Sweet Salt Air (44 page)

Since he was with her now, she wasn’t comfortable working, and since she didn’t want to leave him, she couldn’t shop, walk, or go to a movie. Not being a lover of golf, she sat beside him, trying to get caught up in the game, but her mind wandered.

She didn’t like where it went.

Opening her iPad, she downloaded what sounded like a good book, but when she started reading, the characters didn’t grab her. So she pulled a magazine from her growing collection and flipped through. Magazine articles were usually short enough to hold her attention. But she had already read the good ones.

She pulled up the pictures Charlotte had sent and showed them to Julian. Needless to say, pictures of herbs intrigued him about as much as golf intrigued her, which meant he was quickly back to watching the game.

Staying with the photographs, she found comfort in the profusion of green. That led her to think about Quinnipeague, which led her to think of the house that apparently wouldn’t be sold. Her feelings about that had changed since returning to the island with Julian. In the past, her parents had always been around, but if she could have time alone there with Julian, it wouldn’t be bad at all. That had been nice—or would have been, if there hadn’t been a sword hanging over their heads.

The weight of that sword grew heavier as Sunday slowly ticked away.

*   *   *

Monday morning, with a report that the test results were good, the ticking sped up. Once Julian nodded his agreement, Hammon produced a ream of release forms.

I didn’t expect that,
Nicole e-mailed Charlotte a short time later.
Julian did, since his patients have to sign releases, too. He says it’s as much about educating the consumer as it is about avoiding a lawsuit, but, geez, is it intimidating. You sign your life away in multiple copies. I mean, we knew about most of the potential side effects, but seeing them in print? It was bad.

Anything would probably seem bad to you right now,
Charlotte replied, making total sense as Nicole knew she would, which was one of the reasons Nicole had been quick to e-mail her.
He plans to do it Friday?

Unless something goes wrong between now and then, but he doesn’t see that happening,
Nicole wrote.
I guess I’m glad, since this is what we came for. And I’m being calm. You’d be proud.

Do you FEEL calm?

Are you kidding? I’m terrified!

Is Julian?

Nicole considered that.
Not right now. It’s strange. He’s been so out of it since we got the call to come here, like the reality of it hit him over the head and he was stunned. He’s been in a daze. Then, as soon as he signed the papers, he woke up. Just like that, he’s lucid. And eager. I thought it was just being there in the office with Hammon, but when Hammon left the room and Jules looked at me, his eyes were clear and he smiled, like he was back.

Does he worry about the risk?

He does, but it’s a measured worry. He says it’s like with his own work. He’s scared when he tries something new on a patient, but if he’s done the testing and practiced the technique, and if he knows the risks and has plans for handling them, he’s excited. That’s what he says. But how crazy is it to be excited about something that could kill you?

He believes in the trial.

Oh yeah. He and Mark get what this could mean for people everywhere with MS, and it’s true, only Julian isn’t just “people” to me, he’s my husband.
The old Nicole returned. She needed reassurance.
What if it goes bad, Charlotte?

It won’t. It can’t. When does he start the drug?

They just did! It’s called fludarabine. The infusion takes a little while, and they’ll keep him here for a couple of hours to make sure he doesn’t have an allergic reaction. Me, I’m the one who reacted. I got light-headed and turned green. They told me to wait out here in the hall. I should probably go back in now.

He’ll do fine, Nicki. So will you.

Keep telling me that.

I will. Xoxox

*   *   *

Charlotte clicked
SEND
and, whispering a what-a-nightmare groan, raised her hands high in the air and stretched to ease the tension from her shoulders. Suddenly Leo was behind her, leaning between her arms to read the last of the exchange on the screen. Looping her hands around his neck, she watched him read. Talk about light-headed? From this angle, she couldn’t see more than a square chin and jaw and his neck, but the neck was strong. She loved that, loved how clean he smelled and how solid he felt.

When he finished reading, he held her arms and looked down. “Bet you want to be with her.”

“I do. She’s been hit with a lot, and she’s been so strong. I know she’s with Julian. But the frightened part of her is all alone.”

“Why don’t you go?”

“Because you won’t.” When his eyes grew ocean-turbulent, she said, “Would it be so bad? You could wear a ball cap and your Ray-Bans. No one would know who you are—not that anyone knows you’re Chris Mauldin or even what Chris Mauldin looks like. And you’d be with me. I know my way around.”

“I don’t like off-island,” he said in his old, flat, stubborn voice. It was an old, flat, stubborn
wall,
she decided, and, twisting, went up on her knees on the chair.

“You don’t
know
off-island. You know prison. You know a construction crew headed by a bitch. You know the father who ignored you. But there’s a whole other world out there, Leo, and it isn’t bad. I could show you that.”

His eyes were clouded. “Don’t you like Quinnipeague?”

“I
love
Quinnipeague. But I also love New York and Paris. And Juneau and Rio and Oslo. I love the variety.”

He thought about that, clearly troubled. “Do I bore you?”

Feeling helpless, she breathed. “
Never.
But a person can love clams cooked a dozen different ways, and still love steak.” She framed his face with her hands. “Know what the best part is about going different places?”

He knew the answer. He had read enough, dreamed enough. He was certainly smart enough. But he was in the moment, a silently turbulent package of pigheaded fear. Eyes holding hers, he shook his head.

“Coming home,” she chided softly. “My place in Brooklyn is tiny. It’s shabby, and it smells of whatever my downstairs neighbor is cooking, and clouds in New York aren’t like clouds here. My furniture is secondhand, my refrigerator may be dead when I get back, and there are
roaches
.” Mention of those made her shudder, in response to which his mouth quirked, but she went on. “Brooklyn is nothing like Paris or Tuscany, or Ireland or Bali, but right now it’s where my roots are.”

He didn’t blink. “Roots can be moved. Look at the herbs. We transplant them all the time.”

“Right,” she said with meaning and held his gaze.

Still he resisted. “I am who I am. If you loved me, you wouldn’t want to change me.”

Deep inside, she felt something deflate. If he didn’t know she loved him after the last few days, he was thicker than that wall he had built to protect himself from the outside world. She had certainly said it enough, and not only when they had sex.

But it was test time. She let out a quick breath. “I could say the same to you.”

“I never said the words,” he said.

She sat back on her heels. “Right again.” But he got an F. Shifting around in the chair, she rose and headed for the office door.

“Where are you going?” He sounded afraid.

“To the dock.”

She barely made it halfway before he caught her arm and pulled her against him. “We don’t fight. It’s not who we are.”

“Who
are
we?” she asked weakly.

The ocean rolled in, washing over the sand before being sucked back.

“I don’t know,” he finally said against her ear. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

*   *   *

Charlotte didn’t sleep well that night, but found herself obsessing over the larger picture. She felt fear for Nicole and guilt at not being there. She worried that she had inherited her parents’ dysfunction in matters of the heart. And when she projected herself into the future and tried to anticipate adventure in Bordeaux, all she could think of was the weirdness she always felt the first day in a new place.

Between each thought came Leo. She imagined spending a lifetime here on Quinnipeague and realized she had a problem: She could do it in a heartbeat. While she lay here in bed, curled to his back and held there by his hands, which grasped hers in the dark, she could feel the pull of nascent roots. She had come to know the island more this summer than ever before, thanks to the cookbook, thanks to Leo, thanks even to her own maturity. She liked the people, liked the pace, liked the sweet salt air. She also liked the feel of those roots.

But there was still the rest of the world, which she loved. And the fact that she was tired of going places alone. And the realization that if downtown Quinnipeague counted for anything, she liked going places with Leo, which brought her right back to the rest of the world. She wanted to travel with Leo.

He knew how she felt, but wasn’t budging. And when she was no longer here? That might get him going. He might be lovesick enough to act. Or he might just suck it up and do fine alone again, might even get another book out of it. If his writing was his catharsis. If he wanted revenge for her leaving. If he really didn’t love her all that much.

The last possibility was like … like the pea under the mattress of the princess. And where had
that
thought come from? She had to dig back to remember. Her mother. Her mother had been into fairy tales. She would have liked Quinnipeague for that reason. With its wood smoke curling, its mystical herbs healing, and its symbiosis with the sea, it was the ultimate fairy tale.

How to fold that into real life? Lacking an answer that would work for Leo, she could do nothing but lie there and listen to the soft, steady sound of his breath.

*   *   *

Nicole did the same thing, though she didn’t take the steadiness for granted. Hammon hadn’t expected that Julian would react to the light dose of fludarabine he had prescribed, and the nurses who monitored him in the hours after the infusion had seen no cause for alarm. She was the one who had visions of sudden death, to which end she kept one body part or another—arm, leg, or hip—touching him at all times on the premise that as long as he was warm, he was fine.

She glanced at the clock: 2:27
A.M.
Returning her head to the pillow, she went still and listened, but his breathing was steady.

She dozed and woke again to what sounded like wheezing, but turned out to be laughter in the hall.

She drifted off again, bolting up this time to what sounded like choking, but turned out to be the rumble of a truck on the street far below.

Charlotte’s words became her mantra.
He’ll do fine, Nicki. So will you.
She had Team Quinnipeague rooting from afar—lavender to calm, valerian to uplift, red four-leaf clover with the alleged ability to make wishes come true.

Nicole hadn’t told Julian about those. He was a scientist. Scientists didn’t do alleged.

Nicole wasn’t as doctrinaire. Had she been on the island, she would still be picking that clover, still be holding it close for three days to let her wish take root. She liked knowing that Charlotte was doing it for her now that she was gone. With Friday only three days off, she needed all the help she could get.

Chapter Twenty-seven

E
ARLY
T
UESDAY MORNING,
J
ULIAN HAD
a second chemo infusion, and when there was no sign of trouble this time, either, he said he was bored. He couldn’t run, couldn’t work. He wasn’t interested in the art museum or the planetarium, and as for other options, there were limits. Hammon didn’t want them going far on the chance of a delayed reaction. Nor did he want them in tight spaces where, with Julian’s immune system low, he might pick up an infection.

For Nicole, finding the right distraction on a moment’s notice was a challenge, which was in turn a welcome distraction. Taking to heart her mother’s advice on creativity, she worked with those medical parameters and the hotel concierge, and came up with a plan.

By noon on Tuesday, in a rental car that came with a programmed GPS and box lunches, they drove to the Brookfield Zoo and, on Wednesday, the Botanical Garden. Julian’s gait was more stilted both days, perhaps from the fatigue he was trying to ignore, but since they walked arm in arm, she could help. Both venues were quiet and open, with plenty to see. At night, they either watched movies in their room or slept, all of which took their minds from The Main Event, as Nicole thought of the transplant in her sane Jekyll moments. The harried Hyde moments were when she texted Charlotte, who had a stake in this, too, and who could calm her.

Julian had no injection on Thursday. Hammon wanted to check him out a final time and review the details of the procedure with them, which precluded another day trip. So they simply walked through Navy Pier that afternoon, stopping when Julian tired but otherwise just … walking. They ate dinner at a restaurant that Nicole had heard about, taking care to sit at a secluded table, and watched another movie in their room, but they had more trouble this last night denying what was to come. There was a poignancy in the arm Julian kept around her. He was the one who seemed to need physical contact through a toss-and-turn night.

All too soon, it was Friday morning. As instructed, they were at the hospital by six, at which time Julian was admitted, settled in a room, and hooked up to monitors and an IV. With Hammon supervising, he took a single Tylenol by mouth and a ten-minute IV infusion of Benadryl, both prophylactic treatments of possible reaction to the T-regulatory cells. The Benadryl made him seriously drowsy, which was a good thing, Nicole decided, since she was a bundle of nerves. It was worse once the actual infusion began. She studied first Julian, then Mark, looking for a reaction from either of them to what was finally happening.