The Replacement Wife (5 page)

It was well past Zach’s bedtime before she tucked him in and kissed him good night. “Who’s my favorite boy in the whole wide world?” she asked, as she had every night since he was a toddler.

He grinned up at her from his pillow. “I dunno. Who?”

“I’ll give you a hint: His name starts with a
Z
.”

Zach considered himself too mature for such “baby” games, but he played along nonetheless. He wrinkled his brow in mock concentration before delivering his line: “Me!”

“That’s right. And don’t you forget it.” She felt her throat tighten as she planted another kiss on his forehead. In his Spiderman pajamas, his cheeks ruddy from the washcloth she’d used to scrub his face, he looked more like five going on six than eight about to be nine. “Night, buddy. Sleep tight.”

Kyra was out cold by the time Camille looked in on her. Camille tiptoed over to the bed, smoothing the hair from her daughter’s brow. Asleep, Kyra didn’t look much older than Zach, the same angelic expression, smoothed of all fears and worries. Camille used to wish her children would stay little forever. Now she only wished she would be around to watch them grow up.

CAMILLE WAS SITTING
up in bed, reading, when Edward walked in an hour later. “Sorry I’m so late.” He bent to kiss her cheek, bringing the cool breath of the outdoors. She closed the book on the page she’d been staring at, unseeingly, for the past forty minutes. “Rounds took longer than I expected. This new bunch of interns, you never saw such eager beavers—so many questions.” He grinned, and she felt a stab of irritation. Were those kids more important than his own?

But she only asked mildly, “Have you eaten?”

“I had a slice of pizza. Does that count?” he said.

She let out a small, involuntary sigh. Couldn’t he have made it home in time for dinner? She nearly said something, but bit her tongue instead. What did it matter in light of the news she was about to impart? News that would shatter whatever normalcy they’d regained.

“You didn’t get my messages?” He paused to give her a quizzical look as he was loosening his tie.

“I got them,” she said in a flat voice.

He eyed her anxiously. “You’re not mad, are you?”

“No, I’m not mad.”

He sat down beside her on the bed. “Did it go okay at the doctor’s? I figured when I didn’t hear from you . . .” He trailed off at the look on her face, his eyes searching hers as he sat there with his tie hanging askew. She said nothing, and his anxiety turned to worry. “Cam?”

She shook her head, the enormity of the news she had to impart expanding inside her and forcing the air from her lungs. She took in her husband’s dear face. His brown eyes, the color of whiskey straight-up; the close-cropped dark curls that in his student days used to brush his collar; his angular jaw shadowed with stubble. He’d always been handsome but had grown even more so with age. The only signs of wear and tear were the lines bracketing his mouth and the crease between his eyebrows. She reached up now to smooth the crease away, but it only deepened.

She drew in a deep breath and told him.

CHAPTER THREE

W
hen the time came, Edward wanted it inscribed on his tombstone, not that he’d been the best doctor, but that he’d been a good husband and father. Or had tried to be—at this point it was more a goal than a statement. During Camille’s last bout with cancer, he had realized just how inadequate he was at running a household and caring for two children on his own. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but what had once been a shared obligation had become primarily Camille’s. He was like the passenger in that old movie
The High and the Mighty
who was forced to fly the jet after the pilot fell ill. Somehow—more by the grace of God than his own efforts—he’d managed to keep the plane aloft. Now he was being told it was going to crash.

He sat on the bed, blinking rapidly to stave off tears, a fist-size lump in his throat. “We’ll get a second opinion,” he said, amazed at how steady his voice was. “I’ll call Gene first thing in the morning.” Gene Ketchum, chief of oncology at Sloan-Kettering, was an old friend from medical school. He took Camille by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. She looked like death. Jesus. “And even if it’s what we think it is, there are options. It’s not hopeless.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “But the odds aren’t exactly in my favor.”

“You can still beat this. You did once before.”

“It was different then.” He shook his head in denial, and she went on, her voice rising, “Edward, the cancer isn’t just back—it’s
spread.
” The picture formed in his mind then: the bright spots dotting the radiologic image like emergency flares on a darkened roadway after a car wreck.

Still, he went on shaking his head. “It’s not hopeless,” he repeated. “Regina didn’t say it was hopeless, did she?”

“No, but you doctors never do.” She smiled grimly. “She was honest, at least—she told me I have a three percent chance at best. And that’s only if I undergo another stem cell transplant.” Camille shuddered visibly at the prospect. “Otherwise, I have maybe six, nine months.”

A jolt of alarm went through him, like the aftershock of an earthquake, more at the defeat in her voice than the bleak prognosis. “Refusing treatment isn’t an option,” he said firmly. She took his hand and squeezed it, her eyes mournful.

“Edward, I’m not sure I can go through that again.” The defeated look she wore matched her voice. But she was a fighter, he knew. He clung to the belief that she would regain that spirit once she’d gotten over the shock. “I’d like to spend what time I have left at home, not in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. That’s not how I want our children to remember me.”

“Better that than have them thinking you gave up,” he said more harshly than he’d intended.

She winced, and what little color remained in her face drained away. He knew she was thinking of her own mother, and he felt a stab of remorse. Here she was facing the worst, and he was making it even more difficult for her. He gathered her in his arms. She’d regained some of the weight she’d lost last year, but she was still too thin. Back then, she’d jokingly threatened to have “Handle with Care” tattooed on her rear end. He, in turn, had insisted she was indestructible. Now he was conscious of her breathing, and it was an effort not to count each breath.

He murmured into her hair, “We’ll get through this. Just like we did before.”

“Before, I had a fighting chance.” She drew back to look at him, her haunted expression piercing him.

Edward wanted to rail against God, shake his fist at the sky. But instead, he replied evenly, “The odds aren’t as good, no. But new treatments and protocols are being developed all the time.”

She gave a wan smile. “That’s just what Regina said.”

“She’s right. We could get lucky. You never know.” But even as he spoke, he knew it was only a remote possibililty. Years of testing and blind trials went into developing each new drug. Even if there were one shown to be effective for her type of cancer in the trial phase now, approval from the FDA could still be many months or years away.

“Good thing you’re not a gambling man, or we’d be bankrupt by now.” She shook her head, wearing a wobbly smile. Then the smile broke and the tears in her eyes spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, God. I don’t think I could bear it—holding on to hope. Maybe I just need to work on acceptance.”

Nowhere in Edward’s vocabulary were the words
I can’t.
And until now he’d never expected to hear those words out of his wife’s mouth. For Camille, the proverbial glass had always been seven-eighths full. It was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with her. A memory surfaced, from when they were first engaged. They’d been on their way to grab a bite to eat one evening and he’d apologized for not being able to afford to take her someplace nicer than the neighborhood kebab joint, at which, she’d smiled and said, “I get to be a part of your future. Believe me, that’s way better than beef Wellington and a bottle of a fancy wine.” She tucked her arm through his as they strolled along the sidewalk near the Morningside Heights walkup he was sharing with a classmate until he and Camille could afford a place of their own. “As for that other stuff, we’ve got all kinds of time.”

“I won’t let you die,” he said now through gritted teeth.

She caressed his cheek, saying in a choked voice, “My darling. I know you’d move heaven and Earth if you could. That’s why I love you so much. Who else would’ve thought to take snapshots of the tulips along Park Avenue so I wouldn’t totally miss out on spring?” A smile touched her lips at the reminder of the last time she’d been confined to a hospital bed fighting for her life. “But even you can’t perform miracles.”

Desperation set in. “You can’t just give up,” he insisted.

“Oh, Edward.” She wiped away a tear. “I may not have a choice.”

A dozen arguments howled through his head, like the storm gathering force outside, but he didn’t voice them. She looked so spent.
She’ll come to her senses after a good night’s sleep,
he told himself. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he said. “Everything always looks brighter in the morning.”

“Come lie next to me.” She scooted over to make room for him.

Edward stretched out beside her, still in his suit and tie. How many evenings had they lain together like this, discussing the events of the day or venting some work-related frustration? It was generally run-of-the-mill stuff—a cranky patient or a demanding client, or one of the children acting up—complaints he’d have welcomed now. Instead, he could only stare up at the ceiling, taking shallow breaths to keep from reminding himself, and her, of his own disgustingly robust health. Neither of them spoke. It was several minutes before he felt Camille stir beside him.

“Kyra has a crush on a boy in her class,” she informed him. Her voice had a soft, dreamy quality. “His name is Jan.” She pronounced it “Y
ah
n.” “He’s an exchange student from Norway.”

“Tall, blond, and strapping, no doubt.” He wondered why he was just now learning of this. Since when did his little girl have crushes on boys? Wasn’t it only yesterday she’d been playing with dolls?

“I have no idea what he looks like. I haven’t met him yet.”

“Will anything come of it, do you think?”

“Hard to say. According to her, he doesn’t even know she exists.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” Edward used to think he’d be open-minded, even liberal to a point, when his daughter was old enough to date. But that was before his baby girl blossomed into a fetching fourteen-year-old who could easily get her heart broken.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Camille said. “I was thinking she should invite him over.”

Edward frowned in confusion. “Am I missing something? You just said the guy doesn’t know she exists.”

“All the more reason. The only thing standing in the way is shyness.”

“His or hers?”

“Both, if my guess is correct.”

“Our daughter,” he said, “is anything but shy.” Kyra was very vocal in expressing her opinions.

“Not at home, no, but in school? With boys? Don’t you remember what it was like at that age?”

“Sure, and I’d have died of embarrassment if my parents had invited over some girl I liked.”

“I didn’t say
we
should invite him.”

“Doesn’t it amount to the same thing?”

“I was only going to suggest it.”

“You want my advice? Stay out of it.”

Camille rolled onto her side so they were face-to-face. “So we should just let her flounder?”

“She’s not floundering. As far as I can tell, she’s doing just fine.” He added on a lighter note, “Besides, I have it on good authority that meddling in a teenager’s love life can bite you in the ass.”

“Whose authority would that be?”

“Yours. Those were your exact words when I suggested she ask Seth Conway to the Sadie Hawkins dance.”

“This is different,” she said. “Seth’s a junior. Jan is her age, at least.”

He smiled. “Spoken like a true matchmaker.”

“Yes, and a damned good one at that.” She was quiet for a minute, studying his face. When she spoke again, her voice was low and tremulous. “Edward, I need to ask something of you.”

“Of course. Anything,” he replied without hesitation, but for some reason he felt a chill tiptoe up his spine.

“Promise me you’ll marry again after I’m gone.”

It was the last thing he wished to think about now or ever. He’d never looked at another woman, not even during the months Camille had been so ill, with their sex life on hold. He couldn’t imagine lying next to another woman like this. Holding her in his arms. Making love to her.

“We are not having this conversation.” He spoke in a tone that invited no dissent. “You’re my wife. The only one I want. And you’re not going anywhere. That’s all there is to say on the subject.”

“But if—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t. This is hard enough as it is.”

Camille’s gaze remained fixed on him. Her eyes were a shade of blue so vivid it seemed color-enhanced, like that of the sky in the glossy brochures still tucked in his coat pocket. He recalled thinking, when they had first met,
I could spend the rest of my life gazing into those eyes.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he might outlive her; it was as unthinkable then as it was now.

THEY MET ON
a rainy night in September of 1989. George Bush senior was in office and the Gulf War was heating up in the Middle East. That, and reports of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, had campus activists in a foment, waving placards and chanting protests, though Edward was too intent on his studies to pay much attention, steeped in subjects whose names he’d have had difficulty pronouncing when he was a boy merely dreaming of becoming a doctor: neurobiology, microbial pathogenesis, general virology, molecular diagnostics. Sometimes he’d nod off in the middle of a late-night cram session and wake hours later to find his head resting on an open book, its pages pressing a ridge into his cheek. One of his roommates, Darryl Hornquist, after finding him in that pitiful state once too often, urged him to get out more, find some other interests before he caved under the pressure. “I’ve already lost one roommate to the psych ward,” Darryl had said. He was referring to Lewis Karlinsky, who’d had to drop out the previous semester after he became obsessed with light switches and doorknobs and keeping all his pens and colored markers precisely lined up. Edward, after giving it some thought, decided Darryl was right, so he began volunteering at a crisis center in the East Village, where his job was to man the suicide hotline Tuesday and Thursday nights between the hours of eight and midnight.