500 Acres and No Place to Hide

by Susan McCorkindale

“See? You’ll fit right in.”

  I gave him a playful shove. “Of course I hear the cows,” I replied. “Bees, too. But some buzzing and a couple of moos does not Manhattan make.” Sweat was running down into my bra, pooling in my belly button, and forming a stain the size of an orange on the front of my shirt. Delightful. We weren’t here half an hour and not only was I already a Glamour “don’t,” I was now wearing a T-shirt with a design. Charla Krupp254 would kill me.

  “Suz, this place can give you something the city never could. Something you’ve always wanted.”

  “Funny, I don’t recall wanting no people, a ton of cow poop, and a whole lot of spooky red farm buildings.” I nodded in the direction of the ghost town adjacent to our future home: a collection of structures of varying size and in various states of disrepair, all painted the same shade of red.

  “Don’t think of them as spooky. Think of them as . . . as . . .”

  Oh, this was going to be good. Think of them as what? The places where the bodies are buried? Where Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman’s new raw-food restaurant is opening? Where the local Al-Qaeda cell plots and plans, and plays its weekly card game?

  “Think of them as what?” I prompted, arms folded across my chest, foot tapping in mock impatience.

  “As sanctuary!” Hem said finally, smiling and clearly pleased with himself at having found what he thought was the perfect word.

  Sanctuary? Storage, maybe. But sanctuary?

  Oh, my God. Was he suggesting what I thought he was suggesting?

  “Please don’t tell me you think I’d come out here, lock myself in a corncrib, and cry.”

  He nodded, and I thought I’d cry at the prospect of living in a place where corncribs, a chicken coop, and a couple of decrepit barns and stalls were my options for a little privacy.

  But at least I’d have some.

  “This is your pitch? I give up the city, lunchtime trips to Bloomingdale’s, not to mention easy access to Starbucks, for a little solitude?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Despite the fact that I don’t cry nearly as much as I shop or drink coffee, I bought his pitch and a bunch of other stuff he was selling that day,255 and was even sort of, in a weird, science-experiment kind of way, looking forward to the first time I got the blues in the backcountry. I mean, not only were there the aforementioned spooky buildings in which to steal away (twenty-eight of them, in fact), there were five hundred acres of pasture and woods and hills and ponds and rocks big enough to sunbathe on.

  I remember thinking, This could be good for me. Maybe I’ll get outdoorsy, read a gardening magazine. I might even plant something! Don’t they say gardening’s good for depression? Maybe I’ll take up hiking, and find a special spot just for me, where I can meditate and center myself. Aren’t there studies that link all that yoga stuff to an increase in serotonin? I might even discover a new, deeper, spiritual Suzy. A Suzy who’s more than shoe sales and great bags and sparkly baubles. And lunch. (Although a girl’s gotta have lunch. You can work up quite an appetite shopping for accessories.) Maybe I’ll become a Suzy who helps others, gives back to her community, and gives away her entire designer suit collection to women who just aren’t lucky enough to be able to spend all day in sneakers and jeans and T-shirts that say, “What happens in the barn stays in the barn.” You know, like that woman at the BP station was wearing. Maybe I’ll become a Suzy who cans her own vegetables and cooks from scratch. A Suzy who scrapbooks and knits socks and caps and matching ponchos and maybe even sells them at a roadside stand like the ones we passed! A Suzy who reduces, reuses, and recycles. A Suzy who’s concerned about her carbon footprint (and not just the scratches she makes in her stilettos). A Suzy so grounded and healthy she can let her Wellbutrin and Ativan prescriptions lapse! A Suzy who’s calm, focused, caring, and committed.

  And who just might end up committed if she stops taking either of the aforementioned medications.

  Five years later, let me tell you: five thousand acres, an ocean, and complete, catastrophic blindness couldn’t stop my family from finding me.

  There isn’t a run-down, forgotten shack or hollowedout tree trunk on the back forty that Casey and Cuyler don’t know about. Not a building they haven’t explored or can’t break into. Not an inch of pasture or a path they haven’t ridden their ATVs all over.

  Oh, no. They know this place like they know every line of dialogue to every single season of The Simpsons, and every last episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.256 (And now I’m going to stop before my mom reads this and reminds me how I spent seven years in remedial math trying, and failing, to learn the times tables. But every line of I Love Lucy? Please. Not a problem.257)

  Suffice it to say, my sons have our spread memorized.

  And never has this been more apparent than since Hemingway got sick.

  Now, just to be clear, I don’t often try to disappear. Not before my husband’s diagnosis, and definitely not since. Why? Because, surprise, surprise, I almost no longer need to. I finally find myself in a place where I just might be able to boo-hoo my brains out, and my bimonthly breakdowns dwindle to twice a year, tops.

  Some would call that cosmic justice.

  Others would say my Wellbutrin’s working.

  I just think I got gypped.

  Of course I’m joking. I don’t need a chemical imbalance to make me cuckoo. I have kids. Kids who don’t understand that sometimes Mom needs ten minutes alone. Not to cry, but to collect herself. Shake off a panic attack. Get her shit together.

  How do I get those crucial ten minutes? I usually don’t. But sometimes, if I resort to a little trickery, the Hardy Boys I gave birth to fall for it. I simply open the kitchen door, pause, and then slam it shut without having stepped through it, and then tiptoe into the laundry room. “Frank” and “Joe” think I’ve departed the premises, and before I can settle myself in behind the hamper, they’ve snapped off the Xbox, raced down the stairs, and are hopping around the mud porch trying desperately to stick their feet into sneakers they kicked off when they came in, because Lord knows it would take too long to untie them. There’re usually a few seconds of, “These dumb things don’t fit!” and, “I keep telling her I hate these shoes!” and my personal favorite, “Who the hell tied these?” before they spill out into the backyard, race off to retrieve their four-wheelers, and commence their hot pursuit of a woman who just happens to be in the house.

  Oh, come on now. Stop looking at this page like, “That Susan McCorkindale is the world’s worst mother!” I didn’t leave my kids locked in the car in hundred-degree heat. I’m not at happy hour scarfing down buffalo chicken wings while my kids are home hungry. I don’t have as much as a bottle of Poland Spring with me in my teeny-tiny haven of stinky clothes and Clorox.

  Now that I think of it, I could hide a nice cabernet and a plastic wineglass behind my hundred-and-fifty-ounce bottle of Tide.258 Hell, I could leave it right out in the open with a corkscrew. And a package of cashews. And maybe even a box of crackers and one of those cheese spreads that don’t require refrigeration. No one would notice, because no one besides me ever sets foot in the laundry room. (Unless it’s to dig through the hamper for a pair of jeans or “lucky” sweat socks they just have to wear, despite the fact that the item in question is filthy and fragrant as a compost heap.)

  But hey, a girl can dream.

  And if she does it right, a girl can hide in the (quasi) comfort of her own home.

  Why? Because a girl can get tired of having her kid bring her the phone while she’s tucked into the tractor, in a dark corner of the equipment shed,259 catching her breath, reviewing the day’s events and deciding how best to tackle tomorrow’s.

  “Hey, Mom, this computer keeps calling about some appointment for Dad. I thought you might want to hear what it’s saying. You okay out here?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Thank you, sweetheart.”

  Or while she’s taking five on a hay bale, enjoying the sweet, crisp scent that she hopes
to God will someday replace the burned-coffee-and-peach-air-freshener smell of the waiting room at the chemotherapy infusion center that’s forever singed into her sinuses, and listening to the sounds of mice scurrying among the stacks that still, sort of, freaks her out. But not so badly that she’ll move her butt.

  “Sorry to bother you, Mom, but I figured you’d want to talk to the pharmacy. You okay out here?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. Thank you, sweetheart.”

  I’m not really complaining. My kids are incredible. They’ve always been well behaved and helpful. And since their dad’s diagnosis, they’ve really matured. Right before my eyes, they’ve become responsible, terrific young men, both of whom are blessed with a good heart, a wonderful sense of humor, and the uncanny, almost psychic ability to find me no matter where I attempt to disappear to.

  That or the little bastards stuck a tracking chip in my neck one night.

  Of course, they don’t always have to look for me. Sometimes they just have to listen. And since listening isn’t exactly my sons’ strong suit, I did try, just once, to hide in plain sight and have a brief cry.

  They were upstairs in the guest room playing Call of Duty.

  I was downstairs in the kitchen playing call the doctor. I could hear them above my head, busting each other about who was winning and who shot whose guy and how one of them didn’t mean to kill his own man.260 They were laughing and cheering and being a little too loud and I thought, Just listen to them carrying on!

  And then I heard myself. They’re carrying on. Despite everything. They’re putting one foot in front of the other and getting on with their lives. They’re doing their best to navigate this new normal. To survive it, even thrive in it. They’re doing exactly what we asked of them the night Hem told them he had cancer. They’re carrying on.

  The weight of it caught me right in the throat. I swallowed hard, but it was too late. All the horror, the immeasurable, indescribable sadness, and the sense of utter frustration and powerlessness that I stuff and deny and do anything to distract myself from thinking about, exploded inside me.

  My kids were going to lose their dad.

  I was going to lose my husband.

  And my husband was going to lose his life.

  Maybe it’s just me, but this carrying-on business is a bunch of crap.

  Right this second, though, our kids were doing just that. Being so strong and so brave, I thought my heart might break from pride and pain.

  A lot of pain. As if I were being tied into a corset, or worse, getting a bear hug from a really pissed-off bear. I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t see anything but black and blue dots. Fear and nausea rose in my throat and I thought, Oh, dear God, please don’t let me vomit. I hate to vomit. But more important, please don’t let me pass out. I’d rather throw up than pass out any day. Of course, what I really, really hate is passing out into my vomit,261 so if we can skip that, I’ll happily faint right here on the floor. The floor. How did I get on the floor?

  If I didn’t have years of experience with this stuff, I’d have sworn I was having a heart attack. But alas, depression and anxiety are good for one thing: I know the difference between needing an ambulance and needing an Ativan.

  This was a panic attack, plain and simple. And it left me as they always do: sweaty and spent and sobbing.

  And making all those ugly, stupid crying sounds, too. Slowly (really slowly, because I was still pretty green around the gills), I crawled into the bathroom and closed the door. I ran the water in both faucets, turned on the shower, and flipped the switch for the fan. Then I wrapped my entire head—including my face, which I managed to cover twice—in a towel, flushed the toilet, and let it rip.

  For five minutes or so, I sat on the floor hugging my knees, one hand pressing the towel to my mouth, crying.262 And begging God to save my husband and spare my sons the pain of having their dad die. And getting good and pissed off at the Big Guy for making Hem sick in the first place. And then, of course, apologizing profusely, sobbing some more, and finally, cried out and aching with exhaustion, praying simply for the strength and courage to get all of us through this.

  I pulled the towel off my head. Great. Not only had I grabbed a yellow one, I proved yet again that waterproof mascara is a figment of my imagination. And Maybelline’s.

  Somewhere in the time it took to stand, rub my butt (which was surprisingly sore, considering the amount of padding I’m blessed with), and turn off everything I turned on in order to camouflage my momentary lapse of self-control, it dawned on me that I had actually managed to have a good cry without an audience. Had I finally found the perfect hiding place? Hit on the right combination of acoustics and sob-muffling accessories? Or could the Hardy Boys be hard of hearing?

  Hardly.

  I opened the door to find Casey and Cuyler waiting in the hall.

  “Dammit!” The word came out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

  “We’re sorry, Mom. We didn’t mean to be so loud.” Casey spoke first.

  “No, no. I just . . . I thought . . . You could hear me?”

  “We thought you were throwing up,” Cuy offered, “with the moaning and the toilet flushing and all.”

  Crap. Now it was back to the Find a Perfect Spot to Cry, Think, and Catch My Breath in Private drawing board.

  “Please don’t cry,” Casey continued. “We’ll play more quietly.”

  “And we’ll stop cursing.” Cuy looked at his feet.

  “Cursing, huh?” Obviously it’s the Hardy Boys’ mom who’s hard of hearing.

  “I got mad when he killed me.”

  I hear you, dude, I thought. Death ticks me off, too. “Okay, here’s the plan,” I said, trying not to laugh and barely able to see through the clouds of protein covering my contacts.263 “I’m going to get cleaned up. You guys go back to your game.” I bent over and kissed Cuy on the head, then stood on my tiptoes to kiss Case. “But do me a favor,” I added. “Don’t play quietly. Make noise. Have fun. Laugh.” I hugged them both tight to me. “Getting on with living says we win. Now go.”

  But nobody moved. We just stood there in the hall, arms wrapped around one another, the three dogs looking at us like, What the hell? And then my cell rang.

  “That’s the doctor,” I said, herding them toward the stairs. “Go. Play. Knock each other’s blocks off. And, guys?” I paused, and pressed the little green receiver sign on my BlackBerry. “Try to keep the cursing to a minimum.”

  At least until I get off the phone.

  Acknowledgments

  By the time this book comes out, it will be almost two years since my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It’s tough to see the silver lining in a cloud that black, but it’s there. Since those first frightening days, we’ve been blessed to have many new and wonderful people come into our lives. Compassionate, talented people who, together with our family and friends, have created an incredible network of love and care and support that I can never sufficiently thank them all for.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.

  I gave some thought to taking everyone out to dinner or hosting a big shebang, but then I said, “Nah.” If it were me, I’d much prefer seeing my name in a book. And so, on that note, my deepest and most heartfelt thanks:

  To my agent, Abigail Koons, for having my back, and my editor, Danielle Perez, for her superior instincts and direction.

  To my besties, Trisha Clark and Lisa Orban, for being my besties.

  To Ellen Dolce, Melissa Duvall, Jennifer Heyns, Joanne and Kevin Jackson, Dr. Martha Mann, Bill Martin, Wendy and Willie Miller, Kimberly Petro, Lisa Tinnesz, Marypat Warter, the Ridgewood Gang, and the Marshall Mafia for listening, running errands, making meals, fixing fence boards, cutting grass, caring for the boys, sending wine, and, even better, bringing wine and staying to drink it with me.

  To Andy, Janet, Kevin, and Wayne at the Marshall Pharmacy, for all their help, guidance, and willingness to keep a fire extinguisher near the r
egister for the day my MasterCard finally bursts into flames.

  To the doctors and staff at Georgetown University Hospital and the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, specifically Dr. Firas H. Al-Kawas; Dr. John E. Carroll; Julie Feurtado, RN, BSN; Dr. Thomas Fishbein; Amy Hankin, MMSc, PA-C; Jane Hanna, RN, OCN; Dr. Farhan S. Imran; Dr. John J. Pahira; Dr. Andrew T. Putnam; and the nurses, techs, and staff in the BLES building and the fifth floor infusion center, for being, in no uncertain terms, exceptional. Extra special thanks to Dr. John L. Marshall for always having a plan.

  To the four funniest men I’ve ever met: my dad, Gene Costantino, and my brothers, David, Nick, and Dan, for their encouragement and letting me steal their best lines.

  To my mom, Joan Costantino, for everything.

  To my brother-in-law, Doug McCorkindale, for his unyielding concern and generosity, and to my sweet sister-in-law, Nancy McCorkindale, for her immeasurable love and friendship, for listening, and for bringing La Crema and J. Lohr chardonnay into my life.

  To my sons, Casey and Cuyler, for being my rocks, having my heart, and looking so damn handsome in their CANCER SUCKS caps.

  To Stu, for loving and inspiring me. Miss you madly, farm boy.

  1 My nickname for my husband. Not that his real name is Ernest, but he’s definitely the guy for whom my bell tolls.

  2 As in Finding Nemo. Of course, the mantra actually belonged to Bruce the Shark, whose sincerity was, to my way of thinking, seriously suspect.

  3 As evidenced by the fact that we’ve actually toyed with the idea of moving to a salmon farm.

  4 Pronounced “Kyler.” Don’t even ask why we didn’t just use that easier and much more obvious spelling. Suffice it to say, women with advanced “pregnancy brain” would be best served not to select their baby’s name off the wall at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

  5 Hem’s brother owns the beautiful, people-free slice of heaven on which we reside, though clearly Cuy plans to restructure that relationship.