You Were There Too Page 13

  I bite my lip so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t start bleeding, and when we pull up in front of the restaurant, I’m relieved to finally have something to say.

  “Let’s make a bet—mustache or no mustache?”

  Harrison looks from the lit-up sign that announces Sorelli’s on the front of the brick storefront to me. I confessed to Harrison when he got home that I wanted to go here not because of the food, but because I was morbidly curious to see who Caroline had had an affair with. “There is something seriously wrong with you,” he said. And the expression on his face now tells me his opinion has not changed.

  But it’s not until we’re seated at a dark corner booth that I notice something else about his face—the droopy circles under his eyes. The sallow skin. He glances at the napkin on the table in front of him. It’s invitingly twisted up into a point like a dollop of whipped cream, and for a moment, I think he may just lay his head down on it.

  “Harrison? You alright?”

  “Yeah,” he responds.

  I open my mouth to press him, but a woman’s voice interrupts me.

  “Dr. Graydon?” We both look up to find a dewy-faced blond woman walking toward our table, her eyes locked on my husband.

  “Whitney Crossland,” he says, smiling bright, the deep wrinkle permanently creasing his forehead a mere second ago completely erased. “Long time, no see.”

  He stands up when she reaches the table and gives her an awkward half hug. “Whitney, this is my wife, Mia. Mia, this is one of my patients, Whitney. Just discharged what—” He turns back to her. “Two days ago?”

  “Yep, and feeling great, thanks to you.”

  “How’s Gabriel?” Harrison asks.

  “Really good,” she says. “Just found out his band is playing in the Christmas parade. First one Hope Springs has ever had.” Harrison slides his eyes to me and I smile, thinking of Caroline.

  “Little drummer boy,” Harrison quips, his attention back on Whitney.

  “I’m sure he’d love if you’d come watch.”

  “Tell him I wouldn’t miss it,” he says.

  I just sit, observing the exchange, struck again by how little I know of Harrison’s work life. He shares bits and pieces, of course, stories of funny or crazy things that happen in the ER when he’s on call, or really weird or tough cases he gets, but he sees upwards of fifteen patients a day—and those are just the ones that come into his clinic—so the minutiae of each one I’m just not privy to.

  A waitress drops off a basket of bread and asks for our drink order, prompting Whitney to bid us farewell. “I should get back to the bar. I’m waiting on someone.”

  “Only two glasses of wine,” Harrison says to Whitney, with a parental glare. “And water in between each.”

  “Aye, aye, Doc,” Whitney says. “Nice to meet you, Mia.”

  “You, too.”

  I order a bottle of Chianti from the waitress, and then Harrison and I are alone at our table again. His face has fallen and I know the energy that pulsed through him as he talked to Whitney was a put-on, a facade for her benefit. I eye him, waiting.

  “Perforated diverticulitis,” he says, nodding in Whitney’s direction, his voice quiet.

  “What?”

  “I told you about her a few weeks ago. So bad, I had to send her up to ICU before I could finish.”

  It sounds vaguely familiar. “She bounced back quick.”

  “Yeah, she’s got a colostomy bag, though.”

  “Really?” I surreptitiously glance to where Whitney now sits at the bar. I look for the telltale bulge on her stomach, but her blouse is loose and I wouldn’t know if Harrison hadn’t told me. “Gabriel’s her son?”

  He bobs his head. “Middle schooler. Cute kid.”

  The waitress comes back with the wine bottle and opens it at the table, pouring a splash into Harrison’s glass. He tosses back the red liquid and nods, and she fills both our glasses then asks if we’re ready to order. I get the bucatini and close my menu.

  “Spaghetti alle vongole,” Harrison says.

  I jerk my head toward him. “That’s clams.”

  “I know.” He hands his menu to the waitress and she walks off.

  “I can’t believe you’d order clams after what happened to me in Maine.”

  He grins, crinkling the skin around his eyes. “Mia.”

  “What?”

  “For the thousandth time,” he says, patiently, “that was not food poisoning.”

  “It was! I must have eaten, like, fifty of those clams oreganata—” I pull a face, still unable to even think of them without getting a little nauseous. We were at a fancy wedding in Maine—the daughter of one of Harrison’s patients, a big-shot Philadelphia lawyer whose life Harrison saved with a triple bypass when he was chief resident. The wedding was huge—more than four hundred people—and the swankiest one I had ever been to, with Dom Pérignon for the toast and, like, eight forks at every place setting. “And then, the next day . . .”

  I don’t have to finish because we both know—the next day, Harrison had to pull the car over at least seven times during the eight-hour drive home.

  “You also had roughly fifty glasses of champagne.”

  I smirk at him. “Not fifty.”

  “Well, enough for you to start a conga line with the waitstaff.”

  “It was not a conga line! It was the Macarena.”

  “It was a conga line.”

  I scrunch my face, trying to remember. I feel certain it was the Macarena. He cocks an eyebrow sternly, but he’s smiling.

  “What were their names? Bert and Annie?”

  “Beau and Annie,” he says. “Bert and Annie are Sesame Street characters.”

  “Ernie.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  I grin and study my husband’s face, wondering at the curiosity and fallibility of memory—and not just the alcohol-induced fogs. Like most couples, Harrison and I have gotten in more than one disagreement about the way something did or did not happen in the past, our recollection of facts colliding rather than merging. But now I think maybe it’s not always necessarily a weakness, but a strength. The fact that we each carry different bits of the same memory, like pieces of a puzzle, so that when we put them together, we can form something that’s whole.

  Later, when I’m reaching for the Parmesan cheese shaker on the table, I notice he’s looking past me, eyes narrowed. I turn in time to see a man in a short-sleeved lavender button-up, cargo pants and silver-framed glasses glaring at Whitney.

  “Who’s that?” I ask, in a stage whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Harrison says, slowly. “When we were evaluating her in the ER, she kept screaming that we couldn’t call her ex-husband for Gabriel. I’m wondering if that’s him.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” the man says, his voice carrying across the room. “You’re on a fucking date?”

  “My personal life isn’t any concern of yours,” Whitney hisses.

  “Well, it might concern a judge—they don’t tend to award custody to whores.”

  “Whoa,” Harrison says, taking the word out of my mouth, and then he’s up, closing the twenty-foot gap between us and the bar.

  “Everything OK over here?” he asks when he reaches Whitney.

  The guy eyes Harrison, nostrils flared, anger flashing in his eyes. “You her date?”

  Whitney puts a hand up to stop Harrison from responding. “This is my doctor,” she says. “And you’re making a fool of yourself. Please just leave.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’m going to call the police.”

  The man scoffs, but then his eyes dart around the room, and that’s when both he and I notice the bartender and a few other diners have stopped to watch the exchange. His cheeks flame red, and if not appropriately chagrined, it’s
clear he’s embarrassed.

  “C’mon, man,” Harrison says, putting his hand out to guide him to the door. Harrison mouths something to the bartender and, to my surprise, the guy lets himself be escorted out. Harrison briefly checks back in with Whitney before returning to the table.

  “What the hell was that?” I say, wide-eyed.

  “That is what happens when you mix an ugly divorce with alcohol. Guy reeked of Jim Beam. Bartender called him a cab.”

  “Jesus,” I say. “Let’s not ever try that.”

  He fastens his gaze on mine, and even though he’s worn-down and has had a shit day and he just had to rescue a patient from a drunk ex-husband, his entire focus rests squarely on me. “Not ever,” he agrees. And in that moment, our eyes locked, I see my husband, and I remember all at once how much I love him. And I wonder how I could ever forget, even for a second.

  My cell buzzes on the table next to my plate and I pick it up. It’s a number I don’t recognize.

  Up for a day trip to New York? We’ve got an “interview” on Friday.

  I stare at the pile of bucatini drowning in Bolognese in front of me.

  “Who was that?” Harrison asks.

  I look up into his tired eyes. “Oliver.”

  He pops a forkful of pasta in his mouth, chews and then says: “More gardening advice?”

  “Not exactly.” My throat suddenly dry, I take a sip of water. Swallow. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  * * *

  “What?” When I’ve finished, Harrison’s forehead is wrinkly and confused, his eyes sharp, focused. “Do you actually hear what you’re saying? The words that are coming out of your mouth.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Mia, come on. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I saw the way he was looking at you over dinner—of course he said he was dreaming about you, too. That son of a bitch. And you—you believe him?”

  “Well, yes. I do. I know—believe me, Harrison—I know this sounds crazy. But, he’s telling the truth. He is.”

  “How? How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  He sighs and opens his mouth to say something else, but the waitress chooses that moment to drop off the check. Harrison pays it and we leave and he doesn’t speak again until we’re in our driveway, the silver moon hanging in the night sky above us.

  “OK, so what now?” He turns to me. His two hands grip the steering wheel, but there’s no fight left in him. “Why are you telling me this?”

  I take a deep breath. “We’re going to New York. On Friday.” I tense, sure this will set him off again, but he just exhales.

  “You and Oliver.”

  “Right.”

  “Together.”

  “Yes.”

  His jaw clenches. Releases. He exhales. “What’s in New York?”

  “A professor. She’s done a lot of research on dreams and we thought maybe she could help us.”

  “We,” he repeats, almost under his breath. He drums his thumb on the steering wheel. And then: “Help you what?”

  “I don’t know. Figure out what it means, maybe?”

  He stares out the window, away from me, and scratches the side of his beard. The sound of the hairs bristling under the pads of his fingers fills the car.

  “Mia.” His voice is low, quiet. “Remember after the first . . . the first baby—when you started bringing home all those things? There was that mitten and a hubcap and what else—the shoe, a Converse, I think.”

  I stiffen. “That wasn’t . . . It had nothing to do with losing the baby—”

  “Mia,” he says gently.

  “It didn’t.”

  “I’m just saying—I know you’re grieving. And grief, it can do things. To your mind.”

  “This is real, Harrison.” The words come out shaky. “I know how it sounds, I do. But I need you to believe me.” And I don’t realize how much it’s true until I say it out loud.

  He searches my face. I hold my breath.

  “OK,” he says, finally. “OK.”

  “You believe me?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “But if you need to go to New York, you should go to New York.”

  I exhale. “Thank you.”

  He pulls the lever to open his door and steps out into the night, so I follow suit. I walk toward the front path, his footsteps crunching the gravel behind me. And then, suddenly, his arms encircle my waist and he’s pulling me to him. I turn, leaning into his chest, tucking my head under his chin. “Dios Mia,” he breathes into my hair. His hand drops and finds mine. His fingers fiddle with my wedding band, twisting it around.

  “I trust you, Mia, I do. But I don’t trust him. If that guy tries something—”

  I tip my head back to look at him, a half grin on my face. “You’ll what? Beat him up? Defend my honor?” Harrison isn’t the jealous type, and he’s even less violent than he is jealous.

  “No,” Harrison admits, his head down, eyes still on my ring finger. “I’d probably just glare at him really, really hard.”

  I smile into his chest. And we stand there like that, under the moon, until a bird squawks somewhere in the distance.

  “Shit,” I say, lifting my head.

  “What?”

  “I completely forgot to look for the manager! Now we’ll never know if he has a mustache or not.”

  He looks down at me, eyebrow cocked, and shakes his head. “Dios Mia.”

  Chapter 13

  Whitney

  Whitney watches out of the corner of her eye as Dr. Graydon leaves the restaurant, holding the door for his naturally pretty wife, because of course his wife is naturally pretty and of course he would hold the door for her. She doesn’t mean to be bitter—Dr. Graydon was so kind, and he saved her life—but if it wasn’t for Gabriel, to be honest, she might rather have died. Of course she would get a Grey’s Anatomy–level hot doctor when she had a perforated intestine. Where was the old balding guy that set her broken arm two years ago? Why couldn’t she have him for the problems with her “rectum” and the hot one for her arm? She knew why. Because life was unspeakably unfair.

  “Another?” the bartender asks, pointing at her empty wineglass. She shouldn’t. Dr. Graydon said two, max. But Holly was watching Gabriel, and Eli had embarrassed her in front of an entire restaurant of people, and lest she forget how pathetic her life had become, her Bumble date had never showed. The worst part is, she didn’t even want to go out, but she felt bad that the first date they were supposed to have got sidelined by her unexpected trip to the ER, and was trying to make it up to him. In retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have mentioned the colostomy bag in their text exchange this afternoon, but she didn’t think that was something to surprise someone with.

  “Please,” she says, pushing her glass toward the bartender.

  Emotional stress. After the surgery, that was what Dr. Graydon listed as one of the possible culprits that could have caused her condition. She nearly bit her tongue off to keep from maniacally laughing when he asked if she’d been under stress lately. Does the pope wear a funny hat?

  When the bartender sets the wine in front of her, she pulls up Instagram, just in case her no-show Bumble date is checking it, and snaps a selfie with the full glass. It’s terrible, so she does another, and then another. Finally, she gets one that’s passable and tags it: #roseallday #winelife #momsnightout. She downs her wine, pays the bill with her American Express—the one credit card that isn’t completely maxed out—and walks out into the warm, idyllic night of Hope Springs. But when the door to the restaurant closes behind her, she freezes. The parking lot, though scattered with cars, is otherwise deserted. Still. Too still. A familiar fear creeps up her spine, raising the fine blond hairs on the back of her neck. She nearly turns back inside to ask the bartender to walk her to her car, but then gives her hea
d a firm shake.

  It’s just the wine; her vivid imagination. Eli got in a cab. He left. He wouldn’t come back. He might be temperamental—even violent at times, when his rage got the best of him—but he wasn’t crazy.

  Still, she hurries to her sister’s pickup truck—one more thing she owes her sister for, since Eli kept the one car they owned and she can’t afford a new one just yet—and unlocks it as quickly as she can, sliding in and starting the engine in one fluid motion. It occurs to her once she’s on Mechanic that she probably shouldn’t be driving, considering she drank her three glasses of wine on an empty stomach. Then again, there are a lot of things she probably shouldn’t have done in her life, starting with marrying her ex-husband. But how was she to know?

  How do you ever know who anyone really is before you marry them? And furthermore, how did anybody get it right? It seems to Whitney to be pure luck—or bad luck in her case. Of course, that’s not to say there weren’t signs. Like their fourth date, when he accused her of flirting with the tractor operator at a pumpkin patch and didn’t speak to her the entire ride home. Then later, threw her favorite ceramic coffee mug so hard at the wall that it broke the handle clear off. But the next day, chagrined, he glued it back and apologized profusely, saying he had such strong feelings for her, it scared him. It scared Whitney, too, but also made her feel something else—prized, worshipped, treasured—things she’d always wanted to feel, but never had.

  Besides, the pumpkin patch had been his idea, and what kind of guy suggests that for a date, she reasoned. A sensitive, kind one. The type of man she’d been looking for.

  And he was, so much of the time. Except when he wasn’t.

  Whitney pulls the car up to the curb in front of her sister’s duplex and sits there staring at the blue light glowing from the living room window. And she wonders for the hundredth time if she’s doing the right thing. Uprooting Gabriel from the only home he’s ever known, from his father (because, for all his faults, Eli truly was a good father).