Before I Go

by Colleen Oakley

  She turns to me. “What did you say?”

  It’s all the prompt I need. “You’re selfish!” I explode. “You sleep with married men and boys young enough to be your nephews without ever considering the consequences! You make Jack and me come to your school and pretend to be parents when we’ll never have any children of our own. Ever. You didn’t even think for a second how that might make me feel. You hate Pamela—because she makes you look bad! And you wonder why you’re terrible at relationships?”

  I know I should stop there, but words keep tumbling out as if they’re a flood of water that’s broken through a dam and can’t be stopped.

  “And you have your whole life ahead of you and you’re just wasting it. Do you know what a slap in the face that is? I won’t ever be a therapist. Ever. I won’t get my master’s. I’ll never have my own counseling practice in New York or Georgia or anywhere, for that matter! But you, you could be anything. Anything you want. But no, you just wake up every day and go to that stupid job that you hate and just accept it. And what for? To spite your parents? God forbid you succeed at anything, lest they compare you to your perfect sister and you don’t live up to it. Better to just not try, right?”

  I slump back in my chair, feeling like a weight has been lifted off my chest.

  Until I see Kayleigh’s face. There’s so much pain in her dark eyes it makes my bones hurt.

  I put my hand over my mouth, as if I can somehow go back in time and prevent the words from coming out. I didn’t mean them. Not really. I know I’m just a tornado of emotions and Kayleigh happened to be in the path of my storm.

  I wish I could take it all back. But I can’t.

  “I’m wasting my life?” Kayleigh asks. Her voice is steady, eerily calm. “What the fuck do you call what you’ve been doing?”

  Before I can respond, the door to the room opens and John Jr. walks in. He has television preacher hair, shiny wing-tip shoes, and a clammy handshake. And while he goes over the myriad of options for caskets, as if he’s telling me the features of a brand-new Cadillac, I sit absolutely still and pretend that I’m ordering a car and that my best friend doesn’t have every reason in the world to hate me.

  THE SKY HAS opened up and it’s raining thick pellets of water when I drop Kayleigh back off at her car in the elementary school parking lot. The only sound in the air is the music coming out of the radio. It’s some Sarah McLachlan song and I reach up to turn it off. I’ve hated Sarah McLachlan ever since my freshman roommate played the Surfacing album on rotation for three straight weeks when she broke up with her high school boyfriend.

  But now I wish I hadn’t turned it off because the silence just underscores that I can’t find the words to convey the depth of my remorse to Kayleigh. As she reaches for the door handle, we both speak at the same time.

  “Kayleigh, I . . .”

  “You know . . .”

  I force a small chuckle, relieved that the silence is broken, even if she’s still angry with me. I forge forward with my unprepared speech. “I’m so sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean—”

  She cuts me off. “It’s fine,” she says, but it’s not, because there are tears in her eyes. “You know, maybe I am selfish. The school thing . . . I didn’t—”

  “No! I know. You couldn’t have.”

  She sniffs. “But I’ve tried to be there for you. I really have.” Her voice is wobbly. “You asked me to be normal. To not be polite, remember? I’ve just been trying to do what you want.”

  What I want.

  I almost laugh at this.

  I want to not have Lots of Cancer.

  I want to take back everything I said to Kayleigh.

  I want my husband to not be possibly falling in love with another woman.

  “It’s just . . . I guess . . .” She takes a deep breath and pushes her next words out with force: “You’re my best friend! And sometimes I wonder if you even realize or care—that Jack’s not the only one losing you.”

  I’m stunned. Embarrassed by how right she is. That I haven’t thought about her feelings. How this has been affecting her. But Kayleigh’s always been so tough, so unruffled by the nuisance of emotion.

  “I gotta go,” she says, opening the door, allowing the full sound of rain hitting the pavement to break the muted air in the car. I know it’s because she doesn’t want me to see her cry. She never wants anyone to see her cry. I reach out my hand to stop her, but words are caught in my throat and the door slams between us.

  As I watch her walk across the dim, wet parking lot, I want to go after her, but I’m weighted down by guilt. And by how hard it is to properly die.

  WHEN I GET home, Jack’s car is already in the driveway, so I park at the curb, run across our yard through the downpour and up the stairs, jamming my key into the front door. I’m emotionally spent, my head is pounding, and I can’t wait to crawl into bed, but I stop short when I see Jack sitting on the couch, staring at me. He’s not locked in his office. In hiding.

  “Daisy,” he says, his face so grave, I wonder for a brief and ludicrous moment if I’ve already died and he’s in mourning.

  “My mom called this afternoon.”

  Oh my God. A series of possibilities flies through my mind, each one worse than the last—Ruggles, their eleven-year-old family German shepherd was put down; his sister Rachel, who just got her license, was in a car wreck; his father had a heart attack.

  “She didn’t get her graduation announcement.”

  I look at him, waiting for the terrible part. Because thieves stole it, along with all the family’s silver. Because their house burned down. Because terrorists bombed the postal service’s air carrier.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Huh,” I say, walking toward the sofa. I’m trying to decipher why the situation is so serious and what my appropriate response should be. “Well, I’ll send her another one?”

  I sit down on the opposite side of the sofa as he reaches into his bag on the floor beside him. He pulls a handful of ivory envelopes out of it and sets them on the cushion between us.

  “What are those?” I ask.

  “My graduation announcements.”

  “Well, obviously. I can see that. I meant, where did you get them?”

  “They were sitting in the trunk of your car. I found them last night.”

  I blink. I put his announcements in the mail weeks ago.

  Didn’t I?

  I try to let out a little laugh, but it sounds hollow. “Well, that explains why my mom didn’t get one. I guess I’ve been under more stress than I thought.”

  Jack continues to stare, his face painted with concern.

  A flash of annoyance runs up my spine. “Jack, I’m sorry! But really, it’s no big deal. We’ll mail them out again.”

  “It’s not just the announcements, Daisy.”

  “What do you mean?” I cross my arms and wait for him to tell me what this is all about, but a part of me thinks I might already know, and I have to force my butt to stay in my seat and listen to him.

  “You’ve been off, lately. Absentminded. At first, I thought it was stress, too, when it was little things—like forgetting to lock the back door when you’re the last one that goes to bed. But now it’s other, weird stuff. Like in my lunch bag last week, you packed a stick of butter. And I found four pairs of my neatly folded boxers in the drawer beside my bed, instead of the dresser.”

  I want to lash out, tell him that he’s lucky I make his lunch, that I fold his laundry at all, but I know it’s a defense mechanism, another way to avoid the truth that’s been gnawing at the pit of my stomach since the day I got lost on the way to Athens Regional.

  Jack’s cell rings and he looks at the screen. Then at me. “I’ve gotta take this,” he says. I wait for him to answer the phone, but instead, he stands up. Leaves the room. Jack never leaves the room for a phone call, unless we’re around other people and he doesn’t want to be rude. And what could possibly be more important than this conver
sation?

  I hear a hushed “Hey” as he heads toward his office.

  Pamela.

  I know it’s her like I know what time it is when I wake up in the middle of the night without looking at the clock. I just know.

  What I don’t know is why she’s calling. If it was just about Copper, why would Jack leave the room? Graphic and horrific images spill into my brain involving Jack and Pamela in various stages of wanton undress. I give my head a sharp shake to rid myself of them.

  Then I stand up and walk into the kitchen with more confidence than I feel. So I’ve been a little forgetful lately. It happens. Maybe I’ve been working too hard for Dr. Walden and the stress really is getting to me. Stress does all kinds of kooky things to your body. And I haven’t been doing my yoga. Or even walking. I’ll start walking again. Exercise has been proven in numerous studies to reduce stress.

  I turn on the tap and rinse the few dishes that are in the sink and load them into the dishwasher. Then I straighten my back and stare at the rain falling outside the glass panes. I cock my head. Something’s different. I look closer.

  Even though water is coming down in buckets, none of it is coming in through the cracks in the windows.

  Because there are no cracks in the windows.

  Bewildered, I turn back into the den and approach the window nearest the door. I run my finger over the fissure between the pane and the frame that’s no longer there. It, too, has been caulked over.

  My legs begin to shake and I know they won’t hold me upright for much longer. I wobble over to the couch and sit down, tears forming in my eyes, confusion and panic churning in my stomach, threatening to explode.

  All of my windows are caulked.

  And I don’t remember doing it.

  I try to take deep breaths and then I remember what Patrick said and I attempt to hold one big gulp of air in my lungs.

  Maybe Jack’s right.

  Maybe I’m very literally losing my mind.

  But when a piece of his voice comes floating down the hall from his office, where he’s in hushed conversation with another woman, all I can think is: haven’t I lost enough?

  twenty-one

  INSTEAD OF DRIVING to Emory the next morning for my biweekly appointment, I find myself back in Dr. Saunders’ office, sitting next to Jack, waiting for the bushy eyebrows to deliver their news. The déjà vu produces a shudder in my spine.

  The only difference between a couple of months ago and today is that I’m noticeably less anxious. What news could I possibly get that’s worse than You’re dying?

  Dr. Saunders takes off his glasses and sets them on the desk. He looks at me. “Brain tumors are funny things,” he says. “Where yours is positioned”—he uses a pen to point to the glowing orange and yellow orb on the computer screen—“we might typically expect to see some balance issues, interruption in motor coordination, things like that.” I think of tripping over nothing in my bedroom a few weeks ago and swallow, while he continues. “But yours is causing a considerable amount of swelling in the brain, which appears to be the culprit for the confusion, memory loss. You’ve been getting headaches?”

  I nod.

  “That, too,” he says.

  Jack clears his throat. “OK, so what can we do about it?”

  “Well, I can prescribe some steroids to reduce the pressure. It should take care of the headaches and hopefully the other symptoms will abate as well.”

  “Hopefully? So it might not go away?” I blink. “Could it get worse?” Before I even give him a chance to respond, my panic level shoots to ten. A five-alarm fire. And I hold my breath to keep from hyperventilating. I remember the cold fear that gripped me for the few minutes I got lost that day and how much worse it would have been if I had driven around for hours. Or what if I start forgetting whole chunks of my life? Or Jack. I don’t want to forget Jack.

  “That’s always a possibility. Like I said, brain tumors are tricky.”

  I want to point out that he didn’t say “tricky,” he said “funny,” and that those seem like more appropriate adjectives for magicians at children’s birthday parties than brain tumors.

  “You could also get surgery,” he says, steepling his hands, his elbows propped on the desk. “It hasn’t grown very much in the past two months and would still be easily removable.”

  “But I thought you didn’t recommend surgery unless I was doing the whole nine yards of treatment, chemo, radiation.”

  He nods patiently. “I did say that, but that was when you were asymptomatic, when the tumor wasn’t causing you any problems—”

  I try not to laugh. As if the side effect of imminent death wasn’t a problem.

  “—Now, it’s something you may want to consider. For quality-of-life purposes. But there are still plenty of risks involved. Maybe even more so. Your body is in a battle right now; it’s in a weakened state. Surgery may be more difficult to recover from. It’s not an easy decision.”

  Finally, I latch on to something I can agree with Dr. Saunders on. It’s not easy. None of this has been easy. My head is now swelling with information, along with the pressure, and I’m not sure that I have the energy to make one more decision when it comes to my health, my life, my death.

  I’m relieved when Jack speaks up.

  “Dr. Saunders,” he says, addressing him with the new gravity that I’ve come to expect in his voice these past few months. “What would you do? If this was your wife, I mean. What would you do?”

  Dr. Saunders looks at Jack over his steepled hands and then at me. He’s silent for so long that I think maybe he forgot the question. Maybe he has a brain tumor, too.

  Finally he takes a deep breath. “The surgery,” he says. “I’d want her to do the surgery.”

  Jack turns to me and raises his eyebrows. I know the ball is in my court. I take a deep breath.

  “OK,” I say, turning back to Dr. Saunders. “I’ll do the surgery.”

  I LEAVE THE cancer center with a prescription for Decadron, a preop appointment with a neurosurgeon in Atlanta for Monday, and the actual surgery scheduled for Tuesday, ever amazed at the speed with which Dr. Saunders can get things done.

  In the car, Jack fiddles with the radio until he lands on a Lynrd Skynrd rock ballad. I open my mouth to thank him for coming with me, even though I did my best to protest that morning, but he speaks first.

  “I’m coming with you to Atlanta.”

  “No,” I say, fervently shaking my head. “You heard Dr. Saunders. I’ll be in the hospital for at least three days. You cannot take that much time off from clinic. Ling won’t let you graduate.”

  “You’re getting brain surgery,” he says in his quiet, pragmatic way. “Ling will understand.”

  “No,” I repeat. “My mom will take off work, she’ll be by my side the whole time—”

  “DAISY!” The word is a roar that reverberates through my body and causes my heart to stop for a full two seconds. Maybe three.

  I glance at Jack out of the corner of my eye and see his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly it looks like the white bones of his knuckles have broken clear through the skin. He takes a breath and loosens his fingers slightly and then speaks in a quiet, low voice, enunciating each syllable.

  “I am coming with you to the surgery. End of discussion.”

  I let out the breath I didn’t notice I was holding and I sit back in the bucket seat. I want to argue with him, reiterate that it’s not necessary. That my mom can handle it. That I’ll be fine. But I can’t ignore the warm fuzzy growing in my belly from Jack’s dogged determination to be there for me. With me. Then again, part of me wonders if it’s just Jack’s sense of obligation and loyalty that’s driving his determination. It’s like one of those conditionals we learned in ninth-grade geometry: if a wife has brain surgery, then the husband must go with her.

  As I gaze at Jack’s profile, his BlackBerry rings from the cup holder it’s sitting in and he grabs it with his right hand. And I’m not sure
if I’m imagining it, or if he’s turning the screen from me on purpose. He pushes a button on the side of the cell, silencing it, and places it back in the cup holder.

  It takes all my effort to keep from picking it up and ending my curiosity.

  “Who was that?” I ask, hoping I sound indifferent, and not as if the balance of my entire world hangs on his answer. I keep my eyes trained on the trees and telephone poles passing outside my window.

  He hesitates for a split second before he answers. “Work,” he says, and the one word coupled with the hesitation makes my heart plummet to the pit of my stomach, and the warm fuzzies that had just bloomed there grow cold and steely.

  Because I know he’s lying.

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, Jack gets called in by his Wildlife Treatment Crew to help treat a flock of poisoned ducks from a local pond. “And then I might head up to the farm to check on Copper, since I won’t be at his surgery on Monday,” he says before he leaves the house in his scrubs, and my heart falls, because I know it’s not just Copper he’ll see.

  I swallow my trial pills, a yun zhi, and the tiny white pentagon of a steroid with a glass of water, and then settle into the couch with my laptop. I need to email Dr. Walden and let her know about the surgery and apologize that I won’t be able to continue helping her. But when I open my computer it’s dead. And I can’t remember where I left the charger.

  Stupid brain tumor.

  After a futile search of my shoulder bag and every socket in every room of the house, I decide I must have left it in Dr. Walden’s office. Sighing, I walk into the study and sit down at the desk, giving the mouse a shake to wake up Jack’s computer.

  His school email fills the screen and before I click on the X to close out of it, a subject line catches my attention. I hesitate for a second—just enough time to suppress the sliver of guilt from snooping—and then click on it.

  Subject: Absences

  Jack,

  I’m sorry to hear about Daisy. I certainly understand that you need to be with her. But I hope you understand I can’t make an exception to the absence policy, as it wouldn’t be fair to the other students. If you’re not in attendance next week, your total of absences for this semester will far exceed the three allotted. (You’ve already missed six, if my records are accurate.) When you return, we will discuss whether we can set you up to graduate in December or if you’ll need to wait until next May.