Reunion in October (The Calendar Girls Book 2) (21 page)

“They can’t be too little if you’re considering the end of a marriage that’s lasted…” She glanced down at her notes. “…more than seventeen years.”

I shook my head. “I should probably talk to Roy.”

“You’ll have an opportunity to speak to him later. Right now, I’d like you to talk to
me
. That’s why we’re both here. It’s important for me to understand your current state of mind. So, tell me, what hasn’t been right between the two of you?”

On a defeated sigh, I opted to reveal just a few things about Roy and me—nothing too big, nothing too small. At least, that was my original intention. Once I started, though, I couldn’t seem to stop. All of my complaints: the distance between us, his mother, his constant harping over our finances, his mother, how he took me for granted, his mother, his hesitancy to discipline the kids, which always made me The Bad Guy. And of course, most of all, I talked about his mother. I really spilled my guts—without interruption—for a good twenty minutes before the words slowed to a halt. Drained, I sank into the cushioned back of the chair and waited for Dr. Calderon to sneer at me and dismiss my concerns as petty.

But she didn’t react the way I expected. She allowed a slight smile to touch her mocha-glossed lips. “Feel better now?”

“Yeah.” And I did. I suddenly understood the lure of analysis. There was something so liberating about telling an impartial stranger all your secrets and fears without open judgment. Even if she wasn’t a hundred percent impartial.

“Good. Now, tell me this. Do you think you would have decided to separate from your husband if you hadn’t just suffered a heart attack?”

I thought about that carefully before I answered. “I don’t know for sure. I mean, the thought’s been in the back of my mind for a while.”

“Oh? For how long?”

I traced a cabbage rose on the upholstery with a fingertip. “I honestly can’t say. But I can tell you I’ve dreamed about asking Roy for a divorce. More than once. Not dream, like a fantasy while I’m stuck in traffic. I mean a real dream. When I’m asleep. Don’t they say that your subconscious creates options for you in your dreams?”

She jotted something in the spiral steno pad on her lap. “Is that what you believe? That divorce is an option for you?”

“Divorce is always an option, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

She supposed. What kind of answer was that? I slapped a hand on the arm of my chair. “Don’t you get it? Maybe Roy and I shouldn’t have been married, to begin with. Maybe his mother was right.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because we didn’t marry for love, we married for respectability. I was sixteen and pregnant. That’s not enough of a reason for two people to get married.”

“You didn’t love Roy when you married him?”

“Of course I did. I
do
,” I corrected on the next breath before she could nail me on my use of the past tense. “But, we were kids, ourselves. We had no idea what we were getting into. The odds were stacked against us from the start.”

“Then why did you two get married?”

I thought back to that crazy time, the panic, the disappointment. “When I told Roy I was pregnant, he barely blinked. He just shrugged and said, ‘Okay, so we’ll get married.’ Like someone else might say, ‘You don’t have Diet Pepsi? Okay, I’ll have a Diet Coke.’”

“How did that make you feel?”

“I couldn’t believe he offered right off the bat. I wasn’t even sure that was what I wanted.”

“What
did
you want?”

“What do you think I wanted?” A desperate chuckle escaped. “To
not
be pregnant.”

“An abortion?”

“God, no!” I practically shouted the denial. “That’s my Melissa you’re talking about. I can’t imagine never having her in my life.”

“We’re not talking about Melissa, your daughter. We’re talking about you, younger than your daughter is now, pregnant, terrified, and not wanting to be pregnant.”

“But I wasn’t thinking about abortion.”

“Then what were you thinking?”

My teeth tugged at my lower lip. “I wasn’t. It was more like wishing. I was wishing I wasn’t pregnant. Wishing I’d wake up and it would all be a dream. I know it sounds stupid, but I was a dumb kid, in way over my head.”

“So was Roy.”

I couldn’t argue with that. She had a definite point. “We both grew up too fast. I think that’s why we’re butting heads now. If I hadn’t become pregnant, if we hadn’t married right away, I doubt we’d still be a couple now. That’s another reason I think we should separate. Maybe my mother-in-law was right all these years. Maybe I did ruin Roy’s life. Neither of us ever went to college…” I thought about that for a long time, about the limitations we’d placed on ourselves by getting married when Roy was right out of high school and I dropped out in eleventh grade. What if I hadn’t become pregnant? What if I had graduated and both of us had gone on to college? Our finances would be a lot cheerier. But we wouldn’t have Melissa. Or probably Corey, for that matter.             

“Do you have somewhere to stay once you’re discharged from here?”

The non-sequitur shook me back into the present. “Yes, my roommate here at the hospital, Margie, is going home today. She’s offered me the spare bedroom in her apartment until I decide what to do next.”

“You have no other family nearby?”

“No. I have a brother in Minnesota, but we haven’t talked in years. My mom lives with my aunt in Tennessee.”

“So, aside from your husband and this friend, Margie, what kind of support structure do you have?”

I hesitated, dropping my interest in the upholstered garden. “What do you mean?”

“Who else will support you emotionally when you leave your husband and children? Everyone needs a strong shoulder once in a while. For example, what was the worst day you experienced in the last three months?”

This time, I didn’t even pause to take a breath. “The night Freckles died.”

“Freckles?”

“Our beagle. He’d been sick, and I brought him to the vet last week. Dr. Herrera wanted to keep him overnight for observation. He died in his sleep a few hours after I left him there. Freckles had been a member of our family since Roy and I were newlyweds.”

“I’m sure that was difficult for you. When you learned that Freckles had died, who did you want to talk to first?”

Roy. My heart slinked up into my throat, and I swallowed hard. “I wanted to call my husband, but he and I had just argued…”

“Mmm-hmm. Who did you finally call?”

“No one.”

Those shark eyes bored into me, attempting, no doubt, to see my soul. “You told
no one
about losing your beloved pet?”

I instinctively folded my arms over my chest. “I told the kids the next morning,” I replied. “And I called a neighbor to cancel plans we had for Friday night, and the kids’ guidance counselors in case they got upset in school.”

“I mean for
you
. Who did you call for you? Someone to comfort you.”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody,” she repeated. “Aside from telling your family and taking care of your family’s emotional needs when you heard the news, you didn’t tell anyone about your dog.”

“No.” Memory struck like a lit match, and I held up a hand. “No, wait. Sam. I told Sam.”

“And Sam is…?”

“My boss. Well, more than my boss. He’s a friend. We’ve known each other since elementary school.”

“Any romantic feelings between you two? On either side? Even if not reciprocated?”

A laugh escaped before I could stifle my amusement. “God, no. He’s been head over heels in love with Paige since he was sixteen.”

“Is this Paige a friend of yours?”

My lips twisted. “Hardly.”

“Why not?”

“You’d have to meet her to understand. She’s blond and pretty and thin and successful.” I glanced down at the navy sweatpants with the frayed hem I wore, my scuffed sneakers. God knew what my hair looked like after five days without a shower. “Paige is everything I’m not.”

“You don’t consider yourself pretty, thin, or successful?”

I tugged on my chestnut hair. “I notice you didn’t hone in on the blond comment.”

“You could dye your hair, if you wanted.”

“Blond? Me?” I snorted a laugh. “No way. Besides, my hair color is the least of the differences between me and Paige.”

“You don’t see yourself as successful in your own right?”

“Not like Paige. She’s an accountant and worked for the governor’s office or something.” My skin itched, and I repositioned myself in the chair, my hands clasped in my lap. “Besides, what difference does it make? I’m not interested in Sam, and he’s not interested in me. Not in a romantic way. We’re friends. We work together. That’s it.”

She jotted more notes on her pad. Part of me would have loved to take a peek at what she was writing, but another part of me warned against it. My mother always said, “Only eavesdrop if you’re prepared to know what someone really thinks about you.” I wasn’t ready to see that Dr. Calderon thought I was a delusional freak, so I sat still.

At last, she looked up. “I think that’s enough for today.” She rose and smoothed her pencil skirt with one hand, never losing her grip on her steno pad and pen. “I’ll see you and your husband together on Sunday afternoon at two, in this office. Once you’re discharged, your joint appointments will be at my regular office on Main Street. Your husband said you’d prefer those sessions occur on Tuesday nights at seven. Will that work for you?”

Ordinarily, no. But since I was on disability from work for a while, the seven o’clock slot would suit me fine. Rising to my feet, I nodded. She held out her hand, and I shook it.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Emily.” Her grip warmed me and transferred a jolt of confidence.

I actually stood taller, looking the shark in the eye. “Same here. Thank you.”

“You know, everyone needs a support system.” She pulled a business card from the breast pocket of her suit. “If you need to talk before next Tuesday, give me a buzz. In the meantime, I’ll send an orderly to come get you. ‘Til then, sit tight.”

“I could walk—”

“Technically, you can. Legally, you can’t. Not on your own, anyway. It’s that whole support system thing.” She opened the door and stepped out. “Don’t worry. You’ll be back in your room in no time.”

I forced a smile. “Oh, goody.”

Her chuckles faded as she disappeared down the hallway.

****

Francesca

I was in remarkably high spirits when I went to work that night. And while I hadn’t actually dreamed about Josh, thoughts of him kept me smiling. Even the staff noticed my newfound sunny disposition.

During a break, Gerald, asked me, “What’s up with you?”

I leaned against the back counter, sipping from a cup of tepid tea. “What do you mean?”

“You’re more human these days.”

I knew what he meant, but couldn’t help needling him, nonetheless. “Gee, thanks a lot.” I narrowed my eyes to snake slits.

While his face bloomed with red, he stammered out an apology. “I’m sorry. I...umm...I didn’t mean...”

I waved him off. “Relax, it’s all good.”

“I bet that smile has something to do with a certain hunky construction worker who spent a lot of time in the E.R. last month,” Ana interjected with a sly smile. “Rumor has it he finally asked her out on a date.”

I veered my attention to the heavyset R.N. with the pageboy haircut and chipmunk cheeks who routinely wore Winnie the Pooh scrubs. “How do you know about that?”

“Helena.” She shrugged.

Of course. I should have known. The nurse grapevine probably sizzled with that hot tidbit mere minutes after I’d first agreed to go out with Josh. In fact, I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear it aired on the local cable news:
What Snug Harbor doc has been linked romantically to a much younger wood jockey heartthrob?
Despite the ridiculousness of my imagination, my joy intensified, and I danced a hip shimmy in the narrow aisle between the table and the counter in the break room.

“So it’s true,” Ana confirmed. “You and Josh Candolero, huh?”

I stopped dancing and quirked a brow over my teacup. “Problem?”

“No. Not at all.” Her soft brown eyes widened to pools of honey. “In fact, I can totally see you two together.”

“You can?”

“Sure.” She poured sludgy coffee into a Garfield ceramic mug with a striped orange and black cat tail for a handle. “Did you ever look at two people and wonder what they see in each other? Like Sandra Bullock and that Jesse James character? You just knew that wasn’t going to work out. Or Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.” She sat at the table and added artificial sweetener to her sludge. “But then you see Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. They were together for like…fifty years or something before he died. On paper, they seem like one of those fizzle-out-fast kinda relationships. I mean, they were total opposites. Yet, when you saw them together, you got it. You and Josh may seem like Ashton and Demi on paper, with less of an age difference. But in the long run, you’d be like Paul and Joanne all the way.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Gerald scoffed from his seat in the corner. He flipped open yesterday’s newspaper and scanned the top stories. “You should stop reading the tabloids in the waiting room.”

I would’ve come up with some kind of snarky reply eventually, but our admissions nurse’s voice thundered over the loudspeaker, “Dr. Florentino to E.R. one, Dr. Florentino, E.R. one.”

I set down my tea—again—and offered my fellow workers a tired smile, relieved to escape the love life spotlight. “Duty calls.” I left my two co-workers there to squabble on their own and strode down the florescent-lit hall toward the first exam room. According to the admission summary stuffed in the plastic sleeve outside her door, a nineteen-year-old female had presented to the E.R., incoherent and dazed after a blow to the head. Inside, I found a girl with coffee-colored shoulder-length hair, head bowed to shield her face, weeping softly. She wore a purple and silver slinky dress, one strap torn at the left shoulder, the hem a ragged mess. On a slow intake, I noted grass stains and scrapes on her knees.