“She was my best friend. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. But she’s dead, Jake. She’s gone.”
He gave her a hostile glare. “What are you talking about? What does Cynthia have to do with us? Let me remind you that you were the one who left me. Where do you get off thinking you were blameless?”
“Go home,” she said without expression. “I have a life to get on with.”
He stared past her for a long moment and finally stood up. With hands clenched stiffly at his sides, he turned on his heels and left the room.
She slumped down on the couch, listening to his footsteps thundering in the hallway. The front door opened with a creak, then slammed shut. From the living room she could hear the squeal of his tires as he pulled out of her driveway.
In the hallway the grandfather clock erupted in a series of chimes. She sat in the living room a little while longer, and when she finally reached for her coffee, she wasn’t surprised to find that it had grown cold.
Chapter Three
It was close to nine-thirty by the time Laura finally found the energy to rise from the couch. On the way to the kitchen, she caught her reflection in the antique mirror hanging next to the clock. Her face was ashen and smeared with mascara, her hair damp and tangled like a fallen nest after a storm.
Good Lord, had Jake seen her like this? She thought of Cinderella before the ball. Except in Laura’s version of the story, there was no fairy godmother, and the prince got to see Cinderella at her worst.
After downing a glass of juice and some dry toast, she climbed the stairs sluggishly, her body still aching from sleeping on the floor. Inside her room she glanced in the mirror over the bureau. Her linen suit was a rumpled mess, her panty hose twisted at the ankles. This is what she had worn at the ball, except there hadn’t been a ball; she’d gone to her aunt’s funeral, and there her prince had rebuked her.
He had no right to talk to me that way, she thought. Who does he think he is? And why should I care that he saw me looking so disheveled? For that matter, why should I care that he didn’t bother to show up at the house yesterday after the service? Not that it makes any difference, but he did come by this morning. Except he forgot to bring the glass slipper.
She recalled the way he’d pulled her onto his lap, teasing her, mocking her, expecting her to react exactly as she had, and once again her anger rose. She was angry with herself for having responded. Angry with him for being a jerk.
This was no Cinderella story. The man was no prince.
She watched herself in the full-length mirror on the bedroom door as she stripped off her wrinkled suit. Here I am again, she thought. I seem to follow me everywhere. Her eyes swept over the reflection of her petite frame, stopping to appraise her toned legs, her flat stomach, her narrow waist. Her gaze continued upward to her firm breasts, visible through a sheer rose-pink bra. Not bad, she admitted reluctantly, remembering when she’d been heavier. She’d always been self-conscious about her body. Even now, she focused on what displeased her, noting the lines of fatigue on her forehead and the dark circles under her eyes. Maybe I should get rid of all the mirrors in the house, she thought.
She pulled her green fleece robe from the closet and went into the bathroom. Still wearing her bra and panty hose, she reached into the shower and turned on the faucet, wincing as a brown liquid trickled out. She knew she would have to wait five minutes before the water started running hot and clear. The plumbing was shot. Coronary artery disease, she imagined Edward saying. Eroded arteries caused by fatty streaks along the inner walls.
What would the meticulous Dr. Palmer’s reaction have been to her appearance this morning? He could never acknowledge that she could be anything less than perfect. The prestigious heart surgeon probably would have had a coronary himself.
Be fair, she reprimanded herself. Isn’t this what you always wanted? To be perfect in someone’s eyes? To sit up there, high on that proverbial pedestal?
Tell me, doesn’t it get lonely up there, alone in your ivory tower?
Be quiet, she imagined herself telling Jake. I’m happy now. Edward and I are perfect for each other. You shouldn’t put him down; he’s a lot like you—handsome, bright, driven by his career. Oh yes, there’s one more thing. Like you, he doesn’t want children. Except there’s one small difference. You don’t want more children, and he doesn’t want any. But any way you look at it, it comes down to no children in my life, now that I no longer have Cory or the ability to conceive. So you see? Edward and I are made for each other. What’s that, Jake? Why did I leave you, only to hook up with someone who’s a lot like you? The difference between the two of you is that he knows I’m around. He adores me. In his eyes I’m perfect.
She ran her fingers along the bridge of her nose. Well, almost perfect. Edward was always urging her to get that little bump removed. He didn’t see it as an addition to her character, as Jake always had.
Maybe she would have her nose fixed, after all.
Looking in the vanity mirror over the sink—oh, those damn, cruel mirrors!—she rubbed her hand against the side of her neck. With clarity she remembered the sick feeling she’d had when she’d first discovered the swelling. She’d tried to ignore it, hoping it was only a sign of another cold—the third in two months. But the swelling didn’t go away, and she was exhausted all the time, often waking up in the middle of the night in a sweat. It was Ellen who had insisted that she undergo tests, and it was Ellen who had diagnosed her with Hodgkin’s disease.
A chill spread through Laura’s body as she recalled her friend’s words. She remembered how the air in the room had been suddenly sucked away. This is what drowning must feel like, she’d thought with cold detachment. Even though Ellen had insisted that the prognosis was excellent, Laura had felt as though she’d been given a death sentence. It was then she realized that whether she lived for fifty more years or only one, she didn’t want to spend whatever time she had left in a one-sided relationship. She deserved more. It was then she had decided to leave Jake.
Her fingers left the base of her neck, slowly moving down between her breasts, to the left side of her upper abdomen. After the diagnosis, her spleen had been removed and she had undergone a regimen of chemotherapy. The scar from the surgery was gone, only a long telltale line remaining. The first time she’d spent the night with Edward, two years ago, he’d remarked that the surgeons had done an excellent job, that Laura was a good healer. She was a lucky woman, he’d added jokingly, telling her she’d be a good candidate for a facelift when the time came. She’d punched him playfully in the shoulder.
Her incision may have healed, but the wound from the chemotherapy would never go away. She recalled the oncologist’s words, that dark day a lifetime ago. Dr. Waring had told her, as gently as possible, that as a result of the treatment, Laura would likely never be able to have children.
A lucky woman. Lucky? She supposed she was. She was alive, wasn’t she? She had been in remission for almost five years, which according to many was the magic yardstick for being considered cured.
She pressed her hand across the flatness of her belly. Edward was always complimenting her on her slim, youthful shape. She was well preserved for an old lady of thirty-three, he liked to say in jest. Slowly, she inched her hand down to the satiny expanse of her firm thighs, trying to remember the last time she and Edward had made love. Sex was no longer an important part of her life, hadn’t been for a long time. Trying to conjure up the image of Edward’s face, she told herself she was lucky to have found someone who felt the same
