“Can you cancel?”
I hesitate. “Why don’t I see if Karen can join him, and we’ll make it a double date for dinner?”
“Sure!” Jess agrees. “I haven’t seen Karen in ages.”
I’m relieved at the thought of not being alone with Jessica for the whole evening, then I feel bad about feeling relieved.
“It’ll give me a chance to tell her good-bye before we move,” Jessica says.
I don’t want to move. The thought jars me. I’ve never been as enthused about the idea of moving to Seattle as Jessica, but I’ve never outright admitted that I don’t want to leave New Orleans.You agreed to it, I remind myself.A good man keeps his word. It was something my father used to say, along withyour word is who you are. Keeping my commitments is a cornerstone of my life.
And yet, everything is different now. When I agreed to move to Seattle, I didn’t know I had a young daughter in New Orleans.
And I didn’t know I had a wife who would betray my principles to get her own way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Margaret
“MA’AM? WE’RE GOINGto move you to your room now.”
My eyelids feel as heavy as boardinghouse biscuits. It’s an enormous effort to open them just a sliver. When I do, I see a man in a short-sleeved aqua shirt beside me. My Henry had a shirt that color when Julia was a child, back in the sixties. He wore it to a crawfish boil we hosted on Mardi Gras; it was the month after Jackie Kennedy’s televised White House tour, because I remember talking to a friend about how elegant her taste was, and how...
“We’re going to lift you and put you on a gurney.”
I will my eyes to open again. This young man isn’t Henry, and his shirt doesn’t have buttons down the front. It’s some kind of medical attire.
“Am I in the hospital?” I croak.
“Yes. We just took you for an X-ray.”
“Am I in ICU?”
“You were, but you’re better now. You’re going to a post-ICU room.”
Better? I must have been really sick if this is better. I ache all over, and my hip feels even worse than it did after childbirth, when I tore a muscle while I was under the influence of “twilight sleep.” The nurse told me I’d writhed around and refused to cooperate when they were putting my legs into slings, but I don’t remember any of it. I just remember waking up and my hip hurting like the dickens, and...
“One, two, three.”
The man in the blue-green shirt and someone on the other sidehoist me up, and the next thing I know, I’m being I’m shifted onto a gurney. I’m vaguely aware of being wheeled down a long hall and around several corners. I may or may not have had a little ride in an elevator. After more wheeling, I’m lifted and shifted again, this time onto a bed. I’m turned on my side, and the sheet beneath me is pulled away. My hip throbs.
“Mrs. Moore?” I open my eyes and see a middle-aged woman with glasses smiling at me. “My name is Wanda. I’m the charge nurse, and I’m going to be taking care of you this evening.”
My brain feels like a shaken snow globe—as if it’s filled with thick liquid, and all of my thoughts and memories are little pieces just drifting around. My eyelids close as she arranges the covers over me and a memory floats by.
I’m five or six years old, lying in my old iron bed in the Lafayette house, covered with outdoor-scented sheets and a quilt my grandmother made. My skin is itchy and spotted and I feel sick, so very, very sick. I’m freezing; I never knew a person could feel so cold. A doctor hovers over me, his stethoscope like ice on my chest. After a moment, he removes it and talks. His words are mostly a murmur, but I clearly hear the wordmeasles. Mama walks him to the door, then comes back.
“I’m so c-c-cold.” My teeth are chattering. I’m afraid my upper and bottom teeth—I have some brand-new ones that feel too big for my mouth—will break against each other.
“Poor darling. You’re burning up with fever.” My mother pulls down the bedcovers, gently lifts my pajama top, and swabs a cold washcloth over my chest. “We have to cool you down so you won’t feel so chilled.”
I believe her, even though the cool cloth makes me flinch and shiver harder, and I don’t understand how getting cooler will make me warmer. But I know she loves me, and I trust that she knows things I don’t.
A woman’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Are you in pain?”
I can’t keep my eyes open for more than a second. It’s a nurse. “My hip hurts. Did I just have a baby?”
She gives a soft laugh. “No, ma’am. You had a heart attack, then fell and broke your hip.”
