A Theory of Relativity by Jacquelyn Mitchard Read Free Book Online Page B

making a bore of himself. In bed these past nights, he’d softly explained his boring intention to “process” Georgia’s and Ray’s death, like a kind of amino acid or cheese spread.
    Mark wanted to understand the deaths, Nora to beatify them, Gordon to explain the mechanics. The Nyes, judging from Lorraine’s one brief conversation with Ray’s mother, Diane, wanted someone to sue.
    Who knew what Lorraine’s own sister would have to say when she arrived in her neurologist’s wife’s Mercedes? Judy Reilly was on the Internet, researching getaway vacations for Lorraine and Mark. Karen Wright was embroidering a pall for the casket, with butterflies.
    Butterflies.
    Bullshit.
    Only Lorraine wanted simply not to know.
    She’d had an intestinal exam once, in which the doctor had used a curious sedative to put her in a gauzy state neither quite in nor out of consciousness. The drug apparently did not deaden what would have been considerable pain, but it made the brain unable to recall the sensation for more than a few seconds—which was virtually the same as not experiencing the pain at all. Wouldn’t it be fine to have a home line of that stuff, piped into the house like natural gas or water?
    Just that morning, Lorraine had become dizzy and fallen getting out of the shower. She had no idea why. Perhaps the water had been too hot. Her ankle had collapsed with a huge, wayward, biting sprong, bringing her down hard on her hip on the ceramic tile. As she sat there, fascinated, dripping, the thing swelled, darkened. Sick-making as the pain was, Lorraine’s first thought was gratitude.
    I won’t be able to attend the wake. I won’t be able to walk to the funeral.
    “I won’t be able to attend the funeral,” she’d called from the bathroom. Mark suggested quietly that her unsteadiness might have something to do with all those painkillers and tranquilizers.
    How had he known? Finding his own shoes was like a big-game hunt for Mark.
    Lorraine shouted, “That’s ridiculous. Those silly things have no more effect on me than Ludens cough drops.” Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 35
    A Theory of Relativity
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    Mark winced. She felt nearly sorry for him. She never yelled at Mark. She could not remember more than half a dozen times in their lives that she’d raised her voice.
    Eventually, Lorraine’s basic good health and an ice pack swamped her best intentions. The swelling subsided. There was no permanent damage. She could stand, although gingerly. She would be able to lean on Mark’s arm and no one would think anything of it. She would have to perform the whole ballet. To stay home would have invited more of those doleful half-smiles, more self-indemnifying sympathy. Let’s be ever so sorry for the McKennas, or next time, it could be us. She would have to come home from the wake, and sometime in the following week, wash a load of her daughter’s underpants and nightgowns, which still lay in the bottom of the clothes hamper, while Georgia herself lay in a cool room at Chaptmans. A few days later, Lorraine would fold the nightgowns and put the best away for Keefer to keep, while Georgia lay across the street under a blanket of earth.
    “If only I’d knocked myself on the head instead of on the ankle,” she’d told Mark. He was staring, puzzled, at the lint roller, which was fuzzy and had apparently lost its tacky properties. His navy blue suit hung on the back of a door. Lorraine took the lint roller from him and peeled back the tape. He brightened, grateful.
    Mark wanted to be grateful. He was glad, he said, that the ordeal was over. He seemed to think they’d summited. To Lorraine’s fury, he had said, “At least it’s not you.” And when she looked at him, saying nothing, his words had lost velocity, as if her look had pressed on some critical valve. Was he saying he would not have died in Georgia’s stead?
    He would not have wanted Lorraine to die in Georgia’s stead? Simply that he could not bear