“Mom?” She leaned down and gently shook Lise’s shoulder. After a moment, Lise managed to rouse herself.
“Hey, little girl,” Lise said softly.
“How’s the hand?”
Her mother extended it for her to inspect. It had been a week, and Greer had dropped by the apartment every day to clean and dress the burn. It hadn’t been easy. She’d had to steel herself to the ugliness of such a wound, but she’d decided if Lise could endure it without complaint, she could stand it, too.
Carefully, she unwrapped the gauze bandage and inspected her handiwork. Today, the flesh was still pink and inflamed, but less raw, a fact for which she was thankful.
Now she glanced down at Lise’s apparel. Her mother was still dressed in a T-shirt and drawstring pants, and her hair hadn’t been combed.
“You’re going to the doctor like that?”
“Didn’t get much sleep last night, and I’m not feeling so hot,” Lise said. “How about you go without me?”
“What’s wrong?” Greer said, on full alert. “Where does it hurt? Do I need to call an ambulance?”
Lise shook her head irritably. “It’s my back. There’s nothing they can do for me at a hospital that I can’t do right here. If you will, just get me my pain meds and a glass of water.”
Greer brought both, then sat on the chair beside the sofa. “I think maybe I’ll just skip the meeting and stay here with you. I’ll call the doctor’s office and ask if we can reschedule.”
“No! You go ahead,” Lise ordered. “You don’t need me there.”
“You sure?” Greer reached over and tucked a strand of Lise’s hair behind her ear. She was startled to realize that her mother’s hair had seemingly turned silver overnight.
“Positive. What do you hear from CeeJay’s director?”
“Well, I think we’re set to meet as soon as he’s back from New York, and CeeJay claims he’s anxious to meet me. We’ll see.”
“You’re a shoo-in,” Lise said. “Now get out of here, so I can get some sleep.”
*
Greer hadn’t expected that her mother’s oncologist would be a woman, or that a doctor named Himmali Patel would have a Southern accent as thick and sweet as pecan pie.
“Gree-yur?” Dr. Patel said, clasping both her hands around Greer’s. “So good to meet you. Your mama has told me so much about you. I understand she’s not feeling so well today?”
“Uh, no,” Greer stammered. “Excuse me—but where are you from?”
Dr. Patel’s laugh was soft and throaty. “I get that a lot. Everybody expects me to sound like one of those offshore tech support types from Gujarati. Actually, I was born and raised in Atlanta, went to Georgia Tech undergrad, and Emory for med school.”
“That explains a lot,” Greer said. “Mom wasn’t up to coming today. She was complaining of back pain.”
“Please sit,” Dr. Patel said, gesturing to a floral-print wingchair that faced her desk. She seated herself behind the desk and booted up her computer. She tapped some keys, and scanned the screen.
“What questions do you have for me today?”
Greer blurted out the first one on her mind. “Why does her back hurt? I mean, she’s got breast cancer, right?”
“Lise didn’t tell you the cancer has spread to her spine?”
For a moment, Greer thought her heart had stopped beating. The room was so quiet, she could hear the clock ticking on the wall.
“She just said … it had metastasized?”
Dr. Patel nodded. “I’m so sorry. Yes, we got the results of her latest scan last week. It’s metastasized to her lymph nodes, lungs, and her spine. That would explain her back pain.”
Greer swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry as dust. “She didn’t tell me. What can be done?”
The doctor’s large, liquid brown eyes focused on hers. “I’ll prescribe something stronger for her pain. And sometimes, in cases like this, massage therapy can be helpful.”
“That’s it? Pills? A spa visit? That’s all you can do? No surgery or radiation or … anything?”
Dr. Patel rose from her desk and sat on the chair beside Greer’s, turning until her knees were touching her guest’s.
“Greer? Do you understand your mother’s prognosis? Has she explained that this is what we call end-of-life, or palliative care?”
“No!” Greer cried, standing, ready to flee the room. She couldn’t breathe. No words would come. Her chest heaved, and the next thing she knew, the petite doctor with the Southern drawl was holding her tenderly, stretching on her tiptoes, to pat her back, murmuring in her soft sweet voice.
“It’s okay, sugar. It’s okay.”
Dr. Patel’s starched white lab coat smelled of bleach and crackled as she put her arms around Greer.
*
Eventually, Greer managed to pull herself together. Somewhat.
Silently, the doctor handed her a box of tissues. Greer blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes, fought for composure.
“I hoped Lise was exaggerating when she said she was dying. How … um, how long does she have?”
“Her cancer is a really aggressive form,” Dr. Patel said. “Then, too, she wasn’t diagnosed until the cancer was really advanced. To tell you the truth, I’m a little surprised she’s been able to hang on this long. She’s a remarkable lady, your mother.”
“You’re telling me,” Greer said shakily.
“When I talked to Lise, she said you were concerned about your own cancer risks,” Dr. Patel said.
Greer shrugged. “I mostly told her that to guilt-trip her into letting me talk to you. But, yeah, I guess that’s something I need to think about.”
“You’re how old?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Ever smoked?”
“Not really.”
“And you see a doctor regularly?”
“Semi.”
Dr. Patel laughed. “According to Lise, there’s no previous history of breast cancer on either side of your immediate family, so that’s good. And just because your mother has breast cancer doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get it. The most recent information we have is that only fifteen percent of women with breast cancer had a first-generation relation with the same kind of cancer.”
“Okay,” Greer said.
Dr. Patel sat back in her chair. “What else can I tell you today?”
Greer dabbed at her teary eyes and blew her nose. “I wish you’d tell me this was all just a massive clerical screwup, and that my mother is not dying.”
“I wish it, too,” the doctor said softly. “Lise has been fighting me on this, but I really think it’s time to call in hospice. She’ll be able to stay at home, which is what she wants, and they’ll be able to make her last weeks much more comfortable than you ever could.”
“Hospice.” Greer let the word sink in. “Last weeks.” This was real. It was happening. She nodded.
Dr. Patel handed her a pamphlet. “These people are wonderful. Very caring and warm. Please call them immediately. Will you?”
“Okay.”
The doctor hesitated a moment, then reached into her bottom desk drawer and brought out a plastic-wrapped pink T-shirt and handed it across to Greer.
“Maybe this will cheer you up.”
Greer opened the plastic and unfolded the shirt across her knees.
FUCK CANCER, the shirt said in stark, three-inch tall black letters. She looked up at the doctor in surprise, and to her utter shock, Greer found herself giggling, then laughing, then howling.
The office door opened and the receptionist stuck her head in the door. “Everything okay?”
“We’re fine,” Dr. Patel said, nodding in Greer’s direction. “It’s the T-shirt.”
CHAPTER 16
The next few days passed in a fog. By the time the hospice workers set up the hospital bed in her bedroom, Lise was too ill and weak to do much more than issue a faint protest.
The nurses tended Lise and instructed Greer on what to do
in between visits and what to expect next.
“The most important thing is to stay ahead of the pain,” emphasized Sue, a dark-haired plain-speaking nurse who arrived on the first day. “Yes, it will make her feel doped up, but believe me, you do not want her to experience a violent pain episode.”
“Lise never liked drugs,” Greer said.
“She’s never had end-stage cancer before,” Sue said.
Greer slept fitfully on the sofa in the living room, waking every couple of hours to check on her mother, leaving the apartment only briefly while the nurses tended Lise.
CeeJay texted and dropped in to check on her, as did Sean and Luis, but for the most part, by her own choice, Lise’s apartment was so eerily quiet Greer could hear the ticking of the mantel clock and the whir of the ceiling fan. And the shallow rattle of her mother’s uneven breaths. Lise slept for long stretches, eating little, only taking sips of water through a straw.
On the third morning after Sue had come and gone from the apartment, as Greer was reading in the chair beside the hospital bed, Lise awoke and looked around the room.
“We need to talk.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Greer was on instant alert, slipping a pillow beneath her mother’s head, grabbing for a glass of water. “What’s wrong? Do you need more meds?”
Lise shook her head. “No. About Dearie. Does she know?”
“She knows,” Greer said simply. “Do you want to see her? I guess we could carry her up the stairs.…”
“No!” Lise cried. “God, no. Listen…” She swallowed. “There’s money … enough … money.”
“I know, Mom,” Greer said, clutching Lise’s hand. Her skin was cool to the touch and paper dry. “Do not worry about Dearie. I promise, I will take care of her. She won’t admit it, but she likes Vista Haven. She has cranky hour with Elsie, and she’s playing bridge.…”
Lise’s eyelids fluttered. “Enough money. Dearie.”
“I know, Mom,” Greer repeated, stroking Lise’s long thin fingertips with her own. Lise’s skin was so dry. Greer reached for the bottle of moisturizing cream on the nightstand and slathered it over Lise’s hands, gently rubbing it onto her hands and sticklike wrists.
Lise’s breathing slowed. Her chest rose and fell and rose again.
CHAPTER 17
Two days later, Greer walked unannounced into her grandmother’s room at the Vista Haven Assisted Living Home.
Dearie had been watching an old black-and-white movie on television, but she clicked it off as soon as she saw her granddaughter’s pale, drawn face.
“She’s gone,” Greer said, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“Come here, child,” Dearie said, patting the mattress.
Greer climbed up and buried her face in her grandmother’s bony shoulder. Every now and again she felt the old lady’s chest rise and fall, and heard her muffled sobs.
“Well,” Dearie said sometime later. “It didn’t take very long, did it?”
“Guess not,” Greer said, sniffling. She took a tissue from the box on the nightstand and handed it to Dearie, then curled up again, in the circle of her grandmother’s arms.
*
“I never thought I’d outlive my only child,” Dearie said with a sigh. “That girl was such a force to be reckoned with, seems hard to believe she could be gone.”
Greer nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet.
“When did it happen?”
“This morning. Sue, she’s the hospice nurse, came in, so while she was there I ran out to the store. When I got back, Sue told me it might only be a matter of hours. She offered to stay, but…” Greer shrugged. “She was slipping in and out of consciousness.”
“Oh, baby. I’m sorry you had to go through this hell.”
“I’m not. Mom was mostly out of it, but I think she knew I was there. It was just the two of us. I wouldn’t say it was peaceful, but there was nobody sticking her with needles or trying to put tubes up her nose or down her throat, which she would have hated.”
“What happens now?”
“You know Lise,” Greer said. “She left instructions. I found an envelope addressed to me, on her dresser. She didn’t want any kind of religious ceremony. Just a small memorial at the funeral home, and a luncheon afterward with a few old friends at the Little Duck, that restaurant where we usually had Sunday dinner. She already had everything all lined up and paid for, including the casket and her burial plot. And, oh yes, she left me strict instructions on what she wanted to wear.”
“That sounds like your mother. When are you going to have the service?”
“This Tuesday,” Greer said.
Dearie opened the drawer of her nightstand and took out her lighter and Virginia Slims.
“You know you can’t smoke in here,” Greer said, reaching for the cigarettes.
Her grandmother batted her hand away. “I know that. But I believe I need a smoke. Let’s go out to the garden.”
Greer glanced around the room. “Are you allowed to walk yet, or should I go get a wheelchair?”
“I can walk,” Dearie said, sliding carefully off the side of her bed. “But I’m feeling a little unsteady right now. Maybe you’d best get a wheelchair.”
Outside, the sky was a brilliant blue, with high puffy clouds and temperatures in the mid-eighties. Dearie clutched her sweater tighter as the chair bumped over the cracked sidewalk.
When they reached the shade of the oak tree, Greer parked the chair and sat on a bench. Dearie shook a cigarette out of the pack, lit it up, and tilted her head back before exhaling through her nostrils. After two more puffs, she handed the cigarette over to Greer, who hesitated before finally taking it and following suit.
She handed the cigarette back to her grandmother.
“Dearie? Can I ask you something?” she said finally. “It’s kind of personal. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“I think I know where this is headed,” Dearie said. “But go ahead and ask. I guess you’re entitled to the truth.”
“It’s about Lise’s father. My grandfather. Was he really Cary Grant?”
Dearie took off her glasses and cleaned the lenses with the hem of her sweater.
“No,” she said. “That was just a lie I told your mother when she was a little kid. Somehow, the story took on a life of its own. Later on, after Lise started repeating it, and even changed her name to Grant, I tried to take it back, but she believed it was true, and nothing I said could change her mind.”
“You know, I read somewhere that Cary Grant was actually gay.”
Dearie gave her a sly wink. “That was the rumor around town. He always had lots of good-looking young men hanging around, and he supposedly had a thing with Howard Hughes. But he was married four, maybe five times. I think he was at least bisexual.”
“What’s the truth? I mean, about Lise’s father?”
“The truth is I was twenty-two when I got a bit part in this movie Cary Grant was making. Howard Hawks was the director and they were shooting on location, in Germany, in 1949, and it was the most exciting thing I’d ever done. A girlfriend and I went over together. Annelise spoke a little bit of German, which was good, because I didn’t understand a word of it.”
“What was the movie?”
“I Was a Male War Bride.”
“I know that movie,” Greer said. “Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan, right?”
Dearie nodded. “We thought we would have the time of our lives. But mostly, we were miserable. The food was terrible, because the war hadn’t been over for that long. And it was cold.…” Dearie shivered. “I don’t think I ever did warm up, all these years later.”
“Did you ever even meet Cary Grant?”
“Oh sure. My friend and I played nurses in a scene he was in, and I think he said something like ‘Hello, girls, helluva day to work, isn’t it?’ And then I ran into him in the canteen they set up for us on set, and he spilled some coffee on my skirt.”
&
nbsp; “That was it?” Greer asked.
“Cary got really sick during the shoot. Hepatitis. They shut down the set for three months, and I didn’t have the money to hang around all that time in Heidelberg, Germany, not that I would have anyway, so I came home.”
“Then … who?”
“His name was Peder. He was a local boy, hired to drive for the cast and crew. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, and he knew some English.” Dearie gave a rueful smile. “Just enough to get me in the sack.”
“Ohhhhh.”
“I didn’t even realize I was pregnant until I’d been home a few weeks. I started seeing this guy, his name was Edward. He was nice, but boring, and he sold appliances at Sears Roebuck. For a salesman, he wasn’t too good at math. I don’t think he ever figured out he couldn’t have been the father.”
“You never told him?”
“I didn’t,” Dearie said. “But his mother—what an old battle-ax she was—she figured it out right away. Lise looked nothing like Edward, who had this thick black hair and dark eyes. And here was my baby with blue eyes and blond curls. The old lady needled me every chance she got, and eventually turned Edward against me. I divorced him when Lise was three.”
“Wait a minute,” Greer said, interrupting. “Your actress friend who went to Germany with you—Annelise? Did you name mom after her?”
“That’s right. I wanted to give my little girl a name that would remind me of her—and my big adventure, and big romance. I still think it’s the prettiest name I ever heard.”
“Dearie?” Greer said. “Why? Why didn’t you just tell the truth about who Lise’s real father was? Why this big lie about Cary Grant?”
“Who did it hurt? Not Lise. She always liked being special.”
“But it’s still a lie,” Greer insisted. “Wouldn’t it have been better for Mom to know the truth?”
“Better for who? Not Lise. She knew as soon as she could talk that she wanted to be in the business. So, maybe you’re thinking it would have been better for you? Who knows? You didn’t turn out so badly, Greer girl. You had a car, you went to college, you had everything you needed. Lise and I saw to that. Didn’t we?”
“Yes,” Greer said, draping an affectionate arm across her grandmother’s shoulder. “All my friends used to envy me for having the coolest mother and grandmother in town. Who could ask for a better life? I had everything a girl could want.”
Change of Scene: A 100 Page Novella Page 11