Jimmy might have to be treated longer. There could be foods or ingredient tests that he wouldn’t pass in the allotted time, and then he would have to repeat the treatment and dietary restrictions. We would wait and see. But I’d be happy to know he attended a field trip or summer camp with other kids. It was worth the time and hours of deprivation.
The door opened, and Jimmy came sprinting down the hallway. I called out to him, “You ready?”
He nodded, and I led him toward the first step in testing: hand washing. “You need to take your shoes off first,” I said. He dropped the bright-green Nikes by the door outside Liberty’s office and grabbed my hand. It surprised me, and a tingly rush slipped through my fingers. Turning on the faucet, I surveyed his reflection in the mirror, wondering what his mother looked like. Did he have her lips? Her nose? Who was the woman who got to love this little guy?
“You doing okay?” I asked.
“No more needles.” He smiled. “A good day.”
“You know, I used to be allergic to almonds.” What a stupid thing to say to a kid who’s practically allergic to air. He was focused on lathering his hands and didn’t look up. I went on. “It was scary. And hard sometimes.”
“Did you get shots?” he asked.
“A few.”
“Me too,” he said.
“Well, you must be a very brave boy.”
He rinsed the soap from his fingers, drying them on the paper towel I held out to him. “Thank you,” he said, this time meeting my eyes.
The walk down the narrow hall was quiet. I heard Ben’s voice through Liberty’s door. It was part concern, part doubt. Liberty ushered him to the waiting room while Jimmy took his place, ready to begin his tests, which left me and Ben to sit in silence.
Behind my desk, the clock made a loud ticking sound, and I was trying to concentrate on the paperwork for the next patient, an older woman with an allergy to jet fuel. Giving up, I came around the divider and took the seat beside him. He was flipping through an old copy of Island Life, but when I sat down, he dropped the magazine on the table, and his face fell into his hands. The black ink around a certain finger—symbolizing eternity—revealed a piece of him I hadn’t noticed before.
“You all right?” I asked, chalking his quiet up to the earlier stress coupled with Liberty’s elaborate instructions. It had been a long day—the hospital felt like a lifetime ago—and I could read the strain on his face, in the wrinkles in his shirt, and in the way his hair was left unkempt. “It’s a lot to take in . . . Maybe it’s too soon . . .”
He sat upright. “No. Jimmy’s suffered long enough. This is a godsend.” He turned to me when he added, “You’ve been a godsend.”
He didn’t argue with me like all the naysayers. “Next time you should bring your wife,” I said. “It helps to have an extra set of ears to take it all in.”
“His mom’s away.”
She must be beautiful, I thought to myself. I could already tell. The way he longed for her. It was there in his face. I imagined a business executive, much like Philip, a sophisticated woman with an important job.
“She must have been terrified when she heard . . .”
He nodded.
“It’s a lot to deal with,” I said. “For anyone.”
He played with the leather band around his wrist. “You get used to it.”
I wasn’t imagining a certain solitude that stitched us together. It was there in the dim cloud that fell over him. How he probably missed her, the way I had grown to miss the many shades of Philip, the many people in my life.
He glanced at my finger, and the ring, in all its conspicuousness, glared between us. “He travels a ton for work, too. This wasn’t really how I imagined our engagement.” I twisted the band, the bright sparkle always brilliant and blinding. “We’ll never have a wedding if he keeps this schedule.” And then, “I’m not sure he cares.”
He sounded as though he was about to say something else, but he stopped himself, and I realized my mistake. I said too much, and I apologized.
He pretended I hadn’t overstepped and thanked me for insisting he come in. “Your friend seems to know what she’s doing. I think. I’m about ready to try anything at this point.” We focused on the wall before us. My embarrassment folded away. “How can I thank you?” he asked.
“Seeing Jimmy allergy-free is plenty.”
My phone dinged, and it was Philip. The text sprawling across the screen reminded me in his absence that he was ever present. It started with I love you. And ended with Forgive me. Holding the phone in my hand, I pored over each word, almost missing Liberty motion for Ben to join her for the results. When they were out of sight, I returned to my desk and reread the text.
Philip loving me was never the problem. He loved me wholly, completely, though it was mostly on Philip’s terms—when he was in town for a quick weekend, when he was by himself in a foreign hotel and FaceTimed, when business and responsibilities didn’t steal him away. It worked for quite some time, but now it didn’t.
I would answer, but not yet.
Ben and Jimmy soon departed with a plan in place just as jet-fuel Amy slipped into Liberty’s office. Amy complained of severe headaches when she flew, and I was initially doubtful of Liberty’s ability to treat an environmental allergy. To do so, she would have to expose the patient to the allergen. “How do you plan on getting jet fuel?” I had asked.
“I can’t, but your fancy boyfriend can.” All it took was one phone call to his aviation buddies, and a vial of jet fuel arrived at our office. I was thrilled Philip could assist, but the access to jet fuel was early evidence of a growing problem.
Turning to my computer screen, the words insurance and deductible blended into one. I missed the days of Shakespeare and Austen, casualties in the war for love. My old principal, Priscilla, had recently called, and hearing of my former students left me yearning for the days when I’d lose myself in a persuasive paper, the dissection of related themes, and deconstructing Jane Eyre. I treasured what Liberty and I had accomplished, but my creative expression had been crippled.
I dialed Philip, knowing the call would go straight to voice mail as he’d set it to do throughout the business day. It didn’t matter. I liked to listen to his accent, the cheery baritone pulling him through the phone and into my waiting ears.
“Darling.” But when Philip said it, there was a lovely lilting quality to his voice: “Dahling.”
“You weren’t supposed to pick up.”
“Did you read my note?”
“It’s a text, Philip. No one calls it a note. Yes, I read it.”
“You didn’t answer.”
I disappeared in his voice, burying my earlier misgivings.
“I miss you,” I said, sounding shrill and unrecognizable. “I miss us.”
“I love you,” he said, the tenderness velvet against my skin.
“We haven’t discussed a wedding since you proposed . . .”
“Ah, darling, dates are semantics. Don’t you trust me? Setting a date doesn’t change what we have.”
I shivered. In part because that was what he did to me. And the tingle spread through my veins. Still. Even now. And the other part was because he didn’t get it. Not after our talk last night, not even after I’d reminded him that we couldn’t have a wedding without a groom, we couldn’t build a home without his presence. He didn’t understand that when I’d said I missed him, I missed him. Even when he was home, it was as though he were somewhere else, and I couldn’t break through.
Then he’d say something like this. Something so honest and sincere it edged away my doubts. Philip loved me, and I loved Philip. I trusted him when the world had proven unreliable and turned its back. He picked up the pieces. And they were large, sharp pieces that needed to be strung together again. The sorrow and despair had made it a challenge, but he pulled me through. He always did. And this rough patch was a small sacrifice for the genuine happiness we’d shared.
“Why don’t we
skip dinner?” I said. “Stay home. Just the two of us.” My voice lowered when I added, “I’ll let you do that thing you love to do . . .”
His breaths were heavy, and my body warmed. “Charley, darling, what I’d give to be beside you right this minute.”
Sounds crept through the phone. A series of beeps. “Philip? Where are you?”
Either he didn’t hear, or he didn’t understand the question. “You’ll let me do that thing . . . ?”
The sensations climbed through me, and when I’d convinced myself he’d postpone dinner with Goose, he cut me off. “I’ve got to run, my lovely. Save that plan for after dinner.”
CHAPTER 10
June 2016–October 2017, Back Then
Kansas City, Missouri; and Some Trips around the World
Philip and I, despite our hidden wounds, fell madly for each other.
The age gap, all ten years, did little to divide us. Shared pain, buried deep, was the menace that posed the most significant threat. With school closed, I was able to join him across the globe. He even flew my mother with me on a jaunt to Paris, spoiling us with a week of museums and shopping. He never minded having her around, and it touched me in ways I couldn’t explain, but he knew, because he knew me.
When fall arrived and school resumed, we were apart more than together. I knew this because I counted the days in my calendar. Philip’s visits were always in red, the color signifying passionate love. The time was marked by an endless balancing act: coordinating holiday schedules and calculating time zones. Travel arrangements were tricky, but I was able to meet him in San Francisco, Boston, and eventually New York City, where we stayed in a lovely suite overlooking the park. Because it was my very first time, he treated me to the complete tour: the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage, and some of the finest restaurants in the world. We saw Hamilton and Beautiful and walked hand in hand through the museums. Philip treasured art and gave me a meaningful explanation of the beautiful, rare works of MoMA. On the final day, we visited the 9/11 Memorial. It was a wonderful trip, but Philip and I, we could be anywhere, and it wouldn’t matter. We were deeply in love.
When we couldn’t be together, our days were marked by late-night phone calls and a husky voice upon an early dawn. When we FaceTimed, he’d hold the camera so I was right there alongside him. And through it all, we remained connected. A deep thread pulling us together with Philip on one end, traveling the globe, and me, on the other, in my Murphy bed in downtown Kansas City.
So when Philip asked me to skip a few days of school for a quick weekend in Cabo, I tried my best to talk him out of it. I preferred not to miss classes when it wasn’t a holiday. Substitutes disrupted continuity, compromising the kids and the flow of material. By then it was April, and we were approaching our year anniversary. He thought it would be a good time to celebrate. “We can rendezvous in Cabo and then again in May.” I liked that he remembered, so I agreed.
Philip and I lounged lazily on the beach that first day. I was sunburned and drank too many mixed drinks with pretty umbrellas. “Don’t close your eyes,” he said, tickling my arm. “You’ll miss the view.”
Watching the sun drop into the ocean, burying its fiery hue in the slapping water, was a reminder that a perfect afternoon was coming to an end, and I was fighting it.
Philip’s phone rang, and since it was Elise, the assistant who knew not to bother him unless it was absolutely necessary, he answered.
“Don’t close your eyes,” I teased, rolling onto my stomach and resting my head in my hands.
His tone was sharp. “Put her through.”
He reached for me, in that pure, blissful moment before succumbing to sleep, and I could tell at once by the persistence of his hand that something was wrong. Suddenly, there was Mom’s voice in my ear. “Honey, I would never bother you unless it was important . . .”
Her voice quavered. I sat up, the sun slowly fading behind me. “What is it?”
She proceeded to tell me how she had spoken to her friend Millie, whose son Tom was a doctor. “You remember Tom? I asked her to talk to him about some symptoms I’d been having. My skin looks yellowish. And I’ve been itchy all over. Did you notice I lost a bit of weight lately?”
I was so focused on Philip I hadn’t. Don’t close your eyes.
“Tom told Millie I should stop taking my cholesterol medicine. It could be my liver, but it’s already been a few days and still no change. They said it could take up to a week. I looked it up on the internet. It’s either that or hepatitis C. Can someone my age get hepatitis C?”
I was waiting for a different c-word. My deep sigh did little to quell the uncertainty hammering at me. “I told you not to look that stuff up on the internet, Mom. It’ll make you crazy.”
“They put me in touch with someone at Saint Luke’s, a doctor friend of Tom’s. Brian Deutch. He’s the doctor. He said he knew you once. It was a fix-up after the last baseball game of senior year. Millie said he’s married now with three kids.” She was prattling on, and I had no recollection of this guy, nor did I care to summon him from memory. “So that’s where I’ll be tomorrow. Dr. Deutch. I’m scheduled for a round of tests . . . I wanted you to know . . .”
Philip reached for the phone and explained to Mom that whatever she needed, he would take care of it. He knew the best doctors all over the world. “You need not worry, Katherine. Charley and I will be there for you every step of the way.”
Philip’s reaction to my mother’s illness gave me a glimpse of the life I was crossing into. “Let’s go back,” he said, as though it were his home. “She shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
If Philip wanted to go back, it couldn’t be good. The sun had faded from the sky, and I was left with a cold shiver in my bones. “Yes,” I turned to him, a mild disappointment sheathing me. “Let’s go back.”
We boarded a small claustrophobic plane two hours later. I didn’t close my eyes the entire flight to a private airport outside Kansas City. I needed to be awake.
When we reached the hospital, a series of tests and cold waiting rooms, quiet prayers and crying fits confirmed the severity of my mother’s illness. Philip had to hold me up while my body crumpled. The fancy X-ray machine confirmed exactly what I didn’t want to know: Mom had a mass on the head of her pancreas. The biopsy proved it was the mother of all cancers.
The swiftness of her diagnosis and decline felt like whiplash. My world, once evenly coated in lemony sunshine, turned a smoky gray. There was hardly enough time to sort it out.
Philip helped me pack a suitcase, and I moved back to my childhood home. Mom’s prognosis was grim—most patients survived less than a year—and I was questioning the universe and why God took those who did everything right: the ones who loved and provided for their children, the ones who sacrificed their own happiness for the sake of others, the ones with only selflessness in their hearts.
By then, Philip understood my father was gone. He didn’t question me; he didn’t ask. It was a truth we skipped over and didn’t discuss.
Time brought forth a menagerie of mixed, confusing messages. Time was stolen moments, the few joyful occasions free from chemotherapy and pain meds, free from the heavy cloak of grief that swathed us in its grip. Time was an adversary. It was out of reach and oh so close. It neared, it disappeared. It left me distraught and exhausted from the chase. The contradiction of those months was unmistakable. I questioned fate and the sheer power of love. How could my heart experience such a deep, probing love when it was slowly breaking apart? How might my soul open to a stranger while it closed on the person I loved more than anyone else?
The school year ended, and my students sent me home with an abundance of prayers. They knew when they returned in the fall I might be motherless, and their hugs were extra hard. While they enjoyed their vacation, I spent the summer holding Mom’s hand at chemotherapy and shuttling her to scans, until the doctors told us there was nothing more they cou
ld do.
School resumed, and Mom insisted I go back to work. She and Philip ambushed me, leaving me no out. “I can’t,” I cried. “I can’t begin something new . . . not now . . .”
Mom understood what I needed, and I needed to get out of the house. It wasn’t good for her, and it wasn’t good for me. I returned on a rainy September day, hauling the weight of what was to come. I’ll never forget Principal Priscilla’s embrace when I walked through the office doors. “You’re not going through this alone. We’re here for you.”
On a gloomy Sunday morning in October, Mom lay holed up in her bed, the trash can nearby, and I heard a light knock at the door. She had fallen asleep as I read to her. Mom preferred the classics. We were lost in The Bell Jar, as though Mom’s illness wasn’t enough for us to tackle. “Remember, Charlotte,” she had said to me before slipping off to sleep, “be mindful of your expectations. It’s always best to expect less, then you won’t be disappointed.” I knew at the time she was referring to Sylvia Plath, but the meaning wasn’t lost on me. She meant my father. She meant my relationship to men. We never talked about him or what his absence did to us, though I’m certain as she neared her death, there were lessons she needed to share.
“Philip travels a lot, Charley. I know you’re happy. I know this works for you.” She stopped to take a breath. I watched her chest move up and down. Her skin was a dull gray. The lavender cap her friend had knit for her had slipped, and I glimpsed bare skin, her lively curls shorn by the powerful drugs. I was fixing the cap against her scalp when she finished her thought. “Don’t accept less than you deserve, Charlotte. Don’t let that fear you’ve locked in your heart keep you from something bigger . . .”
“We’re happy, Mom.” Tears misted my eyes. “Philip and I are good. I promise.”
She squeezed my hand.
The knocking continued.
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