“What about Lissy, honey?”
“I said she was getting all better and then I ask-ed you wasn’t that right and you didn’t say anything.”
The wide, innocent eyes look into Ellen’s soul. She makes herself smile before she speaks.
“Of course she’s going to get better,” she says. “Then she can come home and tell us all about it.”
Jana wrinkles her face in thought.
“But some people don’t get better, do they? My other Gramma didn’t get better. She went to the hospital and the doctor was going to fix her, but he couldn’t. Daddy said it was ’cause she was old and tired, but Lissy isn’t old and tired, is she?”
Ellen pulls her close and rocks her, stroking the wisps of kitten-soft hair, whispering kisses against her head.
“No, baby. Lissy isn’t old and tired. She’s going to be okay.”
She clings to Jana for a long minute, then Jana’s chubby hand pats her shoulder. The mantel clock chimes its melodious reminder that the afternoon is flitting away, breaking the moment like a pin puncturing a soap bubble.
“My goodness! It’s five o’clock already! Let’s look around the kitchen and see what we can make for dinner.”
Jana pulls away. “I know! I know! Mummy already made it.”
She continues to talk as she drags Ellen into the kitchen.
“Look,” she crows, pulling open the fridge door. “There it is.”
And there it is. Joanne’s casserole stands ready to pop into the oven. A salad sparkles, colourful and crisp beneath its tightly-stretched Saran-wrap cover. A package of brown-and-serve buns sits nearby, ready to complete the meal. Trust Joanne. Always thinking ahead. Always trying to be ready for anything. Just this once, Ellen thinks, just this once she should have simply walked away and left it for someone else to do.
“I’m going to help you, Gramma,” Jana announces. “I help Mummy lots. I put the knifes and forks on the table. I put the butter on, too.”
“That’s great,” Ellen says. She squints at the post-it note on the casserole, and pops it into the microwave, listening to the musical beeps as she punches in the required setting. As it fills the room with its familiar hum, Ellen picks up the buns, peering at the label. She’s never used them and debates whether they have to be baked in the stove oven or if they can go in the little toaster oven. She opts for the smaller oven, pops the buns in and turns it on.
“I don’t think that’s right, Gramma,” Jana says, her small voice filled with concern. “Mummy always puts the oven on first so it gets hot.”
“Hmmmh,” Ellen replies, un-crumpling the wrapper and reading it more carefully. “Looks like Mummy was right. Let’s just leave the oven on low so they can defrost and warm up. That way they’ll taste almost as good as homemade.”
“Now, Miss Jana,” she says, while Jana giggles, “you can get busy with the silverware and I’ll put the dishes on the table. How many plates will we need?”
“For just you and me or for Mummy and Daddy too?” she asks.
“For just you and me, I guess,” Ellen replies.
Jana grimaces, wrinkling her lip in distaste.
“Gramma, that’s too easy. I can count way morether than that.”
Ellen’s heart warms. That was a word Jana’s mother used when she was little. If far and farther went together, so did more and morether.
“Okay, then. How many for you and me and Mummy and Daddy?”
The little girl beams.
“Four!” she announces, holding up four chubby fingers to make sure Ellen recognizes that she has the correct number.
“Good for you! Maybe we should set the table for four so it’ll be all ready when Mummy and Daddy come home. But I don’t think they’d want us to wait for them, do you?”
Jana agrees, and they busy themselves with the minutia of the meal. Ellen pops the buns into the now-warm oven, while Jana explains which of the salad dressings are Mummy’s favourites and which are Daddy’s favourites. She, herself, doesn’t like any of them.
“So what do you put on your salad?” Ellen asks.
“This,” Jana declares, reaching into the cupboard and plucking a jar from the shelf.
“Peanut butter?”
Gravely she nods her head. “It’s really good.”
“Jana, I think you’re teasing me. We don’t put peanut butter on salads.”
“I do,” she says. “Mummy said I could.”
Ellen looks doubtfully at the jar of peanut butter.
“Jana, peanut butter doesn’t pour. It just sits in globs. How do you put it on your salad?”
As she tries to imagine what Joanne might do to peanut butter to convert it to a salad dressing, Jana suddenly whirls and runs toward the front hall.
“Mummy’s home!”
Somehow, she’s heard the small sounds the car makes when it turns into the driveway. Seconds later the door opens. Stan and Joanne enter. Joanne drops to her knees, folding Jana to her, clutching her closely and rocking her gently.
Stan looks at Ellen, his hand on Joanne’s shoulder, his eyes blank and dead. He shakes his head silently and looks toward the floor, fighting to keep himself under control.
The hug continues until Jana squirms away.
“Where’s Lissy, Mummy? Is she all better yet?”
Joanne reaches out to hold Jana’s hands before she speaks. “No, baby. Lissy isn’t all better. Lissy is very sick and the doctor needs to keep her in the hospital for a while longer.”
For once, Jana doesn’t respond with her eternal “Why?” but accepts her mother’s statement at face value.
“Me’n Gramma made dinner for you,” she announces proudly. “I showed her where everything was and I helped her and everything.”
Suddenly Stan’s head snaps up. “What’s that?”
Smoke!
Ellen and Joanne shout at the same moment. In the seconds it takes Joanne to rise to her feet, Ellen turns and dashes into the kitchen, where a plume of smoke streams from the toaster oven. There’s a flurry of activity as she pulls the buns from the oven, Stan opens the back door and Joanne turns on the stove hood’s venting fan.
“Darn it, I thought I could just brown those in the toaster oven instead of heating up the whole stove.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Joanne says. “I’ve got more buns in the freezer. It’ll just take a couple of minutes.”
“Here, honey. Give me your coat,” Stan says to Joanne. “I’ll hang it up for you.”
While Jana is distracted, Ellen turns to Joanne and silently mouths Lissy’s name. Joanne shakes her head. They’ll talk later.
Jana chatters merrily through the meal, but neither Stan, Joanne, nor Ellen manage to eat much.
“Can I have a special ice cream?” Jana asks as dinner draws to a close.
Stan nods. “I’ll get it for you.” As he digs into the freezer compartment at the top of the fridge, he explains: “There’s a little store in the shopping centre that makes specialty cones. They have a rocket cone and a couple of others, but Jana’s favourite is the clown.”
He brings out a small extravaganza of ice cream with a two-scoop body, licorice whip arms, piped ice-cream legs, and a sample-sized cone upside down on the top scoop, for a hat. The eyes are brown mini M&Ms, bright yellow M&Ms decorate the hat and others serve as buttons on the clown’s suit.
Joanne takes it from him and gently removes the clear plastic covering.
“Did you want one, too?” he asks Ellen, reaching back into the freezer.
Ellen shakes her head. “I think I’ll pass for now. I can probably put on pounds just looking at that.”
We’re at it again, she thinks. Every time something goes wrong, we pretend nothing has happened. As far back as she can remember, that’s been the pattern. Who cares about ice cream clowns right now? She wants to know about Lissy. They’ve told her nothing, but she can read their body language. Something is terribly wrong.
Her mind continues to windmill. Jana’
s only a little girl, but she deserves the truth too. How long do they think they can make believe everything is okay? It’s the same destructive pattern she and Al followed — never facing reality. For a moment she’s tempted to break the bubble and ask a direct question, a question Stan and Joanne will have to answer. But she doesn’t.
Later, after Jana has gone to bed, Ellen finally learns the truth.
“Lissy’s got a neuroblastoma,” Joanne says. “They couldn’t get it all.”
“What’s a neuroblastoma?”
Stan gently takes over. “It’s one of those malignancies that affect the sympathetic nervous system. If they’d caught it earlier, they might have had a chance. But it’s too widespread now to do anything.”
Joanne’s head snaps up. “She still has a chance, Stan.”
He reaches out and puts his hand on her shoulder.
Ellen is bewildered.
“How did it get so widespread? Has she been sick? I don’t understand how it got this far without anyone noticing something was wrong.”
Stan draws a deep breath before he answers.
“That’s what makes the damned things so insidious. It’s a silent tumour. It doesn’t cause any symptoms. Youngsters don’t complain, either verbally, or by being cranky, or any of the things kids usually do when something’s wrong. There just aren’t any symptoms.
“Joanne’s the one who found it. She noticed that Lissy was developing a bit of a tummy. That happens with kids.” He pauses. “Well, you know. You’ve had a family. Anyway, kids grow in spurts — they stretch out and get long and lanky, then they fill out before they shoot up again. Lissy stretched out and we thought she was just filling out. It was such a gradual thing. When Joanne got her some new clothes, she noticed they were tight around the tummy. The next time we got something for her, we realized she wasn’t filling out all over, like she usually does. She was just getting a solid little paunch. Her arms and legs were normal, but she had this little pot on her.
“When Joanne felt her tummy, it was firm, like she’d been doing body building or something. That’s when we began to wonder. It didn’t take the doctor long to figure out what was happening.”
Joanne takes up the thread.
“He found an abdominal mass and told us they’d have to do a surgical exploration. There were several other things it could have been, but the fact that there were no symptoms was the worst symptom of all.”
There is a long pause before she continues.
“These things aren’t always abdominal, but they’re most common around the adrenal gland, near the kidney. That’s where hers is. They thought it might have been a Wilm’s tumour at first, but it wasn’t. If it was encapsulated — nice and neatly contained — there was a good chance it could be removed and everything would be okay. But it wasn’t. It was spread out and messy and invaded everything.”
She stops.
Ellen can’t believe what she’s hearing. The two of them are so calm — as through they’re giving a weather report.
“Isn’t there anything they can do? What about chemotherapy? Or radiation?”
“That’s what we have to decide,” Stan says. “The chances are pretty much non-existent at this point, so we have to decide whether we want to put her through that with the odds so overwhelming that it won’t do any good, and will just destroy whatever time she has left.”
He looks directly at Ellen.
“Chemo and radiation aren’t easy procedures. People have unreal notions about them. They’re damned hard on you. They make you sicker than you’ve ever been in your life. And I’m not sure I want to put her through that. I could see it if there was any hope, but why torment her when it won’t do any good?”
“You don’t know that,” Joanne snaps. “It’s the only chance she’s got. If we don’t try it, she’s going to die for sure.”
He turns to face her.
“Joanne, we both love her. And we have since the day she was born. But this isn’t about who loves her the most or about giving up. It’s about Lissy and what’s best for her. You heard the doctor. He said they could try radiation and chemo, but he wouldn’t recommend it. We talked to other parents who’ve gone through the process. It was a pretty horrendous experience. And I remember a couple of them saying they wished they’d just let their child go in peace, rather than put them through so much torment.”
Joanne’s eyes are fixed on him. Her face has turned to stone. He steps closer and gently pulls her toward him. She shudders, pushing him away.
“You say you love her. Then help me fight for her. Yes, it’s going to be hard. I know that. But she’s young. She’s got resilience. She can bounce back. We’ve both seen that. And doctors can be wrong.”
She takes a deep breath, trying to stop the sobs that creep around the edges of her voice. “Stan, we’ve got to give her whatever chance there is.”
Silence hangs like a curtain between them. Abruptly, Stan turns to Ellen.
“What do you think, Mom?”
She’s taken aback and gropes for words. “I … I don’t know what to say, Stan. I understand what you’re saying — radiation and chemo can be terrible. But I see Joanne’s point too. If it’s Lissy’s only hope, is it fair to withhold, even if it might not do any good?”
“That’s my point,” he replies. “It isn’t even a faint hope. The doctor as good as told us that. So why torture her when it won’t do any good? What’s the point of that? Let’s make it decent for her and make her last days comfortable.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know it won’t do any good. And that’s not what the doctor said. He said he couldn’t guarantee results. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any. You’re a quitter, Stan. Well, I won’t let us quit on Lissy. I’m going to make sure she has those treatments if it’s the last thing I do!”
They stand immobile, fighting cocks waiting for the split second to fly in and plant their spurs in each other.
Ellen takes one of their hands in each of her own.
“Please, Joanne, Stan. Don’t freeze each other out right now. I can’t help you because I don’t know enough about it. In any case, this is your decision. But listen to each other. This isn’t about who wins an argument. It’s about what’s best for Lissy. Let’s think of her.”
Joanne speaks first. “Believe me, Mother, it’s Lissy I’m thinking about.”
Stan takes a deep breath. “She’s my daughter, too,” he says, his voice oddly gentle.
Ellen looks from one to the other. “Is there anything I can say?”
Joanne shakes her head, but it’s Stan who speaks.
“I don’t think there’s anything anyone can say at this point.”
The sudden peal of the telephone interrupts the moment. Stan and Joanne look at each other. The phone rings again and still they stand, frozen in a nightmare tableau.
“Isn’t anyone going to answer that?” Ellen asks, as it rings for a third and fourth time.
Slowly, Stan turns on his heel and picks up the phone. The conversation is over in moments.
Numbly, he puts the receiver down and turns to Joanne.
“She’s gone,” he whispers. “Lissy’s gone.”
Ellen doesn’t want to be there at that moment. She doesn’t want to see the raw agony that erupts. But most of all she doesn’t want to see the anger that boils up in Joanne and spills over both of them.
“She didn’t have to die,” Joanne says. “They could have helped her but you wouldn’t let them.”
Stan’s arms reach out. “Joanne,” he begins.
“No. Don’t touch me. Just leave me alone.”
She whirls and runs from the room. Stan’s arms hang awkwardly in mid-air, twin branches deformed by wind and torn by storms. His eyes close as his arms slowly drop, brought down by a weight he cannot bear.
The next morning Stan and Joanne leave for the hospital. There are things to attend to that Ellen can’t even imagine. They throw themselves into planning Lissy’s funer
al, insisting it isn’t going to be a funeral but a celebration of her life. Lissy will be cremated. There won’t be a church service, but a memorial for her friends and family. What they want, Stan says, is to recreate the sense of Lissy’s life. He sits through hours of home-videos, looking for clips of the smiling, pretty little girl as she grows from a baby to a toddler, to a proud kindergarten graduate, and then sets out on her first day of “real” school.
The journey isn’t very long.
Jana is confused.
“Isn’t Lissy ever coming back, Gramma?”
“No, honey. Lissy isn’t. But she’ll always be in our hearts.”
Jana shakes her head. “No. I want her in my house.” Tears brim in her eyes. “Didn’t she like living here?”
“Oh, baby,” Ellen cries, sweeping her into an embrace. “Of course she liked living here.”
“Then why did she go away? Was she mad at me?”
Inside, Ellen seethes. Damn Joanne and Stan anyway. They’re being so level-headed, so calm, cool, and collected. They’re so
reasonable in their responses that Jana doesn’t realize what has actually happened. Ellen knows pre-schoolers don’t have a real grasp on the concept of death, but they’re making it sound as though Lissy has just gone away, as someone might leave a friend’s house and go play somewhere else. Jana is translating that as leaving, as one might after a quarrel, or the way Lissy sometimes stamped into her room and shut the door when she didn’t want Jana to play with her toys.
“No, honey, she wasn’t mad at you. She loved you. You were her sister, her only sister. You were really, really special to her.”
“Then why won’t she come back?”
There is no answer.
— 9 —
AL’S ARRIVAL SURPRISES ELLEN, although she realizes it shouldn’t. He’s still Lissy’s grandfather. No, he was Lissy’s grandfather. Lissy is gone. Her mind shies from the thought, a skittish colt spooked by a shadow. She can’t yet accept the unchangeable fact.
Al is alone, and she’s thankful for that. They’re oddly formal in their greetings, more like casual acquaintances that haven’t seen each other for a while than people who shared the greater part of their lives with each other and co-parented four children.
On the Rim Page 12
