All Dressed Up (27 page)

That’s right,
for the first few hours they called him Nathan and it almost went
down on his birth certificate, but then Mom and the nurse got Emma
out of bed to go see him – it must have been about three in the
afternoon – and they both looked at him through the glass, tiny and
crumpled and red, and said at exactly the same moment, “He can’t be
a Nathan.”

They laughed,
and Emma felt a flood of relief that Mom had the same realization
that the planned name was wrong, and Mom said eagerly, “What about
William, after Dad’s father?” Who had died before Emma was born,
but whom Mom had loved. “William Thomas, or William James. We could
call him Billy while he’s small.”

The next day
Emma had to go home from the hospital without him. She got this
confused little pang in her heart when she thought of him, and her
breasts turned into throbbing hot rocks on her chest and Mom made
her put cabbage leaves in her bra.

Trust was a
very physical habit, she discovered as Charlie reached her.
Physical, and hard to break.

Her body
reacted as if she still had the absolute right to touch him. She
had property rights over him. Access. She owned
picking-lint-from-his-shoulder rights, and
lean-across-him-to-reach-for-things rights, and
drink-out-of-his-juice-glass rights, in perpetuity. The magnet that
drew her to his smooth brown body had already switched back on as
powerful as it had ever been.

Her skin
remembered all the nights in his bed, teasing and tender, enough to
make her shiver. The size of him. The heat. The way he breathed.
Her heart remembered the times he’d been too tired and had fallen
asleep on her chest, the times he’d wakened at two or three in the
morning and been oddly needy, “Hold me.”

His magnet had
switched on, too. “Hi,” he said, and he touched her on the waist
and stood closer than she’d expected. She could feel the pull, and
rediscovered the familiar perfection of the way he smelled. He
dominated her senses and sent them swimming. He felt so right. All
the clichés about that stuff were absolutely true. The melting. The
weak legs. His ‘drownable’ dark eyes. Everything. “How’s he
doing?”

Oh God it was
good to see him, oh God she’d missed him, oh God she had to find a
way to keep him in her life. But not if she had to go on lying,
because it was tearing her in half. The clichés were true, there,
too. Trying to care about Billy like a brother not a son, tortured
her when she was trying to change their whole relationship and when
he was so ill. “He’s having a really horrible time!” Her voice
cracked.

“Is your mom
worried? As soon as I saw your messages – ”

“I’m worried!”
It was the closest she’d ever come to laying a claim on Billy, but
Charlie didn’t pick up on the clue, and why should he? Mom was the
one sitting on Billy’s bed, straightening his sheet and making him
comfortable. Mom had signed all the forms. Emma was the one Billy
didn’t want, and although Charlie hadn’t heard Billy say that, the
aura of the words still floated in the air. “Can we go talk
somewhere?” she said to him.

“I bought him
a magnet set.”

“Don’t give it
to him yet, he wouldn’t be able to – But thank you for doing that.
His friends are all down in Jersey. Oh God, we should call some of
them so they can send cards. Mom’s bought him chocolates and puzzle
books, but he’s not up to any of that. Even DVDs. He’s sleeping a
lot.”

“Is he getting
good care? What do you think?”

“I’m not
looking at it from that angle. Like a doctor, I mean. It’s too
personal. Stuff just keeps happening to him. The mistake with the
surgery, and now the vomiting.”

“It could be a
bowel blockage. They must have had to go in pretty fast to get to
the bleeding, and the gut doesn’t like being messed with that
way.”

“They haven’t
said anything about a blockage,” she told him. “They’re getting
bowel sounds. Oh God, will he need more surgery?”

“He
might.”

“And then it
could start all over again.”

“Ahh,
Emma…”

They walked
down the corridor, looking for a place to sit. Hospitals. Boy, did
they both know about hospitals. There were special rooms set aside
for agonizing conversations such as the one they were about to
have. There were people whose job it was to stop relatives from
collapsing or killing each other. There were closet-like spaces
where you could find doctors asleep, or agreeing on doom-laden
diagnoses, or chatting with each other, their conversation spilling
over with dark, unkind humor.

All of these
places became horrible when you were too familiar with them.
Horrible to Emma, anyhow. She hadn’t told Charlie this news yet,
either – that she wasn’t going to be a doctor any more. It was
another development in her life that he hadn’t signed on for and
might not forgive.

She remembered
when they’d first met in medical school. The sudden, unexpected
ramping up from level to level. The first pinch of interest when
they discovered they both knew these northern lakes and mountains –
that he’d been born and raised up here, and she’d come here every
summer. She remembered the first glance held too long. The first
time they lowered their voices to a private pitch, standing in line
for lunch. The first date. Their first kiss at a Tex-Mex
restaurant, tasting of tequila and lime.

Sometimes it
seemed as if you arrived at each critical new level in a
relationship without having to make an actual journey. You
certainly couldn’t plot each step. One day – too soon, just a few
dates in – she’d suddenly known that this was the man she wanted to
marry and stay with and join with, the man she wanted to show her
flaws to and forgive for his.

Mm, that word
forgiveness again.

And flaws.
Somehow she’d lost that perception about the flaws, and kept such a
crucial one hidden.

And even at
the moment when she arrived at the earth-shattering point of
knowing about Charlie, she couldn’t look back and plot exactly how
she’d gotten there, just as she couldn’t plot, now, how she’d
gotten to the point of needing something different with Billy, of
loving him. It was like general anesthesia. You blinked your eyes
shut and found yourself in the middle of your own future, without
any sense of the passage of time.

This is the
man for me. And this is my son.

But she might
have been wrong. Maybe she and Charlie weren’t each other’s
life-long future after all. If she stuffed up telling him about
Billy. Or even if she didn’t stuff it up, and told him the best and
most honest way possible. He might not forgive it. And she might
never find the right way to relate to her secret child.

They ended up
in the maze in the kids’ play area on a low shelf-like platform
with colorful molded plastic shapes poised above it for kids to
climb through. And bump their heads on. Emma could tell from a
quick glance that the family-friendly atmosphere of the pediatric
unit probably caused several incidences of bruised temples a month.
She longed for the day when she stopped thinking this way.
Malpractice suits and worst=case scenarios and accidents waiting to
happen.

Charlie held
her with his hip pressed against hers and his arms heavy around her
and breathed in her ear, “Oh God, I’ve missed you so much!” And as
she breathed in the smell of him from his skin and his soft gray
T-shirt, felt the hard maleness of his body, she had the illusion
for a few precious moments that everything was okay.

She could
apologize for the wedding. They could run away to Bermuda, or
somewhere, and have a civil ceremony there, barefoot on the beach.
She could pretend this was the only problem, that she’d simply gone
bridal and run amok over the wedding plans, and since he was here,
breathing Oh God I’ve missed you in her ear, and probably meant
he’d largely forgiven her for the bridezilla stuff already.

Oh, and there
was the doctor thing, she’d better mention that, too.

But Billy she
could easily, easily put back in the too-hard basket.

If she was
prepared to stay raggedly ripped in half for the rest of her
life.

“How long can
you stay?” she asked.

“A couple of
days. More if I make some calls, because of the two weeks I didn’t
take before.” To go to Aruba on the honeymoon, she understood.
“I’ll do whatever I have to. What happened, Emma? I want to
know.”

“You mean, why
did I lose the plot?”

“That,
yeah.”

“It’s
complicated.” She sat there getting sicker and sicker about it,
gearing herself up. He ran his hand softly up and down the top of
her thigh, all patient and ready to hear. “There are some things I
have to tell you.”

“Yeah, I can
see,” he said.

“I’ve pretty
much still lost the plot. I dropped my place at Park, and I have no
idea what I’m going to do instead, just that I can’t be a doctor. I
was never meant to be one. I had the wrong reasons for trying. I
know you were born for it, you’re magic about it, Charlie, you’re
made for it. I admire that about you so much, you’re heroic and
wonderful. But I’ve hated it from day one.”

“And this
occurs to you in the middle of the wedding rehearsal, after months
of obsessive preparation, so you jump out of the dress and run
screaming from the church.”

“No, it took a
couple more days after that before I understood – Although you’re
right in a sense. Sticking with medicine for so long against all
the evidence is part of the same underlying issue as the bridezilla
behavior, I know. I had this over-the-top day, the Monday after.
That was when Sarah took the windjammer photo from your apartment.
I thought you might have burned the dress…”

“Burned it?”
His voice dropped to a horrified whisper, and he rolled his
forehead gently to and fro against her hair.

“Or be
planning to, or something. I sent Sarah to get it. I was nuts.”

“Mom told me
some of that.” He pressed his lips against her cheek, not quite a
kiss because there was no sound. “She was upset to hear about
Billy. She’s going to come visit him.”

“That would be
good.” Okay, here was where she had to start saying it, only she
couldn’t. He still had his hand on her thigh. She copied the
gesture, wrapping her whole arm around the length of hard muscle,
but no courage flowed into her. “I wish someone else could say this
for me,” she said.

“Say
what?”

“What I did.
What I didn’t do. What I haven’t told you.”

“There’s
something you still haven’t told me? Something important…” He moved
his arms to her shoulders, her torso, held her hard and strong. He
had the size for it, and his body was rock solid. A shield. A wall.
She wished she could shelter in the lee of it while someone else
did the hard part, but she couldn’t.

“Yes. Very
important.”

“The sex
change operation.”

She gave a sob
of laughter. “Don’t.”

“The previous
career as a contract assassin.”

This time just
a sob, no laugh attached. “I gave up Billy. To Mom and Dad. He was
mine. My baby, not my brother. And I know I can’t have him back.
Not now, after ten years. But lying about it, and wanting to love
him in the right way, and not knowing how, is tearing me in
pieces.”

Sarah could
see that Emma must have told him.

The two of
them came back to Billy’s room carrying new emotions between them
like the dead weight of a human body. It distorted their posture
and how far apart they walked. Emma lurched sideways and bumped her
shoulder against the wall as if Charlie had swung the dead body in
his arms and rammed her with it.

“Hey, Billy,”
he said, his voice too bright, insincere. He’d brought him a magnet
set. Sarah hadn’t registered the plastic shopping bag in his hand
before. He and Emma had disappeared together before Billy even
noticed Charlie was there, she thought. Charlie drew the box out of
the bag. “For when you’re feeling better, okay? Your Mom will take
care of it until then.” He did a kind of angry, disbelieving
double-take at Mom and then at Emma, who just looked like
death.

Death with
slapped pink cheeks. Definitely, she’d told him.

“Are you
going, Charlie?” Mom asked. She could tell a part of his anger was
directed at her. She knew Emma had told him, too.

“So it’s not
back on?” Brooke mouthed at Sarah, not understanding.

Sarah shook
her head and muttered, “Doubt it.”

Emma said to
him, voice pulled like a bowstring, “I’ll walk you out.”

But Charlie
told her not to. “Stay with Billy.” He stood as hard and stiff as a
plywood cut-out.

“I can come
right back.” Emma tried to get her legs to move, but apparently
they wouldn’t and she had to stay leaning against the wall for
support.

Charlie
repeated, “Don’t walk me out.”

Emma nodded.
Charlie went to leave and she couldn’t say good-bye. Mom didn’t
speak. Billy didn’t. Brooke didn’t. “I’ll walk you out, Charlie,”
Sarah said.

He didn’t
argue. Sarah had no idea if she’d done the right thing in anyone’s
eyes. They walked to the elevator in utter silence. The doors
closed on them before Charlie said, conversational and dangerous,
“So you were in on this.”

“Yes, as was
the Vatican and the CIA. You’re not scaring me, Charlie.”

“I’m not
trying to.” And she saw that he wasn’t. He added, “You are not
suggesting I shouldn’t be angry about it.”

“I am
suggesting it wasn’t that much of an evil conspiracy, and there are
other possible emotions than anger, and Emma is the one feeling a
high percentage of them.” The elevator began its descent. “I’m
suggesting the conspiratorial aspect of the whole thing is a lot
less important than certain other factors such as Emma seriously
cracking up over what she did, and Billy having a rotten time after
the surgical mistake, and even Mom’s guilt attack. She’s begun to
think that she stole him. I know about being angry at Emma. I’ve
been angry at her for years. She makes it so easy.”