What the Dog Ate (34 page)

“No, you’re not. It’s me. I’m the
idiot. I should’ve realized; I should’ve gone by myself. But I...”

“You just didn’t want to go alone.
Am I right? You didn’t want to be the ‘single one’ at the party. I was just
someone to have on your arm. I could have been anybody. How could you be so...
selfish?” His voice caught on the words. He looked up at the ceiling and she
saw that he tried to fight back tears.

Oh God, this is
not going well
. This was not the touching “We’ll always have Boston”
scene she’d rehearsed in her head.
Say something nice; try
to make him feel better
.

“You’re right. I was selfish. But I
really did like you. I
do
like you—you’re brilliant
and handsome and sweet and...”

He looked back at her. His forehead
was crumpled, but his lop-sided smile, that she’d always found so adorable,
struggled to come out.

OK—this is
better. Keep going
. “I’m so sorry. I’d never intentionally hurt you.”

He went to sit beside her again.
His sad eyes glanced at her, then he looked down at his hands.
Come on, Brian, say something. Show me that you’re OK with all
this
.

“Maybe...” he started, then
stopped.
Say “maybe we can be friends.”
She willed
him to say it. He cleared his throat. “Maybe... it was too soon for me to go
meet your family. Maybe that was just a bad idea on both our parts.”
There you go. See; it’s not all my fault. Come on now, say it...
“let’s be friends.”
He clutched her hands. “Maybe we were just moving too
fast. Maybe... you could give us another chance.”
Oh, crap
.
“Maggie, I think I’m...” He licked his lips and searched her eyes. “I could be
really good for you. Can’t you give this a little more thought?”

“Brian—,” she started, but he
buried his head in her lap before she could say another word. At least he’d let
go of her hands, which he’d been crushing.
Ow
, she
mouthed over his bent head as she shook her hands out. “Look, Brian...”

“No!” His words were muffled by her
skirt. “Don’t say anything yet. You’re tired. It was a long, emotional trip.
You should go home and think about it and... and... in the morning, you’ll see
that I’m right. We’re good together.”

“Brian, I have thought about it. I
thought about it for hours on the flight home. I thought about everything,
especially how adorable you were with Beth. And I have a feeling you want
kids—and you know I don’t. We, we just don’t want the same things.”

“No.” He looked up, a tear streamed
down his face. “I don’t
have
to have kids.”

“Brian, listen to yourself. That’s
crazy. Things are just not going to work out for us. Please, you see that,
right?”

“No, I don’t understand any of
this. I thought everything was great. You invited me on that trip. Your mom
asked me if I’d be there at Christmas. My mother thinks you sound great.”

“You talk to your mom about us?”

“I talk to her about everything.
And she thought it sounded like you liked me. She wanted me to bring you home
at Christmas. She—” He sank to the floor and wrapped his arms around her legs.
She felt wet tears on her bare feet.

Oh God. I’ve
got to get him pulled together and get out of here
. She struggled to
slip her legs out of his grip. “Please, sit up. Talk to me. Up here, on the
sofa.” She pulled at him, then gave up and rubbed his back as he wept.

The phone rang. She heard his
greeting on the answering machine, then a woman’s voice. “Hello, Bunny! I guess
you’re not at home... I know you said your Magpie’s back, so I suppose you’re
out on the town with your lovebird. I’ll speak to you later.”

Magpie? Lovebird?
She calls him “Bunny”?!

Brian lifted his head from the
floor. He sniffled. “I need you to leave. I need to call my mother.” He got up
and moved toward the phone.

She grabbed her shoes and purse.
She looked back from the foyer.
OK, I guess we’re done
here... but, he’s not even going to say goodbye to me? After all that?
She heard him dial and choke out the word, “Mother.”

She opened the door and harsh light
flooded in from the hall. He looked up; put his hand over the phone. “Wait,
Maggie...”
Finally. He’s going to say goodbye at least
.
“You shouldn’t come to the museum anymore.” He turned back to the phone, turned
his back on her.

~~~

The next morning, her phone rang at
5:30. She felt like she’d only fallen asleep minutes ago, after tossing and
turning most of the night. She’d never broken anyone’s heart before and she lay
in bed for hours thinking about it.
Was there a better way
I could have handled it? A phone call? ‘Dear Brian’ email? Sure, that would
have been easier for me, but...
Of course, the pain was nothing like
being the broken-hearted one, but it was no fun being the heart-breaker either.
And now I can’t even go to the museum anymore. Crap
.

When she’d finally fallen asleep,
she dreamt she was standing naked in the main gallery. She tried to cover
herself with two exhibit pamphlets as a patron asked her to please go tell a
loud, rude man to get off his cell phone. The man morphed into Brian, sobbing
into his phone. He dropped the phone when he saw her, only it didn’t clatter as
it hit the floor; it rang. Loudly.

Now, realizing it was her own
phone, her heart pounded as if she’d actually just run naked through the
museum. She bolted up and grabbed it.

“Sweetie?” Gram sounded faint and
fragile.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie felt panic
rising in her.

“Your Mom, she’s on her way to the
hospital.” Gram started to cry. “I think you need to come, as soon as
possible.”

Maggie told Gram to take a deep
breath and tell her exactly what was going on. Gram told her they’d gotten home
from their two-day drive back from Boston the night before. Mom had decided to
spend the night at Gram’s. She was tired from all the driving.

“Thank God she was here. If she’d
gone home, I don’t know what might have happened.”

“What
did
happen? What’s going on?” Maggie tried to stay calm and keep Gram focused.

Gram said she’d gotten up this
morning and was making coffee, when Mom came out, weaving a little. “Her face
was ashy; she fell and I called 911 right away. They just left. They’re taking
her to emergency. I haven’t even gotten dressed yet.”

“OK, Gram, take a cab to the
hospital. Have Humphrey go with you. When you know something, call Shay. I hope
I’ll be in the air by then. Shay can leave a message on my cell.”

They hung up and Maggie started
making frantic calls. A United flight was leaving in three hours. She could
make it if she hurried.

She called Shannon while she threw
clothes in her suitcase, still open on the bedroom floor from Sunday. Shannon
wanted to fly down too, but Maggie suggested she wait to hear more. If the worst
had happened, they’d all be too late anyway, but hopefully they would get her
to the hospital in time and everything would be fine.

“Don’t call Kev yet,” she told Shannon.
“There’s no point interrupting their honeymoon until we know more. Shit, I’ve
got to figure out what to do with Kona.” She realized she should probably take
him along, since she had no idea how long she’d be away. Besides, they’d flown
with him before and she knew the drill. She had a crate and some doggie-downers
they used to calm him on long car rides. “I’ve gotta call United and make sure
Kona can get on the flight. I’ll call you when I land.”

On the way to the airport she
called Stephen and left him a message that there’d been an emergency and she’d
check in later.

Finally she called Dave. He
expressed concern for her mother, but she cut him off. “Someone’s got to water
the plants in case the realtor shows the house. Can you do it?” She hated to
ask him for anything, but, after all, it was his house too and he should have
to help with some of the hassle of selling it. When he agreed, she added, “I,
uh, didn’t really sell your stupid TV. Go ahead and take it.” She hung up
without waiting for his reply.

On the plane, heading cross-country
for the third time in a week, she was faced, again, with several hours of
thinking and worrying. She worried about what she’d find when she got there.
Worried about Gram, if the worst did happen. Worried about Kona, who was
probably at this minute trying to claw his way out of his crate. She couldn’t be
certain, but she thought she’d heard howling coming from the belly of the plane
when she’d gotten on board.

Maggie and Kona, his crate filling
most of the cab’s backseat, had no choice but to go to Mom’s house first. She
was anxious to get to the hospital, but there was no way, since she had to get
Kona settled.

She knew Mom had made it through
surgery; there was a message from Shay on her cell when she landed, and she’d
also called Gram. Gram had gone home to rest once the triple by-pass was done.
Things were still dicey and Mom was in ICU. The nurses promised to call Gram if
there were any changes.

Maggie asked the cab driver to
wait. She put Kona out back so he could go potty, then set down food and water.
She took the cab to Gram’s, went up for a thorough hugging and the car keys,
and then headed to the hospital in Mom’s car with directions scribbled on a
torn envelope.

She wound through the hospital maze
to ICU. A nurse showed her to Mom’s room.

Maggie put her hand to her mouth.
Luckily she saw Mom’s chest lift as she slept or Maggie would have thought
there was just some delay in moving her to the morgue. Her face was gray as an
old tennis shoe. Her skin sagged; her mouth hung open.

The nurse told her Mom was resting
comfortably and the surgery had been successful.
This is
the look of success? What would she look like if it’d gone badly?
The
nurse said the doctor could tell her more and would be by shortly, then went
back to her station.

When the doctor came in, with his
thick dark hair and glasses, he looked every bit the made-for-TV doctor. Maggie
wondered if all his patients fell in love with him. Until he spoke.

“You the patient’s daughter?” he
asked without looking at her. She said yes while he flipped the pages of Mom’s
chart, she assumed just for show.
How could he really be
reading any of it that fast?
He checked his shiny gold watch and said,
while scribbling notes, “When people have blockages as bad as your mother’s,
most of them drop dead before they make it to the hospital. And even then, the
majority don’t last forty-eight hours.”

It’s only been
like twelve hours. What’s he saying?

“But we fully expect her to
recover. The surgery went extremely well.” Maggie half-expected him to exhale
on his fingernails and polish them on his blue scrubs. “If she takes better
care of herself, she could live another twenty or thirty years.” He walked out
before Maggie could ask any questions.

She realized she’d been holding her
breath. She let it out and dropped to the hard chair next to the bed, with its
bleach-masked-by-artificial-citrus smell. She reached for her cell.
Gotta call Gram with the update first, oh, and remind her to call
Aunt D; then I’ll call Shay and Kev
. Mom stirred.

“Ted?” Her voice was hoarse, her eyes
unfocused.

Oh God, she’s
calling for Daddy
. “No, Mom, it’s me, Maggie. You’re in the hospital.
You’re gonna be OK.” She felt for Mom’s hand under the sheet. “Mom?”

But she’d already shut her eyes and
dropped under again.

While Mom slept, Maggie made her
calls. She talked to Kevin for some time. At first he insisted he and Annie
should fly back right away, but Maggie finally convinced him there was no need
to cut their honeymoon short. He promised he’d check in again soon. When she’d
called everyone, she tried to read an old
Good Housekeeping
she found on a stand. She was mindlessly flipping pages when the nurse came in.

“Need to check on your mom.” The
plump nurse, in lavender scrubs and a matching hair-scrunchie, smiled at
Maggie. She untucked the blankets at the end of the bed and felt Mom’s feet.
“Need to see if her feet are warm; check her circulation,” she explained. She
shook her head enthusiastically. “These are not the feet of a
sixty-six-year-old woman.”

Maggie wasn’t sure how to respond
to that.
Thank you? Or: “We O’Connell women are known for
our youthful feet.”
She just smiled back.

“Really, your mother has the most
beautiful skin. I can see you got that from her, you lucky thing. She doesn’t
look a day over sixty.”

“Thanks,” Maggie said. She reassessed
her mom. She really did look much younger than her sixty-six years, well, when
she was outside of a hospital bed anyway and had a bit of color in her cheeks.
Maggie wondered if any men were chasing after her.

A steady flow of staff breezed in
and out that evening, checking on Mom, performing tests, all of them telling
Maggie not to worry.
What an insanely hard job. I could
never be a nurse. Although it would be nice to have a job where you made people
feel better
.

When the nurses assured her Mom would
be fine through the night, she went home to Kona and crashed. It was only eight o’clock back in San Diego, but she was exhausted from all the drama of yesterday and
today. She was still half on East Coast time anyway, having just left Boston on
Sunday, although that felt like it was weeks ago.

The next morning, Mom was awake
when she got to the hospital.

“You gave us quite a scare, Mom.
But you’re going to be fine.”