“Better. Tell you what, if you’re going to go, that’s the way to do it. My mother, she had cancer, spent years and years wasting away. In a nursing home. Rotting away. My dad had a nice clean heart attack. In bed. Not sleeping, if you know what I mean? Not alone. Not with my mom, either, but that’s another story. Everybody at the wake kept saying how happy he looked.”
Sam reached for a beer, but Rachel stopped him. “No more booze tonight. No going out on the prowl. Understand?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Do you need some help?” Ann asked.
“Honey, you’re more likely to be a distraction. Sam needs to take the rest of the night off, get some rest. Right Sam? Just watch a ball game or something.”
“I’ll see how I feel.” Sam went inside.
“So it’s like that?” Ann asked. “Day by day?”
“Day by day, hour by hour. What about you?”
“Brad is holding this huge project together. Hundreds of people. God only knows how much money.”
“When I first came down Atlanta I told them pay attention because the company has spent millions of dollars on my education. Now we’re up to tens of millions, maybe hundreds.”
“Does he do crazy things?” That was addressed to Ann.
“Like go running naked through the woods to wild lakes? Or cross country ski in the buff?”
“Wasn’t thinking of that. But yeah. What is it about men? Especially the ones we depend on. What makes them do that? You don’t know how many times I’ve been ready to end it all for Sam myself because he is just so … so ….”
“At least I’m not married to him. What does your wife think? Does she know you do all that stuff?”
“Running. Swimming. Cross country skiing. It’s what I do for exercise.”
“And it doesn’t bother her that you’re on your own? That you’re naked?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t doing it before we got married. I never went near the woods. What about Sam?”
“Sam had a health scare a few years ago. Now he lives each day like it’s his last. Which it is going to be if he keeps this up.”
“Ann likes to go naked also.”
“It’s not the same. We go to this beach in New Jersey. It’s very tame. Okay, everyone is naked, but there’s nothing sexual about it.”
“Uptight nudists,” Brad said. “What a crock. Morally superior nudists because they’re following some set of rules that justifies it to them.”
“It’s convenient. It’s legal. It’s safe. There are even a lot of regular beaches the same place so if we tell our parent we’re going there it doesn’t sound strange. I don’t think they know there’s a nude beach there.” The elevator came. “I don’t know if we’re ever going to see each other again.” She gave Rachel a kiss. “Thanks.”
“Thanks yourself. You take care now.”
“If you need help tonight …”
“Thanks honey.