The Deep End by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online

collapsed last night and had to be rushed to the hospital.”
    “What!”
    Eve whipped the thermometer out of her mouth. “I did not collapse. I am perfectly fine.”
    “Put the thermometer back in your mouth,” her mother instructed as if Eve were a child of four. Eve looked imploringly toward the ceiling but she did as her mother said. “You didn’t have pains last night and have to leave the party? Brian didn’t take you to the emergency ward at North Shore University Hospital? He didn’t call me first thing this morning and ask me to look after you because he has to go out?”
    “I had a few pains,” Eve corrected, once again removing the thermometer from beneath her tongue, “and everyone overreacted.”
    “What kind of pains?” Joanne asked, temporarily forgetting her own problems.
    “Just a few small pains in my chest.” Eve indicated the precise area with the tip of the thermometer. “I’ve been having them for a few weeks.”
    “Just a few small pains,” her mother repeated incredulously. “Did she tell you that the pains were so bad she couldn’t stand up?” she asked Joanne.
    “Were you there?” Eve demanded.
    “Would somebody please tell me what is going on?” Joanne implored, remembering countless such scenes she had witnessed between these two throughout her girlhood. She felt transported back in time, and despite the fact that Eve now towered over her mother’s squat, plump frame, they remained as they had always been, the overbearing mother confronting her rebellious daughter.
    Brian spoke from the doorway. “We were at a party being hosted by someone from my division …”
    “I told you about it,” Eve interrupted.
    “She tells you everything,” her mother added immediately. “Do you think she tells me anything?”
    “Mother!”
    “Look, ladies, I have to go. I’m late already.” Brian’s voice was past the point of exasperation. “The facts are that Eve started experiencing some pains in her chest at around midnight and that she had trouble standing up, so I took her to the hospital.”
    “Where they gave me some tests and decided that everything was all right,” Eve stated.
    “Where they gave her an EKG and whatever else they give you if they think you might be having a heart attack …” Brian tried to continue.
    “And they found out that I wasn’t.”
    “And they recommended that she have further tests later in the week.”
    “For what?” Joanne asked, concerned.
    “Ulcer, gall bladder, that sort of thing,” Brian answered. “But she’s refusing to go.”
    “It was a little indigestion, for God’s sake. I am not going to put myself through a battery of unpleasant tests just so some doctor can get some admittedly much-needed experience at my expense. I have seen all I want to see of hospitals, thank you very much.”
    “Talk some sense into her,” Brian repeated. “I have to go.” He kissed his wife reassuringly on the top of her head, a gesture which brought a small stab of pain to the vicinity of Joanne’s own chest and the threat of tears to her eyes. Before they could form, Joanne turned and quickly swiped at her face with the palm of her hand. Now was obviously not the time to announce Paul’s sudden departure.
    The three women listened in silence as Brian closed the front door behind him. When Eve opened her mouth to speak, her mother automatically thrust the thermometer back inside it.
    “For God’s sake, will you stop doing that!” Eve exclaimed, angrily hurling the thermometer to the floor and watching it break neatly into two pieces, mercury spilling out onto the tile, immediately forming into groups of small gray clusters.
    “You never listen to anyone.” Her mother picked up the broken glass and expertly scooped the balls of mercury into a tissue. “That’s always been your problem, and where does it get you?” She waved the broken thermometer in front of her daughter’s face.
    “Mother, go home,” Eve said gently, the