Leave Me
He said all this with such eye-rolling nonchalance that Maribeth understood the source of the blustering. Every relationship, no matter how equitable-seeming, had someone who had more power, more charisma, more something. It was hard to be the beta.
“I had a friend like that once,” Maribeth said.
“A slob?”
“Not a slob. Just, you know, someone I was really close to. We even lived together.”
“Did it suck?”
They exchanged a look then, fleeting but telling. “No. It was pretty wonderful actually.”
Todd seemed to deflate. He stopped pounding the steering wheel and slumped in his seat. Then in a different, quieter voice he said, “The truth is, the only thing I don’t love about living with Sunny is knowing that one day I won’t.”
Maribeth touched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Though she really can’t cook,” he added.
22
Dear Oscar and Liv,
Today I saw a one-man band on the street. One person was playing the banjo, harmonica, and drums all at the same time. You’d think he would sound horrible, but he sounded amazing. I stayed outside to listen to him until I couldn’t feel my toes anymore and then I put two five-dollar bills in his basket, one from each of you.
It made me think about you two and the songs you sometimes make up. Remember the one about the rats? It’s my favorite. I think it went like this.
Some people like dogs
Some people like cats
Some people even like mice
But no one likes a rat.
Jason had recorded the song, calling it a proto–human rights anthem, and Maribeth had it on her phone. She wished she had a copy of it now. Not only to hear their warbly little voices (even if Liv’s was stridently off-key) but also because it seemed to offer a reassuring kind of proof. Oscar played his one chord on the guitar; Liv made up charming rhyming verses. The musicality from Jason. The wordsmithing from her.
She wondered if when the twins got older they would see it that way. If they’d look at her and Jason, or at each other, glimpsing where they’d come from, where they might be going, and see it as a comfort. Or as a curse.
23
“How much did you weigh before your heart attack?” Dr. Grant asked. It was Maribeth’s third appointment in less than three weeks, only this one she’d scheduled in a panic after the pair of size-eight jeans that had fit when she’d bought them at the thrift shop a week ago fell off her hips. Sudden weight loss, she knew, was a bad sign.
“I don’t know. One twenty-five. Ish.”
“You’re one fourteen now.”
One fourteen. She had not weighed so little since she was a teenager. “Is something wrong? Should we do blood work?”
“Maybe. But first, tell me: what are you eating these days?”
She was eating what she was supposed to be eating. Whole grains. Leafy greens. Chicken breasts. Low-fat. Low-sodium. Low-taste.
Even though on her trip to the grocery store with Todd she had practically had a lust attack in front of the butcher case, simultaneously remembering the taste of every steak she had ever eaten: the flank steaks her dad charred to a crisp on the grill, the côte de boeuf she and Elizabeth had shared in a Paris bistro, the porterhouse she’d cooked for Jason after they’d got back together.
And then she’d lost it, again, in front of the freezer case this time. She could taste, so clearly, the Neapolitan ice-cream sandwiches she used to eat for dessert every night as a kid. Starting with hard, frozen strawberry, moving on to the softening vanilla in the middle. By the time she got to the chocolate, the ice cream and the cookie crust were both squishy and delicious. “You’re so lucky your metabolism lets you eat anything you want,” her mother would say, sitting there, drinking her Sanka while she watched Maribeth eat ice cream.
“Oatmeal and blueberries for breakfast,” she told Dr. Grant. “Kale salad for lunch. Chicken breast for dinner.” Just reciting the menu killed her appetite. No wonder she was losing weight. “I’m being very vigilant.”
“Vigilant?”
“To make sure I don’t eat the wrong thing again.”
“Diet sometimes plays a significant role, particularly if you’re overweight or you eat at McDonald’s all the time. But as we discussed, given your age and your weight and your diet and other risk factors, I would hazard it’s the hyperlipidemia, your body’s inability to metabolize the cholesterol. You didn’t do anything wrong. So you can take yourself off the hook.”
“Great. I’m off the hook.” She mimed removing herself from a hook, slouching down in her chair. “I’m so relieved.”
“I don’t know if you’re a worse mime or liar.”
“Hey, I’m offended,” Maribeth said. “I’m an excellent mime.” She mimed a wall in front of her.
He laughed. Then he looked at his watch. He was the kind of man who still wore one.
“Do you have an hour?” he said.
“All I have is hours.”
“Good. Come with me.”
THEY DROVE TO a gourmet ice cream shop in Shadyside. He ordered her to sit down while he went to the counter. He came back with two sundaes, two spoons in each.
“Taste test,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked suspiciously.
“That’s vanilla with figs and balsamic,” he said, pointing to one. “And that’s mint chip with hot fudge and whipped cream. One yuppie, one classic. Okay?”
“You’re the doctor,” she said.
She stared at the ice cream.