I felt a rush of overwhelming relief, as if I had just opened a window after a very long time of no light or fresh air. I went over to the bed and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. “I’m so glad you’re all right,” I said. “I hope you’ll take it easier from now on.”
Billy’s voice was hoarse when he spoke. “I will, Dad. I don’t know what happened. I go out all the time with only one bottle of water and usually I’m fine.”
“You have to stop that,” his mother said. “And you need to stop running so far, especially if it’s hot outside like it was today. You’re so thin, and if you’re not going to drink enough water either, I’m going to have to hire a detective to keep an eye on you.”
Lucy was wearing a pair of gray slacks and a white blouse with pearls. She had probably just come from the clinic after a day of seeing children with asthma and food allergies and ear infections. She looked tired but pretty, her light brown hair frosted almost blond now, and she had stayed in shape from sheer nervous will and treadmill runs at six a.m. five days a week. I hadn’t seen her in over a year, maybe two, but it didn’t feel like it had been that long. I went over to hug her, and then to our daughter, who smelled like something I couldn’t quite place, but later I realized it was the brand of cologne that her attending physician had been wearing the night we met for dinner.
“Mom, I run almost every day, and this has never happened before. I did three half-marathons and four ten-mile races over the summer. I’m signed up to do the marathon here next March too.”
“You are?” I said, impressed.
“Yes. It’ll be my first.”
“Wow. That’s ambitious. Good for you,” I said.
His mother, however, was not impressed. “Billy, I don’t know. Marathons are so hard on your body. And you don’t eat enough.”
“I’m fine, Mom. I love running. I’m good at it.”
“Says the dangerously dehydrated guy from his hospital bed,” said Anna.
Her brother rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“Do you want me to go to In-N-Out and get you a burger and fries?” I asked. “Or there’s a Carl’s Jr. just a couple of blocks away. Whatever you want, I’ll go get for you. You need to get some hearty food in your body.”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t eat red meat anymore.”
Anna stared at him. “You don’t? Since when?”
“Since May. But I still eat chicken and fish.”
“I hope you’re getting enough protein,” said Lucy.
“Most people get too much protein,” said Billy.
“That’s true,” said Anna.
“It is?” I said.
Anna nodded. “Yes, and it’s hard to digest if you eat too much of it. That’s one of the reasons why there are so many gastrointestinal disorders in our country. We eat more meat than we need.”
“We eat too much gluten too,” said Billy. “I’ve cut out a lot of bread products from my diet.”
“Why?” said Lucy. “You’ve never had a weight problem.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it, Mom. I just want to be healthier.”
“You’re not going to be healthier if you’re starving yourself.”
I looked at the three of them, these people with whom I had shared a house and a life until I thought I could do better. I wouldn’t say that I regret the divorce, but I do regret causing them the unhappiness and bad feeling that I know I did. I regret missing so much of my children’s adolescence. I also regret that Lucy hated me for a while, and that she hasn’t remarried or found someone to live with who makes her happy. Maybe she is happy on her own, but I think she could probably be happier.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking from Billy’s face to the outline of his skinny body beneath the hospital sheet. He really had become a lot thinner since I’d last seen him, which had been in April on my birthday. Elise had been in Dallas, visiting her sister and parents again, which is probably why I decided to meet Billy for dinner, something we’d always done on or near my birthday if I wasn’t out of town. When we met at an Italian place I like in Santa Monica, I could tell that he’d lost some weight, but he wasn’t as thin as now. He was probably twenty pounds lighter than his normal one sixty-five. His eyes looked