Mercury by Margot Livesey

life.”
    â€œâ€˜Should’? What does ‘should’ mean? Will I be okay?”
    She was looking at me so fiercely I had to turn away. “‘Should’ means there’s every reason to think the surgery will be successful, but no one can give you a hundred-percent guarantee.”
    â€œI’m out of here.” She seized her bag and headed for the door.
    â€œYou ought not to drive. You might hurt someone—your daughters, a friend of your daughters.”
    My last remark stopped her. “Shit,” she said. She sat down on the edge of my desk, glaring as if this too were my fault. I was reaching to touch her shoulder when I recalled Merrie’s warning. I let my hand fall and suggested she phone her husband.
    Greg arrived twenty minutes later, straight from his job unloading trucks at a supermarket. He had the build of a linebacker, tall, short necked, and thick thighed. His bulky presence made my office seem instantly smaller, but as soon as he spoke, his fundamental niceness was apparent. I again explained the need for immediate surgery and how careful Bonnie must be.
    â€œTreat her like a princess,” he said. “Got it.”
    I escorted them to Merrie’s desk, and was almost back at my office when I heard footsteps.
    â€œDoctor,” Greg said. “Are you saying Bonnie could go blind? You can tell me straight.”
    He was standing a few yards away, his uniform stretched tight across his chest, his muscular arms flexed, ready to pick up whatever burden I handed him. Remembering Jack’s mockery of my circumlocutions, I said, “That is the very, very worst case scenario.”
    â€œThank you. That’s what I needed to know. Bonnie’s stubborn. We’ll get home, and she’ll start charging around, but I’ll tie her to the bed sooner than let her do one bad thing.”
    Before I could respond, he was hurrying back to Bonnie. I gazed after him with a feeling that, at the time, I did not understand. Now I suspect it was envy.
    E ITHER THAT WEEK OR the next, Viv began to drive up to New Hampshire to observe the master classes at a riding school. At the time I paid this new activity no heed; it was just more of her endless busyness around horses. Only later, in what I have come to think of as my afterlife, did I understand that on these trips she crossed much more than a state line. The new university term had begun and the day after Bonnie’s appointment, Jack asked if I could pick him up at his office. I left work early, took Nabokov home, and drove to the campus. As I approached his second-floor office, a student was leaving.
    â€œThank you so much, Professor Brennan,” she said.
    As soon as her footsteps faded, he turned to me. “Is she attractive?” he said.
    What I’d noticed was the young woman’s gratitude, not her appearance. “Moderately. She was beaming as she thanked you.”
    â€œMakeup?”
    â€œNot much. Maybe some mascara. How did you picture her?”
    â€œNice looking, but not in a slutty way.” He reached for his backpack and began to gather his possessions. “It’s one of the things I’ve always despised about myself: I care so much how women look. In grad school I shared an office with this woman Sandra. She was smart, funny, kind, and I knew she liked me. But I couldn’t imagine going out with her because she was so homely. Sometimes I think I deserved to go blind.”
    â€œIf everyone who misused their eyesight lost it, we’d all have white canes,” I said. “Hilary is attractive, in case you’re wondering.”
    â€œI can tell from the way waiters speak to her.” He picked up a stack of CDs. “God, I’m such a pig. Even now, when I ought to be grateful that any woman will give me the time of day, I still want to have a pretty girlfriend. It’s the opposite of every value I hold dear, yet I can’t fucking