Patricia giggled.
“How did you learn about everything else? You know . . . periods and cramps and stuff.”
“Well, there was always Aunt Sally.”
“Not Aunt Sally!” We both laughed then.
“She did the best she could,” I told Patricia. “And Lester’s girlfriends helped a lot. So did my cousin Carol. Then Sylvia came into my life . . .”
“But all the rest!” Patricia said. “I mean, buying a bra and everything.”
“I remember Lester taking me to buy my first pair of jeans,” I said. “In the boys’ department. It was a disaster!”
“Tell me!” Patricia begged.
“I was in a dressing room, and he kept bringing me the wrong size. Finally I came out to look at myself in a three-way mirror, and when I went back to the dressing rooms, I opened the wrong door.”
Patricia gasped.
“A guy, I’ll bet!”
“Yep.”
More giggling.
“Was he naked?”
“No. He had on his Jockeys. Know who he was?”
She shook her head.
“Your dad.”
I had started to do her eyebrows, but she exploded with laughter and I backed off.
“And I was so embarrassed,” I told her. “To make matters worse, when school started, I discovered he was a patrol boy, and I had to walk past him every morning. Of course we recognized each other.”
I had to wait for her to stop laughing and then I did her eyebrows. As I filled them in with feathery strokes, she told me about a girl at school who chose to live with her dad after her parents divorced, and about Melissa, who never got to see her father.
When I lined her eyelids with a soft eye pencil and added bronze shadow, I told her how I started out using green eye shadow on myself and how my dad used to hate it.
And about the day I dyed a huge hunk of my hair green and went to school that way after he told me not to.
“Did he punish you?”
I didn’t answer until I’d finished the left lid. “He told me that he was very, very disappointed in me, and I think that hurt worse than anything.”
Patricia didn’t respond to that, and we were both quiet while I applied the mascara to her eyelashes, then pale melon-colored gloss on her lips.
“Whew!” she said, when I’d finished. “I don’t ever want to be a model. This takes forever.”
“That does it,” I said.
“Tell me when I can look,” she said.
I gave her hair a few swipes with the comb. “How about now?”
This time Patricia turned toward the big mirror behind her, and her eyes lit up in surprise. “Wow, Mom! Deceptive advertising.” We laughed. She leaned a little closer, then backed away again. “Is this really me?”
“Only at prom time,” I said. “But I’ll make you a gift of my concealer.”
As we were clearing off the counter, she said, “About the other night . . . I’ve never played strip poker before.”
“Oh? Why do you think you did it this time?”
“I don’t know.” She stood holding the little jar in her hands, absently turning it around and around. “They were just . . . older guys. I didn’t want them to think I was a kid.”
“So that’s not the kind of thing you do with friends you generally hang with?”
“God, no! It’s like . . . you know that story you told me? About you and the motorcycle guy?”
“Yes.”
“It was like that. But don’t think I do that all the time. I want you to trust me.”
“That’s the problem with trust, sweetheart,” I said. “Once you’ve broken it, you have to win it all over again. But this is a start.”
When she was allowed to go out again, Patrick bought a large windup alarm clock and explained the rule. There was a nine o’clock curfew on weeknights, eleven on Fridays and Saturdays. After she went out for the evening, we would set the alarm for nine or eleven, depending on the night, and place it in the hall outside our bedroom. If she was home by curfew, she would turn the alarm off. If she came home late, the alarm would wake us and we would start calling her friends. It was her responsibility to get home before it went off.
A perfectly brilliant idea, the same one that Dad had used for Lester and me. And it worked.
* * *
We had barely recovered from worry over Patricia when I discovered a lump in my breast. I’d had a mammogram a year before, and everything had looked fine. Yet, as I was showering and my fingers soaped my breasts, I felt it—firm and hard beneath my skin.
My fingers pulled away momentarily, my heart beginning to race. And then, tentatively, I reexamined my breast, hoping to discover that the hardness I felt was only a rib. But there it was, a lump—definite and distinct. I quickly dried off, wrapped a towel around me, and went back in the bedroom, where Patrick was pulling on his socks.
He began filling me in on his schedule for the week. “I’m supposed to fly to San Salvador on Wednesday and—” He saw my face and stopped.
“Patrick, there’s a lump in my breast,” I said.
He slowly pulled up his sock, his expression changing from nonchalance to concern. “You’ve had these before, haven’t you? Is this different?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“Can you see the doctor today?”
“I’ll call as soon as I get to work,” I said. “The office isn’t open yet.”
Patrick got up off the bed and hugged me, encircling me with his strong arms. “Let’s don’t borrow trouble,” he said. “If necessary, I’ll get someone else to go to El Salvador for me. I’d just as soon stay, anyway.”
I nodded, needing the safety of his arms.
At work I phoned and got an appointment for three that afternoon. The doctor could see I was scared. But when he examined me, he frowned as he explored the lump, examining it with one finger, then another, mentally measuring.
“It doesn’t feel quite like a cyst,” he said. “But we can’t be sure of anything until we biopsy.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Well, if it does prove to be cancer, then we need to know what kind it is, how aggressive it is, and how best to treat it. But that’s putting the cart before the horse. Here’s the name of the surgeon I’d like you to see about the biopsy.” He wrote something down on a card and handed it to me. “You’ll be in good hands, I promise.”
What’s hardest is trying to keep things normal for the rest of the family when you’re feeling so fragile yourself. When Patrick got home that evening, he immediately took over, and when the kids had finished eating, he helped Tyler with his homework and searched for Patricia’s jacket when she complained she’d lost it.
“What’s the matter with Mom?” I heard Tyler ask. “Is she sick or something?”
“She’s just had a really hard day,” Patrick answered. “So we’re letting her take it easy. What do you want in your lunch tomorrow?”
But it was Patricia who came in our bedroom that night as I was taking off my robe.
“Mom,” she said, cautiously putting one hand on my shoulder. “Dad says you had a doctor’s appointment today. It’s . . . it’s not anything serious, is it?”
I tried to be as matter-of-fact as possible. “We don’t know yet, Patty, but it’s probably not. Just one of those things doctors like to check up on.” I gave her hand a playful squeeze.
But waiting was the next most difficult thing to do. A wait to see the surgeon, a wait for the biopsy itself, a wait for the report. All I wanted was to get it over with.
Patrick didn’t go to San Salvador. The biopsy showed it was cancer. I felt as though my chest had become a cement block, icy cold, and I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples, so loud I wondered if Patrick could hear it.
“Mrs. Long?” the doctor said, leaning forward.
Even before he could tell me that the cancer was in an early stage, I had planned my memorial service and written
notes to my children!
But it was Patrick’s strong hand on mine, his take-charge attitude that calmed me enough to discuss the next step.
I was scheduled for a lumpectomy. Sylvia and Dad came over to stay with the kids the day I went in the hospital, and Patrick drove me to Sibley. My thoughts raced on ahead of me as I watched an ordinary day roll past me out the window, men and women on their way to work. I wanted to be out there having an ordinary day. I didn’t want to leave my son and daughter and husband behind, as my mother had done when she died, and I felt I was experiencing all the agony she must have felt when she got leukemia. I wanted to see Patricia and Tyler grow up to be whatever they wanted. I longed to see Patricia wearing Mom’s wedding dress. To see Patrick hold his first grandchild. I wanted to hear about Tyler’s career, to grow old with my husband. . . .
Tears streamed down my cheeks and I choked off a sob. Patrick reached over and clasped my hand. “Just remember, sweetheart, we’re in this together,” he said.
* * *
Except that we weren’t, really. Only one person was lying there on the operating table. Only one person was given an anesthetic. But as I felt myself drift off, I knew that Patrick had said all he could say.
Motion around me, voices. I felt as though I were at the bottom of a deep well, unable to speak or respond. Someone was gently slapping the back of my hand.
“Alice,” a woman’s voice was saying. “We need you to wake up now. Your husband’s here beside you. Alice?”
I felt my eyelids flutter.
“She’s coming out of it,” the female voice continued.
And then Patrick’s hand was on my forehead. I could detect his scent. He stroked the side of my face. “Honey? Can you hear me?” he kept saying.
I struggled to open my eyes, but the brightness of the room overwhelmed me and I closed them again.
“The operation’s over.” The hand continued stroking.
“What . . . did they . . . ?” I asked.
“A lumpectomy, like they said. There’s no evidence of spread, and your lymph nodes are fine.”
I started to cry. Relief, mostly. But I knew that there might be radiation ahead for me, possibly chemotherapy.
“You still have your breast,” the nurse was saying.
But Patrick said, “Al, I’d love you with no breasts at all. You know that.”
And I did know that. I let myself drift off again, squeezing his fingers.
25
TOURING PARTNERS
Cancer treatment was far more advanced for me than it was for my mom, even though she had had leukemia, not breast cancer. The radiation treatments were fewer than I’d expected, and the chemo not nearly as bad as I’d believed. I didn’t even lose much hair, and what I did lose came back again.
It was Gwen who helped the most. She was raising two children—she and Charlie had had another boy two years after their first—and working part-time, but she was my unofficial patient advocate, driving down from Baltimore once a week. She explained the procedures in detail, held my hand when I went back for my six-month checkup, read the statistics for my type of cancer (which cheered me), and always had a hug when I needed one most, if not in person, then by phone.
“I hope Charlie appreciates you,” I said. “I hope he knows how wonderful you are.”
“Oh, he does,” she assured me. “I rubbed his back and held his hand when he passed a kidney stone, and now I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“Well, you are!” I said. “How are the boys, Gwen? I feel I’ve kept you away from them too much.”
“Inseparable one minute and impossible the next,” she said. “But I love them to pieces. I’ve thought of trying for a girl, but if we got another boy, I’m not sure either of us could take it.” I laughed. If anyone could take it, Gwen and Charlie could.
* * *
On March 1 of Patricia’s junior year, Patrick came home and said, “Does anyone have something special planned for spring vacation?”
He looked around the kitchen, where the three of us were making lasagna—Patricia layering the noodles, Tyler the mozzarella, and I was spooning the sauce.
“I was going to shop for a rug,” I said. “You’re invited to go along.”
“Emma and Katie and I are going to hear the new band at the Night Owl,” Patricia told us.
“I don’t know. Sleep late, eat lots,” said Tyler, sneaking a bite of cheese. “Why?”
Patrick was grinning, so I knew something was up. “Wouldn’t you all rather see the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace?”
“We’re going to London?” Patricia asked.
Tyler pumped one hand in the air and yelled, “Yes!”
“I just up and decided that this family needs to go somewhere,” Patrick said. “You’ll have to be all packed and ready, because we leave a day before spring vacation starts and get back a day after school begins.” He looked at me. “I figure we can write excuses for those two days. Would it be okay with your job?”
“I’ll make it work!” I said. “This is wonderful, Patrick!”
“Well, I thought so too,” he said, obviously proud of himself. “No downtime afterward, but it’ll be worth it.”
And it was.
I was surprised, actually, that Patricia agreed to go with us, but I guess London trumped even her friends. When Tyler’s best friend, a collector of foreign beer cans, heard where we were going, he begged Tyler to collect all he could find and bring them back, for a percentage of the profits when he sold them.
“Now, Tyler, how are you going to manage that?” I asked.
“That craze was over years ago,” Patrick pleaded with him.
“Not for Matthew. He inherited his uncle’s collection, and he’s going to sell them all on eBay,” Tyler explained.
We gave in, and Tyler crammed a box of plastic bags into his backpack.
We talked of nothing but the trip in the week before we left, and each of us decided what we most wanted to see or do. There were a few things we all agreed on—the Tower of London, as Patrick had said, Buckingham Palace. But Tyler, for some reason, really wanted to say he had been to Wales, so we bought BritRail passes to do that. I most wanted to see the old medieval towns of York and Chester, and that would take up another two days. Both Patricia’s and Patrick’s desires were in London itself. Patrick wanted to look up the buildings of Christopher Wren and explore some art galleries; Patricia wanted to see Chelsea and visit shops and bookstores and buy something for her English literature teacher, who had impressed her most this year.
I don’t know that any of us slept much on the plane going over. We decided to spend our first night in York to escape the London crowds when we were so tired, so as soon as we got our money exchanged, we took the train to Victoria Station, where we had to catch a cab to get to the second train station for York. We stood in a famous British queue to take our turn, and when we finally got in the cab and told the driver we had twenty minutes to catch our train, he gave us the ride of a lifetime. As this was my first taste of driving on the left instead of the right, I was sure we would be killed on our first day there. If we were half asleep before, we were wide awake now as the driver careened by Buckingham Palace, tore around monuments, and zigzagged through lines of pedestrians.
Patricia made gasping noises, her face against my shoulder as huge double-decker buses seemed to be coming right at us, and just when disaster was all but certain, the taxi would swerve the opposite way. We made it onto the train with fifty-five seconds to spare.
Tired as we were, the city and suburbs were just too different from ours for us to sleep.
“Look, Mom, how small the yards are!” Tyler exclaimed. “And every one has a wall or hedge or something around it.”
“And flowers!” Patricia added. “Did you ever see so many flowers?”
In York we were fascinated by the pull chain toilet and a bathtub high up on a pedestal. We spent our second day there too and found we could
walk around the entire city in an hour or two, much of our sightseeing taking place on the old Roman wall that still surrounded portions of the city. I had read up on York before we came and pointed out the huge Micklegate Bar, one of the four gates leading into the city. “It was up there on the crest of this gate that the heads of traitors were once exhibited on iron spikes until they rotted away, their eyes pecked out by marauding crows,” I told the kids.
“Cool!” said Tyler, gazing upward.
I also pointed out the Treasurer’s House, where the ghosts of Roman soldiers were said to appear. Clearly, I was caught up in the history of the place. We hired a guide to drive us out in the country to see a church dating back to 654, the tombstones in the graveyard so close together that mowing was impossible, and so sheep grazed on the tall grass.
I could have stayed in York the whole time we were in England, but it was on to Chester next. The trains there, which seated passengers at tables much like a diner, were conducive to eating and conversation. They were also a magnificent opportunity for Tyler.
“I can’t watch,” said Patricia as Tyler went up and down the aisles, keeping his eye out for empty beer cans on the tables and asking politely if he might have them.
“Collectin’ the rubbish, are ya?” asked a cheerful woman, tossing in a paper bag and a half-eaten sandwich, and Patrick laughed at the look on Tyler’s face as he accepted the trash and thanked the woman.
He had collected some cans in York as well, so by the time we reached Chester, he had half a plastic bag full. He had gone eight cars away from where we were sitting, looking for beer cans, and thought he’d allowed enough time to get back to us before our stop. And he had, except that people ready to get off at Chester began gathering at the exits, their suitcases blocking the aisles and making it impossible for him to get by.
Each of us had been assigned two bags to carry each time we went from one place to another. Tyler’s bags were still on the rack above us. We hoped he would assess the problem, figure out we had his bags, and just get off at our stop and wait for us on the platform. But when we realized he wasn’t getting off and the train would move on, Patricia ran to find the conductor, Patrick went along the outside of the train calling Tyler’s name, and I stayed with the bags. Finally they found him, shaken and pale, seconds before the train pulled out, and we stood on the platform, a little foursome with our arms around each other, breathing deeply and trying to laugh at our adventure.
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