by Leslie Brody
Stop, I chided myself. He’s here now. And we’re in France. And we’re in love, and that is enough.
We had a beautiful time. Perhaps the ache under the surface made every moment sweeter. There’s a photo of Elliot sitting in the Luxembourg Gardens, where we had picnics of fresh baguettes, ham, brie and apricottarts from the renowned Eric Kayser bakery. Elliot was adamant the croissants were the best in the universe. He looked like a hip professor with his gold-rimmed glasses and jacket over jeans. Sitting in a green metal chair with his legs crossed and a plastic cup of Pinot Noir in his hand, he looked utterly fulfilled.
He watched me drawing the statues in the park. I sketched the handsome naked ass of a Greek god on a pedestal and teased that it looked like his. We went shopping and he bought me black high heels that he always referred to as the “hot boots.” We took long walks, revived at cafes and luxuriated in high quality naps before dinner and intimate desserts.
Our hotel on the left bank was simple, the Agora Saint Germain, near Notre Dame. Our room had a perfect view. The eighteenth century apartment building across the street had a little balcony where a pair of shiny black wetsuits had been hung out to dry. They told of two lovers who went on undersea adventures to explore fantastic things in mysterious places that nobody else got to see. I felt a certain kinship with that couple, whoever they were, and wished them well on their amorous escapades, as if they could have some on our behalf.
“I wish we had a movie of our week in Paris,” Elliot wrote me after we got back. “It just goes by so fast.”
Alex asks Elliot whether it’s time to flip a pancake.
WAR AND PEACE AND PANCAKES
Back when we first got married, Elliot pulled out The Joy of Cooking and made pancakes from scratch one Saturday morning. He was trying to be nice, to make something special. Alex, a ridiculously picky eater, didn’t want one.
“No thanks,” he said.
“Oh come on,” Elliot cajoled, his voice tinged with irritation that his well-meaning gesture was rejected. “If someone goes through the trouble of making you pancakes, it’s only polite to give them a try.”
This made my stomach tighten. I didn’t want to undermine Elliot’s good intentions, but I was raised in an Upper East Side apartment where the women were always on diets and it was considered a crime of monumental, possibly psyche-damaging insensitivity to force anyone to eat. Elliot grew up in a budget-conscious household where it was a sin to waste food. So he slapped a pancake onto the plates in front of each of my children at the breakfast table and then went back into the kitchen for coffee. Devon, mature beyond her seven years, forced it down to avoid hurting his feelings. Alex, only 4, looked at me with beseeching eyes.
“Do I have to?” he mouthed silently. I shook my head no, snuck his pancake onto my plate and wolfed it down before Elliot came back, though I didn’t really want it either.
Stepfamilies can be complicated, full of small power plays and jealousies. Devon and Alex always liked Elliot’s humor and warmth and boisterous commotion, but at times resented his powerful claim on my attention. I ached for them to love each other, and so was always trying to mediate, smooth things over, explain away what each party misunderstood. I had brought them together and felt it was my job to help them bond. For better or worse.
The next weekend, as Elliot got out the bowl to mix his batter, I gently suggested that maybe everyone could eat what he wanted at breakfast but Elliot continued undaunted, as if he’d win over Alex by sheer repetition.
This happened weekend after weekend, and Alex’s resistance grew fiercer. I couldn’t understand why Elliot was being so stubborn, creating a totally unnecessary conflict. My only guess was that he was trying to instill some manners in my loosey-goosey home or replicate the Saturday mornings of his past life with his kids, who apparently loved his pancakes. On mornings when Max was over for breakfast, it seemed to me that Elliot could make a batch just for him, but having all of us eat these pancakes became a matter of principle. Elliot’s vision of family unity was about breaking the same bread together. Mine was of letting all of us happily do as we chose. After many months of this impasse, Elliot reluctantly accepted that his pancakes were causing a rift. He switched to French toast and running out for bagels, thank God, but this resolution came only after I spent too many Saturdays with pain in my gut from tension and secret consumption of Alex’s portions. I was like the dog under the table, scarfing down the unwanted broccoli before the mom could see.
Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe time would have worked its wonders without my determined diplomacy. Or maybe my careful mediations were effective.
All I know is that one Mother’s Day, when my children were figuring out what to make for my traditional breakfast in bed, I heard Alex ask Elliot to teach him how to make pancakes. Alex was eight or nine by then. I lay back on my pillow and listened with the deepest satisfaction to the cheerful cacophony below as they collaborated in the kitchen, banging pots, washing blueberries and deciding who would run outdoors to find purple flowers to put in a tiny vase.
When Alex brought up my tray, careful not to spill the jug of maple syrup, he looked so pleased.
“Are they good?” he asked.
“Delicious,” I said.
As soon as Alex was helping to make the pancakes, he realized he liked them too. Or maybe by that time he was just ready to concede. There’s a photo from another Mother’s Day when Alex has graduated to mixing the batter and manning the frying pan all by himself. He’s standing at the stove in his black Mets T-shirt, spatula in hand, messy light brown hair spiked in every direction, looking up for a judgment as Elliot, in his white bathrobe, leans over to inspect the pancake for doneness. It is clear Alex has asked his opinion on whether it’s time to flip. Elliot is considering the question with great intensity. It’s one of my favorite photos, evidence of the deep connection that eventually evolved between them, even in an arena once so fraught with mutual annoyance.
Alex became quite the pancake king. That turned out to be a blessing. There came a time when Elliot could not get down anything dry, fatty or chewy. Pancakes became his go-to food, and he wanted them every day. Alex was his go-to chef.
“These are perfect, Mr. A,” Elliot would say between bites. “Can I have another one, please?”
DOLPHINS
January 2008
The Jet Blue lounge in Newark was noisy, packed and smelly like moldy carpet. Elliot and I were about to escape for Martin Luther King Day weekend. As the months of treatment wore on, we became more and more dependent on such happy goalposts beckoning to us from the calendar on the kitchen wall. Once I read that farmhands worked more diligently in the fields if they had markers along each row to measure their progress. They were motivated by the promise that if they could just make it to the next marker, they could rest. And then the next marker, and the next. So as soon as we got back from Paris, I booked this trip to Florida for a few months later.
Getting to the airport marked a personal triumph. We were supposed to come exactly one year earlier, but ended up in the ER instead when Elliot got that horrible bile obstruction. When I called the owner of the bungalow place in Captiva back then, he said he’d give back my deposit.
“Please keep it,” I told him. “We’re going to find another time to come.”
That was my vow that this obnoxious cancer wouldn’t boss us around. Back in my twenties, when I had been a reporter at The St. Petersburg Times and walked these gorgeous Gulf of Mexico beaches alone, I had sworn I would come back someday with a man I loved. I refused to give up that dream.
As we waited for our flight to be called, I flipped through a magazine with glossy pictures of luxury island resorts. Our destination was much more low-key and low-budget. No pool, hot tub or tennis court, just a clean room on the bottom of a two-story house with a door that opened on to the white Florida sand and the bright turquoise water. Jensen’s was owned by a family that also rented out cheap cabins next to a bait stor
e on the bay side of the island, but I wanted to be on the Gulf, hearing the hypnotic crash of the waves.
“You know, Sweetie, this is a really simple place,” I cautioned. “There won’t be any amenities.”
“You’re my amenity,” Elliot said with a grin. “All the amenity I need.”
I scribbled his words down on the back of the white envelope that held our deposit receipt. It became a line in one of my periodic “good lists.” I wrote them while I was waiting to meet Elliot in a restaurant, see a doctor, or pick up a child from a birthday party. My lists typically had the same format – everything good on one side of a column, everything bad on the other, so I could see how they balanced out and try to get some perspective. They helped me stay grounded and grateful for whatever was going well.
I was in a great mood heading off on vacation. Contrary to my usual format, this good list had no counterpoint “bad” list.
“Good list Jan 17, 2008” had seven entries:
• On the way to Captiva!
• Kids are doing well in school, have friends, are healthy, generally get along.
• Devon said “enough with turning new leaves and New Year’s resolutions, you’re doing fine.” (After I resolved to spend more time one-on-one with each of the kids).
• I got a bonus for “Living with Cancer” stories.
• Elliot’s going to Italy with Aaron in February—fun for him, break for me!
• He’s so cute. Sees me writing this and says “I hope that’s not work. That would be a violation.”
• BOARDING NOW!!!
And so, exactly a year after our Captiva trip was originally supposed to happen, Elliot and I were settling into our seats on that flight to Sarasota, feeling giddy that we’d outfoxed fate.
It was too nippy for swimming, but we spent the days wandering along the sparkling water’s edge, picking up shells, admiring the seagulls and laughing at the clumsy pelicans. I took a picture of Elliot when he was reading in our tiny screened in porch, bundled up in his bright red University of Wisconsin sweatshirt. By sheer luck the photo’s lighting was perfect as he turned to smile at me, and the shot captured all the warmth, humor and sensitivity I saw in his face every day. In the photo he has Mona Lisa eyes too—they follow you wherever you stand. (I would one day use it for his memorial service, but I cropped out the book. I couldn’t bear the irony of the title. It was Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost.)
A few times on that trip we saw dolphins swimming just yards away. I remembered spotting dolphins in the far waves off Cape May, right after Elliot got sick, and thinking back then that it would be our last time seeing dolphins together. But here were some more playing right up close. Maybe their presence was proof we would keep enjoying pleasures I thought we had seen the last of, and I should stop obsessing about memorizing moments. Maybe there would be more than we thought, so we should just live them.
“I want to cram every possible opportunity into my life,” Elliot said one day at dusk as we sat together on a bench watching the sun set over the water. “This is an important time for us. Maybe we’d prefer eighty-five degrees, but this is beautiful. I’m a very lucky man.”
Later I wrote down Elliot’s words on my envelope with the good list. No matter what the dolphins seemed to signify, I had to make sure I remembered.
WHEN IT RAINS...
Later in January 2008
All the cancer gurus insist that caregivers have to take care of themselves so they have the strength to take care of their patients. They cite the flight attendants’ instructions on airplanes; put on your own oxygen mask before you help anyone else.
That’s not easy. My main attempt was a yoga class at lunchtime on Wednesdays. A few work friends and I used to sneak off with our purple mats and almost always left our cell phones behind. I treasured that one hour of peace to breathe in, breathe out, relax.
One Wednesday soon after we got home from Captiva, I got back to my desk after yoga and saw my friend Bob rubbing his furrowed brow. His computer faced mine.
“Someone’s been trying hard to reach you,” he said with concern. My message light was bright red. With my heart pounding with worry that something new had gone wrong with Elliot, I dialed my password for voicemail.
It was Alex.
“Mommy, where ARE you?” his thin voice pleaded. He sounded so fragile, about to break. I called the school nurse, who said Alex had a stomachache and she’d sent him home with his father since she couldn’t reach me.
“It hurts,” Alex whimpered when I called him.
“I’m sorry, Sweetie,” I said. “Just take it easy and let’s see if you feel better.”
Alex called back in twenty minutes.
“It really hurts,” he insisted again. He sounded so strained, not himself. Something had to be really wrong.
Alex was not a complainer. Once when he was 4, he said he felt just a little sick and ended up in the ICU with an asthma attack. Another time, he seemed a little stuffed up and it turned out he had pneumonia. Once again, it seemed there was no time to waste. I asked Milo to take Alex to the pediatrician and I jumped in the car to meet them. I was almost there when my cell phone rang again.
“The doctor says it might be appendicitis and we should get it checked out at the hospital just in case,” Milo said. “We’ll meet you at Morristown Memorial.”
Morristown was thirty minutes away. Milo was a fast driver but not good with directions. I pictured Alex writhing in the back seat while Milo got lost in traffic. Damn it. I’m the expert at speeding to the ER, I thought. I knew how to get there. Alex should be with me.
I have always felt extra protective of my little boy. My daughter seemed older than her years, and shrewd. My son always seemed a bit young and tender with his freckles, deep dimples and impish smile. Even his big sister said he was cute. He was late to develop his Rs so at eleven he still sounded a bit like a Rugrat. His wild hair stuck out in all directions and I rarely forced him to brush it. I let him do what he pleased with his crazy hair partly because he had so little say over so much in his life. He was so young when his father and I split up and I always felt guilty about that. The kids got used to it in time, and it was for the best, but still.
Guilt pangs hit again as I drove like hell to the hospital, trying to execute those yoga breaths to stay calm, telling myself if anything was truly dire the pediatrician would have called an ambulance. I had been so focused on Elliot, but now, my son was the one who needed me.
At the ER, Alex and Milo were nowhere to be seen. I checked frantically with the nurses and reception desk. I paced outside the ER door. Damn it damn it damn it.
Finally they showed up. Yes, they’d gotten lost. Alex was in a wheelchair, grimacing and doubled over. He looked petrified.
“It’s okay, Sweetie, everything’s going to be fine,” I cooed.
“Can’t you give him anything?” I begged the triage nurse while she took down his information. “He’s in pain.”
“Not until the doctor sees him,” she said.
We were ushered into a chilly little room with a high narrow gurney. I peeled off Alex’s Mets hoodie and tried to put on a gown without hurting him. He was squirming so much the blanket kept falling off. His bare legs looked so vulnerable. Lying on his side in a fetal curl, he started to pant instinctively with those quick shallow breaths they teach you in Lamaze. He put his hot hand out for me to hold.
“Can’t you please give him something for the pain?” I pleaded. The staff seemed to be moving like molasses and my little boy was in agony. Doctors threw pain meds at my husband like it was candy. Couldn’t somebody please give relief to my son?
“If this turns out to be some kind of spasm then morphine will make it worse,” the doctor said. Alex’s squirming seemed to contradict a “classic presentation” of appendicitis, when it hurts too much to move. “We have to wait for a CT scan before we give him anything. Try putting on a video so he can relax.”
We put on an action-packed foo
tball melodrama, Remember the Titans, but Alex couldn’t pay attention. He winced and squeezed my hand and said those words it kills you to hear when there’s nothing you can do.
“Mommy, help me. Please…”
“I’m so sorry, Sweetie. You’ll get through this and it will feel much better. I’m so proud of you. What a trouper.”
“Mommy, it hurts so much, I can’t,” he whimpered.
His next question knocked the wind out of me.
“Do I have cancer?”
“Oh, Sweetie-Pie.” I leaned over to hug him and kiss him and tell him no, don’t worry.
“But it’s my stomach, just like with Elliot.”
“Oh Honey, it’s really rare for kids to get cancer,” I told him, brushing the sweaty hair off his forehead. “The doctors think maybe it’s your appendix, and then they can fix that really easily. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
I stayed confident on the outside—my son needed that, and eighteen months of nursing my husband had given me plenty of practice—but inside I didn’t feel calm at all. It was startling to me that Alex had cancer on his mind this way. I had tried so hard to keep things as normal as possible for my kids and say all the right comforting things. For my son to think he might have cancer meant Elliot’s ordeal was on his mind far more than I realized. Not only that, the same unfathomable idea had occurred to me too: what if Alex did have cancer? I told myself that was farfetched. I had to believe that some kind of cosmic sense of decency wouldn’t allow such a meteor to hit my husband and my son at the same time. Then again, I’d met a woman my age, a cashier at a K-Mart, juggling shifts so she could drive her husband and daughter to Sloan-Kettering in a relentless rotation of IVs and nausea. Please not that, I begged the godless air. I squeezed Alex’s hand to reassure him, and myself.
