I'm Fine and Neither Are You(13)

One morning I was trying to pry Stevie off my leg so I could make it to work on time when it struck me: as wife, mother, breadwinner, and chief of operations chez Ruiz-Kar, I had become the fulcrum of my family’s health and wealth.

And frankly, that was kind of terrifying.

But having a friend who understood that made it easier to keep marching forward—day after day after day.



The children. What was I supposed to do with the children?

Sanjay was in the foyer, clad in athletic shorts and a Cornell T-shirt he’d owned since attending there as an undergrad. “Where are they?” I whispered when I reached him.

He jerked his head back, indicating that the kids were elsewhere in the house. “Pen, what is happening?” He looked up the stairs. “The police . . . the ambulance . . .”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I just stood there waiting for something to change.

“Cecily is upset,” said Sanjay. I knew he wasn’t directing this comment at me, and yet it made me feel guilty. “She saw them come in, obviously, and she’s hiding in the bathroom. The kids are in there with her.”

I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. The house was air-conditioned to the point of refrigeration, and the drywall was cold to the touch. “Does she know . . .”

“Know what?” Now Sanjay sounded irritated. “What the hell is going on?”

“Matt thinks . . . I just saw . . .”

His eyes bulged, commanding me to finish.

“Jenny.” I had to push the words out. “She’s dead.”

He let out a low curse. “Did you see her?”

I thought of Jenny’s tongue, prostrate across her bottom teeth. No wonder Matt had run off—I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t vomit right then and there. “Yes.”

“Aneurism,” Sanjay said, more to himself than to me. “Or a heart attack. But she’s so healthy. Genes. You just never know.”

“Stop, please,” I said. Matt had asked me to take care of Cecily. I needed to focus—which meant that by extension, so did Sanjay. “Can you take the kids home?”

“And leave you here?”

“I can’t go. What if she needs me?” I was sure Sanjay thought I was talking about Cecily, but in truth I meant Jenny.

But she didn’t need me. She couldn’t—not anymore.

Another paramedic had just entered the house with a police officer. Now they were in the foyer, asking me to move aside so they could get through.

“I don’t understand,” said Sanjay, though he was gently pulling me toward the living room.

“There’s nothing to understand,” I said. “Right now I just need you to go into the bathroom.” I could hear myself talking—I sounded like a flight attendant cheerfully reading safety instructions that would keep absolutely no one safe in the event of an actual crash. “Go in there and entertain the kids until I knock on the door and tell you it’s okay to come out.”

He looked at me, almost like he was waiting to see if I was kidding. Then he jogged off.

Less than a minute later, Matt appeared at the top of the stairs. He stepped aside as one of the first medics who had entered the house walked past him.

“Where is my friend?” I said to the medic.

She didn’t look at me.

“Excuse me!” I said loudly. “Why are you leaving?”

Now she turned my way. “I’m not leaving,” she said evenly. “Our team will be on hand until the medical examiner arrives and the police are done conducting their investigation.”

My stomach dropped at the phrase medical examiner . “Are they doing CPR on her?”

“Yes, ma’am. We do everything we can in cases like these.”

Cases like what? I wanted to say, but I couldn’t make my mouth form the words.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to get something from the ambulance,” the medic said, and let herself out the front door.

Matt had descended the stairs and was staring past me blankly. I reminded myself that he was in shock. People acted in all kinds of strange ways in situations like this. At least, some people did. Others understood they had to keep it together for the sake of everyone else.

“I can stay here if you’d like. For Cecily . . . or whatever you need,” I said. Jenny and Matt had no family nearby; hers was in Utah and California, and his was on the East Coast.

“Can you take Cecily home with you?” he said. “As soon as possible. Go out the back door and have Sanjay pull around the back alley. I don’t think she should see any of this.”

“Of course,” I said.

He was still looking out the door. “She’ll hate me one day.”

He was definitely in shock.

“What? No,” I said. “She could never hate you.”

“She will. I could have prevented this.”

Now he was just talking crazy. “Jenny—” Is? Was? I wasn’t sure what to say. “She’s healthy as a horse. This was some freak thing, maybe something genetic. A heart attack, or an aneurism,” I said, repeating what Sanjay had said. “I’m so sorry this happened, but you absolutely cannot blame yourself right now.”

Matt sighed and met my gaze. The whites of his eyes were now flooded red. He no longer resembled a movie star. No—now he looked like an ordinary man at the tail end of a several-day bender. “Oh, Penelope,” he said. “Jenny had serious problems. And I let her keep pretending everything was fine.”