In every issue of Frap, there was a profile called Unsung Heroes that highlighted an “ordinary” woman with an “extraordinary” story. Usually, these women experienced some great crisis, and instead of being beaten down, they “took stock” and “re-evaluated” and “rose to the occasion” to “beat the odds” and always wound up so much better and wiser than they had been before.
Readers loved this section—Maribeth suspected it was because it was the only place they ever saw women larger than a size eight—but she found it to be the most disingenuous part of the whole magazine, even worse than the gift guides in which $10-million-a-movie actresses gushed over their favorite $60 artisanal salts. It wasn’t that the stories were made up—they were true, or, at least, truthy—but their rictus need to skim coat a happy ending onto every shitty situation . . . she couldn’t stand that. It was the magazine’s version of Jason’s “everything will be fine.”
Maybe one day it would be fine. Maybe one day she would get past all this and figure out some great second act. Maybe then she might look back and see that all the destruction she had brought down on her family, on her marriage, on herself, had been worth it. Because she would be extraordinary. Because she would be a real-life hero.
But standing here now, amid the wreckage of her own making, it was nearly impossible to imagine.
40
Dr. Grant—Stephen? she wasn’t sure what to call him in his official context—had sent Maribeth to have a blood test. They discussed her results at her next appointment. The numbers, he said, were excellent. The statins were working. Her iron levels were fine. She did not need to schedule another follow-up unless she felt she needed to.
“So this is it?” she asked.
“This is it,” he said.
She half-expected some official pronouncement. “You are healthy and are hereby relieved of duty.” Perhaps he might tap her on the shoulder with a stethoscope. But instead he kept absentmindedly offering her tea, even though she had never once accepted his offer of tea because she didn’t drink tea. (It made her teeth feel unpleasantly squeaky.)
“So maybe I should let you get on with your day?” Maribeth said, though she was well aware there was no busy day for either of them. She didn’t have much to do on a good day and she never planned anything for the afternoons of her appointments with him because the meandering conversations tended to bleed into the dinner hour. And she now knew—the run-in with Don and Susan had made it even clearer—that he had few other demands on his time. But she was officially healthy. There was no need to keep this up.
“Oh, okay,” he said. He seemed a little out of it himself. Or maybe not out of it, but not like the man she’d spent Thanksgiving with or had gone to the mall with. “Before you go, I have something for you. It’s upstairs in the study.”
She stood to follow him, but he motioned for her to stay put, which also felt like a demotion. She was no longer invited into the private space. “I’ll be right back.”
He returned with a thick creamy envelope, her name, or rather his version of it, written on the front.
“I’m intrigued,” she said.
“Don’t be. They’re guest passes to my health club. Five of them. They expire at the end of the year so I thought someone might as well use them.”
Health club passes. How terribly sensible. What had she hoped for? Tickets to Bermuda? He was, at the end of it, her doctor. And after today’s appointment, not even that.
They shook hands. “Thank you,” she said. “For all you’ve done.” She felt bereft. Was this it? After the ice cream and the hair and the horrible shopping trip and the talks? Was this the end of it?
“You take care of yourself,” he said. “Join the gym. Remember ice cream won’t kill you.”
Yes, this was it. And why wouldn’t it be? He had gotten her where she needed to be. But hadn’t he done more? Hadn’t they been more?
She wanted to acknowledge that, to hear him acknowledge it. There was something between them. Something that transcended doctor and patient. Something that transcended friendship. Even if today marked the end of it, she wanted some indication that it had been there. Because why else had he been so good to her? Why else had she let him be?
She tucked the envelope into her bag. At reception, she said good-bye to Louise. “Call if you need anything,” Louise said.
At the bus stop, Maribeth took out the envelope and opened it. Perhaps there would be a note inside, something private between them. But there wasn’t, just the passes. The club was obviously a nice one. The passes were printed on thick card stock, with diploma-fancy embossed script reading, For Guests of the Grant Family.
She ran her finger over it. For Guests of the Grant Family. And so there it was, an acknowledgment, after all, even if it was unintentional. He had lost his family. She had lost hers. In different ways, and for different reasons, she and Stephen were both orphans now.
41
The next day, Maribeth arranged to take a tour of the health club. It was nice, all the newest machines and every kind of class, from yoga to kickboxing. But it was the swimming pool in the basement that called to her. She wasn’t sure why but it felt like this, more than an elliptical machine or a vinyasa class, would ease the itchiness that was growing inside of her. Swimming felt new. Or maybe it was because she was sinking and wanted to see whether, if forced to, she might swim.
The club was in Squirrel Hill, catty corner to the library there. Maribeth decided to stop by, because it was on her way and she’d not seen it before and she’d heard it had an extensive collection. She was not going to touch the computers. Absolutely not.