Sweet Salt Air (6 page)

“You’ll always be able to teach,” Nicole said, though her eyes had filled with tears. “You can do research and write papers. Your mind is brilliant. That won’t go away.”

She must have said something right, because he seemed to regroup. “I know,” he said. “I just feel weary sometimes.” He took a breath. “Not the kind of future you expected, huh?”

No. It wasn’t. She tried not to go there, but it was hard not to—hard not to google MS and read about its progression; hard not to think about Julian being there in not-such-a-long time. MS didn’t kill. It disabled. Sometimes badly. And as his wife, she was totally helpless.

“Let me come home,” she begged again. “You’re all alone with this. At least I
know
.”

“I don’t want pity.”

“I have
never
pitied you,” she shot back. “That’s such an unfair thing to say. But I could cook, do errands, pay bills—”

“Paying bills is
my
job. My income may be down, but I’m still the earner here. Don’t rush me into a wheelchair, Nicole. I’m not debilitated yet.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You focus on your business, I’ll focus on mine.”

“That’s not how a marriage is supposed to work.”

He was silent for a time, then sighed. “Oh God. I didn’t ask for this. I’m just trying to deal.”

“So am I. I love you.”

“Love can’t cure tremors. Let me concentrate on what will, okay? Talk later. Bye.”

*   *   *

“Later” was twenty minutes. Nicole had spent the time sitting on the bed, alternately rocking forward and back, side to side, trying to soothe the shakes inside and to think of something to do. When her cell rang, she jumped.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

Her eyes filled again. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I know. But this is the hardest thing I’ve ever faced. I grew up wanting to be a surgeon. I never wanted to be anything else.” They had talked about this before. Each time he started, she let him vent. “My father is still operating, and he’s sixty-eight. I know, I know. He’s in orthopedics. It’s not fetal. But it still requires a steady hand. Me, I was supposed to have another twenty years. I was supposed to discover newer forms of in-utero intervention. This was just supposed to be the start.” He was silent. Then, “You there?”

“Yes.”

“You’re very quiet.”

Nicole might have said that he had already made his mark with a breakthrough technique, which was more than most surgeons ever did—and as for his father,
he
would know that getting MS was not Julian’s fault, but Julian refused to tell him, too, so he was without that support as well.

Right now, he was feeling self-pity. He had a right, she supposed.

“Nicole?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

He sighed. “I guess there isn’t much you can.”

Lately, that was the state of their marriage, which was nearly as upsetting to Nicole as MS.

“My patients could teach me about dealing with illness,” he murmured. “The frustration, the fear. I never knew. It’s humbling.”

Nicole knew about frustration and fear. For four years, her mantra had been
It’s okay, something will work, there are new treatments all the time.
But it was starting to sound empty. She knew what the future could hold, and it wasn’t the illness that terrified her most. She could deal with the illness. She just wasn’t sure Julian could.

“Beijing will be great,” she tried by way of encouragement. The invitation to speak there was a coup.

He was suddenly hesitant. “Should I be that far away if something goes wrong?”

Timidity was new. Not a good sign. “You’re speaking at a hospital. Peter can get the name of an MS person there.”

Julian was quiet. Then, “So, was it great seeing Charlotte?”

Nicole doubted his heart was in the question, but she welcomed the diversion. “It was. She’s just the same. We still get along really well. We’re both even reading the same book.”

“Did you cook dinner for her?”

“I was going to, then Dorey met us at the ferry and started talking about chowder, and we couldn’t resist. We brought it home and ate in front of the fire. Did you eat out?”

“No. I picked up chicken at Whole Foods. Is the weather still cool?”

“For sure. There?”

“Warm and humid.”

“I wish you’d come up,” Nicole said. In the old days, he would have eaten at restaurants with colleagues when she was gone, missing her enough to not want to eat home alone. Now he was hiding—not that she dared say that.

“I have to get ready for North Carolina.”

“You could do that on Quinnipeague, then fly straight to North Carolina from here. Charlotte would love to see you.”

“Nah. There’s too much to wrap up here. Let me see if this numbness recurs.”

“Will you let me know?”

“You won’t be calling to check?”

She sensed he was teasing her, but she saw nothing funny in the question. “If I call, you’ll jump on me for it, so I don’t
dare,
but that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about you all the time.”

“I thought the point of having Charlotte there was to think about something else.”

“It is. But you’re my husband, and everything in me is saying I should be in Philadelphia and
not
Quinnipeague, only you won’t allow it, so will you do this for me, at least?”

“What if Charlotte’s right there?”

“I’ll say I can’t talk.”

He waited a beat. Finally, “Okay, baby. I’ll call.”

*   *   *

Nicole hung up the phone and cried. She did this a lot when Julian wasn’t around, just lots of quiet, helpless, frightened tears. They always slowed in time, as they did now. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes. Then she spotted the lavender on the pillow. Lifting the sprigs, she held them to her nose. She breathed in once, then again.

Two sniffs wouldn’t do it, of course, and the more she consciously tried to relax, the more she worried. Coming off the bed, she put on a robe and fluffy slippers, then, opening the door with care so that its creak wouldn’t wake Charlotte, she crept down the stairs. In the kitchen, she made passionflower tea, turning the jar of loose leaves in her hand while a teaspoon’s worth steeped in her mug. The tea was local, made from an herb that rarely grew in New England but did on Quinnipeague. A natural sedative, passionflower was another of Cecily Cole’s gems.

The tea was still steeping when she decided she was hungry. On impulse, she took a jar of strawberry jam from the cupboard. It, too, was local, put up the fall before by one of the island women. Unscrewing the lid, she pried a layer of wax from the top and, taking a spoon, sampled it straight from the jar. She closed her eyes, isolating the sense of taste for the greatest enjoyment. Strawberries … and vanilla? Eyes popping open, she peered into the glass until she spotted the bean among the berries. A single bean. No surprise there. Vanilla beans came from a variety of orchid that had no business growing on Quinnipeague, but did. Not only was the flower a more vivid yellow than elsewhere, but the bean was potent.

After scooping out a glob of jam and adding crackers, she set the plate on the large oak table, but she didn’t immediately sit. Distracted, she ran a hand over the pickled wood. She loved this table. If she and Julian had a bigger place, and she could take one piece of furniture, it would be this. Happy memories filled the chairs here, crowded in with hopes for three babies, maybe even four. As a lonely only, she had always wanted a big family, and Julian had been on board with that. But Nicole was only twenty-four when they married, and Kaylin and John, who lived with them part-time, were preteens. There was plenty to do before her own babies came, and when they finally started trying, instead of a pregnancy came Julian’s diagnosis.

Her father was aching for grandkids. In his last years especially, he used to ask.
So, toots, any good news coming? Your mother and I would love to babysit
.

Bob hadn’t known about Julian, either.

Her throat tightened. Determined not to cry again, she sank into the chair, opened her laptop, and logged on to Nickitotable.com. Blogging was her escape. It had struck her more than once that if Julian had not been diagnosed, she wouldn’t have this site, this following, this book contract—and she would have been perfectly happy. Now, it was a godsend. What else would she do when she woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep? Talking about what she did know was ten times better than imagining what she didn’t, and she did know restaurants and farmers’ markets, flower arrangements and menu planning. These were safe things. They were
happy
things.

Today, there were questions to answer from readers as well as ones from a woman named Sparrow, who had created her blogsite and now handled requests for everything from reviewing a new farm collaborative to submitting guest blogs. So sweet little Nicole, who had never aspired to work, had a staff. And businesses actually paid her to post ads. Initially, they’d been local to Philly, but increasingly they had a national reach. She was actually bringing in enough to net a profit. It wasn’t as much as a book would bring in, but it made the blog self-sustaining, like the agro-elements she promoted.

Tonight, the readers’ questions were easy—what different salad to serve with lasagna, how to store limes, suggestions for an anniversary party placecard. She suggested, in order, a beet salad, the refrigerator, and a Hershey’s kiss with names on strips sticking out of the top. Yes, she wrote to Sparrow, she did want to advertise beef online but said a “no thanks” to the company selling frozen hors d’oeuvres. She knew the brand and didn’t care for it. Money was money, but she did have standards.

Paying bills is my job,
Julian had said.
My income may be down, but I’m still the earner here.
And if that changed? She shuddered to think. But it was one of the reasons she was doing this book. She wanted to be able to help.

Thinking of it made her hands tremble even without MS, and the irony of that?

Pulling up a blank screen, she began to type quickly, though it was a minute before her fingers stopped hitting wrong keys and found their way. “Charlotte arrived today, but we didn’t even mention the cookbook. There’s plenty of time for that. For now, it’s about us. I’ve told you about Charlotte—Charlotte Evans?” She added a link to Charlotte’s most recent piece. “She’s the one who’s collaborating with me on the cookbook. We’ve known each other since we were eight, which makes it so special to be working together. She’s one of those friends you don’t see for a long time and then pick up where you left off. Our lives are radically different—I’m married, she’s not; I’m a homebody, she’s always gone—but once she got here, we didn’t stop talking. We’re even reading the same book—
Salt
. Have any of you guys read it yet?”

She described Charlotte’s arrival and talked a little about Dorey, because the beauty of these summer blogs was to seed interest in the book. She had written about Quinnipeague many times in the past, though more out of love than ambition … not that ambition hurt now. “We brought dinner home from the pier, but I couldn’t just plop it down on the coffee table by the fire. You know my mantra. It’s all about the presentation, which is pretty easy if you keep the right materials on hand. Up here we do, because my mother loves pretty things, which is probably where I came by the trait. I used woven place mats that were a heathery blue. The dishes were a deeper blue. So were the napkins—and not paper ones, either. I like cloth. Linen, actually. I know you all hate to iron, but if you buy a whole bunch, and basket the dirty ones until you have enough to wash together, then hauling out the ironing board isn’t so bad.”

She reread the words, paused, dropped her hands to her lap. Julian loved cloth napkins. He loved lit candles and fresh flowers. His first wife had been a corporate type who was out several nights a week and, even when not, had no desire to cook. The second time around, he had wanted a homemaker. Old-fashioned? Maybe. But Nicole loved homemaking. She loved playing backup to her husband. This was what her mother had done. It was all Nicole had ever seen, all she’d ever wanted.

The words on the screen blurred. Her mind jumped ahead to a future in which Julian would be unable to work, unable to travel, unhappy.

She blinked, took an unsteady breath, dragged her thoughts back to Charlotte, dinner, and presentation.

“What else?” she typed. “We have low stacks of books on the table, along with a grouping of hurricane lamps and votives. I didn’t light them. It would have been overkill, with the fire going and the sun still up. But they were pretty just sitting there unlit. Take a look.” Leaving the table, she retrieved her camera, connected it to the laptop, and inserted the pictures she’d taken of the table with its books, candles, and place settings. Refusing to be distracted again, she hurried on. “People usually pair white wine with seafood, but this being summer and our meal being mostly shellfish, the rules are loose. I found a fabulous Pinot Noir in the cellar.”

She chatted about that for a bit, before posting several more pictures, these of food and wine, and she shared her recipe for sabayon sauce, right down to the Riesling. Then, pulling up a shot of Charlotte, she cropped to the head and sat back. Long, thick, wavy brown curls, a mouth that was too serious but had always been that way—Charlotte looked good. She did look older. But
good
older. Her skin wasn’t heavily moisturized or made up. She had never been one for that, had never been able to afford it, and though Nicole guessed she could now, she apparently chose not to. And maybe she was right. She didn’t seem to need it.

Nicole did. Lately, her eyes looked tired and her hair dull. There were times, worrying about Julian, when she felt ancient. So she went a shade lighter, bought new makeup, had a facial or a manicure—anything to give her a lift.

Charlotte was lucky. She didn’t care if her nose burned in the sun or if the wind chapped her lips. And because she didn’t care, neither ever happened. Nicole envied her the indifference, though it was easy to be indifferent when you had so little to lose. Nicole had a lot to lose—home, husband, lifestyle. Charlotte had never had any of that.