Page 43 of Waves of Time
“Glaucoma is serious. She knows it just as much as us. I wish she would tell us what the doctor said.”
“She’s refused to talk about it all week,” Aria said. “I’m just relieved she went to the doctor.”
“That’s your mother. She likes to pretend everything is okay as long as she can.” Marc’s face scrunched up, as though he was on the verge of crying. He then said, “She did tell me, right before she went to sleep, that her surgery is scheduled for one week from today.”
“Gosh. I don’t know what to feel.” Aria shook her head, alternating between relief and fear.
“I was thinking I could come out for it,” Marc suggested, extending his palms over the table. “I could stay with you for a little while.”
Aria stiffened. For whatever reason, she couldn’t imagine Marc in her and her mother’s home, living in Hilary’s office, and trying to help. Although Aria had harbored dreams of them uniting as a family, she couldn’t properly bring all the images together. She wasn’t sure why.
“You don’t need to do that,” Aria insisted.
Marc’s shoulders fell forward.
“I mean, I really can handle it,” Aria said. “Mom and I have done everything else together. We can get through this, too.”
ChapterSixteen
Hilary and Aria threw themselves into work for their three-day trip to San Francisco, then found themselves back in business class, breathless, after a whirlwind of a time. Throughout, and probably against Hilary’s better judgment, they’d stayed at Marc’s apartment, letting him make them breakfast and pasta dinners and pour them very small glasses of wine. They’d even let him drive them to the airport, where he’d hugged them both until they’d complained of suffocation and told them, “Let me know what I can do to help.”
Now that they were back on the plane, Hilary’s head whirred with fears about the upcoming surgery, one that would knock her out of the interior design game for a little while, if not forever. But of course, the reality was that if she didn’t go for the surgery, there was no question of what was next. She would go blind.
When the stewardess approached with glasses of champagne, Aria and Hilary toasted to a wonderful trip in San Francisco, sipped, then locked eyes. Clearly, Aria was heavy with thoughts of her own and was unwilling to let Hilary get away with pretending everything was all right, not this close to surgery.
“Have you told any of the family yet?”
Hilary shook her head. “It’s been one hell of a summer for the Colemans. I don’t want to add fuel to the fire.”
“They would want to know,” Aria said. “Especially Grandma. Come on.”
Hilary sighed and gazed out the window at a terrific blue that hurt her eyes and made her see bright spots. With a quick motion, she slammed the shutter over the window to block out the light.
“I used to love looking down from above,” she said quietly.
Aria took Hilary’s hand over the armrest, then said, “It’s going to be okay, you know? You have so many people who love you.” She paused, then added, “Dad threatened to come out, like, fifty times.”
“I’m glad you talked him down,” Hilary said.
Aria nodded. “We never needed him.”
“No.” Although, even as Hilary said it, she thought of the thousands and thousands of ways she had needed Marc over the years, as a father to Aria and a friend and lover. But she’d found ways not to need him, she supposed. And that was something she was proud of.
The plane landed in Boston at seven o’clock that evening, which felt like four o’clock to Hilary and Aria. They gathered their baggage, grabbed coffees from a kiosk, and headed toward the garage to pick up Aria’s Chevy, as Aria had been too frightened to drive Hilary’s convertible all the way to the Boston Airport.
“It was terrifying enough to pick it up the other day,” Aria had admitted.
At this, Hilary had wanted to remind Aria that, when and if she went blind, it had to be up to Aria to enjoy the heck out of that car. The convertible was Hilary’s baby, her treasure— something she’d purchased when interior design had really taken off. It had felt momentarily frivolous until she’d felt the breeze through her hair, and she’d felt completely free. You couldn’t put a price on that feeling.
As Aria drove them out of the parking garage toward the highway that would guide them back to Hyannis Port, Hilary’s phone dinged with a message from Sam.
SAMANTHA: Hey, Hil. Mom said you were on your way back to the island.
SAMANTHA: Do you mind if I come by tonight? I’d like to talk to you about something.
SAMANTHA: I promise, it has nothing to do with chandeliers.
Hilary’s heart rate quickened, and she shoved her phone back into her purse and leaned her head against the window of Aria’s car.