The Repeat Year (14 page)

“Let me call you later. I can explain—” But Christopher just brushed past her.

“Don’t worry. He’ll come around,” Phil said. He’d suggested they take a stroll around the neighborhood before the drive back to Madison because it was such a lovely, unseasonably warm night. He’d always admired her family’s neighborhood with its impressive brick houses, old-fashioned streetlights, smooth white sidewalks, and cul-de-sacs. Phil had grown up in an antiquated farmhouse in the country with no neighbors for miles.

“I don’t know about that,” Olive said. “You don’t have any siblings, so you don’t know the wrath of one. And Christopher is a champion grudge holder. He’s still mad at me for stealing his favorite Pound Puppy and decorating it with pink and purple puffy paint.”

“You forget my mom comes from a family of seven sisters, and someone’s always in the dog house. They take turns.”

“I should’ve warned him. He would’ve handled it better if I had told him ahead of time.” She was beginning to think what a good ally Phil would be in all of this. Tonight he had held her hand when she’d needed his strength. He had spoken up and tried to defuse the situation. She wished she could tell him the whole truth. He usually had such sound advice. He was logical and fair and tried to view a problem from multiple points of view. He would get her safely through this situation with her family. If only she could confide in him.

“Warned him? But you didn’t know for sure, right? Cut yourself some slack. You had just as much right as Christopher to get upset, but you were much more mature about it. He’s the one who should be brooding over his conduct, not you.”

Olive hugged her thin jacket to her sides. If Phil only knew how the tables had been turned. “I almost started laughing when my mom said it. It just seemed so funny, you know? Not that they’re getting married, but the pomp and circumstance of it all. The candles, the music, the china, the wine. ‘Kids, we have some news.’ It all felt so rehearsed, I almost lost it. Can you imagine? I was almost in tears thinking about how my dad used to call her Hepburn. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just be happy for her?”

They continued down the street in thoughtful silence. When they came to the end of the block, Phil grabbed her hand.

“You can’t just manufacture emotions,” he said. “You feel what you feel. When my parents got divorced, everyone felt so sorry for me. But really, it was probably one of the happiest times in my childhood. Finally, my dad would leave my mom and me alone. At least that was the idea.”

Phil had told her only pieces of his childhood and adolescence at a time, ashamed of their dissimilar upbringings and circumstances. His parents had divorced when he was ten years old, which was years after Charlie had started disappearing for months at a time, only returning home drunk and belligerent to ask Carol for money. Even after the divorce, Charlie would stop “for a visit,” as he put it, when he was in the area, regardless of whether they were home. Phil would return from school never knowing what might be missing from their house: the window air conditioner, gardening tools, the framed collection of rare coins Charlie had given him for his seventh birthday. They reported the thefts to the police, and Carol got a restraining order, but nothing seemed to help.

Then one evening when Phil was a sophomore in high school, he and his mom returned home after an all-day golf tournament to find a semi cab parked in their driveway. Phil pleaded with his mom to let him go in and confront his dad or at the very least, call the cops, but she made a quick U-turn and drove to one of his aunt’s houses to spend the night instead. As far as they could tell, nothing had been taken, but it appeared that he’d slept in Carol’s bed, showered, and made himself some breakfast (there was a telltale crusty skillet in the sink). He’d ripped a sheet of paper out of Phil’s geometry notebook and left it on the table like a note, but there was no message written on it, as if there were no words for him to explain himself. After that night, they didn’t hear from Charlie for nine years; they hypothesized that he was either locked up or dead. Phil had admitted to Olive once that he’d preferred the latter possibility. But in April 2010, he showed up again—out of jail and six months sober—and Phil had been working on forgiving him ever since.

“Oh, Phil,” she said. “You went through so much. That was a terrible situation for you.”

They had stopped in front of a home with a pair of rooftop dormers and two white columns supporting the front porch. As a child, Olive had been reminded of a friendly face. Phil pulled her into a hug and rested his chin lightly on top of her head.

“And you don’t think losing your dad to cancer at fifty-one is a terrible situation? And then trying to single-handedly pick up your mom and hold the pieces of your family together? No wonder you’re a little suspicious of Harry. You have every right to be protective of this family.”

“Thank you for that.” She wiggled out from under Phil’s chin and looked over his shoulder. The sky was thick with clouds, not a star in sight. Against the sky, the stark, intricate branches of a tree looked like black lace.

“Did you return the ring?” she whispered into his neck.

“Why? Have you changed your mind?” He drew away from her and looked down into her eyes.

“I guess I’d just feel a lot better if I knew you still had it.”

“Would you?” He smiled and started to amble back toward her mom’s house.

She followed him. “Phil, I—”

“Want to get engaged now since it seems like the ‘in’ thing to do?” he teased in a playful tone. “That Harry’s a trendsetter.”

She tugged on his arm until he stopped in his tracks.

“Of course I still have the ring, Ollie. Did you really think I’d give up on you that easily? I’ve known I wanted to marry you since May third, 2008.”

“May third?”

“We were sitting on the pier when a pair of ducks came along. You wanted to feed them, but we had nothing to give, so you ran to the Union and came back with a bunch of stale hamburger buns. The ducks had left by then, but they came back when you started tossing bits of bread into the water. Soon, we had a whole flock of them surrounding us on the pier, and you were so happy. You were laughing and trying to toss the bread far to the little ones who couldn’t get up close to the pier. You’re always looking out for others. Even the timid ducks. You’re so loving. So kind.”

She didn’t deserve him. Her conscience clamored to correct him. She was unfaithful, petty, selfish. Too afraid to fess up to her mistakes.

He linked his arm through hers and pushed her forward. Olive’s house was in view now. It didn’t look like any of the lights were still on. Harry and her mom had retired for the night. Or maybe Harry had left, and her mom was all alone, sitting on her bed, looking at a wedding photo on her nightstand.

“I’ve never told you this before, Ollie, because I didn’t want to make you sad. I wanted to save it for the right time. The week your dad died—” His voice quavered, and he paused. Her dad had been like a father to Phil in the year they’d known each other. Phil let out a deep breath and continued. “I asked him for his blessing to marry you one day. He knew he wouldn’t be there to walk you down the aisle, but he said it would make it a little easier to say good-bye to you knowing that you wouldn’t be alone and would never be without love in your life.”

She was so engulfed in emotion, she couldn’t speak. Her tears made the glowing streetlights look like small comets. He continued to guide her, and Olive wondered if her dad had known she would need someone like Phil to watch out for her, especially in the years following his death.

Chapter 10

W
e’ve got a full house,” Gloria said. “The ER just called, and they want to send up two MVC victims from that Beltline accident, but we don’t have a single empty bed.”

“I can free up a bed,” Kevin said. “I’ve got a patient recovering from a modified radical mastectomy. The OR sent her up earlier this morning for observation because she was a little too hypotensive, but she’s doing fine now.”

“Great. Send her down to oncology.” Gloria picked up the phone to call the ER.

Kevin turned to Olive. “I think she might still be a little loopy from the anesthesia. She’s been saying some odd things. Do you think I should tell Gloria before we transfer her?”

“What kind of odd things?” Olive asked.

Kevin frowned. “A lot of mumbling about years, particularly 2011 and 2012. She doesn’t seem to know what year it is. Then something about being trapped here as punishment for something she’d done wrong. I couldn’t make most of it out.”

Olive gingerly set down her coffee cup for fear she’d spill it in her excitement. Was it possible that there was another person experiencing a repeat year right here in the ICU? She’d known there was a reason she’d said yes when Toya had called her this morning to see if she could come in and work extra. Last year she had turned her down, maintaining that she already had plans for the day, inventing a bridal shower for her mom on the spur of the moment. Really she just hadn’t wanted to go out in the rain.

But today had been different—still raining, but different. Phil was at a weekend golf tournament with his team in Waukesha, and a certain restlessness that had nothing to do with the weather had crept over her. Except for her reconciliation with Phil, she was starting to realize that she hadn’t deviated too far from last year’s path. She needed to make more changes, take more risks. She needed to put herself in a place she hadn’t been last year and see what happened. So when Toya called, before she could come up with an excuse to stay home, her lips said yes.

Now she was glad she had. Her willingness to come in to work today had maybe put her in the path of another repeater. Maybe one that needed her help.

“Can I see her?” Olive asked Kevin. She was trying not to get her hopes up too high. Lots of people mumbled strange things when they were coming out of anesthesia.

“Be my guest. Just hurry.”

Kevin’s patient’s room was one of the few rooms that actually had an outside window. Rain dribbled down the glass, blurring the world outside. The lights were dimmed. A lumpy figure was partially concealed under the gray blanket. Red hair fell across the pillow.

“Sherry?” Olive whispered.

She seemed smaller. Her chest looked vulnerable and caved in where her right breast had been; the hospital gown hung awkwardly over the spot. Sherry’s face was stripped, makeup free: no eyebrows, a pale shapeless mouth. If it hadn’t been for her tiny, round nose and red-and-gray-striped hair, Olive wouldn’t have been sure that it was her.

Sherry opened her eyes. She didn’t look surprised to see Olive. Maybe she thought she was just another nurse.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like someone just chopped off a part of my body,” Sherry muttered. She clutched at the blanket with her IV-taped hand and tried to pull it up over her shoulders. The tubing caught and the needle tugged at her skin. Sherry flinched.

“Let me help you.”

Sherry’s face crumpled like the face of a child on the verge of tears. She flung her hand out, caught Olive’s hip, and left it there. She held on to Olive. “I didn’t go through with it last year. I did it now. I did it.”

Kevin poked his head in the room. “What do you think? All clear? The ER patient’s on the way.”

“She’s doing well,” Olive said, and gently returned Sherry’s hand to her side. “Much more alert and awake. I think she’ll be just fine.” She looked down at Sherry. “Your blood pressure has normalized now. You don’t need to be in the ICU anymore. We’re going to transfer you to the oncology inpatient floor, where they’ll take really good care of you, and you’ll have more privacy, a nicer bed, fewer machines. They’ll probably keep you overnight.” She lowered her voice so Kevin couldn’t hear the rest. “I work until seven o’clock tonight. I’ll come visit you then.” She didn’t know if Sherry had heard or understood her. She looked eerily indistinguishable from any of Olive’s patients.

The ICU was so demanding the rest of the day that Olive had very little time to think of Sherry. Yet as she changed the dressing on Mr. Ewing’s abdominal wound, she thought:
breast cancer.
Probably very advanced if they’d removed her whole breast and lymph nodes. As she filled Mrs. Bhadra’s feeding pump, she wondered if anyone had known about Sherry. Had her mom known? Did Sherry’s son know? Her ex-husbands? Had Sherry confided in anyone? And as she tried to complete her charts for the night, one question kept floating up to the surface of her consciousness: What had happened to Sherry last year?

At ten after seven, Olive made her way to the oncology floor. It was well after visiting hours, but she didn’t think anyone would bother her wearing her scrubs and ID badge. She looked at the patient board behind the nursing station for Sherry Witan’s room number.

Sherry was in a double room, but the other bed was unoccupied. Propped up by pillows, she was watching a baseball game with the sound turned low. Her eyes flicked briefly to Olive as she entered the room and then back to the TV.

“Do you like baseball, or is this the only channel you get?” Olive asked.

“I’ve made a lot of money through the years predicting the outcomes of games,” Sherry said. “Watch this. Braun’s about to hit a triple.”

Her color was improving. Plummy like a baby in an incubator. Sherry had the sheet pulled up as far as it would go—up to her chin—as if to disguise her altered body. Olive sat down in the upholstered chair beside the bed, and still Sherry’s eyes remained on the TV.

“When were you diagnosed?” Olive asked.

Sherry shook her head. “Last thing I want to talk about.”

“Tell me about your son, then. Heathcliff.”

She turned to face Olive, her lips stretched as thin as taut rubber bands. “Are you always this impertinent with your patients?”

“You’re not my patient.”

Far away, a baseball bat cracked, and the crowd roared. Sherry shifted in her bed.

“He’s nineteen. Studying at the University of Michigan. He’s handsome like his father: my second husband, Norman. Got stuck with my temperament, though.”

“Does he know about this?”

“No one does. And they’re not going to.” Sherry fumbled for the remote, which was tangled up in the sheet.

“What about this year, Sherry? Why do you think you’re here? What are you changing?”

“I don’t want to talk about this. I didn’t ask you to come visit me. You wouldn’t even have known if you hadn’t wandered into my room by accident.”

“Do you really think that was an accident? I wasn’t even supposed to work today. This year—someone—
something
is bringing us together. I want to help you, Sherry.”

“I’ll bet you twenty bucks the Brewers win in extra innings.”

“Sherry.”

A steakhouse commercial came on. Country-western music filled the room; a steak sizzled on a grill.

“Do you know what simply bewilders me? The fact that I’m given the chance to live some years over and not others,” Sherry said.

Olive thought of her dad and how they had driven to Lake Mendota four months before he died. She and Christopher had taken turns pushing his wheelchair; her mom had walked beside them. It was a humid August morning, and a foul stench rose up from the lake, but Olive’s dad made them all stop and watch the crew team skimming across the water like mayflies. She would’ve given almost anything to relive that moment with her dad.

“For example: 1994. Nineteen ninety-four was a trainwreck. We’d moved to Waco for Norman’s job. Heath was two and slowly draining away my will to live. There was this supermarket—I can’t remember the name of it now—but they had free childcare while you shopped. I’d spend hours at the supermarket and come home with just a box of cake mix or a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. Norman went out of town for a business trip one week, and I was at my wit’s end. I didn’t know anyone in town, and I was dying to see the new
Little Women
film adaptation. I asked the lady next door to watch Heath for a little while, so I could go to the theater.

“But when I came back two hours later, she didn’t answer her door. All the lights were off, and her car wasn’t in the garage. I called the police. They asked me all these questions that made me seem like an awful, negligent mother. I’d left my baby with a total stranger to see a movie? Where was my husband? I had to call Norman and ask him to come home early. He was furious with me. He’d left for four days, and I’d lost our son.

“It took them forty-eight hours to find Heath—the worst forty-eight hours of my life. Our neighbor had driven him all the way to Fort Worth, where her daughter lived. Not a hair on his head had been harmed, thank God. It was hard for the police to know if she’d had any malicious intentions or if it was just some misunderstanding, mostly on my part, so they didn’t book her with much. I, however, was under permanent suspicion from then on. Even my toddler didn’t seem to trust me.

“I prayed on New Year’s Eve that I would be given a chance to relive the year and fix my mistakes like I had ten years earlier. But I woke up the next morning in 1995.”

Olive kept quiet. She suspected that Sherry wasn’t finished yet. The neck of her hospital gown had fallen forward as she talked and revealed the bloodied pink edge of a bandage.

“Then, two years later, my prayer was answered.” Sherry laughed bitterly. “But I didn’t want it then. I thought my life was finally getting better. Norman and I were separated. I’d moved back to Madison. Heath was in half-day kindergarten, and he spent the summer with his dad. I’d met someone new. But boy, was I wrong about everything. I met your mom that second time around. She got me a part-time job shelving books and invited me to join her book club. What an angel your mom is.”

Sherry sank back into her pillows. “If you’re waiting for a moral, there isn’t one. I’m just babbling. See? Didn’t I tell you the Brewers would win?” She turned off the television, and suddenly the room was silent.

Olive moved closer to the bed. Her chair scraped against the floor. “You told me to think of this year as a blessing. A second chance. Can’t you see that’s what you’ve been given? You can beat this, Sherry. I’ll help you.”

“But why not 2009, a missed mammogram? Or 2010, my year of failed homeopathic remedies? Why 2011, when it’s already too late?” She gestured helplessly toward her lopsided chest. “I’ll tell you why. Because repeat years aren’t just redoes for quick fixes. They’re last chances.”

Olive scrambled to come up with something to say to give Sherry hope. She could tell her that nearly every year the number of women who died from breast cancer decreased by one to two percent. Or she could encourage her to open up to Olive’s mom about this, so she wouldn’t feel so alone. But what she really wanted to suggest was that Sherry contact Heath and try to reconcile things with him. However, all of these sentiments sounded like something you would tell a dying patient.

A young nurse with glasses came into the room carrying an IV drip bag. She seemed startled to find Olive there. “How are you feeling, Ms. Witan?”

“Like I’m missing a piece of myself,” Sherry said.

“She needs her rest now,” the nurse said to Olive. She detached the empty IV bag and hung up the new one. “It’s okay to grieve for the loss of your breast,” she said in a practiced voice to Sherry. “Many women do. Have you considered reconstructive surgery?”

Olive lingered in the doorway for a moment. Sherry didn’t seem to notice when she left. She slipped her arms into her jacket sleeves and wondered if she’d accomplished anything at all by coming here.

“Hold on,” a voice called after her. It was Sherry’s nurse. “Ms. Witan wanted me to tell you she’s glad you came.” The light winked off the nurse’s glasses.

Olive wished she could go home to Phil and tell him about Sherry. She wouldn’t even be able to reach him by phone tonight because he was taking the boys out for pizza and bowling. He’d be driving home late tomorrow afternoon. She thought about going straight to bed.

Outside, she inhaled her first breath of nonhospital air since six forty-five that morning. It smelled of car exhaust and worms, but it was still lovely. The rain had finally let up, and everything seemed the better for it.