Page 86 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

I hesitated, thinking of the girl sitting in my living room right now, a purple brooch at her neck and the whole world at her feet.

“I already said you could stay. Don’t push your luck.”

29

I’d always known I wasn’t a particularly likable man. Like Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man, I was sick and spiteful, two qualities that were so much a part of me that there was no way of killing them without killing the man they belonged to. I was unpleasant to be around, incapable of change, and—unlike Maisey—there was nothing unreliable about my narration.

But, oh, how I wished there was. To turn a blind eye to my faults, to sail through life on a sea of ignorance—now that was bliss. People with no introspection had no idea how good they had it.

“I’d like to see the nurse I threw out of my house,” I said as I hobbled through the door to the home health services company listed on the bottom of my hospital release form. Not surprisingly, the woman behind the counter blinked and asked me to repeat this request.

“Come again, sir?”

“You heard me just fine,” I grumbled. Then, remembering my errand, I took a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t remember her name, but she liked Doris Day. The early years. And she had no idea who Virginia Woolf was even though I explained it to her three times.”

A heavy cough sounded from behind me.

“What I mean is,” I said, doing my best to moderate my tone the way Maisey had instructed me, “I’d appreciate it if you could pull up my account and tell me the names of the nurses who came to my house to help me. One of them was a Doris Day fan.”

The woman snapped her gum. “Sure thing, hon. Did you say you threw her out?”

This time, the sound behind me was a laugh.

“His name is Arthur McLachlan,” Maisey said with all the efficiency of a woman who regularly interacted with strangers. “He opened his account sometime in June after he left the hospital against medical advice. You were nice enough to keep sending replacement nurses even though he did his best to run each one off.”

“Ohhh. I remember you.” The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “There’s no way I’m giving you their personal information. Do you have any idea how hard it is to retain qualified nurses as it is?”

Since this was no more than I’d expected—and, yes,deserved—I sighed and gave in. “It’s fine. I’m not here to yell at them. I’m here to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“Make amends.”

“Make amends?”

I turned to Maisey, feeling my frustration start to mount. She immediately began lifting her hands before lowering them again like a mime mimicking the waves of the ocean. “Breathe in and out. Remember what we talked about. Use your words.”

I breathed. I remembered. I used my words.

“I’m also here to recompense them for their loss of work. It wasn’t fair of me to dismiss them early from their shifts. I’m sure they rely on that income to get by. I’d like to ensure they don’t suffer for my bad manners.”

“Oh. Um. Wow.” The woman’s eyes returned to their normal size. “No one has ever done that before. Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Would I have come all this way otherwise?”

At this, Maisey sighed. I was tempted to join her, but I knew I wouldn’t get any sympathy. When those nurses had come to the house, I’d behaved like the angry, irritable,scaredman I’d been, and now I had to pay for it. Literally.

I had Greg to thank for this. Greg and Maisey both, though only Maisey knew about it. For some godforsaken reason, my grandson seemed to think that the burden was onhimto cover the cost of my mistakes. I’d overheard him trying to pay off Mateo, Maisey, and Sloane so many times that even I was starting to get sick of the offer. I was here purely as a preventive measure. The last thing I needed was for him to go into debt because I lacked the ability to say what I really meant.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not very good at this.”

“No kidding,” the woman muttered under her breath.

“Since you won’t give me their names, could you at least see that they get these checks along with my sincerest apologies?” I resolutely ignored her outburst as I handed over the four cashier’s checks. “My medical emergency took me by surprise, and I didn’t act as well as I should have.”

The woman didn’t make a move to grab them, but I wasn’t surprised. Maisey had prepared me for these difficulties ahead of time. She’d prepared me for a lot of things, including the likely possibility that I’d be shown the door and/or escorted off the premises by a policeman.

“You’re never going to be the kind ofman they throw parades for,” she’d said with what I could have sworn was a twinkle in her eye. “But it won’t kill you to go to a few just to see what all the fuss is about.”