As I observed this interaction, my smile froze. I immediately dropped the lesson of Yom Kippur, forgetting the rabbi’s admonition to forgive, indignant that Richard could enjoy himself with his family but be a part of so much friction with mine. Half in annoyance, half in shame, I fled to the kitchen.
I opened the refrigerator to take out the platters when Richard’s sister Patty, upbeat and skinny, with two inches on me, came in and asked, “Can I help you with anything?”
“Sure,” I said. “Put out some more of that lox?”
“You okay?” Patty asked.
“Just tired,” I said. I wouldn’t dare confide in her my problems about her brother. I handed Patty the fresh platters, and we quickly set up a buffet at the kitchen counter.
“Help yourselves. You guys must be famished,” I said when it was all set.
In the dining room, Richard sat at the head of the table, his two sisters on either side. I sat at the opposite end and watched everyone eat, waiting for the satisfaction of feeding our family to hit, but it never did.
“Look at the kids loading up on those pickles,” Richard said, his smile as wide as the pickle jar. “True Freemans.”
While this beautiful scene should have made me happy and proud, a knot tightened in my stomach. My husband was such a different man with his own relatives. Chatting casually with those around the table, I realized I may never be as close to them as my own family. It should have made me feel empathy for Richard, who might similarly never penetrate my family’s inner circle. Instead, I decided that my closeness to them was the root of the problem.
“Richie, remember Irving’s? The toy store?” Claudia, Richard’s other sister, said. She was five years younger than Richard and dressed even younger than her age, wearing a short skirt and suede, thigh-high boots I thought more appropriate for a night on the town.
Richard chuckled. “Of course, I remember. We walked by it today.”
“That same woman still owns it,” Claudia said.
“She must be a hundred years old,” Patty chimed in.
“I used to load my pockets with candy as a kid. There, I’ve confessed,” Richard said, and he and his sisters exploded in laughter and shared nostalgia.
I tuned out, watching Richard’s nieces and nephews gorge themselves on pickles and bagels. When they finished eating, Harrison led them to the den, where he had a PlayStation.
Seeing all of this effortless cheer made me begrudge the lack of cohesiveness between Richard and my family. The message of Yom Kippur, the holiest and most transformative day of the year, was lost on me. I felt like I was hit in the stomach, a gut-wrenching combination of anxiety and loneliness.
I started to sense that I might be wasting my time trying to make my family and my marriage into something they were not.
Chapter Eight
We arrive from Beth Israel and Dana Farber to our mother and her nervous tension, pacing the marble foyer at the Gordons.
“Daddy’s waiting in the kitchen,” she says, opening the door before we reach it. “Another delivery person just called.” Bouquets of flowers are everywhere.
My mother-blue-eyed, size 8 in her seventies, with blond, salon-styled hair-raised us on good manners, social grace, and the ability to balance a checkbook. She has always been enterprising. The second we kids no longer demanded so much of her time, she opened a candy store, and when Elizabeth was diagnosed, my mother was enjoying a successful third act playing partners’ tournament bridge.
Tonight everything about our mom’s appearance reads heartbreak. Although she still looks ten years younger than her age, her posture has slackened. Her facial muscles seem paralyzed, as if she might never smile again. For the first time, I notice her long, elegant fingers tremor.
“It’s never the things you worry about that knock you on your ass,” she later confides in me. We have no family history of cancer.
We find my father with his elbows planted on the Gor dons’ granite breakfast bar, hands clasped. He’s five foot eleven and square-faced, an ex-Marine and retired pharmacist dating back to when most pharmacists owned their own stores, in the 1950s. After all those years of dispensing confident advice and nursing others back to health, my father will surprise me with his timidity, now that it’s one of us.
We stagger with exhaustion into the kitchen. Jake disappears into his home office off the hallway, needing a break.
“Daddy, I’m so sick,” Elizabeth says, her shoulders sagging.
“What? What did the doctors say?” my father asks.
“I need chemo and radiation. No guarantees,” she says, and breaks down.
My father’s eyes brim with tears, and he wipes them away. I’ve never seen him cry before.
“Please, tell us everything,” he says.
Until now, we have known only the big picture-lung cancer—but we haven’t known what the treatments will entail. I stand with my legal pad and relate all of the information, appointment by appointment, flipping pages, surprised at how calm I am. I explain about the radiation and chemotherapy, repeat Dr. Gold’s phrase “cautiously optimistic,” and reiterate that Elizabeth has youth on her side. I concentrate on comforting my parents the way in which I, too, crave comfort.
They listen, speechless, and when I finish, my parents cling to Elizabeth and me in a hug. The timeless scent of my mother’s Chanel lingers on her clothes, and I wish we could transport ourselves back to decades earlier, to our childhood home in Gloucester—an innocent time. I wish the hug would make me feel better. It does not.
“I’ll research the side effects,” my father says. “We’ll get through this,” he chokes out.
I excuse myself to the bathroom to be alone. The counter is teeming with flowers, as if my mother has stashed extra deliveries here as they came. The combination of different aromas turns my stomach, especially the pungent stargazer lilies, which smell like pee. Elizabeth has begun telling close friends that she has a treatable form of cancer, not Stage IV, and those friends have told friends. I have never seen so many different arrangements outside of a florist. Orchids, roses, mixed flowers, aloe plants, and topiaries, all a little too much like a funeral. I want these offerings to look as if they belong in a home of the living, not of the dead.
I pull pots from the bathroom, begin tucking them onto sills and end tables. Any ordinary day, a single vase of pink tulips would sit alone on Elizabeth’s coffee table.
“People must know I’m really sick,” Elizabeth says as I leave the bathroom. “It doesn’t matter what we say.” The phone rings, and she looks at the caller ID. “I don’t feel like talking to anyone.”
We listen to the voice that projects out of the answering machine, one of Elizabeth’s best friends. “Hi, it’s Jane. Please call. I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
Elizabeth punches STOP on the machine and crosses her arms. “I’ll call her later,” she says, leaning against the wall.
Lauren sprints into the kitchen in shorts and a sweaty Tshirt. A friend trails behind, holding a bottle of Poland Spring.
“Mom, can you take us for ice cream?” To be eleven is to be oblivious.
Elizabeth looks at me as if to say, How will I ever tell her? Lauren doesn’t know the extent of Elizabeth’s illness, nor can she imagine what lies ahead. This is not the time.
“Later,” she says about the ice cream. “After dinner.”
“How was the doctor?” Lauren asks.
“I’m going to have some treatments, but I’ll be okay. It wasn’t too bad.”
Lauren squints and fiddles with her Red Sox cap. “When? What kind of treatments?”
“We’ll talk later, honey bunch,” Elizabeth says, which seems to satisfy her daughter. Lauren and her friend run back outside to ride their bikes. “I want you showered in thirty minutes,” Elizabeth calls after her.
“I dread that conversation,” Elizabeth says when Lauren is out of earshot. “I’m failing her as a mother,” she says, choking up.
�
��Don’t you ever say that,” I say, holding my sister. I rest my chin on her head.
“So many people care,” she says, peeking at the flowers I’ve just placed. “I’m surprised how nice that feels.”
“I’m not surprised—people always tell me how caring you are.”
“But, honestly?” Elizabeth pauses. “So many flowers kinda creeps me out. Like having the funeral while I’m still alive.”
I gasp and get ready to scold her—Don’t talk like that!—but when Elizabeth turns, I see that she is smiling.
“I’ll check on Brooke,” I say. “Be right back.” Little scamp.
I climb the carpeted stairs and find Brooke sitting at her computer in a red hoodie. She’s sucking on her sweatshirt laces, which has become a habit, but I don’t say anything. Brooke notices me in the doorway, turns, and gives me a quick “Hi,” then retreats to her computer screen. She’s not ready to accept this.
At the foot of the stairs, I peek in on Jake in the office. He’s got his Sox cap pulled low, brim below his brow, nose nearly touching the computer screen.
“What could possibly be so important,” I ask, “that you have to do it now?” But we both know that Jake’s work is just a pretense today, a way to cope.
“There are too many people here,” he says. “I can’t stand the phone ringing every two minutes.” He yanks off his cap and throws it at the computer screen. “I wish you’d all just get out of my house.”
I am stung, but I do not take any of Jake’s comments personally. What he really means is that we are living a fucking nightmare. I inhale and approach him, placing a hand on his shoulder; he shrugs it off. The doorbell rings. Maybe Jake has a point.
It’s another delivery. A young, twenty-something Latino holds out the most enormous floral arrangement yet. I wonder how many times he’s been here.
“Thank you,” I say, and take the flowers, pulling a $5 bill from my pocket. “We’re celebrating,” I shout, as he walks the brick path to his truck, and I am shaken by my lie. The delivery guy turns and smiles pityingly.
I return to the kitchen, cradling peach French tulips leaning gracefully from a substantial, urn-like vase. Clearly, whoever sent these has given it a lot of thought and expense.
“Room for one more?” I say to Elizabeth, placing the urn on the counter, and I laugh. It feels better than crying.
“A secret admirer? These must have cost a fortune,” she says, excited.
She casually opens the little white envelope. Then she says, “Oh my God.” Her eyes dart as she reads the message silently. Then she reads it out loud. “Thinking of you. Feel better soon. Richard.’”
I take the card and read it for myself, in shock. Where would Richard get such an idea? He, Elizabeth, and Jake have barely spoken all year. My mind races to consider ulterior motives.
To my surprise, Elizabeth’s face brightens. “Look,” she says, “even Richard cares,” and I’m not sure whether I detect sarcasm. I allow myself a moment of relief and pride.
“Richard sent those?” my mother says, returning to the kitchen. “They’re gorgeous. So thoughtful of him.”
“He obviously feels guilty,” Elizabeth says. “For causing my cancer.” She smirks and, to my relief, seems to be at least halfjoking.
“Come on,” I say. “He honestly feels bad that you’re sick.” I wish she could try to accept his gesture.
Elizabeth rolls her eyes.
“He does,” I say.
“Makes no difference to me,” she says. “I have bigger problems than Richard will ever have—like, oh, telling my kids I have cancer. Breast cancer, okay. But lung cancer? How am I going to explain this?”
“Tell them the truth: you have cancer, and you’re going to fight it,” I say.
“I can’t just act like I’ll make it,” Elizabeth says, “and deny the very real chance that I’m going to die.”
“You will make it,” I say, knowing that this is what she needs to hear. “You’re going to need Brooke and Lauren’s support to do it. Tell them that.”
“I hope I won’t cry,” Elizabeth says, tearing up.
“And say that you’ll feel tired from the treatments. Jake can help you talk to them,” I say.
In the adjacent office, the clicking of Jake’s keyboard stops. He appears in the doorway. From the state of his seething, I know that he has heard every word. He glares at Richard’s flowers as if they’re infectious.
“We couldn’t even get an easy cancer,” he says. “I told you, keep that prick away!”
I don’t want to deal with Jake’s anger or hear him malign Richard.
“I guess I’ll be going,” I say, and nobody protests or responds. Not even Elizabeth or my mother sticks up for me. The silence is surprising, painful.
When I’m at the door, Jake taps me on the shoulder and hands me the beautiful urn that held Richard’s tulips. Their French tips now peek out of the kitchen trash.
“Here, have a vase,” Jake says, and dumps the container in my hands.
THE NEXT DAY, I drive to the reservoir and ruminate on Jake’s behavior. I circle twice, grounded and calmed by the metronome of my feet. At the bottom of this chaos and my own hurt feelings, I recommit myself to being there for Elizabeth, no matter what she and Jake say or feel about Richard.
When Richard and I were dating, he took me on my first trip to Nantucket island, thirty miles off Cape Cod. Richard had summered on Nantucket since his twenties, when he came into some money, partying and meeting girls. It was the island he fell in love with: its dune-backed beaches, upscale restaurants, boutiques, and cobblestone streets.
After we’d known each other just a few months, Richard invited me to the shingled house he’d rented for the season on Madaket Beach. One night, having cocktails on the deck in rocking chairs, Richard confided in me about losing his mother when he was a child. He rocked while he spoke, puffing his cigar at the dusky sky, his hand resting on my knee. I listened, watching the curtains billow in the humid breeze, then pull close to the screen. I realized that the shock of Richard’s mother’s death was very much still with him, that it had molded him like a piece of clay.
“I couldn’t be like other kids after she died,” Richard said, sipping his third vodka. “I couldn’t feel like other kids.” His expression had changed from that of the confident man I knew to the tense, quivering face of a vulnerable boy.
I took Richard’s hand and looked into his eyes, but he turned away.
“How did she die?” I asked.
“Cancer. She got sick while I was at sleep-away camp, this same time of year. No one thought to tell me. By the time I got home, she was almost gone. But I still had a mother. For weeks I slept near her bed in a sleeping bag on the floor. Then, when she died, I was the boy without a mother.”
I imagined Richard as a short, skinny twelve-year-old with a bowl cut. His confession touched me. I wondered if as a boy, Richard had reasoned that he could protect his mother by sleeping near her bed, or if he had thought it would be impossible that way for her to leave.
“What happened when she died?” I asked, and for a few seconds took my stare above the dunes and to the horizon, completely absorbed in Richard’s tragedy.
“My father finally took her to the hospital for treatment. I wasn’t allowed. It was 1956. People didn’t talk about cancer the way they do now, and not to children. She died in some other bed.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I was born in 1956; Richard was barely thirteen then.
“At school, everything revolved around mothers,” Richard continued, his eyes filling. “Whose mother made the best tuna fish, whose mother packed peanut butter and Fluff, whose mother put chocolate kisses in your lunch bag . . .”
I squeezed Richard’s hand, and he took another drink.
“I had to cope.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“My aunts were around.”
“Did that help?”
“All I wanted to do was spend time w
ith my father,” he said.
Richard told me that he loved going to his father’s law office in Cambridge—which he credited for his work ethic. But Richard’s father remarried a year later, and his stepmother favored her biological children.
“That woman—I don’t even call her my stepmother; that’s got the word mother in it—resented any bit of time that I spent with my dad,” Richard said. “She didn’t give a shit about me and my sisters. She would have been happy if we’d disappeared.” He explained that she cooked lavish, affectionate meals for her children, made a fuss out of hugging and kissing. When it was just his sisters and he, she was distant and cold. Dinners were silent and rushed.
It would take time to draw connections between Richard’s earliest family experiences and the friction between him and my family of origin. My own generous affections for my family might have first attracted Richard, then amplified his old wounds, raising his anxieties about being an outsider, first as a stepchild, now as an in-law. But when I first heard Richard’s sad story, we weren’t family yet. As the conflict intensified between us, my heart closed to that understanding.
“Every Saturday in high school, I went to work with my father. That’s why I didn’t play football,” Richard continued. “Then things really became a mess.”
“Why? What happened?” I asked.
“He died, too.”
I sighed. I knew Richard had lost both of his parents, but not the details.
“I was supposed to go to Florida during spring break,” he continued. “It was midnight, and I was booked on an earlymorning flight. I pulled up and noticed every light on in the house.” He had just spoken to his father a few hours before. He thought his aunts must have come over to wish Richard a good trip. When he walked in, his aunt Emma was at the kitchen table, crying.
I shook my head and rubbed his outstretched arm.
“I had just missed the ambulance. My father died of a massive heart attack.”
“How horrible,” I said, and climbed out of my chair onto his lap to embrace him. “Any father would be proud of you and all you’ve accomplished.”
Appearances Page 7