The Way of Women

by Lauraine Snelling

  “You ever thought of screaming at him?”

  “Gave it up for Lent last year and never bothered to pick it up again.”

  Susan snorted in the back of her throat. “Bet you feel that way more often than you want to admit.”

  Katheryn knew her daughter was using some of her counseling tools on her mother, but she felt more relief than resentment. The latter reared its ugly head most often in the middle of the night when David slept in the recliner in the family room rather than in the bed beside her. He said he slept better there, that the television acted more like white noise. She’d even considered moving a television into their bedroom, but the thought of sleeping through a war movie or another western made her shudder.

  “You want me to try to talk with him?”

  Katheryn realized she’d been staring out the window, not even seeing the shadows of the guys at the hoop. Good heavens, was this a contagious disease?

  “Better you than me, but don’t take it as an affront to your expertise if you draw a blank.”

  Susan started to say something but stopped midword.

  Katheryn glanced at her daughter. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, at least I think so.” Awe painted Susan’s face. She laid a hand on her rounded belly. “Mom, I think I just felt the baby move. Like tiny wings fluttering?” She stared at her mother.

  Katheryn rolled her lips together, fighting the burning behind her eyes and nose. “The first time?”

  “Uh-huh.” Susan stared down at her middle, holding her breath. Her face lit from within, incandescent and luminous, transforming her features.

  “He’s real, Mom.”

  “He?” They both whispered as if loud talk might frighten away the flutters.

  “Jonathon David, for both our fathers.”

  “Could be a girl, you know.”

  Susan shook her head. “No, your first grandchild is a boy.”

  “Dinner ready yet?” Kevin stuck his head around the door.

  “Fifteen minutes. Time for two more games of HORSE.” Katheryn stabbed the potatoes. Holding the fork in the air, she shook her head ever so gently. “Think I’ll hold off on knitting a blue sweater yet.”

  “Bet you money.”

  How often had she heard that challenge. But Susan used it only when she was double-dog certain she was right.

  “Maybe I’ll use variegated yarn.”

  “Did you sic Susan on me?” David asked that night, sitting on the edge of their bed, aligning his shoes so only the toes peeked out from under the dust ruffle.

  Katheryn turned from hanging up her green woolen jumper. Hunter green, one of her favorite colors, one that used to elicit welcome comments like “that color makes your hair glow like fire” from the man on the other side of the room. He’d once said green made her skin look like cream. She’d stored up his compliments, all the richer for being few and far between.

  “What made you think that?” Always better to answer a question with a question if you might not like the answer you’d have to give.

  “Oh, the questions she asked.”

  “Funny, she practiced her counseling techniques on her mother today too.” She fingered a silk negligee but chose a warm flannel gown instead, sliding it over her head before turning around.

  David sat facing the other wall, elbows on knees, his shoulder blades peaking the cotton of his T-shirt.

  When had he gotten so thin?

  Never meaty, David wore ropy muscles, the norm for distance runners and rock climbers, sinewy cords for rappelling off cliffs and traversing granite faces.

  Angel wings, Katherine had called shoulder blades like those of her men when son Kevin had been young, all bones and firecracker energy.

  Katheryn knelt on the bed and stroked his back. Counting his vertebrae and ribs would take no effort. “Susan felt the baby move, the first time.”

  “Oh, good.” David folded back the covers and slid beneath them, immediately rolling on his side—away from her.

  Katheryn trapped the sigh between lips clenched together.

  Maybe she’d dissolve Valium in his coffee.

  She could feel it deep within her core, like the first faint flutter of a tiny fetus. She raised herself from the long years of hibernation, curious about the new stirrings. Concentrating now, she waited for it to flutter again. Weeks passed. Her stone-and-earth body betrayed no new movement, so she decided it was merely a surface shift and drifted back to sleep.

  But then, like a fevered dream, the sensation disturbed her again. The pulsations birthed deep within her moved inexorably closer to the surface as the days continued. As they peaked and receded like waves on a sandy shore, she fought the nausea that was building within her. She could not rest.

  MARCH 25, 1980

  Melissa Sedor lay silently and watched dawn silver the morning. The thin curtains almost disappeared with the light showing through a weave so weak it looked as weary as she felt.

  I should have put tinfoil over the window, she thought, or even cardboard. But if I can’t have light, how can I exist?

  And yet if darkness helped her daughter Lissa sleep for even a few extra minutes, she must do it. The Bible said there was healing in sleep; or was that Shakespeare? But she knew if she moved now, Lissa would wake instantly, and in that same moment the pain would strike and another tightrope day begin.

  God, surely you can do something. Her cry atrophied from lack of response. If God were indeed listening, wouldn’t Harvey have a job by now, wouldn’t Lissa’s pain lessen, wouldn’t the sun break through the clouds long enough to remind them that spring hadn’t forgotten to stop by the Pacific Northwest?

  Lissa, a bundle of bones collapsed in sleep, moaned. At five, all color had been leached from her face by the relentless disease, all strength drained from one born running and dancing through each moment of life. Mellie wished she dare withdraw her arm that had fallen asleep some hours earlier, but the touch of her mother’s hand made sleep possible for Lissa, even though most touch hurt. Mellie, as Harvey called his childhood bride of seven years, had learned to sleep in any position and without moving. But oh, she rarely slept in bed where her husband was as restless with worry as Lissa lay immobile with weakness.

  Today the doctors were to give their decisions on a protocol to fight the invader. Mellie thought it more a battle plan.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “I’ll get your blanket.” Mellie reached to the foot of the bed, where the beloved quilt made by Lissa’s godmother had been kicked off in the last bout with a temperature that took great delight in spiking and ebbing at will.

  “Don’t go.”

  “I won’t.” She and Harvey took turns each night. She’d slept the early shift, if you could call her collapse on the mattress rest. Fear jarred her awake more often than not.

  “You go take a shower and see if you can sleep some again.” Harvey, hair askew like he’d been tearing at it in his sleep, stopped in the doorway to yawn.

  “Daddy?”

  “I’m here, baby. Mommy’s going to rest.”

  “Can you tell me a story?” Her pale lashes fluttered open, revealing eyes darkened by the pain killers.

  “As soon as I can talk.” The two adults changed places with a brief hug in the process.

  “I’ll put the coffee on.”

  “Get some rest.”

  “I will.” They spoke softly, for loud noises jerked their baby’s nerve endings like an angry puppeteer.

  “Once upon a time …”

  Mellie left the voice behind. If only “once upon a time” worked for them. Once upon a time there was a mommy and a daddy, and they had a little girl named Lissa who could run and play from sunup to sundown and never get tired.

  That “once upon a time” had been reality less than six months earlier. Please, God, let her be well again. Mellie filled the teakettle from the tap and set it on the burner to heat while she
measured grounds into the receptacle for the water to drip through. Harvey liked dripped coffee rather than perked. She poured herself a glass of water and, while sipping, leaned against the counter and rubbed one bare foot on top of the other. Why couldn’t she remember to put on her slippers? She’d slept with one blanket around her and an extra one around her feet.

  In bed it was Harvey’s job to warm her feet. She’d not had warm feet since this misery began. The kettle whistled, and she poured the sputtering water into the top half of the stainless-steel pot. On her way to the bathroom, she could hear Harvey’s voice murmuring one of his made-up-on-the-spot tales of a thumb-size little girl named Issa.

  A few minutes later, Mellie delivered the coffee to the sickroom, earning a smile from her grateful husband. Back in their bedroom, she crawled under the covers, seeking any warmth left by Harvey’s body. He should have slept longer. He needed his strength to find a job, one with medical insurance. One close to home so he could continue to help with Lissa’s care. But so often truck-driving jobs were for the long haul, cross-country like the three of them had done before Lissa started walking.

  Harvey loved trucks as much as she loved being at home, but so far no one had agreed to hire a man who lived a love affair with eighteen-wheelers.

  Harvey woke her in time to dress for their appointment. “Lissa and I are all ready to go.”

  “Thanks. Make sure you bring her mittens and hat.”

  “You get dressed.”

  Lissa sat between them on the front seat of their blue Ford pickup that Harvey kept running by sheer loving care and attention. “Will the doctor hurt me again?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We just have to talk with him.” Mellie dropped a kiss on wispy hair that stood straight up as soon as Lissa pulled off her knit cap. The little girl hated being bound by clothes—hats, shoes, mittens, all came off as soon she was inside. They only went on by repeated cajoling or a stern frown from her father. When she was cold, her cuddly quilt was the garment of choice. It lay folded in her mother’s lap.

  Lissa dozed through the drive from Tacoma to Seattle and woke when they left the freeway.

  “Will she stick me?”

  “Who?”

  “That lady in white.”

  “Oh, the nurse?” Mellie and Harvey exchanged half-smiles across the seat. Lissa, usually stoic, had already come to the point of screaming at the sight of a needle and syringe. At first she had recognized the different health workers, but now “the lady in white” could mean any female.

  Harvey left them at the front door of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and went to park the car.

  “Daddy coming?” Lissa looked up at her mother.

  “Yes.” Mellie checked her watch. If Harvey didn’t hurry, they’d be late. “We’ll go on to the elevator.”

  “Daddy.” Lissa turned to watch the door.

  “He’ll catch up with us.” Mellie knew how Lissa felt. Alone. Afraid. Feelings that were bleached of their sharp colors whenever Harvey appeared.

  “Daddy’s coming.” Lissa’s radiant smile caught in Mellie’s throat.

  Their daughter lifted her arms for her daddy to pick her up.

  “It might hurt you.” He leaned over to look in her eyes.

  “Don’t care. Carry me, please.”

  He swooped her into his arms, stepped into the elevator, and let her punch the button for their floor.

  “If I was little Issa, you could put me in your pocket to carry.” Arms locked around his neck, she leaned back to watch his face.

  “But how would you breathe in my pocket?”

  “I would look out the top.”

  “And what would you see if you looked out the top?”

  She shook her head as if amazed at his question. “Why, I’d see elevator walls and the door opening, just like now.”

  “Of course, how could I be so silly?” They turned right and made their way down the hall, her clutch around his neck tightening as they neared the office.

  Mellie glanced up to check on her daughter. Lissa had closed her eyes. The mother understood. If only closing her eyes could postpone the next step. She turned the doorknob and let Harvey go through first, fighting the urge to run back the way they’d come. Fighting to get enough air, as if by stepping into the office she’d stepped through a portal and, inside like some tangible thing, the air refused to be pulled into her lungs.

  Harvey spoke to the woman behind the counter.

  “He’s ready for you.” She picked up a thick folder and nodded to the entry door. “Follow me.”

  Lord, other times we’ve had to wait. Waiting isn’t such a bad thing. Mellie opened the door and again let Harvey and Lissa precede her.

  The receptionist motioned them into the office. “Please be seated, and Dr. Thomas will be right with you.” She laid the four-inch folder on the dark wood desk.

  Mellie could no more sit back in the chair and relax than she could fly out the window. Her fingers knit themselves around the strap of her purse, and her teeth clamped together to keep the fear locked within. But it could be good news. She sucked in a breath of air that failed to contain enough oxygen, so she had to breathe quick again.

  Harvey finished helping Lissa gain some kind of comfort leaning against him and laid a hand on his wife’s arm.

  The simple touch made her eyes burn.

  “Good morning.” Dr. Thomas, mandatory stethoscope in the pocket of his white lab coat, stopped beside Harvey to shake his hand. “And how’s Miss Lissa today?” His smile coaxed one from her. She looked from his gentle face down to his tie.

  “You gots a Smurf tie.”

  “I do?” He glanced down and looked back at her. “Why, I really do.” He held the tie out with one hand. “Do you like it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So does another little girl, so she gave me this for my birthday.” He perched on the edge of the desk and picked up the folder.

  His face first assumed a doctor’s blankness, then he smiled instead.

  Mellie watched him, hoping to read more from his face and body than she would from his words.

  “Lissa, how would you like to go pick out a lollipop and a toy with Nurse Campbell?”

  Lissa stared at him for a moment, as if gauging how far she could trust him. “No shots?”

  “No shots.”

  “Gots purple?”

  “I sure do hope so.”

  The nurse poked her head around the door. “You coming, Lissa?”

  Lissa checked her father’s face for permission and, at his nod, slid to the floor. “Can I get one for my daddy and my mommy?”

  “I’m sure we can arrange that.”

  Lissa took the nurse’s hand, and together they walked out the door.

  “She’s a sharpie, that one.” Dr. Thomas smiled, but the smile faded again when he returned to the folder. “I wish I had better news for you.”

  Mellie swallowed the invisible gravel that cluttered her throat.

  “We can give Lissa more chemo, but that is nothing more than a palliative. We have had some success with a new procedure, but it is long and hard and still considered experimental.”

  “And without it?” Harvey took Mellie’s hand in his.

  “We’re buying time.”

  “Do you do it here?”

  “Yes, but there is a waiting list.”

  “How does it work?”

  “We have seven days of continuous radiation, followed by heavy doses of chemotherapy. We remove bone marrow from the patient and then reintroduce it later into the body in the hope that it will overcome the damaged tissue and heal the body. Lissa would be in a sterile room for a month. You would be on the other side of the plastic sheets. You would be fully gowned and masked, even having to wear gloves and booties.”

  “You mean I couldn’t touch her, hold her?” Mellie stared at the doctor as if he’d lost his mind.

  He nodded. “Anything could start an infection, and her body would have
no immunity to fight with.”

  The silence in the room shrieked against Mellie’s ears. She fought the desire to clamp her hands over her ears, to run out of the room.

  “And you would promise that this would work?”

  “It has in other cases like this.”

  “But not in all cases.” Harvey’s voice wore sorrow like a shroud.

  “That’s right. I hate to ask this, but what kind of insurance do you have?”

  “Teamsters.”

  Mellie glanced at him. But you said the insurance ran out.

  He must have sensed her scrutiny, but without looking at her, he took back her hand. And squeezed.

  “We can check to see how their policy works on experimental procedures.”

  “But what if …”

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” Dr. Thomas glanced from one parent to the other. “I just wish I had better news to give you.”

  “When would this start?” Harvey cleared his throat.

  “I want you to know that I’ve run this case by the best doctors in the field. They are pretty much recommending the same treatment.”

  “And if this doesn’t work?”

  “We’ll just pray that it does.” Dr. Thomas stood. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I know more.”

  “Fine.” Harvey stood and reached to shake the doctor’s hand.

  It’s not fine. Nothing may ever be fine again! Mellie kept her scream inside and stood also. She could hear Lissa’s voice at the doorway. Fine: a four-letter synonym for hell.

  MARCH 27, 1980

  Army Corps of Engineer Captain Mitchell Ross hated going home. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his family. He loved his two sons and was a fairly good father. He was a decent husband too, when he wasn’t cheating, which was much less often of late. His charming, very talented wife, Karen, had an exceptional sense of humor and an enormous capacity for forgiveness. His home, while unremarkable on the outside, was decorated with treasures from all over the world, collected from his various posts of duty.