Healing Maddie Brees

by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

  For perhaps the first time in her life, Maddie wished that the Sunday evening service would not come to an end. As the pastor reached his sermon’s conclusion, she felt her palms grow sweaty and her heart begin to pound. She supposed she could exit the pew on the far side of the aisle and avoid eye contact. She would have to urge her parents out in that direction too, hastening them before her with no explanation, and then she would make for the exit and wait for them at the car. It felt like terrible cowardice, but also her only option.

  With dismay, she realized that the hymns had begun. The pastor was making the first entreaty, inviting anyone who might think he needed Jesus to just step out of the pew and come forward. Maddie stole a long look at Vincent, watching for a tell-tale smirk, but he sat as before: straight, still, inscrutable.

  Then a new hymn surged from the organ and the pastor made the next appeal. This Sunday night ritual that she had always found annoying had just become an embarrassment. Maddie rolled her eyes and buried her face in her hands. In all of the Sunday nights she had endured, never had there been one as dreadful as this. She stole another look at Vincent, just between her fingers, wondering how he was managing.

  He was gone.

  He’d had enough; Maddie was sure of it. She turned to watch him walking away down the far aisle, but he’d already left the room. That was fast. He might be halfway to the parking lot by now. He might have reached his car.

  Maddie felt envy, and also sweet relief. She returned her gaze to her hands, folded in her lap. He hadn’t seen her; she hadn’t been recognized. Her greatest fears went unrealized.

  And then the sounds began—sounds of committed crying, somewhat akin to those of Tony Martin, but deeper, and adolescent in their breaking. The crying was enclosed somehow, coming to the congregation as out of a tunnel, the cries of a young man in the throes of grief. It was a horrible sound, a second shock on what had become a very surprising Sunday evening. Involuntarily, Maddie looked around to see where it was coming from.

  Her fellow congregants seemed unmoved. They were in their typical altar-call attitude of prayer and expectation. A few men had left their seats and were making their way to the front, and Maddie’s gaze was automatically drawn there, to what she realized was the source of the sound.

  It was Vincent Elander, crying between his hands. His body was bent at the altar, head down between his shoulders. He alone was kneeling there, but already a few men stood near him, their hands resting on his head, his arms, his shoulders. Maddie was stunned, her mind blank. She knew only this tableau: his broad shoulders and bent head, the golden turn of his splayed elbows, his red T-shirt, his jeans.

  More men came forward to pray alongside him—even Mr. Gillece found a place nearby—and together they formed with their bodies a kind of shield or covering for Vincent. Soon enough, all that appeared of the stranger was the soles of his shoes.

  Maddie had forgotten her fears of Vincent’s seeing her. Awareness of his potentially recognizing her between the pews fell away. Instead, the boy at the altar wept on in pain that quietly awed her, and soon enough the pastor dismissed the congregation—something he did only rarely, when it appeared that the one praying at the altar would be doing so for a very long time. Vincent was still praying when she left.

  R

  From the distance of time, Maddie could see how characteristic, how typical this was. Not that Vincent prayed in such a way every day, but that Vincent should shock or surprise her should have ceased to be a shock or surprise. For surprise was integral to his language; shock seemed to have been a means to his being. He certainly surprised them all when, just a few weeks later, he came to church again. That Sunday morning, Vincent Elander entered her Sunday school class with every confidence, not even stopping in the doorway to ascertain that he was in the right place. He entered as though he had done this every day, all his life.

  And that, right there, was the beginning of everything. Vincent had sat next to Maddie in Sunday school and also in the ensuing church service, and afterwards had walked with her into the spring sunshine, squinting and holding her in conversation while he leaned against the side of his car.

  She and Justine had parsed it all out on the phone that afternoon, Maddie was sure, but she no longer remembered the conversation. She could recall the novelty of it and the excitement, but the feelings themselves were long gone. Human beings have that uncanny knack for becoming accustomed to almost anything, and a year or so of dating Vincent Elander had been enough to erase the squeals and elation of a first love. And if that hadn’t been enough, that strange year, then other years had ensued, years full of novelties of their own.

  There was Frank, for example, and her boys.

  And cancer.

  R

  The surgery had been going on for some time when Frank remembered the book in his lap. It was almost weightless there, having become like an extra appendage over the hours that had seen Maddie’s check-in and subsequent wait in pre-op. He had forgotten it even before that endless hour in which they had light-heartedly talked about the boys and about Maddie’s mother, about Jake’s tee-ball season, and even, somewhat, the surgery, which he had assured her again would be over in no time. Only now did he realize that he was worrying the book’s cover, pulling it and the pages back repeatedly as one might play with a flipbook.

  He had wondered whether to bring it. He didn’t know the protocol. What does one do in the waiting room while one’s wife is undergoing surgery for breast cancer? Surely one doesn’t read. It seemed to Frank that it wouldn’t be right to sit by reading something unconcerned with anesthesia and incisions, something indifferent to the sudden, unforeseen turn their lives had taken—or might soon be taking. His wife lay unconscious on a steel surgical table just down the hall while he sat on comfortable upholstery in a waiting room, perusing a sweeping, brilliant work that took nothing else than the whole of human history under study.

  Yes, the book suddenly struck Frank as irrelevant, and he wished he’d brought something different, something on art or theology—even science would have been preferable to this. Reading this history of the world seemed callous, at best. How to escape into a meta-narrative of human civilization while this intimate and staggeringly significant story of his wife’s illness unfolded before him?

  Calm reading of any sort with Maddie in surgery seemed callous. He wanted to be there for Maddie. Even in his best efforts, he didn’t know how better to say it: he wanted to be present with and for her throughout this process—if dealing with cancer could be thought of as a process. Yet he didn’t know if it was thought of as a process; he rather wished it were a process—but if he had learned anything about the disease in these incipient weeks of Maddie’s diagnosis, it was that cancer seemed to call the shots, and the doctors decided how to deal with it as they went along. He felt very keenly—without ever saying so to Maddie—that they might only just be at the beginning of dealing with cancer, though he hoped he was wrong. Once again, as had frequently been the case in this past week, the image of a tunnel came to mind, and he was standing with Maddie at its threshold, peering into the dark.

  But they had found it early, right? They had found it early. So yes, these recent days had been difficult ones, as it was clear that Maddie was afraid. He, too, was afraid. And who wouldn’t be? Though he was sure—he was quite sure and so must tell himself—it would be nothing. They would get through this, as he had said to her time and time again. It would be quick and relatively simple. They had found it early.

  He sat on the upholstered chair in the waiting room and the book was unopened in his lap and Maddie was not helped by his sitting there, moping. To sit and do nothing was to acquiesce somehow—to what? To fear, to worry, even to sadness—and there was certainly no guarantee that this story would be a sad one. To sit and ponder—that was a kind of giving in. To read, as one might do in one’s living room, or in one’s bed, or on the beach—this was to continue life in the face of sadness, or in the face of potentia
l sadness, or in spite of it. It was living with hope.

  Hope was what Frank had been championing all week. Hope and, of course, a sense of humor. “Well done!” he had said to her when they were talking of the diagnosis. “Well done,” he said, because he perceived the slightest softening of her mood and he had been watching for it—the crack where some light might come through. “They’ll be wanting to take your picture, I would think,” he said.

  “What for?” she had asked him, and he should have noted her subdued tone.

  But he had plowed ahead, foolish, thoughtless, so strong a believer in this best medicine. “To take your picture, Madelyn! Haven’t you heard? You’re the new poster child for self-exams!”

  Her stony reaction spawned his immediate and continued regret. So early in the process and already he had blundered. That premature effort at hopefulness—for that was what humor was, wasn’t it? Hopefulness? And he and Maddie had hope. They had a great deal of hope, didn’t they? Frank cast about him. Surely, he felt, there was reason for hope, there was reason for faith. Now, here at the beginning, was not the time to give in to fear.

  The diagnosis—as anyone would expect—had been very hard on her. She was scared, and it was hard—unreasonable, even—to argue with her. Cancer—the big “C”—is frightening for everyone, and Frank had told her this. Of course you’re scared, he’d said to her countless times, taking her into his arms the way he’d done it that first day when she stood dripping wet from the shower, her whole body curled into him. He tried to be understanding—he was understanding—but he also wanted to be sure that she didn’t give in to fear. He wanted to keep her hopeful, keep her positive.

  That said, Frank had also thought more than once that, if indeed hope and a positive attitude were the best way to approach her diagnosis, Maddie was maybe not a great candidate for cancer. It wasn’t that she was a negative person; he wouldn’t say that. It was just that she was so thoughtful about things. She took things almost too seriously. It was chronic with the boys. Everything would be going fine. The boys would be going to school without complaint, getting to bed on time, cheerful—and Maddie would come to Frank with a random concern, such as how Jake hadn’t learned to floss his teeth yet. Frank’s bemused reply would be casual but sensible, something like how he had plenty of time to learn to floss his teeth and how he hadn’t flossed his teeth when he was Jake’s age, and Maddie would counter that she was concerned the boys weren’t developing good habits in general, of which flossing was just an example. Frank would then trouble his brain a bit to bring forth comforting evidence: Jake makes his bed, Eli puts his dirty laundry in the hamper, and Garrett has already learned to hang up his bath towel. See? Good habits. But then Maddie would respond with something about how Frank wasn’t all that faithful a flosser himself and she wanted them to have good gums.

  It was exasperating. Things were really going so well; they had so much to be happy about: the boys were healthy and happy—and she had to trouble herself about tooth decay. Always something.

  Frank teased her that she was a pessimist; she answered that she was a realist; Frank said that all pessimists say they are realists: people never want to call themselves pessimists.

  But he didn’t think she was a pessimist, he really didn’t. Yes, she sometimes approached things in a way that seemed negative, but in fact, she was trying to get at the heart of the thing, and she didn’t want to be blinded from what was true by some Pollyanna-rose-colored self-deception and so miss it—miss what mattered. It was like when Eli had colic as a baby and he would cry for hours at a time, usually in the middle of the night. It was unbelievable how awful it could be. Frank would cover his head with the pillow, or he would get up and offer to take the baby, but Maddie was up with Eli from the minute the wailing began, pacing the floor with him in her arms. She wouldn’t let Frank take him from her—she said it wouldn’t make any difference to her if he did; she still wouldn’t be able to sleep. But through the three months or so that this crying went on—and all the while with two-year-old Jake to parent during the day—she never minded, she never complained.

  Frank marveled at it. It wasn’t that Maddie was always cheerful; it was just that she was accepting. Some babies have colic, and this is what you do to help them, she said. There was nothing more to the matter. And she said she was glad that she couldn’t sleep through it—even though, God knew, she was exhausted—because she wanted to experience it. If this was what it meant to be Eli’s mother, she told him, then this was what she would do. Period. And anyway, some parents have far worse to deal with. I’ll take a colicky baby, thank you very much.

  That was Maddie in a nutshell. She recognized that bad things happen, that things don’t always go the way you want them to, and that you deal with it, because dealing with it is part of life, and you don’t want to miss part of life, do you? It was, in a way, Maddie’s own way of living with hope.

  Frank had liked this about her from the outset—her serious way of looking at things. After the girls he’d spent time with in high school, after the girl he’d dated in his first year of college, Maddie was refreshingly earnest. Of course Francesca had served to bridge the gap, in some ways. In many ways, really, Francesca had prepared him for Maddie. But he didn’t want to think about Francesca now.

  Maybe the classic example of Maddie taking things too seriously was the story of consuming the host. God, even now it made him smile. Maddie, not yet confirmed in the church, unfamiliar with Catholic ways; the priest all aflutter, his robes swirling about him as he turned to go after her, pursuing her in that small interval as she made her way to the wine. Frank had laughed, and later Father Tim had chuckled about it, but it had been a challenge to get Maddie to find the humor in it. She was so appalled at herself; she was angry at Frank: “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me, Frank?”

  He had told her. He had coached her, albeit hurriedly, as to how Catholics received communion, but this likely had come too late. By the time he had explained it, they were already standing in the aisle of the church, waiting their turn to receive the host. He told her over her shoulder, whispering into her ear, and he had forgotten some essential details.

  “It was your own fault, Maddie,” he had tried saying to her, a small defense against her mortification.

  “I don’t see that, Frank,” she said. “I wasn’t raised Catholic. You know it. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  Which was when Frank tried to explain to her—and Father Tim—that if she had only agreed earlier in the day to receiving communion, he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry when telling her how to go about it. As it went, they had argued about it in hushed voices throughout the entire homily, and she had only finally agreed while the priest was blessing the host. Frank hadn’t meant to leave out any important details. It was an accident.

  That was spring break of her junior year in college, and against her parents’ wishes they had gone to Florida together for the week, where they were amazed to find themselves talking about getting married. Maddie had determined that she wouldn’t marry until her mid-twenties at the absolute earliest, but their casual dates had turned into something very nearly overwhelming, and suddenly it seemed that marrying Frank—and soon—was the only thing to do.

  It was Frank’s idea that she should go to Mass with him then. It was like asking for a blessing somehow, he said—like a tacit agreement before God, a submission of their plans to his blessing—and it couldn’t matter to God that she hadn’t been confirmed yet.

  But Maddie had hesitated about the receiving communion bit. She would go to Mass with him. She had done it a time or two already, and now, their plans laid, they would find some Catholic church neither of them had been to before, something—she specified—looking Floridian and missional, overhung with Spanish moss. They would go to Mass together, this time with the intention of her conversion and of their becoming husband and wife. A beautiful, vaguely symbolic plan.

  Maybe it was beautiful. Mayb
e some symbolism inhered in it, but this was lost to them now, the entire event devolving instead into the frantic priest and Maddie’s ensuing mortification. It had all gone well enough at first: she stood before the priest as she was supposed to, hands open. He said what he was supposed to say (“The body of Christ”), and Maddie said what she was supposed to say (“Amen”), and then she had turned to get the wine—without the all-important ingestion of the bread. Which led to the now famous line from that episode, delivered by the priest who had come after her, abandoning his post and whispering loudly enough that Frank—and perhaps others in the congregation—heard it: “Aren’t you going to consume the host?”

  “It’s not such a big deal, Maddie,” Frank had tried to reassure her as they resumed their seats, as they drove away from the church, as they revisited this episode and her embarrassment time and again. Maddie went on about how she must have seemed disrespectful at best and at worst sacrilegious, how she had no business receiving communion before her conversion and how her error had made her sin apparent to everybody and how it wasn’t fair to laugh at the priest, it really wasn’t.

  Father Tim had helped at both ends, which was his way. He agreed with Maddie: she really should have been confirmed first; and he chuckled with Frank: the whole scene was amusing; and he defended the priest’s panic: “One can’t have one’s parishioners carrying the host around with them in their pockets!”

  But ultimately he sided with Frank. He told Maddie to relax about it. He reminded her that her intentions had been nothing but good. And he encouraged her to remember that God has a propensity for looking at the whole picture, a view far larger than any of us are accustomed to—or even able to see. He felt certain that the Almighty was not offended by Maddie’s error, and that she should probably let it go.

  Eventually Maddie was able to laugh at it—it just took her a while. And that was the way it was with Maddie, Frank knew. She thought hard about things, she prepared herself for the worst, and she believed, ultimately, in the best. Sometimes Frank found it bewildering, sometimes it drove him crazy, but he loved her for it.