The Repeat Year (25 page)

She turned back to Sherry. “How did you get your African violet to bloom?”

Sherry straightened up in her chair. “African violets are tricky. You have to convince them they’re living in Tanzania—the right light, the right water, the right humidity.”

“How do you do that?”

“The watering technique is really important,” Sherry said. “How do you water your violet?”

“Usually just tap water from a glass. I don’t have a watering can.”

“You should never water your violet from above. You don’t want to get the leaves wet. Never use cold water, either. You need a deep saucer to put under the pot. Fill it with small rocks. Always pour room-temperature water in the saucer, never directly in the pot. Whatever water the violet doesn’t drink within an hour, you should dump out of the saucer.”

So she had been caring for her African violet all wrong. It hadn’t occurred to her to invest more time into researching what she was doing wrong and how she could make it healthier. She had expected it to grow and flourish because she wanted it so badly. But of course that wasn’t enough.

Dusk was descending when her mom dropped her off. The red pickup was gone, and in its place was Phil’s tan Mercedes. A few of the lights were on, but Olive couldn’t see Phil through any of the windows.

All of her worries, all of her hopes seemed minuscule next to Sherry’s. She felt like she had just lost a patient at the hospital. It was hard to pull herself back up, reenter her life, and care about the things she’d been so excited about only hours ago—organizing furniture and choosing paint colors—when Sherry’s body was slowly losing a war. Part of her resented Sherry for this. Olive was young, she was in love, she’d been given a second chance. Was it so wrong for her to want to enjoy this?

“Your lives are entwined for a moment,” Gloria had told Olive on one of her first days in the ICU. “Your patient depends on you for his or her very life. And you give back the care and respect you would give a family member. Then your patient moves on—either leaving this hospital or leaving this life. The roles you have played in each other’s lives are over. And you need to take from the experience what you can and move on, too.”

Olive didn’t know why she and Sherry had been thrown together. She didn’t know if they were the only two people in the Madison area or the only two people in the world reliving this year. Was Olive’s mom the connection? Something with Sherry’s breast cancer? Was Olive supposed to somehow save her? It seemed impossible: the same Herculean task she had assigned herself when her dad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Find a loophole, find a cure. Make a miracle.

Perhaps the link between Olive and Sherry was not predestined but only coincidental. Perhaps they were just two women who had hurt people they loved. Two women who were both in need of redemption.

She walked up the driveway. Phil came into view. He was standing in the living room in a white T-shirt. He bent down, dipping gracefully out of her sight, and reappeared holding a large framed painting. He set it on the fireplace, took a few steps back, and eyed the picture with a thoughtful gaze. God, she loved him. She would do anything to keep him. To hold on to this life they were building together.

Chapter 18

I
t was November 5. Olive’s twenty-sixth birthday again. Outside, the first snow of the season was falling, a mix between sleet and rain. Inside a crush of bodies filled the living room and kitchen. A fire blazed in the fireplace, the Killers blared over the speakers, and there were martinis and cosmopolitans and chocolate fondue. Phil had planned a party for her, inviting all their closest friends. In an echo of a year, he had still managed to surprise her.

Last year she had gone out to lunch with her mom and then worked a twelve-hour shift.

“Gosh, I wish I could find a place like this in Milwaukee,” Maggie said, admiring the fireplace. She wrote for the food section of the newspaper there. She and Alistair were Olive’s oldest friends.

Olive bit into a chocolate-dipped strawberry. “Yeah, but you know Madison. Places like this are few and far between. We got lucky.”

Alistair leaned over the couch and handed her a cosmopolitan. “For the birthday girl.” He worked in IT for the university and sent her dirty forwards almost every day.

“Thanks,” Olive said. This was her third cosmo, and it was only ten o’clock. She surveyed the living room. It felt surreal to have so many of her friends—some of whom she hadn’t seen since 2010—together in one place. It felt a little like the old TV show
This Is Your Life
. There was Claire, Olive’s good friend from nursing school. After graduation, she’d moved to Milwaukee to work at Children’s Hospital. There was Tina, flirting with one of Phil’s best friends, Jeff. There were Robin and Lisa, who’d lived on the same floor as Olive and Kerrigan freshman year and then followed them to the pink house and lived in the lower flat until a few years ago. It was strange that Kerrigan wasn’t here yet.

“I’ll be right back,” Olive said, and hoisted herself from the couch. She found Phil in the kitchen with Brian and his girlfriend, Kristin. Brian was shaking a martini shaker; he worked part time as a bartender.

“Was there not enough vodka in your cosmo?” Brian teased.

“Probably too much,” Olive said. “Just the way I like it.”

Kristin wrapped her in a sideways hug. “Oh, to be twenty-six again.” She had just turned twenty-nine last month.

“I know,” Olive agreed. “It’s weird.” She should be turning twenty-seven. She wondered if her body had stopped aging. If even at a cellular level, she was really only twenty-six. “Phil, you invited Kerrigan, right?”

“Oh crap. It never occurred to me to invite your best friend.” Phil slapped his forehead. “Of course, I did. She’s not here, yet? Well, you know Kerrigan. She’s probably out shopping for the perfect birthday gift at the last minute.”

Kristin handed Brian a martini glass, and something sparkly caught Olive’s eye. A big fat diamond. An engagement ring.

“Oh my God. Are you guys engaged?”

Was there a split-second hesitation, or did Olive imagine it? Kristin thrust her hand toward Olive, wiggling her fingers so that the diamond refracted the light and glittered. “Yes! Brian proposed last week. He picked the ring out himself. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Gorgeous. Congratulations. I’m so happy for you guys!” She hugged them and then caught Phil’s reserved expression over Kristin’s shoulder. He looked wary. Of course—he had already known about the engagement and withheld the news from her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him. She tried to keep her tone light and teasing, rather than hurt and angry. He had just thrown her a surprise birthday party, after all.

This time she was sure she wasn’t imagining the hesitation or the look that passed between the three of them.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It just happened on Sunday, and I’ve been so busy planning for this party.”

But Brian was his best friend, and Olive suspected Brian had told him about his plan to propose well before the fact. Phil was undoubtedly going to stand up in the wedding, probably even be his best man. How could it simply slip Phil’s mind to tell her something of this magnitude? Something that meant so much to him? Although she could hardly compare this to the magnitude of her own secret.

“Men,” Kristin said, shaking her head with a smile. “I was on the phone with my sister thirty seconds after I said yes. Gosh, and there’s so much to do because we’re planning a Valentine’s Day wedding. Four months is a bit ambitious, I know, but our first date was on Valentine’s Day, and you would not believe how many wedding reception sites are available in February.” Olive could tell she was trying to smooth over the situation.

She suddenly wondered if Brian and Kristin had known about Phil’s proposal. Perhaps Phil had told Brian, and Brian had told Kristin, and that was why everything was so awkward now. Because Kristin had said yes, and Olive had not. Olive trained her eyes on Phil. He was pulling out another plate of strawberries and pineapple slices from the fridge. They hadn’t talked about the proposal since March, when he’d told her he still had the ring. But now that they’d moved in together, she wondered if he was planning on asking her again. More than anything she wanted to say yes, but the truth had to come first. The truth made the kitchen feel hot and close.

“That sounds so lovely,” Olive said. “Sorry, but I’ve got to make the rounds. Congrats again.” She took the fruit plate from Phil to set on the coffee table by the fondue pot.

Kerrigan had just arrived, and she wasn’t alone. A tall man with shaggy blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses was helping her out of her coat. He was good-looking in a scholarly, middle-aged way. He was probably somewhere in his late thirties. He didn’t look like Kerrigan’s type at all, but he seemed somehow familiar to Olive.

When Kerrigan spotted her, she started playing air guitar and singing loudly, “They say it’s your birthday. Nur-nur-nur-nur-nur. It’s my birthday, too, yeah. Nur-nur-nur-nur-nur.” Next she used her clutch purse as a microphone to serenade Olive with the song that had become their tradition over the years. “Happy birthday, girlfriend!” Kerrigan concluded. She shook snow crystals from her hair as she danced toward Olive. Kerrigan embraced her and whispered in her ear, “I want you to meet Fritz.”

“Fritz?”

“Dr. Fritz Morgan. We met at Heureux Hasard. Remember that swanky little bar by the Capitol we went to a few months ago? Where we ran into your coworker Alex? Well, apparently, it’s the hangout of a lot of cute doctors.”

Olive blanched at the mention of Alex. Fritz stepped forward and shook her hand. He seemed amused by Kerrigan’s antics.

“Happy birthday,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you. I work at Dane County General, too. You’re in the ICU, right? I’m in surgery.”

Dr. Morgan, the surgeon. She’d seen him in the ICU on a few occasions. He looked different without his white coat and hanging all over her friend.

“Nice to meet you, too,” she said. “Thanks for coming. I’ll take your coats.” She carried their damp coats to the bedroom and tossed them on the heap that had already formed on the bed. She paused for a second, relishing the quiet and solitude of the bedroom. Cashew crept out from under the bed when he realized it was her. She squatted down to scratch his head, and he licked her fingers.

They had purchased a new, more gender-neutral duvet cover for Olive’s down comforter. It was a peaceful blue and green that reminded her of Lake Mendota. Matching nightstands flanked the bed. On Phil’s were his watch and a neatly folded
Wall Street Journal
. On hers were a paperback novel her mom had recommended and a framed photo of her family in front of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a snapshot from a trip they’d taken in 1998 to watch the monarch butterfly migration.

It thrilled her that this bedroom was theirs. That their clothes were mingled in the closet. That they slept together in this bed every night.

She gave Cashew one last head rub and then returned to the party, where Kerrigan was introducing Fritz to Tina and Jeff. Olive could tell from Tina’s body language that she was unimpressed. Doctors were a dime a dozen to her. Jeff and Fritz, however, seemed to have hit upon something in common and were talking animatedly.

Olive set off to talk to Claire, whom she hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to tonight, but Kerrigan intercepted her. “I need to talk to you in private.” Carrying a nearly empty martini glass, she led Olive down the hallway to the one unfinished room in the condo. Boxes were stacked in one corner of the extra bedroom; in the other stood Phil’s Bowflex.

“You couldn’t have told me whatever you wanted to tell me in the kitchen or the bedroom?” Olive asked. “This seems kind of antisocial.”

Kerrigan ignored her and shut the door behind them. “I have awesome news. Guess what?”

Olive sat on the black leather seat of the Bowflex and swung her legs. “What?”

“I found the perfect solution to my living situation. I’m moving in with Fritz. He has this awesome apartment in one of the high-rises downtown. Ninth floor. He has a view of Lake Monona.”

“That sounds great, but isn’t this a little fast?”

“We’ve actually known each other for a couple of months now. I didn’t tell you, because—well, I know it’s fast, but it’s kind of serious.” Kerrigan paced across the room. “He’s really amazing, Olive. He adores me and he’s gentle and sweet and he’s great in bed and he loves to travel and I feel like I can tell him anything and he won’t judge me or tell me I’m stupid. When I told him that I’ve been wanting to go back to school to get my MBA, he told me to go for it and not wait another minute. He takes me seriously. He likes me for who I am.” She stopped to take a breath. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Olive looked down at her hands in her lap. “I don’t know what to say. I have to gather my thoughts first. You kind of caught me off guard.”

“You don’t know what to say? How about ‘I’m happy for you, Kerrigan’? Is it too much for me to expect you to be happy for me for once?”

“Of course I’m happy for you! I’m glad you met someone. I’m just a little worried. You haven’t known each other for very long. What if you move into his place and things don’t work out? It could be a big mess.”

“You and Phil moved in together. You bought a frickin’ condo together. Like that wouldn’t be messy if things didn’t work out!” Kerrigan crunched the olive from her martini between her teeth.

“Yes, but we’ve been dating for four years now, Kerrigan! We know each other pretty well.”

“You don’t know everything about each other. You keep secrets.”

“Kerrigan, I—”

“Fritz and I don’t keep secrets. We’ve known each other for only two months, but we don’t lie to each other. We don’t pretend we’re perfect. For example, I know that Fritz is married, and I’m okay with that.”

“Oh, shit. Fritz is married? Nothing good can come of this, Kerrigan.”

Kerrigan glowered. “I knew you were going to make a big deal out of this. I just knew it, because that’s the kind of person you are. His wife lives in New York. She’s finishing up her PhD in biochemistry or something. They’ve been married four years, and three of the four years, they’ve lived in different states.”

“Does she know?”

“She will soon. Fritz wants a divorce.”

“Does he really mean that, or is he just saying it so you’ll be with him?”

Kerrigan kicked one of the boxes. “He means it!”

“Don’t do that. You might break something.”

Kerrigan turned to face her. The flush of exhilaration had drained from her face. Even her provoking demeanor had passed.

“It’s my birthday, and you’re my best friend. I don’t want to argue with you. I just want what’s best for you. If you think this is it, then I’ll be happy for you.” Olive stood up from the Bowflex.

Kerrigan didn’t say anything for a long time. “He wasn’t wearing his ring when I met him,” she said at last. “He says he never wears it because he doesn’t want to lose it inside somebody during an operation. That none of the surgeons do. If he had had a ring on . . .”

“I know, Kerrigan. You’re not like that.” Olive reached out to touch her shoulder.

“I’m not like that? Like
what
, Olive?” She whirled away from her, out of her touch. “A cheap slut? Say what you really mean. God, you’re so judgmental. You think you’re so much better than me, so much better than everyone, just because you think you’ve got a free pass with this whole time warp thing. But really you’re just hiding from your mistakes, while the rest of us have to deal with the consequences.”

“That’s not what I think,” Olive objected.

“I’m so sick of your holier-than-thou attitude. The week after Phil tried to propose to you, you screwed a doctor in the Family Room of the ICU. Don’t you think he would be interested in knowing that?”

“Please, Kerrigan, lower your voice.” Her blood pumped through her veins like a speeding train rattling its tracks. “You know it’s not that straightforward. That happened the first time I lived through 2011. This time around I didn’t do it. I’ve been—”

“Oh, is that how it works?” Kerrigan widened her eyes. “Right. Cheating in an alternate universe doesn’t constitute cheating. Rule Number One in the Olive Watson Handbook to Perfect Fucking Relationships.”

Olive tried to keep her voice level because she was afraid if she didn’t, a scream might erupt. “I’m going to tell him soon. About everything. But I need to break the news gently. When the time is right.”