Paris by the Book(62)
I didn’t answer. I remembered our earliest days in bed together, Whisper Theater, how I had never, in all my imagining, imagined us lying like this, here, now. I listened to Daphne breathe her tiny, rapid breaths and her sister try not to breathe at all. So be it. I couldn’t breathe either.
Moments later, the door slid open and the silence fell away as the staff banished Ellie and me beyond the glass, where we watched our very young doctor—now in a coat of decent length—prepare for the procedure while an older doctor, a long white coat barely around his shoulders, a paper mask emblazoned with somersaulting orange welcome dogs, looked on, sleepy and bored. Then the curtain was pulled.
By the time Daphne’s diagnosis was confirmed, the necessary antibiotics had already been added to her IV drip. Her breathing evened and her color returned. And that was so glorious that my phone had to work hard to distract me from the scene, quivering as text after text arrived, so many that I finally turned it off. Ellie and I exchanged a look.
The young doctor briefed us, predicted a full and speedy recovery, and then left, grinning like he’d just invented the stethoscope.
* * *
—
When morning arrived, Ellie didn’t want to leave, but we agreed she’d go home for a spell, change her clothes, charge her phone. Update Madame Brouillard. Find clothes for me. I’ve got some cute new jeans you could try, Ellie jabbed, which is when I knew she’d be okay. She even let me walk her out while Daphne slept. The greater gift: a deep, unembarrassed hug at the exit by the dog.
After Ellie disappeared, I thought I would make the most of being outside and check my phone. I turned it back on and scrolled through everything I missed, starting with some proximity marketing—a feature I’d tried to get Ellie to disable—from a nearby clothing store. “Good news!” was as far as they got with me before I deleted it. It’s not only that I disliked how the store, like too many French shopkeepers, assumed we would communicate in English, but that “news”: a tic of Eleanor’s that I’d adopted was to treat and use that word in e-mails only as a pejorative. (Woe to those who thought e-mails from her subject-lined “department news” sounded innocent.)
What else had the phone handled for me? A call from Declan, a voice mail from same, and then a text from him asking if everything was okay.
A call from George, no voice mail.
An alert from United Airlines, which I was about to dismiss as more marketing, until I saw it was announcing that someone named ELEANOR was sharing an itinerary with me: arrive Paris (CDG) on . . .
Then George called again, and I decided to answer. I knew he was taking the twins on a spring break. It would be handy, of course, to be free of them now—but I wouldn’t mind the brief, banal distraction of discussing their logistics. Perhaps George had gotten all the way out to De Gaulle and realized he’d forgotten their passports—the twins had been showing off their various visas and stamps to Daphne just the other night. Or he’d forgotten their bedtime books. Or some item of clothing.
Or he’d forgotten to tell me something: I was a terrible mom. Which I was. What Madame couldn’t tell him, I could.
I knew I owed him an apology, and so I issued one immediately, even before I said hello. He paused, and said, Leah? And I listened—there was background noise, but it sounded familiar—it wasn’t an airport, it wasn’t a beach. Was he outside the bookstore? I asked him, apologized again if he’d been counting on me to be there, because—
He snorted and said he was in the hallway—or a hallway, of the hospital. Where was I?
Maroon scarf, deep violet shirt, somehow paired with a pinstripe suit and socks that both did and didn’t match: apart from the welcome dog, George was as colorful a presence as the hospital had seen in some time. He was carrying two Starbucks cups, which made his attempt to hug and exchange kisses with me awkward, but—I realized—awkward only for me. One of the cups arrived smoothly in my hand as we sat on a bench just outside Daphne’s room. Ellie had talked to Madame, Madame had called him, he’d canceled the trip. The twins had insisted. And if they hadn’t, he would have. Daphne! They loved her. How was she?
I explained that we could be on our way home in as little as forty-eight hours if all went well, but until then, isolation rules prevailed.
“What is this?” I said, looking at the cup he’d given me. I’d talked so much I’d not put it to my lips.
He turned my cup so that he could see what was scribbled on the side. “Scotch,” he said. And then: “How are you?”
I took a sip and sputtered.
“Jesus,” I said.
“Mmm,” George said. “I find whiskey the better balm. Apologies for adulterating it with coffee, but I figured you needed the caffeine, too.”
I put the cup down and marveled at it, and George, for a moment. “You didn’t have to cancel your trip,” I finally said. “She’s going to be okay. The world still grants miracles. Even to mothers like me.”
“Meaning pretty ones?” he said.
I sniffed. I had once been a PowerPoint pro for a university president in Milwaukee, and a sideline parent par excellence of many American sports. Now I was in Paris, in a hospital, in my older daughter’s skirt, outside my younger daughter’s room, exhausted from a night out clubbing, drinking scotch with the best-dressed Englishman in Paris.