I can’t save everyone.
Love,
Rainbow Warrior
Still as death, I stared at the words, and then dropped the letter on the ground before me.
Loving our families might be unconditional, but the pain we put them through had to have boundaries.
I couldn’t say hello and goodbye in the same breath. It wouldn’t be redeeming.
THIRTY-SEVEN
“Susan!” Will hollered from the car as he and Calliope pulled up next to the curb. “Susan?” He gave me a strange look as he ran toward me. “Why are you sitting in the middle of her yard?” he said with a hug.
Calliope burst toward the front door of my sister’s house. “Aren’t we going in?”
I shook my head no, and gestured for her to get away from the house.
Calliope looked at Will, who in turn looked at me. “Spector? You’re lookin’ a little desperate. You okay? You’re makin’ me nervous,” he said.
I stared straight ahead, toward the street. “I need to be alone.”
Will was not pleased. “We just got you back! What’s wrong with you? Now, go knock on her door. I want to see if she looks like you.”
“She can’t help me and neither can you. It’s over,” I said, standing up and walking toward the car.
“Where are you going? What’s over?” Will said, coming after me.
I turned around, tears streaming down my cheeks. “This is over,” I pointed to the three of us. “We’re over,” I said, looking into his eyes. “I’m over.”
“What are you talking about?” Will asked, trying to grab my arm.
“I’m dying.”
He smirked. “You know how I love metaphors, but …”
“I’m dying,” I repeated in the most serious tone I could muster. “Literally.”
Calliope walked over to me, clearly pissed off, and punched me in the gut. “That’s not funny.”
I leaned against the car and gasped for air. “I know. It’s tragic.” My belabored breathing was worse than ever now, and when I started to think about being locked inside a coffin, I began hyperventilating.
“Jesus, Cal, I don’t think she’s breathing,” Will said, lying me down on the curbside grass.
Calliope leaned over me, freaked out. “I didn’t hit her very hard, really. Jesus, maybe she is really dying.”
In-between gasps, I nodded. “Lung … cancer.”
Will’s face sunk into sadness, then anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know if—”
“If you could trust me?”
And there it was. I was breaking up with the only good boyfriend I’d ever had, and so close to death. What were the odds?
Gasp. Gasp.
Will searched for his cell phone. “We need to call 9-1-1.”
Most people die in ambulances, not hearses, I remembered. “No … ambulance! Just … put … me … in … the … car.”
They put me in the back, and I obediently laid down like a good almost-dead person. I noticed the ceiling for the first time—crushed velvet puckered at the seams with covered buttons.
“I’m not ready to die yet,” I told Will as he crouched down next to me and held my hand.
“You’re not dying,” he said.
And he was so real, so convincing, I almost believed him.
I woke up on a hard stretcher. It seemed to float through the air in slow motion, even though everyone around me looked frightened and panicked. Their mouths moved, but I chose to hear the Ramones singing “I Wanna Be Sedated.” And as if the doctors were taking a cue from my subconscious, one of them stabbed me with a big needle and I felt the cold rush of fluid shooting into my arm.
Here’s what I thought about while people poked at me and shouted about my blood pressure and pulse: It’s a powerful moment when you realize the life you’ve been waiting for, longing for, is currently in progress—on your deathbed.
After reading the doctor’s nametag, I whispered, “Dr. Clark?” When he leaned over me, I told him about my dire predicament.
A nurse tried to escort Will and Calliope out of the emergency room holding area, but they were persistent.
“Did she tell you about her condition?” Will asked, trying to get closer to me.
Calliope touched Dr. Clark’s shoulder. “She just told us. We just found out.”
“She told me,” he reassured us in-between barking orders at the nurse. “Look, there’s not much we can do for stage four adenocarcinoma. We did some blood work, regular tox screen. And we can give her something for the anxiety.”
Hearing the words sobered Will. “What exactly does that mean—stage four?”
The doctor looked at me, seeking permission to be dismal, so I gave him full creative license to be bleak.
The grim look on the doctor’s face was enough to make Calliope tear up.
And Will stood motionless, not ready to watch another person die.
“Her already compromised lung condition is aggravated by stress,” the doctor said, bringing Will and Calliope closer to him. In a quieter voice, he asked, “Has anything been particularly stressful for her lately?”
Call and Will looked at each other, recalling our time together thus far. Jesus, how long had it been? Since I’d given up clocks, I’d lost track of time.
“Well, there was the accident in Vegas …”
“And she got hit by lightning yesterday …”
“And kidnapped.”
“This is no laughing matter,” the doctor said, looking at both of them with a skeptical stare. “Stage four adeno—”
“I’m in love with her,” Will blurted.
Everyone was silent. But it was no time for me to be silent.
“I love you, too,” I grunted, trying to sit up.
Calliope spoke under her breath, “It’s about time.”
Dr. Clark said to me, “Lay back down and relax.” Acknowledging the obvious tension, the doctor began his exit. “Radiology’s already down here. Order a quick chest X-ray,” he told the nurse. “We’ll check the status and go from there.”
Calliope and Will left the room for a minute, and a technician wheeled in a portable X-ray machine.
Finally, I thought as a nice woman took a picture of my lungs. I’ll get up close and personal with my tumor, really get to know it before we spend eternity together.
While my X-ray film was being processed, I called my friends back in, and Will took his place by my side, demonstrating where he was in the grieving process: Stage one—denial. “Susan, there are treatments for this. You can’t give up—”
“Shhh,” I said, putting my index finger over his lips to quiet any desperate attempts at misguided hope. “Now, this would be the perfect time for one of your obnoxious movie lines—nice and safe and pointless,” I said, smiling.
For once, he was speechless. I raised an eyebrow, soliciting Calliope’s help, but she didn’t appear to be in a joking mood. Dying people make everyone sad.
“Come on, Will.” I pinched his arm, trying to get him to revert to his stockpile of borrowed Hollywood lines. “I see dead people?”
He glared at me. “That’s not funny.” After a long pause, he said, “You should’ve told me the truth.”
I wanted to yell, “You can’t handle the truth!” in pure Nicholsonian splendor, but I decided to go with something more honest. “You’re right. I was greedy. I wanted a chance to live the life I should’ve been living all along, and I knew if I told you, it would all end.”
He folded his arms, and for a moment, I thought he was going to leave. “Greed,” he said, “for lack of a better word, is good.”
I waited for him to smile, and when he did, I knew Will was back.
Calliope tried her hand at a cinematic reference. “See? Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
“Actually,” Will said, “love means never having to say Love Story.”
At that moment, I dreamed of being able to fight about movies
with Will—which ones to watch, which ones to make fun of—but it would be just one more thing I’d never get to do. Fuck Hemingway and his “All good stories end in death” rule. There was nothing good about the way my story was ending.
And just as a depressing silence had settled upon the three of us, Dr. Clark came back in with another doctor, who was carrying an X-ray film, presumably mine.
Deep breath. Here we go.
Tumor? Susan.
Susan? Tumor.
You look great. Metastasize much?
Whenever I get the chance.
My internal conversation with my tumor was rudely interrupted when both doctors smiled. After looking at each other, Dr. Clark said, “So why didn’t you have your tumor biopsied?”
How did he know I hadn’t? I needed to defend myself. “Well, it sounded like I was a lost cause, so it seemed pointless. Plus, I hate needles. And Dr. Marsh said my symptoms sounded like the cancer had already metastasized.”
The doctors nodded, then, taking turns, listed my symptoms.
“Shortness of breath?”
“Tightness in the chest?”
“Headache?”
“Dizziness?”
“Nausea?”
I nodded. “Yeah, those were my … are my symptoms.”
“Those symptoms are all in line with anxiety or panic attacks,” Dr. Clark said.
I needed answers. “But the tumor—”
“Not a tumor,” the other doctor said. “A mass.” He hung my X-ray up on the light box so we could all see. “See those little nodules?” He pointed to the left-hand side of my mass. “In a malignant tumor, they would be smaller and more protruding. We call them ‘fingers.’ But yours are …” He walked over to me. “Have you spent any time in the southwest?”
“What?” I asked.
Dr. Clark introduced the other doctor. “Sorry. This is Dr. Emery. He did his residency in Santa Fe.”
Great. Awesome. I still didn’t know what the hell was going on.
The two doctors looked at each other again, like they were part of a winning team, and smiled. “Dr. Emery just happened to be walking by while I was looking at your X-ray and—”
“And I noticed something familiar,” said Dr. Emery from Santa Fe. “It’s more common in the Southwest, but it can happen anywhere. It’s called blastomycosis—it’s a systemic fungal infection that attacks the lungs, and it can grow in your body for up to twenty years. Your labs confirmed its presence.”
I was still processing what he was saying when Dr. Clark said, “You contract it through contact with moist soil. Have you had any jobs that require you to dig in, or work with, soil?”
My fake mother had never paid me to dig in our backyard and turn new furniture into old treasures, so I could hardly call it a job.
“So what does this mean?”
Dr. Emery hugged his clipboard almost like it were a person. “It means you’re not dying.”
“Susan!” I heard Will holler as my head smashed into the tiled floor.
I’d passed out upon hearing the shocking news, and fallen off the exam table.
Dr. Clark rushed over to check my head, and said, “She’s fine. She’s just not used to being fine yet,” he laughed. “We’ll start her on amphotericin B, but she’s free to go.”
When I looked up at him, he scribbled on his prescription pad, and said, “You have a new lease on life, Ms. Spector. Good luck.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
My God, life was so much grander than I could’ve ever imagined. I took out the to-do list I’d made back in Vegas, and aside from writing a novel, which I now had a whole lifetime to complete, I’d checked off every item.
I’d lived more in two weeks (I guess) than I had in twenty years.
And I’d even accomplished things that weren’t on my list, like seeing colors. It had started with a small splash of Kermit-green, and by the time the doctor delivered the good news that I wasn’t dying after all, streaks of my own versions of pink, orange, and violet began appearing unexpectedly, floating across my horizon like brilliant, glistening snowflakes in every hue imaginable.
Suddenly, John Denver and Kermit bobbed their heads back and forth to a strumming banjo, and sang “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” And I saw my Minnesota farmhouse, and a field of violets so vibrant, I envisioned rolling in them, bathing in John’s voice and the color that had come to life.
I don’t know how it happened—developing the ability to see colors after a lifetime of being colorblind. Part of me found it encouraging, but another part of me remembered that, to Native Americans, seeing colors signified impending doom. And I didn’t know what to make of my sister’s prophetic voice that said, “I can’t save everyone.” Who was wrong, my sister or the doctors?
But when I thought about my future, a warm feeling bubbled up inside me, a feeling I’d never felt before—hope is funny like that. If you’ve gone a long time without it, you barely recognize it when it makes an appearance in your life. It’s like that feeling when you hear a song you love, a song you haven’t heard in years, and the second it begins to play, you embrace it like an old friend.
But even hope was foreign territory for me. My newfound gratefulness made me want to wallow in it, swim in it, like an ocean of possibilities.
On showing up at the hospital on a stretcher, I’d obviously been preoccupied, but I did notice some things: a balmy breeze, flowers still sprouting, and a brilliant sun, gleaming with no signs of weariness.
But within seconds of leaving the hospital, summer, it seemed, had come to an abrupt halt. Autumn had arrived without warning, and as Cal and Will and I walked out the hospital doors toward our car, a cool chill set in, and the clouds spit out tiny droplets—precipitation in the form of an afterthought. The flowers were in shock, preparing for harsher weather but still longing for warmth, and the sun, barely shining, seemed exhausted, ready for a break. Autumn was here, but its grayed-out sky seemed out of place when coupled with the new life I’d been given. It was like the universe had put into motion the wrong season.
As the brisk air hit my skin, I felt akin to the trees and flowers, all of us being exposed to conditions that were natural and inevitable, but nevertheless undesirable. And the irony of my new, colorful vision was bitter, but with no sweetness to take the edge off. Just when I was able to see color, the world was fading to muted, indescribable shades.
With my future wide open, I decided I’d forgive my parents for not telling me I was adopted, and call them to make amends. After all, they had done a pretty good job raising me. And there were so many other things to add to my list: meet my twin sister, learn more French, improve my flexibility in dog pose, figure out how to make a really good rhubarb pie, have babies, get married … maybe not in that order.
Yet as I envisioned my list getting longer and longer, I was unable to envision my life getting longer and longer. I guess I’d gotten used to my temporary existence. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine any day beyond that day, and as Will and Calliope opened the doors to our hearse, I hesitated before getting in. A lump developed in my throat, hinting that something was wrong, but it must have been a false alarm, because when I ran my hand down the long quarter-panel of glossy, pumpkin-orange paint, I gained strength from its vibrancy. The color was beautiful, alive with energy, and it looked so rich and creamy, so edible, I damn near licked it.
Will noticed my anxiety. “No worrying, Spector,” he said, giving me a warm smile. “Your worrying days are over—today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
“I know where I want to go, but where are you guys headed?” I asked as Will helped me into the backseat. When I looked at Calliope, she wore a smile, the likes of which I’d never seen before—confident, slightly mischievous, but mostly peaceful. She no longer looked like a muse. She looked like a mere mortal, more real than ever before.
The mortal spoke. “I have to be in Connecticut by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
I laughed. “Let me guess. Traveling circus? Nudist resort—East Coast style?” I thought about my list, and how she’d helped me check everything off. There was nothing left on it, so what could she be up to? But when she began to peel back the bandage on her tattoo, I realized that her journey’s end had nothing to do with me.
She lifted the bandage up at the corner. Her skin slowly detached from the gauze and immediately bounced back with a resiliency I admired. In a regal shade of purplish-violet, the official color of change, I saw an unexpected four-letter word:
In an effort to rewrite the past, a robust letter “Y” overlapped remnants of a weaker, washed-out letter “D.”
Impressed, I smiled. Replacing Dale with Yale?
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper. When she showed it to me, I skipped to the highlights.
Congratulations, Ms. Calliope Lott, on your acceptance into Yale University.
Will and I, both speechless, stared at her, the only ex-stripper we had ever known with an Ivy League future.
“What?” Calliope shrugged, noticing how surprised we still were. “Is it that shocking? I can read, ya know.” She sighed. “Filling out the damn SAT application was actually the hardest part.”
“And what will you study at Yale, Calliope Lott?” I asked, still grinning.
“Theology,” Cal said. And then, as if she thought we might be too stupid to know what that was, she followed with, “History of religious thought … You know … that kinda stuff.”
The kind of stuff she was talking about was the same stuff she’d been talking about all along—the meaning of life … fate … destiny. She didn’t say it, because she didn’t have to. The look on her face reminded me that things and people are not always what they appear.
Will, still smiling, said, “I’ll be goddamned.”
“Actually, you won’t,” Calliope said without missing a beat. “Be damned, that is. Don’t flatter yourself, William Hudson,” she added. “You’re not that naughty.”
Black Eyed Susan Page 25
