“Oh, honey,” the lady said, handing me a pack of tissues. “What’s wrong?”
I blew my nose. “My father’s going to die,” I said, and cried harder.
“There, there, now,” she said, “it’s going to be okay, because whatever happens, it’s the Lord’s will. You do believe in God, don’t you?”
“Um …” I started.
“Only God can get you through something like this,” she said. “You should go to the chapel here if you need to.” I nodded, too upset to argue. My father, I realized, would never see me become self-sufficient, an adult. I would lose him, and a memory would be all that remained. I didn’t want him to just be a memory, I decided as I exited the hospital on shaky legs, and I repeated it over and over in my mind until the thought threatened to strike me down right there in the street:
I don’t want him to just be a memory. I don’t want him to just be a memory. I don’t want him to just be a memory.
MY MOTHER KNEW exactly where to go for a second opinion: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at Sixty-eighth and York, where my father’s uncle Joey had been successfully treated for lung cancer two years before, undergoing an operation that put him into remission against steep odds. A few weeks after receiving my father’s first death sentence we braced for another, driving into the city in the beat-up white Subaru station wagon for which my father had traded his powder-blue Econoline van. It had 130,000 miles on it, so we were screwed if it broke down, but he could hardly drag himself onto a subway train, ferry, and bus after daily chemotherapy sessions.
We were sent to the Rockefeller Pavilion at Fifty-third and Third, a luxuriously appointed branch of the hospital that had just opened a month earlier. It didn’t look like a cancer hospital; it looked more like a hotel, with concierges dressed in black manning a reception area on the first floor, directly across from a soothing waterfall. The door to each treatment room was emblazoned with a plaque that read CHEMOTHERAPY SUITE, and receptionists read patient records on flat-screen computer monitors. The floor we were headed to, the thoracic unit, opened up into a waiting area with flat-screen TVs and a mini-fridge stocked with ginger ale and orange juice. It was all so state-of-the-art. “This is a hospital?” I asked in disbelief as we were ushered into an examination room by two doctors. They’d been forwarded the slides and the biopsy results and they had the same opinion as the doctors at St. Vincent’s, except for one thing.
“Some people want to know how long they have,” one of the doctors said as he addressed the three of us. “Is that something you’d also like to know?”
My father nodded. The doctor paused for so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. “A little more than a year,” he finally said.
“Excuse me,” I said, and slipped into the bathroom. I couldn’t help breaking down—I’d stopped wearing eyeliner for precisely this reason. When I came out, the doctors were still speaking to my parents.
“… standard chemotherapy, with radiation to the bone metastases, beginning as soon as possible so as to shrink the rather large tumor at the upper end of the humerus,” one of the doctors was saying. “In addition to the shoulder, there are metastases in both the right and left femur, which is a weight-bearing bone, and without immediate radiation it may break.”
“Uh-huh,” my mother said, looking like she was trying to memorize everything that came out of their mouths. “And what about surgery? My husband’s uncle was successfully operated on here and his lung cancer was put into remission.”
“Yes, well, Mrs. Mascia,” the other doctor said, massacring our name so it sounded like mass-KEY-a, “we need to first see if chemo and radiation can shrink the primary tumor, but I think I speak for both of us when I say that we never normally operate on cancer this advanced. Your husband will be receiving palliative care.”
“They say ‘palliative care,’” she whispered when my father went to get the car, “but don’t listen to them. Your father is so strong, there’s no telling what he can do. He could beat this, Jenny. He’s got to.” That night we had a somber meal at a diner on Staten Island, but no one ate; my father nursed a scotch as we sat in silence. As soon as we got home my mother sat down at my desk and stared into the bulky monitor of my brand-new student-loan-financed PC and said, “Show me how this thing works.” By the end of the week, the same woman who still typed a hard return at the end of each line whenever she wrote an email had located every major clinical trial for lung cancer on the East Coast of the United States, becoming fluent in the language of cancer: Taxol, carboplatin, cisplatin, Herceptin, Gemzar, endostatin, Tarceva, Iressa. Plus, she’d stumbled onto an online support group for lung cancer patients and their primary caregivers, which my mother now was.
“My husband was diagnosed with a tumor (large cell carcinoma) in the left lung (3 centimeters) and adrenal glands and bones,” she wrote. “We’ve been granted an appointment at #1 this Monday. I have several questions in case someone would be kind enough to answer them. We want him to live, we love him, and even knowing that life is not fair, I’ll still say it. It’s just not fair.” In industry parlance, #1 meant Sloan-Kettering, which should have given us comfort but didn’t. Having my mother on the case did, though. If anyone could solve this problem, it was her.
“If they can get rid of the secondary cancer, there is a chance they can operate on the primary tumor,” she explained during one of her all-night research benders. “England has an interesting clinical trial right now. I just want to extend his life for as long as possible.”
My father continued to work with ice packs on his shoulders, despite my mother’s tearful pleading. “But you could break a bone, Johnny,” she argued, but to no avail. One night over dinner my father seemed strangely upbeat. “I’m not afraid to die,” he announced as he passed the broccoli rabe.
“No?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I just want to see my parents again.” His place at the table faced the terrace, and I’ll always remember how the sun cast its warm glow on his features as he sat ramrod-straight, triumphant even, not the least bit afraid of death. “Of course, I don’t want to leave yous,” he added. “I worry about you and your mother, you know.”
“So don’t leave us,” I suggested.
“I’ve been trying,” he said. “Doing a lot of visualizing. Little soldiers marching back and forth through my bloodstream, stomping on the cancer cells.”
“Wow, Daddy,” I said. He made me believe; he could make anyone believe.
By the next morning, though, he didn’t seem so at peace with his diagnosis. “I had a dream that I was dying,” he said over breakfast, looking jarred, “but when I woke up I realized that it was only a dream. I’m not dead yet. I just kept telling myself when I woke up, ‘I’m not dead yet.’”
The next time I started up my computer and searched through the My Documents folder I found this:
July 7, 1999
These are our last wishes as to the disposal of our mortal remains.
There is to be no funeral in any traditional sense.
There is to be no casket, no makeup, no viewing, no dressing, etc.
There is to be no religious service or service of any kind except that which any person or persons wishes to conduct privately after the death of either one of us.
Immediately following death, and as soon as arrangements can be made, the body of John Mascia or Eleanor Mascia shall be cremated. The remains, in an urn, or box, or whatever shall be given to the living spouse, or if both are deceased, to their daughter, Jennifer Mascia. The person who receives the remains knows our wishes as to their ultimate disposal.
The above are the last wishes of John and Eleanor Mascia. There is to be no interference, and since we are both of sound mind and do execute this document in sound mind, there is no cause for interference.
Signed this___day of_____, 1999
They never signed it, and as far as I know they never really needed it. But they’d written it, which meant they were thinking
about the end. Since this nightmare began I’d been worried how my mother’s heart was going to survive this—her literal heart. She took Xanax for stress, but at five pills a day she was still a basket case. It was quite possible that my father’s illness could trigger another heart attack.
It was then that my vampire existence began. I’d stay in bed all day, dodging phone calls instead of answering them on the first ring as usual. By the time darkness fell I was too wired to fall asleep so I’d stay up watching World News Now and keep the television on all night because if I didn’t I’d be left with the silence, which was louder than the television could ever be, because the silence left me room to think. I began to wonder what the purpose of life was if all we do is love one another and watch our loved ones die. The three of us were a unit and it seemed incredibly unfair that we were going to be broken up.
My work performance began to suffer, but I was determined not to tell anyone about my father. I didn’t want to ride a wave of sympathy; I wanted to pretend my life was normal. So fearful of pity was I that I didn’t bother telling my manager at my cocktail-waitressing job that my life had been irreparably altered; instead I sulked and moped until he sat me down at the bar after a dreadfully slow lunch shift and told me that the owners wanted me gone because I “don’t really smile anymore,” and “we can’t have you working here with a bad attitude.”
“Um, there’s a lot going on in my life,” I said, my heart pounding because I hated getting fired. “I don’t know if anyone mentioned it to you, but my father is dying of cancer.” I didn’t particularly want to stay there but I did feel compelled to explain myself to these schmucks who thought they were special because mortgage traders and Yankee players were regulars at their bar.
“Oh, really?” he asked, looking surprised. “Hey, I’m really sorry about that. Maybe this break will be good for you, then. Why don’t you order something before you leave,” he offered, and walked back into the kitchen. I found myself face-to-face with the afternoon bartender, a natural comedian named Mike who was fond of doling out sloppy kisses when he was drunk.
“I’m really sorry,” he said as he polished glasses.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, rising to leave.
“My father died of liver cancer,” he said.
I paused. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
“You know, even if he dies, he’ll always be with you,” he said. “You’re a part of him. You came from him. You can never be separated.”
“Thank you,” I said, and ran out before the tears spilled from my eyes.
Even though I was out of work there was something I wanted to do for my mother while I still had some money. She had hocked all of her jewelry during one of our rough patches on New Lane, and while my father was still alive I wanted to rescue his mother’s diamond cocktail ring, my mother’s wedding ring, and my father’s chunky gold insignia ring from Tiffany. My father sometimes wore the latter as a wedding ring, and it had a crest pressed onto the front that my mother jokingly dubbed “the Mascia family crest.” I rummaged through his nightstand for the receipt to the consignment place on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn and called to say I was coming in to pick up my jewelry. After a bus ride across the Verrazano and a swift $300 transaction I placed the box on the dining room table while my parents were out. When my mother opened the front door I hid in my bedroom and listened as her footsteps echoed throughout the entry-way. They abruptly halted and I heard no sound for a full minute, so I walked out. “Mom?” I called, and found her bent over the table, weeping silently. She turned to me.
“Oh, Jenny, thank you,” she said, reaching for me. “Thank you so much.”
If only it had stayed that way between us.
——
I OFFERED TO TAKE the next semester off from school, and possibly the entire year. I’d offered before, when my father was initially given three to six months, but she refused to allow it. She hadn’t changed her mind.
“Stay in school,” she said. “Daddy wouldn’t want you to leave school on account of him.” I was leery at first, because my biggest fear was that I’d be in class or, even worse, waiting on a table when I got the call that my father had died. I wanted to be there at the very end. But not knowing when the end would be was excruciating; in a way I wanted it to happen now, because the uncertainty threatened to crush me.
Money was another constant source of worry for me; my parents had no savings, and my mother had just started receiving Social Security, but it was just enough to cover the rent and nothing else. I grew angry that my parents had gone through so much money over the course of our lives, and when we needed it most we had nothing. In California, moving to a cheaper place was always a solution when we were broke; moving to New York was sold to me as some kind of financial miracle, but it hadn’t panned out that way. One day when I was feeling brave I sat down with my mother at the dining room table and expressed just how worried I was about them financially.
“Mom, usually people have some kind of savings,” I began. That’s when she told me that she and my father were selling all the Percocet and OxyContin that his doctors threw at him. Apparently getting stage IV cancer is like hitting the Big Pharma jackpot, because suddenly my father was knee-deep in powerful drugs he didn’t even need yet. “These fucking pills make me so groggy,” he complained, so my parents FedExed them to Rita, who sold each prescription for $1,500.
I was relieved, but frightened all over again: What if they blew through this money like it was 1987 all over again? “I just wish that you and Daddy had invested in something in California,” I continued. “Remember when we had the contract at Chapman, all that money we went through? Why didn’t we save anything?”
“Oh, and you’re qualified to give me financial advice?” she asked rhetorically.
“Well, I’m just say—” But I never finished because she slapped me across the face. Maybe she was irritable because my father had forced her to quit smoking. She’d quit after her heart attack but she’d recently started again, insisting that she wasn’t inhaling. Which created another source of friction, as I let her know she wasn’t fooling anyone with the “didn’t inhale” crap.
“Hey!” I yelped, but she was on fire.
“You have no job,” she yelled, “and you go out and spend money with your friends, and you’re lecturing me about finances?”
“I’ll be fine as soon as I move out,” I muttered under my breath.
“Oh, not this again,” she snapped.
“Mom, it’s bound to happen sooner or later, I’m kind of at the age where I’m ready to move out,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Just watch—you’ll have to drop out of school and work full time to pay for rent.”
“No, I won’t!”
“And what exactly do you think is going to happen when your wonderful uncle Frankie decides he wants to move out?” she asked. “We’re going to be responsible for the full rent, and there’s no way we can afford that. And you’re going to escape just when we need you most so you can re-create your fun years—”
“My fun years?” I asked. “You think I want to move out so I can party whenever I want? Is that what you think of me?” I certainly hadn’t demonstrated an aptitude for partying now that I was legally eligible to do so.
“Well, aren’t you trying to recapture some lost youth? Apparently we robbed you of your childhood by not saving enough money or investing—”
“What I meant was that I would have been happier not knowing every time we were about to go bankrupt or bust out the credit cards,” I argued. “Whenever you had a problem with money I had to hear about it, whether I was six or twelve or seventeen, and I’m sick of it! I am sick of having to live with your failures!” The blood had rushed into my face and I felt like my eyes were going to pop out.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you miss your childhood because you were taking care of your poverty-stricken parents, like some street urchin in a Dickens novel?” she asked, dripping with sarcasm. “Who put this moving-o
ut idea in your head, anyway?”
“No one!” I insisted. “I want to be independent, I want to stand on my own. I feel like I have no control over my own life!” Sobs rose in my throat.
“Oh, Jenny, that’s bullshit,” she said with disgust in her voice.
“How dare you! These are my real feelings here!” I screamed, my throat straining.
“Okay, fine,” she said, reaching for her cigarettes. “So you’re going to spend money on an apartment when your father’s dying and we might need it to live?”
“I’m going to tell Daddy you’re smoking!” I snapped. She froze. I rushed to fill the silence before she could. “Look, I am going to survive on my own, I will be fine,” I said. “Sarah thinks so, Jeff thinks so—even Tina thinks it might be a good idea to give you guys some space.” Tina and I had been emailing lately, as I needed advice from someone who knew my parents. My mother had been emailring her, too, asking her professional opinion about certain clinical trials. “I don’t know what she’s talking about half the time,” Tina had confessed. “She knows much more about cancer than I do.”
“Oh, Tina said it would be a good idea?” my mother raged, and I knew I’d given her the ammunition she could kill me with. “Tina has no idea what’s going on in this house. She’s always been jealous of you, and, she’s always smoked pot and used coke, I’ll bet you didn’t know that—”
“So what?” I asked, realizing how ruthless my mother could be, attacking her own stepdaughter this way. I shuddered to imagine how she might have pitted her biological children against one another if she’d had more. “Why are you trying to discredit my sister? Moving out is my idea, and let me tell you, it’s sounding better every moment we stand here and scream. Why can’t you just say what you’re really feeling? Instead of trying to undermine my confidence, tell me, ‘Jenny, I’m going to miss you.’” I had been merely threatening it before, but now I was convinced I should move out, as soon as I could.
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