“You need to get him to the hospital. Don’t worry about me.” Kim’s voice wavered strangely. Since she’d relearned how to speak, she didn’t fully recognize the voice as her own.
Jennifer’s cheeks were nearly as flushed as little Oliver’s. His temperature had spiked to one hundred and four that afternoon, and with Oliver’s mother working all afternoon and into the evening, Jennifer was the only one available to take him in.
“I just hate leaving you,” Jennifer whispered, clearly at a loss.
“The girls are coming,” Kim said, raising her hand slightly. “We’ll have a ball together. Don’t worry about us.”
Jennifer scrunched her nose. Kim hated that Jennifer had committed so much time to Kim’s wellness. It made her feel even more like a little old lady without control of her body. Then again, Kim literally couldn’t do anything. She had a wheelchair, which she could maneuver around the house with the press of a button. Sometimes, pressing the button exhausted her finger and arm so much that, when headed to the kitchen, she had to pause in the center of the living room and wait for the moment of exhaustion to pass.
Needless to say, this was one of the most difficult times of her life. Oliver’s illness and endless crying only exacerbated things.
“And you’re sure it’s okay to have all three of them here?” Jennifer scuttled around, collecting the diaper bag, a change of clothes for Oliver, plus snacks for the both of them. “That’s a pretty full house.”
Kim nodded, wincing slightly at the pain along her neck. “Heather, Kristine, and Bella are family.”
“They’re new family,” Jennifer pointed out distractedly. “I’ve told you before. You don’t have to think of Heather like a daughter just because your sister treated her so terribly.”
Kim bristled, surprised at her daughter’s unkindness. Jennifer winced, as well.
“I’m sorry. I really am,” Jennifer said. “I’m just stressed.”
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Jennifer breezed through the foyer to open it. Heather’s voice came through, a welcoming sound in the midst of Oliver’s weeping.
“Oh, poor baby,” Heather said. “You go ahead, Jennifer. We’ll take care of everything.”
Kristine and Bella stepped through the foyer and into the living room, where Kim was propped up in her wheelchair. The women were twenty-three and spectacularly gorgeous, with the same genetic beauty that Kim, Melanie, Heather, and Jennifer all had enjoyed. Their faces smiled, but their eyes were heavy with confusion and pity. Kim resented this, although she knew there was nothing to be done about it. She was a woman of seventy in a wheelchair. Pity was coming for her, whether she wanted it or not.
“Hi, Aunt Kim!” Bella spoke first. She lifted a bag of groceries and said, “I hope you’re hungry in a bit. We were thinking of eggplant parmesan for dinner.”
Kristine sat on the couch next to Kim. Up close, her eyes were strangely shadowed and lacked their familiar youthfulness. The last time Kim had seen her, she’d had that terrible businessman boyfriend who’d seen it his duty to belittle the rest of the family. Had he hurt her in some way? It seemed like something he would do.
“Eggplant Parmesan sounds delightful,” Kim croaked.
Heather breezed into the living room, her smile a light in the darkness. “Aunt Kim. Hi.” She dropped down to kiss her on the cheek. “Poor little Oliver! I’ve never seen him so sick.” She adjusted on the couch next to Kristine, then said, “I’m so glad to have my girls home with me today. We thought we’d have a girls’ night all together.” She searched through another grocery bag and removed two bottles of wine. “I know you shouldn’t drink alcohol so soon after your brain injury. But at the store, they had a special on non-alcoholic wine. What do you think about that?”
Kim snorted. “Isn’t that just juice?”
Both Bella and Kristine cackled.
Heather tilted her head to-and-fro. She was trying to keep everything upbeat. Bless her. Kim wasn’t sure she could follow her lead.
“I think it’s a little more decadent than juice,” Heather insisted.
“All right.” Kim rolled her eyes playfully. “I have missed my evening glasses of wine. I might as well give it a shot.”
In the kitchen, Heather and Bella set to work on cooking the eggplant parmesan while Kristine sat at the kitchen table. Kim wheeled her chair up to the table as well and heaved a sigh of exhaustion. Heather snapped on the radio, which played Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” which had always been one of Kim’s favorite songs.
“Goodness. This song takes me back,” Kim said. She eyed her legs, which were now useless to her. There was no dancing in her immediate future. That was clear.
“He was such a hunk,” Bella said, her knife flashing through an onion.
“Was? He still is,” Heather corrected.
Kristine laughed gently, her eyes on the ground. Heather soon uncorked both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic bottles of wine and poured the four of them glasses. Kim used all her strength to lift her glass in the air to “cheers” the other girls. Their eyes remained on her as she sipped it. The oaky, berry “wine” coated her tongue, reminding her of beautiful wine nights with friends and lovers gone-by.
“It’s not that bad,” Kim said with a smile.
“I’ll take it as a win.” Heather turned back to the skillet, where she’d begun to stir up a very garlicky tomato sauce. The air was heavy with delicious smells.
It took a long time to make the eggplant parmesan. To Kim’s surprise, the time passed beautifully, with the radio kicking out all the hits from the eighties (her favorite era of music) and Bella and Heather gossiping easily about people in the city and people in Bar Harbor. Kristine was frequently very quiet, but even she came forward with the occasional story about someone she and Bella hung out with in New York.
It was only over dinner that Kim got the story of what had happened between Kristine and that terrible ex-boyfriend of hers.
Kim’s fork was lifted, her jaw open with shock. “Are you kidding me? He went after the job you’d just left. And he didn’t bother to mention it?”
Kristine rolled her eyes sadly. “He said I would find something else— that I was too talented to stay in that position anyway. Oh, but he was nothing but a liar. I’d seen him lie to so many people before me. Why did I think he wouldn’t lie to me, too?”
“That’s the thing about guys,” Kim offered. “Some of them, anyway.”
“What, exactly?” Kristine asked.
“Once they figure out how to lie to you, they do it over and over again. It’s like they can’t help it,” Kim said.
Kristine scrunched her nose. “They can’t all be liars.”
“They’re not,” Heather interjected, her sapphire eyes flashing.
Kim laughed, for a moment forgetting the pain that was so heavy in her body. “Yes. Then again, you seem to have a talent for finding some of the most perfect men in the world. What’s your secret?”
“That’s what I said!” Kristine cried.
“Aunt Kim. Tell us about your ex-husband!” Bella chimed in eagerly.
“Goodness.” Kim swallowed a generous bite of cheese, eggplant, and tomato sauce. It seemed to warm her from the inside. “My ex-husband was a real piece of work. I can tell you that. We met in Portland at a dance club that has long since closed its doors forever.”
“A dance club. Wow. It’s like a movie,” Bella breathed.
“He was just about as handsome as they made them back then,” Kim said, suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia. “He came over to me and asked me to dance. You know what I said?”
“No! What?” Kristine asked.
“I said no.” Kim cackled. “I just hated how arrogant he looked, coming over to me like he owned the place and everyone in it.”
Bella, Heather, and Kristine laughed good-naturedly. Probably, they all thought of her as a little old lady, her stories so deep in the past that they didn’t matter at all. Still, all Kim had now were those memories.
“He fought for me after that,” Kim continued. “It was some kind of warrior instinct. He figured out where I lived, and he left me little notes and flowers. My roommate called him my stalker. Still, I said no to him until, one night, I caught his band performing at a little bar. He could sing like nothing else. My heart completely cracked open for him. He saw me in the crowd, stopped the performance, and walked right up to me. I’ll never forget what he said.”
“What was it?” Bella, Heather, and Kristine leaned over the table, captivated.
“He said, ‘I’ve already moved on. I’ve met someone new.’” Kim laughed at the memory, still remembering the urgency and anger in his eyes. “I knew, of course, that whatever new relationship he had didn’t matter much. By the end of the week, we’d found a way to spend nearly every waking moment together. And by the end of the year, we were married.”
“That’s so romantic,” Kristine breathed.
“Yes. It was.” Kim shook her head. “It hardly seems like real life. Certainly not like my life.”
“Oh, come on. You’re a knock-out,” Bella said.
Kim placed her fork to the side of the plate with a clack. She didn’t feel like a knockout just then, especially being wheelchair-bound and with her thoughts mushy from the medication. She felt like nothing good would ever happen to her again.
Heather insisted that Kim relax in the living room while she and Bella washed the dishes. Kim agreed, sipping the silly non-alcoholic wine as Kristine flicked through television channels. They eventually landed on Four Weddings and a Funeral, a classic romcom from the nineties.
“Hugh Grant was so charming,” Kristine said with a sad smile. “But should we ever trust the charming ones?”
“My husband was not a bad husband for a very long time,” Kim tried, hoping to impart some level of hope to the poor girl. “In fact, when we did divorce, we did so out of mutual respect rather than anger at one another. Everything was very fluid. We didn’t even hire separate lawyers.”
Kristine grimaced. Probably, the subject of divorce was a very grim one to such a young woman. She wanted everything to go well for her, without pain and heartache. This was simply impossible.
“You know Patrick is miserable,” Kim spoke through the silence. “His entire identity is tied up in this stupid job. What’s more, all his friends know you got the job first. People are talking behind his back, and he knows it.”
“I don’t know. He has too much money to ever care what people think of him,” Kristine said.
“People with money worry even more about what people think of them,” Kim returned. “They’re not like you and I. They haven’t fallen on hard times before. A bit of gossip is the worst of their worries.”
Kristine wrinkled her nose. She then locked eyes with Kim and said, “I’m sorry to blabber on about guys. So much has happened to you lately. I can’t even imagine.”
Kim waved her hand slowly, suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue. “All I want is to forget. Thank you for helping me to do that, at least for a little while.”
“Stupid gossip about boys does the trick?”
“It’s the only thing that does,” Kim told her.
On the television screen, Hugh Grant wore his crooked grin, attempting to woo a beautiful American in a very large hat. Kim’s heart beat slowly, and she coated her tongue with the non-alcoholic wine again. Around her, the house was warm, filled with the sounds of clunking dishes and Heather and Bella’s chirping gossip. For a moment, she felt at peace.