“I wouldn’t wobble so much if I weren’t running after you.” My right foot was killing me. I pulled off my boot and shook out two pointy pieces of gravel.
“Guess I owe you a foot massage.”
I didn’t want a foot massage. And clearly he didn’t want a bone scan if it meant leaving the farm before we found the dogs.
“We’re not going to the hospital, are we?”
“I can’t.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
Hem and I agree on a million things. But I would never put a pet ahead of my health. In fact, if the situation were reversed and he was taking me for a bone scan, he wouldn’t think twice about leaving Tug and Dick to fend for themselves. And if I protested and wanted to skip the test and wait at home until the prodigal pups returned? He’d hogtie and superglue me to the roof of the car. The point is, there’d be no saying no.
“You’re making me nuts; you know that?”
“What can they tell me, Suz? That I have more cancer? Different cancer? Cancer they can only treat with . . .”
“Bourbon?”
He laughed. “At least then I’d get to have some.”
“I’ll tell you what. When we find the dogs, I’ll make you a big old Tennessee Snow Cone to celebrate.”
“With lots of Jack Daniel’s?”
“And lots of crushed ice.”
“But more Jack Daniel’s, right?” He gave me a wry smile. “It’s not like it’s going to give me cancer.”
You gotta love the McLogic.
So we took the pickup and went looking for Tug and Dick, or as I like to call them, Tick. And no, Hem didn’t drive. We found Tug easily enough; he was sitting in the passenger seat of the Durango when I went to turn it off, panting and obviously expecting to take a head-out-the-window, droolblowing-in-the-breeze ride. I asked him where he’d been and where Dick was, but you know dogs; the only one they ever let speak is Lassie.193 Instead he barked and offered me a muddy paw, but no leads on his little pal.
“Okay, you’re rescheduled for next Tuesday.” I flipped my cell phone closed and stepped out onto the porch. Hem was sitting in one of our two bird-poop-pocked rocking chairs, bundled up against the breeze in his huge blue Carhartt jacket. It didn’t used to be huge. It used to fit. In fact, it used to be snug. Now he and Tug could wear it, and have room for portly Pete, too.
“We should call the Wyatts,” he said, rocking back and forth, one foot rubbing Tug’s fluffy exposed belly. The damn hound looked like he was in heaven.
“Not a chance, pal. That dog’ll be back.” I plopped into the other bird-poop-pocked rocker and watched a couple of mama cows and their calves playing in, doing their business in, and drinking from the stream194 around the springhouse. The springhouse is a beautiful stone structure literally built over a spring. A hundred years ago, people sat inside it to escape the heat. These days, six-foot black snakes use it for the same purpose, which is good because it limits the number we find cooling themselves in our cellar.
“Face it, Suz. We’ve looked everywhere. The barn, the equipment shed, the workshop, the old cattle sheds, the hog pen, the chicken coop, the woods . . .”
“I know, I know. I was there, remember?” I love my husband, but he’s such an Aquarian. Ask him the time, and he’ll tell you how to make the watch. “I think we’re looking in the wrong places. He’s someplace . . . else. Someplace . . . Dickish.”
“You took one of my pain pills, didn’t you?”
“Very funny.”
“An Ativan, then.”
“I have not set foot near the McPharmacy,” I replied, walking toward the railing. “But I think the McLiquor cabinet is calling my name. Correction: your name.”
“You’re jumping the gun. No Dick, no Jack.”
“Well, unless that right there,” I said, pointing toward the springhouse, “is a very premature calf, a floppy-eared fox, or a really tiny reindeer, I’d say it’s happy hour, handsome.”
Sure enough, Dick was peering out at us from the snakes’ favorite vacation spot. Hem shot me a look. “We were both too chicken to check it.”
“That’s ’cause we’ve seen what snakes can do to chickens.”
“Dick! Here, Dickie boy!” Hem clapped his hands and shouted, and Tug raced out to meet our missing houseguest. Even from the porch it was evident Dick was caked in mud and manure and God knows what else (and I thank You, God, for keeping that information to Yourself). “Too bad Cuy’s not home,” Hem added. “We could have him give Dick a bath.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot,” I said, hooking our frenetic, foulsmelling charge to a leash as Tug licked him. “Cuy sent me a text before. Guys! Easy! My arm needs to stay in its socket!” Tug was doing his nip-and-run routine, and Dick was trying to take off after him, and he just about took my arm off in the process. “Gentlemen, sit!” Miraculously, they both sat. And then I saw something stuck right above Dick’s right eye, like a fake eyelash askew after one too many appletinis and a run-in with a pink feather boa.195
“And he said?”
“Who?”
“Cuyler. Our son. He sent you a text?”
“Oh. Yeah. Something about coming home a day earlier. Or maybe staying a day longer.” I bent over to inspect the thing on Dick’s head and got a whiff of manure and pond scum so piercing I was sure I’d lose the Oreos I sneaked for lunch. “I’m not sure. I—”
“Couldn’t see it.” He took a deep breath. “Please tell me you didn’t respond.”
“I think I just said, ‘sure.’ And I think, believe it or not, that this,” I said, plucking what was definitely not a fake eyelash off Dick’s forehead and holding it up for Hem’s inspection, “is a piece of snakeskin.”
“You know what I think?” He looked at the snakeskin, and then at me, and finally at the yipping, yapping, happy-as-a-pup-who-spent-the-day-in-shit Dick.
I shook my head.
“I think you really need to start using your reading glasses.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
NEEDY AND NOT PROUD OF IT
I’m sitting at my desk putting the finishing touches on a piece I’ve killed myself on. It’s taken weeks of writing and rewriting, massaging, editing, and walking away in utter frustration to achieve what my dear friend Trish calls “reads like you just let it rip, Sue” status. I review it again, add a comma, delete it, and know in my gut I’ve nailed it.
At least, I think I know.
The piece is tight. It’s funny. It’s poignant. It is quite possibly—dare I say it?—perfect. But what if it’s not? I mean, why should it be? It’s me we’re talking about here. Not Nora Ephron.
I need to know, and I need to know now. And for that I need my number one editor, critic, taskmaster, and fan, the guy who gave me the guts to start writing in the first place.196 I need my sounding board and soul mate, aka Hemingway, to give me his seal of approval. Or at least a round of edits I’ll argue but ultimately acquiesce to because, frankly? The man’s usually on the money.
I snatch the pages from the printer, grab a red pen I pray he won’t need, and head into the den. He’s stretched out on the couch. Our cat Coca is on his chest. Tug, our dim-witted, hyper, and perpetually burr-covered but beautiful golden retriever, is quite literally blanketing his feet. And our two laid-back mutts, Grundy the Throw Rug and What Have You Got to Eat? Pete, are sprawled on the floor, snoring.
So, by the way, is Hem.
He’s sweating, too, and the sharp, sickly sweet scent stops me cold. His salt-and-pepper curls cling to his forehead. Every few seconds his shoulders twitch, and the fingers of his left hand pop open, wide, like he’s going to wave or pet one of his beloved beasts. Then they snap back, fast, into a fist. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was having a nightmare.
But I do know better, and he isn’t having a nightmare. He’s living one. The unyielding fatigue, twitching, and sweating are just some of the side effects of the chemotherapy he endures once a week. Today is two days since his last treatment and visit wi
th the oncologist, a superbright guy who walked in carrying Hem’s latest labs and announced wryly, “You’re doing really well with all this poison we’re putting in your body!”
I, on the other hand, am not doing so well.
Before you jump to conclusions, let me clarify. I thank God every day for the fact that the poison is working. Hemingway’s tumor marker is down, and his weight is up. His color is good. His pain is gone.
But so, to a degree, is he.
My whip-smart, well-read, screamingly funny, no longer big, but still, God bless him, brave, blue-eyed former marine is simply not the same. And it’s more than the twenty-four/seven, beat-to-the-bone exhaustion that leaves him barely able to get from bed to his butter-soft leather sofa. It’s the “brain fog” that’s come with the chemo. We were warned about nausea and possible hair loss, neither of which he’s experienced. But disorientation, confusion, and memory loss?
We’d swap it for bald and barfing in a heartbeat.
Thanks to the poison that’s prolonging his life, the man I met and fell madly in love with thirty long years ago is gone. Sure, I love the new guy. But I miss the old one, badly.
I stand there clutching my stupid chapter and my stupid pen and I feel, well, stupid. Even if he were awake he’d say what he’s said a dozen times since he got sick. “You know it’s good, Sue. You don’t need me to tell you.”
Fair enough. I don’t need him to tell me. But I want him to tell me. If something I’ve written works or if it needs work. If the paint color I’m considering for the hall is elegant or borderline bordello. If the motion-sensor lights I got for the equipment shed, the repairs I approved on the skid loader, or the permission I gave a friend of a friend to nurse a hundred mistreated polo ponies back to health on our pastures is fine, or just further proof of the fact that I’ll never learn how to handle this place.
He stirs for a second and looks at me. “You okay?” he asks.
“Just checking on you,” I lie, ashamed of myself. How did I get to be one of those women who’s pushing fifty and still needs a pat on the head?
“I’m good.” He nods. “Gonna sleep a little more.”
I do my best to adjust his blanket without disturbing the cat, and kiss him on the forehead, and it dawns on me: The only thing good about cancer is that it’s not a car crash or a coronary or some other instantaneous death deal, like having your parachute not deploy at thirty thousand feet or your bungee cord go kaput over a rock quarry. Cancer, at least, gives you time. Time to say, I love you, and, Goodbye , this sucks, and I can so take you in Seinfeld Scene It.
It also gives you time to grow up and get your big-girl pants on. To figure out how you’re going to work without a net. And without your best friend wielding a red pen.
Chapter Thirty-nine
PUZZLED BY KUDZU? ME, TOO.
“Mom!” I was at my computer penning hate mail to our health insurance company197 when I heard Cuyler and his best friend, Jeff,198 come racing into the kitchen. “Hey, Mom!” Cuy shouted again as I caught the familiar sounds of the refrigerator door opening, slamming shut, and the pop! hiss! of two cans of Coke being readied for rapid consumption. “Did you know we have kudzu on the farm?”
“What do you mean, on the farm?” I shouted back. “It’s in the den.”
In a flash, both boys were standing in my doorway. They were dirty, sweaty, and sucking down their sodas almost as fast as Jon Gosselin replaced Kate, and looking at me like I’d completely lost what was left of my mind.
“We have kudzu in the den?” Cuy asked, incredulously.
“Yeah. Dad has a book of them. Kudzu puzzles. He has crossword puzzles, too. You guys want them?” I stood up and started down the hall. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
“Mom, that’s sudoku.” He made a circular motion by his temple with his index finger, and mouthed the word blond to his buddy. “Kudzu is a vine.”
I whirled around. “I saw that, dude.” Both boys looked at the floor. Holy cow, they even had dirt on their eyelids.
“They call it ‘the Vine That Ate the South,’ ” Jeff ventured.
“When you say vine,” I asked, “do you mean the Tarzan-swinging-from-the-trees-type vine, or the vinca-we’ve-gotin-the-window-boxes-type vine?”
“That depends,” my son replied. “Who’s Tarzan?”
Wisely, I didn’t try to explain Tarzan and they didn’t try to show me how to do sudoku, an unfortunate pastime that involves math and, to my way of non-number-loving thinking, looks about as much fun as having one’s large intestine removed laparoscopically and being forced to wear it like a feather boa.
Instead we hit the Internet and searched for “kudzu.”
The images of the broad-leafed plant, oftentimes resplendent with blue or purple blooms, were both mesmerizing and horrifying, not to mention startlingly reminiscent of the sets in Edward Scissorhands. Picture after picture showed it blanketing abandoned barns and cars, fallen trees and untended pastures all over the South, and site after site described its startling and unstoppable summer growth rate of a foot a day.
A foot a day? And I thought nothing could spring up faster than Casey. If it eats as much as he does, we are so screwed.
I logged off and looked at my younger son and his pal, both of whom were busy adding a lovely orange coating of cheese puffs to their filthy fingers. “Where exactly did you two see this stuff?”
“In the woods, on the old wagon.”
“No, it’s an old chicken coop!”
“Nuh-uh. Wagon!”
“Guys, guys.” I put my hands up in the universal signal for “stop, or I’ll cut off the snack foods.” “Wagon, coop, who cares? Take me there.”
And so they did.
Sure enough, there was an ancient wheeled whatever barely visible beneath some kind of freaky foliage. Was it regular old ivy? Was it poison ivy? Or was it kudzu? And if it was kudzu, would it eventually be known as the Vine That Ate Nate’s Place? I didn’t know, and I definitely didn’t want the kids to get any closer. What if the ghastly thing suddenly did its foot-a-day growth dance and devoured both boys right before my eyes?
No, no, better to stand back and plot its destruction, or at least postponement. You can’t kill kudzu, but you can maim it.
I figured we’d start by getting the goats to graze on it. Then we’d bring in the cows. When they’d chowed it down to nothing but nubs, we’d finish by letting the hens have at it. That would bring it to the brink of the grave.
And if it didn’t, we’d resort to sudoku. One look at that stuff and the darn thing would wish it were dead.
Chapter Forty
ONE CHOLECYSTECTOMY, THREE ERCPS, AND SIX DEAD CHICKENS LATER . . .
We’re here, we’re hanging tough, and we’ve learned a few things.
Nothing earth-shattering. Mostly stuff like “shit happens,” and “a friend with weed is a friend indeed.”199 To celebrate the fact that we’ve made it this far with our funny bones intact, I thought I’d share some of what I’ve picked up. And sure, I hope you laugh. But I really hope you and those you love never need to know any of this nonsense.
The instant the C-word is spoken . . .
You’re promoted to caregiver. There’s no raise, no one absorbs your old responsibilities, and you get to do your spouse’s shit, too. To quote Sid in the original Toy Story, “Woo-hoo! Double prizes!” In addition, the job comes without so much as a how-to pamphlet or a packet of NoDoz. To survive your new role as Superspouse, remember two things: One, it’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon. And two, even caregivers need caregivers.200
Go home and have sex. I know, you just got the worst news of your life and I’m telling you to go home and get it on. Crazy as that sounds, I wish someone had told us. Things can go from bad to worse fast, and they did in Hem’s case. If we’d known on that long-ago Sunday how our lives would be turned upside down on Monday, there’d have been a whole lot more adult fun on the farm. “Think the kids are cool with pizza and M&M’s for di
nner? Me, too. You get the masks. I’ll rustle up some rope. Meet you in the back of the barn in ten!”
You have to learn a whole new language. And I’m not talking farm speak; that I’m still struggling with. I’m talking medical speak, and I don’t care how much ER or Grey’s Anatomy you’ve watched; you’ll still wonder what the hell they’re saying. For example, while taking Hemingway’s medical history for the first of his three ERCPs,201 the nurse asked me who performed his chole- cystectomy. Who indeed! I thought. That’s the last time I look the other way when he and his buddies hit Hooters! She meant gallbladder surgery, and no, he’s still not going.
Get your ducks, chickens, and goats in a row. And that means, if you haven’t already done so, do your wills, powers of attorney, and advance directives. It’s not pleasant, but that’s why God invented wine.
Check your checking account. If your joint account hasn’t been set up “with survivorship,” fix it. Otherwise, if something happens to the main account holder—and the main account holder is the patient—the bank will freeze your funds. And paying for that case of La Crema—not to mention your health insurance premium—could pose a problem.
Pack an overnight bag and put it in the car. Having your own toiletries, cosmetics, and clothes on hand makes surprise overnight stays at your sister-in-law’s easier, and it’ll stop you from stealing her stuff. “About the sexy blue tee and the Chanel blush. You didn’t want those back, did you? I mean, they’re covered in Suzy cooties now. . . .”
Your ten-year-old will want a cap that says “Cancer Sucks.” You’ll say, “No, sucks is not a nice word.” He’ll say, “My dad has cancer are four even worse words.” You will buy him the cap. You will like the cap. In fact, you will like the cap so much, you’ll get a second one and announce, “Kids, it’s time for your Christmas picture!”
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