Shakespeare used ghosts as a literary device. It makes sense, but Lionel isn’t a literary device. He’s real. Either that or I am totally bonkers and so is Helena.
Later, Billy comes by and I tell him about the poking and prodding and the usual, awful wait until we know the results. He’s good about it all, listening carefully, a neutral expression on his face. He’s been through this before, he knows what it’s like.
When the store is empty I ask him, “I’ve got more on Lionel, do you want to hear it?” Given his previous discomfort, I think it’s important to ask him.
He nods but looks down. We’re both seated on stools behind the counter. No books to shelve and not many customers, so it’s been a slow day.
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” I say. He’s a Mormon, I’m an atheist (I think). We’re best friends. I don’t want to push him too far.
“No,” he says, meeting my eyes. “I want to hear. I’ve… I’ve been thinking about this whole ghost thing.”
“And…”
“And… so what,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “There can be a god and there can be angels, and there can be ghosts too. Even if the church doesn’t talk about it. Even if it’s not in the Bible.”
I smile and am glad. It was difficult not having Billy fully with me. I’m so used to it, he’s been with me through everything for such a long time. So I tell him all of it, in great detail. The ghost. Helena. My family. Everything.
After it’s all over, he says, “We’ve got to start looking for his murderer.” His tone is low and conspiratorial.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding my head. “But I am super grounded.”
“Did they say for how long?”
I think back. They didn’t. “No, but I got the impression it was for a long, long time.”
25
Friday, July 8, 1977
My days grounded and waiting for the doctors to get back to us have fallen into a pattern. After the folks leave, I do something around the house to feel like I have some control. Wash my bike, clean my room, sweep the sidewalk and the back patio. After I did all that I started cleaning the house too. It’s obsessive, but for once in my life reading doesn’t feel like enough. I have energy and strength, I’m sure as hell going to use it.
Then I go do my shift at the bookstore. Billy comes by for the early part of it and Helena comes towards the end.
I then dutifully ride my bike straight home. I want to go by the graveyard and see if Big Ed is there. I want to ride by Billy’s house or go by the DQ and get some soft serve. But I don’t. Straight home.
Once there I’m tired enough, so I read until the folks come home, usually sprawled on the couch in the living room. When my parents come home, I shift to my room. Our conversations are still so superficial, I can’t stand it. We have an awkward dinner, then it’s back to my room and once it’s fully dark I chat with Lionel.
This morning that all changed. And how.
The phone rings, it’s Doctor Wright’s office. It’s my mom that takes the call. We’re in the middle of waffles and it’s almost like time freezes while she’s got the phone to her ear.
My dad has a bite of waffle held above his plate, syrup dripping from it. I’ve got a glass of milk in my hand, my eyes on my mother, my ears perked. She doesn’t say much, but the frown on her face grows as she listens, nodding occasionally.
I bite my lip, and hard. I’ve written that I knew the Cancer was back, but I still had a sliver of hope that it wasn’t, that Lionel was wrong, that those “dark spots” he saw were something else.
When she hangs up the phone, she stands there for a moment facing away from us, her shoulders slumped, her hand resting on the white phone. Dad and I are still frozen, still waiting.
When she turns, any doubts I have evaporate. She sniffs and rubs at the tears forming in her eyes.
“The results are in,” she says. “He didn’t tell me much, just that he wants to see us today. He wants to start treatments today.”
And there it is. The dreaded news.
I was more ready for it than they were. Intellectually at least. There’s a lot of chaos as we leave. Mom has to call in and get her shift covered, Dad cancels his classes. Mom has me pack a bag in case I’m not fit to travel after they are done with the “treatment.”
We’ve done this before. We all know what to do, but it’s like we’ve all forgotten. We keep getting in each other’s ways, forgetting stuff and having to do things twice.
It’s the shock of it, I’m sure. And the worry. We know the big-C is back, we just don’t know to what degree. That uncertainty makes us weak.
I can’t imagine doing Doctor Wright’s job. Telling kids they have Cancer. Prescribing them the most difficult of treatments. Watching many of them die. I can’t imagine it.
His grey eyes always look tired, they’re the color of his short hair and thin mustache. He looks washed out, as if his job has sucked all the vibrance out of him.
“It’s remarkable, really,” he says, a smile on his face. He’s behind his big wooden desk. My mother and I are seated in wooden chairs across from him, and my father is standing, his hands on the back of the chair I’m in.
“I mean that,” he continues. “We never catch an occurrence this early. It’s remarkable. It gives us a fighting chance, but we’ve got to hit it hard.”
I groan, I can’t help it. To hit it “hard” we have to say bye-bye to my quality of life. I take a deep breath and bite on my lower lip to hold the tears back.
“I want to start treatments today. We’re going to want to see you every Friday for eight weeks.” He goes on detailing the treatment course, the chemicals they will be using, but I tune out.
Eight weeks. The rest of the summer. Chemo hell.
I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it.
Nausea. It’s a terrible thing. This constant feeling that something isn’t right, that never goes away, that sucks the will out of you, that makes food seem like an enemy and keeps the specter of vomiting close.
It sucks. Chemo is all about nausea. Tons and tons of it. Unrelenting nausea. It’s always there. It never goes away, not completely.
I hate it. With all my heart, I hate it.
The first treatment hasn’t been that bad so far, but it definitely brought the nausea on, and that brought all the baggage of surviving two rounds of Cancer back with a vengeance. I feel a bit weak and dizzy physically, but emotionally, it’s like I’ve been getting chemo every day for a week. I’m depressed, worried that I’m dying, realizing that my nice summer is over. It’s back to being the sick kid. Back to my parents taking care of me and worrying about me and having that “look” in their eyes every time I catch them watching me.
The “look.” It’s subtle, but I’ve come to know it well.
We’re in the chemo room. It’s set up with these fancy, dental-like chairs for the patients and hard wooden chairs for the family. There are eight of these setups in the big open room, with two other seats occupied. The walls are a nice light green and there are a few windows that let some sunshine in. The IV is in my arm and the chemo is dripping into my veins, I catch my mom with the look. Dad is talking to me about what we need to reorder at the bookstore. Nothing all that important, he is just trying to distract me. He actually had me laughing, asking me how I enjoyed the latest bodice ripper by Rosemary Rogers. I counter and ask him how he likes it.
I turn to my mom to ask her how she likes it, my mouth open, but freeze when I see the “look.” Her eyes wide and a bit vacant. Her mouth slack, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. She isn’t here. She is off in the future envisioning my death, or my funeral, or life in our house without me.
I hate it when I see that look. It’s only human, I know, for them to envision the future they fear, but I feel terrible when I see them doing it. It makes me scared. If they can see a future without me in it, does that mean something? Logically I know it doesn’t, but logic isn’t the whole story. It feels true emotionally, and that
is hard.
I forge on, though, anything to break the spell. “How did you enjoy Sweet Savage Love, Mom?” I say, with a somewhat diminished giggle. “Dad says it’s a masterpiece of bodice ripping. Destined to be read and reread hundreds of years from now.”
She blinks twice, a frown forming on her face. “What?”
I’m about to go on with the joke, but for some reason I don’t. I don’t want to fall into all the same old patterns, counteracting the “look” by pretending there is nothing wrong. Putting on a brave face when I’m scared to death. Us doing everything we can to avoid the conversations we need to have.
I’m not the kid I was last time we did this.
“I’m scared too, Mom,” I say, all humor gone from my voice.
She blinks a few more times and nods and then forces a smile on to her face. “Oh… No.. no… You’re going to be fine, Aaron. You heard Doctor Wright, we got it early, we’re going to beat this thing.”
I take a deep breath and glance at my father. He looks dead serious and I’m not sure what’s going through his head. I was hoping for some encouragement on this path, but there is none there.
I reach out my hand to her. She hesitates and then takes it, squeezing it hard. “Mom, I need something from you and Dad. It’s important.” She nods and I can feel a slight tremor of fear in her hand. “As a family, we need to speak the truth to each other. No more pretending things are okay when they are not. No more hiding the truth, even if it’s a hard truth and we don’t want to hear it.”
She lets go of my hand and wraps her arms around her chest.
“The truth is,” I continue, “we don’t know what is going to happen. We’re going to fight, as hard as we can. But we don’t know what the result will be.”
She purses her lips, tears forming in her eyes, and she nods. She fumbles in her purse and pulls out a handkerchief, blotting at her eyes. She then abruptly stands, her chair scraping against the linoleum of the chemo room floor. “I need some coffee, either of you need anything?” She doesn’t wait for an answer but rushes out of the room.
We humans are so complicated, aren’t we? My need for the truth was not exactly what my mother needed right then. She needed something different. She needed to believe that I would be all right.
“You’ve got to understand,” my father says after my mother has been gone for twenty minutes. “There’s got to be hope.”
I’m confused. “I didn’t say there wasn’t hope. That there wasn’t a chance. I just said it wasn’t guaranteed. We all know that.”
He nods, rubbing at his chin. “I know that, son. But there is a big difference between the meaning of what you said and how it feels.”
“So what do I do? Go along with the delusion, swearing that I’m going to live forever until the day I die?” I feel my face flushing with anger. “What good is that? How can it help to deny the basic truths of this world we live in?”
Dad takes a deep breath and sighs, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck. “All I’m advocating, son, is empathy. You should certainly be truthful, but consider others’ feelings regarding the truth. Find a way to—”
“To allow others’ delusions?” I ask, my voice too loud. Others are starting to stare. “To encourage my mother to live in a fantasy land regarding my health, like you and Mom had me in a fantasy about our family?”
My father’s face hardens, and he leans back from me. “It’s complicated, Aaron.”
I snort. “No doubt. I’m sure you had a brilliant reason to lie to your son about who you are and what kind of sham marriage you have, staying together only because you got a kid with Cancer.”
My father’s face doesn’t change, he’s a stone, hiding what he is feeling from me. It seems to me what was going on had something to do with the chemo—or at least I hope it did. I am starting the conversation that I needed to have with my folks, that Helena encouraged me to start, but it was coming out all twisted and wrong.
I am angry at them, but a lot more angry at what is happening to me.
Without any resistance from him, my anger dissipates and I start to feel embarrassed. This is not the time or place for this. “I… I’m…” I stammer. “Can you please go check on Mom? I’ll be fine by myself.”
He nods sharply and leaves.
26
Saturday, July 9, 1977
I’m a dumb-ass. I can be so stupid sometimes. As I think on it, the chemo has to be partially to blame… it has to be. Those chemicals mess with your body in such a profound way your emotions end up all over the place.
New rule. Don’t start any heavy discussions the day of or the day after chemo. Just try to get through those days one single breath at a time. If your life is only about your survival, that’s not much of a life. But some days (i.e. chemo days), it has to be enough.
Case in point, me and Helena.
She came over on Saturday, early in the afternoon. The chemo was hitting me pretty hard and I was all nauseous and burbley. My mother and father were there and supportive, but we still had all this distance between us. My mom was bruised from my stating the “truth” and my father was just quiet. We were all adjusting.
One day, healthy and having a good summer. The next day, a nauseous wreck.
“You want me here, right?” Helena asks. She has shorts and a T-shirt on, her longs legs stretched out in front of her as she slouches in a chair on the covered portion of the patio. Mom has made us lemonade and the glasses, covered with condensation, sit on a little metal table between us. I have been kind of quiet, so I think that’s what inspired the question.
“Of course,” I say, doing my best to smile through the yucks.
She slides her chair around so it is facing me and takes my hands in hers. They are warm and a little rougher than I expect. I like the feel of them. “I know you feel like shit,” she says. “But I need you to talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. What I can do?”
“Don’t have a magic wand handy, do you?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “No magic cures here. Fresh out. I used my last bit of magic to turn Jeff Tate into a frog.”
I smile, but it’s weak and halfhearted. “I’m scared.”
She nods. “So am I. We all are.”
It’s a simple word, “we.” In this circumstance, it’s an honest one. Although “I” am the one with cancer, it is “we” that have to deal with it and, indeed, survive it. It’s not just happening to me. I get that intellectually and for the most part I get it emotionally. But not then. I felt horrible and I had had enough of people wanting me to be empathic with them. I was the one with the goddamn leukemia.
“It’s different for me, though,” I say.
“What?”
“It’s different. You’re scared because I might die, but I’m the one whose white blood cells aren’t being produced correctly. I’m the one that got pumped full of poison yesterday. I’m the one who feels like throwing up every single waking second.”
She leans back, letting go of my hands and says, “I get that.”
“No,” I say, my voice rising. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think any of you do.” I say the last part to our sliding glass door. My parents are sitting inside talking at the kitchen table. I’m sure they can hear me.
“Calm down, Aaron,” Helena says.
“No. I will not calm down,” I say, sliding my chair back and standing up. “I’m the one,” I yell at my parents who, judging from the shocked looks on their faces, can definitely hear me. My hand goes to my stomach, the activity is making me feel worse. “I’m the one with the goddamn Cancer. I’m the one.” I then turn to Helena. “Do you get that? Do you understand?”
Even though she’s got her arms crossed and her jaw set, I can see that she’s scared. She’s still sitting but is leaning as far away from me as she can.
I swallow hard, tasting that terrible metallicy tang that comes from the chemo. It, like the nausea, is a near constant companion, reminding me over and over that
I am sick, that these treatments are hell, that I may not survive.
“I get it,” she says, her voice low and dangerous. “You’re the only one here having an experience that matters. Your pain is worse than mine or your parents, so ours don’t count. Your suffering is all that you can see right now, not anyone else’s.”
She rises abruptly and turns her back to me and walks to the gate leading to our front yard. A moment later I hear the tires of her father’s car squeal as she drives away.
27
Sunday, July 10, 1977
I haven’t apologized to anyone yet. I just can’t. I’m starting to feel better today, but still not very good. I’m mostly tired and the obligatory chemo mouth sores have arrived right on time. I was up tossing my cookies in the night. My body knows the shit they put into me is poison, thus the nausea and vomiting.
My mom is there helping me when it happens. Handing me a towel, getting me a glass of water, doing those little things that do help. She looks tired in her pink robe and so vulnerable.
At breakfast I have a little juice with my pills, but I’m scared to have anything else. I almost tell them I’m sorry. I know my fit yesterday wasn’t fair or right. But I don’t. I decide that maybe actions are better than words in this case.
“Can I go to church with you?” I ask my mother.
She’s surprised. I know she is. My first offer to go to church was to do something nice for her because I was healthy. Now that we are in treatments again and I’ve been such a dumb-ass, it seems I should work even harder to find nice things to do for her.
“Are you up for it?” she asks, giving me her appraising, nursely look.
A Boy a Girl and a Ghost Page 19