Sophia’s Garden
Copyright 2011 Kelly Ojstersek
This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration to any of its contents and credit to the author named above is always contained in the distributed format.
This is a work of fiction, no real persons or circumstances are inferred or implied.
We live on an island off the coast of Maine because my beloved daughter has advanced lymphatic cancer and the doctors, all of them renown in their field, dressed impeccably in starched white coats, told us, myself and my husband who is also a part of this group, she would fare much better away from society in the cleanliness of the ocean air and the solitude of silence.
So we moved, meaning me and our daughter Sophia, my beautiful lily. Her father, as mentioned, a renowned surgeon himself, stays at the apartment he rents close to the hospital. He hardly ever used to stay there. Before the cancer he would come home at night to our quiet suburban home with wide streets and even wider immaculate yards. Before, he would sit at the dinner table with us, head of the family, and acting like it. He was, is, still the most beautiful man I have ever seen, still sends my heart racing whenever he comes up to kiss me or nuzzle my neck. He knows the effect he has me and for the last eighteen years he has been my prince, and I his princess.
My husband changed as one might expect. He buried himself in Sophia’s treatment and found the island house we now live in, tracking down the owner who, with enough money and begging, let us rent it until, well, something changed in the future. Whether driven by pity or greed, two weeks later we were living far enough off the East coast I couldn’t see the lights that had dazzled me with wonder all my life.
I became more the mother I thought I should be, taking no time for myself, seeing only what Sophia and my husband wanted and needed. I became the drill sergeant to the staff of our island home, the master of the list, the goddess of organization. I was still nice, just more focused on how things ran. I felt if I had control of something I might be able to have control of my emotions, if I ever allowed them to show.
Sometimes people came out to the island to visit, people from my old life, my old neighborhood. They brought sticky buns as gooey as their sympathy and warmer than the concern in their voice. I knew they were just making appearances so they could go and tell our other friends they had come to see us, me and my beautiful Sophia. My husband they saw in town, usually at some fancy restaurant he frequented with important hospital heads of staff or while wooing someone who wished to endow the hospital with money in exchange for a wing with their name on it. All the schmoozing was vital to his career, our lives and kept Sophia in the clean atmosphere he felt she thrived in-he assured me time and time again.
On one occasion a group of ladies from the old neighborhood brought everything needed for a party they felt I was far overdue for. I could have said no when Nell had called, her voice excited and flushed with her idea, but though their intrusion was just that, I secretly welcomed it beyond the daily matters and the retched sound of sea gull cawing and squawking as they dove close to the house or landed with their bony little feet on the roof making a sandpapery sound against the composite shingles. As the day of their arrival drew near, I could feel my spirits soar at the thought of having others to talk to. Sophia brighten on the day too. She was dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans and a hip top accompanied by soft sheep-skin boots that folded over at the top, about calf height, to reveal the soft, shortly sheered wool on the inside. She looked like any normal, happy, healthy teenage girl.
Before cancer, Sophia had been a vibrant freshman already seeing the potential of being a sophomore. Excited to be able to take driver’s education, go to the movies with friends, have a guy, THE HOTTEST guy in her opinion, talk to her by the lockers and ask if he could take her to the dance at the end of the year. I had listened to her for days, her feet barely touching the ground, as she reenacted the scene of his asking over and over while trying on dresses, talking to her friends, swimming in the backyard pool trying to get a kiss of sun on her lily white skin.
When Travis, the hot guy, came to pick Sophia up for the dance, I too couldn’t help but stare as his lithe, athletically toned six foot two inch body exited the limo he’d rented for them. He was everything she had described though I would have thrown in a few more explicit expletives to describe the firmness of his abs and butt. I truly don’t think they made boys that hot when I was Sophia’s age. Nope, I was certain of it, at least none that would deign to look my direction. I remember letting out a sigh which, even in her enamored state of teenage lust standing next to me, she caught. She glanced at me and I just smiled as I wrapped an arm around her golden shoulders bared in the dress she had chosen. She looked like an angel, all dressed in white with her long chestnut hair cascading down her back from the professionally done twist secured on the back of her head. I remember standing there as her Romeo approached, watching her eyes go from happy to wonky as she put a hand to her chest. Her knees buckled a bit and instinctively I grabbed for her but she put her other hand out and smiled a shaky smile. Her face had paled but her cheeks still held the glow of summer. I’m fine, she assured me; she had been having little chest pains for weeks, ever since Travis had asked her to the dance. It was stress, and pure joy, coursing through her body she explained gaily as color again found its way to her face.
I watched them, arm in arm, walk back to the limo after I had completely embarrassed her by taking an obscene amount of pictures of the most beautiful couple I had ever seen. Two weeks later amidst the laughter and frivolity of summer Sophia collapsed. Cancer. Lymphatic cancer. Operable. Prognosis, not so good. It still amazes me today how just one little word could change the course of your life. Of everyone’s life within a family. Everyone reacts so differently it is like watching a play acted out seven hundred different ways from each person’s perspective touched by the word.
Sophia became my hero. She took the news of her condition well then took the news to God, praying for his love, his forgiveness of sins, for healing. She became ethereal, I swear her serenity made her float and sometimes I think she even shimmered in the peace she took from the knowledge her life was not in her hands but in the Almighty who, in his wisdom, would love her on earth or in his palace. She was totally all right with this scenario.
My husband came out to the island as frequently as his career, which he reminded me before I could pout, was what kept us on the island and allowed, as the doctors had bade, our daughter to recover after her surgeries. At first it was so hard for him to leave us, his family, his beloved wife and daughter who no longer had long brown hair but rather a long brown, green or black scarf, depending on what she wore, cascading down her back to hide the baldness that had come five weeks after she’d started chemo. But, being the amazing person she was, instead of waiting for it to fall out clump by clump, she had almost immediately, after receiving the news of her condition, cut it to the nape of her neck and donated to Locks of Love. All twenty seven glorious inches. I had cried as I watched her proudly hold the ponytail in her hand, smiling for cameras held by those who had gotten wind of what this amazing young lady was doing. Even Travis, who had become more than just a date to a dance, stood in the crowd, next to me, my hand grasped tightly in his as he watched the strongest woman he’d ever known do something so selfless in her time of adversity. He felt so small, so insignificant he’d confided in a quiet moment we had together as tears rolled silently down his face. He stared me in the face and told me he loved her, and we cried together. How beautiful that moment was, another one for me to tuck in my mental scrapbook of things I would never fo
rget about that summer.
Afterward we had gone out to celebrate, Sophia’s choice. She chose Cosmic Bowling. Had I known what that was before it happened, I might have balked but thankfully I had no time to do any such thing as it would have ruined the night which turned out to be amazing. I didn’t bowl, rather was the food getter, ball finder, shoe exchanger for the group she had invited. It seemed like we took up half the bowling alley and were responsible for all of the ruckus but if I thought I had seen my daughter smile earlier when she gave away her hair, that was nothing to the sheer radiance she cast around the room competing, and easily outshining, the laser lights shooting around the bowling alley. Did she really know what could happen? That recovery was not the only option? I honest didn’t know. I think that was the hardest part of all of this. So much was completely out of my control; all I could do was watch, support and wait just like everyone else.
Cassie, my best friend, told me I needed to have my own feelings, not just be a robot that reacted
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