Between Two Kingdoms

by Suleika Jaouad

  Behind my closed eyelids, a fire of remorse blazes, keeping me awake. While it’s easy to destroy the past, it’s far more difficult to forget it. My mind keeps replaying the first big fight Will and I ever had. Like so many first fights, it contained the seeds of dissent that would later blossom much larger. We were supposed to be traveling to Santa Barbara in a few days to celebrate the wedding of one of Will’s childhood friends. We hadn’t boarded a plane since I’d started treatment, and I was looking forward to a change of scenery. But as the departure date approached it became clear that unless my blood counts miraculously improved, I wouldn’t be able to go. Up until the last minute, however, I kept insisting that I was well enough.

  My desperation to participate in the world often clouded my judgment, meaning Will regularly had to take on the unpleasant role of enforcer. And a few nights before we were supposed to leave, he sat me down. “I talked it over with your parents,” Will said gently, putting an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into him. “You know how much I want you to come, but we all agree: It’s just not safe for you to get on a plane right now. You need to stay home and rest.”

  I remember being overwhelmed by a desire to scream, my rage so great I wanted to reach up and rip down the sky. Will was right—boarding a plane in my condition was a death wish. I knew he was just trying to look out for me, but I didn’t know where else to direct my anger. Jerking away from him, I said, “How dare you convene with my parents behind my back. Like I’m some child incapable of making decisions for myself. Like I don’t feel pathetic enough. And let me guess—you’re going to go without me.”

  I watched this man—who had not been home to see his family or friends in months, who had not left my side since the diagnosis, who had spent a summer of sleepless nights on a cot next to my hospital bed—crumple. “Sus,” he pleaded, “please don’t be upset. I just need a break.”

  “Yeah? Well, I need one, too,” I snapped back.

  The next day, I woke up smarting with shame. I knew better. I understood how important it is for caregivers to be granted the gift of guilt-free time to themselves. Will both deserved and desperately needed a break, and I told myself that just because I was too sick to go didn’t mean he should have to stay home, too. With this in mind, I tried to stow my anger when Will left for the wedding. But it was hard to keep down for long. No matter how deeply buried, it found its way out.

  As pictures of Will’s trip filtered onto my Facebook timeline over the next few days, I began to smolder. With each new picture I saw—Will and his friends hanging out at the beach, playing soccer, at a bar, dancing—my anger bubbled closer to the surface. Alone in my bedroom, the irrational part of me took over: Maybe Will was secretly relieved that I hadn’t been well enough to join him. Without my being there, he could go out as late as he wanted. A sick girlfriend was a liability, a buzzkill, always threatening to ruin the party or cut short the night because she was tired yet again.

  Of course, I was really raging at the dismal blood counts that had prevented me from accompanying him, at the body that kept me bound to bed, at the chemo I would have to do later that week, at the possibility that my life was over before it had really begun. But it is hard to rage at something as nebulous as cancer. You have to steer the trajectory of your anger, ideally toward a canvas or a notebook, before it hurtles toward a human target—but I didn’t know how to do this then. When Will called from the wedding after-party, sounding goofy and carefree and a little buzzed, I found a pretext to pick a fight. All weekend I did this, berating him for all kinds of ridiculous things—not calling right when he said he would, not responding to a text quickly enough.

  At the core of my anger was a fear that while spending time out there, in the world, Will would realize all that he was missing. Fear that he would grow weary of having to take care of me, that he would leave and would not return.

  What I wish I’d known then: Untamed fear consumes you, becomes you, until what you are most afraid of turns alive.

  Toward the end of Will’s trip, I spiked a high fever and went back to the hospital, where I was admitted for what would end up being a multi-week stay. Will got on the next flight and came straight from the airport to the cancer ward, where he found me tied up to tubes and machines, my breathing labored, my face ashen, yet another infection spreading through my blood. Sitting at my bedside, he bowed his head in his hands and wept. “I never should have gone,” he said.

  A confession: In that moment, I was secretly pleased to have gotten so sick while he was away. It meant he was forced to cut his trip short. It meant he was back in the Bubble with me and that I wasn’t as alone. It meant he would think twice about leaving again. I really believed that if I could keep him close, it would keep us from growing apart. I was so young.

  * * *

  —

  Before leaving Pine Ridge, I read up on the Sun Dance, a centuries-old sacred healing ceremony that takes place each summer. It begins with a team of more than a hundred men working together to cut down a towering tree in a nearby forest. Using a complex set of harnesses, they lower it, being careful to keep the tree from touching the forest floor, then load it onto a flatbed. Once the tree has been safely transported back to the reservation, the men hoist it into the center of a circular outdoor arena nested in a gap between the mountains known as Thunder Valley.

  The tree is the physical and spiritual centerpiece of the ceremony. Its branches are adorned with hundreds of “tobacco ties,” offerings of tobacco leaf wrapped in multicolored cloths, each hue signifying a different prayer. The men pierce their skin with needles and attach ropes from their chests to the trunk. Forsaking all food and drinking only a small amount of water, they sing and dance and pray for four days straight in the blistering sun, many of them collapsing to the ground. Pain, heat, dehydration, and hunger aren’t unfortunate perils: They are part of the process. The dancers believe that by simulating death, they alleviate the pain and sorrows of both their community and their ancestors. It’s not about penance or the glorification of suffering, but about re-creating and honoring the cycle of life and death. Following a final purification ritual, they are meant to reenter the world anew, spiritually cleansed and fortified for what lies ahead.

  It’s a lesson in the value of pain.

  I’m realizing that if I am to cross the distance between near-death and renewal, instead of trying to bury my pain, I must use it as a guide to know myself better. In confronting my past, I have to reckon not only with the pain of losing other people but also with the pain I’ve caused others. I must keep seeking truths and teachers on these long, lonely stretches of highway even when—especially when—the search brings discomfort.

  * * *

  —

  Somewhere between South Dakota and Wyoming, the fall chill turns to killing frost and the trees empty of birds. I roll down a window and stick a hand out, and my fingers quickly go numb. A wet, chalky scent fills the air. It starts to snow, a flake falling here, a flake falling there, and my mind begins to wander. As I travel the land in between, it feels at times as though all I am is memory. I rewind old scenes from my life, seeing countless mistakes and regrettable choices, unable to do anything about them now except better understand what happened.

  In this particular moment, I find myself midway through a memory of a phone conversation I had with my father toward the end of that final hospital stay. I had just announced to him that Will was moving out and that I didn’t think we would be getting back together. “You are my daughter and I love you more than anyone,” my father told me. “But I’m not sure that at Will’s age I would have been capable of being there for you in the way he has.”

  I remember feeling hurt after we hung up. Instead of lauding Will, he should have been upset with him for leaving me. At the time, I was still too angry to understand what my father really meant. As I drive, I’m still trying to make sense of it.

&nbs
p; In my mind, I’ve forgiven Will for moving out, but in my heart, I still feel betrayed. Will and I don’t speak but occasionally he’ll email or text me a random picture—a handwritten list of my chemo medications with instructions he jotted down in a journal, a photograph of me lying on a gurney with an oxygen mask strapped to my face. I can’t tell if he’s doing it out of nostalgia or hostility—his way of saying, Look at all I did for you. I hate the way these missives remind me of how much I needed him, and remind me of the hold he still has on me. Just thinking about it makes me furious. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” I sing as I drive. I want him to stop blaming me for his troubles. I want him to apologize for the ways he hurt me—then I can finally stop being angry, I tell myself.

  The Tetons serrate the horizon. I merge onto the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway, a majestic stretch of highway that leads to Yellowstone National Park, but I’m too absorbed in thought to admire my surroundings. It occurs to me that at twenty-seven I’m now the same age Will was when I got sick. At the time, the five-year age difference between us had seemed colossal in the way that it does when you’re twenty-two and each year of life might as well be a decade. Mon vieux, I’d once jokingly called Will when we were living in Paris.

  As I drive through what has become a swirling mist of snow, I try to imagine what I would do if I found myself in Will’s position now. I try to imagine being there for someone I’ve only been dating for a few months who has just received a deadly diagnosis. I try to imagine packing my bags, flying to a small town I’ve never visited before, and moving in with his parents; spending months of my life sleeping on a hospital cot; turning down promotions at work at a time when most of my friends are focused on building their careers. I try to imagine how I would cope with being the receptacle of his anger. I try to imagine shopping for an engagement ring all the while knowing that the one I love may not survive. When I try to imagine myself doing all of this, I flounder. I can’t. I doubt I would be capable of doing a fraction of what Will did for me.

  * * *

  —

  The truth is, I couldn’t hear Will’s needs above the clamor of my own. I needed constant reassurance that my needs weren’t too much. When my needs did become too much, I made it impossible for him to take the breaks he so desperately needed. In those final months, whenever he accompanied me on yet another trip to the emergency room, the look on his face had been one of exhausted obligation. I took this as evidence that I was indeed a burden, and that he was biding his time until he could finally leave. But in the end, it wasn’t the illness that had driven him away; it was me. It was the countless little ways in which I’d been pushing him away for years, daring him to go until, one day, he finally did.

  I’m so sorry, I whisper into the dark.

  It’s snowing harder now, and my windshield wipers are working overtime. I think about calling it a night and finding a motel until the storm calms, but I worry that the more I delay this leg of my journey west, the worse the driving conditions will become. I decide to continue on until I hit the Montana state line. With no other cars in sight, my tires leave tracks in the fresh, unspoiled powder. The ponderosa pines flanking the highway sag under the weight of the snow, their branches dripping with icicles, everything twinkling in that chilled, bluest light.

  Over the next hour, what’s left of my anger at Will drains away. In its place, I am able to feel what anger hasn’t allowed me to feel, and there is so much I want to say. Will may not have been there for me at the end, but he was there for me when it counted. I want to ask him for forgiveness. I want to tell him how much I miss him.

  If this were a movie, I would call Will from the road right now. Maybe, we’d even find our way back to each other. But this is not a movie. Last we spoke, Will had gotten a new job as an editor heading up a sports site. I’ve heard he’s dating someone new and that the two of them are happy. To love Will now is to appreciate memories of us, without allowing myself to be seduced by their siren call. It’s to resist picking up the phone. It’s to give him the space he needs to reclaim his life. It’s to do what’s hardest. To let him go.

  * * *

  —

  As I near the Montana border, I pass through a side-of-the-highway, blink-and-you-miss-it kind of town. The main road is empty, except for a lone car trailing behind me. Over the next few blocks, the car scoots up until it is following at an uncomfortably close distance. Through the snow, a beam of red light swirls from its roof but I’m too wrapped up in my thoughts to notice. It’s only when I hear the beep-beep warning of a siren that I finally register I am being tailed by a police car.

  I’ve never been pulled over, and my old driving instructor, Brian, failed to cover this in our lessons. Flustered, I swerve over to the side of the road and park, and in a deeply misguided attempt to show compliance, I open the door, thinking I’ll meet the police officer midway between our two cars. But as soon as my boot touches the frozen ground, I understand I’ve committed a grave error—an error that, for people who don’t look like me or have my privileges, could be a matter of life or death.

  “Get back in the vehicle!” the officer shouts. “GET. BACK. IN. THE. VEHICLE.”

  Terrified, I duck into the car, slamming the door shut. Oscar is barking loudly and I’m hissing at him to shut up when the officer appears, rapping his gloved knuckles on the window.

  “I’m sorry,” I say as the glass lowers. “I thought I was supposed to meet you outside the car. I thought it was the polite thing to do,” I explain idiotically, panting a little.

  The officer has a spray of pimples across his cheeks and looks boyish, but the expression on his face isn’t exactly friendly. “Don’t ever do that again,” he says, staring me down. “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You were going five miles over the speed limit.”

  I open my mouth to apologize again, but the officer holds up his palm, silencing me. “License and registration.”

  I fumble through the glove compartment, which is stuffed full of crap—maps, odd papers, ChapStick, and, inexplicably, a child’s Slinky.

  “That’s it right there,” the officer says, pointing.

  A few minutes later the officer returns with my license and registration, peering down at me through the open window. He’s got a few more questions, starting with how it is that, as a new driver, I’ve ended up in Wyoming with a vehicle that has New York license plates, and why it is registered in someone else’s name.

  “Actually, it’s a funny story,” I say, launching into a rambling explanation about cancer and kingdoms, a one-hundred-day road trip, and my friend who lent me the car. I’m revved with adrenaline and it’s hard to tell if I’m making any sense.

  “All right, miss. Calm down,” he says. The corners of his mouth twitch as he suppresses a smile. “I’m going to let you off with a warning,” he says. “But lemme get this straight. You’re a new driver. You’ve borrowed your friend’s car. You’re on a road trip.”

  I nod as he says each phrase.

  “But why in the name of all that’s good and holy are you driving in the middle of a blizzard?”

  32

  SALSA AND THE SURVIVALISTS

  AS I TRAVEL deeper into the wilderness of Montana, I see no one on the road for miles and miles. The land is immense and veiled in knee-deep snow, the sky so vast it makes me feel like the only person in the world. I’ve been driving in silence for several hours when my phone rings. I jump, a bit startled. I glance over and see Jon’s name flash across the screen; I let it go to voicemail. I’ve had so much on my mind lately that I don’t know how to share with him. When we do speak these days, our conversations are little more than strained chitchat. Have we run out of things to say? With half a continent’s distance between us, it’s hard to remember what makes us good together. The future of our relationship was always somewhat precariou
s, and what’s between us seems increasingly unlikely to survive the trip.

  Loss has left me guarded, spent, and not just the loss of life I’ve witnessed over the last few years. It’s the collateral losses of illness: of Will, of fertility and motherhood as I’d envisioned it, of my identity and my footing in this world. At times, my heart feels so haunted that there’s no room for the living—for the possibility of new love, new loss.

  Just last night, I received a message from someone I care about that sent me into a deep and guarded retreat. After driving all day in the blizzard, I checked into a bed-and-breakfast in Gardiner, Montana, and decided to take a bath in the claw-foot tub to thaw out and decompress. I filled the tub until it was almost brimming, removed my boots and wool socks and stripped off the rest of my clothes. Submerging my body into the hot water, I sighed as every muscle slackened. After soaking for a while, I reached over the edge of the tub and picked up my phone with slippery fingers. Since being on the road, I’d let a stack of emails pile up in my in-box, and I figured I should get caught up.

  Skimming the dozens of unread messages, I saw one from my friend Max; he’d sent it a week and a half earlier. The subject line—Health Update—made me tense up. Lots of patients send mass emails to keep friends and family in the loop—these sorts of messages don’t always contain bad news. But in the four years I’d known him, Max had never sent a mass health update before. I knew that whatever news this email contained wouldn’t be good.

  I stared at my phone for a while, then put it down on the tiled floor. I didn’t want to read the message, to step through that door. I slipped my head underwater, then opened my eyes and watched little air bubbles escape from my lips and rise to the surface. I bobbed back up, the water sloshing around me. Once the surface had stilled, I picked up my phone again and began to read.