by Lily Foster
My father had a sense of integrity in all things except his marriage. He was a cheater. That was established long ago. And while I used to feel superior to him because of that, I no longer felt I had any right to judge him—for obvious reasons. And my mother knew about his extracurricular activities. We didn’t speak of it, but she knew. Whatever was going down between them now? This was different.
So I was pissed off as I walked into New York Hospital, wondering what the fuck he’d done this time. But I carried on, shook hands with the doctors and hospital administrators, and took pictures with the nursing and recreational staff that worked the new Catherine Cole Pediatric Wellness wing. I listened attentively as the hospital’s CEO sang my mother’s praises, and I even took to the podium myself, saying a few words about my mother and her devotion to carrying on a cause that was close to my paternal grandmother’s heart. Catherine Cole, registered nurse—my mother worked tirelessly to raise funds to help children across this city in my grandmother’s name. For that, I could suck it up and put on a happy face. My mother deserved that and so much more. I even hung out and played ping pong with a few of the kids, literally taking it on the chin when a little cutie named Ava beaned me in the face not once, but twice.
The Chief of Staff, Dr. Norris, walked me to the elevator, making a case for even more pledge dollars from Cole Industries to fund some research project. I was half listening to him but nodding my head in agreement anyway, still high from the positive energy those kids gave off. It’s like everyone says, children are resilient. That little one Ava was rail thin, pale and had a giant patch of hair missing from a recent surgery, but still her smile stretched from ear to ear when she aced me on a serve.
My smile matched Ava’s as the elevator doors opened, but then dropped as I took in the young woman leaning against a wall in the lobby with her face in her hands. Her body was shaking with the force of her sobs. A young doctor made his way over to her before I could. She shook her head and took a deep breath, refusing whatever help he was offering. I was about to continue on my way when she moved her hands to wipe at her face.
“Out of the way,” I said as I motioned to the young doctor who was now cemented by her side. “Veronica?” At the sound of her name she looked up at me. Her eyes went wide before she broke into a new round of sobs. “Here,” I said, offering her my silk pocket square and placing an arm around her shoulder. Crazy, but the thought of comforting her made me feel like a man and it made me feel territorial. I shot a look to the young doc that said: Run along, son, and he did as told.
“Veronica, tell me what’s wrong.”
She blew her nose and then took a shuddering breath. When she attempted to speak, she collapsed into herself again, weeping as she said, “I’m sorry,” over and over again.
I pulled her into me and held her tight, feeling sad myself. Not just because she was in pain, but because holding her felt so good that it hurt. That’s how fucked up I am. Holding a girl who was practically a stranger made me feel the all-powerful pull of goodness and love, while I had a wife at home, and holding her made me feel nothing.
“Shh, I’ve got you.”
She sank into me, still crying. I may or may not have kissed the top of her head. Probably did because at one point I felt her stiffen. She drew in another deep breath before she nudged me back gently and whispered, “I’m ok, really.”
I took a step back and cleared my throat, trying to rid myself of the ridiculous thoughts I was entertaining. Veronica wasn’t mine to hold and I’m probably the last person on the planet she’d seek out for comfort.
She was about to hand me back the used pocket square but thought better of it, stuffing it into her purse. “What are you doing here?”
“I was here to, uh, dedicate a…Nothing, just corporate stuff.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that over the years my family had donated enough money to have several wings of this hospital named after us. That would be a tad too douchey.
“Veronica, do you have a friend admitted here? Or family?”
“Family,” she stated flatly.
“That’s rough.”
“My cousin…She’s been sick off and on for the past year or so. But she was getting better, you know? She was in some clinical trial and she was doing great. The past two weeks, though…I could tell. I knew she was getting weaker. But Kasia always puts on a brave face. She’s always smiling, never complains, never—”
Now I was the one leaning against the wall for support. “Kasia?”
She nodded. “Yes, my cousin. She’s the strongest person I know.”
I looked at Veronica, dumbstruck as she pulled her shirt sleeve down so that she could wipe at her eyes again. My God in heaven—Veronica and Olivia, Kasia’s little cousins. This very girl sat in my lap one Christmas Eve long ago, chewing my ear off about wanting her own horse, the injustice of not being able to wear nail polish at age seven, and arguing that genies were, in fact, real. And my Kasia. The thought of her suffering in any way felt like a punch to my gut.
I’m sure I looked pale and lifeless when I asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
Veronica didn’t notice the odd catch in my voice or the cold sweat that was breaking out across my forehead. In a muffled voice, she answered, “Brain cancer.” To no one in particular, she added, “I don’t know how they’ll manage without her. Her babies are too little to lose their mother.”
“She has children?”
I was still hoping this was some other Kasia. Some other girl, not mine.
“Four.”
“Fuck!”
My foul mouth snapped Veronica out of her funk. “Listen, thanks for, um, everything. I appreciate it, although I feel kind of foolish now.”
“Please don’t thank me and you have no reason to feel embarrassed.” I had to make a conscious effort to stop raking my hands through my hair repeatedly. I’m sure I looked like a deranged lunatic. “Are you going up to see her now?”
“Just leaving,” she answered, her expression matching the gray sky and cold January rain that waited just outside the lobby’s revolving glass door.
“I’m stuck here for a while longer but my driver is outside. He can take you home.”
“Definitely not going there,” she muttered. In response to my concerned look, she added, “Long story.”
Veronica shook her head when she looked down at the thin sweater she was wearing. Again, not dressed for the weather. Without a coat, she’d be soaked to the skin within a minute.
“He can take you wherever you’re heading.”
“Are you sure? I’ve been crashing in the apartment at the back of the store. That’s all the way across town.”
I already had my phone out, texting instructions to my driver. “I insist.”
I watched her walk out the door, now underneath the protection of the umbrella my driver had opened and waiting for her. I stared after her until she was ushered into the car. Once they pulled away, I stood there for I don’t know how long, as if my feet were fixed in cement. My world had been rocked off its axis.
Sick on and off for the past year.
A year.
My first instinct was to call Tom Farrell, my oldest friend and the closest thing I had to a brother. But fuck Tom. He knew. I’m sure he knew this entire time—sat across from me at dinner, sat by my side at every Giants home game this season, spent an entire weekend skiing with me and a few of the guys just this past month—and that piece of shit didn’t see fit to tell me that Kasia was dying? Fuck Tom, fuck Darcy, fuck Caleb. Fuck every single one of them that claimed to be my friend.
Dr. Norris was exiting the elevator, leaving for the day when he spotted me.
“I need to get some information on a friend. She has cancer, brain cancer.”
“That’s an odd request, Mr. Cole. Are you all right?”
I felt out of it, so I’m sure I looked the same. “I’m fine,” I answered, collecting myself. “I just ran into someone who relayed the ne
ws to me.” I took a deep breath and fixed him with a hard stare that was meant to convey there wouldn’t be a dime for his damn pet project if he didn’t help me out. “I need you to tell me her prognosis and I have to make sure, absolute certain that everything possible is being done for this woman.”
Well, HIPPA laws be damned. He nodded his head in the direction of the elevator and within five minutes we were in an office on the tenth floor, the oncology ward.
“Her name?”
“K-A-S-I-A. Last name M-A-Z-U-R.”
“Must be a mistake…We have no patients registered under that name.”
I closed my eyes tight, realizing my error. She hadn’t been Kasia Mazur in a long time. I knew exactly how long too, because I remember getting good and drunk, sitting alone in my apartment with all the lights out and the shades drawn on her wedding day.
“Last name is Wozniak.”
He was quiet for a few minutes then, clicking from one screen to the next, looking at images, reading test results. He took his glasses off and looked up at me. “Glioblastoma, late stage. Surgery with recurrence less than one year later. She took part in the AMG-103 clinical trial.”
“Speak English.”
“Your friend has a fast growing and aggressive type of cancerous brain tumor.”
“What about the clinical trial?”
“She was a marginal candidate at best. Immunotherapy. Frankly, I’m surprised she was included. But unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it worked for her.”
“You said she had a recurrence one year later?”
“Yes. She was initially diagnosed, hmm, let’s see…February. So she’s just coming up on two years. Seems like her initial symptom was blurred vision.”
“Is she terminal?”
He faced me dead on. “I’m not her doctor but her condition, yes, it is terminal.”
I swallowed, unable to speak until I cleared my throat of the sadness and pain. “Is she here now because she’s dying?”
“No. She’s in the middle of a round of chemotherapy and was dehydrated. From the doctor’s notes it looks like she’ll probably be discharged home tomorrow or the day after.”
“So the chemotherapy will help her?”
“It can prolong her time.” He shook his head when he added, “There’s no cure, Mr. Cole.”
“That can’t be right.”
“I assure you, Mrs. Wozniak has been given every cutting edge treatment option there is. Her treating physician is Dr. Poole. He’s the head of neuro-oncology. I can tell you, it was quite a coup when we lured him away from Duke. She couldn’t be in better hands.”
“Her room number?”
“I can’t tell you that, Mr. Cole. What I’ve already done…It’s pretty much illegal.”
I didn’t need him to tell me. As I walked back towards the elevators, I saw a hunched over figure standing at the end of the hallway. I’d know him anywhere. And whereas I’d only ever felt a long simmering hatred for the guy, in this moment I actually wanted to hug Jake Wozniak, to let him know I understood the heartbreaking pain he must be in right now.
“This is fine, right here.”
Before I could hop out and make a run for it, he came around with the damn umbrella again. This was going to be awkward. I knew before I got in the car that I didn’t have my keys to the store on me. Alex and Henry were away so I was planning on prying my way past the flimsy grate that covered the window near the rear service entrance. Couldn’t really do that with Jeeves here on my heels, now could I?
“Thank you again for the ride. Good day.”
Did I really just say Good day to the man? Like I’m an extra on the set of Downton Abbey or something?
“It’s raining, Miss Veronica. Mr. Cole would be displeased if I didn’t see you inside safely.”
Safe. I was just beginning to grasp the concept again.
Kicked out of my home a few months after my seventeenth birthday, I’d basically been couch surfing my way through the past three years. Don’t go feeling bad for me, though. I’ve been lucky. I had Larson at first, and then I had friends to lean on. And this past year, when things had gotten rough, I swallowed my pride and knocked on a once familiar door. I thank God when I think back to that moment, when the extended family I was estranged from for so long took me back in with open arms, no questions asked.
This entire day—what a mind fuck. Jake asked me to babysit for the kids until my aunt and uncle came to take over. I decided on a whim to pop into the hospital to bring Kasia some magazines. Showed up only to overhear the doctor talking to Kasia and Jake about palliative care—treatment to ease her pain and make her last few weeks or months as good as possible. Weeks! I actually staggered on my feet when I heard the doctor, calm and reassuring as he spoke to them, and took in Kasia and Jake, sitting side by side on her hospital bed, holding hands and nodding, absorbing the blow together. Then Kasia, comforting me like I was one of her babies instead of it being the other way around. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. And to top it off I run into that guy again while I’m blubbering like a child? That jerk, that fraud—the very married Mr. Cole. I wanted to hate him, but sinking into his embrace today, he made me feel cared for and protected.
But care and comfort felt like a chokehold right now, with this man hovering over me with a circus tent-sized umbrella.
I collected myself and turned to him. “Tell Mr. Cole I’ve arrived, safe and sound.”
I entered the side entrance gate and closed it behind me in a way that was meant to say a final adios to the driver. He got the message, nodding his head once before retreating back to the car. I spent the next forty-five minutes standing in the driving rain, cursing my stupidity and wincing as I broke two fingernails before I was finally able to break into the store.
I made a mental note to speak to Alex and Henry about the lax security.
“Yes, Liv, you heard me right. And yes, mother knows and she still hasn’t called her sister or gone to visit her niece in the hospital.” I cut her off when she started in on defending my mother. “I can’t, Liv. I can’t listen to you make excuses for her.”
“Do you even care about how hard this is for me? To be in the middle all the time?”
“You’re not in the middle because I’m not asking you to take sides. I never asked you to, even when Mom stood by mute as my father kicked me out onto the street for no reason.”
“You can never just let things be…Everything’s always a fight.”
I had to choke back tears, knowing that my little sister, my Olivia, was most definitely not in my corner. She never was. She was the obedient child and I was the bad one. Most likely believed all the crap my father spewed about me over the years: the ungrateful child, the immoral girl, the whore.
“I have no desire to fight with you, Olivia. I’m just letting you know that if you want to see Kasia, you have to make the decision to do that soon. She would welcome you with open arms. Everyone would.”
“Mama and Papa said they don’t acknowledge us as family.”
Mama and Papa—really? Olivia, you’re not five years old and we’re not in the old country. That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, through gritted teeth I said, “Dad is the one who doesn’t acknowledge them. I know you were young, but you have to remember it was Dad who cut ties with them, not the other way around.”
“I feel like I don’t even know her anymore.”
Now the tears fell unchecked. Olivia was eight when the battle lines were drawn. She really didn’t know Kasia anymore. She didn’t remember how Kasia told us fantastic stories, made up on the spot, the two of us snuggled up with her in bed all those nights spent at their home in Greenpoint. She didn’t remember days spent in the Central Park Zoo, the tea parties Kasia happily suffered through, or the afternoons spent styling our hair and dressing us up for her mock fashion shows. She didn’t remember how much Kasia loved us and doted on us. She didn’t remember our cousins Alex, Tomasz and Michal anymore. She didn’t know our aunts
and uncles. She didn’t know Kasia and Jake’s beautiful children. And three years have passed since I was told to never step foot in our home again. She no longer knew me.
“I love you, Olivia, I always will, but you’re making a big mistake.”
She saw my father through the same lens as my mother. They made excuses for him. Yes, he was flawed but he was a good man, a hardworking man. One who makes sure his wife doesn’t have to work. One who makes sure his daughter has the very best. They loved him but they also feared him. The truth was that my mother didn’t work because he wouldn’t allow it. He wanted her at home, the dutiful wife. If my mother made her own money, she’d have a voice. If she had friends, she might come to rely on someone else. Couldn’t have that. And Olivia, she was perfect because she had to be. If Olivia stepped out of line, there would be hell to pay. Anyone who challenged him was the enemy. I was the enemy.
The memory of that day was etched into my soul, every last detail. I remember the car slowing down as my entire body went rigid. My tennis coach’s confused look as he watched my father run in and out of our home, coming out each time with his arms laden, tossing shoes, books, clothing, my jewelry box, my bras and underwear—my every last possession strewn across our front lawn. I remember digging my fingernails into his forearm as he went to exit the car, my silent plea not to get involved. My father’s eyes honing in on me from across the street, one finger shaking as he pointed at me, accusing me, while the other hand held tight onto a notebook. My breath hitched when I recognized it as my journal. It held my dreams, my plans for my big, grand life. On its pages I’d detailed the minutia of my daily existence. I wrote about how difficult my AP Chem class was, how much money I made in tips at my new job teaching rich preschoolers how to play tennis, and how I dreamed of attending college out west so that I could be as far away as humanly possible from my “controlling asshole of a father.” And—kill me now—I wrote in detail about how awesome it was when I finally let my boyfriend feel me up for the first time.