The First Time (37 page)

“I’m losing you already.” Honey walked back to Jake’s desk, lifted the Paris brochures into her hands. “April in Paris. What a lovely romantic idea. When were you planning to tell me about it? Or were you just going to drop me a postcard?”

“It was just an idea. It doesn’t look like we’ll be going after all.”

Honey dropped the brochures back onto his desk. “I’m jealous, Jason. I’m actually jealous of a dying woman.”

“There’s no reason to be jealous. You know why I went home. You agreed.”

“I agreed to stay in the background. I never agreed to disappear.” She shook her head, red curls flying about her face. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Please, Honey. If you could just bear with me a little while longer.”

“Are you sleeping with her?”

“What?”

“Are you sleeping with your wife?”

Jake looked helplessly around the room, a sudden headache gathering force behind his temples. This was worse than the altercation in the restaurant, worse than his meeting with Frank. “I can’t abandon her, Honey. You know that.”

“That’s not what I’m asking you, Jason.”

“I know.”

Jake waited for Honey to ask the question again, but she didn’t. Instead she smiled her crooked smile, wiped the tears away from her eyes, and tucked her blouse back into the waist of her jeans. Then she straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked to the door.

“Honey—” he called after her. But she was already gone.

M
attie sat at her kitchen table, a French textbook open in front of her, staring out the sliding glass door into the backyard. She’d been sitting this way for over half an hour, she realized, glancing over at the two clocks on the other side of the room. It was amazing how much time could be spent doing absolutely nothing—not moving, not speaking, barely breathing. It wasn’t so bad, she decided, trying to project ahead to a time when such stillness would no longer be voluntary, when she would be forced to spend hours, days, weeks, months, possibly even years, unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. “Oh, God,” she sighed, panic building in her chest. She would never let that happen.

But the inescapable fact was that every day she felt weaker, as if her muscles had developed a slow leak,
like tires infested with tiny nails, and each day she lost more energy along the side of the road. When she walked, she pulled her legs along as if she were dragging heavy steel girders. As for her hands, there were days Mattie felt she lacked the strength to make a simple fist. Sometimes Mattie found it hard to swallow, harder to catch her breath. Increasingly, pens dropped from uncooperative fingers, buttons remained open, sentences unfinished, food untouched.

She tried to keep optimistic by reminding herself of recent medical miracles. Using genetic manipulation, a scientist in Montreal had reported being able to slow the progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease by 65 percent in laboratory mice. Now that they had the target gene, scientists were screening for drugs that would activate this gene in order to get it to produce more of the protein needed to slow the disease. But Mattie knew that no matter how fast the scientists worked, they would be too late. At least for her. “Just give me Paris,” she said quietly, returning her attention to the French textbook on the table.

How would she manage in Paris? she wondered, as the pages slipped through her fingers, and she found herself back on page one. Would she be able to navigate the charming cobblestone streets of the Latin Quarter? How would she manage the mountain of stairs at Montmartre? How much energy would she have for the magnificent treasures of the Louvre, the Grand Palais, the Quay d’Orsay? Would the time difference affect her? Would she be plagued by jet lag? What about the long plane ride over? Lisa had already warned her that the shifting of oxygen levels in the
plane might cause her some increased discomfort. Would she be able to cope?

She’d be fine, Mattie assured herself. Jake had bought her a cane, and she’d agreed to a wheelchair at the airports in both Chicago and France. She had sleeping pills and Riluzole and her trusty bottle of morphine. She’d rest when she got tired. She wouldn’t be too proud to say she’d had enough. Maybe she’d even get herself one of those motorized tricycles Lisa had told her about, race through the streets of Paris on one of those.

The phone rang.

Mattie debated letting voice mail pick it up, decided she’d better answer in case it was Kim or Jake. Mattie barely saw her daughter these days—when Kim wasn’t at school, she was at her grandmother’s, tending to her new puppy until he was old enough to be separated from his mother. As for Jake—something had been troubling him the last few weeks, Mattie knew, wondering if and when he’d tell her what it was. “Better answer it,” Mattie said out loud, struggling to her feet and slowly dragging herself across the room to the phone. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Hart?”

“Speaking.” The woman’s voice on the other end of the line was unfamiliar.

“This is Ruth Kertzer, from Tony Graham’s office at Richardson, Buckley and Lang.”

Mattie fought to keep the barrage of names in line. Why would someone from her husband’s firm be calling her? Had something happened to Jake?

“Mr. Graham is in charge of coordinating the dinners
that some of the partners will be hosting during the international lawyers’ convention in Chicago next month, and he wanted me to clear a couple of possible dates with you.”

“I’m sorry?” What on earth was this woman talking about? “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

“Mr. Graham thought it would be a nice gesture if we had a number of small dinner parties in people’s homes, say twelve or fourteen people, instead of a larger, more formal affair at a restaurant or hotel. We have your husband’s name down as a host for one of the dinners. The firm is covering all expenses, of course. Did your husband forget to mention any of this to you?”

Apparently, Mattie thought, wondering if this was what had been troubling Jake. How was she going to cope with twelve to fourteen strangers in her house? Oh, well, as long as she didn’t have to cook, she’d manage somehow. Truth be told, she was a little flattered. In the past Jake had always shied away from bringing her into firm functions. That Jake thought her capable of handling such an event at this particular time made her feel happy, even optimistic. “When exactly is all this scheduled to take place?”

“The convention is from April fourteenth through April twentieth. The nights in question are—”

“That’s impossible. We’ll be away from April tenth till the twenty-first.”

“You’ll be away? But Mr. Hart is leading one of the seminars.”

“What?” Mattie bit down on her lower lip. “No, that’s impossible.”

“I spoke to him myself just the other day,” Ruth Kertzer said.

“Um, listen, there’s obviously some sort of mixup here. Can I get back to you on this?”

“Certainly.”

Mattie hung up the phone without saying goodbye. What was going on? Jake hadn’t mentioned anything about a convention in April, and they’d been actively planning their trip to Paris for months. There had to be some mistake. Don’t get upset, she urged herself, feeling her heartbeat quicken. The stupid woman obviously had her dates mixed up. The convention was probably not till May, or quite possibly not till April of next year. Didn’t they usually plan these things years in advance? No way Jake was going to renege on his promise to accompany her to Paris, especially now that the trip was mere weeks away. No, Jake would never do that to her.

The old Jake, maybe. The Jake who was cold and distant and withholding, who valued work above family, work above everything. That Jake would have thought nothing of canceling their plans at the last minute. The old Jake wouldn’t have given a second thought to hurting her feelings or spoiling her holiday. But that Jake had checked out months ago. The Jake who’d taken his place was thoughtful and kind and sensitive, a man who listened to her and confided in her, who talked to her and laughed with her. Jake Hart had become a man Mattie could trust with her feelings, a man she could depend on to be there when she needed him. A man she could love.

A man she thought might be capable of loving her in return.

“This can’t be,” Mattie said, picking up the phone, using both hands to press in the numbers for Jake’s private line.

“Mattie, what’s up?” Jake answered, without saying hello. She heard a trace of the old impatience in his voice, wondered whether she was imagining it. Probably she’d interrupted him in the middle of something important.

“I had a disturbing phone call,” she said, deciding to plunge right in.

“What kind of phone call? From Lisa?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Something about Kim? A crank? What?”

“It was from Ruth Kertzer.”

There was silence.

“Ruth Kertzer from Tony Graham’s office,” Mattie clarified, although his continuing silence made it clear he knew exactly who she was. The silence was so heavy Mattie felt she could hold it in her hands.

“What did she want?” he asked finally.

“She wanted to clear a few dates with me.”

“Dates? For what?”

He sounded genuinely confused. Was it possible he didn’t know after all? That the whole thing was indeed a misunderstanding? That Ruth Kertzer had gotten her dates, or her lawyers, confused?

“Apparently, there’s some big convention coming to town in April,” Mattie began, preparing to laugh with her husband over the secretary’s incompetence. But even as she spoke the words, Mattie could feel the color draining from her husband’s face, and she knew Ruth Kertzer had confused neither her lawyers nor her
dates. “I understand we’re hosting one of the dinners,” she said softly, holding her breath.

“None of that has been decided,” came the unsatisfactory response.

“Ruth Kertzer seems to think it has. Do you want to tell me what’s going on, Jake?”

“Look, Mattie, it’s a little complicated. Can we talk about it when I get home?”

“She said you’re speaking at one of the seminars.”

Silence. Then, “I’ve been approached.”

“And you’ve accepted?”

Jake cleared his throat. “It wouldn’t mean canceling our trip, only putting it on hold for a couple of weeks. Mattie, please, I’m already late for a meeting. Can we talk about this when I get home? I promise I’ll straighten everything out.”

Mattie bit down hard on her bottom lip. “Sure,” she said. “We’ll talk when you get home.” She waited until the line went dead in her hands before slamming the phone against its carriage, then watched in horror as the plastic shattered and the receiver came apart, falling to the floor in jagged chunks. “Goddamn you, you miserable son of a bitch! I’m not postponing our trip. Not for a few weeks. Not even for a few days. I’m going to Paris, as scheduled, with you or without you. Do you understand?” Mattie burst into a flood of bitter, angry tears. “How can you do this?” she wailed, her breathing growing tight, emerging from her chest in a series of short, painful spasms. She gripped the counter, tried to steady herself. It’s not that you can’t breathe, she reminded herself. It’s just that your chest muscles are getting weaker, resulting in breathing
that’s shallower, which leads to a shortness of breath, which results in panic. But you’re fine. You’re fine. “Stay calm,” she gasped, her eyes darting about the kitchen, bouncing frantically off the various surfaces like balls in a pinball machine.

Mattie thought of the small bottle of morphine in the upstairs bathroom. One little five-milligram tablet was all that was necessary to remove the anxiety, control the panic, restore calm.

Twenty tablets would be enough to stop her breathing altogether.

What was she waiting for? Paris? That was a joke. “Who am I kidding?” she asked out loud, her breathing returning to normal, her face moist with sweat. How could she go anywhere by herself? It had all been a stupid fantasy, a game of let’s-pretend that had gone too far. Jake had no doubt gone along with the pretense because he’d assumed she’d be too weak or incapacitated by now to even think of following through. How could she have fooled herself into thinking he ever had any intention of keeping his promise? He had his own life to worry about, his girlfriend, his career, his fucking dinner parties and seminars to look forward to.

And what did Mattie have to look forward to? A life of wheelchairs and feeding tubes and slow strangulation.

What was she waiting for? Could she really rely on her mother to end her suffering when the time was right? Maybe the right time was right now. She’d leave a note for Kim, in case she got home before Jake, telling her she was taking a nap and instructing her not
to disturb her. She wouldn’t leave a note for Jake. What was the point?
The time for hesitating’s through
, Mattie hummed, slowly propelling herself toward the stairs.
Come on, baby, light my fire
.

Light my fire. Light my fire. Light my fire
.

Mattie was still humming when she reached her bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, still humming when she lifted the small bottle of morphine into her trembling hands. She poured herself a glass of water, emptied the contents of the bottle into her open palm, counted out twenty pills, then pushed all twenty into her mouth at once.

“Good day, gentlemen, Ms. Fontana,” Jake said, acknowledging the three young men, their fathers, and their attorneys, gathered around the impressive oblong conference table that filled most of the large boardroom. On either side of the table sat twelve high-backed armchairs in rust-colored leather. Jake scanned the occupants of the seats on one side of the table: rapist, father, lawyer, he enumerated silently. Then again, on the other side: lawyer, father, rapist. There was a certain symmetry to that, Jake thought, noting that only the Macleans distanced themselves from the others present, the younger Maclean sitting off by himself at the far end of the long table, his father standing in front of the impressive expanse of windows overlooking Michigan Avenue. It was a beautiful day—sunny and clear. Too nice a day to waste indoors, Jake thought restlessly, wondering what the weather was like in Paris. He assumed his seat at the head of the table, motioning for Thomas Maclean to join them.