But it wasn’t Gina. It was Henry Roloff, sounding hurried. “Joe? Could you meet me for a cup of coffee? Say in an hour?”
“Is everything okay?”
“How about the Whitewater Diner? Three o’clock?”
Joe hoped he could walk straight. “Sure. ” He hung up the phone and headed for the shower.
An hour later he was dressed in his new clothes and walking down Main Street. He still felt a faint buzz from the beer, but that was probably a good thing. Already he could feel the way people were staring after him, whispering about him.
It took an act of will to keep smiling as the hostess—a woman he didn’t know, thank God—showed him to a booth.
Henry was already there. “Hey, Joe. Thanks for coming so quickly. ”
“It’s not like I was busy. It’s Saturday. The garage is closed. ” He slid into the booth.
Henry talked for a few minutes about Tina’s garden and the vacation they’d taken to St. Croix last winter, but Joe knew it was all leading up to something. He found himself tensing up, straightening.
Finally, he couldn’t take the suspense. “What is it, Henry?” he asked.
Henry stopped midsentence and looked up. “I want to ask a favor of you. ”
“I’d do anything for you, Henry. You know that. What do you need?”
Henry reached down under the table and brought out a big manila envelope.
Joe knew what it was. He leaned back, put his hands out as if to ward off a blow. “Anything but that, Henry,” he said. “I can’t go back to that. ”
“I just want you to look at this. The patient is—” Henry’s beeper went off. “Just a minute. ” Henry pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.
Joe stared down at the envelope. Someone’s medical charts. A record of pain and suffering.
He couldn’t go back to that world. No way. When a man had lost his faith and his confidence as profoundly as Joe had, there was no going back. Besides, he couldn’t practice medicine anymore. He’d let his license lapse.
He got to his feet. “Sorry, Henry,” he said, interrupting Henry’s phone call. “My consulting days are over. ”
“Wait,” Henry said, raising a hand.
Joe backed away from the table, then turned and walked out of the restaurant.
Though the radiation treatments themselves lasted only a few minutes a day, they monopolized Claire’s life. By the fourth day, she was tired and nauseated. But the side effects weren’t half as bad as the phone calls.
Every day, she called home at precisely noon. Ali always answered on the first ring and asked if the owie was all better yet, then Dad got on the phone and asked the same question in a different way. The strength it took to pretend was already waning.
Meghann stood beside her for every call. She hardly went to the office anymore. Maybe three hours a day, tops. The rest of the time, she spent huddled over books and articles, or glued to the Internet. She attacked the issue of a tumor the way she’d once gone after deadbeat dads.
Claire appreciated it; she read everything that Meghann handed her. She’d even consented to drink the “BTC”—brain tumor cocktail—Meghann had devised based on her research. It contained all kinds of vitamins and minerals.
They talked daily about treatments and prognoses and trials. What they didn’t talk about was the future. Claire couldn’t find the courage to say, I’m afraid, and Meg never asked the question.
The only time Meg seemed willing to disappear into the woodwork was at 2:00. The designated Bobby Phone Call time.
Now, Claire was alone in the living room. In the kitchen, the 2:00 buzzer was beeping. As usual, Meg had heard it and made an excuse to leave the room.
Claire picked up the phone and dialed Bobby’s new cell phone number.
He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, baby,” he said. “You’re two minutes late. ” Bobby’s voice poured through her cold, cold body, warming her.
She leaned back into the sofa’s downy cushions. “Tell me about your day. ” She’d found that it was easier to listen than to talk. At first, she’d been able to laugh at his stories and make up pretty lies. Lately, though, her mind was a little foggy, and the exhaustion was almost unbearable. She wondered how long it would be before he noticed that she spent their conversations listening to him, or that her voice almost always broke when she said, I love you.