by Ed
She admitted him and spent the morning with him in the pediatrics ward, but had to be back home when the younger children returned from school.
"Sorry I have to go, honey," she said, standing beside his bed.
Stephen held the control for the bed in his hand and was having fun moving it up and down. He looked up at her and gave her a big smile. It was such a boy's smile, so hungry for new experiences, so full of raw enthusiasm. "S'okay, Mom," he said. "I'll be fine."
After dinner that evening, Al and Carmen went to the hospital to visit Stephen. On their way to his room, they spotted Dr. Elliott coming toward them down the corridor. They smiled at him, but his response was less than enthusiastic. His shoulders were slumped a bit and his walk was slower and less energetic than usual. He nodded once, greeting them with a silent hello.
"So, how's Stephen?" Al asked, holding his smile in place, although it threatened to fade.
"Stephen is just fine," Dr. Elliott said quietly. "It's the tests I'm not too sure about."
Carmen took in a deep, steadying breath and exhaled, saying, "What do you mean?"
"Well, unfortunately they aren't really telling us anything conclusive about Stephen's condition. So, I think we're going to have to go a step further. I talked to Dr. Scordato today. He's a surgeon, a very good surgeon."
Al took Carmen's hand and squeezed it.
"He agrees with me that we should do a biopsy and, as long as you agree, too, he'd like to do it tomorrow."
Al and Carmen exchanged a dark, worried glance.
His voice dry, Al said, "So, this...um, this just means that you and the surgeon want to get to the bottom of Stephen's problem. Right?"
Dr. Elliott nodded and said encouragingly, "Yes, of course, that's exactly what we want to do."
They agreed to the biopsy, chatted with Dr. Elliott a moment, their voices thin, their mouths dry, then went to Stephen's room. They did not speak on the way, just held hands.
Stephen was sitting up in bed watching television and chewing on the end of a drinking straw. He smiled at them as they went to his bedside. He looked a little tired, but still healthy as ever.
So why is he here? Carmen wondered.
"How was your day in the hospital, kiddo?" Al asked, slapping Stephen's knee beneath the blanket.
Stephen shrugged. "Okay, I guess. 'Cept for the vampires." He stretched out his arm to show them the Band-Aid on his inner elbow where blood had been drawn.
"We'll bring you some garlic," Carmen said smiling, "you can hold 'em off with that."
"I still don't know what's wrong with me," he said, frowning slightly. "I feel fine. Only time I feel sick is when I get sick of layin' around in here."
"The doctor's not sure what's wrong, either," Al said slowly, pulling a chair to the bed and sitting. "That's why he wants to do a biopsy tomorrow."
Stephen's eyes widened. "A biopsy? You mean where they cut you open and take out your insides?"
Al and Carmen laughed. "No, no," Al said, "that's an autopsy, and they only do that on dead people. No, a biopsy is where they take a tiny piece of your lump out and examine it."
The boy frowned. "Is it gonna hurt?"
"You won't feel a thing. Just before they do it, a nurse'll come in here with a great big mallet and bop you over the head with it. You'll be out like a light."
Stephen laughed and threw the straw at Al who, along with Carmen, hid his concern behind a smile.
The next day, Tuesday, was one of the longest of their lives. They waited outside the operating room listening to the doctors being paged over the P.A. system, to the hushed rubber-soled footsteps of the nurses bustling up and down the corridors, and breathing the antiseptic medicine-tinged hospital air as time passed at the speed of molasses oozing over a flat surface, until...
The double doors of the operating room opened and Dr. Scordato, Stephen's surgeon, hurried out. He glanced at Al and Carmen, but seemed to look right through them as he walked on, hands slipped in the pockets of his white coat.
Al and Carmen looked at one another with wide-eyed surprise, then stood simultaneously and hurried after the doctor. Al called out, but got no response. Carmen moved ahead of her husband, closed in on the doctor and clutched his arm. Dr. Scordato spun around, startled.
"We'd like to know how our son is," she said.
The doctor blinked a few times, then said, "Oh, yes, um, well...Dr. Elliott will be in touch with you this afternoon. I think it would be best if you talked to him about the results. You can visit your son in a couple hours, after he gets out of recovery." Then he turned and headed down the corridor, blending in with all the other white coats and uniforms and white walls.
They had more time to kill, time filled with the restless ghosts of unanswered questions. Over lunch, Carmen said quietly, "It can't be too serious. I mean, he would've said something if it was serious, right?"
"Yeah," Al said, "I think so." Then he sighed, "I hope so."
After lunch, Carmen took Al home to be with the younger children when they got home from school, and she went to the store to buy Stephen a gift. When she got to the hospital, he was sound asleep, his neck bandaged and a thin tube trailing from the I.V. bottle hanging over his head to his inner elbow. She sat beside his bed holding on her lap the box of Lego blocks she'd bought for him—the advanced kind, far more sophisticated and complex than the kid stuff—and watched him sleep as she prayed silently, her rosary clicking gently as her fingers moved over it.
The only other time Stephen had been in the hospital was when he was born. The worst bout he'd ever had with illness was a cold or the flu, nothing more. Now this...whatever this was. As she prayed, she heard her own words to Al echoing in her mind: It can't be too serious...can't be too serious...too serious...
Sometime toward dusk, Stephen opened his eyes long enough to smile. She stood quickly, put the box on the chair and whispered, "How you feeling, honey?" His eyes fluttered. "Stephen? Look what I brought you." She turned, got the Legos, but when she turned to him again, he was asleep.
An officious voice announced that visiting hours were over. She leaned forward, kissed her son's cheek, then left, feeling empty and cold, even though the evening was warm.
When she arrived home, Carmen could see Al through the big picture window in the front of the house. He was seated in his recliner watching television. The familiarity of seeing him there doing what he did every evening at that time soothed Carmen somewhat, made her feel a little more normal and made her want to get inside to the comfort and safety of her family. She walked through the door, put down her purse, and went to Al's chair where he sat staring at the television through puffy red eyes, his cheeks glistening with streaks of tears. He looked up at her, his lips pressed together so tightly they were pale, then turned away, closing his eyes and spilling more tears.
Carmen was so stunned she could do no more than stare at him. Suddenly, her mind and heart began to compete in a dizzying race. Al was a very quiet man, spare with his words, speaking only when he had something specific to say, and, except for when he got angry enough, he held his emotions close to his chest, like a poker player hiding the cards in his hand. Something had to be very wrong for him to cry so openly. But what could it be? Not Stephen, it couldn't be Stephen, she'd just come from the hospital, after all, and Stephen was fine, just fine!
"What's wrong, Al?" she asked, her voice dry and hoarse.
He opened his mouth to respond but could only sob as he leaned forward and put his face in his hands.
Carmen knelt beside the chair and put a hand on his arm as her heartbeat thundered in her ears. "Al, please, will you tell me what's the matter?"
The telephone rang loudly, and when she picked up the receiver, she realized her palms were sweating. "Hello?"
"Oh, Carmen, I'm glad you're finally home. I've m-missed you wherever I've c-called." The voice was male and adult, but thick with tears and tremulous with emotion. "It's Dr. Elliott," he said.
Dr. Ellio
tt? But he was crying. Why?
Because, she thought, he's been our doctor for a long time, our friend, and he's a good man and he's crying now because something is wrong, terribly, terribly wrong...
She tried to speak, had to clear her throat first, then asked, "What is it? What's the matter?"
“I’m very sorry, Carmen," he said after taking a deep breath, "but Dr. Scordato said that Stephen's neck is filled with cancer."
That word was a drill that drove into her stomach and mangled her insides. It was an ugly word, glistening black and pulsating, that had a life all its own.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Elliott said, clearing his throat, "but it...well, we're going to do everything we can, you know that, but...it doesn't look good."
She ended the conversation abruptly and dropped the receiver from her numb hand into the cradle. When she turned, Al was still in his chair staring at her with teary eyes.
They called both families to give them the news, and each call was worse than the last: voices crumbling into tears and sobs, grieving for Stephen almost as if the news had been that he'd already died.
Carmen saved her mother, Wanda Jean, for last. Wanda Jean had practically raised Stephen and Michael while Carmen worked, and Carmen knew she would find in her mother the support and strength she needed. But, like the others on the telephone before her, Wanda Jean fell apart.
Carmen felt her hands shake as she listened to her mother's tears. A few minutes later, when she hung up, she turned to Al who had been alternately sitting in his chair and pacing.
"Why is everyone doing this?" Carmen asked, her voice raspy. "Why is everyone acting like he's dead already, or something?"
"What do you mean, why is everybody doin' this?" Al croaked. "He has cancer, Carmen. We're all upset, is why we're doin' this! I guess we can't all be strong like you. I guess we can't all be like one of those noble, long-suffering women Meryl Streep is always playing." He sat in his chair.
"I mean, am I gonna be the only one to hold up? Somebody's got to, otherwise we're gonna scare the hell out of Stephen."
But Al did not respond.
Carmen's eyes stung with tears as she sat silently by the telephone, trying to clean all the fear out of her mind.
The next morning, after the children had gone to school and Al had called in to get the day off work, Carmen said, "What a beautiful day to go fishing."
He stared at her, shocked. There were bags under his watery eyes and his face was drawn. "Are you serious?" When she didn't reply, he shook his head slowly. "No, I...I need to be with Stephen."
Gently as possible, placing her hand on his, she said, "Then you're gonna have to pull yourself together. Remember what I said last night? You'll only frighten him if he sees you like this."
"Yeah," he nodded, "I see your point."
Later that day, in the hospital corridor leading to Stephen's room, Carmen saw Al steeling himself. He rubbed a hand down his face once, as if to wipe off whatever anguish showed there. They pushed through the door smiling and found Stephen talking with Dr. Elliott.
"You're just in time to see him off to X-ray," the doctor said, and two young nurses came into the room behind Al and Carmen with a wheelchair.
"Time to hit the road," one of them said as Stephen slid off the bed and got into the chair.
"We'll be here when you get back, okay?" Carmen assured him.
"Boy, with all the attention you get around here, you're not gonna want to come home, kiddo," Al said with a weak smile.
As he was wheeled out of the room, Stephen said, "Oh, yes I will."
Once they were alone, Dr. Elliott began to talk quietly to Al and Carmen about lymphatic cancer and the problems that could arise, and he suggested they tell Stephen soon. As he spoke, he kept glancing at Al, noticing the fists clenching and unclenching, the perspiration on his forehead, the fidgeting, and the way he turned his face away whenever someone looked at him.
"You don't look so good, Al," Dr. Elliott said.
Al shrugged and began to pace the room.
The doctor said, "Listen, Al, I want you to sit down. I'm going to have a nurse come in and take your blood pressure." Once Al was seated in a chair, Dr. Elliott stood in front of him and said quietly, "You're going to have to stay calm, Al. I know this is tough, but if you don't pull yourself together, you'll make yourself sick and you won't be any help to Stephen then. Understand?"
Al nodded. But in spite of his efforts to relax, his anxiety stayed with him, whispering in his ear the horrible things that might happen, things like death, a funeral, a gravestone....
On Thursday, Stephen was released from the hospital to spend the weekend at home. On Monday, he was to go to John Dempsey Hospital in Connecticut for three weeks of tests. Over the weekend, Carmen managed to persuade Al to go fishing as much as possible. On Saturday, she and Stephen drove Al to the lake and dropped him off.
"Mom?" Stephen asked when they were alone in the car. "What's wrong with me? I mean...exactly. Nobody will tell me."
O Lord, give me the right words, Carmen prayed silently. After a few moments of thought, she said, "You have...something called Hodgkin's disease. Well, it's...actually, it's lymphatic cancer, is what it is."
Stephen nodded very slowly, then said, almost in a whisper, "Cancer. I kinda thought it was something bad." He continued to nod slowly. "But I'm not gonna die."
Keeping her voice steady, she said, "Of course you're not, kiddo, 'cause we're gonna pray about it and fight it. But...you know it's not going to be easy, right?"
This time he whispered: "I'm not gonna die."
On Monday morning, Al drove Carmen and Stephen to the hospital in Connecticut. He had to drive straight back to Hurleyville to take care of the kids and he left right away, knowing he would be unable to hold up under the weight of a lingering good-bye.
The pediatrics ward at John Dempsey was like most others; the walls were decorated with cheerful cartoon figures and drawings by the children, mobiles of every sort hung from the high ceilings and, instead of the usual hospital whites, the ward was done in soft, soothing colors.
But it didn't help. The ward was still filled with sick children. Even dying children. And now Carmen's son was among them. All the cheerful colors in the world could not change that.
The tests began shortly after Stephen was admitted and they went on forever. There were blood tests, X rays, and scans, then he spent seven hours in surgery one day. After that, there were still more tests. The old saying that the cure is sometimes worse than the disease became very potent to Stephen and Carmen.
Doctors and nurses swarmed around Stephen's bed like honeybees around a hive. But as Stephen began to grow pale and fragile, it was sometimes difficult for Carmen not to imagine them as circling vultures rather than swarming bees.
Al's family lived in Connecticut, so Carmen wasn't entirely alone. She spent the nights in a nearby motel and always called Al as soon as she got in. Since she'd seen him last, he'd begun having severe chest pains and, although she thought Stephen had drained every ounce of worry from her, she began worrying about Al as well. After a few tests at the hospital, however, it was determined that Al's chest pains were symptoms of extreme anxiety and were nothing serious.
Carmen knew that something would have to change at home to take some of the load off Al's shoulders, so she called her mother. Wanda Jean was in Italy at the time, but was happy to fly home and take care of the children for a while.
At the end of three weeks, Stephen was released from the hospital and allowed to return home to Hurleyville. He was thinner, pale, and there was a weariness in his every movement. It was as if a siphon had been attached to him for the past three weeks, slowly draining his youth. As if that wasn't enough, he had to return to Connecticut every day for cobalt treatments. His already weakened condition only grew worse under the strain of the grueling treatments and the 106-mile-a-day trips. In fact, that strain took a toll on the entire family.
Al and Carmen decided to loo
k for an apartment closer to the hospital. With four children, they knew it would not be easy to find one big enough that they could afford—the medical bills were piling up quickly—but it would be easier than driving so far every day and spending so much money on gas.
Using every spare moment she could find, Carmen began the search. She encountered one disappointment after another: too small, too expensive, or both. Although wearing down, she continued looking, found another promising ad in the local classified section and made an appointment to see the apartment in Southington. On her way there, she drove by a beautiful threestory Colonial-style house with a sign in the front yard that read FOR RENT.
The apartment she'd arranged to see was very nice but, like so many others, simply too small. On the way back to the motel, however, she followed an impulse to stop at the Colonial house with the sign in front.
There were workmen all around the house and the sounds of hammering and drilling and sawing clashed in an ugly cacophony. Carmen approached one workman after another, asking whom she should talk to about renting the place, until one of them finally directed her around the corner of the house to a pleasant, softspoken man whose right arm was curled up in front of his chest, shriveled and useless.
"Help you?" he asked, raising his voice because of all the noise.
"I'm interested in looking at the house," she said, wincing slightly at the clatter.
"Oh. Well." He lifted his good arm and rubbed his hand back and forth over his kinky, graying hair. "The owner's not here right now and"—he chuckled, nodding toward the house—"you can see we're doing a lot of work right now, so I don't know if this'd be a good time, know what I'm sayin'?" He smiled around crooked teeth and the lines in his face deepened.
Carmen realized she was wringing her hands and stopped, not wanting to look too desperate. "I've been looking everywhere for days and I just can't find a place for my family. This one looks good and we need a place right away because my son has to—"
