The Distance Between Us (32 page)

“There, there,” I say dryly. “I daresay you’ll soon find another woman’s husband to fornicate with.”

Her head snaps back on her neck so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t fly off her torso and take out the vending machine behind her. She balls her hands into fists, and her chair creaks as she leans forward.

“I will not put up with any more of your ugliness, Hester. I’m warning you right now.” Her mascara is a mess from weeping, and when she squints at me she looks like a demented raccoon. “I have more of a right to be here than you, and you know it, and if I have to, I’ll have you thrown out.”

I laugh. “If that’s the case, why was I the one who just filled out all the insurance forms? Could it possibly have anything to do with my last name still being Donovan, while yours isn’t?”

She fumes. “That’s only because your divorce isn’t final, and Arthur hasn’t yet had time to make the appropriate changes.”

I nod. “No doubt that’s true. Nonetheless, I’m still legally married to Arthur Donovan, and you’re not. Shall we speak to the nurse and see which of us she chooses to remove?”

She clutches at her sweater and beads of sweat sprout on her upper lip. “You wouldn’t dare.”

I glance over at the admitting desk and raise my hand. “Oh, yoo-hoo! May we have a moment of your time?”

“Hush, Hester,” Caitlin admonishes.

The nurse is on the phone and doesn’t notice me. I open my mouth to call out to her again.

“Stop it, Mother,” Caitlin insists. “Don’t be malicious.”

I blink at her in disbelief. “Surely I didn’t just hear the word ‘malicious’ from you. Aren’t you the same woman who once told her ailing grandmother her breath smelled like the inside of a diaper pail?”

She blinks back. “For God’s sake, Hester. I must have been sixteen at the time. How long have you been waiting to use that against me?”

“Ever since the moment it came out of your mouth, of course.” I resume my search for a mint. “I knew I’d eventually get a chance.”

Martha isn’t through with me yet. “You may be Arthur’s wife, Hester, but we both know who he loves.”

I study her closely. “You have food caught in your teeth, dear,” I lie. “It’s very unattractive.”

She closes her mouth and runs her tongue over her teeth, checking. I can tell that Caitlin is entertained by this, but she tries to cover it up by patting Martha’s arm in a kindly fashion.

“You’re fine, Martha. Don’t pay any attention to her.”

“You are such a child, Hester,” Martha huffs. “I have no idea why Arthur put up with you as long as he did.”

Alex and Eric are coming back down the hall, walking slowly. Eric is only carrying one styrofoam cup but Alex has two; presumably they found a coffee machine, and he’s bringing some for me. Coffee sounds wonderful right now. The elevator doors open behind them, and they make room for a pair of orderlies who exit the elevator, pushing a bearded male patient on a table with wheels. It’s not Arthur, but he looks similar enough to spin my mind out, yet again.

Somewhere else in this building are the operating rooms, and in one of these operating rooms is Arthur, being dissected like a frog. He’s a supreme violinist and a brilliant man, a teacher and a father, and his damaged heart is literally being held in someone else’s hands at this very moment, as the surgeons try to save his life.

And meanwhile, I sit in this godforsaken waiting room, exchanging insults with this frivolous, beastly woman. In my mind’s eye I can see him there, under the knife, as surely as if I were standing beside the doctors and nurses as they cut into his big, burly body.

His body. I know every hair on his chest, every wrinkle on his brow, every muscle and pouch of fat on his abdomen. I know every scar, every mole, and every freckle on his back, and I know the soles of his feet and the nails on his fingers, and I know the contour and texture of his penis, and I know where he’s ticklish on his aging, ample bottom. There is no part of him I haven’t touched and fondled a thousand times, no spot on him I haven’t kissed and stroked and tasted.

Every inch of his body belongs to me—up to and including his sick, weak old heart. I hold it in my hands, too, this very instant, just like a surgeon, and feel it beating.

I have no doubt Martha loves him, but there is no way on this earth she can feel his presence right now the way I do. She may have been his mistress for a long time, but I have been his wife for close to half a century, and I will not allow her to pretend that what she has with him can ever compare to what Arthur and I have meant to each other, regardless of how this last year has pulled us apart.

I finally find a mint and pop it into my mouth, framing a reply to Martha as the boys enter the waiting room.

“I don’t know how he put up with me, either,” I tell her. “But let me tell you what I do know.” I gaze into her eyes without pity. “I do know we had thirty good years together before he began his relationship with you, and in those thirty years we raised three children together, and we shared a house and a bed, and a great deal of love. I know that even after he began cheating on me, he was still coming home to me for another fifteen years, night after night, when he could have chosen to leave me at any time and move in with you.”

I pause to take a quick breath and go on before she has a chance to offer a rebuttal. “I also know the only reason he finally decided to divorce me was because he’s afraid of getting old, and afraid of dying, and being with a younger, prettier woman allows him to pretend he isn’t nearing the end of his life.”

My voice is gruff as Alex and Eric come to stand by my chair; I summon my last bit of courage to finish my speech. “And most of all, I know that he’s with you, Martha, because the guilt he’s been carrying all these years for Jeremy’s death finally caught up to him last year, and being around me makes it impossible for him to repress or avoid his part in our son’s suicide.”

I’m referring, of course, to what Arthur finally chose to reveal to me only last year, on the same night he told me was leaving me. And just like that, the memory of that terrible evening comes crashing back all at once, and I’m helpless to block it out.

Arthur was in his office, mourning, when I found him. I was on my way to the attic to get another box of Jeremy’s things for Goodwill, because we had finally gotten around to preparing the attic apartment for use as a rental unit. I stopped at the office door and asked what was wrong.

I was struggling to hold back my own tears at the time, too. Getting rid of Jeremy’s things was taking a major toll on me, even though by then he’d been dead for more than twelve years. It was especially difficult because Arthur hadn’t been able to bring himself to help. The attic had been unused all this while, and though we both knew it was for the best to convert it into a rental space—instead of letting it continue to serve as a tomb for the dead—the actual act of removing our son’s belongings was proving to be far more traumatic than we had anticipated. Arthur had gone up with me once to look around at the wreckage, but he had bolted for the stairs after one glance through the window in the kitchen that overlooked the driveway.

Now he had his face in his hands and he glanced up, startled to find me standing there. He had aged so much in the last decade, I could barely fathom the change. His coal-black hair had turned solid gray, and he was stooped in his chair, and his skin was pallid and loose on his face.
He looks so old,
I remember thinking. Then again, I reflected, the years had treated me no better.

It took him a while to register that I’d asked him a question. “I don’t really know what’s wrong,” he answered. “I came up here to do some work, and …” he broke down again.

I walked over to him and pulled his head to my breast. He clutched my waist and wept, and I kissed the top of his head and hummed to him until he quieted.

He pulled back finally and raised his face. “There’s something I have to tell you, Hester,” he rasped. “I should have said something a long time ago, but it was too hard.”

His expression was so earnest and sad, it wrenched my heart. I stroked his hair and nodded. “All right. I’ll listen.”

His jaw tightened as he fought for control. “I knew Jeremy was going to kill himself before he did it.”

I flinched. We hadn’t spoken about Jeremy or his death since the days following his funeral. It was too painful for both of us.

I shook my head. “Of course you didn’t, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Jeremy and I kept you in the dark about all the times I found him up there.”

Nine times. I found him up there nine times, to be exact. And there was still hardly a day that went by when I didn’t recall all nine of them, one after another, and think about the things I should have said, and what I should have done differently.

I called my mind back to the present. “How could you have known what he was going to do?”

He winced. “Because he came to talk to me about it the month before he died.”

My hand stopped moving in his hair. “He did?”

He nodded against my stomach. “Up at Carson. In my studio.”

I couldn’t have been more stunned. Until then I’d believed Jeremy had no other confidant but me, and I had no idea why Arthur had never said anything about this before.

I disengaged myself from him with a weary sigh and seated myself on a leather footstool near his desk. (The chair he was ensconced in was the only one in the room. Arthur liked it that way, to discourage visitors from staying overlong in his private domain.) I was suddenly bone-tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor to sleep, but I squared my shoulders and tried to prepare myself for whatever it was he had to tell me.

“What did you speak about?” I finally asked.

He smoothed his hair and dropped his eyes. “He was distraught about several things.”

“I’d imagine so.” I crossed my legs and looked around the room. Arthur’s office was a mess; there were piles of paper everywhere, and hundreds of books overflowing the shelves and taking over the floor. Many of them were open and face down, as if he’d begun reading them and been forced to abandon them mid-sentence. I took a breath and focused on him again. “What was upsetting him the most when he came to see you?”

He bit his lip. “Work situations, mostly. Concerns about his career, and if he’d made the right choices in life, that sort of thing.”

I nodded. “The usual, then.” I sighed again as the memories started cycling through my head. “So did you get the ‘Oh, woe is me, why did I have to be so talented’ spiel?”

He raised his eyebrows. “No, not at all.” He frowned. “Was that something he complained about?”

“Yes. Several times. Didn’t I tell you?”

He shook his head. “No. You never mentioned it.”

“I didn’t?” I shrugged. “I’m sorry. I should have. He claimed our family’s talent was the root of all evil. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.”

He scowled and grunted. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

I grunted back. “Yes, isn’t it?”

There was a long silence as we listened to each other breathe. I sensed he had more to tell me, but for some reason I was reluctant to ask him about it. I told myself I was being foolish, and decided to prod him along. “Was there anything else he said?”

He hesitated, and without quite knowing why, my chest tightened.

He met my gaze, and his face was full of pain. “He accused me of various … things, and said that if I didn’t stop doing them, he’d find a way to make me regret it.”

I blinked. “I see.” After a moment I waved a hand, suddenly wanting this conversation to go no further. “Well, he was semi-delusional most of the time for the last couple of years of his life,” I said, briskly. “I wouldn’t take anything he said too much to heart.”

There was another very long pause.

I swallowed in a dry throat, and I hugged myself. An abrupt chill filled the room, and my hands and feet were cold. Arthur seemed in no hurry to divulge any more bombshells, so I gathered my courage to ask the next question.

“Arthur? Precisely what sorts of things did he think you were doing, dear?”

“Oh, Hester, “he whispered. “You’ll hate me forever.”

I recoiled for an instant, but then I reassured myself that everything was going to be okay. I had my suspicions about what he was going to say next, but I was also sure the truth of it would prove to be less awful than my imagination was making it. After all, I knew my husband.

“I could never hate you, darling,” I murmured. “It’s simply impossible.”

And I gave him my sweetest smile.

Dear God, I was a stupid woman.

He took a ragged breath, and then another, and he opened and closed his mouth several times before he finally began to speak.

“I’d been having an affair with Martha Predel for about three years when Jeremy came to talk to me.” He didn’t give me a chance to react; the words came gushing out of him. “And somehow Jeremy found out about it, and that’s why he came to see me, and he threatened to do something drastic if I didn’t put an end to it. I told him he was wrong, and that he had no right to speak to me like that, and I basically threw him out of my studio and told him to never say a word to you about any of this.”

He stared over my head at the wall, avoiding my eyes. He needn’t have been afraid of my reaction; I was too astonished and horrified at the moment to have any access to outrage or anguish. All I could do was gape at him, witless, my mouth ajar.

“When I got home that night after our argument,” he continued, “I was expecting him to make a scene, but he never said another thing to me about the situation, or acted as if we’d ever fought in the first place. It was as if he’d forgotten all about it.” He paused. “He even wished me good night on his way to bed, and he patted me on the shoulder as he passed by my chair.” He tugged at his beard. “I remember being moved by his affection, because I was certain he was still furious with me.”