a cold wind. Gregory had parked his Lexus directly in front of the building, in a no-parking zone. There’s never a cop around when you need one. He opened the door for Sharon, and then hesitated, turned to me, and said, “Do you need a ride?”

I didn’t actually know where we were going, but I said, “Yes, thanks,” and got in the back seat. Okay, so it was silly and juvenile. But Sharon had been out of my sight far too much in the past four days. I was determined not to let it happen again.

Gregory got in and started the car, and cold air started blasting through the heating ducts. “Jeez, Greg,” I said, “I’d think a big fancy car like this one would come with heat as a standard feature.”

“It
does,
” he blustered. “It’s just been sitting here for . . .”

“He’s teasing you, Gregory,” Sharon said. “He’s just teasing.”

“So, kids,” I said, “where shall we go?”

“Since Sharon hasn’t been home in a while,” Gregory said, “we thought we’d go back to our house.”

I didn’t care for the way he said “we” or “our house,” but I kept it to myself. Nothing makes you feel more like you’re back in junior high school than riding in the back seat of a luxury car.

My first impulse, of course, was to ask Sharon to explain everything that had happened since Thursday, but something inside me that was petty and small wanted that conversation to happen without Gregory present. To be fair, I didn’t want anyone else present, either, but Gregory topped the list of people I didn’t want around. Some things don’t change no matter what the circumstances.

But I couldn’t wait for everything. “Where have you been all this time?” I asked Sharon.

“Mostly, I was up at my aunt Margie’s cabin at Lake Carey,” she said. “You know how I go up there when I need to clear my head.”

“But I was there,” I told her. “I went there. I looked for you.” I was going to prove to her that she hadn’t been where she knew she’d been.

“Was that you who broke the window?” Sharon asked.

I stayed silent.

“You broke a window?” Gregory said. I could hear him smile, the rat.

I didn’t respond, but my eyes were boring holes into the back of Gregory’s head. Luckily, the lack of hair made it easy to aim.

“I understand,” I said to Sharon, completely ignoring both Gregory and the fact that I’d broken a window at her aunt’s house. “You needed to get up there to sort out what had happened with Russell Chapman.”

Sharon turned around to face me. “Oh, no,” she said. “I didn’t know Mr. Chapman was dead until Chief Dutton told me yesterday afternoon. The poor man.”

“Chief Dutton?” Gregory asked.

“No, Russell Chapman.” Sharon shook her head. “I can’t believe someone killed him.”

“I’m just glad you’re back,” I told her. “But if you didn’t go up there to get over the Chapman thing, what did you need to get away from?”

She turned back to face the windshield again, and I got the impression it was so she wouldn’t have to meet my eyes. “Just doctor stress, I suppose.”

“You didn’t need to cut yourself off like that,” I kept on. “You never get out of touch with your practice. Why didn’t you at least check your voice mail?”

“I forgot to bring the charger with me, and besides, you know how I am at those times. I wanted to be completely alone to sort through . . .”

“Your doctor stress?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You could have at least left a message,” I told her. “You could have called someone before you left.”

“Elliot,” Sharon said with a reproach in her voice.

“What, ‘Elliot’?” I asked. “It’s unreasonable for me to ask why you didn’t call someone to let them know you were disappearing? So we wouldn’t be pulling our hair out—sorry, Gregory—and trying to remember what your last words to us were? That’s unreasonable? Why didn’t you call someone?”

I guess she was over the no-eye-contact phase, because Sharon looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I
did
call someone, Elliot. I called
you
.”

Well, that took the wind out of my sails. At the very least, if Sharon had called me, I should have known it. And after all the excitement about her disappearance, all that had happened . . .

“When?” I managed to get from my dry throat.

“Before I left Thursday night. I called right before I left the practice.”

“I was at the theatre,” I said.

“That’s right, so I left you a message on your machine at home.”

Of course. “The machine was disconnected. I never got the message.”

“Why’d you turn off your answering machine?” Sharon asked.

“I didn’t. Someone else did.”

“Who?”

I thought of the machine, its cord ripped from the wall, lying on the floor among the futon stuffing and the mountain of discarded videos. “We haven’t found out yet,” I said.

Sharon looked at me with a question in her eyes, but let it go.

Gregory coughed. “You didn’t call me,” he said quietly.

“Oh, don’t start,” Sharon said.

I squirmed in the back seat. “Mom, are you and Dad fighting?” I asked. Sharon gave me a distressed look, and I shut up.

Luckily, we had reached what I always thought of as “Sharon’s house,” and Gregory parked the car in the driveway. He rushed around to open Sharon’s door for her before I could even unbuckle my shoulder harness.

He needn’t have hurried. It never would have occurred to me to open her door. I’m a Neanderthal at heart.

Sharon seemed a little confused by the (now embarrassing) competition between Gregory and me, and shot me a look as he did everything but take her arm and escort her to the front door. I shrugged. So my shoulders weren’t in an especially articulate mood. But I decided to stop competing. We were both ex-husbands; we were equal. I couldn’t help it if I was more equal than Gregory.

We sat in the living room, Sharon on the couch, Gregory trying as hard as he could to sit close to her, and me on the overstuffed chair facing them. No one said anything for a very long moment.

“Tell me . . .” I began.

Sharon turned toward Gregory with the speed of a frog’s tongue going after a fly. “Gregory, could you do me a favor?”

He puffed himself up until he looked like the Gregory balloon from the Macy’s parade. “What can I do for you?” he asked. I sincerely believe if the answer had been “jump up and touch Pluto,” he wouldn’t have hesitated, other than to ask if she meant the former planet, or Mickey Mouse’s dog.

“Elliot and I need . . .” Sharon saw Gregory’s face harden. He glared at me with serious violence in his eyes, and I did my very best not to put a gloating grin on my face. Honestly, I tried. Sharon began again, “I need something to . . . take the edge off, you know? With all the excitement of the past few days? Do you think you could call Toni and ask her to prescribe something for me?”

Gregory’s expression couldn’t possibly have been more smug. “Of course, darling,” he said, and stood up to walk into the kitchen. He reached for the phone.

“And could you go to the pharmacy and fill it right away?” Sharon continued.

Gregory didn’t read between the lines, and nodded. “I’m on my way,” he said, and within seconds, his coat was on, his cell phone was in his hand, and he was indeed on his way.

The moment the door closed, Sharon turned to me with urgency in her eyes. “We don’t have much time,” she said, “and we have a lot to talk about.”

I leaned forward on the chair, which wasn’t easy on a microfiber overstuffed special. My pants wanted to stick to it. “Okay,” I said. “Tell me. What happened with Chapman? How come he thought he was going to die? Who were you with at the bar in the city? And what’s this about Chapman leaving you money in his—”

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

 

 

 

 

I
blinked. A number of times; I can’t tell you how many. There was so much information in those two words that I’m not entirely sure how much time went by before I could respond.

“You’re . . . wow,” I said. Oh, and I suppose
you’d
be more articulate under the circumstances.

“Yeah,” Sharon replied. “And before you ask, no, I have no doubt, and yes, it’s your baby. There weren’t any other candidates.” I
knew
I was right about Sharon and Russell Chapman. Either Konigsberg was crazy, or just bad at his job.

I stood up. I think better on my feet. Normally when dealing with my ex-wife, I have found myself trying to anticipate her reaction to whatever I was saying or doing. I didn’t want to make a wrong move, or be misunderstood. But now, with this in my head, my thought patterns were scrambled. I’m not sure I knew I was speaking out loud.

“This is . . . great!” I said, wandering around the room, not looking at anything in particular. “This is amazing.”

“Well, I’m glad you feel that way,” Sharon grinned. “I wasn’t sure exactly how you’d react. I wasn’t sure exactly how
I
was reacting.”

“It’s just—it’s so much to think about. We have to plan. Tell me when your divorce from Gregory is going to be final, and then we can get married again.”

She looked like I’d hit her with a cream pie, minus the cream. “We can get . . . what?”

“Sure. Then you can sell the house, and I can sell the town house, and we’ll find a place to raise the kid in, you know, like our old place. Midland Heights has a good school system, doesn’t it? I mean, I went to the schools here, but that was a while ago.” The room was a blur, but I wasn’t really focusing on anything, so that was to be expected.

Sharon stood up and grabbed me gently but firmly by the forearms. “Elliot,” she said. “Slow down. It’s the adrenaline you’re feeling right now.”

I stood still, because I liked her hands on my arms, but I didn’t really stop. “No, it’s perfect,” I said. “We have enough time before the baby is born to get it all done. And I guess I’ll even buy a car, you know. Can’t take Junior to pediatrician appointments on the handlebars of a Schwinn. Maybe a hybrid, so I can still feel like I’m conserving fuel. I’ll ask Sophie about her Prius.”

“Elliot,” Sharon started, but I was on a roll.

“You’re going to have to take some time off when the baby is born. Will you go back to the practice? I could sell the theatre and get a real job, if I have to.”

“Elliot!” Sharon shouted, I think just to get my attention. “Focus. Listen to me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening. What?”

“No.”

That didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t asked anything. “No?”

Sharon made sure we maintained eye contact. I’ve seen her do that with patients who weren’t entirely mentally stable. “That’s right. No.”

“No, what?”

“No, we’re not getting married again.” She let go of my arms. “Not that your proposal wasn’t charming, in its own completely self-absorbed way. I’m sorry, but no.”

Keep in mind that at this point I hadn’t really gotten a good night’s sleep since roughly April. “Why not?” I asked, but my voice sounded softer than I’d expected.

“For any number of reasons, like for example that we’ll still have the same problems we had when we were married, but we’ll be adding a child to it. That’s one thing. But mostly because I’ve been married or living with a man for more years than I care to think about, and I want to see what it’s like on my own for a while.” Sharon sat down and looked at me with a sad expression. “Not that I’ll be alone, exactly. I’ll have another person in the house with me.”

“Who?” Sometimes, I can be monumentally dense.

She gave me a look that reiterated my previous sentence.
“The baby,”
she said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Look, Elliot, I know I’m dropping a lot on you all at once, but Gregory will be back in a few minutes, and I wanted you to know before anyone else. The test reports that came back Thursday night weren’t Russell Chapman’s; they were mine. I already knew—I’d done the home test, and those are almost always accurate—but seeing it on paper made it real for me. So I spent a few days up at the cottage to think, and believe me, I thought about all the options. But I know I want this baby. And I’d like you to be involved with it, but if you don’t feel like you can . . .”

I stared at her, and my expression must have been enough to silence her. “Don’t you even think that,” I said. “That’s my baby, and you’re my . . . ex-wife. I love both of you. Of course, I’m involved. Whether you want it or not, I’m the father.” The thought made me sit down. “Jesus, Shar—I’m the father!”

Naturally, that’s when Gregory walked in.

Sharon, being something approaching a genius, and having had more time to absorb the situation, shifted gears like a Ferrari on the Autobahn. “There never really was an arraignment,” she said. “Gregory knows, because he thought he’d have to put up the money for bail. Right, Gregory?”

What? Bail? Arraignment? Who were these people, and what were they talking about? I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of an Ingmar Bergman film, and nobody was translating from the Swedish.

“That’s right, honey.” Gregory still thought we were still playing the “Who Wants to Be the Best Ex-Husband” game, and sat down next to Sharon. He handed her a small pharmacy bag. “Here you go.”