“Hello, Mommy.” As Liv approached, taking tentative balletic steps, every ounce of her controlled, ladylike, Maribeth caught a glimpse of the woman her four-year-old daughter would someday become. It made her feel inexplicably sad.
Maribeth braced herself for another hug, but Liv just kissed her lightly on the cheek and stepped away. Last year when Maribeth had a stomach bug, Liv had treated her coolly until she was back to normal.
“It’s okay, baby,” she said. “I’m still me.”
Liv wrinkled her nose, as if she didn’t fully buy that. Maribeth wasn’t sure she did, either.
5
The discharge from the hospital, the ride downtown, the arrival home, all exhausted Maribeth, so she excused herself for a nap. When she woke up, it was unusually quiet for the loft, which didn’t have real walls to mute the clamor of family life.
She called to Jason, who was working at home for the next week.
“Hey.” He smiled. “It’s good to see you home, Lois.”
“It’s good to be home. Where is everyone?”
“Your mom and Robbie took the kids to the playground. Do you want anything?”
Maribeth looked at the clock. “I think the nurse is coming at three. Maybe some lunch?”
“Sure. We ordered pizza before. Brick oven. There’s a few slices left.”
“Not pizza.”
“Right, special diet. We’ve been mostly doing take out. I’ll organize a grocery delivery. Do you want to give me a shopping list? We can do FreshDirect.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said. “For now, maybe some soup.”
“Is canned okay?”
“It’s really high in sodium. Supposed to avoid that.”
“I can run to the deli.”
“It’s okay. I’ll go forage in the fridge.”
“We’ve been keeping it together here with rubber bands and bubble gum,” Jason said. “We’ll get back on track soon.”
MARIBETH WAS FINISHING up her lunch of yogurt and an apple with peanut butter when the visiting nurse arrived. Luca was pleasantly plump and wore the crooked smile of an accomplice.
She checked the dressing on her chest and the one on her leg. “Healing nicely,” she said.
“Yes, I’m so looking forward to the scars,” Maribeth said.
“Some women see their scars as a badge. I’ve worked with breast cancer survivors who go for tattoos instead of reconstructions. You could get a really nice one along your leg, like this.” She lifted her pant leg and showed a daisy chain circling her ankle.
“Funny. My husband used to say that scars were like tattoos but with better stories.”
“I can see that, too. As for the chest.” She tapped her own ample cleavage, “it fades so much it looks like décolletage. It’s very sexy.”
“Now you know why I finagled myself a bypass surgery,” Maribeth said.
Luca laughed. “A sense of humor will go a long way.”
“That and some real food and I’ll be set.” And as if on cue, her stomach gave a good loud gurgle.
Luca looked at the yogurt container, the apple core. “What else have you eaten today?”
“Cereal at the hospital.”
“It’s almost four o’clock.”
“Is it?”
Luca stopped typing notes. “You need to take care of yourself.”
“I’ll get some groceries delivered tomorrow.”
Luca frowned. “Take care of yourself by asking for help.”
“I’m trying.”
Luca hooked Maribeth up to a portable blood pressure cuff and then a portable EKG machine. All the data went straight to her iPad. “Looks good,” she said. “Get some rest. Eat. You’ll feel much better soon.”
At just that moment the front door opened and the kids bounded in with her mother.
“Is Mommy here?” Liv shouted.
“She’s in her room,” Jason said.
“Mommy?” Oscar yelled. “I want Mommy.”
And just like that, the quiet apartment was filled with noise. Within seconds, Oscar was jumping on the bed, coming perilously close to Maribeth’s bad leg.
Luca arched an eyebrow as she packed up the rest of her things.
“Will you do bedtime tonight?” Oscar asked. “Grandma doesn’t do voices and Daddy doesn’t know how to catch Liv’s bad dreams.”
“I’m supposed to be taking it easy,” Maribeth said, looking to Luca for confirmation. But she had quietly slipped out.
“You haven’t done stories forever,” Liv said. “And Grandma promised you would.”
“I said maybe she would,” her mother said.
“What if I tuck you in and Daddy reads?”
She looked to Jason for backup, but he was just standing there, smiling. When she’d learned they were having twins—not a huge surprise in the world of IVF—she’d thought they could handle it, no problem. Two of them, two of us. But the math never seemed to work out so neatly. It was like fifth-grade division; there was always a remainder.
She tried again, widening her eyes at Jason in a silent SOS.
“Can’t blame them for missing you,” Jason said. “We all have.”
All she wanted was for someone to tuck her in, read her a story with a happy ending. But they all just stood there watching her: her mother, Jason, Oscar, Liv. She told the twins she would do bedtime tonight.
6
They started coming right away, the visitors. People she really didn’t want to see, like Niff Spenser and Adrienne and the Wilsons, bearing food she either could not eat (like rich casseroles) or didn’t want to (what exactly was the appeal of those edible arrangements?). Her mother treated each visitor like a dignitary, offering elaborate coffee and tea service and then leaving the mess in the sink. Maribeth found the visits painful and exhausting. Every time someone came, she felt obliged to entertain when she just wanted to stay in bed. But when she suggested that Jason discourage people from coming, he told her she needed to learn to accept help.