by Leslie Gould
Caye imagined the two-block walk home, Liam walking bow-legged, Audrey keeping ten steps ahead of him, Hudson leading the pack, Simon on Nathan’s shoulders, Andrew running back and forth, making sure everyone was all right.
She cleared the table while Scout rushed around the house, sniffing every corner. The cat darted under the table and then to the back door.
“Did you have to bring that dog?” Nathan asked as he let Abra out. He was upset that Caye was upset that he didn’t have the kids in bed. She knew how this worked. It was his little jab. His move to put the ball back in her court. She gave him a wilting look and headed into the bathroom to fill the tub.
Caye knew that Nathan thought Rob and Jill were crazy to get the dog. “They don’t know anything about training a puppy,” he’d told Caye when they first got it. “It’s harder than raising kids, and they hardly know how to do that.” Now Andrew and Audrey, to Nathan’s irritation, were begging for a dog of their own.
Caye piled the three little kids into the tub and bathed them in five minutes. “No time to play,” she said to Audrey. “Daddy kept you at the park too long.”
She drained the bath and then started new water for Andrew and Hudson while she got the little ones ready for bed. Caye kneeled on the floor, now puddled with water, as she toweled Audrey off. “Go get your Barbie nightgown from under your pillow,” she said. Jill had bought it for Audrey a month ago.
Liam ran through the hall naked, flapping his arms. “I fly,” he yelled, as he jumped over Simon, who was on his hands and knees on the hallway throw rug. Simon laughed—a loud, raucous laugh—the first Caye had heard all day.
Caye frowned at Nathan, scooped up Simon, and handed the fleshy, slippery baby to her husband. “You got them all wound up.” She pulled a cotton sleeper and a diaper out of the bag of clean clothes that sat in the hallway and tossed the baby’s things to Nathan too.
She tackled Liam on his next flyby and wrestled him into his Pull-Ups and Superman pajamas. “No story tonight,” she said sharply, feeling like a mean mom, as she tucked Liam and Audrey into Audrey’s twin bed. Better to be a mean mom than snap.
Nathan, still holding Simon, got the big boys settled in Andrews room while Caye assembled the crib upstairs next to the pole-frame bed in their room. She heard Nathan’s footsteps on the stairs, heavier than normal with the baby in his arms. The baby. They all referred to Simon as “the baby,” as if he belonged to all of them.
She pulled back as Nathan put his hand on her shoulder. Her nerves seemed to be working their way up through her skin, ready to pop through in an instant.
“How are you doing?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fried. And hungry. I don’t think I’ve eaten since breakfast.”
Did they all—Rob, Nathan, and Marion—truly believe it was a done deal? That Jill had pancreatic cancer?
She took Simon from Nathan—the baby felt as heavy as the world—and slipped him into the crib. She patted his back. He squirmed, wiggled his legs, snorted, sighed, and then was silent. Caye realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out.
All the kids were in bed. Scout had settled on the floor beside the crib.
She turned and kissed Nathan on the forehead. “I’m going to get some food,” she said, kicking her tennis shoes under the bed.
She cut an apple, dipped the slices in peanut butter, and stood at the counter to eat. The saucepan, with an inch of macaroni on the bottom, sat in the sink, the orange cheese sauce dry around the edges. The counter was sticky from spilled apple juice.
Did Nathan remember correctly that pancreatic cancer was so horrible? Maybe his information was outdated. She remembered reading recently that medical information doubled every year. Maybe there was a new treatment, a breakthrough since Jill’s dad had died.
She washed the peanut butter down with a glass of water.
She was too wound up to sleep.
She carried the bags of dirty laundry, dumped in heaps at the back door, down the wooden basement stairs. She pulled a clean nightshirt from the dryer and changed out of her clothes.
She started a load of Jill’s color. She’d fold the clothes in the dryer in the morning.
Tonight she wanted to find out more about pancreatic cancer. It was a place to start. She headed back upstairs.
Researching pancreatic cancer doesn’t mean that I think Jill has it, not like Nathan, Rob, and Marion seem to think. She reached down to turn on the computer in the alcove at the top of the stairs. She stared at the screen as it flickered to life.
She clicked on to the Internet and typed in “pancreatic cancer.”
In the first paragraph of the first site Caye read, “We know how quick and deadly this disease is and how little hope conventional medicine currently offers.”
She clicked to the next site. Under “key statistics” she skimmed down and read that “28,300 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas this year,” and then, “an estimated 28,200 will die.”
“Only a hundred will live,” she whispered. Nathan was right. She should have known he was right.
She felt as if she’d just entered a foreign country with no map, no guide. Next was an illustration of the pancreas. “Located in the abdomen,” read the accompanying text, “surrounded by the stomach, the pancreas is six inches long and shaped like a flattened pear. It is a gland that produces enzymes and hormones, including insulin.”
The next page included a photo. It didn’t look like a flattened pear—it looked like a salted slug.
Caye clicked to the next site. Bold letters spelled out “Risk Factors.” Over fifty years old, male, cigarette smoker, diet high in meats and fat, diabetes, stomach surgery. None of those applied to Jill. Occupational hazards included exposures to pesticides. Jill gardened organically—she wouldn’t have had more exposure than the average American, maybe less.
Family history was the last item on the list. Caye winced. Why hadn’t Jill told her? Or told Rob before today? The explanation read: “Current research shows that an inherited tendency may be a factor in five percent to ten percent of cases.”
“May be,” Caye said aloud, highlighting the uncertainty, skimming on down to the details about mutated DNA—she’d have to reread that section in the morning. There was evidence that pancreatic cancer and breast cancer shared a gene. Next, the site listed information on treatment, detailing surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Caye hit Print.
Could life really be so fragile?
She’d read recently that the reason the Jewish groom stomps on the wineglass is to remind the couple that life is fragile—even in times of blessing.
It had been such a time of blessing in her life. Home with her kids, her friendship with Jill, the Fellowship.
The cursor stopped. Caye jerked the mouse back and forth. The computer froze. She reached down to the console and turned it off, then rebooted.
Why has Jill been deceptive? For all the things we’ve told each other, why didn’t she tell me about her father, grandfather, and aunt? The screen came back on. Caye clicked back to her search and on to “survivors.” Up popped a picture of a forty-five-year-old woman and the words “no evidence of disease for over eleven years.” She’d been Jill’s age when she contracted it. Something encouraging at last. Next was a fifteen-year-old boy—he’d survived for three years. The last photo was of a fifty-two-year-old man who had been without evidence of the disease for five years.
She heard Simon whimper.
“Talking with the patient,” caught Caye’s eyes. “Accept him or her as the person they were and still are.”
Simon was quiet.
Caye continued to read, scrolling down the screen.
“Help them maintain hope.”
“Honey,” Nathan said.
Caye startled and jerked the mouse off the pad, scraping it against the desk.
“When are yo
u coming to bed?” Nathan, Simon, and Scout were all staring at her.
The baby leaned his body down to her, his arms outstretched. She took him from Nathan with one arm, landed the mouse back on the pad and clicked the Print icon. She turned Simon toward her with the crown of his head tucked under her chin. Scout nuzzled her bare knee.
“I’ll be right in,” she said to Nathan. “Go back to bed.”
She shut the program down, turned off the computer, and shuffled into the bedroom over the pine floor. Scout followed, this time settling in the doorway of the room. She rolled Simon next to Nathan and then crawled into bed between the white flannel sheets. Simon rolled toward her. She drew the baby in, half draping him over her chest, and patted his back. She felt her heart pounding against his body.
Sleep would not come.
Caye had been reluctant, in the past, to admit Jill’s influence over her life. Now, terrified that something might happen to Jill, Caye began to count the ways she’d identified with Jill, emulated her, took her advice, as if that would make Jill stronger, more powerful.
Caye’s hair was short and streaked with red and gold highlights because of Jill—because of one sweet “You’d look great in a sassy cut with some color” comment.
Caye had yellow sun roses, wood sorrel, tree peonies, tulips, balloon flowers, and snow in summer in her yard because of Jill. She loved van Gogh’s paintings because of Jill. She read Jane Austen because of Jill. Caye’s family ate mangos and papayas and used handmade soap imported from France because of Jill.
Rob, Jill, Nathan, and Caye had all attended the Fellowship together, since that Sunday when Caye and Nathan tagged along. They’d been meeting, twelve adults and now six children, at Rob and Jill’s since they bought their house. Before that the members took turns hosting the gatherings.
Nathan reluctantly joined the Fellowship—he would have preferred a traditional church. He’d attended a community church in Sweet Home, where he grew up as an only child living with his father. His mother had left the home when he was nine. Nathan was determined to create the family he had wanted as a boy. A house full of children. A wife and mother who stuck around. An entire family that went to church together.
It was Caye who wanted Sundays, when she was working full-time, to catch up on errands and chores. That was part of the bargain when she said she wanted to take a few years off work. They’d find a church and stick with it.
Caye knew that Nathan had agreed to try the Fellowship to humor her. And then he decided to stick with it because he knew that Caye would keep going—as long as Jill was there.
The Fellowship seemed to be exactly what Caye needed. The members were friendly and at first seemed accepting. The teaching was fascinating.
After six months in the group, Joya had invited Caye over for coffee. Joya spent most of the visit talking about the new Christian school where she and Thomas had enrolled their daughter Louise.
“There’s a group of parents at this school who have remarkable faith,” Joya said, pulling her light brown hair away from her face and slinging it through a pony tail fastener into a bun on the back of her head. “I’m learning so much.”
Caye needed to leave to pick up Andrew from kindergarten.
“Tell me your testimony,” Joya said as Caye slipped Audrey into her infant car seat.
“Testimony?” Caye asked, looking at her watch.
Joya stood with a commanding presence and looked at Caye incredulously. Joya was actually a couple of inches shorter than Caye—but she looked imposing.
“The revelation of your faith,” Joya stated.
“I know what testimony means,” Caye said, trying to sort through Joya’s definition. At least she’d thought she knew what it meant. The same feeling of isolation that she’d often felt in church and even sometimes in the Fellowship overcame her. When she was alone and talked to God, or read the Bible that Nathan had given her, she felt cared for by God. But in a group, she didn’t feel that same love. She knew God loved the other members, but she couldn’t, in their presence, always feel God’s love for her.
“I became a Christian in college,” she told Joya. “We’ve tried several different churches over the years. I didn’t really grow up in a church, and it’s been hard for me to find one that I feel comfortable with.” She paused. “We’re happy to be part of the Fellowship.” Caye smiled.
“So basically,” Joya said as Caye stood, “you’re a baby Christian.”
Over the years the Fellowship members mostly studied Scripture, but they also discussed theological and philosophical questions. Rob instigated most of the discussions. He would bring up questions such as: Is the Old Testament relevant to us, or was it written for an ancient civilization? Why is there no secular record of the Roman census that drew Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem in the first place? Is it mass hysteria that drives Christians to gather on Sunday mornings?
Jill seldom responded to his questions, but every once in a while she would. One time she smiled and said, “This is what happened to Rob from growing up in a Christian home. It really worries me for our boys. Maybe we should pretend not to be Christians. Maybe our boys would have a better chance at faith.”
Another time, without a smile, she said sternly, “Rob, it all goes back to your relationship with Christ. Can’t you feel truth when you read the Word and pray? The truth is there—you have to feel it.”
Jill hadn’t grown up in a Christian home.
Jill’s best friend in junior high, Amy, was a Christian. Amy was the oldest of five kids. She lived in a big house with a swimming pool. One summer afternoon Jill and Amy were floating on air mattresses in the pool, working on their tans and talking about the fifteen-year-old twin boys down the street.
Suddenly Amy’s voice went squeaky, and she told Jill she needed to tell her something, something important.
“I thought she was going to tell me she was dying,” Jill told Caye with a chuckle when she related the story. They sat on a blanket in Lithia Park, under the green canopy of towering Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and beech trees; ducks and geese and two white swans quacked and honked in the Lower Pond. The backs of the Tudor-style Shakespeare Festival buildings framed the edge of the park.
“And instantly—oh, I was horrible—I wondered if her family would still let me come over after Amy was dead,” Jill laughed.
It turned out that Amy wasn’t dying. She wanted to tell Jill about Christ—and she was nervous.
“I had never understood it before,” Jill said, “even though I’d gone to church several times with Amy.”
Under the hot California sun, Jill asked Christ to forgive her sins and to guide her life. She went home and told Marion her happy news.
“It will get you nowhere in this life,” her mother responded and went into the kitchen to call Amy’s mother. She told her to tell her daughter to stop proselytizing and ended the conversation by saying, “I know about Christianity; I gave up on it years ago.”
Jill laughed. “‘Gave up on it.’ That was my mother’s motto. I did learn a new word though—proselytizing. I looked it up.”
Jill and Caye ate whole-wheat bagels with cream cheese and pineapple salsa and the first strawberries of the season and watched Hudson toddle after Andrew in the grass. It was five weeks until Audrey was due but only two days before she was born. Caye was big and uncomfortable, her back hurt, and her legs were cramping. She wore a pair of denim maternity overalls that pulled tightly against her belly.
Hudson came staggering over the thick, spongy grass to the blanket and collapsed in Jill’s lap. Jill scooped him up and kissed his fat, round stomach, pulling up his tie-dyed T-shirt. Hudson belly laughed and they all joined him. Caye tickled Andrew as he tried to sit on her lap.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” Jill asked. “What could be better than this? A perfect little town, a beautiful park, and new friends.”
They toasted each other w
ith bottles of Evian.
Simon raised his head, plopping it down against Caye’s collarbone. She winced in the darkness of her room. Nathan flopped over on his side, away from her. The spring leaves of the maple tree fluttered against the window. Caye pulled Simon down from her neck. It had been so long since she’d slept with a baby sprawled across her. She gave in to the softness of Simons breathing and drifted off to sleep.
Rob shifted in the hospital guest bed. Jill looked toward him, hoping he wouldn’t wake.
Jill thought about Simon. This was the first night she had ever been away from him. Her sweet baby. She felt the sensation of her milk let down at the thought of him, but she knew there was nothing there. Her breasts were dry.
At first she’d been pleased when the weight started coming off. But when her milk started to dry up, she became alarmed. Something wasn’t right. And then the nausea started. She hadn’t resumed menstruating; at first she thought she was pregnant. It wouldn’t explain the weight loss—but still it was an explanation. It would be crazy to have a fourth child in just five years, especially when she felt so tired as it was. It wasn’t the baby alone who exhausted her. It was Liam; he was her wild man.
A month ago she’d put him on a time-out in the dining room. He pushed the chair from the corner to the window, wrapped the drape cord around his neck, and then jumped off the chair just as Jill walked down the hall to the kitchen. She screamed, “Liam!” and rushed in and grabbed him. The cord wouldn’t have held, wouldn’t have hanged him, at least that’s what she told herself at the time, but still he had a rope burn around his neck.
Last week she was on the phone with Caye while Liam was in the tub. She ran into the kitchen to start the dishwasher after the bath was drawn and returned to find Liam’s face submerged, his eyes wide open, a faint smile spread across his face. Without screaming, without saying a word, she reached into the water and yanked him out, her heart racing, afraid he was dead.
“Hi, Mommy,” he responded, water flowing from his mouth.
She let go of him and sat down on the toilet lid. Liam began to laugh.