Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Nora 

Derek's phone started ringing before I could say anything else, and we both looked down at the screen at the same time, and we both saw the word Mom with the little heart emoji he put next to it when we were first married, back when I thought it was sweet that a grown man loved his mother that much.

"Don't answer it," I said.

"It's my mom, Nora."

"I know exactly who it is. That's why I'm saying don't answer it."

He answered it. He turned his back on me and walked out through the curtain with the phone pressed to his ear, saying, "Mom? Mom, slow down, I can't understand you," and Dr. Greene looked at me, and I looked at Dr. Greene, and she said, "Do you want me to have security keep him out?" and I said no, because I wanted to see what he came back as.

He was gone for eleven minutes. I know because I watched the clock on the wall the whole time with my cold hands tucked under my legs, and I kept thinking about Frank Hale sitting on that porch in August in his hunting jacket, and about how I never once asked Derek a single question about his dad, not once in six years, because every time I tried Linda would change the subject and Derek would say it was too painful, and I believed both of them, because believing them was what I did.

When Derek came back through the curtain, the scared look was gone. His face was red again, and he had his jaw pushed out the way he did when he was about to explain something to me slowly.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, so, I talked to Mom, and you need to hear this before you go any further with this whole thing. Dad had a heart condition. He had it for years. It was in his medical file, Nora, the doctors knew all about it, so whatever you're trying to say about Mom and the tea and Dad, you're twisting it, and it's sick, honestly, it's sick that you'd use my dead father to..."

"Derek, five minutes ago you said he was always cold."

"Because of his heart!"

"Your heart doesn't make you cold in August."

"Do you have a medical degree now?" he snapped. "Did you get one in the last four days?"

"No," Dr. Greene said from the corner, "but I have one, and she's right."

Derek looked at her like he forgot she was there. Then he took a deep breath, came closer to the bed, and lowered his voice, and I knew that voice, it was the same one he used when he wanted me to sign for a new car on my credit.

"Listen," he said. "Let's make a deal. Let's just be adults about this. You drop the police thing. You call whoever you have to call and tell them it was a misunderstanding, Mom's herbs, an allergy, whatever. And I'll sign the divorce papers tomorrow. No fight. No lawyer. I won't touch a single dollar of your grandma's money. You walk away with all of it, and we never have to see each other again. That's what you want, right? That's what you said in the kitchen."

I sat there on that crinkly paper sheet and stared at him, and the worst part was that for about three seconds, I wanted to say yes.

Fifty days. That's all I had, and Walter said sixty days at the very least, maybe ninety, and if Derek fought me, longer. If I was still married to him when the snow came, and something happened to me, everything went to him. Derek was holding out the one thing I needed most, and all I had to do was let his mother walk away.

"Your dad didn't get a deal," I said.

His face twisted up. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means your dad sat on a porch in a hunting jacket for a whole year, drinking tea out of a cup your mom handed him with a smile, and nobody made a deal for him. Nobody asked a single question. He just got colder and colder until he died, and then she paid off the house in cash six weeks later, and you were how old, Derek? Sixteen? Seventeen? You were old enough to notice. You just didn't want to."

"You don't know anything about my family!"

"I know your mom's been making tea a lot longer than I've been drinking it," I said. "She told me so herself. Today. In a waiting room. With the lid already off the thermos."

Derek pointed his finger right in my face. His hand was shaking.

"Fine," he said. "Fine. You want to do it the hard way? Mom and I are going to Brian's tonight. His buddy's a divorce lawyer, a real one, not some old guy above a dry cleaner. And I'm going to fight you for every single cent, and I'm going to drag this out for a year, two years, and you'll still be married to me when..."

"When what?" I said.

He didn't finish. He just turned and shoved through the curtain, and I heard him tell the nurse at the desk that his wife was crazy and he wanted it written in her file.