Pictures of Us Page 9

  So there was a reason beyond simple curiosity. Judging by the flash of fear and grief in Sophia’s eyes, it wasn’t a good one.

  “He’s sick, Tess,” she said, and her voice broke a little. With the weight of worry, I thought absently, even as my heartbeat stuttered. The burden of secrets.

  “How sick?”

  It was Emma, in the doorway, a smear of red paint across one cheek, her hands splattered with the results of her painting experiment. Her face was blank, but I could read the shock in her eyes even from a distance.

  Sophia glanced at me, and I nodded. We would all know soon enough, and we would all have to deal with it, whatever it was. I had simply never imagined that the cozy little “we” that had always been Michael, Emma and me would include two other people.

  “He has what’s called acute lymphoblastic leukemia.” The words were too big, too foreign, even though they sounded eerily comfortable on Sophia’s tongue. She picked at a loose fringe on the hem of her jeans as she spoke, and her voice was the only sound in the room.

  “He’s dying.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I PLAYED THE WORDS OVER AND over in my head the next day, as we drove home through a chain of early thunderstorms. Michael had suggested we go home instead of staying another day, so we could talk things through and make arrangements, and I for one hadn’t argued. I longed for my own house, my own bed, and was seriously considering staying there all day Monday, huddled under the covers.

  The windshield wipers slapped the glass in rhythm as we sped down the I-95, echoing the words I hadn’t been able to forget all night. Bone marrow donor. No matter how I attempted to think rationally about the procedures Sophia and Drew had explained, the words were sharp and ugly, as gruesome as needles, and just as painful.

  Emma had burst into tears over the simple lemon pasta Sophia had made for dinner, and run out of the room. The door to the bathroom had slammed a moment later, but before I could get up, Drew had held up his hand. “Let me,” he’d said, his own eyes glassy. “If she understands it’s not so scary for me…”

  If Sophia’s tight face was anything to judge by, this was a patent lie, but I let him go to her. A brother comforting his sister, I thought, and turned to see Michael’s shoulders hunched into turtle mode. You couldn’t grieve for something you’d never known you had, but Michael was faced now with what he’d missed. And there was every chance he would lose it again all too soon.

  We’d talked late into the night, once we’d checked into the hotel and Emma was in bed with the TV glowing blue on the dresser and her headphones on. She’d watched the silent images on the screen for a half hour or so, listening to whatever music was shuffled up, until her eyelids finally drifted shut and she fell asleep.

  There was no question that we would do whatever we could to help Drew. As I lay curled against Michael’s chest on the stiff hotel mattress, he confided everything Drew had told him that afternoon in a coffee shop not far from Sophia’s apartment, the early symptoms, the diagnosis, the chemotherapy.

  The fear that the leukemia might have come from his side of the family, somehow, that our own gorgeous, healthy Emma might be facing the same fate one day, went unspoken. Voicing the fears would make them too real, and far too possible.

  “Drew’s such a good kid,” Michael murmured as he stroked my hair. “Smart, you know? With a good heart. He has a future, damn it. Or he would, if he wasn’t sick. It’s just so goddamn unfair. It proves every cliché in the book, too. You never believe something like this will happen to you, you know? Or someone you care about. And it always seems to happen to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Why aren’t the serial killers out there getting leukemia, for God’s sake?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that—no one did. But when he asked how I felt about his returning to Cambridge in the coming week to undergo testing to determine whether he was a bone marrow match, I didn’t hesitate. No matter what had happened between Michael and me all those years ago, no matter what had led to Drew’s conception, he was Michael’s child. Sophia had shouldered the burden of parenting him alone for all these years—the very least we could do was offer any kind of help we could to give Drew a shot at surviving.

  Even if that meant that the carefree summer I had envisioned for us was going to become a flurry of trips between home and Massachusetts, with the bonus of medical tests and procedures. Even if it meant, in the back of my mind, that I would wonder if Emma might be considered a possible donor, too.

  I shifted to get more comfortable as we crossed the line between Connecticut and New York. Michael had been silent for the past hour, listening to an R.E.M. CD, and Emma was asleep in the back seat. Her book had tumbled off her lap onto the floor, and her half-empty bottle of Diet Pepsi rolled back and forth as the car moved. I was being selfish, even if it was secretly. No, I didn’t want Drew to die—even if he hadn’t been Michael’s son, I wouldn’t want that. But I hated the idea of Michael undergoing anything painful, and I hated the idea of losing him this summer to the car, Cambridge, Drew’s cancer—to a son I had only the most peripheral part in creating, a young man I didn’t know, and maybe never would.

  I longed for Michael to talk to me. And what I wanted him to say was, I’m sorry, I never should have slept with Sophia, and I know exactly how much you love me, even if twenty years ago you broke up with me because you were attracted to another man and scared of commitment.

  Not likely. Ridiculous, in fact. Stupid. But realizing that didn’t keep me from wishing he would say those things. And it definitely didn’t stop me from feeling guilty about wanting him to at the same time.

  Michael had too much on his mind to comfort me in the here and now, and my memories weren’t any help, either. I couldn’t stop mulling over the months Michael and I had spent apart. He’d never told me how he spent them, and now I had just enough information to drive myself crazy with. He hadn’t been alone. I knew that now, at least—as much as it hurt.

  The rain never stopped, and I spent the rest of the drive listening to the wheels shushing on the pavement, and pretending to be asleep.

  “YOU GOING TO eat that?”

  Sometime early in the summer, Jackson and I were in his studio after a day spent developing film from one of the rare weddings he agreed to photograph. He’d ordered in Chinese when we noticed it was after seven—neither of us had eaten since noon. My egg roll sat untouched on my plate as I sorted through the proofs.

  “You can have it,” I said. Jackson’s appetite was inhuman. He’d already plowed through a pint of pork-fried rice and an order of Hunan beef. “Great picture of the flower girl.” I held up a shot of the five-year-old in her pink dress, petals fluttering to the ground as she traipsed up the aisle.

  “It’s not tough to get a good picture of a pretty girl.” He bit through the egg roll, then tossed it onto his own plate and reached for the old Nikon on the table beside him.

  “What are you doing?” The camera was aimed at me.

  “Proving my point.” The shutter clicked. He stood up and moved back a few feet, squinting at the low light in the room and fishing his light meter from the clutter on the table. Once he’d turned on a lamp on the desk behind him, he clicked off at least a dozen shots while I blushed and looked anywhere but at the lens.

  “So shy,” he teased in the husky voice that was the result of years of cigarettes, and probably what my grandmother would have called hard living. “Like you don’t know exactly how pretty you are.”

  “Jackson.” He had stopped being Mr. Devic the second day I’d worked for him, but that was months ago. Whatever we were now was much more than an employer and an employee, but less than lovers. “Cut it out. You’re wasting film.”

  I held a hand up when he continued to shoot, ducking my head when he inched closer. As flirtations went, this was a new one, and it was uncomfortably exciting. He was so persistent, focused on me through the lens, and it was difficult not to think about what he found there that he liked—and
what I might lack.

  He was only shooting pictures of me, hardly out of character for a photographer, but something about his attention that night made my heart race. After a minute, I was blushing and sweating, and of course trying to hide it. My jeans felt too tight and my shirt felt too low cut. But as exciting as it was, it was also frightening, and that was ridiculous. Wasn’t this what I’d planned on when I’d broken up with Michael? The freedom to choose, to figure out what I wanted, not to allow someone else, even someone I loved very much, to decide for me?

  It wasn’t as if Jackson hadn’t flirted with me before. Just last week, we’d fallen asleep on the grungy old studio sofa together after sharing most of a bottle of wine, and I’d woken up to find my cheek against his chest and his arm flung over me. He was always rubbing my shoulders, touching my hair, bumping his hip against mine as we walked down the street. Every time he touched me, an electric tingle of awareness rippled through me like a promise. At least, it always had before.

  But this time when he tipped my chin back to take a close-up of my face, I had to fight the urge to scramble out of my chair and run for the door. This time, I could see all the steps that would lead up to sleeping with him. If I decided to, I could make it happen, right now.

  After a minute, he put down the camera and circled behind me. I was breathing so hard it was amazing I hadn’t hyperventilated. Everything felt too big, too real, too loud, too close—I could feel Jackson’s body heat behind me, hear the rasp of his boot soles on the gritty floor. When he rested his hands on my shoulders and bent to brush my hair away from the back of my neck, I was one huge exposed nerve, so sensitive I nearly groaned when his lips touched the vulnerable skin of my nape.

  God, it felt good. After so long, after so many near misses, his mouth was teasing and sweet, but with just enough seriousness of purpose that it was clear he didn’t intend to stop with one kiss. In fact, he was already moving on, trailing kisses up the side of my throat, twisting me in the chair until I was reaching for him without thinking twice. I stood up and he pulled me against him with rough, greedy hands, all wiry strength and hard edges.

  And then I kissed him. He tasted of smoke and beer and the spicy beef he’d eaten earlier, and the total effect was overwhelming—his mouth was a dark, strange place, his tongue hot and hungry and insistent, urging me on. Urging me closer, his hands in my hair and then on my back, fingering the belt loops of my jeans.

  Swept away. The words flashed past in a blur, and I could feel it happening, the moment when it would be too late to stop was rushing toward me, and I knew then I couldn’t go through with it.

  It wasn’t so much that I didn’t love Jackson, or that he didn’t love me. Suddenly, I understood the appeal of a strictly sexual relationship, a convenient way to scratch a certain itch and enjoy the hell out of it, too. But I could also see how easy it would be to go from Jackson to someone else, and someone else again, every kiss, every caress, taking me further from Michael.

  That was when I knew that somewhere in the back of my mind, my separation from Michael had been temporary. A test, of sorts, for me as much as anyone. Maybe only for me. Loving Michael was a choice, it seemed, and very much mine.

  I wriggled out of Jackson’s arms, murmuring something trite and stupid, I’m sure—I don’t remember the words now. What is there ever to say in that situation?

  I remember all too well what he said, though. “It would have been good, Tess. It will be, whenever you’re ready.”

  The thing was, I didn’t doubt it. Jackson was sex on a stick—an older man with a lot of experience and the charm to make it seem desirable. But I knew when I left that night that “it” would never happen. I wasn’t sure if I had ever really wanted it to, or if I had simply wanted the chance to say no.

  I didn’t quit right away. For two more weeks, we circled each other like restless cats, careful in what we said and when or how we touched, and I’d been foolish to think I could ignore what had passed between us and go back to being simply his employee. The day I left, he kissed me goodbye until I was literally weak in the knees, and crying. But I didn’t blame him for rubbing my nose in what might have been, because it was all too clear by then that I wasn’t a passing fancy for him, and that he didn’t bed every young female assistant he hired. I was sorry to have hurt him, even if only his pride had been wounded.

  The only thing that mattered to me then was how wounded Michael was. We hadn’t talked in months, and I wanted nothing more than to call him that night, to hop on a bus to Boston and run straight to his apartment. But if I did that, I would have to mean it down to my bones. Better to wait, I thought. Give myself a little while, make sure I was deciding with my head as well as my heart.

  If I hadn’t waited, Drew Keating wouldn’t have existed. Hindsight, as they say. And you know how that saying goes.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE RAIN KEPT UP THROUGH MONDAY, effectively drowning any holiday-weekend spirit the three of us might have mustered. Emma wandered around the house aimlessly before taking off for her friend Nicole’s house. The novelty of the weekend’s drama had worn off, and she was back to pouting about the party she had missed, even though I would have chained her in her closet before letting her go, long-lost half brother or not. Michael had holed up at his desk, checking e-mail and searching for links to information about leukemia, and I retreated to the bedroom with Walter by noon, claiming laundry to fold. Instead, I curled up on the bed and stared out the window at the dripping leaves on the elm tree, with a huge mug of hot tea in one hand and Walter’s head under the other.

  My mother called twice—I had put off her questions when we picked up Walter Sunday night, but I still wasn’t in any mood to discuss the situation yet, which I informed her much too curtly this morning. Nell had called, but that time I let the machine answer. She was still angry that I had missed the wedding planning, even if she wouldn’t admit it, but I knew she was concerned about what Michael and I were going through, too.

  Everyone was, of course. And everyone would likely switch directly into emergency mode when they learned that Drew was seriously ill. I couldn’t help but love them for that, even though at the moment the idea of more questions and conversation made me want to draw the covers over my head for about a week.

  Except that would leave me with nothing to do but face my own thoughts, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Getting away from them today was hard enough. And as I finally turned to the pile of laundry on the bed and folded the towels into neat squares, I wondered if Michael was revisiting the past as he sat at his computer.

  I had dreaded the moment he and Drew would walk into Sophia’s apartment on Saturday. After twenty years, I had no idea how Michael and Sophia would greet each other. And there was something entirely too strange about the collection of people under that roof—a man with two children born of two different women, with both of the children and both of the women present?

  In the end, I’m sure I was the only one buzzing with tension. Michael and Drew climbed the stairs, and when we walked into the hall to meet them, Michael and Sophia simply clasped hands for a moment before kissing each other lightly on the cheek.

  But before Emma had broken down crying at the table, I’d noticed Michael exchanging glances with Sophia, sometimes even searching her face when she was busy talking to one of the kids. I couldn’t blame him—wouldn’t blame him—for having questions about Drew that only Sophia could answer. What his son’s first word had been, maybe. If he had always loved drawing, what his favorite picture books were, when he’d kissed a girl for the first time.

  What I didn’t want to face was Michael revisiting the months he and Sophia had spent together. Remembering the reasons he’d fallen for her, slept with her. Appreciating the woman she was now.

  It was jealousy, pure and simple, and I hated myself for it. After folding the last of the towels with something close to violence, I thrust them into the linen closet and slammed the door. Standing there in the
upstairs hallway, my feet bare on the cool wood floor, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  It was stupid. Michael had come back to me, hadn’t he? He’d spent the past twenty years with me, making a home, raising our daughter. Brushing my hair at night before we went to sleep, his fingers gentle as they stroked through the length of it. Calling me from work simply to tell me he missed me, or to share a silly story from the office. Making love to me in the bed we’d shared for so long, his mouth finding all my secret places, his weight and his whispered words so familiar, such a gift.

  But that wasn’t the whole story. Of course it wasn’t. In those same twenty years we’d argued over everything from putting the trash out to the mortgage payment to the car breaking down. We’d let disagreements linger long past bedtime, hovering over us like a bad smell as we lay in bed, carefully not touching. He’d forgotten my birthday, or I’d forgotten his. We’d been too tired or too stressed to have sex, and then angry at each other for not initiating it.

  Our life together wasn’t perfect. No one’s was, I was willing to bet. But not everyone had to watch her husband interact with a woman he’d once cared for a great deal, either.

  “You okay up there?”

  I jolted at the sound of Michael’s voice drifting from the bottom of the stairs. He’d heard the door slam, then. Another proof of my childishness.

  “I’m okay,” I called back, and bit my lip. Another lie. “I stumbled into the door. Walter was underfoot.” And now I was damning the dog by association. Perfect.

  “You want some lunch?”

  He sounded completely normal, at ease. And I knew him well enough to see through the casual question—he hoped I was hungry, too, so I would make lunch for both of us. Michael was wonderful about shoving a load of laundry in the washer or running the vacuum cleaner, but he was no cook.

  So…that was normal. And normal was good. I called back, “I’ll be right down.”