* * *
—
After breakfast, Cecelia walks me to my car. She asks where I’m headed next. I tell her I’m on my way to Ohio, but that I might stop to see my folks before I leave the Northeast. “Well, I have a little something to give you,” she says, and she hands me a small backpack for Oscar filled with treats, toys, and a portable canine water bottle. Then, reaching into her jacket, Cecelia opens her palm to reveal an antique silver key. She explains it was part of Melissa’s collection of knickknacks. I’m moved by the gesture, and I feel a lump rise in my throat. I don’t want to cry, so I choke it down, fish my car keys out of my pocket, and add hers to the ring. “This way Melissa can ride with me as I drive around the country,” I say.
Cecelia’s waving silhouette slowly disappears as I roll away from Windham. As soon as she is gone from view, tears swarm my eyes. By the time I cross into Vermont an hour or so later, I’m crying so hard that the asphalt and trees blur together. I notice a small clearing off to the side of the road and pull over, killing the engine. I haven’t cried over Melissa since the day I learned she died. And now that I’m crying, I can’t seem to stop. I thought I’d made peace with her death—at least, as much as was possible—but in this moment, I feel raw in grief. Time, they say, heals all wounds. But Melissa’s absence is a wound that will not—cannot—heal. As I get older, she stays dead.
It is the certainty of never that hurts most. The knowledge that I will never eat star-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with her in the pediatric ward again. Never dance around her living room, headbanging our wigs to the beat. Never watch her paint a new masterpiece. I understand why people believe in the afterlife, why they soothe themselves with the faith that those who are no longer with us still exist elsewhere, eternally, in a celestial realm free of pain. As for me, all I know is that here on this earth, I cannot find my friend.
Hands trembling, I raise my sweater to my face and wipe it dry. Then I drive. Down Vermont’s winding back roads littered with fallen leaves. Past cornfields and across covered bridges. I drive until I reach the log cabin where, over the summer, I conceived of this ridiculous trip. I spend a few days sleeping and walking in the woods and weeping some more. Then I continue.
If time has changed anything since Melissa’s death, it is that these days, the act of remembering also admits moments of joy, not just sadness. As the car bounces down the dirt driveway, I imagine Melissa sitting in the passenger’s seat, bopping her head to the radio, her green eyes glinting in the autumn sun. I ask her opinion on life’s dilemmas—on loss and my love life, on how to carry the past into the future and what in the world can be done about my post-chemo mullet—and in my mind’s eye, as she smiles yes or shakes her head no, the answers become a little less murky.
* * *
—
While I was talking with Melissa’s mother, an intrusive thought kept forcing its way into my mind: If our stories had ended differently, Melissa could have been the one visiting my grief-ravaged parents. It’s a thought that floods me with a guilt vast enough to drown in—not just that I am here and Melissa isn’t, but also that my reentry into the world has so consumed me that I’ve neglected to think about my own parents’ experience. I imagine my mother in Cecelia’s position, sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom surrounded by piles of my things—my favorite stuffed dog, cardboard boxes crammed with report cards and old artwork, my dusty double bass propped up in a corner, and my hand-knit baby clothes carefully folded and wrapped in tissue paper, destined for grandchildren someday. My parents are, of course, fortunate; they haven’t lost a child. But living with that possibility, and caring for me through the process, was its own kind of trauma.
Saratoga is an hour’s drive from the New York–Vermont border, and at the last minute I decide to stop by my parents’ house for a night. I can’t remember the last time I visited and as I pull into their driveway, my mother rushes out to greet me. I wrap my arms around her slender shoulders, inhaling the fragrant scent of her face cream. I want to tell her I love her, how much I’ve missed her, but my family has always been more comfortable with heated dinner table debates than outpourings of affection. It’s more than that, though. Over the last year we’ve stopped talking as frequently or as openly as we used to. In fact, for a time, we weren’t talking at all.
I always assumed our closeness would be a constant, especially given everything we went through together. But after I finished treatment, a strange distance emerged. While my parents were aware that my relationship with Will had been strained, no one knew the full extent of our unhappiness and the news of his moving out came as a terrible shock. Will lived in my parents’ house for close to a year leading up to the transplant. He joined us on family holidays and spent countless hours sitting with my parents in hospital waiting rooms. After Will and I settled into a place of our own, he stayed in daily contact with my parents, always making sure to text them with health updates and sending them frequent photos. They thought of Will as family, an honorary son-in-law.
More shocking than even our breakup was when I announced to my parents that I was in a new relationship. They were vocal about their disapproval: It was too soon for me to be dating someone new, they said. Was I sure that what was broken between Will and me couldn’t be fixed? It was more than six months before they agreed to have dinner with Jon. Slowly, they stopped mentioning Will so often and they made an effort to be more supportive, but I could sense their lingering concern. Where I saw a chance at a fresh start, my parents saw peril—the possibility that I was setting myself up for more heartbreak with a new man who didn’t understand how tenuous my health still was.
And that’s what every conversation boiled down to—panic about my health. Whenever I was on the phone with my parents and happened to cough or mention fatigue, their replies were laced with apprehension: “Are you sick? Can you make an appointment to get your blood counts checked? Why don’t you come home for a rest?” Their worry had become a tic they couldn’t help themselves from expressing. They wanted to protect me, but their anxiety could be overwhelming. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, but gradually I’d stopped calling or visiting as much. I let emails and texts go unanswered for days; sometimes I didn’t answer at all. I knew this was hurtful, especially to my mom, who was used to being in daily contact, but I didn’t know what else to do. To quell my own fears, I needed space from theirs.
* * *
—
I follow my mom into the kitchen, where we make turmeric tea, and then we bring our mugs upstairs to her studio. Classical music floats from an old paint-splattered boom box in the corner. The windowsills are covered in shells, branches, feathers, and animal bones that she collects during her daily walks in the woods with my father. On the walls hang her latest creations: giant black-and-white paintings of what appear to be abandoned birds’ nests.
We take a seat at the large drafting table pushed up against one of the windows. It’s covered in notebooks, jars of paintbrushes, and dozens of tubes of paint, and as my mom clears a space for our mugs I notice her hands. Years of painting and gardening have left them weathered, her fingers knotted like gingerroot, her palms as rough as tree bark. They are the hands that held me right after my birth. They are the hands I glared at with red-hot resentment when it was time for my nightly chemo injections during the clinical trial. They are the hands that changed my urine-soaked sheets when I grew so ill that I wet the bed. Those hands and I have struggled through a lot.
“Maman?” I say. “Merci.”
“Pour quoi?”
“For always taking such good care of me.”
“You don’t need to thank me. That’s what parents do.” She looks hesitant for a moment, then adds, “You know what’s weird? In terms of my daily life, I was functioning almost better when you were very sick. We were in emergency mode and I had one focus: taking care of you. I couldn’t admit how afra
id I was that you might not make it. It’s only now that you’re better that I’m allowing myself to feel my fear—that I’m listening more to what the whole thing has meant.”
It’s the first time my mom has shared any of this with me—my first glimpse of what the past four years have been like for her. From the day of my diagnosis, she and my dad were beside me. My suffering has been theirs, my disappointments and heartbreaks and uncertainty theirs, too. I imagine it will be a long time before they are able to shake the worry that it could happen again. I’m not the only person in my family trying to move forward.
“You can’t keep going and doing the same things as before when everything in your life has been turned upside down,” my mom says. “I haven’t yet found a journey like the one you’re on to help me refocus.”
* * *
—
The next morning, my parents and I have breakfast at a family friend’s nearby apple orchard. During the meal, the mood is hopeful, but I can sense an undercurrent of concern—though, this time, it’s not about my latest blood counts, but instead my ability to use a turn signal. Back at the house, I pack up the car. I wish I could stay longer, but I need to get back on the road. “My Hundred-Day Project is going to be to call you every day,” my mother says, poker-faced, as I climb into the car. She stands next to my father, whose hands are clasped conspicuously behind his back. As I pull out of the driveway, I see him step behind my car and splash a glass of water onto the rear windshield. It’s an old Tunisian tradition he’s done countless times before: to throw water behind a loved one as they venture out on a long trip, a blessing to ensure their safe return.
29
THE LONG FORAY
EITHER MY GPS is a liar or I am an erratic driver, but I always seem to take nearly twice as long as it predicts to get to where I’m going. “Take a right turn in—recalculating…” its robotic voice says condescendingly when I miss yet another exit. My next destination, Columbus, Ohio, will entail my longest drive yet. The GPS predicts that, if I follow its barrage of orders exactly as told, I will arrive in nine hours and twenty-one minutes. Unlikely.
These days I’m on no one’s clock but my own.
Two weeks earlier, when I first left home, I was so tense that I regularly had to remind myself to breathe. Each minute behind the wheel presented new and overwhelming scenarios: Do I have the right of way? What does a blinking red light mean? Was that an Egyptian hieroglyph on the traffic sign? Lane changes and merging onto the freeway had proven especially stressful—an existential guessing game of will I live or will I not. But with each day, I am feeling more confident, and it has been at least seventy-two hours since another driver has honked at me in anger or bewilderment. Before I left Saratoga this morning, my father showed me how, if I leaned forward in my seat while glancing into the side mirror, the curvature in the glass would allow me to see cars hiding in the blind spot. Now, as I roll along the interstate, miles fly by with newfound ease. Even Oscar seems more relaxed as he gnaws on a bone in the backseat.
After about three hours, I begin to flag, drowsy from the warm sun streaming through the window. Removing my shoes at a rest stop, I recline the seat as far as it can go and stretch my toes onto the dashboard. My fatigue continues to chase me, but instead of fighting it or chastising myself for my slowness, I close my eyes under the golden arches of a McDonald’s. I am trying not just to accept my body’s limitations for a change, but to savor the breaks I have to take because of them. These pit stops end up being some of my favorite moments on the road—shifting me out of my swirling mind and into the present, anchoring me in this strange new body, and in new places where I otherwise would never have gone.
A half hour later, I awake, revived. I’m able to log another 150 miles before I decide to break for the day. I find a cheap motel on the outskirts of Buffalo, and as I wait for the receptionist to fetch my room key, I skim through brochures advertising boat trips along Niagara Falls. It’s a gray, dreary day. Oscar needs exercise but the only greenery in sight is a small strip of desiccated grass encircling the property. We jog loops around the parking lot to the whooshing soundtrack of tires plowing through puddles on the nearby freeway. Out of nowhere, hail begins pelting down on us. Oscar raises his snout and growls at the sky.
Inside, the room is surprisingly cozy, the lighting warm and inviting. I lay out bowls of water and kibble for Oscar and contemplate what to do next. The fluffy bed beckons, as does the prospect of curling up with a book, but even on a wet day after a three-hundred-mile drive, a new part of me yearns to explore. I remember the brochures: Niagara Falls is only a half hour away and I’ve never been. I give Oscar a scratch behind the ears, then head to my car.
As I drive to the falls, my expectations lower with each tacky hotel and flashing casino I pass. Crammed parking lots flank the park entrance. By the time I find an empty spot, I’m having doubts about whether I want to stay at all, but I get out and stand in line to purchase a ticket to the Maid of the Mist, a tour boat that sails upriver past the base of the American falls and over into the U-shaped basin on the Canadian side. Donning a plastic parka, I board the enormous double-decker ferry with hundreds of other tourists. I have never seen so many selfie sticks in my life.
Squeezing through the crowd, I wedge myself into a decent viewing spot on the lower deck, my ribs pressed up against the starboard railing. Looking around, I can’t help but notice I seem to be the only person unaccompanied by family or a significant other. Sightseeing alone, especially in such a crowded setting, makes me self-conscious. “I have friends, I swear,” I find myself wanting to tell the couples next to me. Of course, they’re too busy admiring the view to notice or to care that I am on my own, but still I feel conspicuous and a bit lonely.
The feeling only lasts a few minutes. As the boat slices through frigid waters, the wind numbs my face and my self-consciousness evaporates amid the onrush of scenery. Instead, my solitude begins to feel luxurious: I can be fully present in a way I couldn’t be if traveling with a companion. Flocks of seagulls swoop overhead. As the falls roar into view, the hull of the boat begins to vibrate. What I see before me is infinitely more majestic than anything I could have imagined. Endless gallons of water hurtle over a colossal cliff, smashing, pummeling, and kneading the river into a violent froth. As we approach, freezing water sprays the deck. My parka clings to me like Saran Wrap. Though soaked and shivering, I don’t budge. My senses are fully awakened, the world around me too glorious.
It’s impossible to confront something so vast and not feel awed. My diagnosis produced a similar effect, and made me wonder how it was I’d ever failed to notice the beauty of my surroundings before or believed that life could be unremarkable. Walking to Mount Sinai for my first round of chemo, knowing it would be my last time out of a hospital room for weeks, I noted every detail, from the shading of the sky to the feel of the breeze on my neck. I thought this new appreciation would stay with me forever, that once I saw, once I knew, how everything could change in an instant, I would never again take such things for granted. But over time, my field of vision narrowed to the size of a ward, then a bed. Walled off from the outside, I had no choice but to turn my gaze inward. Once I was finally released, the threat of imminent death behind me, I only collapsed even further into myself. I stopped paying attention. Here at the foot of the falls, I’m reorienting my gaze outward again.
* * *
—
The next morning, the soft light of a perfect autumn day dapples the dashboard as I ease onto Interstate 90, the northern artery that runs from Boston all the way to Seattle. Between bluffs, I catch glimpses of the vast, royal-blue waters of Lake Erie. Around noon, as I cross over into Pennsylvania’s northwestern tip, Oscar begins to whine for a walk. Turning off the highway, I follow the signs to Presque Isle State Park, a thin peninsula that arcs into the lake. Oscar and I stroll along a quiet sandy beach. The lake is enormous—a sea, really—and
the shore is fringed with cottonwoods, willows, and oaks. Reflections of golden leaves glimmer like fallen stars on the water.
Much as I’ve been enjoying my solitude, I find myself wishing Jon were here to share the view. We haven’t spoken in a few days, and the distance is already making me feel disconnected from him. Pulling my phone out of my jacket, I dial his number.
“Where y’at?” Jon says, his usual prelude. I can hear the tooting of a trumpet and the belch of a tuba in the background, and I gather that he is rehearsing with the band.
“I’m good,” I say, and I’m surprised to realize I actually am. “On my way to Columbus, to visit a man named Howard Crane.”
The silence on the end of the line is swollen with words unsaid. When I first told Jon about my plan for a cross-country trip, he made no secret of his disapproval. Though he recognized my need for a drastic change, he didn’t like the idea of my traveling alone. He grew even more concerned when he learned I was planning to visit nearly two dozen strangers, most of whom I knew only from the Internet. As Jon pointed out, you can never truly know someone’s intentions, no matter how well they present on paper.
“Watch yourself out there,” he urges.
I groan, rolling my eyes. “You doing okay?”
“I’m fine. Working nonstop. It’s hard not having you here,” he says, sounding a little dejected. Right before my departure, Jon had started a new job as the bandleader of a late-night talk show. But just as he’d landed a five-night-a-week gig that allowed him to stop touring and stay in New York, I’d left on my own tour, of sorts. The instruments in the background are growing louder and I’m having trouble making out what he’s saying. “Listen, I really want to find a time when we can actually talk. Can I call you after—” Then his voice cuts out.
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