Seeking Sara Summers

by Susan Gabriel

  Dear Julia,

  Do you remember me? If you are the right Julia David, we used to be best friends nearly 30 years ago. We went to Beacon High School together.

  If you have any desire to be in touch, please email back.

  Your friend,

  Sara (Summers) Stanton

  It’s worth a try, Sara thought, and sent the email. She returned upstairs and turned on the light in the bathroom. She squinted into the mirror and tried not to notice how much she resembled her mother who had died of breast cancer when Sara was twelve.

  Her mother’s illness was kept hidden from Sara and her older brother until close to the end. Then one day they came home from school and their dad was waiting for them. Their mom was in the hospital. Doctors were running tests, he had said. Before Sara had time to see her again she had died. Would her mother have run away from home if she had had the chance?

  Sara ran a finger along the slight crook in her nose that she had contemplated with disgust during her entire adolescence. At least I inherited Mom’s high cheekbones, she thought, which served to redeem the nose. The hair growing in was dark blonde with streaks of gray. She had gone from a blond soccer mom hairstyle to a middle-aged punk rocker in a matter of months.

  She pulled down her gown and studied the area where her right breast used to be. She had looked at it hundreds of times to get used to this new version of herself.

  Mammary glands. That’s all they are, she thought. But why did everyone worship them? Two breasts were a commodity. One breast made a woman automatically less of a person.

  Sara turned off the light and walked down the dimmed hallway. At times, she felt like a character in a Charlotte Bronte novel, roaming the dark corridors at night. In the half-light she passed photographs of their children at different ages lining the walls. Jessica in her ballerina outfit—lessons lasted about as long as it took to take the photograph—John and Sam in soccer uniforms, Sam in his bigger brother’s shadow, always looking up to him for approval. Not to mention every school photograph ever taken, complete with missing teeth and dated haircuts. Around the edges were a dozen photographs of Grady’s family, most of them given to them by his mother, in contrast to only two of Sara’s extended family. One of her father and Barb, his second wife, on their 10th wedding anniversary in a tacky teal frame with woodcut dolphins in the corners. And a black and white photograph of her mother posing in front of the diner their family owned in downtown Northampton, after it first opened. She wore a huge smile, held a cigarette in her left hand, and looked like a young Meryl Streep.

  It had occurred to Sara to tell her dad and brother about her cancer but she didn’t want to open old wounds. Ten years before her dad had sold the diner and had retired to Miami with Barb, a woman with as little interest in getting to know Sara as Sara had in getting to know her.

  Barb was always giving them gifts of dolphin figurines. Dolphins jumping in mid-air while anchored to ceramic bases; dolphins in groups of three, jumping in tandem above waterless oceans; dolphins painted in the base of ashtrays given to a family where no one smoked. These figurines were stored in the back of the pantry and only brought out for their infrequent visits.

  Five years older than Sara, her brother, Steve, owned a seafood restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine, with Amy, his high school sweetheart, whom he had never officially married. He rarely got away from his restaurant and Sara rarely got over to Maine. Neither of them ever thought to call or write, so years would go by without any contact other than a card at Christmas. Despite bloodlines Sara and her brother were practically strangers. She doubted he would recognize her if they passed each other on the street. Especially now.

  Sara stepped over Luke who always slept on the Oriental rug on her side of the bed. His tail thumped softly against the hardwood floor. She sat on the edge of the bed. In the darkness Sara placed a hand over where her breast used to be. Her next appointment was with a plastic surgeon to talk about reconstructive surgery. But what I need reconstructing more than my breast is my life, she thought. Who could help her with that? Most importantly, could you reconstruct a life that had never been there in the first place?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Morning light filtered through the window creating tree-shaped shadows on the tile floor. House plants cluttered the seat of the bay window, some gangly and overgrown in their pots, and competed for the limited space with haphazard stacks of home improvement magazines.

  Clutter gave birth to yet more clutter, spilling over from room to room, creating a constant need to organize the chaos—stacks of mail, papers, books, clothes—evidence of a consumer-driven culture gone awry. Beyond the bay window was Sara’s attempt at a flower garden, an extension of the chaos inside.

  Projects around their two-story, 1920s brick house had kept their marriage alive long beyond its natural shelf life. Grady and Sara had discovered that their marriage worked best when they were building something, whether it was a comfortable life, a future for their children, or an addition to their home. Intimate, detailed home improvement projects gave them a diversion from intimacy with one another.

  “I want to organize the garage this weekend,” Grady said. “But I’ll need some shelves.”

  Sara poured them both a cup of coffee and joined him at the table in front of the bay window. “Why don’t we go to Home Depot after we finish our coffee?” she said, surprised by her enthusiasm. For years she had wished for at least one unplanned Saturday where she could experience the contemplative solitude she had read about in books. Now the thought of having time to evaluate her life seemed cruel punishment.

  Grady used the back of an envelope to make a list of the things he would need. As long as he has the right tool for the job his life is complete, Sara thought. He had no desire to question his manner of existence. No need for regrets. At that moment she envied his simplicity.

  She looked at her engagement ring, remembering when they were first married. They had struggled financially for years and agonized about whether or not to buy their house. But they had been happy back then, hadn’t they?

  Sara and Grady arrived at the home improvement store early and roamed the aisles with the oversized shopping cart. Sara pushed the cart, rushing to keep up with Grady’s pace as they moved quickly through this vast world of fixtures, tools and lumber.

  “Grady, is there a reason we’re going so fast?”

  “I want to beat the crowds,” he said.

  “Crowds?” Sara asked. “The store is deserted.”

  Grady ignored her comment.

  Sparrows chirped and flew among the rafters as if resigned to their captivity. Yet the large sliding doors opened frequently, giving them glimpses of freedom. Why didn’t they make a break for it? Sara wondered. Was freedom that scary? She thought of her own need to escape. No, it wasn’t that easy. Beyond those doors was something foreign and unknown. She felt compassion for the sparrows but little for herself.

  His task completed, Grady approached his favorite cashier, a short, apple-shaped woman who looked like she existed on even less sleep than Sara did.

  “There they are,” she said to the younger woman next to her. “I was telling Jody you hadn’t been in yet. But here you are, regular as clockwork. Every Saturday morning.” The cashier in the next aisle smiled over at them. Her name, in bold letters, revealed the word “Trainee” underneath.

  Grady’s charm with other women always surprised her. Sara studied him for a moment, imagining what the cashier saw when she looked at her husband. Grady had aged well. His graying hair accented his blue/gray eyes and the five miles he ran religiously every morning kept him physically fit. She would never have guessed from knowing him as a gangly, awkward boy that he would mature into such a handsome man.

  “How are you, Ginny?” Grady asked the cashier.

  “They have me working a double shift,” she said. “But I need the extra money.” She scanned and bagged their purchases with the adept swiftness that came from making the same motions for ye
ars.

  “Hi, Mrs. Stanton. How are you?” she asked, as if she had caught herself ignoring her.

  “I’m fine,” Sara said. “Sorry to hear about the double shift,” she added. But her words had little impact.

  “Well, I hope they’re paying you double,” Grady said.

  Ginny’s middle-aged face registered a glimmer of joy. “I wish,” she said. She looked over at Sara and smiled wistfully, as if to cement her belief that all the good men were taken.

  Sara took Grady’s arm to solidify their image, a perfect commercial for marital bliss. It occurred to her that these were the times when they were closest, when they pretended to be someone else. No one suspected there might be something wrong with the picture they presented, not even Grady. No one questioned the fact that they were on their eighth home improvement project in two years, more home improvements per capita than anyone on their block. Even Ernie and David, the gay couple down the street, couldn’t keep up with them. They came over periodically to see what Grady and Sara were working on and looked on in home-improvement admiration.

  After their youngest child, Sam had left home—preceded by their daughter, Jessica, and oldest son, John—Grady and Sara had spent months adding on a sun porch to the back of the house. The sun porch addition had actually marked the darkest time of their marriage. Their nest now empty, they had been left without the material that had been holding them together for over two decades. But with the help of treated lumber and galvanized nails, they gave CPR to a relationship that had gone too long without oxygen. Meanwhile, Sara became better at convincing herself that nothing was wrong.

  Then she got cancer. Cancer had forced her to take another look at her life. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, she had been given a glimpse of an empty future, where she lived a miserly rendition of what life could be. Yet it was the life the cashier at Home Depot dreamed about: a good job, a good husband, a house in a good neighborhood.

  You’re being unreasonable, the familiar voice began in her head.

  Oh, shut up, Sara thought.

  Why can’t you be satisfied with what you have? the voice continued. Grady is a good man. Don’t you see what you have? Don’t you realize how many other women would be perfectly content with a life like yours?

  Grady loaded his purchases into the back of his SUV while Sara slid into the passenger side. She stared at the gas gauge on the console as they drove home. How was it that Grady’s gas tank was always full? This required a diligence she couldn’t imagine. She was always running on empty. Lately her life had begun to mirror this condition. Her so-called life had broken down and left her stranded on the side of the road without the resources she needed to carry on. A crossroads, indeed, she thought.

  Grady hummed along with a Bruce Springsteen song relegated to the oldies station. Did he remember she was there? In her imagination she saw herself jumping out of the moving car. Crushed under the axle of her expectations. Sara gripped the safety belt across her chest to avoid the temptation.

  You’re getting dramatic in your old age, the voice clucked.

  Sara sighed. Perhaps a little drama is exactly what I need, she thought.

  Grady turned down the radio. “Are you okay?”

  No Grady, I’m not okay. I’m having a conversation with a voice in my head. I’m actually the farthest away from ‘okay’ I’ve ever been in my life. Why can’t you see that?

  “I’m fine,” Sara said.

  He turned the radio back up, and hummed the last refrain of Born to Run.

  They drove through the neighborhood that had changed very little during the twenty years they had lived here. It was a neighborhood adjacent to the one Sara had grown up in. She thought of Julia again, her girlhood friend. She hadn’t thought of her in years and now twice in the last twenty-four hours. Wasn’t Julia’s parent’s house three blocks over?

  “Grady, can we go down Houser Street?”

  He glanced at her, then shrugged and took the next block.

  Julia had always collected strays—kittens, puppies, and birds—anything the least bit wounded. Sara was part of her flock, as was Grady.

  Sara and Grady had grown up two streets west, in houses with the same floor plan, every other one transposed to make them appear different. Julia’s house had been in an adjacent neighborhood marked by more trees and bigger houses, where no two looked alike.

  The three of them had been best friends from fourth grade until their junior year in high school when Julia’s family moved away. The Three Musketeers they had called themselves, as lame as it was. And then there were only two of them; Sara and Grady left behind like a two-legged stool. Why was she suddenly thinking so much about the past?

  They married three years after Julia left. Sara had just turned twenty. It had been a small ceremony. Her father walked her down the aisle and sat next to his new wife, a woman very different from Sara’s mother.

  They drove in front of Julia’s old house but Grady kept his eyes forward. Was he still mad at her for leaving? All these years later?

  The small rose bushes Julia’s mother had planted with Sara and Julia’s help one hot August day were taller than Sara now. The oak tree they had climbed as children now had branches too tall to climb. And the red front door Julia had convinced her parents would look sophisticated, had been repainted by subsequent owners a smoky gray.

  Julia always wore red—red shoes, red sweaters, red dresses—as if she owned a patent on the color. Red was not a color Sara considered wearing, even now. She preferred earth tones; colors that blended into the scenery. Red’s vitality and passion was a moving target for the eyes of the world. Sara preferred safety over passion.

  They turned onto their street. Ernie and David stood in their driveway unloading 2 x 4s from their white Land Rover. Grady beeped his horn and waved, then pulled in. “I’m just going to see what they’re up to,” he said to her. “Are you coming?”

  “Not right now.” Sara waved at the two middle-aged men who always looked like they had just stepped out of a Lands’ End catalogue. They had been together as long as she and Grady.

  Like boys in a locker room, the three men surveyed the length and width of the lumber. Grady laughed at something David said and put a leg up on the back of the Land Rover as if ready to stay for a while.

  Sara’s head ached a deep, nagging reminder of how disappointed she was with her life. She closed her eyes and rubbed her throbbing temples. Like a prospector panning for gold, she swirled the past, searching for any hints of an authentic life. Her thoughts returned to Julia. Memories of her old friend became a trail of bread crumbs that she might follow to find her way out of the forest.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grady stood over her in the flower garden, his body blocking the sun from Sara’s face. “What’s with you these days?” he asked. “You seem totally self-absorbed.”

  She rested her head on her knees. Until a year ago, when Sara discovered the lump, she had lived her life as though it had no expiration date. Those days were over. Sara hadn’t told Grady about the twinge she had had the day before. Besides feeling physically odd, there was something else; an inner knowing that she hadn’t put words to yet.

  “I guess I am self-absorbed,” she said. The sun warmed the crispness in the air. It was one of the last warm days of fall. The coming of winter always brought a slight melancholy for her. Winter seemed too perfect a metaphor for her marriage. She yearned to find a tiny bud of new life.

  Sara had spent the morning pulling handfuls of weeds with a kind of reckless desperation, as if to rid herself of the regrets in her life.

  Nearby, a small cluster of red flowers held onto the last days of bloom. The color red reminded her of Julia and of the email she had sent weeks before. She hadn’t received a response.

  An impatient look rested on Grady’s face. “You think too much,” he pronounced. He studied Sara as if she were a case file. Someone he had initially insured but lately had proven too risky a candidate.

  “Y
ou’re probably right,” Sara said. “Oh, I almost forgot, your mother called while you were in the shower,” Sara said. She wasn’t in the mood for Grady’s analysis.

  He tucked his gray T-shirt into his jeans, the words Stanton Insurance faded on the front. His mother called him at least once a day to report on her miscellaneous aches and pains. Maybe that’s why he never seems to have room for mine, Sara thought.

  Grady had taken over Stanton Insurance after his father retired. His office, located in downtown Northampton, was within ten minutes of their house. He often walked or rode his bicycle to work.

  “Well I guess I’d better call her.” Grady walked into the house. To the extent that Sara had an absent mother, Grady had a present one.

  Later that night, Sara took Luke for a final walk of the day and came in the kitchen door. The door always stuck and required a hard push, using both hands and a knee to latch it. Sara and Grady had spent hundreds of hours on home improvements yet seemed to leave the little things unfixed.

  Sara put Luke’s leash on the hook in the pantry and refilled his water bowl. When she went into the bedroom Grady had showered and shaved. Sara sighed. Was she in the mood to make love?

  She undressed and put on her nightgown. Then she sat on the bed and rubbed lotion onto her arms and legs, part of her nightly ritual. Grady ran a hand across her short hair—a gesture that reminded her of how he petted Luke—and climbed onto the bed behind her. He kissed Sara’s neck. This was the moment she usually stopped him if she wasn’t in the mood. But they hadn’t made love since her last round of chemo, and she had missed being held.

  Grady lowered her nightgown. He kissed her shoulders and rubbed them with the lotion sitting beside her on the bed. He never looked at where her breast used to be, nor would he touch the place where the cancer had lived. He focused on the perky, good breast; the breast that was left. She wanted him to acknowledge what had happened to her. Was this why Sara had hesitated about getting reconstructive surgery?