Summer Friends

by Holly Chamberlin

  “Please, talk to me,” Maggie begged. “Let me help. Oh, my God, you must be feeling so awful.” Maggie wiped away her tears and reached for Delphine to give her a hug. Delphine scooted away. She couldn’t bear to be touched right then. Maggie felt stunned by this rejection.

  After a moment, she asked, “How is Robert taking this?”

  “Okay. I mean, he was very upset.” Delphine paused as tears threatened to steal her voice. But she refused to cry, not now, not again. “But he’s a strong person,” she said finally.

  “I bet he’s devastated. I’m sure you broke his heart.” Maggie didn’t care if she was being cruel. She was angry with Delphine and hurt and confused and so very sad.

  Delphine didn’t answer. She had never felt so bad about something she was doing and at the same time so sure that what she was doing was right. It was like she was split in two inside. It hurt. It hurt to breathe.

  Maggie sighed. “I have to know. Did you ever submit those applications for graduate school? Or did you just say that you did?”

  “Why would I lie to you?” Delphine said. But she had lied and she knew why she had.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Maggie answered. “I’m your best friend. I’ve been your best friend since I was eight years old. But I have no idea what’s going on with you anymore, or why you’re doing the things you’re doing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Delphine said. “I’m sorry you’re upset.”

  “Are you?” Maggie snapped. “Did you tell Robert you were sorry? And if you did, was that a lie, too?”

  No, she thought. It wasn’t a lie. I am so very sorry. Delphine got up from the bench, and without looking back to Maggie, she walked off in the direction of the dorm.

  Maggie put her face in her hands and cried.

  47

  Delphine stood in the middle of her bedroom. The closet door was open, as were all the drawers in her dresser, except for the one in which Harry kept some clothing. She and Maggie wouldn’t be leaving for Boston until the following Tuesday morning; mid-week hotel rates were cheaper. It was only Friday evening, but Delphine was determined to choose clothes now and avoid a last-minute crisis. Not that the process of choosing what to wear in Boston was going to be easy, even days in advance of their departure. Nothing, nothing she saw in a survey of her clothing looked appropriate for hanging out with fashionable Maggie in the city. Maybe, she thought, I should have watched an episode or two of Sex and the City. Maybe, she thought, I should have bought that blouse Maggie wanted me to buy at Jones New York. Rats.

  The home phone rang. Delphine turned her back on the disaster and went to the extension in the workroom. It was her mother.

  Delphine listened. Her head began to buzz strangely.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Slowly, carefully, she replaced the receiver, then picked it up once again. She dialed Gorges Grant and was connected to Maggie’s room.

  “Maggie,” she said. “It’s Delphine.”

  “Hey. What’s up? Your voice sounds . . . strangled or something. Is everything okay?”

  Delphine couldn’t speak for a moment. She wouldn’t let herself cry, not now, or she might never stop. Finally, she said, “It’s Kitty, my niece. She . . . We just got word that she has cancer.”

  Maggie’s grip on the phone suddenly tightened. “Oh, no, Delphine, I’m so sorry. How bad is it?” she asked. “Where is she going to go for treatment? Does she—”

  “I don’t know the details yet. But look, Maggie, I have to cancel the Boston trip. I’m sorry.”

  “But . . . why? I mean . . .”

  “I just have to.”

  “Of course,” Maggie said after a moment. “I understand. Look, are you at home? Do you want me to come over? I could pick up some food and we could talk or—”

  “No. Thanks. My mother needs me at the house.”

  “Wait, Delphine—”

  “Good-bye, Maggie. I’m sorry about the trip. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

  “What?” Maggie suddenly felt nauseous. “Look, Delphine—”

  But she had already disconnected the call.

  48

  At nine o’clock Saturday morning, Maggie left a message on Delphine’s cell phone and one on her home phone. She debated calling Mrs. Crandall but decided that it was too soon after the family’s terrible news. Delphine was the one she should be talking to.

  Now it was only eleven a.m. Time was moving way too slowly. That or she wasn’t moving quickly enough. Maggie grabbed her bag and without much of a conscious plan left the hotel. The sidewalks were teeming with tourists. The street was jammed with cars. Maggie was largely oblivious to everyone and everything.

  She found herself outside the library. Why not? she thought. She went inside and found the librarian alone at the desk. The room had that familiar library hush, which could be so soothing or, in moments of tension like this one, so maddening.

  “Hi, Nancy,” she said.

  Nancy looked up from her computer and smiled. “Oh, hello. You’re Delphine’s friend. Maggie, is it?”

  “Yes.” She attempted a smile in return but failed.

  “How can I help you?” Nancy asked. “Are you here to find a particular book?”

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I was just wondering if you had heard anything about Kitty Crandall.”

  “Oh.” Nancy’s expression darkened. “Well, nothing more than that the poor little girl is ill. I believe she has a form of leukemia. Glenda ran into Jackie earlier at the post office.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Nancy gave Maggie a slightly puzzled look. “Why don’t you ask Delphine for more news? I’m sure she’ll tell you all that’s going on.”

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “I should do that. I just didn’t want to bother her. . . .”

  Nancy reached out across the desk and patted Maggie’s hand. “Why would you be a bother, dear? You’re old friends. I’m sure you’re a comfort to her.”

  Maggie smiled, though she felt tears threatening. “Yes,” she said. “Well, thank you very much. I should be going.”

  She walked back to the hotel, past souvenir shops, through throngs of people in shorts, flip-flops, and baseball caps. This time, she was brutally aware that most everyone she passed seemed happy, oblivious to the crisis at hand, to the local child who was facing months, maybe years, of pain and misery. She had an awful urge to shout out at them all, tell them to stop smiling and eating chocolate-covered blueberries and buying crappy souvenirs and to just listen. “A little girl is sick!” she wanted to shout. “And I don’t know what to do!”

  At Gorges Grant she picked up her car, and she drove out to the Burton brothers’ store. Maybe they would know something more. Maybe they could do something; maybe they could help her to do something. She found Piers dusting a bust of an anonymous Roman woman. Aubrey, he explained, was away for the day on a buying trip.

  “I hope there was no problem with the delivery of the painting,” Piers said when they had exchanged greetings.

  Maggie felt momentarily stupid at having come. “Oh, no,” she said, “my housekeeper signed for it. It’s safe and sound. I came because—Well, have you heard about Kitty Crandall?”

  Piers’s face immediately assumed an expression of great and genuine sympathy. “Oh, yes, it’s such a shame. A sick child, and such a lovely little girl, too. Is there anything worse?”

  “No,” Maggie said, “there isn’t. Have you heard anything new? I mean, I talked briefly with Delphine last night, but she hasn’t answered my calls all morning.”

  Piers reached out, as Nancy had done earlier, and patted her arm. “She probably just needs some space right now. The Crandalls are a tight unit. They close ranks when things get difficult. But they’ll get through this time of crisis. Try not to worry.”

  Maggie attempted a smile. “Easier said than done, I’m afraid. But thank you, Piers.”

  They said good-bye and Maggie g
ot back into her car. She sat there for a moment, lost. She badly wanted to go out to the farm but had a strong instinct that it would be a very wrong thing to do just then. She had made enough wrong steps already this summer.

  The rest of the afternoon was a trial of patience. She bought herself an expensive linen jacket she didn’t really like and certainly didn’t need. She ordered a salad at a restaurant and couldn’t eat it. She wandered down to the beach, but the crowds tore at her nerves.

  Finally, she went back to her hotel, where she decided to call Gregory. She wasn’t at all sure she would reach him, or, if she did, that he would have the time to talk. But cut off from Delphine, she didn’t know whom else to reach out to.

  Gregory was available, but only for a few minutes, he said. She told him about Kitty and about Delphine’s having canceled their overnight trip to Boston. “She wouldn’t even talk to me,” she said. “She just hung up and she hasn’t called me back today though I’ve left several messages.”

  “Maggie,” Gregory replied, “she’s probably in a bit of shock. I wouldn’t take anything she does or says right now too seriously.”

  “No, but it’s so strange,” Maggie argued. “She said our trip to Boston was probably a bad idea all along. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like her family is more important to her than absolutely anything else in the world, even her own self, her own needs.”

  There was a beat of silence before Gregory finally spoke. “Okay. Uh, Maggie? What are you saying, exactly? That I should care more about you and the girls?”

  “No, no, God, Gregory, this has nothing to do with you!” Maggie cried.

  “Then . . . I’m sorry, I’m not really understanding why you’re so upset. It’s terrible about the little girl, of course. But I don’t understand why someone’s not calling you back immediately is affecting you so much.”

  Maggie massaged her forehead. It did little to relieve the pain storm gathering there. “Forget it,” she said. “It’s nothing. Look, sorry I called.”

  “It’s all right. Keep me posted. Do you think that you’ll be coming home earlier than planned? I booked a golf trip for next weekend. And it looks like I won’t be back from Chicago until Wednesday. There’ll be plenty of privacy for you if you decide to head home now that Delphine’s busy. You’ll have the whole house to yourself.”

  “Great,” she muttered.

  “I have to go now, Maggie. Hang in there, okay?”

  She said good-bye and ended the call. She went over to the window. The pregnant woman she had seen on the first morning of her stay at Gorges Grant was at the pool again, this time alone, reclining on a lounge, reading a book. Maggie had a crazy urge to go down to the pool and ask the woman if she could sit with her. This is how lonely I feel, she said to herself. I would ask a total stranger for her company.

  Maggie sighed and turned away from the window. It had been an awful day. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so frustrated. She had to do something productive. She opened her laptop and went online to research childhood leukemia. She didn’t have much information to go on in terms of the specifics of Kitty’s situation, but information was power and if there was anything she could do to help Delphine and her family, she would. In spite of Delphine’s best efforts to keep her out.

  49

  It was an unusual gathering for a Saturday morning. With the exception of Charlie, who was at the diner, the other adult Crandalls were gathered at the family home. Even Jackie was there; Dave Jr. had gone up to the Portland market without her. Kitty was on the last play date she might have for some time. The mother of the little boy who lived next door had been instructed to let the children watch a movie on DVD. No running around, nothing risky. Infection and easy bleeding were now things to be seriously avoided.

  Patrice was in the kitchen. The others were seated or standing around the living room. Delphine was pacing.

  “Look,” Jackie was saying. “The doctors told Joey and Cybel that Kitty’s current white blood cell count is not half as bad as it could be. That’s a good sign. And the leukemia hasn’t spread to her brain or to her spinal cord. That’s another good sign. We have to stay positive.”

  “That’s easy to say,” Delphine muttered, “not so much to do.”

  Dave Sr. cleared his throat. “I read that the current survival rate for kids with ALL is now about eighty percent.”

  “That’s twenty percent less than perfect.” Delphine turned to her sister-in-law. “What exactly have you told her?”

  “She knows she’s sick,” Cybel said. “She knows she has something called ALL. She doesn’t need to know the details. Not yet, anyway, not until we know more.”

  “Has she asked?” Delphine demanded.

  “Well, yes, sort of, but—”

  “Have you told her she could die from this?”

  “Delphine!”

  She ignored her sister. “Does she know she has cancer?” she persisted. “What do a bunch of initials mean? Nothing.”

  “Technically,” Jackie said, “it means ‘acute lymphoblastic leukemia.’ ”

  “That means even less than initials to a child, a bunch of big words.”

  Joey sighed. “Delphine, what’s your point? Why are you fighting us?”

  “Does she know she might get sicker before she gets better?”

  “We’ll tell her everything the doctor and the social worker advise us to tell her.” Cybel got up from the easy chair in which she had been sitting and reached out a hand. Delphine ignored it. “I know you’re upset, Delphine. We all are. This feels like a nightmare. We’re just going to have to trust the experts to tell us what’s going on.”

  “And pray.” That was Patrice. She had come in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee. I suggest everyone have some and try to calm down.”

  “That would be directed at me.”

  Patrice nodded firmly. “Yes, Delphine, it would.”

  The family regrouped in the kitchen. Delphine poured a cup of coffee, took a sip, and put it down. She could barely keep down water, not since learning that her Kitty was sick.

  “I just wish we knew what caused this,” Joey said. “I wish we knew if this is somehow our fault.”

  Jackie gave her brother’s arm a squeeze. “Of course it’s not your fault. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “The doctor told us no one really knows for sure all the risk factors. But still . . . I’m her father. I want to know if there’s anything I could have done to protect her from this.”

  “Some people think that this can happen because the mother was over thirty-five when she gave birth.” Cybel wiped at her eyes with a napkin. When she spoke again her voice was wobbly. “This could be my fault. Kitty was such a surprise. . . .”

  “Listen, all of you.” Patrice’s voice was commanding. “There’s no point now in playing a guessing game or pointing fingers. Or,” she said, looking pointedly at Delphine again, “in fighting amongst ourselves. What we do now is stick together and do what we have to do to make Kitty better.”

  Jackie turned to her brother. “When does Kitty start chemo?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” Joey said. “It’s a fast-growing cancer, so the doctor said she’ll need to start treatment immediately. This will be the first phase only. It’ll be pretty intense. The doctor says it’ll go on for about a month.”

  “All right then,” Patrice said. “Let’s sit down and work out a schedule for relieving Joey and Cybel while they’re at work. Dave Senior, get me that pad of paper on the counter, will you?”

  Suddenly, overcome with exhaustion, Delphine sank into a chair at the table. She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was her sister’s.

  50

  The morning sun was strong as Maggie pulled into the yard of Crandall Farm on Sunday. She got out of the car and knocked on the open door of Delphine’s office.

  Delphine looked up from her computer and then back at the screen.<
br />
  “I’m pretty busy right now,” she said.

  “You’re always busy,” Maggie countered, not for the first time that summer. She had noted the dark circles under Delphine’s eyes and her wan complexion. “That’s no excuse. I’ve been so worried since I last talked to you. How is Kitty feeling? Tell me what’s going on. How are you holding up?”

  Delphine continued to focus on the computer screen. “There’s no need to worry,” she said. “Everything is under control.”

  “That’s impossible,” Maggie said. “Nothing can be under control. You’ve just gotten some rotten news about someone you love.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  Delphine sighed and finally looked back at Maggie. “What’s there to talk about? Kitty is sick and we’re dealing with it. There’s no point in going on about it.”

  “I’m not ‘going on’ about it,” Maggie argued. “I just want to talk about this, with you. And I think you need to talk to me.”

  Delphine didn’t reply.

  “You can’t avoid me,” Maggie said, her voice rising with frustration. “You have to talk to me. I’m your friend, Delphine, your best friend.”

  Delphine continued to say nothing. I never said that I was your best friend, she thought, not in a very long time. I don’t have a best friend, not anymore. I don’t need one.

  “I have money, Delphine,” Maggie went on. “If your brother and his wife need it, it’s theirs. I want to help.”

  “You assume we need help,” she said now.

  “Yes. I’m sorry if I’m assuming incorrectly, but I don’t think that I am. So please, I can write a check right now. I did some research online. . . . She has leukemia, is that right? That’s what Nancy told me. Treatment could go on for some time, for years even. It’s going to cost and keep on costing. Now, I don’t know the details of Joey and Cybel’s health insurance, assuming they have any, but—”

  “No.” Delphine rose from her chair. “The Crandalls don’t take charity.”