by Cullin Mitch
That bone-deep, impalpable chill would shudder Hollis awake some weeks afterward, and — absently reaching an arm under the sheets for Debra, bringing his fingers to her side of the bed — he discovered a flat, coarse slab where his wife was expected to be resting. “Deb —?” In the early morning, as their bedroom remained shadowed behind drawn curtains, he explored the rough exterior his hand had settled upon; half conscious and with eyes still shut, his palm slid across rock-hard grooves, miniature plateaus and valleys: like a topography map, he thought while gradually stirring, like a landscape. “Deb —?” Turning his body toward her side of the bed, opening his eyes and blinking within the dim room, he first perceived her orthopedic pillow, observing the empty, curved space which hours earlier had cupped her head. He scanned the bedding, and, rising on an elbow, saw no sign of her sleeping body, or of anything else which hinted at the thing he had touched beneath the comforter. With a degree of apprehension he pulled back the sheets, revealing what appeared to be a shriveled, calcified form — a dark, asymmetrical puddle of a shape, perhaps two inches in height, three feet in length, his palm resting at its approximate center. “Deb —?” he said once more, quickly retracting his hand as if his skin had been grazed by fire.
A bedside lamp soon cast its light on the mattress, illuminating for Hollis a slender, reddish piece of flagstone — taken from a pile he had stacked by the back-porch door, something he had planned to use for the garden walkway — nestled now into the bedding like it had grown there overnight, spotting the sheets with flecks of sand and dirt. The fog of sleep lifted, summoning Debra's groggy voice in his memory, speaking aloud as she had wandered out of the room at dawn, “Can't take this anymore. I'm freezing to death.” But he didn't recall her returning with the flagstone; he didn't feel the sheets being tucked, or yet understand — until after getting up to check on her, calling her name as he wandered down the hallway — she had hoped the flagstone might maintain a warm spot for her when she wasn't in bed.
Finding her awake but curled up on the living-room floor — covered by a heating blanket plugged into a nearby wall outlet, lounging like a cat where sunlight spilled through the window and brightened an area of the carpet — he breathed a dramatic sigh of relief before asking about the flagstone, mentioning the dirt in the sheets, eventually saying, “I don't understand. Why couldn't you use your heating blanket instead?”
She regarded him with confused and somehow questioning eyes and, giving the slightest of nods at his words, shut the mystery paperback she was reading, bookmarking the pages with an index finger, and answered, “That'd be fine, dear, except you forget I need my heating blanket here.”
“I'll buy us another blanket, how's that?”
At this she frowned, saying, “You'd just be wasting money.”
“Why would I be wasting money?”
“You just would.”
She smiled involuntarily but, Hollis believed, she was trying not to sob. Only then did he become seriously concerned for her mental health — that, maybe, a full-blown depression was looming, fueled in part by the haze of chemo brain. And, too, he wondered — while preparing their breakfast, while boiling water for instant oatmeal — if they hadn't isolated themselves in a way which had been counterproductive to the cancer-fighting process. As it was, he had kept his attention on the recognizable characteristics of her outward health — how much or little she ate, how tired or rested she appeared, how much energy she did or didn't have — that her fluctuating mind-set never really entered into his thoughts; she had, after all, always been better than he at keeping her spirits afloat. No, I'm not very good at this, he realized as the kettle began vibrating on the stove. You need someone else to talk to, another voice besides mine.
And later — it was afternoon, the sun was high above the backyard and the heating blanket she wore had been exchanged for a sweatshirt — when he nervously, haltingly brought up the idea of her seeking support (“It could be useful — I mean, if you felt like it would help — or not, I mean, I don't know — ”), she replied without any pause at the dining table, as if she'd been awaiting the moment: “I suspect you're right. I've imagined it might take the edge off things, I guess.” Then upon her face for the first time in weeks spread a genuine look of ease.
“So you've thought about it already?”
“I have.” Between them was a turquoise-colored teapot, steaming with ginseng oolong, a souvenir they had purchased years ago in Santa Fe. She reached forward, taking hold of the pot's handle, and she repeated, pouring tea into his cup as if sealing a deal: “I have, yes.”
“Fine,” he said, spooning brown sugar from a matching turquoise bowl. “Fine,” he said again, swirling the sugar around in his cup.
Soon enough the dining table would be cleared, the cups and bowl and pot and spoons placed inside the dishwasher by Hollis while Debra cradled the telephone against her neck, speaking to Dr. Langford — her right hand gripping a pen and jotting down information, filling several Post-it notes throughout the conversation. On the following Tuesday — having left Nine Springs near noon, driving under an overcast sky — she removed those same notes from her purse, sticking them to the dashboard as Hollis sped the Suburban toward Tucson. As usual, they said scarcely a word during the trip — Debra applying lipstick and eyeliner in the visor mirror, Hollis fiddling with the radio dial — and eventually they stared beyond the windshield, and watched the desert transform, the bare landscape bleeding into a more populous region of dying strip malls and brown-stucco apartment complexes, where, with the Post-it notes heeded, they arrived at their destination seven minutes early.
“Here you go,” Hollis said, when pulling the Suburban along the curb, the passenger door slowly aligning with the front walkway of the Gilda's Club building.
“Isn't quite what I expected,” Debra said, gazing from the side window, noticing a few small drops of rain which had begun hitting the sidewalk.
“Doesn't seem bad.”
“I suppose.”
Dr. Langford had told her the local Gilda's Club provided a homelike setting — a relaxed support environment for those with any type of cancer, offering group counseling sessions and educational workshops — but she hadn't expected it to be located within a converted one-story redbrick house (situated on a residential street, the front yard consisting of tall ocotillos and sizable agaves). For a while, she sat inside the Suburban, the brim of her Diamondback cap pulled discreetly down to her painted eyebrows, watching as a solitary, hunched figure in a hooded clear-plastic parka — it was impossible to tell if the person was a man or a woman, young or old — moved up the walkway with a portable oxygen tank, going like a snail toward the front door in abbreviated, labored steps. No sooner had the figure managed to enter the house when — appearing from nowhere, swooping behind the Suburban like a band of crows — four black umbrellas fluttered across the rearview mirror, startling Hollis for a split second before coming into full view on Debra's side: each held by a quartet of almost identical-appearing hairless, tight-lipped, middle-aged women (monks, was Hollis's immediate impression, a procession of monks), clenching the umbrella handles with both hands as if holding large crucifixes aloft, marching single file to the sidewalk and up the rain-spattered walkway.
“All right,” she said, half sighing, “those look like my people. I guess I shouldn't tarry any longer.”
“Want me to come?”
“No, no, I'm okay,” she said, digging her surgical mask from her purse. “I'll brave it alone. Go do errands, just make sure you're back in an hour. Don't forget to pick up the HEPA filter that's on sale at Home Depot. I put the coupon in your wallet.”
“You sure? I don't mind coming with you. We can finish the errands on the way home.”
“I'm sure,” she said, sliding the mask over her face, affixing the elastic loops around her ears. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, her gauze-covered lips briefly pressing his cheek. “See you in a bit,” were her muffled parting words, and wit
h that she was out of the Suburban, holding her purse against her stomach, wandering away from him without looking back, the leaden movements of her legs conveying a measure of reluctance. He started the engine, but instead of leaving he remained there a little while longer, his stare trailing her into the house, lingering outside once she had entered the place and the front door was shut behind her: how absent of human activity the house suddenly looked — how desolate the empty walkway seemed to him, touched only by droplets which banished dust to the edges of their imperfect circles.
He returned in fifty-four minutes, parking at the exact spot. Already Debra had emerged from the house, loitering on the front porch in the company of two other bald-headed women (all three wearing surgical masks, all three speaking and gesticulating like old friends as the sky continued spitting rain). Impromptu hugs were given when Hollis was noticed, small slips of paper changed hands, and then Debra waved a quick goodbye while crossing to where he waited. Less than an hour had elapsed, yet now — it seemed to him — Debra's entire mood was elevated; her steps toward the Suburban were somehow light and confident, as opposed to the reserved gait which had taken her through the entrance of Gilda's Club.
“So how'd it go?” he asked, taking her purse for her as she climbed in beside him.
“Good,” was her definitive answer.
He waited for her to elaborate further — the door closed, the seat belt was grabbed — but when nothing else was forthcoming, he, too, said, “Good.”
As they headed home that afternoon, the invigorated spirit Debra had shown on the porch of Gilda's Club had faded by the time the Suburban exited Tucson's city limits. Hollis, feeling somewhat excluded from her newfound support, found himself wanting to know what had been discussed inside the house, but seeing her sitting rigid on the seat — the way in which she gazed ahead with an uncommunicative, absorbed demeanor — he decided it was better to hold off asking. And as their mutual silence took on an evasive air and the rain fell harder, an aura of gloom saturated the Suburban's interior — enhanced by the incessant squeaking of the windshield wipers, the blasts of static cutting into the radio signal — until, at last, she glanced at him, saying, “I think we should laugh more. I think it's important we do that, don't you?”
“They say it's the best medicine, right?” He had spoken immediately, eager to vanquish that indefinite sense of melancholy.
“That's right. And I could use the levity, and I think you could, too. We need to laugh at least once a day, okay? Can we do that?”
Can we do that?
He forced a grin, deciphering the true meaning of what she was requesting: You've always been good at making me laugh, he thought. Now you're wanting me to do the same for you. “I'll try,” he said, nodding. “I'll give it a shot.”
Nevertheless, Hollis had no illusions: he knew he wasn't a man with a humorous disposition, someone who could easily produce witty, pointed remarks — like Debra and Lon did — using an illogical, cryptic, sarcastic, or ironic statement to accentuate the underlying heart of a given matter, however grave it might be on the surface. Humor had never lurked in his gene pool; he came from reserved northern stock, stoic people — women who frowned when laughs were warranted, men who looked confused when wry comments were delivered instead of rote punch lines. Yet his desire to amuse wasn't fully muted, although his attempts were often expressed as the inchoate clowning of the unfunny: exterior displays which almost never went deeper than silly faces, farting noises, bad puns, jokes overheard on the golf course but retold without the appropriate context or timing.
“Say, Deb, did you hear what the upset inflatable teacher said to the irresponsible inflatable student in the inflatable school?”
“You've told me that one, dear.”
“I have? Are you sure?”
“Listen, not only have you let me down, you've let yourself down, and you've let the whole school down.”
“Oh, yeah, you've heard it already.”
On some unspoken level Hollis believed humor was a luxury, an idle pursuit, but something not really suited for a planet which was, for the most part, deadly serious and historically devoid of cheap gags. A topical joke, a clever retort, farcical metaphors, oblique satire — these were modern human constructs, offered by those who, perhaps, dodged reality by enticing others to laugh aloud at their nonsensical utterances. As such, a physical act — an exaggerated facial expression of sadness, anger, fear, or a stumbling pratfall in a restaurant — was a lot funnier to him than a smug touch of verbal irony, because the overwrought gyrations of the body just felt more authentic and, therefore, undeniable. That being the case, he was usually funniest when he wasn't trying to be funny at all.
But it was almost a week following the Gilda's Club meeting — after Debra had awakened from a nap on the couch feeling morose again with no prospect of recovery and, subsequently, Hollis ended up standing within their large walk-in closet, having traced her path from the living room to the bedroom by collecting a trail of her discarded clothing and then depositing the sweatshirt, sweatpants, socks, and panties into the laundry hamper — before he made a deliberate effort to bring much-needed humor to his wife's day. Inside the closet, he could hear water hissing through the pipes concealed between the walls, the metallic grind of hot / cold knobs turning as Debra took a warm shower in the adjacent master bathroom; and, from where he stood, his eyes were drawn to an upper shelf, scanning the row of five life-size Styrofoam busts which stared down at him: the nondescript effigies being exactly alike save for a distinct specialty wig setting each one apart.
His long arms reached over the shelf, his fingers grasped the neck of a bust and — applying slight yet firm pressure on the Styrofoam skin, careful so it wouldn't slip from his hands — lowered it toward him. Now he was face-to-face with the disembodied head of what he perceived to be a woman (white skin, long narrow nose, white and pupilless eyeballs, sporting a blond beehive which towered above her pure white forehead). Soon the bust would be returned, placed back on the shelf among its other well-coifed sisters, but, looking now more akin to Debra, absent of the hair which had signified its uniqueness. He quickly made two round-trips from the closet: searching the drawers of his wife ‘s vanity table for lipstick, browsing her coats and jackets hanging beneath the busts, studying his reflection in the vanity-table mirror, positioning himself just beyond the closet's open door and — upon hearing the shower knobs whine, the water's diminishing hiss — clicking off the closet light.
And so in semidarkness he waited, keeping perfectly still as he listened, monitoring Debra's movements through the thin plaster walls. She rattled the sliding shower doors. He envisioned her feet pressing against the fuzzy green bath mat — right foot first, left foot next — patting herself dry with a towel at the same time. Then she was wiping steam from the mirror prior to briefly running the sink. Then she stepped onto the scale — right foot first, left foot next — weighing herself. At last, she exited the bathroom, wandering slowly into the bedroom, the towel wrapped around her chest (covering her breasts and waist, concealing the scar which served as a bitter reminder). But she didn't go straight to the closet; instead, she crossed the room, heading for the window — where, pushing fingertips against her barren crown, she stared at the backyard, eventually cocking her head, and, from Hollis's vantage point, seemed to shift her gaze to the clear, sharp winter sky.
When she did turn, her stare settled on the closet doorway, except he wasn't certain if she immediately saw him or not. Presently, she eased forward, coming toward him, her eyes narrowing and her brow wrinkling, becoming aware of an obscured form loitering within the dim closet — something tall, imposing, yet barely perceptible. She wasn't sure if she was really seeing something or someone there; she would tell Hollis this later, she would explain that the chemo brain played tricks on her — the hazy, unfocused nature of the condition had produced its share of apparitions in recent weeks, half-glimpsed figures seen at the corners of her eyes which vanished whe
never she glanced their way, shadows roaming outside and darting past the curtains, fleeting refractions of indistinct living things (Yes, I've seen them, too, he would wish to reveal but didn't. I've seen them for as long as I can remember, he would want to say but decided otherwise).
Now she hesitated in front of the closet, peering ahead, squinting. One arm kept the towel from falling while the other arm stretched for the light switch. But it wasn't her fingers which hit the switch; rather, it was Hollis who cast light on himself, illuminating in an instant what, to his mind, was surely a hysterical vision: a hulking she-beast made even bulkier by a full-length long-hair beaver fur coat — the shawl collar bunched along the neckline, framing Hollis's deliberately dour and absurd face (a thick layer of crimson lipstick shining on his mouth, the beehive wig camouflaging his thinning hair and tilting to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa). Except Debra didn't react as he had imagined she would; she didn't start at the looming, ridiculous sight of him and then cackle wildly. Instead, a gasp of true horror escaped her, released at the very second her body jolted as if she had received an electrical shock — her arms reflexively flailing outward, her eyes widening — and the towel dropped away from her body, exposing her pale, vulnerable flesh. Fixing him with an unforgiving glare, her entire body began trembling. “Don't you do that!” she yelled, seething at him as her hands curled into fists. “Don't you ever do that to me!”
