My Husband's Sweethearts (4 page)

I'm drunk again. I blame my mother and her
endless toasting. Not long after the doctor
left, she put her arm around me and
steered me back down the hallway to the kitchen, poured
us drinks, and let the toasting begin. She toasted the
strength of women. She toasted mothers and daughters.
She toasted Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, just
because. She toasted anger and sadness and hope. And
now she's toasting love.

"To love!" she says. "It springs up in the middle of
everything else where we least expect it!"

I can't remember a time in my life when I was ever
drunk twice in one day. In college? Senior year of high
school on spring break?

My mother falls asleep on the sofa in the dining
room—the anniversary gift from Artie. I still have a hard
time even looking at it. My mother will be up and gone
before dawn.

I find myself in the first-floor guest bedroom and decide
to settle in. I unzip my suitcase and then heft it onto
the bed. But I should have hefted it first and unzipped it
second because I fumble the heft a little and the clothes
flop out onto the floor. I find my drawstring pajama bottoms
and a Black Dog T-shirt from the Vineyard. I'm still
sipping my last drink. I start sloppily shoving clothes into
drawers, trying to force the overstuffed drawers shut. I
shove so hard I get a little winded, then give up, letting
them sit there, overstuffed.

I then see my pocketbook across the room. It looks innocent
enough, but I know that all of the love notes are
inside—the complete set, numbers one through fifty-seven.

I pick it up, grab a handful of notes, open the bedside
table drawer, push them to the back of the drawer, then another
handful, then another, until they're all there, messy,
out of order, crumpled. The driver/ex-tennis-champion-hopeful/recovering
alcoholic's card is there too. I could call
him. I could take him up on his offer to improve my
swing.
For a moment this seems like the perfect revenge, but I
don't even like the driver/ex-tennis-champion-hopeful/
recovering alcoholic. I rip up the card, thinking that I don't
want this kind of revenge, but at the same time, knowing
that I do want some kind of revenge—as horrible as that
sounds.

And then I'm startled by a voice. "I'm taking off for
the night." It's the male nurse.

I open the door, still holding my drink. I can see him
in the hall light—my mother is snoring lightly in the
distance.

"Is he asleep?" I ask.

"Soundly."

"Thanks for everything," I say, and it dawns on me
that I
am
thankful. I'm flooded with gratitude, in that way
you can so suddenly flood when drunk. "I don't think I
could do it . . ."

The male nurse says, "I'm just here to take care of his
physical needs so that you can concentrate on all of the
important things, like his emotional needs."

This seems like an unfair division of labor. I'm annoyed.
I stiffen up. "Is that my job? Am I supposed to be
Artie Shoreman's emotional needs manager?"

Todd—let's call him Todd—says, "I don't know. I
mean . . . not necessarily. I was just saying . . ."

"Don't worry about it," I tell him. I know I'm drunk. I
have some self-awareness left.

"Good night, Mrs. Shoreman." He hustles to the
door.

I mumble, "Good night," but it's too late. He doesn't
hear me.

I shut the door and look around the guest room—the
new mess I've made (record time!), my pocketbook on
the bed, and on the bedside table (filled with Artie's love
notes), Artie's address book (filled with Artie's old lovers
and, somewhere in the mix, the three women he cheated
on me with, a woman who loves elevators, and the address
and phone number of the son he never mentioned—in
the B's).

I pick up the address book and thumb through it. I
notice small red marks beside some of the names—only
by the women's names. Some are red X's; some are dots—
a code. He's had the book for ages, the pages are worn at
their edges, almost feathery. I know that most of these
women came long before I ever knew Artie—some may
even go back to high school. They knew Artie when I
didn't. They have access to a version I will never be able to
know. This seems cruel. Was he the same person then—in
some deep unalterable way? Do we ever really change?

It's strange to see their names—Ellen, Heather, Cassandra.
Who are these women anyway? I realize that I've
fully envisioned Springbird—the one name that I've had
for months now, albeit only a screen name. She's short,
blond. She's perky, but when the perk fades, she's quick to
whine. But this is all imagination. Of course I won't find
her screen name in the book. I keep flipping forward. The
names come at me as I turn the pages—Markie, Allison,
Liz . . . I don't want to read another name, but I can't stop
myself either. The ache is deep in my chest.

I hear myself say, "I don't want to be Artie Shoreman's
emotional needs manager."

I sit down on the edge of the bed. I finish my drink and
look up at the ceiling where, above, Artie is sleeping
soundly, where Artie is dying. And it dawns on me that he
knows that I would never call up one of his
sweethearts,
that I haven't wanted to know anything about the three of
them from our marriage, the other ones from his past. I get
up and pace. "Artie, you son of a bitch. You don't think
I'll do it, do you? You think I'm just going to play my role
here. Forgive you. Be the good wife. Pretend nothing ever
happened. Go it alone. Be the bigger person."

I open to the A's, let my finger cruise down to a name
with a red dot. Kathy Anderson. I take another drink. I
dial. It's long distance—one state away—after midnight.
The phone rings twice, and then the machine kicks in, a
woman's voice with New Agey wind chimes in the background.
I immediately hate the woman. After the beep, I
go ahead as planned. "Artie Shoreman is dying. Please call
to schedule your turn at his deathbed."

I slam down the phone. But this feels strangely good. I
call the next number with a red dot. This time a woman
answers. I've obviously woken her up.

"Artie Shoreman is dying. When would you like to
schedule your turn at his deathbed?"

"Artie Shoreman? Tell him he can rot in hell for all I
care." This name has a red mark by her name—an almost
violent X—so the code is pretty easily broken, even by
someone in my drunken condition.

"Understandable," I say. "Maybe next Thursday?"

"What?"

"Do you like elevators?"

The phone goes dead.

I smile. It doesn't make sense, but I can't stop smiling.
I turn to the B's. There it is: John Bessom. No red mark. A
number and address and a business name: Bessom's
Bedding Boutique. I run my fingers over the letters, wondering
what Artie's son would be like—what our son
might have been like if we'd had one. Does he look like
Artie? Brush his hair off his forehead in that rough gesture
like Artie? Does he own Bessom's Bedding
Boutique? Or does that belong to his mother? Her name
is here too—Rita Bessom. Did he offer to marry her?

It's too much. I flip past the Bessoms, to the back
pages. I find another red dot—it's a large dot. Obviously
Artie let his red felt-tip pen sit there for a while, let his
mind wander. I pick up the phone, dial the number, look
out at the night sky, the fat moon.

A machine picks up. The woman's voice is young and
jaded. "This is Elspa. You know what to do."

But it strikes me then that I don't know what to do. I
don't have any idea what I'm doing. I don't say anything
at first. I just listen to the dull static, and then I say, "Artie
Shoreman is dying. Please call to schedule a time at his
deathbed." And then I pause. "Artie is dying."

While I pour my coffee—hung over and
miserable—a new male nurse is arranging
a tray of soft foods and a number of
pills in little white paper cups the size of creamers—which
remind me of the creamers I used to drink and stack while
at fancy restaurants with my mother and her various husbands.
I believe I did this not only because I loved the
cream, but because it irritated my mother to no end.
Actually, Artie's #42 is about how I'll still sometimes pop
open a creamer in a restaurant and down it like a shot of
tequila, which struck him as charmingly odd and uninhibited.
The male nurse's hands are huge, and I marvel at how
he can handle all of the dainty cups with such dexterity.

I realize that he's fixed Artie a lunch platter, which
seems all wrong except that I look at the clock, which tells
me it's noon. The burly nurse picks up the tray and the
plates rattle—loudly—so loudly that I'm reminded how
very much I drank last night. I wonder just how many of
Artie's sweethearts I called. (And I realize now that I've
absorbed the term
sweethearts.
Even as I hear the word
echo in my head, I pronounce it with a sneer. It's a term of
derision, not endearment!) Did I call a half dozen? A full
dozen? More? And why did I call them? I can't remember.
A dare? It seemed like a dare. Was I calling Artie's
bluff? Did one of the women tell me to report to Artie
that he can rot in hell?

The burly nurse glances up at me. I've been staring. I
know that he's doing my job, really. I should be the one
with the tray. "I'll take it to him, if that's okay," I say.

"Sure," the burly nurse says. "He knows the drill on
the meds."

"Has anyone called this morning?" I ask.

He nods. "A bunch of hang-ups, actually," he says.
"Maybe three?" And then he looks at a pad of paper held
to the fridge by a magnet. "One woman called and said"—
and here he begins an exact quote—" 'Tell Artie I'm sorry
but I can't forgive him.' "

"Did she leave a name?"

"I asked her, but she said, 'Does it really matter what
my name is?' And I said that I thought it did, but she just
hung up on me."

"Sorry about that," I say, knowing that this is my fault,
in part. I put my coffee on the tray and head upstairs,
wondering what I'll tell Artie exactly. So, none of the
women have volunteered for a deathbed time and one
wants him to rot in hell.

*

When the bedroom door creaks, Artie opens his eyes.
He's too weak to sit up, though. He peers at me with his
quick blue eyes and smiles, but doesn't really move.
"What happened to Marie?"

"She said you weren't her type."

"What? She likes the living? If she's going to have
those kinds of standards. . . ."

"Women! They have such high expectations," I say
with mock exasperation and more than a little ire. "Are
you able to sit up?"

I put down the tray as he pushes himself up. I plump a
few pillows behind his back. I pop out the tray's short legs
and position it over his lap. He stares into the little paper
cups, disgusted, and picks up his fork wearily.

"When were you organized enough to come up with a
system of red dots?" I ask.

"I have some secretarial skills."

"Skills with secretaries is a different thing." This isn't
really fair. I don't know that Artie's ever been with one of
his secretaries.

But he takes it. He pushes around some applesauce on
his plate. "So you looked through the book?"

I nod.

"Did you find Bessom?"

"I saw his information."

"Are you going to call?"

"Why don't you?"

"Do you think I just abandoned him?"

"I have no idea."

"She never wanted me to see the boy. Her parents
didn't either.
Just send the checks,
they said. I've written
pleading letters over the years, and when John turned
eighteen, I sent a letter to him, telling him my side of
things, but he never wrote back. He's taken up the family's
standard response: no response. He's mine, but he
isn't." He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back to his
pillow.

"Why didn't you tell me all of this?"

"I don't know." He shakes his head. "I didn't want
you to think I was like your father. One of those types.
Loveless, a disappearing act. I'm not. I would have loved
that boy with everything I had—if they'd have let me."

"I wouldn't have thought you were like my father," I
say. "I wouldn't have put that on you."

"I didn't want to risk it. I know how much your father
hurt you. I didn't want you to put me in the same bad-father
category as him. That would have broken my
heart."

I'm not sure what to think anymore. Artie has secret
lives. He has compartments—his past, his sweethearts, his
sorrows and failings. "I didn't call him but I did make
some other calls."

"You did?" He raises his eyebrows.

"You don't know me as well as you think you do.
Sometimes, in fact, you confuse me with other women."

He looks at me. His eyes are tired. He hasn't actually
put any of the food in his mouth. "I love you. No matter
what."

This doesn't seem fair. I know that I should see this
declaration the way that my assistant, Lindsay, could—as
pure, without any manipulation, as love, but I can't. I
can't trust Artie. I walk the edges of the room. "None of
them are coming. Oh, two had messages for you, but I
doubt you want to hear them."

"Before you found out, you used to overflow with feelings.
You were so uncontrollably alive. Do you remember
that?"

I do, barely, vaguely. "Not really," I say. I feel like that
person was stolen from me. Sometimes I don't miss Artie
and me and our relationship as much as I miss the person
I used to be. And I miss that Artie, too, the one I used to
get mad at for such simple things—driving the car around
with the gas warning light on, putting back the empty orange
juice container, wanting to bear-hug me when I was
in a foul mood. Oh, these were such minuscule annoyances.
I long for them.

Artie coughs. It's a ragged cough, from somewhere
deep inside him. When he's quieted, I say, "It's just you
and me—in this together."

"That's what I want," he says.

And it's a reflex. I can't help myself: "Since when?"

Artie pushes his tray away from his chest, brushes his
hair off his forehead. "Do you think you'll ever be able to
forgive me? Your mother was here the other day and
said that I should be forgiven, that I was put on the earth
this way."

"My mother's advice on men is highly suspect. She
doesn't have a perfect track record."

"I would forgive you," he says.

"I wouldn't want you to." I feel suddenly very tired
now under the weight of all these emotions. I sit down on
the side of the bed. Maybe I do want to forgive Artie, if
forgiving him means that I can forget everything. I turn
and look at him.

He reaches out and touches a freckle on my chest and
then another and another. I know that he's looking for
Elvis. This is the silent intimate language of memory between
us. Nothing needs to be said. I want to tell him that
he's not allowed to die, that I forbid it.

Then he becomes perfectly still. He stares at me. "I
will
forgive you."

"For what?"

"When I'm dead, you're going to regret a lot of things.
And I want you to know that I forgive you."

I stand up. I'm caught off guard. I nearly say,
How
gracious—the thought of Artie forgiving me!
But there's
something more deeply unsettling here. Artie is planning
to die. He's seeing into the future and trying to set things
straight, and I know he's right. It strikes me that there are
so many things that I will miss about him—not just his
grand gestures, his incredible charm, but I'll even miss the
things that I've always found most irritating—the way he
sipped his coffee and sometimes grunted when sitting
down as if it were some kind of effort; the way he fished
the olives out of his martinis with his fingers and walked
around while he was brushing his teeth—
the nomadic
brusher,
I always called him. And I know that I will find
plenty of things to regret. I may even wish I had been the
bigger person.

My eyes tear up as I leave the room. I turn quickly
down the hall and then feel light-headed. I steady myself
with one hand on the wall, then lean against it, let my head
press against the coolness.

There's a knock at the front door below. It vibrates up
into the house. I can't move, though, not yet. I assume it's
my mother, having already buzzed through her to-do list,
here to see if I'm up and about, if I've eaten breakfast.
I'm
fine,
I'll say.
Look at me! Holding up! Good as new!
I'd
like to fake it for a while so that I can avoid more selfreflection—
just for a little while. I jog down the stairs, faking
peppy, and swing open the door.

"I'm doing fine!" I say happily.

But it isn't my mother. It's a young woman with deep
purple hair, jaggedly cut in a pixie. She's heavily pierced—
all the way up both ears, a dainty diamond stud in her
nose, and a ring on her bottom lip that gives her an extra
pout. She's wearing a sleeveless black concert T-shirt for a
band I've never heard of— Balls-Out—at least I think it's
a band. She has a wreath tattoo around her biceps—a
muscular biceps—and she's carrying what looks to be an
army-issue duffel bag.

"I'm Elspa," she says. "I'm here to take my shift."