People Who Knew Me (33 page)

“It's my fault,” Claire adds.

She must really like this Tyler boy. She's abandoned her feud with me to defend him.

“Let's just go,” I say.

Claire and Tyler look at each other, waiting for me to reprimand them and deliver a punishment. I don't have the energy for that.

“Oh, and Tyler, I'm supposed to tell you you're in big trouble.”

*   *   *

I drop off Tyler at his house at the other end of the canyon. He thanks me profusely and then tells Claire to call him later. He likes her. The way his eyes flick from side to side when he attempts to look straight at her gives it away. Surprisingly, I don't hate this kid. He seems harmless and a little dumb.

“Is he your boyfriend yet?” I say to Claire, breaking the silence of our car ride.

“No,” she says. “Just my friend.”

“That's what you think,” I say. “He likes you.”

“Whatever,” Claire says.

I see her smile, though, slightly.

We are silent again until Claire realizes we're not headed home and says, “Where are we going?”

“I have my last chemo treatment today,” I say, “and since you're apparently a flight risk, you're coming with me.”

*   *   *

Paul is at the infusion center when we show up. He's done with his treatments, so I'm not sure what he's doing here.

“Surprise!” he says.

He has a book under one arm, and a bottle of sparkling water. I always bring sparkling water to my treatments.

“You came to sit with me?” I ask.

Throughout this hell—or “journey,” as some like to say—I've envied the people who have visitors, loved ones who pull up a chair next to them. There's this older guy who comes with his thirty-three-year-old daughter who has stage four breast cancer. Sometimes he naps, sitting upright. Sometimes he reads his newspaper. Sometimes he holds his daughter's hand. Sometimes he argues with her about politics. No matter, he's there.

“I did,” he says, “but I see you have company.”

Claire gives a shy wave.

“Oh, this is Claire,” I say. “She wasn't supposed to come, but she ran away from home and I just found her, so this is her punishment.”

He disregards these details and just says, “The infamous Claire.”

Claire looks at me like,
Who is this guy?
I haven't mentioned Paul to her before. We don't really talk about my chemo treatments. In her mind, they happen, but in some alternate universe.

“I'm Paul,” he says, when he realizes she has no idea who he is. He seems a little hurt, like maybe he thought he was a bigger part of my life than he is.

I go to my usual chair. Paul and Claire sit on either side of me. Nurse Amy isn't working today. It's Desi, the mute, again. She hooks me up without fanfare, without recognition of this being my final treatment. Nurse Amy brought me a cake the last time she saw me. A cake!

“Last one,” Paul says, as if reading my mind.

“For now,” I say.

“Ever,” he says. He winks at Claire.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Claire says.

“Are you going to run away again?” I ask. I'm teasing her, mostly, but she's not in the mood.

“I didn't
run away
,” she says. “I just needed some space.”

Before I can tell her that she should take space in the backyard next time, she pushes herself out of the chair and walks to the bathroom slowly, like she's in no hurry, like she's hoping my chemo will be over by the time she gets back.

“I told her about her father,” I say to Paul when she's out of earshot.

“Oh,” he says. Paul and his “oh.”

“It didn't go so well.”

“Probably came as a bit of a shock.”

“A bit,” I say.

“Have you heard from him?” he asks.

I check my phone again, just in case.

“No,” I say. “I should have expected that, though.”

“Maybe he doesn't go on Facebook very often,” he says. “I
never
go on Facebook.”

“He saw it,” I say. “He even changed his profile picture.” The picture now is a close-up of him smiling on what appears to be a ski slope. I can't help but wonder if he posted it as a message to me, a hey-I'm-really-happy, fuck-off message. That's probably what I would do, if I were him.

“Maybe he's thinking about it,” he says. “Give it a few more days.”

“He probably hates me,” I say.

“Probably,” he says. My stomach drops when he says this. “But he can't hate Claire.”

Claire comes back from the bathroom and takes her seat. She pulls out her phone and starts texting away. Tyler, probably.

“So, Claire, have you planned out the summer road trip yet?” Paul asks.

I've told him I'm not sure the road trip is on. He's trying to play peacemaker for us. Claire looks at me, her eyes asking the same question I have:
Are we still doing that?

“Uh, kind of, not really,” Claire says.

“You two gotta get on that,” Paul says. “You
are
going, right?”

Claire and I look at each other.

“Come on, you're going,” Paul says. He nods his head once, like a genie granting a wish.

“I'm in if you are,” I tell Claire.

We've both pissed each other off over the last several weeks. I'm willing to extend the ol' olive branch.

“I'll think about it,” she says.

She's holding the power for now. I get it. She resumes texting.

*   *   *

When I'm all finished, when Paul and I have exhausted our small talk, we walk out together, the three of us. Paul follows us to our car.

“You're done,” he says.

It doesn't feel like I'm done, though.

“Yep,” I say.

“So I guess this is it,” he says.

He's referring to us, the regularity of our togetherness. He's fishing for a future.

“Yep,” is all I say.

“You know, I can give you a ride to and from the hospital when you have your surgery.”

I hadn't even thought about needing a ride. It unnerves me that Paul has.

“My personal chauffeur?” I say nervously.

“At your service.” He bends at the waist, a playful bow.

I will need a ride, so I say, “I might take you up on that.”

Claire gets in the car, bored with us.

“Please do,” Paul says.

He probably wants me to hug him, but I'm not really a hugger. Instead, I give him an awkward wave. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walks away. I'm a little wistful watching him go.

“That guy likes you,” Claire says, the second I close the door and start the car.

“Paul?” I say.

“Yes, Paul,” she says, like I'm an idiot.

“Nah,” I say.

She just shakes her head. We're halfway home when she pulls her knees up to her chest and looks over at me.

“Why would you leave my father and then spend the rest of your life single?” she says.

The question catches me off guard.

“Don't you want to fall in love?” she says.

Young people and their romanticism.

“You're my priority, sweetie,” I say, “not love.”

“That's sad,” she says.

More silence, then: “So you're not going to, like, ground me?”

“I don't think so,” I say. “I think we're even.”

She scoffs. “Hardly.”

We pull into the driveway at home, but she doesn't get out. I take this as a cue to stay where I am.

“Ty says I should try to find him, my father,” Claire says.

“Oh,” I say. Paul's favorite refrain.

“Why did you leave him?” she asks with a seriousness that implies she'll understand the reasons I give.

“You know what happened on September eleventh?” I ask her. I don't mention the year. Nobody ever mentions the year.

“Yeah.” From her history classes, she knows.

“I died on September eleventh,” I say. “In a way. I died, in a way.”

“Like, you couldn't be there anymore?” she says.

“Something like that.”

“So you came here.”

She inhales a big breath.

“Was he a bad guy or something?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Didn't you miss him?”

“Sometimes,” I say.

“Am I like him?”

“You look like him. You're optimistic like him. You have a kind heart like him,” I say. “You're smarter than both of us.”

She smiles.

“Do you think he'd want to meet me?”

“He'd be a fool not to,” I say.

“Maybe we could figure that out somehow,” she says.

She's thought about this already, I can tell. It pains me a little because I don't know if it's possible. I don't know if Drew wants anything to do with me, and her by association.

“Yeah, sweetie, maybe.”

She opens the door and gets out. I stay for a minute, sorting the coins in my cup holder. Just then, like magic, my phone rings. The caller ID shows the 917 area code. New York. It takes only a second before I recognize the shapes, the order, of the numbers. I swallow hard, consider letting it go to voice mail. But then I consider that this may be the one time he calls, my one chance.

“Hello?” I say, gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white.

“Emily?” he says.

He used to call me Em.

“Emily?” he says again.

And then I start to cry.

 

TWENTY-NINE

“It's really you?”

Those are Drew's first words, spoken not with wonderment, but with bafflement and maybe a little anger.

“It's me,” I say meekly.

“I can't believe this.”

“I know.”

“I can't believe this,” he repeats. He's definitely angry. Of course he is.

“We held out hope for you, for days and days,” he says.

“We put up signs. We had a funeral.” He doesn't say the word “funeral” as much as he spits it. It's always pained me to wonder about the funeral—who was there, what they said.

“I'm sorry. It's crazy. I know.”

“All those tears wasted while you were living in
California
?”

“Look, I—”

“And with my
child
, no less?”

“Drew, I know I'm an awful person.”

He snorts like this is the biggest understatement he's ever heard in his life.

“I can't believe this,” he repeats again.

There's a female voice in the background—probably his wife. Lisa Shaw. He must be covering the phone with his palm. There's muffled whispering.

Then: “I have to think this through. I gotta go.”

And just like that, he hangs up. I sit in the car, holding the phone to my ear. Then I put it down and cry some more.

I don't tell Claire about the call. I don't want her to take it personally if he never calls again.

But then he does call again, exactly a week later. I'm at the bar. Al sees my face go white and says, “You okay?” I tell him, “I gotta take this,” and then I disappear into the back office.

“I'm not calling to talk to you,” Drew says. There is no
Hello
or
How are you?
“You are dead to me, by your own choosing.”

The Drew I knew never would have said something like this. He's changed.

“I'm calling because of Claire,” he says.

I want to defend myself, but what is there to say? I have to let him have his anger. I can't take that from him. I've already taken so much.

“That's the only reason I reached out,” I say. “For Claire.”

I remember all over again what it feels like to be “the wrong one” of the two of us, the one who isn't as moral, isn't as patient, isn't as kind.

“I mean, you're sure she's my child?” he says.

I'm offended, though I have no right to be. After all, I was so sure, for so long, that Gabe was Claire's father. I won't tell him about Gabe. That would make things worse.

“I'm sure,” I say.

“What did you tell her about me?” he asks.

“That you died,” I say. There's no use sugarcoating it.

“Fake deaths—your go-to, huh?”

He's definitely changed. If he would have talked back to me like this years ago, called me on my shit, taken ownership of his own, maybe our marriage could have survived, maybe I'd still be in New York. Maybe.

“She knows now that you're alive,” I say.

“You and me, coming back to life,” he says with a disbelieving grunt.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“That's beside the point,” he says. “We want to talk to her. On the phone.”

We
—him and Lisa Shaw.

“Okay,” I say, though this collision of worlds feels anything but okay.

“We will call her next Saturday. Around noon your time.”

He says it like it's an appointment. Lisa Shaw is probably scribbling it in their family day planner.

“Sure,” I say, even though I'm supposed to be in bed, avoiding stress, on Saturday. My mastectomy is this Wednesday.

*   *   *

Paul comes to the house on Wednesday morning to take me to the hospital. It's only when he's inside, perusing my picture frames, that I realize how few people I've allowed into my house in fourteen years. I'm uncomfortable watching him examine my life. He's smiling at Claire's kindergarten picture when I emerge with my packed hospital bag.

“You ready?” he says.

I'm not, but we go.

Claire wanted to come, but I told her absolutely not. She's staying at Heather's until I'm out of the hospital so she can go to school like normal. Paul rambles the whole way to the hospital, saying how “mastectomy” is a terrible name for a procedure. “They should call it a cancerectomy,” he says, “focus on removing the cancer, not the boob.”