She and Jack had sat next to each other the first day of AP Calculus, struck up a conversation, and their budding romance had begun that day. Both of them had been virgins, at least up until a few weeks ago when they’d had sex for the first time - a somewhat awkward, fumbling encounter. Fortunately their subsequent times together had been better, and Cara had conceded that sex was definitely a learning process, and one that she hoped would continue to improve in the coming weeks.
She hadn’t thought much beyond the end of senior year and possibly this summer in regards to her relationship with Jack. After all, they would be going their separate ways come late August when she headed south to California to attend UC Berkeley, and Jack moved east to start college at Duke. Cara was enough of a realist to know that long-distance romances rarely lasted, especially between two people who hadn’t been dating all that long.
But for now, at least, she was having fun with Jack, enjoyed spending time with him, and they had begun to make initial plans for their Senior Prom in April.
Life in general couldn’t be much better right now, thought Cara as she let herself inside the small, modest home she shared with her parents. School was going great - she was excelling in all of her classes and was on track to be selected as the valedictorian come late May. She was involved with several clubs and groups as well - Debate Club, school newspaper, Italian Club, and the Junior Kiwanis, who performed various acts of community service. In addition, she also took dance classes at the same studio she’d begun attending as a tiny five year old, and helped teach some of the youngest students in order to help pay for her own tuition. She was popular and well-liked among her wide circle of friends, though she tended to hang out with the brainy, studious kids rather than any so-called “in-crowd”. She’d been offered early admission to Berkeley, and would be the third generation of women in her family to attend the prestigious university, following in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps. Life was definitely good, and her future couldn’t be much brighter.
But a sudden shiver of premonition crept up her spine as she dumped her backpack and jacket in the entryway. The house was almost eerily silent, even though she knew both of her parents were at home since their cars were in the driveway. Normally at this time of the day her mother would be getting dinner ready, while her father - provided he was actually home and not out drinking with his buddies - would be plopped on the living room sofa watching sports or the news and not lifting a finger to help his wife. But the TV was off, there were no welcoming scents coming from the kitchen, and no sign of either parent.
Cara located them moments later, both seated at the kitchen table, and both with equally somber faces. Sharon in particular appeared pale and upset, the dark circles under her eyes pronounced, and Cara wondered why she hadn’t noticed until now that her mother had lost more than a few pounds.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her gut instinct telling her that something was very, very wrong. She pulled out a chair and sat down next to her ashen faced mother and glum, silent father.
Sharon reached over and took Cara’s hand, squeezing it hard as her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, baby. Your dad and I have something to tell you. It’s bad, Cara. Really bad. I wish with all my heart that I could spare you this, but it’s not something I’ll be able to hide much longer.”
Trying hard not to let the panic overwhelm her, Cara glanced worriedly between her parents. “Oh, God. You’re getting a divorce, aren’t you? You both figured that I’m almost eighteen now and getting ready to graduate so it’s time to end things. That’s it, isn’t it?”
But a divorce, as awful as that would have been, was not the bad news Sharon had been referring to. Instead, it was much, much worse - the absolute worst possible news there could have been. Sharon had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and given no more than a handful of months to live. Because this particular form of cancer was so difficult to diagnose on a timely basis, oftentimes the deadly disease had already spread to other parts of the body by the time the person even realized they were sick. Cara recalled now that her mother had been complaining every so often about stomach pains and fatigue, starting around Thanksgiving, but Sharon had simply put it down to stress and overwork. In addition to her full time job teaching high school mathematics, Sharon also taught a night class at community college as well as an SAT prep class on occasional Saturdays. The extra income helped to make ends meet when Mark, Cara’s often undependable father, was between jobs.
It hadn’t been until a few days ago, right after returning to work from the Christmas break, when Sharon’s condition had become apparent. She had fainted at school, and one of her fellow teachers - and lifelong best friend Frannie - had insisted on driving her to the ER. The staff there had conducted a slew of tests, and Sharon had just received the terrible news earlier today. She hadn’t said anything to Cara until now, not wanting to worry her unnecessarily if it had all turned out to be nothing.
Cara clutched her mother’s hand tightly, fighting off the flood of tears she longed to spill, determined to be strong now for the woman who had always been there for her. “There has to be something they can do,” argued Cara stubbornly. “Surgery, chemo, radiation. You’re young, strong, in good health. I know you can fight this, Mom.”
But Sharon only shook her head sadly. “No, baby. Trust me, I had the exact same reaction when the doctor broke the news, told him I was ready to fight this thing tooth and nail. But it’s already spread too extensively - the lymph nodes, stomach lining. And they expect it will go to my liver next. There’s no way to halt the progress, Cara, and the doctors can only help with managing the symptoms now, mostly through pain management. I’m so sorry, baby. Sorry that I probably won’t be here to see you start college, get you moved into your dorm, and all the other plans we made.”
This time Cara couldn’t hold back the tears as they began to trickle in hot paths down her cheeks. “What about my graduation?” she whispered brokenly. “You’ll make it at least until then, won’t you?”
Sharon enfolded her beloved daughter in her arms, giving her a reassuring hug. “I hope so, baby. God knows I’ll fight like hell to be there.”
And fight Sharon did. Stubbornly, she insisted on finishing out the month of January with her high school students, though she did give up her two other jobs immediately. At first, life went on pretty much like normal, though Cara noticed that her mother looked increasingly exhausted by the end of each day. Cara took on more and more of the household chores and fixed dinner each night, despite Sharon’s protests that she didn’t want to be babied, that she felt okay. But by the end of the month, Sharon had lost an alarming amount of weight, struggled visibly to get through each day, and began to look every bit as sick as she was.
Once she stopped working, Sharon seemed to grow weaker with each passing day. During the first two or three weeks of February, she forced herself to keep going, to remain positive and cheerful. She insisted on accompanying Cara to shop for a prom dress and accessories, as well as a dress for graduation. She made it to a birthday lunch for Frannie, a baby shower for one of the teachers she had worked with, to see a movie with Cara. She expressed renewed optimism that she would get to see Cara graduate, and certainly be there for both her prom and eighteenth birthday - events that would happen within mere days of each other.
But a new scan towards the end of February revealed that the cancer had indeed spread to her liver, and that her life expectancy had been greatly shortened. Sharon was no longer able to fight the pain, and unwillingly began to take the strong drugs that had been prescribed for that purpose. She began to sleep more and more, and was barely coherent when she was awake. Her appetite waned, then disappeared altogether, and her once plump frame became skeletal. The hospice nurse assigned to the case advised Mark and Cara that Sharon now required round the clock care, and gave them the number of an agency who provided home health care workers. When Mark realized just how much that would cos
t, he protested loudly, claiming there was no possible way they could afford it. Cara knew that her father was already beginning to panic about how he was going to cope financially without Sharon’s income, but was incensed that he would object to paying whatever it cost to make sure his wife was given the care she needed.
Impulsively, Cara declared that she would take care of her mother, and made plans to speak with the vice principal at her school to arrange some sort of home study program. She had already cut way back on her other school activities, dropping out of certain clubs entirely while doing the bare minimum with others. She had told her dance teacher that she most likely wouldn’t be able to participate in the studio’s big recital in June, and had stopped her student teaching. And she’d had to cancel any number of dates with Jack, who thus far had been understanding and supportive - unlike her own father. But then, given his history of being unreliable and irresponsible, Cara wasn’t all that surprised at her father’s overall lack of support.
Mark Bregante was an extremely handsome, charming, schmoozer who had swept the shy, studious Sharon off her feet soon after they first met. Sharon had been so crazy about him that she had postponed getting her doctorate - a necessary step towards becoming a college professor like she’d always dreamed of, and following in the footsteps of her own mother - in order to help support Mark while he finished his college degree. By then Sharon had become pregnant with Cara, and the plans to obtain her PhD had been put on hold again. She had always vowed to pursue the advanced degree, but circumstances had continued to interfere with those goals - circumstances that had usually revolved around Mark being unable to hold onto a job for very long.
Over the years, and especially as she’d grown a little older, Cara had frequently overheard her father’s multiple excuses for why he’d quit one job or been let go from another. The reasons had run the gamut from his being overqualified for the job or not getting the raise he deserved or the boss having it in for him. Whatever the reason, it had been rare for Mark to stay at a job more than a few months to a year, often with lengthy periods of unemployment in between. And when he did work more often than not it was at some sort of sales position, where the bulk of his salary came from commissions and was usually unreliable. It had become necessary, therefore, for Sharon to take on first one and then two part-time teaching jobs in addition to her day job, and she had also taught summer school for as long as Cara could remember - all to help support her family and compensate for Mark’s shortcomings as a breadwinner.
But his unreliability at keeping a job was far from the only way he had always let his wife and daughter down. Being such an attractive, charismatic man, Mark had naturally attracted female attention wherever he went, and he had far too large an ego to turn down all of the offers he received. As a little girl, Cara had often come upon her mother weeping quietly, or overheard her grandmother or Frannie advising Sharon to “leave the good-for-nothing bastard and let him support himself for once”. But each time Sharon would admit that she loved Mark too much to ever consider such a thing, that no matter how many times he let her down or hurt her, she would always forgive him. He was her weakness, her obsession, and she would put up with just about anything to keep him with her - even overlook his frequent flirtations and infidelities.
As she’d grown older and more aware of what was going on, Cara, too, had urged her mother to leave Mark and live her own life. It had been perhaps the only time Cara could recall her mother snapping at her, visibly losing her temper, and telling Cara to stay out of things she couldn’t begin to understand. Shocked at this very uncharacteristic outburst from her normally placid mother, Cara had never broached the subject again. But it had been very obvious that her father felt free.to do exactly as he pleased, and Cara had quickly learned not to depend on him. Throughout her life, in fact, there had been far too many times when Mark had been late for dinner or found some excuse not to attend a school event or didn’t bother showing up for one of her dance recitals.
But Cara had hoped that for once Mark would face up to his responsibilities and be there for his wife in her time of greatest need. Admittedly he was there each evening for dinner and to help when needed, but the bulk of Sharon’s care was provided by Cara. Thankfully her plans to do home study hadn’t been necessary since Frannie’s mother - a recently retired nurse who was like a second mother to Sharon - had insisted on looking after her during the day while Cara was at school. And Sharon’s fellow teachers and friends not only offered to take shifts on weekends but brought over meals for Cara and Mark and anyone else who happened to be visiting.
It was early April when the hospice nurse took Mark and Cara aside and gently told them it would likely be a matter of days now until Sharon’s death. Cara spent every possible minute at her mother’s bedside, barely taking the time to eat or do much else but attend classes and do homework. Jack began to sound less and less understanding when she couldn’t make time to go out with him, and was definitely put out when Cara broke the news that going to prom was most likely not going to happen. But there was no possible way she could leave her mother’s side at such a critical time, and wouldn’t be able to enjoy herself anyway. Cara had shook her head in disbelief after that call with Jack, wondering how the guy she’d been so close to these past few months could now be so insensitive and totally lacking in support.
During one of Sharon’s few lucid periods - the frequent doses of morphine keeping her largely out of it - she called weakly for Mark and Cara to sit with her. She took Cara’s hand in between her own two frail ones, and spoke in a barely audible voice.
“Promise me, baby,” she murmured, “that no matter what you’ll do all the things we talked about - go to Italy, have at least two kids someday, and above all get that degree from Berkeley. I’m counting on you to keep the tradition going, hmm? Three generations. Make me and your grandmother proud. Promise?”
Cara nodded, blinking back tears as she kissed her mother’s forehead. “I promise, Mom. No matter what it takes.”
Sharon had turned to Mark next, making him promise that he would always be there for Cara, would always look out for her, and, most importantly, would vow to use the money that had been left to Sharon by her mother three years earlier to finance Cara’s college education. Mark had assured his wife that he would do as she asked, and at that point Sharon nodded, closed her eyes tiredly, and slipped into a coma.
She died two days later, without ever having regained consciousness. Cara, Frannie and her mother, and the hospice nurse were all gathered around Sharon’s bedside at the end, while Mark was nowhere to be found. It was also the night of Cara’s prom, the prom she would later find out her so-called boyfriend Jack had brought another girl to as his date.
‘Like mother, like daughter,’ Cara thought tiredly. ‘Both of us with rotten taste in men, picking the ones who always let us down.’
Numbly she got through the ordeal of Sharon’s funeral, willed herself to get through the last few weeks of school, and even resumed her extracurricular activities, including her dance classes. Jack had offered up a sheepish apology, admitting that he’d acted like a jerk about the whole thing, and wondered if they could start over. Cara had been too grief-stricken to offer up much of a protest, had been desperate for a distraction from her constant sorrow, and had taken back up with Jack despite her better judgment. What did she care about her pride or self-esteem, after all, considering the terrible loss she had just suffered.
And Cara’s pain had really just begun, as had her losses. Less than two months after Sharon’s death, and barely a week prior to her high school graduation, Cara arrived home to find her father deep in consultation with a realtor. But the news that Mark was putting her beloved childhood home - the only home Cara had ever known - up for sale was only the tip of the iceberg. Mark was also getting remarried - to his twenty-something, cocktail waitress girlfriend, the one who was four months pregnant - and moving to Florida with her. The realtor figured the house wou
ld sell fairly quickly, though he promised that Cara could remain in the house until it was time for her to move to California and start college.
Frannie and the rest of Sharon’s friends were incensed at Mark’s callous, insensitive actions, and Frannie in particular didn’t hesitate to express her opinion directly to his face. It was obvious that Mark had been having an affair with this woman while Sharon had been dying from cancer, a fact that had made both Cara and Frannie spitting mad. And when Cara refused to attend the wedding ceremony, Mark got vindictive and promptly instructed the realtor to move up the close of escrow on the house to two weeks before she was due to leave for Berkeley, leaving her without a place to live. But Frannie saved the day yet again, insisting that Cara stay with her during that time, even though she and her husband had three teenagers of their own. Frannie also made arrangements to drive Cara to Berkeley and get her settled into the dorm, stating that Sharon would have done exactly the same if it had been one of her children, and that it was the very least she could do to honor her best friend’s memory. Frannie had also offered to store several boxes containing mementoes and other items Cara had managed to salvage from the house, mostly books, photos, and personal items of her mother’s. Mark had rather callously taken what he wanted – though his new wife Holly had disdainfully declared most of the furniture too worn out and old fashioned for her taste – then sold the rest at an estate sale.
Cara’s first semester at Berkeley had been a miserable one. To save money, Mark had insisted that she occupy a triple dorm room – which was essentially a regular double with an extra person squeezed in. Her two roommates – Kylee and Rylee – not only had names that rhymed in an adorably annoying way, but the girls had been best friends since the age of eight. They had been as close as sisters, and had even resembled each other to an almost startlingly degree – tall, slim, tanned, and blonde. They had been nearly inseparable, each of them pursuing a degree in communications and taking the same classes, and spending practically every waking minute together. The girls had also been very adept at shutting Cara out of their tight-knit little circle, never inviting her to go out with them, or even acknowledging her presence most of the time. They had frequently brought friends – especially boys – to the already cramped room, and Cara had often arrived back after class to find strangers sprawled on her bed or sitting at her desk.
Stronger Page 5
