Then she noticed a thick FedEx envelope shoved between the mail rack and the wall. It was marked URGENT! She tore it open. Inside was the tax return with a cover letter instructing her and Jason to sign and mail it by the fifteenth.
She double-checked the date on the envelope. October 12. The package had sat here for more than two weeks, in a FedEx overnight envelope, addressed to both of them, marked urgent, and Jason had not thought to open it.
She called the CPA back to ask what to do, but he was in a meeting. She called Jason at work. He didn’t answer. She remembered he was off-site so she e-mailed and texted him to call her ASAP. “Urgent!” she wrote.
Her phone rang. Dr. Sterling’s Gomer Pyle voice was on the other end.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.
“Oh, hi. I woke up today feeling really bad.”
“How so?”
“Exhausted, achy. My chest hurts.”
“When you’re active or resting?”
“Resting.”
“Does it feel like it did before? During your heart attack?”
“No. It’s more throbby.”
“Any shortness of breath?”
“Not really.”
“Dizziness?”
“I’m not dizzy, but I just feel . . . unsteady. And tired. Worse than I have since any of this began.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. The chest sounds skeletal.”
“What about the achiness? And the exhaustion. Also, I have a headache.”
“That sounds viral.”
“Isn’t that dangerous? I mean, am I compromised? I live with a pair of four-year-olds.”
“While an upper respiratory infection isn’t ideal right now, it’s not going to kill you.”
“How reassuring.”
“If your children are anything like mine were, they always have something.”
“They’re disease vectors.”
“If you’re really concerned, remove them for a few days. But it just sounds like you have a garden-variety touch of something and the chest pain is a normal part of healing.”
“I really don’t feel right,” Maribeth pressed on. “Are you sure I shouldn’t come in?”
“If you think it’s urgent, go to the ER. Otherwise, I’ll transfer you to reception. You can come in tomorrow.”
“I’ll call if I’m not better.”
“Sounds like a plan, Maryann.” He chuckled at the rhyme.
“Maribeth,” she corrected. But he’d already hung up.
HER MOTHER POKED her head in the bedroom. “Did I hear you on the phone with your doctor?”
“Yeah. I’m not feeling that great.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“He was no help.”
Her mother pursed her lips and shook her head. “Doctors don’t know anything. I’m going to call Herb Zucker. He had the same surgery.”
“Please don’t.” She didn’t see how Herb Zucker, seventy-eight years old and retired, could have anything relevant to say about Maribeth’s life.
“Don’t be silly. I’m here to help.”
After her mother disappeared to make the call, Maribeth thought about whom she really wanted to talk to: Elizabeth. The old Elizabeth, the one who, when Maribeth had come down with chicken pox at the age of twenty-four, had rented her every Cary Grant movie and bought her a pair of cashmere mittens to keep Maribeth from scarring herself when she scratched. The Elizabeth who’d visited her last week felt about as relevant to her life as Herb Zucker did.
Then she thought of Nurse Luca. Insurance covered the nurse visits for a week but she could pay for a visit out of pocket.
She went to the pile of mail and fished out the bank statement. There was $52,000 in the savings account she’d set up after receiving the bequest from her father. Maybe it wasn’t enough to cover a down payment and closing costs on a house (or let’s face it, an apartment) in anywhere but the farthest reaches of Brooklyn, but it was certainly enough for a session or two with Nurse Luca.
She called the nurse service. They said they’d get someone out first thing tomorrow and put in a request for Luca.
Outside, it was pouring. Which meant the window in the kitchen would leak. She rooted around in the pantry for the bucket and put it under the leak. Her mother was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, chattering away on the phone, to Herb Zucker presumably. They didn’t seem to be discussing cardiac care. At one point, she looked up. “The phone’s beeping.”
“Probably needs to be charged.”
Then her cell phone rang. It was Jason.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We didn’t pay the taxes,” Maribeth said.
“What?”
“The taxes. The returns, the payment coupons, they’re sitting on the hall table with all the other mail you didn’t bother to open.”
“Shit, Maribeth, you scared me. I thought something bad had happened.”
“Something bad did happen. We didn’t pay our taxes.”
“Something bad and irreparable. You have to stop sweating the small stuff.”
“Death and taxes. They’re linked together for a reason,” Maribeth said.
“What are you talking about?” Jason asked.
“It’s not the small stuff!” Maribeth cried.
“Try to keep things in perspective,” he said.
Perspective? Try this perspective. My fist smashing into your face.
“They’re not going to haul us off to jail,” he said. “We’ll just pay a penalty or something. Everything will work out fine.”