24 Hours

Then, during Karen’s freshman year of medical school-the third year of Will’s residency-she got pregnant. She had never been able to take the pill, and the less certain methods of birth control had finally failed. Will was surprised but happy; Karen was devastated. She believed that keeping the baby would mean the death of her dream of being a doctor. Will was forced to concede that she was probably right. For three agonizing weeks, she considered an abortion. The fact that she was thirty-three finally convinced her to keep the baby. She managed to complete her freshman year of med school, but after Abby was born, there was no question of continuing. She withdrew from the university the day Will completed his residency, and while Will joined the private anesthesiology group led by his old roommate, Karen went home to prepare for motherhood.

They made a commitment to go forward without regrets, but it didn’t work out that way. Will was phenomenally successful in his work, and Abby brightened their lives in ways he could never have imagined. But Karen’s premature exit from medical school haunted her. Over the next couple of years, her resentment began to permeate their marriage, from their dinner conversations to their sex life. Or more accurately, their lack of one. Will tried to discuss it with her, but his attempts only seemed to aggravate the situation. He responded by focusing on his work and on Abby, and whatever energy he had left he used to fight his slowly progressing arthritis.

He treated himself, which conventional wisdom declared folly, but he had studied his condition until he knew more about it than most rheumatologists. He had done the same with Abby’s juvenile diabetes. Being his own doctor allowed him to do things he otherwise might not have been allowed to, like flying. On good days the pain didn’t interfere with his control of the aircraft, and Will only flew on good days. Using this rationale, he had medicated himself to get through the flight physical, and the limited documentary records of his disease made it unlikely that his deception would ever be discovered. He only wished the problems in his marriage were as easy to solve.

A high-pitched beeping suddenly filled the Baron’s cockpit. Will cursed himself for letting his attention wander. Scanning the instrument panel for the source of the alarm, he felt a hot tingle of anxiety along his arms. He saw nothing out of order, which made him twice as anxious, certain that he was missing something right in front of his eyes. Then relief washed through him. He reached down to his waist, pulled the new SkyTel off his belt, and hit the retrieve button. The alphanumeric pager displayed a message in green backlit letters:

WE ALREADY MISS YOU. BREAK A LEG TONIGHT. LOVE, KAREN AND ABBY. WITH SUGAR AND KISSES ON TOP.

Will smiled and waggled the Baron’s wings against the cerulean sky.

Karen stopped the Expedition beside her mailbox and shook her head at the bronze biplane mounted atop it. She had always thought the decoration juvenile. Reaching into the box, she withdrew a thick handful of envelopes and magazines and skimmed through them. There were brokerage statements, party invitations, copies of Architectural Digest, Mississippi Magazine, and The New England Journal of Medicine.

“Did I get any letters?” Abby asked from the backseat.

“You sure did.” Karen passed a powder blue envelope over the front seat. “I think that’s for Seth’s birthday party.”

Abby opened the invitation as Karen climbed the long incline of the drive. “How long till my birthday?”

“Three more months. Sorry, Charlie.”

“I don’t like being five and a half. I want to be six.”

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry. You’ll be thirty-six before you know it.”

When the house came into sight, Karen felt the ambivalence that always suffused her at the sight of it. Her first emotion was pride. She and Will had designed the house, and she had handled all the contracting work herself. Despite the dire warnings of friends, she had enjoyed this, but when the family finally moved in, she had felt more anticlimax than accomplishment. She could not escape the feeling that she’d constructed her own prison, a gilded cage like all the others on Crooked Mile Road, each inhabited by its own Mississippi version of Martha Stewart, the new millennium’s Stepford wives.

Karen pulled into the garage bay nearest the laundry room entrance. Abby unhooked her own safety straps but waited for her mother to open her door.

“Let’s get some iced tea,” Karen said, setting Abby on the concrete. “How do you feel?”

“Good.”

“Did you tee-tee a lot this afternoon?”

“No. I need to go now, though.”

“All right. We’ll check your sugar after. Then we’ll get the tea. We’re going to have some fun today, kid. Just us girls.”

Abby grinned, her green eyes sparkling. “Just us girls!”