My super recovery. The only thing I can imagine is I don’t want Edward to find out yet. Maintaining this secret gives me some sort of power I can’t quite put my finger on. My ace in a hole or up a sleeve, I forget how the saying goes.
I think of the wristwatch I bought Edward for our anniversary a couple of years ago, the way the jeweler had explained the apparatus, how springs were regulated by more springs, unwinding into a controlled and periodic release of time. Gears oscillating back and forth, and with each swing of the balance wheel the hands move forward at a constant rate. He’d wanted the watch for a while, was giddy with anticipation, and that’s how it feels, my hidden recovery. Groundwork, I don’t know for what, but I hear a constant tick tick tick in the background.
7
EDWARD
Edward Pryor, the scientist, believed in principles and reliable data which then led him to inevitable conclusions—that’s how problems were solved. But even the most perfectly laid-out plans derailed at times and here he was, stuck in traffic. The last operation of the day would have to be bumped off the schedule. The proverbial monkey wrench in his game plan.
As he sat tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, an explosion sounded in the distance. The boom was followed by a ball of flame and a fist of gray smoke. Maybe he should offer his help, though the OR schedule would really be shot for the rest of the day, but it was the right thing to do. Just as he was about to reach for the door, an ambulance passed by him. Sirens and blinking lights, police cars and ambulances, they came and went and finally the traffic inched forward. He passed a car with a smashed hood, another fifty yards and a dented fender was left discarded by the side of the road. In a field a car sat reduced to a muddle of parts and broken glass, nothing but a skeletal burnt frame, the earth scorched around it.
His phone rang but he swiped the call away. Donna. Last night they’d settled it: no more back and forth half-hearted ultimatums and lax demands. They had finally agreed that Penelope had one more month to get it together. It was time to move out.
“I’m not holding my breath on this one,” Edward told Donna, who was preoccupied with three packages of English muffins. He watched her ponder each bag—white, whole grain, and low fat—the way her eyes squinted at the labels. Penelope had specific preferences and most of the time Donna aimed to please her but usually Penelope took one bite and the rest ended up in the bin. Edward wanted Donna to stop indulging her every whim but who says that to a mother?
Donna swept up the muffins and stuffed them in the fridge.
“We should have done this a long time ago, maybe that’s what she needs. An ultimatum, a clear line in the sand. We are doing her a disservice by coddling her,” Donna said and checked her wristwatch. “She’ll be twenty-nine. At twenty-nine . . .” Donna’s voice trailed off but Edward knew what she was going to say. How they had to make do when they were young, make adjustments, and how this generation was pampered, carrying their anxieties with them like a designer purse, look what I got, expecting everyone to acknowledge and pander to their emotions.
“I paid her credit card yesterday. You should see those charges,” Edward said.
“What kind of charges?”
Edward glanced toward the stairs but it was before seven, Penelope was upstairs asleep.
“All retail. And restaurants. And cash withdrawals. Who gets cash advances on a credit card?”
“Well, it is what it is.”
But was it really? Edward wasn’t sure.
His phone rang again and he let it go to voice mail again. Donna was going to give up eventually. He’d be prepping for surgery in fifteen minutes, he’d be in scrubs by now if it wasn’t for this accident, and any minute she would give up pestering him.
Donna’s steadfast resolve to support Penelope had waned and he couldn’t blame her for it. Edward had been fed up for a while himself and finally they were on the same page. He had spent a fortune renting apartments and houses—had never seen the deposits back on any of those—had offered to pay for college, proposed to invest in a business (once she’d come up with a viable business plan) but Penelope had decided on a real estate license. She had, to both their surprise, taken all mandatory classes and certifications. Maybe this was the progress they’d been waiting for and the looming move might do the trick. And according to the credit card charges she had also rented an office at a real estate firm.
“It’s not an office. More a cubicle in a strip mall,” Donna said. “It needs fresh paint and new carpet.”
Edward imagined Donna dropping by the office in sunglasses high on the bridge of her nose, her coat collar popped up, asking to use the bathroom, snooping out the place. Office or cubicle, he was torn about the real estate thing. Penelope wasn’t a people person and it wasn’t what he wanted for her but it was an honest profession. He could live with that, had learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable when it came to his daughter.
He saw Penelope at dinner every night. On the surface she seemed poised but there was something about her he couldn’t put his finger on. Like she was constantly on edge. He could tell by the way she turned into a know-it-all, had an answer to everything, and quarreled with Donna about unlocked doors and dirty laundry left in heaps for days on end. Penelope acted agreeable enough, promised to do better yet never followed through and argued afterward about what she had meant. It made him bristle, her flighty behavior, avoiding eye contact.
“I said I’d do it. But don’t tell me when and how.”
This teenage rebellion behavior she should have outgrown by now, Edward recognized it for what it was: neglect of anything not Penelope. That’s what he called it. If it didn’t directly benefit her, it was a low priority.
It had been six months and Penelope living with them had begun to take a toll on Donna. She wasn’t herself—he could tell by the way she forgot things, mixed up dates, an overall state of decline— as if Penelope’s moods were rubbing off on her. A month prior, Donna had let the housekeeper go. She alluded to wanting to hire someone else but Edward knew without a doubt that she didn’t want any witnesses to the volatile mother-daughter relationship. She feared gossip and Donna did her best to keep up with maintaining order in the house but the pristine condition he was used to was long in the past.
Edward had finally given Penelope an ultimatum. “One more month,” he had told her. Penelope hadn’t responded but got up and stormed out of the room, leaving Donna and Edward staring at each other.
With all this on his mind, the traffic cleared and moved, first at a snail’s pace, but then the speed picked up. The scent of gasoline hung in the air and Edward fumbled with the recirculate function on the dash. The phone rang again. He almost answered it, his hand reached but then he decided otherwise. He refused to argue with Donna again. She went from let her stay to make her move to tell her to leave today and this morning there had been another quarrel right after, in which Donna once again doubted she was doing the right thing, never sticking to her guns when it came to Penelope.