I sat in the chair next to Jo’s bed in the room lit only from the light of a single small lamp, and I just watched her for what seemed like hours. I watched her eyes move slightly underneath her eyelids, and I wondered if she was dreaming; I wondered if she was in pain. I watched the sheet over her chest rise and fall so slowly that every pause before the next breath made me worry that she wasn’t going to take another one, then she would. I watched the tips of her fingers lying half-curled on her blanket as they flittered and twitched. I never realized how much we move when we are asleep.
Forty-eight hours earlier I was in a Caribbean-jungle getting my passport stamped for entry back into the United States. Now the mix of travel and the crash of my emotions had left me mentally numb and my eyes feeling like grit. I leaned my head back on the large chair and let sleep pull me into its oubliette when I was suddenly woke to coughing. I sat up and saw Jo reaching for something. It was the small plastic trashcan.
I handed it to her just as she threw up.
“Oh baby,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder.
She wheezed and started crying. “I’m sorry.”
I handed her a tissue. “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.” Then she closed her eyes and laid back on her pillow. I took the plastic bin into the bathroom, cleaned it out in the shower and came back to the bedroom. She was shaking.
I pulled the covers up over her shoulder as she reached out and wrapped her fingers around my arm. “Will you lay with me?” she whispered.
I pulled the covers back and laid down next to her. She put her hand on my arm and I pulled her close.
She rolled onto her side and opened her eyes. Then she traced the edge of my face with a single finger like she was exploring the country of her childhood.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“I missed you too.”
“Where were you?”
“Colombia.”
Her brow dipped in puzzlement as she touched the bridge of my nose.
“Colombia? As in South America?”
“Yeah. Dan had something he wanted me to photograph for the paper.”
“Did you find your story?”
She circled the edge of my lips.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about Colombia.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’ve missed your voice.”
I told her about the children who would play in the streets and the vendors selling fruit. I told her how the city is so full of tourists and so full of poverty at the same time. I told her about the pastel buildings and the gold museum and soup that gave me the runs for three days. I told her how I would go walking at night and wish that she was there with me, how I’d fall asleep in my lonely room with a photograph of her laying on the pillow next to me. Then I told her how I realized on those cool humid nights when the trade winds would blow the smell of damp trees through the streets that there was just no way I was going to be able to live my life without her. I stopped. I looked over at her and knew that she was sleeping.
“How am I going to live without you?” I whispered. Then I laid her hand on my face and fell asleep.
The next morning I woke up as Susan was helping Jo walk in from the bathroom.
“Hey you,” she said with a soft smile. Then she sat down on a chair positioned next to the window. “I get so tired of that bed.”
“I’m heading out to the store. Do you want me to get you anything?” Susan asked me.
“No, thanks. I’m alright.” Then Susan kissed Jo’s head and left.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Jo.
She smiled. “Well you’re back. And to celebrate I think I will have a piece of chocolate with my soup.”
“Mmm how about a latte?”
“Ahh I wish. I don’t think I’d be able to hold it down.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Then she looked out the window. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”
“Anything,” I said sitting up.
“Would you photograph me?”
“Uh…”
“But not like a journalist. I want you to find some way to make me beautiful.”
I rose from the bed and walked over to her. Then I knelt down and kissed her hand. “You are still beautiful.”
She pressed her forehead against mine.
Then there was a knock on the bedroom door. I stood up and opened it to a man in his fifties wearing a nice suit and carrying a large, black leather bag and a metal case.
“How’s my favorite patient?” he said entering the room.
“Good morning doctor. I’m okay. I got sick again last night. Alex, this is Doctor Peterson. Doctor this is my boyfriend Alex. He’s been in Colombia covering a story for his newspaper.”
“Good to meet you,” he said giving me a robust handshake. Then he turned back to Jo. “Have you had any fluids this morning?” and he helped her over to the bed.
“Yes. I drank half that bottle.”
“I need you to try to drink more than that for me if you can okay?” He reached into his bag and pulled out some instruments. “What about your medication? Are you done with your morning doses?” He asked checking her pulse and blood pressure.
“Yes sir. I know the drill. I decided to try and have some chocolate today.”
“Really? That’s good. Just take it easy okay, maybe a small piece to start with.” He put his instruments away and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Today I want to start you on that new treatment I talked to you about. Do you remember us talking about that?” he asked, looking at her with a down turned chin.
“That cell… cell something treatment?
“Stem cell therapy, yes. It’s a new treatment that is showing a lot of promise. It will require a series of injections every three days for the next three weeks. It won’t have the same kind of side affects as the chemo, but I’m going to keep you on the chemo for now just to be sure. Are you up for that?”
“When do we start?”
“Today if that’s alright. I brought the first series with me.”
“Is it okay if you don’t show me any needles?”
He smiled. “No problem. I’m going to have to ask you to leave now Alex. Just for a few minutes…”
“No. I’d like him to stay if that’s alright.”
“It’s probably better if we have some privacy.”
“With all do respect, I’ve been gone three-months too long already,” I replied.
He looked at me for a minute.
“Alright then. Let me just use the restroom and we’ll get started.” Then he stood up and walked to the door. “Alex, do you want to show me where the bathroom is?”
“Sure.”
I followed him out into the hall and he closed the door.
“I just want to make sure that you are ready for this.”
“I’m not squeamish around needles.”
“I’m not just talking about the needles. She is going to start drawing her strength from you.”
“Okay.”
“You and Michael and Samantha and Susan are all as much a part of this battle with her as I am. That means you need to eat and you need to sleep and you need to walk away and try to get some exercise once in a while so that you can be on top of your game for when she needs you.”
“I understand.”
Then he nodded and we both went back into the bedroom.
He helped her sit up on the edge of her bed, and he untied the back of her robe.
“You’ll feel some cold, but this is just alcohol,” he said. Then he reached in his bag and took something out of his case that I couldn’t see.
I kept watching Jo and she kept watching me.
“Now, you’re going to feel some pressure,” he said. “Okay, here we go.”
She winced and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Just look away from the pain Jo,” I told her squeezing her hand.
The slightest of smiles crossed her lips.
“Does it w
ork,” she whispered.
“Not really,” I said.
Over the next fifteen minutes he gave her two more injections through her back and into her lung, each targeting a different area. I could tell that the last one hurt because of how hard she squeezed my hand. Finally, he put an IV into her arm to help her get some more fluids and a squirt of something to help her sleep.
I walked down to the living room where the doctor told her parents how everything went and how she looked. I let them know that I needed to go back to my apartment to pick up some clothes if I was going to be staying for a while. Then I went outside, closed the door, dropped to my knees and started crying again. I never considered myself a crier but I just couldn’t stand watching Jo in pain. I sat on the concrete steps of their front porch and leaned against the brick wall trying to pull myself together before the doctor came out and saw me in a mess just minutes after trying to convince him that I was going to be strong for Jo. Crawling across the concrete step was a black, orange and yellow butterfly with what looked like a damaged wing. I reached down and it crawled onto the tip of my finger. It washed its face with its legs and bobbed its head while it stretched it wings and moved them back and forth.
A minute passed.
I stood and walked the tiny creature over to one of the bushes, and as I reached out to put it on a branch it fluttered away. I don’t know how but somehow that gave me a tiny drop of perspective that life outside of this house was still moving forward. I sighed, got in my car and dialed my mom’s number on my cell.
“Hello.”
“Hi momma.”
“Hey honey! Are you back in town?”
“Yeah, I got in night before last. Are you at your store?”
“No, I’m home. You wanna stop by or are you busy?”
“Can I?”
“Of course! Come on over. Have you eaten?”
“No. I haven’t really eaten since yesterday afternoon.”
“Oh honey. Come on then. I’ll fix us some lunch.”
I drove to her house in Lakewood and knocked on the front door. She opened it with a smile then noticed that I was wearing a seriously wrinkled pair of dress slacks and white shirt that was now untucked.
As soon as I saw her I felt the burning wave rise in the back of my throat.
“Oh honey what’s wrong? Come on in.”
I walked up and hugged her. “She’s dying momma.”
“What? Who’s dying?”
“Jo.”
“What!?”
“I got back from my trip and went to her house yesterday to apologize for everything that happened; to apologize for just leaving like I did, but when I got there she started crying and saying how she didn’t think she was going to ever see me again. I told her how I had said I would be back in a few months in the note that I left, but then she told me how she was diagnosed with some sort of tumor in her leg that spread to her lungs before they could remove it.”
“Oh no. You’ve got to be kidding.” And she sat down on a chair in the kitchen.
“I stayed with her last night, but it was rough. Her color is gone. Her hair is gone. And I can’t stop thinking about how I wasted the last three months that I could have spent with her while she still had some strength.”
“Oh honey. You can’t think like that. You didn’t know that she was sick. You wouldn’t have left if you had.”
I sat quietly for a minute while she tried her best to absorb what I had told her. Then she asked me some more questions and I tried to answer them the best I could. I was starving so she made me a bowl of my favorite comfort food that she always made me while I was growing up: grilled cheese with a bowl of tomato soup just for dipping. More time passed and I still needed to get some clothes from my place so I went home, washed up and packed a bag. I looked at the camera gear sitting on the kitchen table. It made me angry looking at it, angry at myself. But, Jo asked me to take her photograph and I’d be damned if I was going to fail her again, so I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and left.
As I was leaving my apartment I had an idea. I drove to Paris on the Platte, went in and searched the menu. Mmm, chocolate-truffle cake. That will do. I bought a piece, had them wrap it in their nicest, largest box and put a bow on it. They didn’t have a bow, but when I explained that it was for my girlfriend who was dying, the barista left the coffee shop and came back about five minutes later with a beautiful, white satin bow. Apparently, he went down the street to a wedding planner and told them what he needed the bow for, so they found him the best bow they had in their shop, and it was big and beautiful and perfect.
When I got back to Jo’s house the doctor was gone and Jo’s parents showed me the guest bedroom down stairs in the basement that I could call my own for as long as I needed it.
“Is she still sleeping?”
“Yes,” Samantha replied.
“Good.”
I walked up to her room, set the chocolate cake on her dresser with a fork and sat down with a copy of ‘The English Patient’.
Every three days the doctor would come by and administer his injections with something to help Jo sleep off the immediate pain. The times that she was awake were few and far between, and I cherished every minute of them with the ever-looming knowledge that any one of them could be our last.
When I first arrived she was walking around, slowly, but on her own. Then the days came when she could only go up and down the front steps holding someone’s arm. That only lasted about a week before she couldn’t walk at all anymore.
I would talk to her. Tell her how mom was doing. Tell her again about days in Minnesota. Tell her about our first date and how scared I was and how much I loved what the apartment smelled like when she was in it.
It took several days before I could muster the strength, but I also started taking my camera out and capturing little moments when she was up. One in black and white of her sitting looking out of the window with the glow of the morning light shining off of her smooth head like a halo. Another of her sleeping with her hand grasping mine like a newborn child.
The chocolate cake I had bought her had melted into oblivion without ever being tasted. Long after it was past due I took the box into the kitchen and threw it in the trash.
One afternoon while I was reading Jo some Sylvia Plath, her mother came into the room carrying a large towel.
“Jo honey. I’ve run you some water. How does a bath sound?”
I set the book down and rose to excuse myself.
“Wait,” Jo whispered not having the strength for anything else. Then she motioned for her mother to come closer.
Samantha bent over and listened as Jo whispered something into her ear. Her eyes widened. There was a pause.
“She’d like you to do it,” she said with a simple nod. Then she left the room.
Jo lay there looking at me.
“What do I do?”
She lifted the covers. I pulled the covers back away from her. Then she lifted the button on her nightgown. I swallowed. I had seen Jo naked many times but only when she was healthy.
A part of me was scared.
I unbuttoned her nightgown all the way down the middle and laid it open. She didn’t take her eyes off of me.
Lying there she reminded me of a flower that was nearly past its time. Her skin was like the fleshy petals that have become nothing more than a veined membrane. Her color was nearly gone.
I carefully helped her arms out of the sleeves of the robe then she touched her pelvis. I gently removed her underwear and draped her in the large towel that her mother had brought into the room when she had come. I picked her up off of the bed and carried her into the bathroom where a tub of warm water with a special rubber seat was waiting. As I carried her she leaned her forehead against my cheek.
I lowered her into the water and set the towel aside. Then I filled a sponge with soap and carefully wiped her neck and shoulders. She just watched me. I dipped the sponge in the warm water and wiped down her neck and breas
ts, her arms and stomach. I put the sponge into the water and ran it down the length of each leg and squeezed the tip of each toe. She lifted her wet arms and put them around my neck as I leaned her forward so that I could wipe down her back. Then she kissed my cheek. I stopped and looked at her. She closed her eyes and I kissed her. In that kiss all the strength I had left went away. Even through all of this she still tasted exactly the same, she still felt like the girl I had first kissed that night after we watched some bohemians juggle spheres of fire next to the river in Downtown. For just a moment our entire universe was in that kiss; for just a moment we were both happy and safe.
When we were finished I pulled the plug on the bath and let the water slowly sink down the drain.
I took the towel, wiped away each bead of water then laid it over her naked form. I lifted her out of the tub and carried her back to bed. While we were gone someone, probably Samantha, had changed the sheets and laid down two fresh towels for Jo to be laid on. There was a tap on the door.
“It takes two of us to get her into her robe,” Samantha said as she entered the room with a fresh cotton robe hanging over one arm.
Samantha toweled Jo off a little more then told me, “If you will lift her I will lay the robe out so that you can lay her down in it.” So I lifted Jo up off of the bed.
Samantha laid the robe out like a blanket beneath her naked daughter while Jo did not take her eyes off of me. Then I set her down and Samantha buttoned her up.
“Thank you,” Jo whispered. Then she closed her eyes.
She did not wake that night even when I climbed into bed next to her.
I fell asleep watching her breathing.
She did not wake the next day.
Her parents brought me food while I waited by her side.
That night I fell asleep, again, watching her breathing.
I woke the next morning happy to see that she was still there, still pushing the sheets up and down slowly.
“Has she slept this long before?” I asked when her mother came in to check on her, like she did every morning.
She just shook her head.
That afternoon her mother, father and sister spent most of the day with me right by Jo’s side, not wanting to miss anything. Then, as darkness fell on another day, they went off to their rooms one by one. I needed a shower desperately so I decided to grab a quick one before everyone was in bed. When I came back I saw through the slit of the barely open door, Jo’s dad with his hand on the side of Jo’s face and his cheek against her forehead, just crying.
If I Lose Her Page 24