by Wall, Carol
One of the nurses stuck her head into my dressing room and said, “Don’t forget to get a bumper sticker for the Big Pink Parade. It’s for Breast Cancer Awareness month. This year, the mayor is going to speak.”
I studied the nurse’s expression. She looked sincere. If I were going to think up a parade for breast cancer it certainly wouldn’t feature pink. Instead, I would have liked to see a line of scientists in lab coats trooping over distant hills. They would be sexless men and women with their hair cut sensibly, their glasses on and pencils sharpened. And they’d be looking for a cure. I thought of an acquaintance, Dora, who once said she’d kept a positive attitude when she was called back for some further pictures, and she attributed the benign results that came her way to managing her thoughts. The thoughts I managed now were those of bashing Dora’s head until her perky voice stopped chirping. That distinctly un-Christian thought aside, I knew I would do anything for this scan to turn out fine, if only God would just cooperate and make it all go away.
The follow-up ultrasound had shown what the mammogram only suggested. There was a lesion, almost certainly malignant. This next scan would show even more, and my Handsome Oncologist had already told me that I was likely facing a double mastectomy. While I waited to be called for the scan, I thought of how I loved my house—the too-small cupboard where I stacked our random coffee cups, the doorknobs that needed polishing, the doorbell that needed fixing, and even the dust that settled on the furniture. Please, I prayed, let it be there for me, all of it, when I return. I promised not to take for granted any pleasure or annoyance, great or small, that God had granted me in His wisdom and mercy.
Two hours later, my burst of positive prayer was replaced by numbness cultivated in the wake of terror. I stumbled robotically into the parking lot outside the entrance to the radiology department. The sun, a pale white dot, beat down unrelentingly. My throat was scratchy from the Xanax tablets I’d swallowed without regard to proper dosage. The hospital’s courtesy golf cart, adorned with a pink bumper sticker, stopped to offer me a ride to my car. Apparently, I looked a little looped.
“Just point me to your car,” the elderly driver offered, and he was patient as I thought about my answer for a while. I took the moment to call Dick. Our conversation was brief. He assured me everything would be all right.
I said, “Yes. Of course. Sure.”
I fell into a fantasy of leaning forward, pleading with the old man driving the cart to drive faster. I visualized a healthy woman stepping from her car into our path. She managed to escape being hit, but I imagined myself tumbling out, limbs smooth, hair flying free, cartwheeling gracefully to meet my fate. I would die with a look of shock on my face and lipstick intact, ever the aging cheerleader, and a tragic casualty of careless driving only. An administrator high within the building would phone Dick, saying, “She died after a Courageous Battle involving our golf cart shuttle service. You can get on with a normal life now.” I saw my helpless parents, confined to bed, being told I was “on vacation for a while.” I imagined Rhudy circling his empty water bowl, waiting vainly for my return.
Rumbling down the hill in the golf cart, not at all confident that everything would be all right, I thought of everything I hated about the cancer conversations I was about to set in motion. I heard the phone and doorbell ringing. And I saw the greeting cards with sunsets, rainbows, angels, Jesus, four-leaf clovers, open Bibles, floating clouds, or flower-dotted meadows stretching out with no real end in sight. I knew I should be thankful for the concern that would no doubt follow the news that I had now come to expect. But Lord help me, it all just made me tired.
At home, I waited for Dick to get home from work. I watched him get out of his car, and the effort seemed to exhaust him. At first, he didn’t see me, though our front door stood ajar. As he walked along, I caught his eye and there was a hint of courage in the smile he offered, but his eyes were dim and I could have sworn he winced. Another one of my dark thoughts settled over me like a poisonous fog. There were other women in the world. I imagined how they thrust their healthy bosoms toward him, and how their lustrous hairdos rippled suggestively while they munched the secret brand of vitamins effective in preventing things like this.
Yet it was me he wanted, and I knew that. Which somehow made this all the more excruciating. I hated what my body was doing to him—to us.
Inside, we slipped our arms around each other, equally despondent and a perfect fit, as always. But still there was that separation that I couldn’t help feeling at times like this. We belonged to two different realms, Dick and I. The well and the sick. The sharp knives were coming out for me, and not for him. I might need chemo as well, but we’d know for sure after surgery.
Ten years ago, on our first reluctant journey through the realm of cellular surprises, we were moved to push some phrases out to cheer ourselves. We would announce to each other: Things will be okay. We’re strong. Hold on. I’ll be there. This time, Dick said that it was okay to be pissed. And then we both embraced silence.
Above us was the lantern where we hung our mistletoe each year. We stood there and held each other, hoping only to get through this moment and the next.
13.
A Pretty Sky
The verdict was in, and a double mastectomy it would be.
Did I cry?
Oh, yes.
I cried alone, before and after greeting Dick.
The bathroom door secured, I pressed a folded washcloth to my face. Coming out, I tried to cultivate a sense of calm. At dinner, Dick admitted that he had a meeting scheduled with a client at his workplace. I insisted he go. Dick had already done me the favor of telling our children the news, because I couldn’t bear to do it.
“Truthfully,” I told him, “I will be okay. I have some errands. I need a few things from the grocery store.”
He held a wary eye on me as he picked up his briefcase, and we exchanged a chaste kiss. Then I watched him get into his car. A stranger who looked vaguely like Carol greeted me in the mirror as I dabbed the smudges of my eyeliner and traced a tube of lipstick back and forth along my slightly swollen lips.
The mastectomy would take several hours, and then the reconstruction several more. Two surgeons would be involved, one for the mastectomy and a plastic surgeon for the reconstruction. It would be done on a Saturday, when the operating room was available for the entire day. Early in the surgery, they would check the lymph nodes to see if the cancer had spread—a “sentinel node biopsy,” they called it, which sounded like something out of Star Trek. The first time the surgeon used this term, I felt like saluting. If the nodes were clean, then I wouldn’t have to have chemo. If . . .
I couldn’t think about that now. Instead, I sat down to make a grocery list. Then I got into my van and drove to Foodland.
I shopped efficiently, my eyes averted, hoping I wouldn’t be recognized by anyone in a mood to chat. I didn’t even want to see Giles, and I felt relieved when there was no sign of him at the registers.
I rattled out into the parking lot, my groceries rumbling in the cart. A fiery summer sunset purified the sky. The beauty of it struck me like a physical pain, and thoughts of my family flooded me, knocking the wind out of me yet again. I was supposed to be the one who comforted them. How could I bring them hurt like this? Well-meaning friends had urged me to go to a support group when I was first diagnosed, but I’d always resisted it. Now I wondered if I really did need to talk to other women facing the same fears I was. But then I thought, No. One stray remark would send me reeling, and I’d be certain that everyone else’s symptoms were signs of things that my own doctors had missed.
Giles’s Neon swooped into the lot just as I reached my van. I couldn’t deceive him, so instead I tried to avoid him, keeping my head down and planning to jump in and drive away before he could spot me.
But then I noticed how he strode with such joy in the direction of a job he never bargai
ned for. No matter how many disappointments he’d experienced, he never withdrew into a shell of sadness the way I longed to. He kept his face to the sky and his arms open to the world.
So I changed my mind about running away. Right there in the Foodland parking lot where anyone might hear, I went to Giles and poured out my unhappy news. As I talked, his frown grew more pronounced. This was a separate cancer, not a recurrence or metastasis, I explained. “Isn’t that a kick? Please say you understand. Do you ever worry that your cancer will come back?”
“Yes. It could. I do.”
His eyes were clear, as if he were scanning the horizon for storm clouds. As other shoppers passed us by, he waited for me to say more.
“It’s so unfair!” I blurted out, just like a child. His smile was taut, and I barreled on. “Ever since my mother’s stroke, I actually began to think I might survive her. I thought she was going to die before the cancer could catch up with me again, and then she wouldn’t have to know the pain of burying another child.”
Giles shook his head and I sensed disapproval. Desperate to make him understand, I tried again.
“Deep down, Daddy wants me to protect her, just the way I’ve always done, ever since I was old enough to understand those little pictures in the drawer. But now he’s sick and can’t express it. My mother, helpless in her bed, can’t even ask a question. This time I was supposed to be the healthy one, the caregiver. My life was supposed to make things better for them, not worse. What are we going to do, Giles? I’ve screwed it all up again!”
Gesturing, I took my hands off the cart, and it rolled into the pathway of a station wagon backing out. Giles rescued it in time. Then he helped me load my bags into the van. “You are not responsible for this disease. It has come to you. You must be well for yourself, and free yourself from this burden you feel. Members of a family wish such health and freedom for each other.”
The concept of such freedom was more foreign to me than I could express to Giles. And in a way, it frightened me. I had lived so long weighted down by my belief that I was responsible for my parents’ happiness. I wondered if I might just float away, as insubstantial as a feather, if I shed myself of such a central characteristic. Still, I found myself breathing more deeply, my panic quenched by Giles’s calm resolve.
Just then, a neighbor, Robert Maxim, passed by wearing shorts and flip-flops. His army T-shirt was wet, as if he’d been washing his car and hadn’t stopped to change. “Hello, you guys. A pretty sky, there. Huh?”
Giles and I paused to look at the pink that was dissolving into other rosy shades in the sky. “It is a pretty sky,” I answered, hoping to sound interested. Robert nodded and moved on.
I looked back at Giles. “Freedom. It makes perfect sense. I don’t know if I can do it, though.”
“You have many, many strengths,” Giles said.
How I wished—hoped—that were so. Giles made me believe it could be. A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed around it. “Who on earth will I become, beyond this bitterness?”
“Illness comes into each life, but we must not let it define us,” Giles said by way of answer. His words were comforting, but I couldn’t help noticing that the man who spoke them looked strangely troubled.
• • •
The evening before my surgery, I felt a strong need to give Mama and Daddy a final kiss, kind of like tucking children into bed and wishing them sweet dreams. I set out alone to Heathwood Hearth.
I was relieved to discover Mama was already sleeping. Her face was peaceful and her breathing steady. With luck, I wouldn’t need chemo and my recovery would be swift enough that I could return to my regular visits in just a few weeks. I placed a hand on the blanket folded underneath her chin and remembered how Judy and I would call to her in the night when we were sick, and how she always came, an angelic presence that instantly made me feel better. Now I tamped down the urge to weep for both of us.
In my father’s room, I found the man who used to be Daddy snoring heavily in his recliner. He startled, sensing someone near.
“Dick and I are going on a little trip,” I whispered to him, “but I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll bring you something from our travels. Please listen to the nurses while I’m gone.” It disturbed me that I was talking to my father like a child. I knew it was the right thing to keep my new diagnosis from them, but I longed to be the object of comfort instead of the other way around, to be able to put my head in Daddy’s lap and have him tell me everything would be okay, that he’d take care of me.
He stared at me, mouth slightly open as if perpetually surprised, and breathing with exaggerated effort.
Okay, I told myself. We had our moment. Then I turned to leave. Incredibly, though, as I walked out I heard his soothing voice of old addressing me by name.
“Carol—is there something wrong?” He cleared his throat. “You seem like something’s wrong,” he forcefully repeated.
His brow gathered in a wrinkle I remembered from my years of growing up. The look was penetrating, and I had a flashback to the man who was impossible to fool, yet easy to adore. His idea of discipline consisted of a big frown, which was used for major offenses, such as telling lies or showing sassy disrespect to him or Mama. There was also the little frown, for minor things such as a ding on the fender of our Dodge Dart Swinger, due to my chatting with a teenage friend and harmonizing with a Beatles’ song while driving. I would have sold my soul to stay in favor with this wise and loving man and to keep him looking happy. It was a feeling that had never faded with time, and one that had kept me upright and respectable all through the years.
“Oh, Daddy. Please don’t worry.” My fingers stroked his forehead. He relaxed by degrees, and it was almost unbearably sad the way he trusted me. His expression softened toward relief, and then contentment.
“Wabironenore,” I whispered. Leaving him, I choked back sobs.
In my van, I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. I thought of Giles’s advice, allowing grief to overtake me as I wept. The ironies of my life overwhelmed me. My parents had only wanted to help me when they subjected me to those radiation treatments when I was just five months old. But instead, they’d inadvertently planted a dangerous seed inside me. Now I fought with my dueling urge to love and protect them, while also wanting to shake my fist at the universe—and, if I were honest with myself, at them—and ask, Why me?
It was the age-old question, a cliché, in fact. Yet sitting alone in my car, I felt neither too holy nor too proud to ask it.
• • •
Just after four a.m., Dick drove us to the hospital. A short time later, I lay on a table, prepared for surgery and all alone. I temporarily surrendered to my fate. I had read that giving in like that could be a coping strategy. Or perhaps it was just a recognition of reality—no one is more vulnerable than a patient lying essentially naked on an operating table. What choice is there but surrender?
In any case, I felt a sudden calm. It might have been a gracious helping of the Peace that Passes Understanding. Or maybe it was just the sedative the anesthesiologist had added to my IV.
I prayed, simply at first: Please let the nodes be clear.
And then less selfishly: Please guide Lok, and all of us who entertain our sweet dreams of returning to our families.
• • •
I woke up to no good news being whispered in my ear by Dick.
“Everything went great!” he told me as I was rolled toward my hospital room on the gurney. “You’re doing well!”
Still groggy, I couldn’t yet press him to be more specific, or to ask him why he hadn’t told me the nodes were all clear.
Four hours later, the surgeon visited and I learned the reason for Dick’s sidestepping generalities and platitudes. A single node was positive, and that was all it took. I would have to have chemo.
I felt a sadness beyond my power to e
xpress to Dick or anyone else. There was a siege just around the corner, and I wasn’t at all certain that I had the strength to withstand it.
14.
Potted Plants and Fresh Flowers
Above the early autumn trees, the sun cast down its slanted rays, causing the sidewalk where Giles stepped to actually sparkle. I appreciated the beauty of the blooming realm outside my window, but it might as well have been a world away from me. I was hopelessly trapped inside, a prisoner of chemo.
Peering out at Giles from my darkened living room, I thought about how long it had been since we’d exchanged more than a hurried word of greeting at the door. He seemed more reserved than usual these days, but I told myself not to take it personally. It wasn’t easy to figure out the right words to say to me lately.
I’d had two treatments so far, and my counts were in the tank. Hence my quarantine. Supposedly I was being kept safe from germs, but I was slowly going mad with the isolation. I was forbidden even to visit my parents, and I tortured myself imagining them like children at camp with their bags all packed but no one to come get them.
I was helpless to change the situation, so instead I sat at my window, like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, spying on my neighbors.
I watched as Sarah caught up with Giles, her face flushed, her glossy hair held back with sunglasses. They lingered, talking to each other in the animated fashion that was second nature to the walking well. It was something I had taken for granted before, but now I longed for it with a hunger I could taste. Fatigue in all its forms flowed through my veins. Even lifting up my arms to Dick’s embrace was an effort, though my weary spirit willed it mightily.
Another neighbor joined the gathering outside. It was Meg, who held her baby in her arms and seemed to have some question that drew all three of them to look back toward her yard.
