The First Time (17 page)

“Coffee it is.”

You see, Jake thought. There was the big difference between Honey and Mattie right there. Mattie would have insisted on the bacon and eggs. “Are you sure?” she would have asked. “You should eat something, Jake. You know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” And eventually, he would have given in, eaten the bacon and eggs he didn’t really want, and felt stuffed and logy the rest of the morning. Honey took him at his word. No second-guessing for her. No trying to figure out what he really meant. He said coffee was all he wanted, then coffee was all he was going to get.

Honey wrapped her arms around him, kissed him full on the mouth. He tasted the toothpaste on her breath, smelled the scent of lilacs on her skin. “Maybe bacon and eggs would be nice,” he said.

She smiled. “Nervous about today?”

“Maybe a little.” He had an important meeting with a potential new client, a businessman of considerable wealth and influence who was charged with raping several women more than twenty years ago, something he adamantly denied. It promised to be the sort of high-profile, juicy case Jake loved. But he wasn’t nervous about meeting the client. He was nervous about his meeting with Mattie, scheduled for later in the day.

Almost two weeks had passed since Lisa’s devastating diagnosis. During that time, Mattie had sought a second, and then a third opinion. The doctors—one the chief neurologist at Northwest General, the other a neurologist at a private clinic in Lake Forest—were in complete agreement. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS. Lou Gehrig’s disease. A rapidly progressing neuro-muscular disease that attacked the motor neurons that carry messages to the muscles, resulting in weakness and wasting in arms, legs, mouth, throat, and elsewhere, eventually culminating in complete paralysis, while the mind remained alert and lucid.

And how had Mattie reacted to each fresh opinion? She’d gone out and bought a new Corvette, for God’s sake, when it was dangerous for her to be driving at all. She’d rung up almost twenty thousand dollars worth of merchandise on her credit card. She’d booked a trip to Paris in the spring. What’s more, she was still refusing to take her medication, despite the fact Jake had filled the prescription for her himself. What was the point in taking medication, she insisted, when she felt perfectly fine? The numbness in her feet had disappeared; her hands were operating splendidly, and she was having no trouble swallowing, talking, or breathing,
thank you very much. The doctors were mistaken. If she had ALS, she was obviously in remission.

She was obviously in denial, Jake understood, wondering how he would have reacted to similar news. Mattie was a young, beautiful woman on the verge of a whole new life, and suddenly, boom! Weakness, paralysis, death. No wonder she refused to believe it. And maybe, just maybe, she was right, and everyone else was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Mattie was strong; she was stubborn; she was indestructible. She’d outlive them all.

“What are you thinking about?” Honey asked, although Jake could tell by her eyes that she already knew. “She’ll be all right, Jason.”

“She won’t be all right,” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Honey qualified. “I didn’t mean to sound glib. I just meant she’ll come to terms with what’s happening. She’ll start taking her medication. You’ll see. You don’t have to worry so much. Mattie knows you’ll make sure she gets the best medical help available, that you’ll be there for Kim. There’s nothing else you can do.” She kissed the side of his lips, entwined her fingers with his. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat. This is an important day for you.”

“I’ll be right there,” Jake said. “I just want to shower, brush my teeth—”

“Okay. Holler when you’re ready.”

His eyes followed Honey out of the bedroom. Even beneath the bulk of her terrycloth robe, he could make out the dips and curves of her wonderful ass. He should have made love to her last night, Jake thought, instead of pleading exhaustion, allowing his worries
about Mattie to drain him of energy. He’d make it up to Honey tonight. Or maybe even this morning.

He glanced at the mess he’d made of the bed, the blanket on the floor, the twisted pink-flowered sheets, the down-filled pillows pounded into near oblivion. Actually, the bed matched the rest of the impossibly cluttered room. Honey was one of those people who had trouble throwing anything away. She was a collector—of old magazines, of vintage costume jewelry, of unusual pens, of anything and everything that caught her curious eye. As a result, every square inch of apartment space was occupied by something. Loose coins and delicate chiffon scarves littered the top of her antique pine dresser; newspapers sat stacked on a small wooden chair, peeking out from underneath the array of silk blouses she rarely bothered to hang in her closet, a closet already overflowing with the more formal dresses and suits she never wore. Antique dolls, in dainty white lace, huddled together beneath the window, next to the colorful stuffed animal collection of her childhood. Baskets were everywhere. Small wonder there was barely room for any of his belongings. Already, they’d discussed finding a bigger place.

This couldn’t be easy for Honey, Jake knew, entering the bathroom and tossing his robe over the two cats scratching at his toes. They protested loudly and darted from the tiny room as he stepped into the shower and turned on the tap full blast. Instantly a violent spray of hot water hit him in the face, stinging his flesh, like hundreds of malevolent insects. Bad boy, Jason, the water hissed.

Badboyjason. Badboyjason. Badboyjason
.

Honey hadn’t asked for any of this, Jake thought, positioning his head directly under the shower’s wide nozzle, the steaming torrent of water washing away the sound of his mother’s voice as the water tumbled off the top of his head and cascaded down his forehead into his eyes. Honey had fallen in love with an unhappily married man. She might have hoped he’d leave his wife. She might have hoped they’d eventually set up house together. He doubted she’d envisioned his moving in with her quite this quickly. He doubted she was prepared to deal with the fallout of his wife’s lingering illness and premature death, that she was ready to be a mother to an angry and bewildered teenage girl.

The last several weeks had been a wild roller-coaster ride for all of them. They were still reeling, off balance, afraid for their lives. Except that he and Honey would escape with their lives. Mattie wouldn’t be so lucky.

He’d been doing a lot of research in the weeks since Lisa Katzman had summoned them to her office. Not all patients succumbed as quickly as Lisa first suggested. Some lived as long as five years, and a full 20 percent of people with ALS reached a stage of the disease where, for no discernible reason, their condition plateaued. People like Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist, who’d lived more than twenty-five years with the disease and functioned well enough to dump the wife who’d stood by him through most of those years, abandoning her for another woman.

Men, Jake thought, turning off the water with a sharp snap of his wrist. We really are cads.

He stepped out of the shower, dried himself with
one of Honey’s rose-colored towels, wondered whether he’d ever get used to so much pink. Was it possible Mattie would live for another twenty-five years, slowly wasting away, a prisoner of her own body? Would she want to?

“Jason?” Honey called from the other room. He pictured her standing in the middle of the small galley kitchen amid her collection of antique pitchers and pink Depression glassware. “You almost ready?”

“Two minutes,” he called back, using the edge of his towel to wipe the steam from the mirror over the sink, seeing his image in the glass blurred and distorted, appearing only to disappear again in the fine mist. How could he just abandon her? he thought, as Mattie’s face superimposed itself across his own. She’d shared his life for almost sixteen years. How could he leave her when she only had a year or two left?

Or three. Or five
.

How could he leave her to waste away into nothing?

You’ve already wasted over fifteen years of your own life
.

How could he leave her to die alone?

We all die alone. Think of your brother. Think of Luke
.

How could he leave her helpless, to choke on her own fear?

I’ve been slowly strangling to death all my life
.

So, what’s another year, maybe two?

Or three. Or five
.

How could he go back when he didn’t love her, when he’d finally worked up the courage to leave her?

You don’t have to love her. You just have to be there for her
.

What kind of man would walk out on her now? What kind of man would that make him?

Bad boy, Jason. Bad boy, Jason. Bad boy, Jason
.

Badboyjason, badboyjason, badboyjason
.

Mattie had trapped him sixteen years ago, and she was trapping him again today. It didn’t matter that she was dying, that she had no control over the situation, that she didn’t want this any more than he did. The end result was the same. He was trapped. He was being buried alive along with her.

“Shit, goddamn, son of a bitch, shit!” he shouted, pounding his hand against the mirror, leaving a clear impression of his fist in the dull glaze.

“Jason, are you okay?” Honey stood in the doorway to the steam-filled room.

She seemed very far away, Jake thought, afraid that if he looked away, she would disappear altogether. How long would she wait? he wondered. “Honey—”

“Uh-oh. I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

Jake reached over, took her hands, walked her back into the bedroom, sat with her on the side of the bed. “We have to talk,” he said.

I
don’t want to talk,” Mattie protested loudly, storming from the kitchen in an angry huff. “I already told you that. I thought I made myself very clear.”

“We don’t have a choice here, Mattie,” Jake said, following her into the living room. “We can’t just ignore what’s happening.”

“Nothing’s happening.” Mattie began circling the large room like a dog chasing its tail, extending her long arms, keeping her husband a comfortable distance away. She was wearing jeans, an old red sweater, a pair of ratty plaid slippers. He was in his lawyer’s uniform—conservative gray flannel suit, pale blue shirt, darker blue tie. Not an even match, Mattie decided, thinking she should have at least worn proper shoes. Except that she’d been having trouble with her shoes the last several days. She kept catching the toes against
the floor, tripping over her feet. Slippers were easier.

She looked toward the windows that took up most of the living room’s south wall, thinking of the recently drained pool lying outside beneath its protective winter cover, an ugly plastic thing that resembled a giant green garbage bag. Mattie always suffered from a kind of swimmer’s withdrawal in those first few weeks after the pool was closed. This year was worse than most. Maybe next year she’d have the pool enclosed. It would be expensive, she knew, but worth every penny. That way she could swim every day all year long. Jake might balk, but what the hell. Let him balk.

Mattie was also considering reupholstering the two chairs in front of the window, replacing the gold-and-rose cotton stripes with something softer, maybe velvet, although she’d keep the beige-and-gold patterned wing chair and the floral needlepoint rug. Jake could have the baby grand piano that stood in the southwest corner of the room, unused and ignored since Kim gave up her lessons several years earlier. But she’d fight him tooth and nail for the small bronze Trova statuette that sat beside the piano, the two Diane Arbus photographs on the wall behind it, the Ken Davis painting at right angles to it, and the Rothenberg lithograph that occupied most of the opposite wall above the sofa.

Wasn’t that why Jake was here? To divvy up the spoils?

That was what she’d assumed when he called yesterday, said he’d be over at around two this afternoon, that there were some issues they needed to discuss. But then he’d arrived on her doorstep,
her
doorstep, with a sad smile on his face, the kind of smile that made her
want to kick his perfect teeth in, and a hangdog expression on his face that announced the seriousness of his intentions even before he opened his mouth, and she knew this discussion wasn’t going to be about moving forward with their divorce, or deciding who got what. It was going to be a rehash of the last several weeks, more of the same subtle bullying that might work well with juries but didn’t impress her one bit, the trying-to-get-her-to-see-it-his-way gentle pleading, the attempts to force her to face a truth she refused to acknowledge or accept.

In the last two weeks Jake had called at least once a day; he’d insisted on accompanying her to her doctor’s appointments at Northwest General and the clinic in Lake Forest; he’d run to the drugstore to fill a prescription she told him she had no intention of taking; he’d made himself constantly available to her. In short, he’d suddenly turned into something he hadn’t been during the almost sixteen years of their marriage—a husband. “Go back to the office,” Mattie told him now. “You’re a busy man.”

“I’m finished for the day.”

Mattie made no effort to hide her surprise. “God, I really must be sick,” she said.

“Mattie—”

“Just a joke, Jake. What they call gallows humor. Anyway,” she continued, before he could interrupt, “if you’re finished for the day, why don’t you spend it with your little friend? I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you home so early.”

“I’m not going back there,” Jake said, his voice so low Mattie wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

“What?” she asked, in spite of herself.

“I can’t go back there,” he said, subtly altering his words, volunteering nothing further.

“She kicked you out?” Mattie was incredulous. He’d walked out on her after almost sixteen years for a woman who’d thrown him out after less than three weeks?! And now he expected her to just forget all about his betrayal, to bury her anger and hurt feelings and welcome him back with open arms? My house is your house? Fat chance, buddy. That’s not the way it works.