A Mother's Goodbye_A gripping emotional page turner about adoption and a mother's love

by Kate Hewitt

  ‘Grace.’ Dr. Stein puts her hand over mine. ‘Try not to worry yet.’

  Yet. Because there will be some point in the future when I should worry.

  They take me down to the MRI in a wheelchair, because I’m not up for that much walking yet. My chest throbs and I am holding onto my composure by a thread. I feel like bursting into tears, like the frightened child I feel I am in this moment.

  A sudden memory pierces me, nearly undoes me – my father’s wry smile as he was taken to have a port put in his chest for the chemo drugs and blood transfusions that never worked. I held his hand and tried not to cry, and he made a joke about everyone wanting easy access to him. He smiled through it all, and here I am, struggling not to break down.

  Did he have weak moments like this that he didn’t let me see? Did my mother? Both struggling with terminal illness, trying to soldier on… I miss them so much; it feels like I can’t breathe. It feels like the day of my father’s funeral all over again, when I couldn’t see how I was going to get through the next few minutes, never mind the rest of my life.

  Except maybe that’s not going to be as long as I once hoped.

  It takes all my strength and self-control not to panic when I’m having the MRI; I feel as if I am being electronically entombed. And then to wait and wait and wait until tomorrow for the results… the seconds tick by slowly, never mind the minutes.

  I call Heather in the late afternoon, when I trust myself not to cry.

  ‘Grace.’ Her voice is filled with relief. ‘I’ve been so worried. How are you? How are you feeling?’

  ‘Okay. Been better, of course.’ My voice wobbles and I take a deep breath. I’m not ready to tell her or anyone about this new, unknown development. ‘How have things been? How’s Isaac?’

  ‘Good. We went to the zoo after his camp yesterday, and this afternoon we went to that playground by the Met with all the pyramids. Got soaked in the sprinklers.’ Such simple things, and yet they make me ache. They feel as distant as the moon, perfect and pure and wholly innocent.

  ‘That sounds fun. Can I talk to Isaac?’

  ‘Of course.’ She calls him over, and I don’t miss the easy familiarity in her voice that wasn’t there before, ever. Then I hear my son.

  ‘Mom?’ He sounds uncertain, his breathing heavy.

  ‘Isaac.’ Tears sting my eyes. ‘How are you, bud?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Are you having fun with Heather? Sounds like you’ve done some cool stuff.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He sounds so uncertain, and it makes me ache. ‘When are you coming home?’

  ‘The doctor hasn’t told me yet, but hopefully tomorrow.’ Although that seems virtually impossible. I can barely walk. But that’s what all the literature said: two to three days for a mastectomy. I’m still believing that’s what it’s going to be like for me.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I love you, Isaac. I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you, too.’ A pause. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  I smile through my tears, wishing it were so simple. ‘Getting there, bud. Getting there.’

  We say goodbye and then Heather comes back on the phone, reassuring me that Isaac is doing well, sleeping, eating, bathing and brushing his teeth, all the bases covered. I want to be back in my home so much, curled up on the sofa with my son, that it’s like a physical hunger, eating me from the inside out.

  When Dr. Stein comes in the next morning, I feel as if I’ve been waiting forever, and yet as she comes through the door I realize I’d be happy to wait some more. I have a terrible, gut feeling that she is going to give me some really bad news.

  I feel that even more when she sits in the chair next to my bed and rests her hand lightly on mine.

  ‘So, I have the results back from the MRI.’ Her eyes are dark and sad and I try to swallow, but my mouth is so dry, my heart pounding so hard, I just give a convulsive gulp. ‘Grace, I’m so sorry, but the cancer has spread.’

  ‘To my lymph nodes…’ I try weakly.

  ‘And to your brain, bones, liver, and kidneys.’ I blink, trying to take that in, but it’s too much. It’s everywhere.

  ‘But…’ I want to argue. I want to insist that she’s got it wrong, because what about all that damn chemo? The tumor had shrunk, she said. That’s why I’m here, with bloody bandages and still so much pain.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Dr. Stein looks near tears, which appalls me.

  ‘But how?’ My voice is a plaintive whisper. ‘I was having the chemo…’ I’m too shocked for tears, too blindsided to realize what this means.

  ‘Sometimes that happens. Tumors shrink even as the cancer is spreading elsewhere. This is metastatic cancer, and we still don’t completely understand how it works. It was only when I began the surgery that I realized what we might be dealing with.’

  My head feels fuzzy, and I can’t think. I know I need to ask questions, important questions, but they don’t come, and so I just stare. Dr. Stein smiles at me, her face far too full of sympathy.

  ‘I know this is a lot to take in.’

  Somehow I manage to form some words. ‘So… I’ll need to have more chemo?’

  Something flashes across Dr. Stein’s face so quickly I can’t, in my spinning state, make it out. I realize I’ve asked a well-duh question, because if I’ve got that much cancer, of course I need to have more chemo. A lot more.

  Except I don’t.

  ‘Grace…’ She swallows and I feel a blind, buzzing panic take over me. ‘Of course we can discuss all your options, but if you want my opinion, both as your doctor and a person who could be facing the same situation one day, I don’t think it’s worth it, to go through more rounds of chemo and feel miserable and sick the whole time. It’s… it’s not going to help enough. The cancer has spread too far.’

  I have no words. I feel empty inside, everything blank. I just stare. And yet some part of me, some hard little kernel, remains unsurprised. Wasn’t I afraid of this? Wasn’t I expecting it, even?

  ‘We can talk about clinical trials, some new drugs that are being tested, but to be involved in a trial you have to have quite a hospitalized existence, something that you’re of course going to want to think about.’

  I nod, unable to take it in. Any of it, all of it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dr. Stein says quietly.

  I try to nod but I’m not sure I pull it off. Everything feels difficult, as if I have to remind myself to breathe, to blink, to be. ‘So…’ I lick my lips. My voice is a thread. ‘So how long… do you think…’ I trail off, unable to frame the question, even in my own mind. But of course Dr. Stein knows what I mean.

  ‘It’s impossible to say for sure. But with the rate of the cancer’s progression, and the number of organs that are now affected…’ She pauses, and I feel something wild growing inside me, something that is ready to rage and scream. Don’t say it, I want to shout at her. Don’t tell me how little time I have left.

  ‘I would say probably not more than six months,’ she says carefully. ‘And most likely, more like three.’

  I turn my head away from her, needing at least that much privacy. I have probably no more than three months left to live. I almost want to laugh, in that wild, raging way. How can this possibly be? My mother lived with breast cancer for six years. Why do I get six months or less?

  ‘We can talk again when you’ve had time to think and process this. There are some drugs we could try – Kadcyla has been shown to extend life by several months in cases similar to yours, although yours has advanced significantly…’ She trails off, and I cannot summon a response. ‘I’m sure you’ll have more questions, and we can discuss pain management, and, when the time comes, end-of-life care…’

  I don’t say anything, because I don’t trust myself to speak. I don’t want to talk about end-of-life care; I don’t even want to think about it.

  Dr. Stein touches my hand lightly. ‘I have a seven-year-old son too,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’ She waits a few seco
nds while I remain motionless, staring at the wall, trying not to blink because then the tears will fall. So many tears. After another agonizing second, she leaves me alone.

  The next few hours pass in a haze. I lie in bed and stare at the wall, everything in me numb and blank even as a part of me thinks how this is some of my precious time, and I’m wasting it. Wasting everything.

  Three months. That’s only October. And I might be dead by then. I fight that bizarre impulse to laugh, because it just seems so impossible. Yes, yes, I know I have cancer. I’ve felt utterly wretched from the chemo. But underneath the misery and nausea and fear, I honestly thought I was going to beat this. Because I couldn’t imagine the alternative.

  Eventually my mind drifts, painfully, to Isaac. How will I tell him? And who will take care of him? The answer feels obvious, even as I shrink away from it: Heather. After seven years, Heather will get her son back. It turned out I was only borrowing him, after all.

  Dr. Stein discharges me the next day, with a follow-up appointment in a couple of days to check on my bandages and drains, which I have, cringing all the while, been taught how to empty. Hopefully the drains will be removed then, the bandages a few days after, and the sutures and steri-strips next week.

  In a normal case – although what is normal about any of this, I don’t know – I could go back to work in three weeks. But I don’t think I’ll go back to work now, ever, yet another thought I can’t fully absorb yet.

  I feel like an old woman, hobbling into a taxi cab, my body bruised, bloody, aching. Decaying. I look down at my hands, the dark red nail polish on my fingernails. I splurged on a manicure a few days ago, because I wanted some part of me to look pretty.

  And my hands do look pretty; I’ve always liked them. Long fingers, neat nails. They don’t look like cancer patient hands. And then I wonder if I will still be wearing this nail polish when I die.

  The doorman, Sergei, greets me with his usual restrained enthusiasm as I walk slowly into the building. He takes my roll-along bag and escorts me to the elevator.

  ‘All right, Miss Thomas?’ he asks and I manage a weary smile. No, I am not remotely all right, but I’m not about to explain that to him. In any case I know I look terrible. My face is pale, my hair straggly and unwashed – I didn’t bother with the wig – and I’m wearing a shapeless black tracksuit. I breathe a sigh of relief when the elevator doors close even as a voice in my head whispers, another moment gone. When will I stop thinking that? When I’m dead?

  I fumble with my keys, the mechanics of it nearly defeating me, my fingers shaking. Finally the lock turns and I open the door and step into my apartment: I’m home. The relief nearly makes my knees buckle.

  ‘Grace…?’ Heather comes around the corner, looking both surprised and hopeful. I see the shock flash across her face briefly, and I know that I must look even more awful than I realize – nearly balding, pale and pasty, swaying on my feet. I’m a complete and utter wreck.

  ‘I’m back.’ My lips try to curve but I can’t quite manage it. I don’t want to cry. Not yet.

  ‘Come and sit down. Can I get you something? Some tea or…?’ She’s at a loss, but she takes me gently by the elbow and leads me toward the sofa. ‘You should have called. I would have come to get you.’

  ‘It’s okay. Where’s Isaac?’ All I want is my son.

  ‘He’s in his room. Isaac!’ she calls, an urgent note in her voice. ‘Isaac, look who’s here.’

  The situation feels unbearably surreal. Me decrepit on the sofa, Heather hovering over me, beckoning my son over. ‘Look,’ she says, injecting a bright note in her voice. ‘Look, it’s your mom.’ Words I never thought I’d hear her say.

  Isaac stops in front of me, looking uncertain. I don’t look like I normally do. I should have put on my wig; he didn’t even know I’d lost most of my hair. And I’m hunched over, my chest starting to throb with pain. I need more Vicodin.

  ‘Isaac,’ I rasp. ‘Come here, buddy.’

  He comes slowly, hesitantly, and I do my best to hold out my arms, even though the lymph node removal has made them ache. ‘You can hug me,’ I say even though I know it will hurt. ‘Gently.’

  He comes closer and then stands in the circle of my arms. He drapes his arms over my shoulders, barely touching me. I press my cheek to his and close my eyes, breathe in his scent. Memorize him.

  Tears sting my eyes and I take a shuddering breath and then ease away. I don’t want to freak him out.

  ‘I’m home, Isaac,’ I say, and he nods.

  ‘Are you better?’ he asks seriously, and I have no answer. I have no answer at all, and so I just manage a smile and a jerky nod, and after another uncertain moment he goes back to his room. He’s had enough of sickness. So have I.

  I lean my head against the sofa and close my eyes.

  ‘You must be exhausted,’ Heather says. ‘Do you want to get in bed? Or tea, or soup…? Ice, maybe? A hot water bottle?’ She lets out a nervous laugh. ‘Sorry, I just want to help.’

  ‘I know.’ I open my eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Are you okay, Grace?’ she asks, her uncertain gaze searching my face, looking for answers I know I need to give.

  I glance toward Isaac’s room; his door is partially ajar. I lower my voice, each word dragged from me like a weight. ‘No,’ I tell her, my nemesis, my friend. ‘No, I’m not.’

  Twenty-Six

  HEATHER

  I stare at Grace, unsure what to say, whether to ask. She looks awful, even for someone who is recovering from surgery. Her skin is pasty and pale, her hair wispy and flat, but the worst is her eyes. The look in her eyes before she closed them was dark and deadened, like a light has gone out inside her forever.

  ‘Can you please close Isaac’s door?’ she asks quietly, and my heart flips right over. I go to close it, softly, so he doesn’t notice. He’s lying sprawled on his floor amidst a spill of Lego, and he doesn’t look up. I tiptoe back to Grace; she is still sitting with her head back against the sofa, her eyes closed, like the world is too much for her. And maybe it is.

  ‘Grace…?’

  ‘The cancer has spread.’ Her voice is so low I strain to hear the words.

  ‘Spread…?’

  ‘To my brain, liver, kidneys, and bones.’ She opens her eyes. ‘Everywhere, basically.’ She lets out a laugh, the saddest sound I’ve ever heard.

  I sit slowly down on a chair opposite her, my mind spinning emptily. ‘What… what does this mean?’

  Grace takes a deep breath and then lets it out in a shuddery rush. ‘It means I have three to six months to live. Or as my doctor said, closer to three.’ Her lips tremble and she presses them together.

  ‘Oh, Grace. Grace.’ Three months. October. I can’t even begin to get my mind around it, and for a few seconds all I can feel is a terrible pity and sorrow for Grace, overwhelming, swamping me. Tears sting my eyes and my voice chokes. ‘I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.’ But right on the heels of that sentiment, deeply as I mean it, is a burning question, essential, urgent. What about Isaac?

  I can’t form the words. Not yet. It feels too callous, too cold, although of course it’s the most important issue for both of us. Grace must have some sense of what is in my mind, because suddenly she covers her face with her hand.

  ‘I can’t talk about this now,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything to you. I’m not ready… to talk… about any of this. I just learned about it myself. Please…’

  I feel a lurch of pity for her, and my lips tremble before I press them together. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about anything.’ But I don’t feel like I should go. Grace looks terrible, and there is Isaac to think of. ‘Let me help,’ I say. ‘I can make dinner, do laundry, whatever.’ Grace looks like she wants to resist, and I say quietly, ‘Grace, you’re not ready to be alone with Isaac. To take care of him. You’re still recovering. We… we don’t have to talk or anything, but let me help.’

  Her hand is still covering her face. �
�I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,’ she says in a choked voice. ‘It’s all just so much…’

  ‘Of course. Of course it is.’ I put my hand on her shoulder; her bones feel hollow beneath my fingers. ‘Why don’t you get in bed? Rest for a bit? I’ll make you some tea.’

  Grace nods slowly. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers, and a lump forms in my throat.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I say, because it is.

  She rises from the sofa with my help, taking my hand and clutching it with surprising need. Even now I am still amazed that she wants me here; that she chose me to help. I walk with her into her bedroom, pull back the covers. Thankfully I changed the sheets this morning, in case she came home.

  When Grace is settled, I check on Isaac, who is still playing Lego, and then go into the kitchen to make tea and figure out what to do about dinner. Yesterday Isaac and I spent a surprisingly happy few hours in The Food Emporium, stocking up on the kind of food I can never afford to buy – organic vegetables, freshly squeezed juice, a prime cut of beef. He was good company, chattering about camp, remarking on different things in the store – the dead-eyed fish chilling in ice, the bright yellow melon. He’s at the age where everything is still interesting, and he wants to tell you about it.

  I make a beef and rice casserole for dinner, moving around the kitchen with confidence, knowing where the knives are, the plates and cups and napkins. On the fringes of my mind there buzzes a possibility I can’t quite keep from thinking about – that I could get used to this. To having Isaac.

  I feel a weird mix of giddiness and grief, and I don’t know how to reconcile the two emotions, so I force myself not to think at all. Like Grace said, it’s too soon.

  I make Grace herbal tea and bring it into her bedroom, but she’s already fallen asleep. I put the cup of tea on her bedside table, and then pause to look at her. In sleep she looks younger, more relaxed, despite the harrowing lines of age and illness, the thin, wispy hair. I can’t believe she is going to die in mere months. Every time I think it, it shocks me, a cold ripple going through me, a zing of pained surprise.