Pictures of Us Page 14

  For a moment, staring across the table at the grim set of his jaw, the dark hair falling across his forehead as he focused on the scarred linoleum tabletop, I felt my blood run cold. “Did you already apply here in the city?”

  He slid out of the booth and shrugged on his coat, but not before I saw how deeply I had cut him. His eyes were empty, bottomless. “No. And don’t worry, I won’t.”

  We slept together in my single bed that night, but Michael faced the wall, his bare back to me. A mere six inches separated us, but we had never been as far apart as we were that night.

  I FELT THE SAME THING NOW, sitting beside him on the train home from New York. Our shoulders bumped companionably as the train rattled over the tracks, but we rode in silence.

  I had called Michael the minute Alicia and I said goodbye outside the restaurant, and I’d taken the subway down to his office. It was already two o’clock, and I’d asked my mother to check in on Emma when she got home from school. I was still buzzing, excited to tell him about Alicia’s offer, and as the six train sped through the tunnels on the way to Union Square, I was already imagining the series of photographs I would shoot.

  “Hi, there,” he said when I was shown into his office, and stood up to kiss me. But the gesture felt rote, and as flat as his eyes were. His tie was loose, and his hair stood up in wild tufts, as if he’d spent the past few hours combing his fingers through it carelessly.

  “What’s wrong?” I moved a pile of galleys off the single guest chair in the room and sat down. Schuyler and Lansing was a prestigious small publisher, but like every prestigious small publisher, the firm was more concerned with reviews and literary awards than the comfort of their offices. Michael’s was located at the far end of a rabbit’s warren, and about the size of a walk-in closet.

  “I was going to tell you later.” He leaned on the edge of his desk, threatening to topple a stack of manuscripts, and folded his arms over his chest. “I got the results of the bone marrow testing today. I’m not a match.”

  The words struck deep—to the bone, it seemed in that moment. All I could think about was Emma, my baby, my little girl, and possibly Drew’s last hope.

  But I heard myself saying, “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” I got up and went to put my arms around him. He was stiff, his arms still crossed, and under my lips his cheek felt too warm. He was holding it all in, the disappointment and anger and fear, and it was burning up inside him.

  “What did the doctor say?” I shoved the manuscripts away and sat beside him, my arm around his back.

  “The doctor didn’t call.” He shook his head, as if the words were too difficult to utter. “Drew did.”

  I made some kind of soft noise—I heard it in the quiet room, knew it had come from my throat, but I was far away, imagining what it must be like to tell your father he couldn’t save you. To be facing the end of the road at twenty, a lifetime of things not yet experienced.

  Michael got up and paced across the little room, and before I could utter another word, he asked, “What are you doing in the city, anyway? Did I know you were coming in?”

  He was trying so hard to keep himself together—I was pretty sure if I touched him again now, he would split open, all of the stress and confusion pouring out of him in a heated rush. So I sat where I was, carefully glancing out the window while he ran his hand over his forehead. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I said. “Alicia Priest asked me in to have lunch.”

  “That’s nice.” He was already gone, lost in his thoughts, moving back around his desk to sit down.

  All I could do was nod as he sifted through the pages of a manuscript he’d been reading when I walked in. Now wasn’t the time to share my good news, but a part of me was angry that I had to wait. A selfish part, I told myself firmly. A small, unworthy part.

  But that part of me was getting restless. Too many things were going unsaid, and the weight of them was getting heavier by the day.

  I convinced him to leave the office early, at least, but I couldn’t help comparing the trip home with others we had taken. If we were together in the city, we usually stopped off for a drink somewhere decadent, or grabbed dirty water dogs from one of the vendors near Penn Station, feeding them to each other laden with mustard and ketchup and onions until we were both laughing at the mess. Today we rode the subway to the station in silence, and waited as if we were strangers for our train to be announced.

  Of course I didn’t blame Michael for being upset about the test results. Michael was the sort who scooped up spiders with a piece of paper and carried them outside, and dropped his spare change in collection tins for needy sick kids everywhere he saw one. He would give an arm and both legs, and probably more, to keep Emma and me alive.

  But I didn’t want just part of him. I wanted all of him, the Michael I had loved for so long, to look at me again. And I didn’t think he knew it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON EMMA was peeling potatoes for dinner, under my direction, and making a mess. Being grounded had seriously restricted her free-time options, and I realized she was bored when she offered to help with dinner. “I got another e-mail from Drew today,” she said idly, and flicked a piece of wet skin into the sink.

  I looked up from the table, where I had spread a stack of old photos. Baby Emma and my five-year-old self were side by side amid pictures of my parents, wedding photos and snapshots of me holding Emma and my mom toting me on her hip.

  An e-mail from Drew? Another e-mail from Drew?

  “We exchanged addresses when we were in Cambridge,” Emma added before I could say a word. “We’ve been e-mailing back and forth since then.”

  I let this news settle in by getting up to find a pot for the potatoes. There was nothing to be upset about. Drew was, after all, Emma’s half brother, and even though I’d met him only once, I thought I could trust him not to engage her in inappropriate conversation. But their correspondence was another proof of Emma’s independence, and she clearly loved the fact that she had surprised me with it.

  “What do you two talk about?” I made my tone as light as possible as I showed her how to slice the potatoes into manageable chunks.

  “Stuff.” She rubbed her nose with the back of her forearm and blew a piece of hair out of her eyes. “I ask him stuff about growing up, and he tells me. Sometimes he asks me the same kinds of things.”

  I didn’t reply. I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, and I couldn’t pry. I didn’t want to be caught prying, at least. But it was impossible not to wonder if Drew had asked what Michael had been like as a dad, and if he resented the fact that he hadn’t had one when he was a child.

  Poor little kid had to have wondered who his father was, I thought, watching Emma slicing the potatoes, her brow furrowed as she sectioned off chunks. What child wouldn’t, especially when he trotted off to kindergarten and discovered almost all his friends had a mommy and a daddy?

  And what had Sophia told him about his lack of a father? That his father was dead? Surely she wouldn’t have told a six-or seven-year-old that she didn’t know who his father was.

  Emma’s tongue was out, resting on her upper lip, a sure sign of concentration. I had taken pictures of her doing the same thing, completely unaware, when she was little and furiously working in one of her coloring books, or trying to tie her shoes. In fact, one of the pictures on the kitchen table showed her curled in Michael’s lap, just the tip of her tongue visible between her lips as he read to her from The Little House in the Big Woods.

  I had never doubted that Michael would be a good father. As early as the first summer we met, I had observed him with his sister, Melissa, then a slightly annoying eight-year-old, and marveled at his patience with her. He didn’t simply tolerate her; he enjoyed spending time with her. His face softened when he listened to her chattering about her new friends or the mean boy who had teased her at the pool, and the sight of it always sent a flicker of warmth through me.

  When I fo
und out I was pregnant with Emma, it was Michael who had whooped and danced. I had always wanted kids, but in an unspecified “someday” kind of way. That a child was definitely on the way, no turning back barring disaster, was suddenly so terrifying I had ended up on the kitchen floor, breathing into a paper bag while Michael rubbed my back and kissed my hair.

  Embarrassing, to say the least. But for the first time, I seemed to be the one looking further down the road than Michael was. Babies—newborns—were one thing. They were a few months of sleeplessness and crying and lots of laundry. Children were forever. Children grew out of hand-holding and bedtime kisses, and talked back and picked their noses. Children argued and wanted things that were dangerous and bad for them, and went to high school and drove too fast and didn’t always study, and then became adults who would still regard us as Mom and Dad, especially when it came to borrowing money.

  “You’re a glass-half-empty person sometimes, aren’t you?” Michael had said with a laugh, sliding down to sit beside me on the kitchen floor of our little New York apartment. An apartment, I had also pointed out, that was really too small for us already, even without baby equipment.

  In bed that night, as I lay on my back, he’d stroked my still nicely flat belly and listed all the wonderful things children were. He’d told funny stories about his own childhood, and asked me to tell him some of mine. I’d fallen asleep with the warmth of his palm shielding the tiny embryo inside me, and the sound of his voice in my ear as steady as a waterfall.

  “Mom? How much water?”

  I glanced up to find Emma staring at me, eyebrows raised. She’d finished cutting the potatoes and had piled them in the pot.

  “Just enough to cover them completely,” I said, and felt myself blushing as the rest of the memory pushed to the surface. Later that same night I had woken up, calm and completely alert, to find a stripe of moonlight across Michael’s face as he slept, illuminating the curve of his cheek. And the rush of love that swept through me then was so huge, so complete, I’d reached for him, waking him with my mouth so I could slide on top of him. Still drowsy but powerfully aroused, he’d smiled up at me while I rode him, and he laid his hands on my belly as he watched me fly.

  “Mom, what is your deal?” Emma complained. She had the pot on the flame already, and was waving a lid in my face. “Are you, like, on drugs today or what?”

  “I most certainly am not,” I protested, but I knew my cheeks were pink. I was living in my head so often these days, just like Michael, that memories I hadn’t thought about in years were coming back. Clearly, I needed to avoid the sexy ones when Emma was around. “Turn the heat down a little and put the lid on.”

  She did as I asked and then wandered over to the table, where she picked up a picture of herself at age two, giggling wildly, her hair in pigtails and evidence of a half-eaten chocolate-chip cookie all over her face. “What’s all this for?”

  I hesitated. I still hadn’t told Michael about the exhibit, and I wasn’t about to spill the beans to Emma first. He’d closeted himself in his little office when we got home Tuesday night, and he’d still been turtled up yesterday, drawn and exhausted.

  “Just sorting through old photos,” I said, wiping up the counter where the potato skins had left a wet, starchy mess. “Nothing special.”

  She held up another picture, this one of her sometime in kindergarten. “I was pretty cute, huh?”

  I smiled at her. “You really were. I used to call you Button for that very reason.”

  Her mouth went slack for a minute, but then a light went on. “I remember that! God, Mom, that was embarrassing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”

  She was lingering, sifting through the pictures with idle fingers, and I could tell she had something on her mind. Barefoot, in a pair of her oldest jeans and a simple pink T-shirt, she’d skinned her hair back in a ponytail after school. Her shoulder blades stuck out from her back like a pair of fragile wings.

  I took a London broil out of the fridge and cut open the plastic wrap to season it. If she wanted to talk, I would be ready, but I wasn’t going to push her. This interval of peace was too rare right now, and too pleasant to risk shattering. Maybe Drew had given her some big-brother advice about dealing with consequences, or about acting like a grown-up if she expected to be treated like one.

  “I told Drew what Dad was like when I was little. How he used to read to me, and made me that fort in the backyard and all,” Emma said finally. She sat on one of the chairs, her bare feet on the seat and her arms wrapped around her legs. She lifted her eyes to mine when I turned around. “Do you think that was…okay? I mean, he asked and all.”

  There she was, my little girl, the one who was still unsure of herself, who longed to please, who believed in happy endings. “I think it’s great, honey,” I said as I took olive oil, vinegar and grill seasoning out of the cabinet. Keeping the conversation casual was the smart thing to do. “I’m sure he has a lot of questions.”

  “Yeah.” She came to stand behind me, peering over my shoulder as I seasoned the meat. “We were talking about what Christmas was like, what we did in the summer, stuff like that. He’s really smart, Mom. And so cool. He’s…well, he’s a lot like Dad, I guess.”

  I glanced back at her and smiled. “That’s a good thing to be, don’t you think?”

  Her grin was lopsided. “Yeah.” She was quiet for a moment before she added, “But it sucks that Dad’s bone marrow didn’t match.”

  I waited, concentrating on the bottle of seasoning in my hand, but while she didn’t go on, she didn’t move, either. Waiting for me to weigh in. I had no wisdom to offer, but I was concerned, and I hoped she understood that. I wanted to find out how much she knew about the process, or if she had an inkling that we might ask her to be tested. “What can his doctors do now? Did he mention anything?”

  She might as well have pulled a shade down over her face. The vulnerable, worried child was gone, and a shuttered young woman stood before me, instead, lips pursed, eyes guarded. “There are things,” she said absently. “I’m, um, not exactly sure. What else can I do here?”

  “I’ve got it, thanks.” I’d been moody as a teenager, but Emma’s mood swings were giving me whiplash. “What’s with your newfound interest in cooking, anyway?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to be helpful, Mother. Responsible. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me to be?”

  “Sorry. You’re right,” I said, and shook my head as she headed upstairs, a fresh can of diet soda in hand. If she thought I believed that, maybe I could sell her a bridge.

  I didn’t have much time to wonder about her abrupt about-face, though. The phone rang a moment later, and it was Michael.

  “Can you pack a bag for me?” he asked. “I’m catching the next train home, and I’ve got a ticket on a seven o’clock flight to Boston tonight.”

  “What…?” He was going too fast, and the panic in his voice was contagious. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, frozen, watching as the pot of potatoes on the stove began to boil over. “Michael, what happened?”

  “Sophia called. Drew’s in the hospital.” He sounded harried, a bit breathless, and I could hear the rush of traffic through the phone. If he was on his cell, he was probably already on his way to the train station. “Something about neutropenia and an infection…I’m not sure what it all means, but he collapsed this morning at the library. I told her I would come.”

  “Of course.” I moved the pot off the flame and headed upstairs, the portable phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder. “I’ll pack some things for you now. How long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t know, honey.” A horn blared, and Michael swore under his breath. “Use your best judgment, okay?”

  He hung up before I even had a chance to say goodbye.

  I KNEW YOU WOULD be okay.

  That was what Michael had said when he left for the airport Thursday evening, and the words echoed in my head Saturday morni
ng as I searched through the piles of paper on his desk for the electric bill.

  Was I okay? I wasn’t falling apart—I couldn’t. I had a child and a home and a career to take care of—and I wasn’t the one whose child was dying, for one thing.

  I was the one who had a wedding to photograph this afternoon, and who had remembered the electric bill hadn’t been paid yet, and whose resentful teenager had been storming around since she’d heard her father was flying to Boston, because she wanted to go with him.

  “He is my brother,” she’d argued, stationed in the doorway to our bedroom as Michael looked through the things I had packed for him. “I might want to see him, too, you know? God, Daddy, what if he’s really dying?”

  The horror on Michael’s face in that moment had spoken volumes, and even I had winced when he said, “Yes, Emma. What if that happens? Do you think that matters more to you than it does to him?”

  As of Friday afternoon, Drew had been stable, at least, but his compromised immune system was not yet up to the job of fighting a respiratory infection. It was all so needless, so awful—that a bright, loving kid who hadn’t even graduated college yet might die of what was essentially a chest cold because the chemotherapy to battle his leukemia was a kind of poison.

  I’d never wanted to scream so often in my life. Shattering a couple of cheap dishes against the driveway was beginning to tempt me. I wanted to curse at everything and everyone. Sophia, for keeping Drew a secret from Michael. Michael, for caring so very much. Drew, for being ill. Emma, for being a teenager. Cancer, for existing.

  But most of all, I wanted to scream at myself, for letting Michael go all those years ago, for opening the door to this tangled skein of lives and emotions.