He gave his Friday surgery to his most trusted colleague and postponed Monday’s surgery; he crammed paperwork into his briefcase, he packed his tuxedo for the black-tie event Margaret had mentioned, and a pink tie for the baptism. He arrived at the Winter Street Inn at seven o’clock, and Isabelle, Kevin’s lovely French fiancée, showed him to room 10.
She said, “Kelley is playing shooting games with the boys and Kevin is singing in town with Ava. You will be fine, yes or no?”
“Yes,” Drake said, but he felt nervous. For one second, he wondered if Margaret had invited someone else to be her guest for the baptism weekend. A few years ago, she had dated Jack Nicholson. What if Margaret shows up with Jack?
Something about the inn relaxes him. It’s all decked out for Christmas—with a fresh garland tied off with burgundy velvet bows, a huge glittering tree, a mantel crowded with nutcrackers. There is classical Christmas music playing, which Drake prefers over Bing Crosby. “The First Noel.” The hospital had just been putting up their trees when Drake left that afternoon, but no matter how much money the Sloan Kettering fund-raising committee provides to decorate at Christmas, the hospital always feels melancholy.
Drake brings his paperwork down to the large leather sofa in the living room and, as there are no other guests around, he spreads out. He loosens his tie and kicks off his chocolate suede Gucci loafers. There’s a fire crackling in the fireplace and almost immediately Isabelle brings him a double Grey Goose and tonic with lime, which is his preferred cocktail, and a plate of cheese puffs, warm from the oven.
“Merci!” Drake says. And then, because he’s really been trying to get his head out of his work and improve his interpersonal skills, he asks, “How’s the baby? L’enfant? Genevieve?”
“Beautiful,” Isabelle says, and she winks. “Sleeping.”
He’s not sure what time Margaret is supposed to arrive. She’s flying in on her friend Alison’s private plane sometime after her broadcast, which ends at seven.
She could be here as early as eight thirty, he supposes. Or far later.
Please let her be alone, he thinks. And let her be happy to see me.
He’s halfway through his second drink and has devoured the plate of cheese puffs plus the entire dish of mixed nuts, which is meant for all the inn’s guests, when the front door to the inn swings open.
Margaret! he thinks. And he stands up.
But the woman who wanders in isn’t Margaret. It’s a frightfully skinny woman with curly hair buttoned snugly into a forest green wool coat, with a scarf that looks like a long Christmas stocking wound around her neck.
The woman has a look in her eye that Drake recognizes only too well. It’s a look he sees every day, in the eyes of mothers whose children have been diagnosed as terminal. It’s a particular kind of naked, desperate pain.
“Good evening?” Drake says.
The woman gives him a genuinely quizzical look, as if he had just intruded on her quiet work space, and not the other way around. “Who are you?”
He laughs. “I’m Dr. Carroll. Who are you?”
She takes a flask from her pocket and upends it into her mouth. “Are you a guest of the inn, then?”
He nods. “Are you?”
“I’m looking for Kelley,” she says. “Is he around?”
“Last I heard, he was playing shooting games,” Drake says, then he chuckles at how that sounds. “With his grandsons, I assume, I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him. I can get the manager for you. Isabelle.”
“No, no,” the woman says. She collapses on the sofa. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
Drake regards the woman, whose eyes are now scanning his patient notes, which are, of course, extremely confidential. He gathers them up, keeping one eye on the woman, wondering if she is an itinerant off the street.
“So you’re not a guest of the inn?” he says. “Are you a friend of Kelley’s?”
The woman starts to cry. Drake can’t help himself; he goes right into doctor mode. He has worked all these many years to uphold his professional shield, but the truth is, he’s compassionate to a fault. He settles down on the sofa next to the woman and takes her hand. She squeezes with all her might, crushing his fingers. Drake has experienced this too many times to count with the mothers of his patients.
He says, “Ma’am…”
The woman sobs. She says, “You have absolutely no idea what it’s like.”
Drake hands her the damp cocktail napkin from under his drink. He thinks, The road to hell is paved with good intentions. He should have waited for Margaret up in room 10.
The woman blows her nose on the napkin, then rests her head against the sofa cushion and unbuttons her coat. “It looks really nice in here. I’ve forgotten how cozy it is by the fire.”
“So you’ve been here before?” Drake asks.
She closes her eyes. “I’m pretty drunk,” she says. “Alcohol is the only thing that helps.”
The woman looks overly comfortable, like she might fall asleep. Drake should either head upstairs to the room or venture out to find some dinner. Sitting here next to a drunk stranger isn’t a good idea.
The woman murmurs something he doesn’t understand.
“I’m sorry?” he says.
“The nutcrackers,” she says. “Which is your favorite? Mine is the astronaut.”
“Oh,” Drake says, grateful for a relatively safe topic of conversation. “The doctor, I think.” The doctor nutcracker is old-fashioned, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. He’s wearing a headband mirror and a stethoscope and carrying an inoculation syringe. Drake blinks and imagines himself as a nutcracker, brandishing his cranial saw and his ultrasound probes. The two vodkas are taking effect; even on a regular weekend at home, he never allows himself two double cocktails like this. He wonders if it’s narcissistic to answer “the doctor” when he is a doctor, so he tries again.
“And I like the Oktoberfest nutcracker. I’ve always meant to go to Oktoberfest, but I’ve never had time. I guess you could say it’s on my bucket list.” Now he knows he’s getting drunk. Never in his life has he used the term “bucket list.” It has always seemed silly; in his daily life, his “bucket list” is to save as many children’s lives as possible. However, now that he’s nearly sixty with retirement a mere five years away, and now that his feelings for Margaret have escalated in such a dramatic fashion, he’s starting to think of the things he’d like to do with her—sooner rather than later. The Great Barrier Reef. Cinque Terre. The Great Wall.
The woman bursts into fresh tears. “My son… back from Munich!” she says.
Drake doesn’t quite catch that. What he thinks she said is that her son just got back from Munich? “Oh,” he says. “Was he doing business there? Or traveling? There used to be a thing called a Eurail pass. I wonder if that still exists?”
The woman is crying too hard to answer, and Drake finally admits to himself that he has gotten in over his head in this conversation, and he needs help. The inn is filled with guests, but there isn’t a soul around; everyone must be out enjoying the charms of Christmas Stroll. Drake needs to somehow summon Isabelle, or even Kelley, but he’s afraid that if he calls out, he’ll wake the baby. The woman is listing precariously toward him; she’s threatening, perhaps, to rest her head on his shoulder.
Drake says, “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help.”
“My son!” she wails. “There is absolutely no way you could know how this feels.”
Drake moves on his hunch. “Is he sick?” he asks.
“Is he sick?” the woman says, her tears clearing up a bit. She sniffles and mops her face with the soggy cocktail napkin. “I have no way of knowing if he’s sick or well—that’s the thing. I know nothing, and when a mother knows nothing, her mind goes to the darkest places.”
Against his better judgment, Drake tosses back the last inch of his drink. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimes the half hour, and Drake discreetly checks his watch. Eight thirty already! He might as well sit tight until Margaret arrives and they can go to dinner together. Their favorite spot, 56 Union, is serving a special holiday menu until ten.