“I don’t mind, really.”
“Well, I do.”
“Wouldn’t you rather know what’s going on?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to go see the stupid doctor.”
“I would.”
“Well it’s not your mother, is it?”
As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I regret it. Mother comments are below the belt where Benji is concerned.
“Sorry,” I grumble. “It just makes me so mad.”
A terrible thought comes over me, a thought that makes my skin go cold and clammy, like I’m going to be sick. I stop dead in my tracks and turn to Benji.
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” I ask.
Benji looks truly shocked.
“Of course not!”
“Good. Because if you did—”
But I don’t need to finish that sentence. We both know I could cream him if I really wanted to.
***
I arrive home promptly at 3:30 to find Mom and Denise waiting for me in the car.
“What is she doing here?”
“It’s nice to see you, too, kiddo.”
“Denise is here because I want her to be involved. She is like family to me, so you can check that attitude at the door.”
I climb into the car — the back seat, since Denise’s horse legs are so long she has to sit in the front — slip on my sunglasses and slink as far down in my seat as possible. I don’t want anyone to see me arriving at the hospital and spread rumours.
Dr. Fairbanks’ office is inside the hospital, which I have only been in once, not counting when I was born there, because who remembers their own birth? Two years ago I fell off the monkey bars and broke my wrist. Ever since then I have turned my back on a career as an acrobat in Cirque du Soleil and sworn off monkey bars and hospitals in general.
I hate going to the hospital. The nurses and doctors talk in hushed voices and then take you behind green curtains to whisper about more bad news. It’s too quiet. It feels like the whole building is holding its breath, and any minute the doors will burst open and all these stretchers will roll in carrying people screaming in pain and bleeding all over the place. I tell my mom this, but she says I’ve seen too many TV hospital dramas and that a disaster of that scale is highly unlikely.
“But it could happen,” I protest.
“Yes, Clarissa, it could happen, but it’s highly unlikely.”
“But it could.”
“Yes, it could. But if it did, I doubt they would bring them up to the cancer clinic.”
“I wouldn’t mind being tended to by George Clooney or Patrick Dempsey,” Denise says.
“In my experience, real doctors never have such great hair,” Mom sighs. “They’re usually balding.”
Denise laughs, maybe a little too loudly, because the receptionist frowns at us over the edge of her glasses and the woman across from us looks up from her magazine as if we were swearing at each other at the top of our lungs.
“Shhh,” Mom whispers. “No laughing in the hospital,” which of course makes them laugh harder.
If you ask me, the hospital could use a lot more laughing.
***
“Dr. Fairbanks will see you now, Annie.”
Even though the receptionist isn’t speaking directly to me, my heart starts leaping around in my chest.
“That’s us, girls.”
Mom stands up, gathers her coat, purse and nail file and heads down the hall into Dr. Fairbanks’ office like she’s headed for just a regular checkup at your run of the mill doctor’s office. She looks impossibly beautiful. How can she be sick? Denise and I follow behind her. I think Denise might be even more nervous than I am, since she just popped her fourth piece of gum in less than half an hour. The sound of her jaw popping as she chomps away is driving me crazy. I will have to make sure that Mom sits in the middle in Dr. Fairbank’s office.
“Ah. Welcome. Annie, Denise, good to see you again, and you must be Clarissa.”
Well, Mom was right about the bald doctor thing. Dr. Fairbanks has a perfectly round bald patch on the top of his head, surrounded by a thinning ring of brown hair. He’s short, chubby round the middle and his cheeks are pink, even though it’s not cold enough for them to look so rosy. His hand, when I shake it, is warm and dry, with a wedding ring wedged onto his fourth finger. Too bad, Denise.
“Today we are here to talk about Annie’s treatment schedule, but do you have any questions first?”
We all shake our heads.
He takes a pair of glasses out of the chest pocket of his lab coat and rests them on the edge of his nose.
“We’re going to start by removing the lump and some of the surrounding cells, followed by chemotherapy and eventually radiation therapy, which will zap any of the remaining cancerous cells in the area.”
I try to imagine what that might look like, and I picture one of those arcade games with the guns that you point at the screen to shoot blinking lights. Now all I can think about is Dr. Fairbanks and a team of nurses wearing goggles and masks and pointing laser guns at my mother’s chest.
“The actual treatment won’t hurt at all, but it can cause redness and tenderness of the breast.”
“So can breastfeeding,” Mom says.
Oh god. I feel my cheeks flushing and I sink lower into my chair as Denise and Dr. Fairbanks laugh. I don’t see what’s so funny.
“A sense of humour is so important,” Dr. Fairbanks says. “I can see you’ve got that in spades.”
“Now, you’ll be seeing a radiologist in a few weeks to determine the length of your treatment, but as we discussed, we don’t have the facilities here at the General Hospital. The closest centre is London. Have you considered your options?”
“I have, but we still need to iron out a few things,” Mom says.
Options? What options?
“Do you have any questions, Clarissa?”
I shrug and avoid making eye contact. The sooner I get out of here the better.
Dr. Fairbanks continues. “A lot of kids want to know if cancer is contagious, like a cold. The answer to that is no, you can’t catch cancer from another person. Another common question is whether or not someone will die. It’s true that many people die from cancer, but not everyone. We’re going to do everything we can to help your mother and I think she has a good chance of a complete and total recovery.”
Everyone keeps telling me that they’re going to do everything they can, and that they caught it early, like that makes everything better, but the fact is nothing is one-hundred percent for sure. Lots of things could still go wrong. I hate that no one seems to be taking this as seriously as I am. I want to know what happens if the cancer doesn’t go away. What do we do then? Those are the questions I really want to ask, but somehow I don’t think those are the answers Dr. Fairbanks is prepared to give me. Suddenly my face is hot, and if I don’t get out of here as soon as possible I’ll be blubbering.
“May I be excused?” I ask.
Dr. Fairbanks blinks. “Excused?” he repeats.
“To go to the bathroom,” I add.
His face relaxes into a smile.
“Of course. I have a few more things to discuss with you mother, though. Would you like us to wait—”
“Oh, no,” I interrupt. “Don’t wait; you can continue. I’ll just wait outside.”
“Just ask Judy at reception to point you in the right direction,” Dr. Fairbanks says. I nod but don’t look back. I can feel my mother’s eyes boring into me. She knows I’m lying about the bathroom but I don’t care. If I stay here one more second I’ll scream.
***
I wish I could say that the rest of the visit was a breeze, but it wasn’t. While I was waiting, minding my own business, the woman next to me started telling me about her husband John and his colon. I wasn’t exactly sure what a colon was but I had a fuzzy idea that it was something disgusting, maybe even more embarrassing than the B word, which is a word I hope I never have to say out loud. I
t is definitely not something you would talk to perfect strangers about, but try telling that to Susan. She had no problem telling me all about her husband’s colon and how he was a stage one, “Thank the Lord,” and how they were about to begin treatments.
I nodded politely without ever looking up from National Geographic. I don’t even like science magazines but anything was better than talking about colons with Susan. Besides, they had an article about blue whales that was almost interesting.
After she ran out of colon-related things to tell me, Susan asked why a young girl like me was sitting in a hospital on such a nice day. I find it very annoying that adults are always telling you to be polite and not ask nosy questions but this rule doesn’t seem to apply to them. I wish I could fake deafness, or at least a fainting spell, but when the moment strikes I always seem to lose my nerve.
“I’m waiting for my mom.”
Susan’s eyes went all big behind her glasses, and for a minute I was seriously worried that she was about to pull me into a hug. I scooched over in my seat and coughed into my hand. With any luck she would think I had some sort of contagious bug. She looked like the type to carry Purell in her bag and wipe off doorknobs with Wet-Naps. She was wearing pink granny pants with a matching blouse and had a no-nonsense frosty gray bob with poufy bangs, the kind of hair my mom called safety-helmet head. Helmet because of its shape, and safe because there was nothing stylish or controversial about it.
“You poor child. What kind of cancer does she have?”
If only I could cry on cue. Then Susan would feel so bad about hounding me about my mother’s cancer, she would let it go. But the thought of saying the B word aloud still couldn’t bring tears to my eyes. This was one of the only times I wish I could trade places with Mattie Cohen. Crying is one of her better talents.
I became aware of Susan staring at me. She leaned in and patted my knee, murmuring things like, “there, there” and “poor child.” We were dangerously close to hugging territory. Susan was so close I could smell her perfume. Definitely Wild n’ Freesia. It smelled thick and sweet and made my nose hairs tingle, like cheap hairspray. I could either spit the word out or suffocate in her old lady perfume.
My cheeks were so hot I thought for a moment that maybe I really was getting sick. Susan didn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable I was. Or maybe she thought I was upset. She was cooing and shaking her head.
“It must be hard for you to talk about. You brave, brave girl. You’ll be in my prayers. You and your mother.”
And then she grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. I managed to mumble a thank you and tried to pull my hand away, but Susan continued to hold it until her husband returned from the examining room. He seemed like a nice man. He had a bit of a stoop and a nice smile, the shy kind. He reminded me a little of Benji. When he came in, Susan jumped up and got his coat for him. I flexed my hand, which was numb from being squeezed so tightly, and resumed flipping through my National Geographic. While Susan had held my hand captive, I had been stuck on the same page for ten minutes.
I wondered if maybe I should say something to John, but I didn’t know what to say. Good luck with your colon sounded like a joke, even though I really meant it. Instead I kept my head down and pretended to be fascinated by pygmy nuthatches. When I looked up, Susan and her husband were gone.
Breast
Of all the cancers in the world, my mother had to get breast cancer. I don’t even like to think about the B word, let alone say it. Just the thought of saying it out loud makes my voice box shrivel up like a raisin and my cheeks burn. As if the B word itself wasn’t bad enough, now every time I hear it I will immediately think “cancer,” like in that game where someone says a word and you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. For example, if you say “full,” Benji will shout “house” out so fast, it’s almost like he knew what you were going to say before you said it. He loves that dumb show that much.
Today alone I had to say the B word four times. That is more than I have said it aloud in my entire life.
The first three times I was in the guidance counsellor’s office, sitting across from Mrs. Stremecki who thought it would be a good idea to talk about my mother’s illness. I don’t know how schools find out all these private things about you. In this case I imagine my mother made a phone call, requesting someone deal with her difficult daughter. Unfortunately Mrs. Stremecki is one of those people who thinks that in order to overcome something you have to confront it by verbalizing it. She seems to think that the more I am able to say the words “breast cancer,” the more equipped I will be for dealing with it, like if I can say the words aloud, I won’t be afraid of what they mean. I swear, she tried to squeeze the B word in as many times as possible.
“Tell me how you feel about your mother’s breast cancer.”
“Do you have any questions about breast cancer?”
“Are you worried you might lose your mother to breast cancer?”
I crossed my arms tight across my body and answered in as few words as possible. Mom calls this my Sullen Sally act but Mrs. Stremecki didn’t seem to find it as exasperating as she does. Obviously she thought it was due to my mother’s cancer, and because she is a guidance counsellor, it is probably written right into her contract that she has to be more sensitive than most parents.
“We can talk about this later, Clarissa, but I want you to know that my door is always open if you need me.”
I nodded and thanked her, but before she let me go, I had to say the words “breast cancer” three times. When I was done she gave my shoulder a squeeze and sent me back to geography with a sucker, which did not make up for the fact that I had to say the B word out loud three times, even if it was grape.
The fourth and absolute worst time was in language arts. Mrs. Stremecki had kept me longer than I had thought, and so when I returned to Mr. Campbell’s class, they were finished with geography and had moved on to reading circles. I handed my slip to Mr. Campbell without looking at him and slid into my seat. I knew that if I looked at him he would be able to tell that I had spent thirty minutes in the guidance office talking about, well, you know. I squeaked past teacher-interrogation, but I wasn’t so lucky when it came to my group members.
“Where were you?” Rocco demanded.
I ignored him, as I always ignore anything Rocco Martinez says. He always has a runny nose and runs around burping in people’s faces. Normally everyone else ignores Rocco, too, except this time my group seemed to be looking at me, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, where were you?” Kevin repeated.
“It’s none of your business—”
“She was in guidance. I saw her.”
I swear if I could have any super power it would be laser eyes so I could have killed Amanda Krespi with one look. Rocco got all excited. Probably because he is usually the one spending time with Mrs. Stremecki.
“Guidance? Really? Are you failing?”
“No, I am not failing.”
Rocco looked confused. “Are your parents getting divorced or something?”
Amanda frowned and elbowed him sharply in the side. “No, stupid, Clarissa doesn’t have a dad.”
“I do so have a dad, Amanda.”
“Well you don’t live with him or anything.”
“Excuse me, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to work on the book—”
“Come on, you can tell us!” Kevin begged.
I shrugged, like it was no big deal, and opened my book to chapter three, but I felt them all staring at me and I knew there was no way to get out of it. I considered raising my hand and asking for the sick pass, but then my whole group would have talked about me while I was gone, Amanda and Mattie would have gone on about it more at lunch and pretty soon the whole class would be whispering about my big secret.
“Guys, leave her alone. I’m sure she doesn’t want to talk about it.” Mattie smiled at me across the table. I smiled back and thought, she isn’t always so bad.
“B
esides, you wouldn’t want people bothering you if your mother had cancer.”
I was not smiling anymore. Neither was anyone else. Rocco actually dropped his pencil and Kevin suddenly, for the first time ever, became interested in his workbook. Amanda’s mouth fell open and she looked from me to Mattie and back to me again.
“Does she really, Clarissa?”
Mattie tossed her stupid perfect hair, annoyed that anyone would dare to second guess her. “Of course she does. My mom’s a nurse and she talked to her at the hospital last week.” Then she looked at me all concerned and said, “I’m very sorry, Clarissa.”
“Is it bad? Like, is she going to die?” Rocco asked.
“Rocco!” Mattie pretended to be shocked but I don’t know why she’d be surprised. She’s the one who’d brought it up.
“What kind of cancer is it?” Amanda asked. “My grandpa died of lung cancer.”
“It’s none of your business.” I snapped.
“Skin cancer?”
“No.”
“Brain cancer?”
“No.”
“Arm cancer?”
Mattie rolled her eyes and made a disgusted noise. “There’s no such thing as arm cancer, Rocco. How stupid can you be?”
“I’m NOT stupid, idiot!”
“If we guess it, will you say it?” Kevin asked.
“No, no, no!”
I searched wildly for Mr. Campbell, but he was on the other side of the room with Benji’s group, laughing at something, totally unaware that one of his students was being tortured only a few metres away.
“It’s a lady cancer,” Mattie whispered.
I imagined my laser eyes cutting her into a thousand little pieces, which I would then put in an envelope and mail to her mother with a note saying, Dear Mrs. Cohen, This is what happens to people who can’t keep their big mouths shut. You’re next.
“You mean—” Rocco cupped his hands over his chest and batted his eyelashes.
Kevin snickered and made kissy faces.
Mattie gasped. “That is rude and inappropriate!”
Amanda’s hand shot into the air. “I’m telling!”
“Is everything okay, group four?”
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