Before I Go

by Colleen Oakley

  By day three, I started rereading profiles that I’ve read before.

  By day five, I’ve received forty-two “nudges” and twenty-three messages (four don’t count as they’re from women who don’t have a firm grasp on the English language and/or appear to still reside in eastern Europe).

  I’m not surprised Jack’s gotten so much attention. According to Kayleigh, Athens is a “buyer’s market” for guys. For every decent man with straight teeth and a car, there are hundreds of hot, intelligent coeds. “You can’t throw a rock without hitting one,” she said. “And believe me, I’ve been tempted.”

  I also used my favorite picture of Jack—he’s staring straight at the camera, a broad crooked grin punctuated by the deep smile lines carved around his mouth, his eyes, one slightly bigger than the other, bright and magnetic. The collar of his shirt and sport coat are visible just below his neck, but his tie is unknotted, emphasizing his casual, devil-may-care attitude that I fell in love with; the same attitude that at times wiggles under my skin and sits there like an itch I can’t scratch. This photo is Jack in all his imperfect glory—on our wedding day.

  It was a Friday in July at the Athens-Clarke Courthouse. And my heart erupted with joy when the judge looked at me and said “wife.” It was the kind of manic happiness that confuses your nervous system, and I giggled and cried in turns, not caring how foolish I appeared. I was foolish. And I was in love.

  “Please tell me you see the irony in using a picture of your husband on your wedding day to try and help him score chicks,” Kayleigh said when I grabbed it off my Facebook page.

  “Not chicks, plural,” I said, uploading it to the Web site. “Just one.”

  Now, staring at my husband on the computer screen staring at me, my heart pings. I do want him to find a wife and I even hope he’ll be able to find that joy again, on another wedding day in the future. But I also secretly hope that while that day will be lovely and warm and good, that it’s not quite as bright as the sun that once shone down on a girl and boy kissing on the hot brick steps of a courthouse on a Friday afternoon in July.

  Maybe it will rain.

  I click off Jack’s profile and read through a few of the new emails I’ve gotten.

  A new message from CatLady63

  Subject: Hi!

  I have three cats. You’re a vet. Match made in heaven? Ha-ha. Just kidding. What do you like to do for fun? I’d love to learn more about you.

  Madeline

  A copper curly-headed woman peers at me with squinty eyes. Her mouth is small. Ratlike. Meh. She’s not overly unattractive, but I don’t trust cat people. Maybe it’s the inside knowledge of growing up with one, but I think they’re often like the animals they love—unpredictable and emotionally unstable. You never know when they’ll be aloof and distant or senselessly desperate for your affection.

  A new message from GoodLuckCharm

  Subject: Hi there

  New to online dating. Be nice! I see that you like Micheal Critton. I thought the Stand was a really great book.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. Where do I begin? Spelling. Ignorance about classic modern literature. I hit delete. The next four emails are no better. Maybe Kayleigh’s right and I’m too judgey. Maybe I look for things to find fault with. But I’m choosing a wife for my husband, and if that’s not cause for being picky, then what is?

  I need a break. I open Facebook and get lost in other people’s whitewashed versions of their lives. With social media, I’m a voyeur, not a poster. It weirds me out to think that people would be interested in what I had for dinner or how long I waited in line at Kroger or “Oh, hey, I have cancer now.” As personal as it is, it seems so impersonal.

  After scrolling through the news feed for a few minutes, I click a new tab and check my regular email. Of course, there’s one from my mother.

  Subject: Friday

  Hi Hon!

  How are you feeling? Are you sure you don’t want me to meet you up at Emory tomorrow? Ron says I can take a long lunch break! Also, what do you want for dinner? Aunt Joey gave me a new Guy Fieri recipe (that’s the guy who wears his sunglasses backward) that she says is to “Die For”! But I don’t like his show. I told her that and she said to “stop being such a fuddy-duddy and trust her.” So, we’ll see! I have my bird club meeting tonight. Did I tell you last week a man asked for my number? Me! Of course I didn’t give it to him. He has a tattoo of a sandpiper on his neck, and I just don’t know what to make of that.

  Love,

  Mom

  Huh. Maybe I should tell Kayleigh to join the Audubon Society to meet men. I tap out a quick response to my mom (Don’t come to Emory. Whatever you make will be fine. Guess bird club isn’t as boring as I expected.) and then navigate back to Checkmates.com and my search page of women.

  I scroll through a sea of familiar faces until one catches my eye and I stop. Have I seen her before? No, I’d remember. She’s stunning. But not in an unapproachable way. And I wonder if she’s the elusive girl next door who everyone talks about but doesn’t ever really live next to. Her wide smile makes you want to tell her things because you know she’ll listen. And her toffee-colored hair looks like it belongs in a Pantene commercial. She’s the girl in high school that I would have hated because I wasn’t more like her, and then I would have hated myself even more for hating her.

  I click through to her profile, ready to be disappointed. Ready for misspellings and exclamation points and no depth.

  PW147

  Height / Weight: 5’5”, 130 pounds

  Age: 29

  Have kids? No

  Want kids? Definitely

  About me: Honestly, I’m a little bit of a nerd. But I hope it’s in a cute, endearing way and not in a “That girl can recite the entire periodic table in less than 3 minutes” kind of way. (Disclaimer: I can.) I’m a little overorganized. OK, a lot. But I won’t hyperventilate if you leave your dirty dishes in the sink. I’ll just wash them and put them away (and probably rearrange your cabinets) when you’re not looking. I love dogs. Deal breaker if you don’t. And I love pie. Bonus if you do. (But get your own piece. That’s something I won’t share.)

  I lean back into the couch cushion, a jumble of emotions coursing through my veins: excitement, relief, a little leftover high school jealousy of the girl I always wanted to be but never quite measured up to. She’s perfect. OK, nobody’s perfect. I know that. But she is. Perfect for Jack, anyway.

  I click on Send a Message, and a blank email pops up on the screen. I wait to be inspired, struck with the gift of eloquence. I just knew that when I found the right woman, I’d know exactly what to say to her.

  I was wrong.

  I stare at the cursor blinking on and off, taunting me, until my eyes are bleary.

  Until the room grows dark.

  Until my husband comes home.

  I close my laptop and click on the TV as Jack walks into the den.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  “Whatcha watching?”

  “Nothing.”

  He nods and slips out of his loafers right in the doorway. I know that’s where they’ll stay until he decides to wear them again or I move them into the shoe rack in our closet.

  “Can I watch with you?”

  “Sure,” I say, and then grope for other words to break my new monosyllabic speech pattern, but there are none.

  He pads over to the couch and scoops up Benny, who’s resting comfortably beside my thigh, and sits down beside me, rearranging Benny in his own lap. “That’sagoodboy,” he croons, scratching him under the chin. Benny thumps his tail appreciatively.

  There are a few inches of space between our legs, but the distance feels larger somehow and I wonder where this palpable tension has come from. Has it been steadily growing and now it’s big enough for me to notice? Or did it just pop up like an uninvited stranger and plant itself between us on the couch? Does Jack feel it, too?

  Like a girl on a first date, I purposefully m
ove my knee until it bumps his, closing the gap, leaving no room for the tension, but now my leg is just awkwardly touching his. Then he palms my thigh casually with his left hand and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.

  Jack nestles closer. “Mmm,” he says, his cold nose grazing my neck. “You’re warm.” His hand begins to slowly creep up my thigh, and I freeze. Jack hasn’t touched me like this in weeks, I assumed because the word “cancer” has been as much a libido killer for him as it’s been for me.

  Until now.

  “Do you want to . . .” he whispers, gently squeezing the meat of my leg, like he’s analyzing a peach for ripeness.

  And a small part of me does want to. If for no other reason than to push this tension—this uninvited stranger—out once and for all. Or at least for a few freeing minutes.

  But my body isn’t interested in that chain of reasoning and remains rigid, uncooperative. I place my hand over his, gently stopping its upward motion.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just really tired.”

  He sits up and clears his throat. “No, of course,” he says, patting my thigh one last time before putting his hand back on Benny’s wiry fur.

  I immediately regret my response, not because I want sex, but because I miss the weight of him, the warmth of his body on mine. I long to wrap myself in his arms, but I don’t want to give him the wrong idea, so I sit there, wondering if all too soon his arms will be wrapped around someone else.

  Someone with toffee-colored hair.

  fifteen

  BEFORE LEAVING FOR Emory Friday morning, I read PW147’s profile again. It’s a pointless exercise, considering I studied it so many times yesterday, I memorized the entire thing. I close my laptop and vow to compose a pitch-perfect email in my head while driving today.

  Grabbing a basket of vegetables that I picked up at the farmer’s market for Sammy as a thank-you for the flower bed, I head out the back door. It doesn’t hit me until I’m halfway down the stairs that something is different. The handle on the door didn’t stick. I look up at the sun and wonder if it has something to do with the change in temperature. Did the handle get a reprieve from sticking last spring? Maybe it’s something about cold air and expansion or contraction that makes some days worse than others. Some physics lesson that I never paid attention to. I can’t recall a time that it didn’t ever stick at all, though. Maybe I just never noticed.

  I walk through Sammy’s front yard and leave the basket on her front porch, on top of a natural fiber doormat that says “Welcome Y’all” in black script. I had wanted to thank her before now, but I’ve been holed up in the house in front of the computer. Better late than never. I straighten the index card that I tied with a ribbon to the handle: “Thanks for being a good neighbor.” Then I get into my car and turn on the radio, ready to make the ninety-minute drive to Atlanta.

  By the time I pull into the patient parking lot at Emory, I still don’t know what to write to PW147, but I have visualized her and Jack’s entire future relationship, down to their three perfect children—the first two who will naturally attend Ivy League schools, while the third with her rebellious creative streak will go to a liberal arts school for a year before traveling abroad to find herself. It’s a mental exercise that’s both comforting and demoralizing. Pleasurable and painful. It’s like a cerebral form of cutting or self-mutilation—something I didn’t understand at all in my Psychological and Personality Disorders class but now suddenly makes perfect sense.

  I continue entertaining my twisted fantasies through the MRI and the blood work and am wondering where the couple will retire—if she’ll approve of Jack’s dream to buy a beach house in Cape Cod where our, well, their grandkids can buy clam fritters from questionable roadside stands, and try to dig holes in the sand to China and fall asleep in exhausted heaps every night, their sunburned noses peeking out from a tangle of cool, crisp sheets—when Dr. Rankoff enters my exam room, holding a folder.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks, studying my face with interest.

  “Fine,” I say, an automatic response that I’ve been firing at anyone who’s asked the past month. But this time I pause, considering her question. She’s not asking out of politeness, or even morbid curiosity. She’s asking because it’s important to the clinical trial to know how I am actually feeling. And after a quick mental inventory, I realize that I am feeling fine. Good actually. Ever since I got the stent, I’ve had more energy, I haven’t had one headache and . . .

  “Well, your skin looks much better than it did two weeks ago,” she says. “Rosy.”

  “Thanks.” I stuff my hands under my legs on the paper-covered table I’m sitting on, and chew the corner of my lip.

  “Any shortness of breath? Pain in your extremities? Confusion? Forgetfulness? Headaches?” She ticks off a list like she’s reminding me what to buy at the store.

  I shake my head no and remind myself of the facts as I know them: I’m dying. I’m in a clinical trial not because it’s going to miraculously cure my cancer, but because it could extend my life by mere months. Chances are, it won’t even do that. But even as these sentences run on a loop in my head, I can’t squash the glimmer of hope that’s sprouted in my belly while I wait for my test results.

  Maybe it’s working.

  Maybe the tumors are shrinking.

  Maybe I don’t need to send an email to PW147.

  Maybe one day I’ll live in Cape Cod.

  Dr. Rankoff doesn’t speak as she flips through my chart. The only sound in the airless room is the scratching of her pen on paper as she jots notations in the margins. When she finally opens her mouth, the glimmer of hope has blossomed into an all-consuming fireball and I know I won’t be flattened by surprise if she says my tumors have all but disappeared. That I’m a walking phenomenon that will send shock waves through the scientific community.

  But she doesn’t say that.

  “Your tumor markers are a little more elevated. The liver mets, especially, appear to be growing at a faster rate, but the stent should still be able to keep your bile duct free for the foreseeable future.” She looks at me. “But there is good news. Your other tumors—brain, bone, breast, lungs”—as if I’ve forgotten where I’m harboring these cancerous criminals—“are progressing more slowly.”

  I know it’s good news in the way that an arsonist not stealing your TV before he burns your entire house to the ground is good news. That it’s just a nice way of saying that the trial isn’t working.

  I look down at my feet. Even though it’s warm outside, I realize I shouldn’t have worn sandals. My toenails are yellowed beneath the chipped pink polish from hibernating in heavy footwear throughout the winter. I’m suddenly embarrassed for their disheveled appearance.

  “Listen,” she says, her tone changing from news anchor reporting the facts to sympathetic friend. “It’s early, you just started. Let’s give it a chance, huh?”

  I nod, and wonder if I have time to get a pedicure before I go to my mom’s house for dinner.

  “WELL . IT’S BLACK,” I say, poking at the piece of charred catfish on my plate.

  “I’m sorry. It said to get the pan really hot,” Mom says. “Guess I overdid it.”

  I choke down a bite, following it with a sip of water. Then I stab a vegetable with my fork.

  “The Brussels sprouts are good.”

  She brightens. “I’m glad you like them.”

  After dinner, we clear the dishes and go into the den, where I sit on the same brown paisley couch that we’ve had forever. In fact, the entire house looks exactly the same as it did in my childhood—although a little more cluttered, since I’m not around anymore to make sure everything is returned to its precise location at the end of the day. I used to think Mom didn’t buy new furniture or redecorate because she didn’t have the time or money, but now I wonder if it has to do with Dad. Like she subconsciously keeps the house the same way it was the last time he was in it. Some psychological time warp
that makes her feel closer to him.

  Alex Trebek’s voice fills the room, and if I wasn’t looking at his cobwebby hair on the screen, I would swear I was in a time warp. I watched Jeopardy religiously in middle school while waiting for Mom to get home from work.

  I sink back into the worn sofa, stroking Mixxy’s fur, as the chubby guy on-screen buzzes in.

  Who is the Marquis de Sade?

  Right, Trebek says. Go again.

  Strangely, it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that I realized just how depressed Mom had been for most of my childhood. When she wouldn’t get out of bed on her days off, I chalked it up to the exhaustion of working two jobs. When she picked at the microwaved vegetables or frozen chicken nuggets I had made for dinner, I thought it was my cooking that had failed her. But intrinsically, even if I didn’t know the depth of her depression, I did intuit her loneliness. Because I felt it, too. How hollow a tiny house can feel when someone is missing from it. No matter how hard we each tried to fill his shoes, I couldn’t be her husband and she couldn’t be my dad and that’s just how it was.

  Now, remembering that ache—that hole—that my dad left behind, my heart seizes. And I know it’s not just someone to make the sandwiches and the bed and the dentist appointments that I want for Jack. It’s someone to fill that hole.

  George and his handlebar mustache did that for my mom, though it was years overdue. But she hasn’t dated anyone seriously since.

  “Was the sandpiper tattoo guy there last night?” I ask during a commercial.

  When she doesn’t respond, I look over in time to see Mom sniffle, a tissue clutched to her face.

  “Mom?” I ask, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, honey,” she says, between gasps. “I’m just glad you’re home. I miss you when you’re gone.” She tries to smile. “You know what a weepy willow I am.”