The Perfect Son (6 page)

Ella shook her head.

“No? But what should I do if he calls the house and asks how your flight was?”

More violent head shaking, and then Ella pushed up the mask.

“I’ll call Dad tomorrow. Phone Katherine,” Ella said. “Tell her to come here. You guys leave. Katherine will . . .”

“Mom?” Harry became a spinning top wound too tight.

Felix ignored him. “I’m not leaving until I’ve talked with the doctor.” He walked to the bed and rested his hand on Ella’s leg. “Nurse, why did the oxygen saturation just drop from ninety-eight to ninety-six percent? What does that mean?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“It means something, otherwise—”

Harry grabbed his neck as if trying to strangle himself. His head did the weird sideways tic he’d released at the airport. A new tic.

“Our son has Tourette’s,” Felix said to the nurse.

“Shhh.”
Ella reached for Harry, but her hand swam through air. “Felix, please. Harry needs to leave. Call Katherine. She’ll stay with me.”

“I’m not leaving. Not until someone tells me what’s going on. I will not trust your life to people I don’t know. Suppose they’ve been sued for malpractice.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” the nurse muttered.

“Felix, I’m in good hands. One of Harry’s teachers”—Ella closed her eyes—“had heart surgery here. I know you’re trying to protect me, Felix. But I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

Could she please stop staying that? Every corner of his being told him things were not fine. They were far from fine.

“Call Katherine. Go home. She’ll tell you everything. Later.” Ella’s chest rose and fell. Her mother had died of a heart attack at forty-seven; Ella was forty-seven. Had nature’s bullet hit the genetic bull’s-eye painted on her chest? He tapped his palm with ferocious speed.

“I need to talk with the doctor.” His voice split. “I need to . . .”

“I know you do,” she said quietly. “I understand.”

Ella always understood—just as Tom had.

“But we have to . . . think about Harry. Take him . . . home . . . before this becomes . . . too much.”

Too late.

Harry’s elbow flapped, then his right arm shot out, nearly catching on one of Ella’s tubes. Felix and the nurse rushed forward. Harry’s arm flung out a second time, and Felix jumped back before he got walloped.

“Maybe you should listen to your wife, sir,” the nurse said.

“Maybe you should get the cardiologist so I can find out whether my wife is going to die.”

“Felix!” Ella tried to sit up, suddenly massively alert for someone shot with what had to be horse tranquilizers. He couldn’t imagine anything else keeping her down when Harry was in this level of distress.

The nurse eased her back. “Ella, you need to lie flat. You”—she glared at Felix—“are upsetting your wife, and I cannot allow that.”

Harry, huddling against the wall now, continued to tic. “Mom, I’m sorry. I—”

“
Shhh
, baby,” Ella said. “I love you, my amazing son. Everything’s fine. But you guys shouldn’t be here. It’s going to upset . . . both of you . . . for no reason.” Ella wheezed and closed her eyes again. “Felix, please.”

Chaos, he was surrounded by chaos, and no one was doing what he needed them to do.

Felix looked down at his hands, clawed and ready to inflict pain if he didn’t get what he wanted. On his pinkie was the family signet ring that had belonged to Pater and Grandfather. And Tom. Every day it connected him to Tom. He raised his fist to his mouth and caught the family crest in his teeth. He would not be a monster; he would not be his father’s son.

He moved up the bed, blocking out Harry and the nurse with his back, trying to collapse the world to him and Ella. Despite the sedative, her eyes widened with the truth.
I’m afraid,
her expression said. The false bravery had been for Harry’s benefit.

“I love you so much, Ella Bella,” he whispered into her ear.
Don’t leave me.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

I love you too,
she mouthed.

He pulled back. “Say good-bye to your mother, Harry. We’re leaving.” Felix placed Ella’s hand on the bed and walked to the door.

Behind him, Harry’s voice, small and childlike: “I love you, Mom.”

Felix kept walking. How many times had he told Ella he loved her? Not enough. He’d never expected a woman to love him back; he’d certainly never expected the woman of his dreams to vow to love him for all eternity. After they met and she left London to be near her father, he had never dared to hope for a different outcome. When she left the second time, after returning five years later, it was as if a part of him had died. And he knew, without doubt, that if she left him for a third time, he would not recover. Without Ella, he could not exist.

FIVE

Mad Max was waiting for them on the doorstep. “Dude—” He rushed forward to give Harry a hug that was all arms, boy odor, and limp, unbrushed hair.

This bizarre relationship seemed to operate beyond the boundaries of normal guy friends. Heterosexual or homosexual, Felix didn’t care, but he couldn’t imagine having a friend he wanted to hug. Nor could he imagine ending a phone call, as Harry had earlier, with
love you, man
. It was hard enough to say
I love you
to Ella.

Felix unlocked the door, and the boys bolted inside before he’d canceled the alarm. Harry’s bedroom door shut with a slam that said
Do not enter, don’t even think about entering unless you know the secret handshake.

The only secrets Felix knew were his own.

He slid the pizza box onto the hand-poured concrete island in the kitchen. Picking up a large pepperoni pizza on the way home had made perfect sense. Although he wasn’t remotely hungry and neither, apparently, was Harry. Maybe the boys would scavenge later.

Time to start on those lists. An organized mind was the key to survival. Lists comforted; lists screamed
I am in control
. First up, though, call Katherine. Her phone went to voice mail; he didn’t leave a message. He started dialing Robert, who was likely in the office, then changed his mind and sent a text.

Ella had a heart attack. She’s in the CCU at Raleigh Regional. I won’t be in tomorrow.

An immediate reply:

What room? We’ll send flowers. Keep me posted.

He was about to type
thank you
when his phone rang.

“Hey, Felix,” Katherine said. “I gather you caused quite a scene at the hospital. Has the nursing staff blacklisted you?”

Felix flicked up the entire row of kitchen light switches. A horrible waste of power, but he had a sudden need to flood the house with artificial light. “It’s been a long, hard day, Katherine.”

“Longer and harder for your wife, I can assure you.”

Cradling the phone between his neck and shoulder, Felix tapped his palm. “What did the cardiologist say?”

“He reiterated what happened and said she did great in the cath lab. They put in a stent, which I gather is how they unblock the artery.”

“I know all this. I want—”

“The location of the blockage means she has something called a widow-maker lesion. Basically, she’s pretty damn lucky to be alive.”

Felix’s left hand began to convulse; his wedding ring became a blur of gold.

“Bottom line—big heart attack, and she’s critical but stable,” Katherine said. “They’ll likely keep her in the CCU for the next twenty-four hours, and then move her onto the cardiac floor with something called telemetry monitoring.”

“What’s her prognosis? How long will they keep her?”

“I couldn’t weasel much out of the doc on either front. He was annoyingly vague, despite my best romance novelist charm.”

Felix nearly said,
I thought you wrote porn for a living.

“She could be here for up to five days—it all depends. As for big-picture thinking, if she learns to manage her risk factors and does well in cardiac rehab, she’ll likely be fine, yada, yada, yada. I get the impression these heart docs don’t like to commit. But the point is that she’s a survivor. That’s what’s important. Oh, and the cardiologist assigned to her will be here at nine thirty in the morning,” Katherine continued. “You might want to arrive in time for that. Without Harry. Ella is adamant that he’s not to return to the hospital.”

“Harry’s going to school tomorrow. His choice,” Felix said.

“How’s he doing?”

“Max is sleeping over. They’re currently barricaded in the Bat Cave.”

Katherine gave a hollow laugh. “How are you doing?”

“Not well. You?”

“Total shit. I’m on deadline but I can’t write. My thoughts aren’t lining up. Know what I mean?”

Actually, he did.

Music—loud and raw—came from Harry’s bedroom. Ambient noise from the CCU drifted down the phone line. Outside, a neighbor’s dog barked.

“And Ella?” Speaking her name, feeling the vibration of
Ella
on his lips . . . He crumpled onto a barstool and tried to support the weight of his head in his hand. But his elbow slid along the top of the island, threatening to knock the pizza to the floor. “Is she in any pain?”

“She’s asleep again. They gave her a ton of happy pills.”

“She doesn’t like taking pills.”

“Oh, she’s enjoying these.”

No matter what he said, Katherine had to contradict. “Would you do me a favor?”

“What?” She sounded wary.

“Stay with her until I get there tomorrow. I don’t want her waking up alone.”

“Do you have to ask?”

“Katherine, can we call a truce?”

She gave another laugh, this one even less sincere. “Sure. But if you upset her again, I’ll beat the shit out of you. And you know I’ll win. Good night, Felix.” And she hung up.

Katherine had a point. Now that she’d taken up boxing, she could pulverize him, but who—male or female—would seek pleasure with a pair of boxing gloves?

Pushing himself away from the smell of pizza, he stared into the living room. Seventeen years of creating this perfect, open-plan cocoon for his family, of grappling with 1950s electrics, of tearing out to rebuild, and suddenly it all seemed pointless. Above the empty fireplace hung the portrait of Ella painted by one of her arty college friends. Felix had never liked oil paintings—real life embellished with heavy brush strokes and globs of paint. This one was particularly grotesque: Ella distorted into
The Scream
.

Felix walked across the living room and faced the night on the other side of the sliding patio doors. Beyond the glass lay an impenetrable screen of mature trees and undergrowth—the black wall of Duke Forest. Since he was a boy, he’d been drawn to small, dark places. A true Brit, he loved to sit in the sun, but he needed shade to feel safe. Ella had wanted a modern colonial with a wraparound porch, a lawn, and a cheerful sun garden—preferably in rural Orange County, outside Chapel Hill. Not Felix. The moment he’d discovered the tree-lined roads of flickering shade that surrounded the Duke campus, it was as if some missing piece of his life—that he hadn’t even known was missing—fell into place.

She had conceded, but not happily. Did she regret her decision? If she had the choice, would they move? He looked down. A foot up from ground level, a raccoon had smeared paw prints on the glass. At least, he assumed it was a raccoon, or some other woodland critter living on the outside, looking in as he had done in the hospital with Ella and Harry.

A small, dark shape with red-glowing eyes lumbered between the trees. A creature existing on nothing but instinct. The security light came on and illuminated an opossum snuffling around. Was it searching for food? Was there a nest of opossum babies to feed? Was the mother guarding the nest? Even in the wild, male and female creatures had their roles. The male was the provider, the mother the nurturer. He had always provided—school fees, a good standard of living with annual trips to England, money for stuffed Christmas stockings. And now?

Felix glanced back at the unopened pizza box. If the top of tomorrow’s to-do list was
send Harry to school on a nutritious breakfast
, the entire day would be ruined before 8:00 a.m.

Felix dragged himself out of bed at six, as Ella always did. Not that he’d slept. He unwrapped himself from the duvet, slipped his feet into the sheepskin slippers Ella had given him for Christmas, and padded down the hall to turn up the thermostat. The compressor rattled to life; heat whooshed up through a floor vent; the humidifier hummed. Moisture levels in the house were down to thirty-three percent. He would fill both water tanks before leaving for the hospital.

He peered through the thin strip of glass that ran the length of the front door. The hand of frost had painted the ground white. Mother would call it a hoarfrost. Harry would need layers for school—something more substantial than the beaten-up leather jacket he treated as a second skin. And a woolly hat. And gloves. And a scarf. Did Harry own winter clothes? They rarely needed them in North Carolina, but this winter was closing in with arctic cold and too many memories of a childhood spent desperate for warmth.

Shivering, Felix wandered into the kitchen and flicked on the recessed lights and the electric kettle. Tea was the way to start the day. And tea wasn’t tea unless it was served in an English bone china mug. He reached up into the cabinet and found his favorite: a Susan Rose Merton College Mug Full of History. Felix brewed his tea and, raising his mug, read the hand-painted words about the city of Oxford. Words that took him back to another place, another time, another life.

He headed into the master bath, the room he had gutted and rebuilt so Ella could have a state-of-the-art shower with multiple jets. It had been her fortieth birthday and tenth wedding anniversary present. He reached inside the shower and turned the dial as far round as it would go. Then he put the mug down on the vanity, slipped his T-shirt over his head, and stepped out of his pajama pants. Catching sight of his flat stomach in the mirror, he sucked it in until his ribs showed. He would never develop a paunch like Pater.

His plan was to shower and shave as he did every morning. Keep moving forward. Wake up the boys, he supposed. Offer them breakfast and push them out of the door. What time did Harry normally leave for school? Should he allow longer if Max was driving? Were student drivers meant to get there early? He didn’t know the routine; he didn’t know the rules.

The day loomed ahead as an unmoored horror. Investment banking, putting together deals, issuing bonds . . . those were in his marrow. Without the structure of work, without the bond market, he wasn’t Felix Fitzwilliam. Today he was someone he’d never been before.

Felix stepped into a cloud of steam. Water vapor misted up his shaving mirror and turned the glass shower doors opaque. He braced his arms against the tiled wall and let needles of scalding water pummel his body. But still he couldn’t erase Katherine’s words from the night before: “Harder for your wife.”

Returning home after a girls’ night out the other week, Ella had said, “Why do you make everything so hard, Felix?” Had he made her life too hard—driven her heart to fail? Decisions were hard, relationships were hard, life was hard, and according to Ella, he made it harder.

For seventeen years, he’d been waiting for his wife to wake up and say, “You know what? I deserve better than you.” And he would have agreed. That’s the thing—he would have agreed. He wished she had left him, because then she might be healthy: Ella Bella without the stress of being Mrs. Fitzwilliam.

Rocking back, he slammed the flats of his hands on either side of his head. All the thoughts, he needed them gone.

Everyone would expect him to weep and wail, but he hadn’t cried since he was six years old and Tom saved his life. He knew, with certainty, that Pater, who’d never lashed him more than once before, would have killed him that day. Felix was twenty and up at Oxford when his father died. He’d felt nothing. Even when Tom was diagnosed with AIDS, Felix hadn’t cried. He’d become the master of concealed emotions.

Felix slid to his knees. On the floor of his shower, with his skin beginning to burn, he prayed to be numb.

Harry was dreaming about Sammie, the hot new girl in tenth grade. It was summer and they were at Kerr Lake, and she was wearing a red bikini. But Dad was rising out of the lake like Godzilla, cawing at him, “Get up, Harry! Get up!”

Harry shot up, heart pounding on jackhammer overdrive. No hot tenth grader, no summer weather, and Mom was in the hospital. And Dad . . . Dad was standing in the bedroom doorway, weaving around looking totally batshit. His hair was wet and sticking up like he’d been zapped with a high-voltage cable. Eyes bloodshot; skin beet red. Had he tried to boil himself like a lobster?

The numbers flashed 7:30 a.m. on his digital alarm clock. For real?

Harry sprang out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake us, Dad?”

“I just did.”

“Wake up, Maxi-Pad!” Harry grabbed and jostled his psychedelic beanbag. Max was buried in a nest on top of it with the duvet from the guest bedroom. “Dad let us oversleep.”