Chapter Thirteen
Six weeks after her diagnosis, my sister turns forty-four. It feels as if the hourglass of her life has widened at the middle, her sand falling faster than the rest of ours.
The day before Elizabeth’s birthday, she, Jake, and I arrive at the hospital as unwitting members of a family portrait, each wearing midnight denim, lightweight leather jackets, and sunglasses. It has become natural to want to restrict our senses, to limit the onslaught of uncertainty. We three on the front lines have become even closer, in a way I never would have expected, veterans of chemo’s burn.
Elizabeth has completed a month of the combined chemoand-radiation regimen, and now it’s time to hear the results of her newest scans. We’ll learn if any of this has been working, if Elizabeth’s hair loss, nausea, and fatigue from the chemo have been worth it.
Dr. Varghas enters the room on soft-soled shoes, holding the folder with Elizabeth’s scans, and the three of us straighten our slouches. I don’t breathe until he nods his head and smiles.
“No disease progression,” Dr. Varghas reports. “Even slight shrinkage of the number of cancer cells. Absence of progression is a victory here. At the moment, Elizabeth, your life is not in jeopardy.”
This is the best news we could have hoped for. I shriek and hug my sister while Jake takes her hand. We share a collective sigh, having cleared a major hurdle. Elizabeth allows herself a smile. Dr. Varghas hasn’t said that the cancer has disappeared; rather, he’s explained that it hasn’t made any progress. I watch my sister’s body relax in stages, like a fist opening.
“Only fifteen percent of patients respond as well as you have—hence our earlier caution,” Dr. Varghas says, almost proudly. He displays a scan of Elizabeth’s lungs on the computer and points to small black dots, explaining that the lesions themselves haven’t gotten any bigger and the number of them has actually decreased.
“Amazing,” I say. It’s an exaggeration, but I was so nervous about the results that I now feel euphoric. Maybe Richard was right about difficult odds.
“Congratulations,” the doctor says with a nod. “The best we could hope for.”
“Dr. Varghas, why this epidemic among young, nonsmoking women?” I ask.
“Could be many things. Secondhand smoke is a culprit. Women have been found to be more susceptible to its effects than men. Estrogen is also believed to contribute.”
We nod.
“Then there is the possibility of an inherent genetic susceptibility. We have identified a gene thought to be linked to lung cancer in nonsmokers. With the proper drug development, Stage IV lung cancer might be looked upon one day the way diabetes is: as a chronic disease that can be managed with treatment. We have a new drug in trials that is quite promising.”
“Chemo for life?” Elizabeth asks, and frowns. “That’s what you call promising?”
“A pill with fewer side effects,” Dr. Varghas says. “When we have all of the data, I promise I will tell you more.”
The news makes me light-headed. I was preparing for the worst and didn’t sleep well last night. Having now received the best outcome possible, I can barely make sense of my relief.
“A pill sounds good,” Jake says.
“I don’t mean to raise false hopes,” the doctor says, “but in the trial, I have a patient who has survived on this drug for four years.”
We exit Dr. Varghas’s office and shake hands. It’s a lot to take in. What if that pill could prolong Elizabeth’s life until the next drug is discovered?
“See you in a couple of weeks,” he says.
Leaving the office, I mention to Jake that this pill sounds like the drug Dr. Stern told us about at Dana Farber.
“Maybe it will be my miracle drug,” Elizabeth says.
The next day, David takes an Acela train up from New York. My family celebrates Elizabeth’s birthday and the excellent news of her scans at Mastro’s. Richard opts to have dinner with a friend. He’s been making his own plans over the last few weeks, and I don’t blame him—I’ve been spending all my time with Elizabeth.
Alexandra accompanies me for this celebratory night. Even though my sister-in-law, Jill, can’t make the trip, I know she feels the warmth of our family, as does Jake, who is seated at Elizabeth’s side. Besides, Richard doesn’t even like Mastro’s. He favors Abe&Louie’s—calling Mastro’s filet mignon “a piece of shoe leather”—but I think the real reason Richard dislikes Mastro’s is that it’s my family’s restaurant: Kaplan-Gordon celebrations are always there.
The night of Elizabeth’s birthday, I have the strange experience of imagining the man who shares my bed at a separate table down the street, where he’ll converse about business, sports, and politics. He’ll treat his dinner partner with respect and excuse any of his friend’s bad qualities in order to feel revered.
Meanwhile, I cherish the members of my family gathered around the table at Mastro’s, a comfortable, loving circle. Together, we savor Elizabeth’s good news. Jake orders bottles of California pinot noir for the table. Ever since he and Elizabeth traveled to Napa a few years ago, he’s displayed the expertise of a domestic sommelier.
Jake leads with a toast. “Happy birthday to the best wife I could ever hope for,” he says. We raise our glasses and look at Elizabeth, whose eyes sparkle for the first time in weeks. “May there be many, many more birthdays,” Jake says riskily. We all want to believe him.
“I’ll drink to that,” my father says. “L’chaim.”
“L’dkaim,” David says.
We reach across the table to make sure that each person’s glass gently clinks against the rim of everyone else’s, that briefest sonorous contact that says, Family, hope, and love.
After we toast, Elizabeth stands. She’s wearing a gray wrap dress made of silk jersey, black suede ankle boots, and, to an outsider, what looks like her own hair. She peers around the table, making eye contact with each of us.
“Thank you so much for being here for me, tonight and all these weeks. I couldn’t do this without you,” she says, choking. She sits and places her hand over her mouth.
The server takes our orders, then our menus. The wine is silky, making you want just a little more. My father falls quiet, looking from Elizabeth to David to me, obvious with the pleasure of having his three adult children at the same table. I wonder if my parents lament Richard’s absence tonight, and the struggles that I still have.
David clears his throat. “And we just closed another deal!” We toast again. David has become the New York regional representative for Stars. Elizabeth sits between our brother and her husband, now business partners. David affectionately places his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder as they speak, obvious that he wishes he could spend more time with her.
Kissing David on the cheek, I hear Elizabeth say, “Just amazing. Jake says that everyone at Stars loves you. What a great fit. It takes a special kind of person to combine business and family.” My parents beam. Here, we replenish and celebrate each other.
Alexandra and I share a New York strip with sautéed spinach and a salad. Next to Alexandra is Brooke, then, following the table clockwise, Lauren. The teen cousins begin a conversation at a level I can’t possibly overhear, probably about school and mutual friends. I take comfort in the closeness Alexandra shares with her cousins, breaking bread with extended family, all of the security that this table represents.
“How was bridge today?” I ask my mother, on my right.
“I came in third,” she says halfheartedly.
A few weeks ago, she told me that bridge is just a distraction, the only time she doesn’t dwell on The Problem, meaning Elizabeth’s cancer.
When we get home that night, Richard is still out. An hour later, when he arrives, the dogs bark and wake me. I whisper good night, not knowing whether he hears, and fall back to sleep.
NOT LONG AFTER Mastro’s, there’s more chemo, which is always a moody day. Returning to the Gordons’ from the hos pital, Jake, Elizabeth, and I fit our
selves into our family’s new pattern. My mother cooks dinner. The kids hunch over homework. Elizabeth dashes upstairs without saying a word- after six hours of chemo, she barely speaks—and puts on a pajama set, beyond the reach of our comfort.
Alexandra and I have taken to spending afternoons at the Gordons’ between radiation and chemo. I scoop her after school and get my mother whatever she needs to make dinner. My parents lurk in the house with nothing to do, trying to keep their spirits up. A month after Elizabeth’s birthday, their weariness again sets in. The creases on my father’s forehead deepen, and my mother’s eyes sink.
Elizabeth and her family used to dine casually at the kitchen counter, but now there are so many of us that we eat formally in the dining room. I set the table as Elizabeth rests upstairs, draping a bleached linen tablecloth on the oval, setting out plates, napkins, forks, knives, and spoons. The very first time, I set it impeccably, but now, after so many weeks of sordid routine, I find myself slacking, forgiving the flaws.
“Grey Goose?” Jake asks from the sideboard, making himself a drink.
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
He hands me a vodka on the rocks the way I like it, with lime.
“Elizabeth tells me to marry someone who’s good to the kids,” Jake says. “I don’t want to have that conversation.” As if I do.
I shift in my chair. “Remind her about the new pills coming out,” I say.
I wander into the kitchen with my glass, ice clinking. “Smells good,” I say. My mother looks up from ladling a red sauce over the chicken, comfort food from when Elizabeth, David, and I were children. Jewish chicken, we called it. I recognize the aroma of the simple mixture: ketchup thinned with water, paprika, and salt. “Mmm, my favorite,” I say, inhaling deeply. Richard and Alexandra love it, too, when I make it at home, but I don’t dwell on its being my mother’s own recipe, fearing that Richard will decide he doesn’t like it anymore. I notice how relaxed I am without him here.
When I first said that I planned on accompanying my sister to all her appointments, he couldn’t understand why Jake would want me around so much.
“If you were in Elizabeth’s position, God forbid,” Richard said, “I wouldn’t want your sister at every appointment.”
“It’s not about what Jake wants; it’s what Elizabeth wants,” I said, although I knew Jake appreciated having me as much as Elizabeth did. “If I were sick, it would be what I want, Richard, not you.”
The three of us had grown up together without Richard; even Jake’s taste buds had developed alongside Elizabeth’s and mine. When Jake sees his mother-in-law upending the ketchup bottle, he implicitly understands that her meal evokes the safety and happiness of Gloucester. Jewish chicken brings back the times we tore down the street on our bikes, the years we drank beer in each other’s finished basements, able to read and forgive each other’s moods as well as our own.
I sip the vodka and let it heat my chest. Then again, Jake has always had another side. He dropped out of Gloucester High, acting out after his parents’ divorce. Eventually he went back for his GED and diploma and was accepted to Northeastern University, where he reconnected with Elizabeth. On his own Jake could wreak havoc, but their love was a blessing that stabilized him and smoothed his rough edges. Elizabeth integrated with Jake’s family, becoming a sister to his two brothers and, according to Jake’s mother, the daughter she never had. With a keen mind for numbers and articulate communication, Jake graduated summa cum laude with a 3.8 GPA, the highest in our extended family. Elizabeth had rescued him.
When Alexandra and I arrive home from eating Jewish chicken, our own house feels cold and empty, and I cringe at the contrast. Elizabeth’s home, a battleground, is filled lately with friends bringing lunch and homemade dinners, well wishes and love. Richard is out tonight again with friends, a pattern I recognize from what he has told me of his marriage just before he and Harrison’s mother divorced. Crisis has made Elizabeth’s house feel even more like a home, whereas mine has become a cold container, a place to rest my heavy head.
As I’m settling into bed with Alexandra—she sleeps next to me for now—Jake texts. “Elizabeth is depressed. Call.”
“You okay?” I ask when she picks up the phone. Alexandra puts down her journal and listens.
“Can you read me the notes from our last appointment?” she asks. “I need to remember the good things Varghas said.”
For a good hour, I read and reread the entries from my pad. By the end of the conversation, Elizabeth feels more at ease. Alexandra has drifted off on the pillow beside me, and I’m ready to join her.
The next morning, freezing and blustery, I stop at Elizabeth’s after dropping Alexandra off at school. It’s December, and I rush from my car to the Gordons’ front door, the air slapping my face, my eyes watering. Even for December, I don’t remember winter ever having been this bitter. But Elizabeth needn’t be outside too much. She’s chauffeured garage to garage, from home to Beth Israel—a silver lining. I enter the Gordons’ with a gift bag from Bloomingdale’s for Elizabeth: peach La Prairie moisturizer, a long-sleeved cotton nightgown, and fuzzy socks.
I find her propped up in bed, eating scrambled eggs and toast. I take off my coat, give her a kiss, and notice she looks sullen.
“Your nose is cold,” Elizabeth says when I kiss her.
“My thermostat read fifty-five when we woke up. I need to call the gas company,” I say. “I brushed my teeth wearing my mink coat.”
“Oh, no,” she says, and laughs. “Want to sleep over?”
“Fun!” I say, permitting myself to indulge in the experience of sleeping at Elizabeth’s, instead of at home. When she finishes her eggs, I say, “Let’s go downstairs.”
Grasping the railing, her breath rapid and shallow, Elizabeth makes her way down. She’s wearing a thick bathrobe and slippers the color of pink ballet shoes. No wig. Her head is wrapped in a patterned Pucci scarf instead. We sit at the kitchen counter.
“I want to try acupuncture,” Elizabeth says. “Someone in Chinatown.”
“Give me the name. I’ll check it out and make an appointment,” I say.
Elizabeth adjusts her scarf. A few strands feather the nape of her neck.
“Have you been listening to the tape I made?” I ask. Last week I recorded Elizabeth an hour-long guided-imagery meditation. On the recording I lead her through a series of exercises in which she visualizes her body’s cancer cells being eaten by her healthy cells, which are still abundant.
“I am strong and healthy,” Elizabeth repeats back to me. “Thank you. I listen to it every night. And then I obsess about the new pills.”
“Me, too.”
“Samantha, there’s something else,” Elizabeth says.
“What?” I ask, worried.
“Wheatgrass,” she says. “I read it helps with some cancers.”
I sigh with relief. “Sure, we’ll get some. I know a café in the Highlands that sells shots of it.” I squeeze her hand.
Elizabeth smiles, a look lined with innocence, and I see that she honestly believes the acupuncture and wheatgrass will help. I believe it, too. I have to. Faith to the point of obstinacy is our only hope. Purple crystals upstairs on her night table. The chai around her neck. A friend traveling to Israel just placed a note in the Western Wall, God’s mailbox.
Soon we are in Tom Tam’s office on Kneeland Street. He’s a licensed acupuncturist who has treated people with cancer and other chronic diseases for twenty-five years. At first, the run-down office dismays us. Then a pretty Chinese lady with bright red lipstick, Tom Tam’s wife, greets us. “Fill out the forms completely,” she says with a smile. “He’ll be with you soon.”
A shelf overflows with stacks of books on Chinese medicine. Charts show pressure points. Above Mrs. Tam’s desk is a bulletin board with notices about healing and energy services written in Chinese and English. The waiting room is full, every chair taken by people of all ages and races.
“I will se
e Mrs. Gordon,” Tom Tam says to the waiting room. Elizabeth and I rise, and then I sit. “You, too,” Mr. Tam says, motioning to include me. “Follow me.”
We enter a small exam room that hasn’t been updated in decades. Elizabeth sits on what looks like a massage table, and I take a wooden chair. Tom Tam extends a doll stuck with small pins and explains the different meridians in the body: heart, lung, stomach, and kidney. Elizabeth and I steal a glance at each other, eyebrows raised, as if we are going to see voodoo.
“You have lung cancer. I will help you,” the acupuncturist says confidently. I notice a book on the side table entitled The Tom Tam Healing System and can’t help but be impressed.
“I have two basic approaches,” Mr. Tam says. “Acupuncture and tui na medical massage. We have to remove the blockage in the body.” I can follow what he’s saying, but Tom Tam’s accent is thicker than his wife’s.
“What blockage?” Elizabeth asks.
“The energy is blocked. Blockage interferes with proper functioning. You come every week for one hour. I do acupuncture, stick needles in your skin, and end with tui na massage.”
Elizabeth looks plainly skeptical. Tom Tam laughs.
“It won’t hurt. Please lie down. We restore the body’s natural ability to heal.” He turns to me and says, “See you when we finish.”
I return to the waiting room and strike up a conversation with a man who I learn is fifty-four and a dentist. When I find myself revealing Elizabeth’s diagnosis to him, the dentist confides that he has had Stage IV colon cancer for six years. At the beginning of his treatment, he went to Dana Farber and had surgery and traditional chemo, but, of course, those weren’t a cure. Since surgery, he has been seeing Tom Tam for acupuncture and feels that it’s kept his cancer under control. He still sees his oncologist for checkups, but as long as the cancer doesn’t get worse, he’s sticking with Mr. Tam. The dentist is extremely positive and has every reason to be: he has already outlived his prognosis. He retired early, exercises, and travels. He looks radiant and healthy.
Appearances Page 12