There was another pause.
“She won’t take it.”
“You sure she’s okay?”
“I guess. I mean, she seems okay.”
Mike could hear Fawn talking in the background. If he went home now, he’d have to read the rest of this stuff tonight, after she fell asleep, which was fine, he could do the MRIs and CTs. He didn’t have the right monitor for plain films, though. His partners had been covering for him, but that couldn’t go on forever. He’d have to buy a high-resolution screen, never mind the money.
Mike told Rebecca he would try to leave early. “Call me if she starts acting weird, okay?”
The shadow hadn’t moved off. Mike stuck his head into the hall. Shayla stood there.
“Sorry. I just stopped by about that mammogram?”
Mike tore through the rest of the films and snuck out the back at four forty-five. On the way home, he thought of Shayla. Later he’d berate himself for getting distracted. For now, and despite the danger he’d sensed at her house this afternoon, Mike thought of her sweater, her hair, and imagined the two of them in San Francisco eating Mexican or sushi, then a walk back to the hotel and slow, quiet sex the way he liked it, with whispers. Afterward he would be allowed to fall asleep.
At home, Fawn lay in her spot on the left side of the couch staring at one of those cop shows, the ones that always began with some poor dead girl.
“Hey, honey, how are you?”
She turned and opened her mouth but nothing came out. Then a little grunt escaped and she frowned.
“Did you take your medicine?”
She just looked at him. In the kitchen he checked her pillboxes: purple for morning, yellow for afternoon, red for evening. Behind them a whiteboard with the day of the week and beside it a computer Mike had programmed to beep and play “It’s time to take your medication.” Still, she’d forgotten her noon meds, which is why she couldn’t speak. Normally, he made sure she took them when he came home for lunch.
Mike went to the bottom of the stairs, ready to shout at Rebecca. Hadn’t she noticed her mother’s words beginning to slur? How long had she been upstairs?
Pounding rap music and a black man’s voice filtered down. Gonna ride you like a freaky train / Bitch all up inside my brain / I’m thinkin’ what I lost and gained / feelin’ if it worth the pain.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Mike took a deep breath and smelled Shayla. On his hands. Though he’d washed at least four, five times.
In the kitchen he washed again, this time with stinging hot water and dish soap, a strongly scented citrus type that cut grease “magically.” Then he poured a glass of water and went back in the living room, Fawn’s pills like little pink bullets in his palm.
Shayla’s ex had wanted the divorce. The request stunned her as much for its delivery as its content, so matter-of-fact, as if divorce were a reasonable improvement whose time had come. After he moved out, friends and family kept asking how she felt. For a while she gave the right answers, until the day she realized she’d been lying. She’d confused expecting to be devastated with actually being devastated. One day Shayla decided not to be devastated, and discovered it was easy. Like taking off one outfit and putting on another.
She supposed now she wore the outfit of a mistress, except she didn’t feel like one. Fawn had had a stroke three years ago, a freak kind of thing that left her permanently disabled. Mike didn’t speak of it in those terms, though. He hardly spoke of it at all. After they started sleeping together, the subject of Fawn was off limits. Shayla tried hard to resist the urge to probe for more information from his partners or the radiology techs, but it was like a scab she couldn’t stop picking at. Not because she wanted Mike to leave Fawn. Truth be told, Mike annoyed her at times. He talked too much, and insisted on things that seemed to defy certainty, like whether God exists, or whether there’s intelligent life somewhere besides Earth. Still, something about Mike and Fawn fascinated her.
That evening Shayla stared out her kitchen window, mulling this while a filet of grouper browned and a cold wind plucked the leaves from her silver maple. She’d already changed into pajamas and planned to watch the news over dinner, so when the phone rang she let the machine pick up. With the exhaust fan running, she could hear her mother’s voice, but couldn’t make out her words. Shayla decided to listen to the message after dinner. If it wasn’t important, she’d call back tomorrow.
Except later, on the couch, the message light blinking in her peripheral vision, she kept wondering what her mother wanted. It couldn’t be urgent. If it were, wouldn’t Norma have called her cell? Norma had no one else nearby to call. Shayla’s brother lived two hours away, in a big house on a man-made lake with his Canadian wife and four French-speaking kids. She counted back. Could it be last Christmas that she saw them? It bothered her enough to lay down her fork and think. Yes. Almost eleven months. They’d met at Norma’s the first week of December so Rick could spend the real Christmas in Quebec with his in-laws.
Shayla wondered if she’d see Rick for the holidays once their mother died. What else would change? Nothing came to her. That seemed wrong, so Shayla kept thinking, but there was nothing. Norma would be gone. That was it.
Once Fawn recovered her words, Mike asked if she was hungry.
“I am always hungry. Where is dinner?”
It hit him then that he’d forgotten to pick it up. “I thought we might order pizza.”
“It’s Monday, Mike. We get Olive Garden on Monday.”
For a moment he was happy. She knew it was Monday! Then he realized that from where he’d left her, sitting at the kitchen table with a fresh Pepsi, she could probably read the white board. She’d remembered Olive Garden, though. That counted for something.
“I know, I just felt like pizza.”
“Well, I don’t. I don’t like pizza. You know I don’t like pizza.”
“Okay, that’s fine. What do you want?”
“Ravioli. I always get ravioli from Olive Garden. Don’t change the schedule. I don’t like it when you change the schedule.”
Mike stuck his head in the dining room, where Middie and the youngest, Abby, sat doing homework. “I’ll be right back. You want the usual?”
They nodded without looking up.
“Your mother’s in the kitchen. If she wants to go back to the living room, can you help her?” Fawn got around pretty well with the walker, but it never hurt to have someone spotting her, especially this late in the day. His fuck-ups — the pills missed, dinner forgotten — meant it was already six thirty, only an hour before meltdown.
As he stepped into the garage, Fawn yelled, “And do not forget the breadsticks!”
After he fed her — Fawn could use a fork, but sometimes her hand veered off course, and he didn’t need her poking out the one good eye — Mike gave her a second breadstick. While she worked at it, holding it in her fist like a two-year-old, he loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the counters and put away the leftovers. Fawn had drunk the last Pepsi for dinner. If he hurried, he could start a load of laundry, put her to bed, run out to the store, and still catch the Bears’ kickoff.
Mike’s cell rang. He picked it up without looking at the screen and Shayla’s voice startled him. He glanced at Fawn. There was never any telling when she’d come in or out. For now, at least, she appeared absorbed in her breadstick.
He stepped into the foyer, making for his study, where he could shut the door.
“I’m sorry to bug you at home,” Shayla began.
“I’m busy.”
The girls had gone upstairs and Mike glanced toward the heat register, whose duct fed his study and, above that, Rebecca’s bedroom. He could go outside, except that would look suspicious.