Resolutely, she dressed in another pair and headed downstairs.
Miranda fixed her chicken noodle soup and tea, so she sipped and chewed as the children ate spaghetti and told her everything about school. She wanted to keep them distracted as long as possible.
“I got to do the puppet for story hour,” Beth bragged.
“But I got to help on the playground,” Andy countered.
And they were off, playing Can You Top This, but in a giggly way, anxious for their mother’s approval.
She couldn’t avoid the topic of Charles for long, however. Miranda helped her with bath time and when they were in their pajamas, she took them both into Beth’s room and sat on the bed with them.
“You know Daddy hasn’t been living here for a long time,” she started.
They nodded solemnly.
“He’s divorced, like Mitchell’s daddy.” Andy’s tone was so matter-of-fact it hurt.
“Well, almost.” What a screwed-up social circle, she thought, where the idea of divorce was so commonplace with children.
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love you as much,” she told them.
Beth and Andy exchanged a look.
“Okay,” Beth said. Her tone of voice told Julia what she needed to know. At seven years old, the twins had already accepted the fact their father found it impossible to love them, or maybe anyone. How terrible. Damn Charles anyway.
“Well, one of the reasons I’m late is because I went straight to the hospital.” She looked from one to the other. “While I was gone, Daddy got very sick so I went to see him right from the airport.”
Again, they exchanged a look. Sometimes Julia wondered if they weren’t one person split into two bodies.
“Will he get better?” Andy asked after a long pause.
“I don’t know.” Be truthful, she told herself. Lies never helped. “Right now the doctors are trying to figure out what to do to help him.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Beth wanted to know.
Julia took one hand from each of them. “It’s his heart. He’s had a bad heart attack and there’s a lot of damage.”
“Heart disease is the number one killer in America,” Andy recited in a solemn voice.
Oh, my God. What were they teaching second graders these days?
“You may be right,” she said slowly, “but right now we have to wait and see what the doctors say.”
“Can we see him?” Beth asked.
Julia shook her head. “Not just yet. He’s still in a special part of the hospital where children can’t visit. But the minute the doctor says it’s okay, you can see him.”
“Mommy?” Andy’s voice suddenly sounded very small. “Are you going away, too? Are you sick?”
Tears stung her eyelids. “Oh, no, sweetie. Mommy’s just fine. And I’ll always be here for you.”
She gathered them close to her and hugged them against her body. A fierce protective feeling came over her, even as her life unraveled. She hadn’t a clue how to prepare them to see the man who’d projected such strength, now lying white and drawn, surrounded by a myriad of machines monitoring his every bodily function.
Before leaving the hospital, she’d discussed it with Rombauer. He’d advised her as best he could, but he was, after all, a cardiologist, not a pediatric psychologist. He had referred her to one in the office tower next to the hospital, even called the doctor himself. The man had taken the time to come to her at the CICU and evaluate the situation. He’d been unbelievably kind and told her what he could in the abstract. He had, however, predicted the suddenness of their father’s illness and his impending death would require professional care for the twins, and she’d promised to schedule appointments.
Now she made a mental note to see about that tomorrow.
The nausea was creeping up on her again, but she gritted her teeth until the twins said their prayers and were tucked in bed. Then she pulled on a warm nightgown and collapsed in her own room, forcibly quieting her unsettled stomach and falling asleep with images of Luke unwinding across her dreams.
* * * *
The days passed as an unending train, one after the other, linked together. Julia woke early each morning to eat breakfast with the twins and give them the security of her presence to start the day. When the school bus left them at the door each afternoon, she was there to greet them, answer their questions, and eat an early dinner with them.
In between, she was a haunted-looking wraith moving between Charles’s bedside and the CICU lounge, waiting for the brief visits she was permitted, and fighting the nausea and fatigue she couldn’t seem to shake. Each night, she crawled gratefully into bed, falling into a dreamless sleep.
Rombauer made sure to spend a few minutes with her each day, always pragmatic but in his own way supportive. Undoubtedly Howard put him through intense grilling sessions in the evenings, but he never mentioned a word to her.
Miranda was a rock. She grounded them, coddled them, and made them laugh when tears threatened. She was the one constant no matter what happened. Julia was just glad that Charles had not lived at home for some time. His absence wouldn’t be such a rude shock to them as they grappled with the ways their lives were changing.
Julia’s visits to the hospital became divided into five minute and fifty-five minute intervals. Each time she was allowed into the cubicle, she sat beside Charles’s bed, watching him sleep, watching the machines, searching for any sign of response. But she had no intention of sitting there all day. She couldn’t do him any good and the only feeling she had for him was a remote kind of sympathy. What she’d feel for a stranger.
Her call to her parents was less than satisfactory. Her father was just as much a bully as ever and still enraged that Charles had disdained them and cut them out of her life. And the circle of privilege, she thought to herself. Her mother
