The Good Twin(43)

“Oh, Daddy,” I said, and then began crying again.

He held me tight to his chest and stroked my hair, like he used to when I was a little girl and had injured myself. We were already close before my mother died, but after her death, we’d become inseparable. The only time I ever went against him was in marrying Ben, and now I knew he’d been right about that.

When I’d recovered some composure, I pulled away. “Tell me everything the doctor said.”

He motioned for me to sit down, and I took a chair opposite his desk. “I’ve pretty much told you everything. The cancer is advanced; it’s already metastasized.”

“What about surgery?”

“It’s not an option.”

“Then chemo, or radiation?”

He shook his head. “I could try it, but it’s not likely to help survival, and it’s not pleasant to go through.”

I felt myself get angry and tried to tamp it down. My whole body felt like one knot of tension. “There must be something. What about a trial? Aren’t there any?”

“My doctor has prescribed medication to help with my nausea and bloating. And he’s trying to get me into a trial at Sloan Kettering.”

I felt my first sense of hopefulness. There were new medications coming onto the market all the time. There had to be one being tested for liver cancer. “Haven’t you donated to Sloan Kettering?”

“I know what you’re thinking, sweetie. But this is the one thing that my money can’t buy. Whether I’m selected for the trial or not won’t depend on how much I’ve donated. It will be based purely on my medical records. I should know by the end of next week, but my doctor wasn’t hopeful.”

My tears started again. Confronting Ben would have to wait. I couldn’t lose both Ben and my father at the same time. I just couldn’t.



By the time I walked into my house, I was drained. It was a mild night, and I’d walked through the park, bypassing the taxi that Carlos, the doorman at Dad’s condo, had offered to hail. I needed to clear my head before I saw Ben, but the walk hadn’t done that.

My townhouse had been a gift from Dad when I got married. He didn’t call it a wedding present, since he put it in my name only, a fact that continually irritated Ben. Our official wedding gift was a honeymoon in France. A week in Paris at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, and a week on the French Riviera at the Chateau Eza. It was the first time Ben had ever been surrounded by such opulence. We were deliriously happy then. We’d stroll along the Champs-élysées and stop at outdoor cafés for coffee or wine and hold hands while we watched other lovers walk by. During the day, we spent hours at the museums—the Louvre, of course, which couldn’t possibly be appreciated in one day, so we went back the next; the Musée d’Orsay, its origins as a train station almost as interesting as the masters hung within: Delacroix and Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, and Van Gogh, and so many others; the Centre Pompidou, surely the most interesting building housing art, with its primary colors and exposed pipes and air ducts; the Musée Picasso, which, during our visit, had a Giacometti exhibition alongside Picasso’s masterpieces. It felt dizzying to be surrounded by such a cornucopia of paintings. If Ben had shared my love of art, I would have moved to Paris in a heartbeat. I loved New York City—I loved its crowds and messiness and hodgepodge of cultures—but Paris filled my soul.

At night, we walked along the Seine and talked about our life together, about the careers we’d begin, the family we’d start, the home we would make. Everything seemed possible then.

After Paris, we flew to Nice for a week lounging on the sun-soaked beaches of the French Riviera. Our suite at Chateau Eza, on the C?te d’Azur, overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. When we weren’t on the beach, or shopping at the quaint boutiques, we’d lounge in our room’s outside Jacuzzi and sip champagne. The two weeks seemed like a dream, one from which I didn’t want to awaken. If I’d asked Ben to stay in France, I know he would have. Back then, he’d do anything for me. Even give up law school.

There it was. The elephant in the room we never spoke of. I’d ruined his life by pushing him into a career he hadn’t wanted, with a boss who disliked him. And he was right. If I’d been more patient, if I’d been willing to wait another three years to get married so that he could become a lawyer, would he still have been drawn to another woman’s arms? I didn’t know the answer. I only knew he wasn’t happy, and I had a role in that. That knowledge didn’t stop me from hating him for what he’d done.

I called out to him from the foyer.

“In here,” he shouted from the den.

I hung up my jacket, then walked over there. The television was tuned to a basketball game, now on mute. He stood up and pulled me to him. “I’m sorry, honey. How’s he doing?”

“It’s bad.”

“Can I do anything for you? Did you eat?”

“I’m just tired. I’m going to bed now.” I could deal with only one crisis at a time. Ben’s infidelity would have to wait.





CHAPTER 31

Dad insisted that I go about my business every day, even though I would have preferred to be by his side. I reluctantly agreed that I would continue at the gallery but go directly to his apartment once I closed up, to spend each evening with him. I’m certain Ben won’t mind. In fact, I suspect he’ll be relieved. It will give him more time with his paramour. I’ve steeled myself to the fact that he is seeing someone else but cling to the hope that it’s about sex, not love. When this crisis with Dad is over—hopefully because he’s recovered, but if he doesn’t, after his funeral—I’ll confront Ben with my knowledge of Lisa. Until then, I’ve decided to simply push my image of them together to the deepest recesses of my mind. Willful blindness.