Bitter Sweet (9 page)
‘I’m fine, which you would have known last night, except your phone was busy all night long.’
‘Oh, Katy, I’m sorry.’ Maggie stretched and settled into her pillow. ‘I had two of the most wonderful conversations with old high school friends.’ She filled Katy in on the highlights, asked where she was, told her to be sure to call again tonight, and said good-bye without any of the loneliness she’d expected upon ending her first long distance conversation with her daughter.
Her next call came as she was bobbing her first tea bag the day. It was Nelda.
‘Tammi’s going to make it and Dr Feldstein says it would be good for her to see us.’
Maggie put a hand to her heart, breathed, ‘Oh, thank God,’ and felt the day’s promise brighten within her.
At o:3o A.M. her next call came, this one wholly unexpected.
‘Hello,’ she answered, and a voice out of her past said, ‘Hello, Maggie, this is Tani.’
Jolted by surprise, Maggie smiled and held the receiver with both hands.
‘Tani. Oh, Tani, how are you? Gosh, it’s good to hear your voice.’
Their conversation lasted forty minutes. Within an hour after it ended, Maggie answered the phone again, this time to hear a squeaky cartoon-mouse voice that could hardly mistaken.
‘Hi, Maggie. Guess who?’
‘Fish? Fish, it’s you, isn’t it?’
“Yup. It’s the fish.’
‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this! Brookie called you right?”
By the dine Lisa called, Maggie was half expecting it. She was putting on the last of her makeup, preparing to go to the hospital and see Tammi when the phone rang yet again.
‘Hello, stranger,’ a sweet voice said.
‘Lisa... oh, Lisa...’
‘It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’
‘Too long. Oh, goodness.., I’m not sure I won’t break down in tears here in a minute.’ She was half laughing, halt crying.
‘I’m a little choked up myself. How are you, Maggie?’
‘How would you be if four of your dearest old friend rallied round when you put out the call? I’m overwhelmed.’
Half an hour later, when they’d reminisced and caught up, Lisa said, ‘Listen, Maggie, I had an idea. Do you remember my brother, Gary?’
‘Of course. He’s married to Marcy Kreig.’
‘Was. They’ve been divorced for over twelve years. Well,
Gary
is getting remarried next week and I’ll be in Door for the wedding. I was thinking, If you could come home, I m sure Tani and Fish could drive ,up, and we could all get together out at Brookie’s house.
‘Oh, Lisa, I can’t.’ Disappointment coloured Maggie’s voice. ‘It sounds wonderful, but I’m due to start teaching in less than two weeks.’
‘Just a quick trip?’
I’m afraid it would be too quick, and at the beginning of the term like this.., I’m sorry, Lisa.’
‘Oh, shoot. That’s a disappointment.’
‘I know. It would have been so much fun.’
‘Well, listen.., will you think about it? Even if it’s only for the weekend. It would be so great to get everybody together again.’
‘All right,’ Maggie promised. ‘I’ll think about it.’
She did, on her drive in to the hospital to visit Tammi - about Brookie calling all the girls, and each of them concerned enough to make contact after all these years, and how her own outlook had brightened in so short a time. She thought about the curious rhythms in life, and how the support she’d just been given she would now pass on to another.
At
that afternoon she sat flipping the pages of a Good Housekeeping magazine in the family lounge of the intensive care unit of
A nurse entered, thin, pretty, walking briskly in on her silent, white shoes.
‘Mrs Stearn?’
‘Yes?’ Maggie dropped her magazine and jumped to her feet.
‘You can go in and see Tammi now, but only for five minutes.’
‘Thank you.’
Maggie wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted her upon entering Tammi’s room. So much machinery. So many tubes and bottles; screens of various sizes bleeping out vital signs; and a thin, gaunt Tammi lying on the bed with a network of IVs threaded into her arms. Her eyes were closed, her hands lying wrist-up, her arms dotted by purple bruises where previous IVs had been. Her apricot-blonde hair, which she’d always kept with meticulous teenage pride and wore in a style much like Katy’s, lay brittle and spiky as a bird’s nest on the pillow.
Maggie stood beside the bed for some time before Tammi opened her eyes and found her there.
‘Hi, little one.’ Maggie leaned close and touched the girl’s cheek. ‘We’ve all been so worried about you.’
Tammi’s eyes filled with tears and she rolled her face away.
Maggie brushed back Tammi’s hair from her forehead.
‘We’re so happy you’re still alive.’
‘But I’m so ashamed.”
‘Noooo . . . noooo.’ Cupping Tammi’s face, Maggie gently turned it toward herself. ‘You mustn’t be ashamed. Think ahead, not behind. You’re going to get stronger now, and we’re all going to work together to get you happy.’
Tammi’s tears continued building and she tried to lift a hand to wipe them away. The hand was shaky, tethered by the IVs, and Maggie gently pushed it down, took a tissue from a nearby box and dried Tammi’s eyes.
‘I lost the baby, Maggie.’
‘I know, honey, I know.’
Tammi turned her brimming gaze away while Maggie stayed close, brushing her temple.
‘But you’re alive, and it’s your happiness we all care about. We want to see you up and smiling again.’
‘Why should anyone care about me?’
‘ Because you are you, an individual, and special. Because you’ve touched lives in ways you didn’t realize. Each of us does that, Tammi. Each of us has worth. Can I tell you something?’ Tammi turned back to Maggie who went on,
‘Last night I was so blue. My daughter had left for college, and you were in the hospital, and the house was so empty. Everything seemed hopeless. So I called one of my old high school friends, and do you know what happened?’
Tammi’s eyes showed a spark of interest. ‘What?’
‘She called some others, and started this wonderful chain reaction going. Today I had calls from three of them wonderful old friends I haven’t heard from in years, people I would never have suspected cared one way or the other about whether I was happy or not. That’s how it will be with you, too. You’ll see. Why, by the time I was getting ready to leave the house to come and see you, I was hoping the phone would stop ringing.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ Maggie smiled, and received a glimmer of a smile in return. ‘Now, listen, little one...’ She took Tammi’s hand, careful not to disturb any of the plastic tubes. ‘They said I could stay for only five minutes, and I think my time is up. But I’ll be back. Meanwhile, you think about what you’d like me to bring when you get into your own room. Malts, magazines, nachos - whatever you want.’
‘I know one thing right now.’
‘Just name it.’
‘Could you bring me some Nexxus shampoo and conditioner? I want my hair washed worse than anything.’
‘Absolutely. And my dryer and curling iron. We’ll fix you up like Tina Turner.’
Tammi almost laughed.
‘That’s what i like to sec, those dimples showing.’ She kissed Tammi’s forehead and whispered, ‘I’ve got to go. Get strong.’
Leaving the hospital, Maggie felt charged with optimism: when a twenty-year—old girl asked to have her hair done, she was rounding the corner towards recovery! She stopped at a beauty shop on the way home and bought the things
Tammi had asked for. Carrying the bag, she entered her kitchen to find her phone ringing again.
She charged across the room, whisked up the receiver and answered breathlessly, ‘Hello?’
‘Maggie? It’s Eric.’
Surprise took her aback. She held the paper sack of shampoo against her stomach and stood tongue-ted for a full five seconds before realizing she must make some response. ‘Eric - well, heavens, this is a surprise.”
‘Are you okay?’
‘Okay? I... well, yes. A little breathless is all. I just came in the door.”
‘I talked to Brookie and she told me the real reason you called last night.’
‘The real reason?’ She set the bag on the cupboard in slow motion. ‘Oh, you mean my depression.’
“I should have figured it out last night. I knew you weren’t calling just to say hello.’
‘I’m much better today.’
‘Brookie said s6meone in your group tried to commit suicide. I just got so scared - I mean...’ He heaved in a deep breath and expelled it loudly. ‘Christ, I don’t know what I mean.’
Maggie touched the receiver with her free hand. ‘Oh, Eric, you mean you thought I might be suicidal, too - that’s why you’re calling?’
‘Well... I didn’t know what to think. I just - hell, I couldn’t get you off my mind today, wondering why you’d called. Finally, I had to call Brookie, and when she told me you’d been depressed and in therapy my gut clinched up. Maggie, you were always laughing when we were young.’
‘I’m not suicidal or even close to it. Honest, I’m not, Eric. It was a young woman named Tammi, but l just got back from visiting her in the hospital and she’s not only going to make it, I got her to smile and almost laugh.”
‘Well, that’s a relief.’
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t completely truthful with you last night. Maybe I should have told you that I’ve been in group therapy, but after you answered the phone I felt - I don’t know how to describe it - self—conscious, I guess. With Brookie it was a little easier, but with you, well . . . it seemed like an imposition after so many years, to call you up and wail about my difficulties.’
“An imposition? Hall, that’s silly.’
‘Maybe it was. Anyway, thanks for saying so. Listen, guess who rise called today? Tani and Fish and Lisa. Brookie called every one of them. And now you. This has really been old home week.’
‘How are they? What are they doing?’
Maggie filled him in on the girls and as they talked, the constraints of last night disappeared. They reminisced a little. They laughed. As the conversation lengthened, Maggie found herself bent over the kitchen cabinet propped on both elbows, wholly at ease talking with him. He told her about his family, she told him about Katy. When a lull finally fell, it was comfortable. He ended it by saying, ‘I thought about you a lot today while I was out on the boat.’
She traced a blue figure on a canister and said, ‘I thought about you, too.’ Insulated by distance, she found it easy to say. Harmless.
‘I’d look out over the water and see you in a blue-and gold letter sweater cheering for the Gibraltar Vikings.’
‘With my hair in some horrible beehive I suppose, and Cleopatra eye makeup.’
He chuckled. ‘That’s about it, yeah.’
‘Want to know what I see when I close my eyes and think of you?’
‘I’m afraid to hear it.’
She turned and braced her spine against the cabinet edge.
‘I see you wearing a baby-blue sweater and dancing to the Beatles with a cigarette between your teeth.’
He laughed. ‘The cigarette is gone but I’m still wearing a blue shirt, only now it says Captain Eric on the pocket.’ “Captain Eric?’
“The customers like it. Gives them the illusion they’re going seafaring.’
‘I’ll bet you’re good at it, aren’t you? I’ll bet the fishermen love you.’
‘Wall, I can usually make them laugh and come back next year.’
‘Do you like it, what you do?’
“I love it.’
She settled more comfortably against the cabinet. ‘So tell me about Door today. Was it sunny, did you catch fish, were there lots of sails on the water?’
‘It was beautiful. Remember how you’d get up some mornings and the fog would be so thick you couldn’t see across the harbour to
‘Mmmm...’ she replied dreamily.
‘It started out that way, with a heavy mist, then the sun came up over the trees and tinted the air red, but by the dine we’d been on the water an hour the sky was as blue as a field of chicory.’
‘Oh, the chicory! Is it blooming now?’
‘Full bloom.’
‘Mmm, I can just see it, a whole field of it, looking like the sky fell in. I loved this time of year back home. We don’t have chicory here, not like in Door. Go on. Did you catch fish?’
‘Eighteen today - fifteen chinook and three browns.’
‘Eighteen, wow,’ she breathed.