The Instant When Everything is Perfect Read online

  “Dr. Groszmann,” she says. “Hello.”

  He can’t look at her long because he wants to travel her face with his eyes, so he looks at the other two women, who, he can tell, are Sally’s other daughters. Both have her face and eyes, and the beginnings of her white hair.

  “I thought I’d check on your mom,” he says, turning back to Sally, who is now looking at him. “She seems to be doing very well.”

  One of the daughters walks to him, her hand outstretched. “Katherine Tillier.”

  She must be the pathologist, he thinks, recognizing that she has never had to learn to modulate her voice, to skirt the truth, because she works with tissue samples and the dead.

  “The pathologist,” he says, letting go of her tight grip and stepping back.

  “The lab reports haven’t come back. How long do they take here? Is this delay normal?”

  Robert begins to answer, but Mia moves in between them. “Can I talk with you in the hall for a moment?” she asks.

  He nods and turns back to Sally. “I’m glad the surgery went well. We’ll talk later.”

  Sally nods, tries to lift her hand, and then lets it relax on the bed. Something about her response makes him uneasy. She seems lethargic, depressed—and not just from the drugs and the effects of the surgery. He’ll have to keep track somehow, ask Mia later.

  He pushes back his hair and then turns to Mia and her sisters.

  “Nice to meet you,” he says to Katherine. She smiles a flat, irritated smile, and as he walks by the other sister—who must be the youngest—he stops.

  “Robert Groszmann.” He holds out his hand.

  “Dahlia Regezi.”

  Of the two sisters, she looks the most like Mia, something about the shape of her eyes and the way her lips are raised at the corners. But unlike Mia and Katherine at least outwardly, she’s scared, worried, her eyes dark with mother-loss already.

  “A pleasure.” He smiles again and then follows Mia out into the hall, his heart pounding.

  As they walk, he notices how Mia’s shirt is wrinkled where she’s leaned against the chair in Sally’s room. Her hair is messy in the back, blond spikes going in every direction.

  At the water fountain, she stops, turns, rubs her cheek, swallows.

  “I just wanted to apologize,” she says, her eyes glazed with exhaustion. “I can’t believe I wrote that. Did you get my email?”

  He nods. “Don’t—“

  “It was a ridiculous question.”

  “I started it,” he says. “I wrote the part before about not killing anyone that day. It follows.”

  She shrugs. “It’s not even what I want to know.”

  At the nursing station, a nurse looks up over the desk at them and then turns away. Down the hall, someone drops something metal, the clack and ping echoing. All around them are the sounds of machines, whizzes and beeps and whines.

  “What do you want to know?” he asks.

  Mia looks up, and he allows himself the pleasure of watching her. In the darkened light of the hall, her eyes are dark. Her skin is flushed—as it always seems to be when they talk—her lips full, red, and slightly dry. For a second, he looks at her neck, smooth and solid, and then her breasts, round under her sweater. He forces his gaze back to her face, waiting.

  “I want to know what’s happening. With us.”

  He bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He hasn’t since he opened the examination room door and saw her sitting in the chair. He hasn’t read a novel in years, but now he’s read one and will soon start another. Her novels. He wishes she had more than three. More than that, he wishes he could be in her thoughts and let her think out stories for him. He wants to know everything.

  “Why don’t you wear a wedding ring?”

  She looks down at her left ring finger, holding up her hand that is at the same time small and thick, her fingers round and short.

  “We were too poor when we got married. Couldn’t afford them.”

  “Like Susan and Rafael.”

  “Like Susan and Rafael,” she agrees.

  “You could afford one now.”

  Mia takes in a deep breath, her shoulders rising. She looks at him, thinks things he wishes he could hear. Then she nods. “Yes.”

  “I’m drawn to you,” he says without having realized it’s what he would say. “From the beginning.”

  “Me, too.”

  Katherine sticks her head out of the room, sees them, and then goes back inside.

  “How is your mother,” Robert says. “She didn’t strike me as someone so . . . .”

  Mia looks back toward the room, shrugs. “I think my mother’s depressed,” she says. “I think she’s, well, giving up on something. . . I better go.”

  Robert moves closer to her. “It could be the pain medication. It slows people down. Thought processes. Feelings. Give her some time. But if it goes on, let me know. I can prescribe something. Have it sent over to the house.”

  Mia listens, a tear clinging to an eyelash. He reaches out, pinches it gently from her eyelashes, rubbing the moisture between this thumb and finger. Then he touches her arm. Under his hand and her sweater, he feels her heat. Without looking at the nurses’ station or back at her mother’s room door, she leans toward him and kisses his cheek. Robert closes his eyes as she does, taking in her smell—hospital, cotton, early morning soap, tears.

  “I’ll email you,” he says, almost in a whisper.

  She bites her lip, looks down, and without looking at him again, walks toward her mother’s room.

  

  It’s nine when Robert finally gets home, the house dark because he forgot to turn on the outside lights when he left in the morning. Phyllis is at the front door when he opens it, but turns from him the moment he walks in, her tail raised behind her in irritation.

  “Sorry, Phil,” he says, turning on the hall light and putting down his briefcase and jacket. “A long day.”

  Phyllis keeps walking, sashaying toward her food dish in the kitchen. Robert follows her, flicking on lights as he walks down the hall and into the kitchen. The cat has plopped herself in front of her dish, but she won’t look at him, not even as he scoops out a cupful of Iams and walks toward her dish.

  “You miss Leslie,” he says, as he pours the kibble. “She kept you company while I worked late, didn’t she?”

  For a second, he wonders if he’s projecting all over poor Phyllis, who is really just hungry and/or bored, if, in fact, cats can be bored. He stands up and watches Phyllis ignore him as she starts to eat. Does he miss Leslie? Does he miss any of his girlfriends? He misses their bodies, he knows that. He misses their company, the meals together, the date nights at the movies. He misses the idea that this woman might be the one. He misses the hope.

  He puts away the scoop and listens to Phyllis crunch through her food. But really, who does he miss? His parents, of course. He misses Jack at work, his ironic eyes over his mask, his jokes, his patient way of listening when Robert is angry. And right now, he misses Mia, even though he doesn’t know her. Even though she doesn’t know him. In a way, Robert knows he’s been lonely his whole life, waiting for someone, like some sad lovelorn sap who believes in parted twins, soul mates, eternal lovers. He wants that slap of the surprise of the perfect someone put right there, in front of you. Another part of him knows that love is a choice. You just choose it. You allow yourself to be with that person in front of you. You choose to be with another. A book he read once convinced him that the most important relationship you ever has is with yourself, and it was that important relationship which was the basis for every relationship a person would ever have.

  If that’s true, he knew then and he knows now, it’s no mystery that he’s been alone. He can barely stand himself sometimes.

  Robert opens the refrigerator, looks in, and then closes it. Leslie and her Mediterranean meals are gone. He grabs the orange juice and carries the entire container with him to his office. He walk
s in without turning on the light. On his desk, his message machine is blinking, and he presses the button.

  “Robert, it’s Leslie. I’ve been meaning to call. I just—well, I saw Jack today at the gym, and I asked him how you’re doing. He didn’t say too much, and that makes me wonder. I know I shouldn’t really care any more, but I just wanted to talk to you. Just call me sometime. Say hi to Phyllis.”

  Robert turns off the machine and stands still. If he called, she would come back. All he’d have to do is call. In no time, she’d be sitting at the desk when he came home from work, ignoring him. Phyllis would have someone to pet her late at night, and there'd be food in the refrigerator. He’d sleep in a warm bed, next to her warm body. They’d go to parties together. He wouldn’t be as lonely. Neither would she, both of them getting some of what they need.

  And it wouldn’t be wrong. Leslie isn’t married. Leslie is free.

  He left his computer on this morning, and the light flickers in the dark room. Robert watches it for a moment, blinking, and then he sits down, drinking the juice from the container, a tiny thread spilling down his chin that he wipes away with the back of his hand.

  Mia kissed him, and he can still feel her soft, slightly dry lips on his cheek. He closes his eyes and breathes in what he remembers of her smells, her skin, her slightly salty, too-long-in-the-hospital sweat, some perfume or soap or lotion underneath it all. And again, like the night before, he hardens. The eyes of his imagination take off her sweater, her bra, hold her breasts, press her flesh to him, to his lips. And then . . . and then . . .

  Putting down the container, he shakes his head. It’s like he’s surfing the net for porno, sitting at his desk with a hard-on. But instead, he’s getting hard from words and memories of a woman whose body he’s never even seen, barely touched, hardly smelled.

  Robert clicks on his email icon, and then his mail pops up. Nothing new from MAlden, but then, why would there be? She’s right now in the room with her mother and sisters, Katherine, the pathologist, who is probably watching Mia as much as she is watching Sally. In the instant of meeting Katherine, he didn’t like her, something angry and split about her conversation and questions. If she were his colleague, he would stare at her from across a meeting table, wanting to argue with everything she said. And she, undoubtedly, would fire back alternatives, facts, answers, solutions. He can imagine the fights the Tillier girls had as children, Sally trying to yell them all into silence. Though the youngest one, Dahlia, was probably always an observer, watching the war of her sisters from corners of rooms.

  He opens a blank mail page and begins to write.

  Dear Mia,

  I want to see you when your mother is better, stable, at home. I want to sit down with you and answer all the questions that you have. And I want to ask you things, too. I want to know—I want to know everything, even things that will make me upset. About your marriage. About why you are drawn to me even though you are married. I want to know how this feels. I want to know about your husband.

  I went by your mother’s room twice today. The first time, your husband was there. I’m assuming it was your husband because he reminded me of Rafael. Tall and dark and handsome. Classic. He was holding Sally’s hand and speaking softly to her. At that moment, I had so many questions, questions with answers that might make you not see me any more once you heard them. Like why would you want to be with me if you had a man like that? What is inside your marriage that I can’t see from here? What is missing inside you? The both of you?

  And I want to tell you things that might make you not want to see me. About the way I am. About the way I can’t be. About how I might not be the person you are looking for at all. I want you to know. If we are going to do whatever this is we are doing, I want the truth to be there, right away. Not some terrible surprise.

  Robert stops writing and puts his face in his hands, trying not to cry. Phyllis—done eating now and in a state of cat grace—winds her way around his ankles, and Robert concentrates on her steady purr, following the rocking, bumpy cadence of her sound. Finally, after a long moment, he swallows, wipes his eyes, and realizes he’s never wanted the truth more than he wants it with Mia Alden.

  And the answer to your question is yes, I have killed someone.

  Robert

  Six

  Sally

  When Mia thinks that Sally is asleep, she leaves the room and Sally starts to weep, the kind of weeping she does since the operation, heavy, pulled up from her chest, soundless. Mia found her weeping a couple of times, saying, “Mom, mom. It’s okay. It’s just the anesthesia. Give yourself some time. You’ve only been home for two days.”

  Or Mia said, “It’s natural. You’ve been through major surgery. Something huge happened to you. Of course you are sad, Mom. Just let it out.”

  That was too much. So now Sally waits until the coast is clear before letting it out. And she knows it’s not the anesthesia. It’s more. Sometimes it’s her body, the way it feels now, shorn and wrong and empty. Other times, it’s David—how he’s not here where he should be, comforting her, helping her, tending to her. Or it’s her girls, how things haven’t gone the way Sally thought they would. How Katherine has no children. How Dahlia’s so far away. How Mia seems so sad. Over and over it goes, until Sally hears Mia walking up the stairs to her bedroom, and she wipes her eyes and pretends to sleep again.

  Wiping her eyes, Sally feels this jag slow, quiet, stop. But she doesn’t feel any better. Downstairs, she can hear Mia clattering around in the kitchen, banging pots on the range, slamming the refrigerator door, whapping shut the cupboard doors. Sally pushes herself up to sitting and stares at the television Mia left on. But Sally can’t see it, the noise of the messy, soap-opera dialogue not even hitting her ears.

  She wants to get up and leave. She’s had it with the pain and the flipping bandages and the strict no-shower policy. Then there are the drains. Sally’s disgusted that Mia must help her drain fluid off the wounds and that her daughter must siphon the blood and pus into tiny measuring cups and chart the fluids that come out of Sally’s body.

  And besides, Mia is driving her crazy, sitting in Sally’s bedroom all day reading books and magazines or working on her laptop computer. Yesterday, Sally said, “Why don’t you go home? I’m fine.”

  Then Mia started to cry, so Sally stopped talking and pretended to fall asleep. Kids.

  But now Sally’s just angry. Irritable. Uncomfortable.

  She pulls away the blanket and looks down at her chest. If she could have it her way, she’d rip off the bandages and stare at what she feels on her chest, the diagonal scars where her breasts used to be. She wants to walk around her condo naked. She wants to pass by all her mirrors and stare at herself, taking in each reflection so she can memorize her new body. Then she wants to try on all her clothes to see what she should throw out or what seems to suddenly work better than it did before.

  She wants to see if she has enough to wear to go on.

  And the most important part is she wants to be alone. For a few days. If Mia would go home and Katherine and Dahlia would stop calling and Nydia Nuñez would stop ringing the doorbell, Sally would be able to figure this all out. Over breakfast and lunch and dinner, she could conjure her no-breast life. Sally With-No-Breasts Tillier. But everyone is distracting her or giving her pain pills so she forgets everything.

  “Here’s some dinner,” Mia says, walking in the room carrying a tray.

  Sally sighs and looks at her daughter. Mia looks terrible, as if she’s the one who had her breasts cut off. Her hair sticks up on her head and her face is pale, distracted, blotchy. And though she looks like she’s lost weight—praise God—her droopy pants make her look more middle-aged than she is. “No-ass women” Sally’s bridge friend Gloria calls them, the ones with stomachs but no butts. And there it is again, that something else, some kind of sadness that doesn’t have anything to do with Sally’s lost flesh, and that makes Sally angry, not wanting anything else in her bedro
om but her own grief.

  Get out, she wants to scream. Take your droopy ass and your problems home to Ford.

  But she doesn’t say a word. She lets Mia settle the tray over her lap and thighs and sighs again.

  “Thanks, dear. Looks good.” But it doesn’t look good. The pork chop is dead flesh, like a dead breast. As she cuts a piece of meat, she thinks about where they threw her breasts when they were done with them. Is there a garbage can for body parts, a toss of arms and legs and spleens?

  “Mom?” Mia asks.

  Sally stops cutting. “What?”