Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (13 page)

The little lines between Monique’s eyes softened. Her expression shifted from concern to a deep, green sorrow.  She tilted
her head on that long, long neck and pressed her lips together in a way that showed she did know, and she had no words.

“Their eyes are brown,” Becky retorted, as Judy exited the building and limped toward them. “Both Brianna and Brian have brown
eyes, just like Marco’s. So that means they must have Marco’s eyes.”

Monique dropped the packs by her feet. “It doesn’t work that way, Beck.”

“I have to go home.”

“It’s not inevitable.” Monique gripped her shoulders. “It’s very complicated. The disease may be genetic but—”

Becky raised her palm. “I need to go home,” she stuttered, “before both my children go blind.”

M
onique sat on the edge of the bed. Her cell phone lay on the bedside table, open to her favorite photo. Three-year-old Kiera
sat upon Lenny’s shoulders, gripping his ears in her little fists. The light shone on Lenny’s skin, emphasizing the spray
of freckles on his cheeks and forehead, like fresh-cracked pepper.

On her lap lay the crinkled bucket list, now stained with café au lait and sticky in a corner with German apple strudel. Behind
her, in the hotel bathroom, came the spitting sound of the shower as a desolate Becky used up what was sure to be the last
of the tepid water. Through the window seeped the noises of the Marais neighborhood. High heels clicked lonely on cobblestones.
A shopkeeper whisked the first falling leaves off the sidewalk. A Frenchman called
bon soir
from down the street, chatting with familiarity before he continued on.

Monique took a long look at her husband and then let her eyes flutter closed against the late afternoon light. For the moment
she was blessedly alone. After the experience at the catacombs, not one of them was up for a fussy, linen-napkin dinner or
even a bite in a brasserie, so Judy had gone off to find the makings of dinner since this hotel didn’t have room service.

Monique took a deep breath. The room smelled odd, a mix of freshly baked bread from the
boulangerie
across the street and chemicals rising from the hair salon just beside it. She was used to sensing Lenny in the familiar confines
of her home bedroom. She was used to smiling at his teasing directions delivered from the backseat of her minivan while she
drove alone. She and Lenny hadn’t spent a lot of time in hotel rooms, which she supposed made this harder than usual. They’d
always been housecats. Purring and comfortable in their den.

She wanted to talk to him about so much. About Becky. About the view of the city from the London Eye and the surprise of the
castle on the Rhine boat trip, the beauty of the bike ride along the Moselle, and the pan-seared turbot with crayfish and
mushrooms
à la riche
she’d savored at Le Jules Verne. She needed to talk to him about Kiera, to whom she’d texted about the catacomb experience,
including a photo of piled bones…and who’d responded with a terse
congrats for crossing it off the list.

Monique tried to push that worry aside. She waited for that oh-so-familiar whisper. With her eyes closed, she flattened the
palm of her hand on the bedspread and anticipated the sag of the mattress. She ached for him to come to her. A breeze filtered
in from the window, and with a tingle of excitement, she raised her face to the chill. She perked her ears to the rustle of
the sheer curtains. She waited for the smell of him—hungry for the fragrance of cut grass and Brut, of warm flannel and man.

The breeze faded, the curtains settled.

A key rattled in the lock.

Monique jerked at the sound and then quickly shoved the list back into her daypack, open by her feet.
Damn.
Would she ever get a moment alone? It felt like she hadn’t connected with Lenny for weeks. She was thrown off by the foreignness
of the rooms they stayed in, and the unpredictable interruptions. She glanced at the picture on her phone just as the door
opened, only to find that the screen had gone dark.

“Bon! Je reviens!”
Judy swung in, a bag in each hand.
“On va manger bien ce soir.”

Monique twisted, lifting a knee onto the mattress. “I assume that’s French for we’re not having Chicken McNuggets.”

“I’ve just spent an hour picking through a
boulangerie,
a
charcuterie,
a
caviste,
and a
pâtisserie,
all within two blocks of here.” Judy dropped the bags onto the bureau by the TV, and then glanced at the bathroom door as
the shower turned off. “Have you and Becky settled everything?”

Monique stood up and smoothed her yoga pants over her thighs. “Not really.”

“Uh-oh. Problems getting a flight?” Judy pulled a loaf of French bread out of a bag and slipped it onto the table. “There
should be a red-eye to LaGuardia or Kennedy at least. On a Thursday night out of Paris-Orly I wouldn’t think it would be full.”

Monique pulled out a chair. “Well…I don’t really know.”

Judy paused, a wine bottle halfway out of the bag. “You didn’t call, did you?”

“Nope.”

“You were waiting for me to unfurl my suddenly volcanic French?”

“Not exactly.”

“I hate to tell you, Monique,” she said, placing the bottle on the table and then tapping her watch, “but if we don’t get
on this soon, there’s a possibility Becky won’t be able to get on a flight tonight.”

“Bingo.”

Judy eyed her as she unzipped her belly pack and pulled out her Swiss Army knife. She cast a glance toward the closed bathroom
door as she tugged the corkscrew free. “Dangerous move,
mon amie
. Beck’s got that look about her. You know, that rigid, tight-faced, don’t-even-
breathe
on me look, like when Marco took Gina off to his mother’s for a couple of mysterious weeks. One probing question and the poor
woman may shatter.”

“You don’t think she did just that, in the catacombs?”

Judy peeled the casing off the neck of the bottle and dropped it onto the table, her eyes averted and her voice low. “Why
the hell didn’t you tell me weeks ago?”

“She wasn’t ready to talk about it. It’s not my terrible news to share. And it didn’t feel right to hash it out behind Becky’s
back.”

Judy pinned the cork with the tip of the corkscrew, blinking rapidly. “I won’t believe it. It just can’t be true.”

Monique thought of the two Lorenzini kids, squealing as they swung on her backyard swing set. Brian a blur of energy and motion,
a roaring rough-and-tumble boy who loved nothing better than to roll around with Judy’s big, gentle dogs. Brianna and her
collection of blue jay feathers, the agate marbles she loved so much, the way she gently pinched you, nudged you, made funny
faces, always eager for attention.

“It may
not
be true.” Monique rubbed the bridge of her nose. “That’s just the problem, Judy. When it comes to genetics, there are so
many variables.”

“She’ll know when she gets the results of the genetic tests, I guess.”

“Who said she tested them yet? She and Marco don’t communicate that well these days. And genetic testing is expensive.”

 “Marco still has medical coverage—”

“—which may not cover something so exotic. And just think about this: Would you test your kids for a disease that cannot be
prevented and has no cure?”

Judy started to argue—Monique could almost hear her thinking of vitamin A supplements, retinal transplants, experimental gene
therapy, homeopathic remedies, and all the possibilities of future medical science—but then, mute, Judy dropped into the chair,
still gripping the wine bottle.

Monique let her absorb the shock, just as she herself had when she’d first researched the disease and realized the implications
for the little boy and the little girl who affectionately called her Aunt Monie.

Judy absently pulled the cork and then planted the bottle on the table. “Just when I thought Becky was starting to get a handle
on her situation.”

“Becky is a slave to her own stubborn independence. She wasn't ready to share something so horrible. She’d just been keeping
a lid on the boiling pot.”

“But she was like a kid at the Château de Vincennes this morning. And yesterday, so absorbed in sketching at Notre Dame.”

“Which means we succeeded, a least for a little while, in what we intended to do all along.” Monique pulled the little paper
caps off three of the room’s four water glasses. “We found her plenty of distractions.”

“It doesn’t help that the woman is neither here nor there. She knows she’s going blind, but she’s not blind yet.”

 “Degenerative diseases suck.” Monique reached for the wine.

Judy slapped Monique’s hand. “Not yet. You have to let it breathe.”

“Wow.” Monique ceded the bottle. “You remember that you can speak French, and the next thing you know I’m rooming with Julia
Child.”

“Save the wine for the meal.” Judy planted the bottle on the other side of the table. “And for Becky. Because she’s got it
the worst. You and I, we already know what we’ve lost. What we loved is already gone—
poof.
”

Judy twisted her hand at the wrist, imitating a bird flying away. Monique lifted the glass to her lips and sucked down the
teaspoon of wine that had splashed into it. The tannins must be getting to her, because he couldn’t figure what else was causing
this burning in her chest.

“But that woman,” Judy continued, pointing as she lowered her voice to the still-closed door. “She still
has
the thing that, someday, she is going to lose. That maybe her own kids will lose. And every little reminder, like that fiasco
in the catacombs, is a fresh new shock.”

Monique dropped her gaze and found interest in the flecked particleboard edge of the little table, running a fingernail along
the seam between the shiny veneer and the scratched wood. She disagreed with Judy. Loss was
always
delivered in agonizing, unpredictable little shocks. Grief
always
visited unexpectedly, revitalizing the pain just when you thought you might be ready to lay it aside.

Monique’s gaze drifted to her phone, now dark on the bedside table.

Just then Becky, dressed in a faded pair of cotton pajama bottoms and a crinkled Creed concert T-shirt, swung the bathroom
door open. She tossed her cosmetics bag in the direction of her suitcase and loosened the towel around her head.

“Hey.” Her blond hair, darkened by moisture, fell over her shoulders. She rubbed it briskly with the towel. “Any news about
flights to New York?”

Monique exchanged a glance with Judy, who with her back to Becky unloaded a wedge of brie and a wax-wrapped rectangle of country
pâté, and then, without another word, picked up the wine and filled Monique’s glass.

“Actually, Beck,” Monie said, “I need to talk to you about the flights.”

Becky’s brisk rubbing slowed. “Is there a problem?”

“It’s just getting so late.” Monique took a sip of the wine. She felt the liquid on her tongue but didn’t register taste at
all. “I’m not even sure we can buy a ticket online or over the phone from here on such short notice. To do this right, we’d
have to get you to Orly and then hope you get on a flight stand-by. But we couldn’t go to the gate with you. We’d have to
leave you there not knowing whether you’d gotten on or not—”

“It’s not pitch-dark in an airport.” Her voice was as flat as a nail head. “I can manage just fine.”

“You’d end up in the States at some ungodly hour of the morning. With Marco not even knowing you’re coming home.”

At the sound of her husband’s name, Becky sank with a bounce to the edge of the bed, giving up all pretext of drying her hair.
Monique knew that Becky hadn’t been able to get through to Marco. Her calls dropped before the first ring. Both she and Judy
were having trouble with their international calling and texting. Monie suspected this hotel was in some sort of triangulated
dead zone for their service.

With a grimace Judy disappeared into the bathroom for a moment to wash a cluster of purple grapes.

Monique forged ahead. “I’m just trying to reason this out, Beck.”

“I’m being a pain in the ass.”

“You’re not a pain in the ass.”

“I don’t want to drag you two to Orly. Besides,” Becky added, forestalling her, “you guys can’t nanny me tonight. You both
have a flight to Zurich in the morning.”

“Eight-in-the-freaking-morning,” Judy grumbled, emerging with the wet grapes sagging in a facecloth.

“That’s just my point,” Monique said. “Zurich is one of the busiest airports in Europe, a major hub. Wouldn’t it be better
for you to get a good night’s sleep tonight and do at least one more leg of the trip? Once we’re in Switzerland, if you still
feel the same way, we can take the time to make a reservation home from Zurich and contact Marco so he knows you’re coming.”

Judy arranged the grapes on the table and cast an aggrieved look at Monie. “Were you hitting the whiskey when you dreamed
up this itinerary?”

Monique ignored her. She focused on Becky, now curling her bare feet underneath her, looking more like a teenager than her
own Kiera.

“If you left tonight, you might get lucky,” Monique conceded. “You might catch the last red-eye out, and you’d be home by
tomorrow. But if you miss that flight, or if all the flights are full, you’ll have to spend the whole night sleeping in a
molded plastic chair. And you’ll spend all of tomorrow trying to talk your way onto a flight. You’ll be home in two days.”
Monique raised her glass. “But if you sleep here and come with us to Zurich tomorrow, you can still be home in two days if
you want.”

“I need to go home, Monie.” Becky hugged her arms. “I want to see their faces. I
need
to see them.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that. You reminded me yourself at the catacombs. It’s only a five percent loss a year—”

“I don’t give a damn about me.”

“Then you know their vision is not going dark in a day or two, Beck.” Monique paused, balanced on the fulcrum, trying to decide
what to say. She was no expert, and she knew better than to give false hope. But this, at least, seemed clear. “Your version
of RP arrived late in life, relatively speaking. And your night vision was the first thing affected. It might be decades before
they show any signs of vision loss. If ever.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Suddenly Becky rolled up the towel and tossed it into a corner of the room. “Tell me how complicated this
is.”

Monique realized that the time for silence and patience and stillness had finally ended. Still, she hesitated. She thought
about everything she’d gleaned from the geneticist at the hospital, from the medical websites, from the case histories she’d
studied. The genetics of retinitis pigmentosa were complicated and still being researched. It involved up to thirty-odd genes
or locations on genes, but there were three generally dominant patterns of inheritance. Autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive,
or X-linked. Monique had already ruled out X-linked for Becky’s RP.