Barefoot: A Novel

by Elin Hilderbrand

  The support group had been Dr. Garcia’s idea. Vicki had attended half a dozen times—twice a week for the three weeks before she left for the summer. What she had learned, perhaps the only thing she had learned, was that cancer was a journey, a series of ups and downs, of good days and bad days, of progress and setbacks. Vicki yearned to be back in the circle so she could tel the story of her own journey and hear murmurs from people who understood.

  The fever, which lasted five days, was like nothing Vicki had ever experienced. She was alternately burning up and freezing cold; she shook so violently in the bathtub that the water splashed over the sides. She wore a sweater to bed, she slept fitful y and had horrible nightmares—armed robbers in ski masks with guns in her bedroom, demanding that she hand over one of her boys. Choose one! How could she choose ? Take me!

  she’d said. Take me! Yes, they would take her. They carried her out of the room by her arms and legs.

  Her vision, during the day, was splotchy, she suffered from insidious headaches; it hurt just to look out the window at the bright sunlight and the green leaves. Her brain felt like a piece of meat boiling in a pot. She was dehydrated, despite the fact that Brenda replenished a frosty pitcher of ice water with lemon slices floating on top every few hours. Brenda held the straw to Vicki’s lips, as did Melanie, as did Ted. Ted laid a washcloth across her forehead—a washcloth that they started keeping in the freezer, that made her cry out with pain and relief. Once, Vicki opened her eyes and was certain she saw her mother standing in the doorway of the bedroom. It was El en Lyndon, come from Philadelphia, despite the fact that her leg was imprisoned in a complicated brace. El en’s hand was cool on Vicki’s forehead; Vicki inhaled her mother’s perfume. Vicki closed her eyes and suddenly she was back at her parents’ house, in her childhood bed, with a cup of broth and angel toast dusted with cinnamon, with strains of Mozart floating up the stairs from the kitchen. Vicki rose from her bed. There was something in her shoes. Sand.

  She was taking antibiotics, strong ones, although no one in the hospital could tel her where the infection was. Her fever dropped to 101 then shot back up to over 104. They threatened to admit her while she was at the hospital getting an injection of Neupogen, the drug that was supposed to boost her white count. She was taking four painkil ers every six hours, and every two hours she suffered through the goddamned thermometer under her tongue or in the crook of her arm. Vicki started moaning about her missed chemo. Now that she couldn’t have it, she wanted it badly. Dr. Alcott told her not to worry. Blood count up first, then they would let her return for treatment. Vicki’s body felt like a murky soup, her blood poisoned and diluted. Al the colors of the rainbow mixed together, Blaine had once informed her, made brown. That was Vicki.

  Al across the globe, mothers were dying. Engulfed in fever, Vicki tried to count them—women she remembered from childhood (Mrs. Antonini next door died of Lou Gehrig’s disease, leaving behind seven-year-old twins); people she didn’t know (Josh’s mother, hanging herself); people she had read about in the newspaper (a Palestinian woman, eight months pregnant, blew herself to pieces at an Israeli checkpoint. In Royersford, Pennsylvania, a disgruntled client walked into the headquarters of his insurance company with an AK-47. His first victim was the receptionist, Mary Gal agher, who was on her first day back from maternity leave. Seven mothers were kil ed in Los Angeles when a commuter bus flipped on the freeway and caught on fire). These women floated over Vicki’s bed, she could see them, sort of, she could hear them crying. Or was that Vicki crying? Curse the God who took mothers out of this world! But no sooner was she cursing Him than she was praying. Praying! Don’t let it be me.

  Please.

  The only pleasure she had, if you could cal it pleasure, were those sips of water. The water was so cold and Vicki was so, so thirsty. Half the time, she swore, she didn’t even swal ow it. It was absorbed instantly by the chalky insides of her mouth, the dry sponge of her tongue. She had to be careful to ration herself. If she drank too much at once, she would spend torturous moments hanging off the side of her bed, sweating, her stomach twisting and clenching, her back spasming, her shoulders and neck as tense as steel cable as she fought to bring up teaspoons of bitter yel ow bile.

  On the sixth day, she woke up and her sheets were soaked. She feared she’d wet the bed, but she could barely bring herself to care. On top of everything else, what was a little incontinence? But no—it was sweat. Her fever had broken. Vicki took her temperature herself, then had Brenda double-check: 98.6.

  Blaine ran into the room to see her, and she barely recognized him. He was brown from the sun. His hair, so blond it was almost white, had been cut to reveal pale stripes behind his ears and around his neck. Porter had a haircut, too.

  “Who took them to get haircuts?” Vicki said. “Ted?”

  “Josh,” Brenda said. “But that was last week.”

  Already it was the middle of July. Where had the time gone? Vicki’s fever had subsided and she and everyone else were glad about that, but Vicki was left feeling like a hol ow log, one that the cancer cel s might carry away, like so many ants. She went back to the hospital, they drew more blood, Vicki’s count rose. On Tuesday, they would resume treatment, though slowly at first. She had lost an additional five pounds.

  Melanie came in to read to Vicki every evening after dinner. Melanie was reading from Bridget Jones’s Diary because it was light and fun, and both Vicki and Melanie wanted to spend time in a place where the only things that mattered were boyfriends, calories, and designer shoes. Vicki was embarrassed, being read to like a child, but she enjoyed the time with Melanie. They had been living under the same roof but they had lost each other. Now Melanie was coming back into focus, and she seemed different. Certainly she looked different—her body was simultaneously swol en and tight, she was tan, her hair was growing lighter from the sun. She was beautiful.

  “You’re beautiful,” Vicki said one night as Melanie took the seat beside her bed. “You look fabulous. You’re glowing. You should be in a magazine.”

  Melanie blushed, smiled, and tried to busy herself with finding the correct page in the book. “Stop it.”

  “I’m serious,” Vicki said. “You look happy. Are you happy? ” She hoped her voice conveyed that although she herself was dying, she could stil celebrate the good news of others.

  Melanie seemed afraid to speak, but the answer was obvious. And to Vicki, this change in Melanie seemed like the biggest thing of al that she had missed. Melanie was happy! Here on Nantucket!

  Vicki resumed chemo. She returned to her lucky chair, the pearl-gray wal s, the sports news, Mamie, Ben, Amelia, Dr. Alcott. She was happy to hear they were stil undefeated in softbal . Vicki gasped when Mamie inserted the needle into her port—the skin there was as tender as it had been in the beginning—but she was determined to think of the chemo as medicine. Positive attitude!

  “Your sister seems very busy over there,” Mamie commented. “She’s writing something?”

  “A screenplay,” Vicki said. For the first time, this didn’t sound completely ridiculous. “She’s almost half done.”

  Vicki had one good day fol owed by another. The lighter chemo regimen took less of a tol on her body. She was able to cook dinner—gril ed salmon, barbecued chicken, corn and early tomatoes from the farm—and she was able to eat. After dinner, she devoured ice cream cones from the market. She gained two pounds, then three, and she joked that the weight went right to her ass. The weekend came, which meant Ted, and she felt so much better and looked so much better that sex came easily and natural y between the two of them. Sex! She might have lain in bed afterward savoring the first postcoital glow she’d enjoyed in nearly two months, but she didn’t want to lie in bed when she could be up, when she could be outside.

  “Let’s go!” she said. She felt wild and carefree; she felt like Bridget Jones.

  She went to the beach with Ted and the kids, though it was stil too far for Vicki to walk, so they drove the Yukon. Vicki w
as the palest person on the beach and grotesquely skinny, and because of the port, she wore a nylon surf shirt over her bathing suit—but these things went immediately onto her List of Things That No Longer Matter. A few yards down the beach Vicki spied a familiar figure in a matronly black one-piece bathing suit.

  It was Caroline Knox with her family. If Vicki wasn’t mistaken, Caroline was looking her way but trying not to be caught looking. She turned to say something to a bald man in a webbed chair next to her. Probably: There’s Vicki Stowe, lung cancer, poor woman. Just look at her, a skeleton. She used to be so pretty. . . .

  Vicki didn’t care. She waded into the water with Blaine, and then she swam out a few yards by herself. The water felt incredible. It cradled her.

  She floated on her back and closed her eyes against the sun; she flipped over and floated on her stomach and opened her eyes to the green, silent world below. The waves washed over her, she was suspended, weightless, buoyant. How long did she stay out there? One minute, five minutes, twenty? She lost time the way she used to as she lay in bed, only now it was liberating. She was alive, living, out in the world, floating in the ocean.

  When she raised her head and looked back toward shore, she saw Ted standing at the edge of the water with Porter in his arms and Blaine standing beside him. They were searching for her. Could they not see her? She waved to them. Hi! I’m right here! For a second, she panicked. This was what it would be like once she was gone. She would be able to see them but they wouldn’t be able to see her. Vicki raised her arms a little higher; she cal ed out. Hey! Hello! And then Ted saw her; he pointed. There she is! Hi, Mom! They waved back.

  First Vicki felt good, then she felt great. She cal ed her mother and, for the first time al summer, put the woman’s mind at ease. You sound wonderful, darling! You sound like your old self! Vicki felt like her old self—even breathing came easier. She imagined the tumor in her lungs shrinking to the size of a marble, she imagined the cancer cel s giving up and dropping dead. It was easy to keep a positive attitude when she felt this good.

  On Monday, when Josh took the kids to the beach, Vicki persuaded Brenda and Melanie to go shopping with her in town. The day was dazzling, and Main Street was a hive of activity. Vicki stood for nearly twenty minutes at the Bartlett’s Farm truck picking out a rainbow of gladiola, six perfect tomatoes for sandwiches and salad, ten ears of sugar-butter corn, the perfect head of red leaf lettuce, and cucumbers that she would marinate in fresh dil , tarragon, and vinegar. Vicki carried this bounty herself—though Brenda strongly suggested putting it in the car—because Vicki liked being healthy enough to carry two shopping bags of vegetables, and she liked the way the stems of the gladiola brushed against her face.

  Brenda wanted to go to the bookstore, and so they lingered in Mitchel ’s for a while, where Vicki paged through cookbooks. Melanie bought the sequel to Bridget Jones. Vicki dashed up to the bank for cash and she picked up lol ipops for the kids. When she got back to the bookstore, Melanie was standing outside, waiting for her. Brenda had gone to the Even Keel Cafe for a coffee. They proceeded down Main Street to Erica Wilson. Melanie wanted some new clothes. She tried on a long embroidered skirt with an elastic waist, and a tunic that she could wear over her bathing suit. Each time she came out of the curtained dressing room to model for Brenda and Vicki, she twirled. Her face barely concealed her delight.

  Vicki was about to mention Melanie’s unprecedented ecstasy to Brenda, but Brenda beat her to it. “What is up with her?” Brenda said. “She’s been Suzy Sunshine lately.”

  “I know,” Vicki said. “She’s happy.”

  “But why?” Brenda said.

  “Does there have to be a reason?” Vicki said.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange?” Brenda said.

  “Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones,” Vicki said. “Or maybe she just loves it here with us.”

  Brenda looked skeptical. “Oh, yeah, it’s us.” Her cel phone started its strangled jingling. “I’m certainly not going to answer that.”

  “What if it’s Josh?” Vicki said.

  Brenda checked the display. “It’s not Josh.”

  “Not Mom?”

  “No.”

  “Your lawyer?”

  “Mind your own business, please.”

  Melanie came bouncing up, swinging the shopping bag in her hand. “Okay!” she said. “I’m ready!”

  Brenda furrowed her brow. “If you’re taking happy drugs, it’s time to share.”

  “What?” Melanie said.

  “Onwards!” Vicki said.

  They hit Vis-A-Vis and Eye of the Needle, Gypsy, and Hepburn. Brenda looked long and hard at a reversible Hadley Pol et belt at Hepburn but then declared loudly that she couldn’t afford anything new. Vicki thought this sounded suspiciously like fishing, but she let it go. They moved on.

  Vicki bought a straw hat at Peter Beaton. The salesgirl was careful not to stare at Vicki’s head when the scarf came off; Vicki could feel her not-staring, but she didn’t care. She caught up with Brenda and Melanie at the top of Main Street. Melanie was standing outside Ladybird Lingerie, gazing at the door as if waiting for it to magical y open.

  “Do you want to go in?” Vicki asked.

  “No, no,” Melanie said. “What use do I have for lingerie?”

  At Congdon’s Pharmacy, the three of them sat at the lunch counter and ordered chicken salad sandwiches and chocolate frappes. Brenda’s cel phone rang again. She checked the display.

  “Not Josh,” she said.

  “I feel guilty,” Vicki said. “Having this much fun while someone else is watching my children.”

  “Get over it,” Brenda said. “You deserve a morning like this. We al do.”

  Melanie lifted her frappe in a toast. “I love you guys,” she said.

  Brenda rol ed her eyes and Vicki almost laughed. But this was the old Melanie. Before Melanie became obsessed with having a baby and devastated by Peter’s betrayal, she had been one of the finest girlfriends around. She was always up for a twirl outside the dressing room and for cozy lunches where she would propose lovey-dovey toasts.

  “Cheers!” Vicki said. They clinked glasses. Brenda joined in reluctantly.

  “Oh, stop being such a sourpuss,” Melanie said. “I got you something.”

  “Me?” Brenda said.

  Melanie pul ed the Hadley Pol et belt out of a smal shopping bag at her feet and handed it to Brenda. “For you,” she said.

  “No . . . way!” Brenda said. Her expression was one Vicki remembered from childhood: She was excited, then suspicious. “What for? Why?”

  “You wanted it,” Melanie said. “And I know I horned in on your summer with Vicki. The house is yours, too, and I’m grateful to you for letting me stay. And you’re taking such good care of Vicki and the kids. . . .” Melanie’s eyes were shining. “I wanted to do something nice for you.”

  Brenda cast her eyes down. She wound the belt around her waist. “Wel , thank you.”

  “That was real y thoughtful, Mel,” Vicki said.

  Brenda narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure there’s not something else going on?”

  “Something else?” Melanie said.

  S omething else.

  Later that afternoon, the phone rang in the cottage. Vicki was in bed, napping with Porter, and the phone woke her up. She was the only one home; Melanie had taken the Yukon to her doctor’s appointment, and Brenda had walked with Blaine to the swing set on Low Beach Road. The phone rang five, six, seven times, was silent for a minute, then started ringing again. Ted, Vicki thought. She climbed out of bed careful y, so as not to disturb Porter, and hurried through the living room for the phone.

  “Hel o?”

  There was silence. Somebody breathing. Then a young, female voice. “I know you’re sleeping with him.”

  “Excuse me?” Vicki said.

  “You’re sleeping with him!”

  Careful y, quietly, Vicki replaced the receiver. For this she had gotten out o
f bed? She poured herself a glass of iced tea and repaired to the back deck, where she stretched out on a chaise longue. The sun was hot; she should go back inside and put on lotion, but she was so dopey from her nap that she indulged herself for a few minutes. She thought about the phone cal and laughed.

  A little while later, the phone rang again. Vicki opened her eyes. Took a deep breath. She had been working hard on visualizing her lungs as two pink, spongy pil ows. She rose and went to the phone; she didn’t want it to wake up Porter. Though God knows if it was another wrong number, or the same wrong number, she would take the phone off the hook.

  “Hel o?” She tried to convey impatience.

  Silence. This was ridiculous! But then, a throat clearing. A man.

  “Uh, Vicki?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Peter. Peter Patchen.”

  “Peter Patchen.” Vicki couldn’t disguise her shock. “Wil wonders never cease.” You jerk, she thought. You coward.

  “Uh, yeah. Listen, I realize you probably hate me . . .”

  “To be honest, Peter, I haven’t given it that much thought.”

  “Right. You’re busy with your own stuff, I get it. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling fine, actual y.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Ted told me. That’s great.”

  Vicki didn’t want to discuss her wel -being or otherwise with Peter Patchen. But being on the phone with him made wheels turn in her mind.

  Melanie had told Peter about the pregnancy; this Vicki knew, and while Vicki was glad it was now out in the open, she didn’t necessarily think Melanie should take Peter back right away.

  “What can I do for you, Peter?” Vicki said.

  “Wel , I was wondering if Melanie was around.”

  “No,” Vicki said. “She’s out.”