The Best Friend

by Adam Mitzner

  The foreman came to his feet. He was one of the younger members of the jury, and he reminded me a bit of Judd Nelson’s character from The Breakfast Club.

  All he said was, “Not guilty.”

  Nicky’s parents threw their arms around their son, and I could see the tears streaming down their cheeks. Anne was crying too when she embraced me. Then we switched partners, and I watched Anne whisper her congratulations into Nicky’s ear as the Zamoras once again thanked me. I told them that they were the only family I had in the world other than Anne, and they said that they thought of me as their son too.

  Anne, Nicky, and I adjourned to our apartment to celebrate. Nicky had suggested we go out—“Anywhere. My treat, of course”—but I told him it was better for us to keep a low profile.

  “Being photographed popping champagne because you did not kill your wife isn’t something you want to see on the cover of the tabloids tomorrow.”

  Which didn’t mean that we didn’t pop champagne. Anne had actually bought a bottle of Dom Pérignon in anticipation of Nicky’s acquittal, something she claimed she never doubted for a second. I did the honors, and when our flutes were filled, Nicky made the toast.

  “To Clinton, for his friendship and wise counsel, without which I not only wouldn’t be the person I am today, but I would be inmate 983702.”

  Thinking he had finished, I brought the champagne to my lips.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I think we also need to drink to Carolyn’s memory. I’m so sorry about so many things . . .” He began to choke up, but after an audible clearing of his throat, he was able to say, “I’m just so, so sorry.”

  Anne put her arm on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Nick. It’s all over,” she said. “Life starts over for you now.”

  PART TWO

  * * *

  ANNE BRODEN

  November 2003–May 2004

  19.

  Dr. Goldman’s was the third opinion I sought. He was considered to be the best oncologist in the country, but despite his impeccable references and Ivy League degrees, he told me the same thing that I’d heard twice before from supposedly lesser physicians.

  “I’m fifty-one,” I said, as if it were relevant to my diagnosis.

  Dr. Goldman didn’t respond. Instead, he looked down at his chart like it was a script and he’d momentarily forgotten his lines.

  “There is a new clinical trial that I might be able to get you in,” he said after a pause. “It’s an experimental treatment, so the data is somewhat spotty, but we estimate the five-year survival rate at approximately twenty-five percent. I know, still not great odds, but without the treatment, you’re looking at a life expectancy measured in months.”

  Every fiber of my being wanted to say no. That I would not spend my last months as some type of lab rat. It wasn’t out of bravery, however. Or because I was a martyr. My knee-jerk reaction to refuse further treatment was born from absolute selfishness—I wanted my last months to be as normal as possible.

  “Let me think about it,” I said instead.

  “That’s understandable,” he said. “It’s obviously a big decision. Unfortunately, time is not your friend right now. But you have to be committed to the treatment’s regimen, as it will be extremely taxing on your body. So take another few days to consider it. Discuss it with your husband. But I’m afraid that come December, you won’t be a viable candidate any longer. And I do believe that this trial is the only chance you have to extend your life expectancy.”

  Odd phrase, that—extend your life expectancy. It was applicable to everyone, at all times. Infants should be vaccinated to extend their life expectancy. Children should be secured in car seats to extend their life expectancy. Adults should get regular checkups to extend their life expectancy. But in truth, the term applies to only the terminally ill.

  I no longer had a life. I had a life expectancy. And no matter what I decided to do next, it was short.

  I had kept secret from Clint that his wife was a very sick woman. At first it was to make sure that it was actually the case while I waited for a second opinion. After that doctor concurred with the first, I simply wanted to hold on to my old life for a few days longer. Now, with Dr. Goldman making it three for three, the time had come to share the news.

  But it would still have to wait until later, when Clint and I were alone, because the next time I saw my husband was in the theater of Ella’s high school. Charlotte was sitting between us with an excited look on her face. I daresay that the only person who enjoyed watching Ella sing more than I was Charlotte.

  When Ella was in eighth grade, one of the music teachers in her private, all-girls middle school suggested she audition for New York City’s high school for the performing arts. I knew about the school from the movie Fame and was excited about the prospect of Ella having a more diverse educational experience. Clint was a tougher sell, not understanding why we’d give up the benefits of the best education money could buy to send her to a public school—even one that was famous for producing musicians and actors. But it was Ella who made the final decision, and after that, she never looked back.

  That night was the school’s annual talent show, which they dubbed Rising Stars. Three hours of the most talented high school kids in New York City doing various musical and dance numbers. Ella told us that nearly every one of the 2,500 kids in the school auditioned. Fewer than two hundred made it, and nearly all of them would appear in group numbers.

  Ella had a solo. Toward the end of the first act. There it was in the playbill: Ella Broden . . . . . . Mira. I had never heard of the song, but Ella told me it was from Carnival, about a girl who comes to the big city from a small town.

  She walked out on stage alone, an old prop briefcase in her hand, wearing a peasant dress and boots. The costume was no doubt what Ella, a city girl from head to toe, imagined a small-town rube would wear. She looked so tiny on the empty stage, but the moment she opened her mouth, the space became too small to contain her. Her soprano was strong and crystalline, the way I imagined mine on my very best day.

  I couldn’t help myself and started to cry even before she had sung her last note. Clint thought they were tears of joy. He leaned closer and said, “Can you believe that she’s ours?”

  That wasn’t what I couldn’t believe, however. I could not comprehend that my time with my daughters was fast coming to an end. I would likely never see them any older than they were now, never get to watch them walk down the aisle, never know the joy of holding their children in my arms.

  After the girls had gone to sleep, or at least Charlotte had—Ella would probably stay up until two o’clock talking to her friends about the show—I decided that I could no longer keep my condition from my husband. It was a conversation I had played out in my head a million times since I first heard the word cancer connected to me, yet with the matter finally at hand, I still didn’t have the first clue how I would break the news.

  We were alone in our bedroom. Ironically, we were watching House, the medical drama in which the cantankerous Dr. House invariably comes up with a miracle diagnosis that saves a patient’s life.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” I said.

  They say that dogs do not recognize words so much as tone. They’re happy when you say, “Let’s go to the park,” because they can sense that you’re happy, and they get scared when you say, “Bad dog,” because they hear anger in your voice. I tend to think that the same applies to communications in a marriage.

  The words of my preface could just as easily have preceded my telling Clint that we’d won the lottery, but he knew instantly that I was going to share bad news. His expression turned grim as he waited for me to continue.

  I decided that it would be least painful, for him and for me, if I just blurted it all out at once. So after a deep breath, I said, “I went to the doctor the other day. I have stage-four breast cancer. That means it’s metastasized to other areas, including my liver. The prognosis is not good.”

&nbs
p; I remembered all too vividly the tsunami of emotions that roiled over me when the first of my doctors had uttered those same words. It felt like I was free-falling through the stages of grief, the speed of which left no time for me to be angry, or to bargain, or even to accept my fate before I hit the ground.

  The one thing I’d wanted to know then would be at the forefront of Clint’s mind now. I’d been afraid to ask the first doctor. I assumed that was why Clint didn’t immediately ask me.

  So I told him. “If I do this experimental treatment, the doctor said that the five-year survival rate is around twenty-five percent. And without any treatment, I’ll have six months, give or take.”

  Clint was the most thoughtful man I’d ever met. Not the flowers-for-Valentine’s-Day kind of thoughtfulness—there he had never excelled—but in the literal sense that he was always thinking.

  “You need to get a second opinion,” he said.

  “I did. And a third. They’re unanimous, I’m afraid.”

  I could see in his eyes that he wanted to ask how long I’d kept this news to myself. He suppressed the question, knowing the answer was unimportant.

  Without uttering a word, he pulled me into an embrace and began to sob on my shoulder. I had wanted to avoid crying, but the moment I felt him convulse, I joined in.

  My tears stopped his. He sat up straight and wiped his eyes.

  “How do you feel?”

  I laughed. “Actually, not bad. In fact, no different than I did before I knew I was dying.”

  Clint’s somber expression didn’t budge. Obviously too soon for him to share in gallows humor about my condition.

  “When will the chemo start?” he asked.

  This was my husband in fact-gathering mode, as he called it when retained by a new client. No conclusions or predictions until all the facts were absorbed. It was not lost on me, of course, that he posed the query not as an if, but a when, there being no scenario in which he envisioned I would forgo treatment. I suppose I would have thought the same thing if this had been Clint’s diagnosis instead of mine.

  “I still need to think that through a little bit,” I said. “I know it’s what I’m supposed to do, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing for me. As soon as I start, I’ll feel sick. And tired. And even with the chemo, I’m likely to die just as quickly. Best case, I’ll feel like hell for a year, and have only a one-in-four chance of living another four years. Worse case, I’ll die while still on chemo, and I’ll feel terrible that entire time. On the other hand, without treatment, I could have another . . . I don’t know, four, five, maybe even six good months left.”

  Clint was losing hope by the second. His face seemed to cave in on itself, his eyes filling with tears, his jaw locking. I understood that he would equate my decision to deny treatment with surrender. I wanted to disabuse him of that thought, to tell him that forgoing chemotherapy wasn’t capitulation, but a way for me to triumph over my illness by living the remainder of my life on my own terms.

  He didn’t give me the chance.

  “So let me understand the choice here. One option is that you forgo treatment, and that’ll mean that, at best, you can live for another six months, and maybe half of that you’ll be okay before you begin to decline. Option number two is that you undergo treatment, and that gives you something approaching a twenty-five percent chance of living at least five years, although the first year of that will be very hard on you.”

  Just like he did in court, he’d summarized a complex set of facts so that the conclusion to be drawn from them was self-evident. At least to him.

  “In three years, Ella will be in college,” he said to drive his point home. “Five years is more than half Charlotte’s life.”

  “I know,” I said, touching his cheek. “I’ve done the math too.”

  20.

  The next morning, I made french toast. That was hardly an uncommon occurrence on the weekend. What the girls found strange, however, was that Clint hadn’t left for work, which he did at the same time on Saturdays as he did Monday through Friday. Sunday was his only day of rest, and even then only on occasion.

  Almost immediately after Nick’s acquittal, Clint’s practice had taken off. In short order he went from a solo practitioner with very little to do to the lawyer of choice for the rich and famous. Among those early clients was a bond trader who gave Clint a $2 million nonrefundable retainer, which we used to buy the town house off Fifth Avenue that we still called home. It was five stories with a backyard and boasted seven working fireplaces and a dining room that comfortably seated sixteen, which we used only for formal occasions. We had family meals in the kitchen, where a small table with only enough room for the four of us rested against the window. When Clint had last suggested we consider having a third child—“to go for a boy,” as he phrased it—I told him that we wouldn’t all fit at the table anymore, and I only half meant it as a joke.

  Charlotte usually spoke the most and the loudest at our family meals. Today’s subject was the solar eclipse that was coming next week. Her third-grade science teacher had devoted a considerable amount of class time to the event, so that Charlotte now spoke with the assurance of an expert in the matter.

  “You can’t see the sun because the moon is in front of it, so it gets all dark,” she said excitedly. “But you still shouldn’t look at it because even though you can’t see the sun, it’s still there, and it’ll make you blind if you stare at it. That’s why I don’t even want to go outside to see it, but Ms. Gilmore says that if you look at it through a box you can see it, and it won’t make you blind.”

  “Or you can watch it on TV later,” Clint offered.

  Charlotte ignored the remark. “Are you going to watch it, Ella?”

  Growing up as an only child, I’d always pitied those with siblings for having to share their parents’ attention. But having my daughters taught me that I had missed out on the joys of that sibling bond. As much as it warmed my heart to know that they would always have each other, the realization that Ella would bear the burden of becoming a surrogate mother for Charlotte pained me even more. At fifteen, she was much too young for that responsibility. But at least Charlotte would have her. There’d be no one for Ella to turn to for maternal advice. Clint would try to be both mother and father, of course, but he’d never succeed. That was a tall order for anyone and beyond hope for a workaholic father, no matter how much he loved his children.

  After breakfast, Clint asked the girls to come into the living room for a “family discussion.” Charlotte bounded in the room, oblivious to what was about to occur, happy just to be included. Ella, however, was intuitive enough to realize that families didn’t call meetings to discuss good things. She immediately reached for my hand, which was not something she—or any fifteen-year-old girl, for that matter—was apt to do.

  When we were all in our places, the girls looked to Clint to share the reason we had assembled. But it was my cancer, so I broke it to them.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news, girls. I went to the doctor, and I was told that I have breast cancer. I’m going to get treatment for it, and that means I’m going to lose my hair. But, and this is the part we all have to focus on, if the treatment goes well, I’m going to be fine.”

  That was the trade-off for me. I would endure chemo in exchange for giving my children hope that the world as they knew it would not end.

  If that was the message they got, it certainly didn’t show on their faces. They both looked shell-shocked. It took all my strength not to break down, but I was determined to hold it together, at least while I was in their presence.

  “I know that this affects our entire family, and everyone has their own feelings and their own concerns, but I want to tell you mine first, okay?”

  Charlotte whispered, “Okay, Mommy.”

  Ella sat stone-faced, as if in a trance.

  “For me, it’s that everything stays as normal as possible. That means we all continue to do our jobs just like we always ha
ve. Your jobs are to go to school and see your friends and have fun. Your father’s job is to go to work. My job is the only one that is going to change. And I hope my job doesn’t have to change too much. I’m still going to be here to help with homework and cook dinner, but I’m also going to have to go to the doctor and be a patient too. And I’m probably going to be really tired a lot.”

  After I’d shared my news with Clint last night, and the shock of it had slightly subsided, he said that he wanted to fire all his clients, so we could spend more time together. He suggested we travel—wherever I wanted to go. In other words, do the things that people do who are fortunate enough not to have to worry about money or the impending death of a loved one.

  There were numerous logistical impediments to such a plan, of course. The girls had to go to school. I had to be at chemo three times a week and check in with my doctor regularly in between. But the real reason I declined was because of what I’d just told the girls—I wanted everything to stay normal. For them and for me.

  Clint said, “I’m going to do my best to do my job, just like Mom said. Can we count on both of you to do your jobs too?”

  It was Charlotte who cut through all the babble. “Are you going to die, Mommy?”

  I had told Clint this was coming. “Ella will be thinking it all through,” I’d said, “using her mental energy to keep her feelings in check. But Charlotte will get right to the nitty-gritty.”

  When Ella was little, probably three or four, she asked me when I was going to die. I was already near forty when we had this discussion, and told her I would live for about another hundred years, because that seemed more than long enough to assuage her concerns. Ella immediately began to wail. “That’s too soon. Sleeping Beauty was asleep for a hundred years, and when she woke up her mother was there!” I didn’t fully understand how Disney had pulled that off, but my takeaway was that kids need to be comforted in terms they understood. In that instance, I told her I’d meant that I’d live for another thousand years, and she was happy again.