I realize that I am nervous about the treatment only when Elizabeth comes out.
“How was it?” I ask.
“Very relaxing. Tiny needles in my legs, feet, face, and chest,” she says, pointing to these parts of her body. “It didn’t hurt at all.”
“What did he say?”
“That my energy got a little better by the end. He was reading my pulses. Who knows if it will help?”
“Do you feel any different?”
“It’s only one treatment,” she says.
On the ride home, I relay my conversation with the dentist to Elizabeth.
Chapter Fourteen
After Elizabeth’s first treatment with Tom Tam, I pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner with Richard and Alexandra.
“It’s time to make the list,” I say to them when I walk into the house.
Richard is reading the Wall Street Journal at the kitchen table, and Alexandra is seated next to him with her legs crossed, doing math. My heart expands tentatively.
“Eat first, list later,” Richard says. We kiss hello, and I inhale his familiar freshness. “That chicken smells good,” he says. How does he not ask me where I was?
Now, two years since Brooke’s bat mitzvah, it’s Alexandra’s turn. It’s true what they say about your past self having no imagination for your future. I am still married to Richard, and my sister has cancer, neither of which I could have foreseen.
We eat as a family, and then Richard, Alexandra, and I put together a guest list for her own bat mitzvah.
“Only people who matter—no one extraneous,” Richard says. “It’s going to cost a fortune no matter what. We have to cut back where we can.”
“I agree,” I say, but our total still comes in at 250 guests.
Tomorrow I will hire Carol Stickman, the party planner at Rose Wood, and a DJ and a photographer. My main contribution, besides overseeing everything, will be a video montage of Alexandra’s life, birth to bat. By the time we hold the reception on May 15, Elizabeth will have completed chemotherapy. A nice finish to have these two milestones coincide. Knowing Elizabeth won’t be scheduled for more treatments after Alexandra’s big day makes it easier. I feel less guilty, and I decide to enjoy the planning.
By February, it’s time to say yes to a dress. Naturally, Alexandra and I shop at Pink Domino, where all the girls from Newton, Brookline, Weston, and Wellesley find their dream dresses for a special occasion. An entire wall of the store is covered with photographs of bat mitzvah girls posing in dresses purchased there, complete with professional hairstyles, makeup, and manicures, the Jewish equivalent of a quinceañera or debutante ball. Alexandra rushes over to see if she recognizes anyone on the wall. Sure enough, there in her peach A-line gown with a full tulle skirt is her own cousin Brooke.
After only three dresses, Alexandra settles on one from the trunk show: a pale blue strapless gown, its hem embroidered with tiny white flowers. The dress is appropriate for a blacktie bat mitzvah and transforms my thirteen-year-old into a young woman. “I can’t wait until my picture is on the wall,” she says, twirling in tulle.
THE REST OF the winter passes like whiplash: chemo and acupuncture for Elizabeth, weekly bat mitzvah lessons for Alexandra, oscillating between maternal pride and desperate hope. As we get closer to spring, my spirit lifts. Fifty-degree temperatures and longer days cheer me. I’m impressed by Richard, who sacrifices an afternoon a week to assist with Alexandra’s haftorah lesson.
After chemo with Elizabeth, one day I arrive home around four to find Alexandra, Richard, and Moshe, the bat mitzvah tutor, in our library. Alexandra chants a portion of her haftorah in Hebrew, and Richard follows her, word for word. At a pause, I enter.
“Not one mistake,” Richard says. Our shared parental bond makes our marital crisis both more complicated and more painful. Day after day, I ask myself, When Richard does so much, am I wrong for wanting more?
JUST A MONTH before Alexandra’s bat mitzvah, in April, Elizabeth finishes her fifth chemo cycle. Today we meet again with Dr. Varghas for the results.
Elizabeth still verges on weepiness, but her overall mood has improved. She and Jake have begun socializing again with other couples. Lately, Elizabeth even ventures out for dinner and shopping with friends. When she finds the energy, we have continued our workout walks around the reservoir. Over the winter, we started practicing yoga to stay flexible and centered. To celebrate this last cycle, Elizabeth even hired a personal trainer; she begins private weight and interval training next week at the gym. Her spirit is fierce.
For our moment of truth with Dr. Varghas, I’m wearing my favorite jeans and a clingy boatneck sweater. Elizabeth looks elegant in ballet flats and tight black jeans.
“I like that color blush,” Elizabeth says when we meet at our good-luck seats before the fish tank in Dr. Varghas’s waiting room.
“Thanks. It’s new,” I say, and touch my cheek, then pull out my compact. Because I’ve forgotten the name of the color, Elizabeth and I try to pinpoint the exact shade. Paprika? Orchid? Risqué? This is the old Elizabeth, who had the luxury of being lighthearted.
When we are called into Dr. Varghas’s office, as always, I receive his warmth at first sight. We take our usual seats like a family at a dinner table.
“It’s really remarkable,” he begins, looking down at the chart once more to make sure there’s no mistake. “Your cancer markers show absolutely no disease progression.”
“What a relief,” I say, and let out the breath I’ve been holding.
“You’re very lucky,” Dr. Varghas continues. “As I’ve said, only a small percentage of patients respond as well as you have.”
Elizabeth doesn’t make a sound. She looks at her lap with a tight smile. She wants the doctor to tell her she’s cured, not to report on her “disease progression,” or lack of it.
Jake takes her hand. “That’s good news, honey,” he says, and looks at Varghas. “Does that mean we’re done with chemo?”
“Yes, for the present.” The doctor hesitates.
“What do I do next?” Elizabeth asks. “I still have cancer, right?”
“I’d like to start you on a new drug, Elizabeth. It’s called Iressa, and it just came out of clinical trials. It couldn’t be easier to administer—one pill a day. Your test for the EGFR mutation, fortunately, came back positive. That qualifies you for the drug. As I’ve said, a few of my patients in the trial survived on Iressa for years.”
“Years?” Elizabeth asks, a lift in her voice.
A small poster on the wall distracts me. How much pain are you experiencing? it asks. On a scale of one to five, it ranks pain with human expressions, from smiles to frowns. This time, I relate to the smiles. I write Iressa in my notebook, circle it, and make an asterisk. The drug sounds lovely and feminine, a girl with long tresses in a white cotton dress. Later, Internet research will also raise my hopes; Iressa has just recently been FDA approved for advanced-stage lung cancer, with major success in its trials. Something nags at me in the exam room, and I flip back to my medical notebook’s earliest entries. There, on the third page—I wrote Iressa during our appointment with Dr. Stern. It’s the same drug we heard about at Dana Farber.
“Iressa’s side effects are minimal,” Dr. Varghas continues. “Elizabeth, your quality of life will be close to normal. It’s a much less brutal treatment than chemo.”
“What a huge difference,” I say. “This is great!”
Dr. Varghas nods his head. “This medicine is targeted—it attacks only cancerous cells—and works well with people like you, who have the EGFR mutation. Your hair will grow back. You’ll have more energy for your children. Just one pill a day, and you can go on with your life. We’ll monitor your progress at a monthly appointment.”
“It arrived just in time,” Elizabeth says, absorbing the drug’s significance. “Thank God I’m done with chemo. I can’t wait to chuck this wig.”
Dr. Varghas smiles. “See you in three weeks,” he says. “
That’s when we’ll start the pill.” He stands as we pack up and head for the door.
“I’m actually a little excited,” Elizabeth says to Jake and me in the elevator.
“It sounds like Iressa could keep your cancer under control for a long time,” I say.
My sister could actually live with cancer. For how long, we don’t know, but I am desperately grateful for this gift of extended time. I set my mind on enjoying Alexandra’s bat mitzvah, the last weeks of planning. Maybe I can even begin to enjoy Richard, too.
UP TO THE last minute, Alexandra practices her speech and her haftorah, “Behar-Bechukotai,” or “Blessings and Curses.”
The section comes from the end of Leviticus, the book in the Torah that itemizes the laws of the Jewish people. There are laws that mandate taking care of the elderly, the poor, and the sick; laws that prohibit incest and bestiality; laws that spell out in no uncertain terms that it is forbidden to cheat another when selling land; laws about keeping the Sabbath; even laws about leprosy and mildew. At the end of Leviticus is a series of admonitions, the blessings that shall rain down upon those who live by the laws of Moses and the curses that shall be delivered to those who disobey.
In the synagogue with its stained-glass windows, the same place where my husband was bar mitzvahed and where we now attend High Holiday services, Rabbi Bromberg calls Alexandra to the bimah.
“We are all very proud of you,” he says. “Congregation, please turn to page 353.”
Alexandra stands in front of more than two hundred friends and relatives and chants the blessings and curses. Even though I can’t follow the Hebrew, I listen for the blessing that will cure an illness that has taken root in a good person. I find myself listening for the curse I fear must also be there in Leviticus: that one’s sister shall become deathly ill if one marries a man with whom her sister does not get along.
I listen intently, as I have all the months Alexandra has been practicing, but now something is transformed, and it’s as if my daughter is teaching me. Listening to her pure sweet voice, Richard and I look at each other timidly. He squeezes my hand. I squeeze back.
There is a moment in the service when five of us— Richard, Alexandra, and I, joined by Elizabeth and Jake—stand on the bimah to say a prayer. It appears that a net of happiness has fallen on us, and I’m grateful for appearances. No one looking at us would ever see the wounds.
After Alexandra finishes, the rabbi calls upon me to speak. I stand in front of the congregation and share my pride in the caring and compassionate young woman my child has become. I talk about her kind nature, how she excels in skiing and waterskiing, and how lucky I am to have her as my daughter.
We have a few hours between the service and the reception, but Alexandra and I spend most of it getting our hair and makeup done, before slipping into our evening attire. Richard and Harrison, too, wear matching tuxedos. When the time comes, the four of us arrive early at Rose Wood to take pictures with extended family. My parents arrive before we do. When we get there, my parents make a point of shaking Richard’s hand.
“Congratulations,” my father says. “Alexandra did wonderfully. We’re proud.”
“Thank you,” Richard says. Uncharacteristically, he lets the handshakes linger, cupping my parents’ hands with his.
When the Gordons arrive, my stomach twists, and I’m on guard. Elizabeth’s black strapless gown hugs her body. She is breathtaking. Although I know her hair has begun to grow back, she still wears a wig for this occasion; it falls gracefully to her shoulders. Jake and the kids arrive behind her with tense smiles. The Gordons are cordial with Richard but don’t con- gratúlate him like my parents did. Nevertheless, I don’t let them break this spell.
Once we’ve all exchanged greetings, the photographer poses our nuclear family for a portrait. Alexandra looks beautiful, flawless in her pale blue strapless gown. Our girl is glowing, the belle of the ball, the princess, the bat mitzvah girl.
Next, we take pictures with Richard’s family: his two sisters, their husbands, and their children. They’re all close but not in constant contact like I am with my family. When I’m pulled into the middle of a Freeman family photo, I am struck with a thought: Maybe a little distance isn’t so bad. It certainly reduces the drama.
The photographer then poses the four Gordons. You’d never know that Elizabeth has cancer. Her eyes are sparkling sapphires. She leans into Jake, who warms at the contact and holds my sister loosely around the waist. Brooke and Lauren pose, squatting, in the foreground.
Finally, there’s a shot of David, Jill, Brittany, and Justin, just six and eight years old. As David’s family disperses, the photographer gestures to Elizabeth and me.
“You two?” he says. “Sisters?”
He raises the lens to his eye, and we grin and pose.
“Now let’s have a picture of the entire family,” I say, the original Kaplans and their extended clan. “Mom, Dad, come over.” We’re positioned with Alexandra in the middle, and although I’m a little on edge in my gold sparkly gown, I smile. The show must go on.
I watch Richard, hoping that he will approach Elizabeth and ask her how she’s feeling or tell her she looks great. It would mean so much to me. But it’s his daughter’s bat mitzvah, and I’m sure he thinks that guests should be approaching him. Or maybe he thinks it’s inappropriate to remind Elizabeth of her illness at a celebratory event.
Elizabeth and Jake still haven’t congratulated Richard. As they head to their seats, it doesn’t appear that they will—an obvious snub. Under different circumstances, they would have been sitting at our table as guests of honor. I wonder if the silence on their part might also be calculated, since Richard didn’t attend Brooke’s bat mitzvah, after all.
Last fall, after her diagnosis, Richard wrote Elizabeth a letter. He wanted to explain the behavior that had made him resent her all these years, and he hoped that Elizabeth would hear him out. He wanted to meet. Maybe then she could understand why he shunned her in the parking lot at our kids’ Hebrew school, or why, when they passed each other in Wellesley Center, Richard saw only air.
Elizabeth refused. She had just completed the second of her five rounds of chemo. “That’s not where I want to focus my energy right now. I’ll let bygones be bygones, but hell if I’m going to sit and listen to every little thing I’ve ever done to piss Richard off.”
Richard felt he’d offered an olive branch, and when Elizabeth declined their meeting through me, he again felt snubbed. I felt differently. I thought the letter was a good start, a gesture that might get them in the same room for holidays and family events, minus the stress.
After Richard sent the letter, one night over a home-cooked meal of grilled swordfish and vegetables, he said, “I wrote your sister a letter apologizing for my part. Where’s her apology?”
“I understand your feelings,” I said, as I served myself and sat with my plate. “She’s scared, you know. She has cancer.”
“What a waste of time to write that letter,” he said. “Cancer can’t be her excuse for everything.”
“I appreciate that you wrote it. It meant a lot to me,” I said. And it had softened Elizabeth’s hard feelings, a bit.
I wished that they could both be less self-absorbed about this situation, although Elizabeth’s illness was certainly a valid excuse to create a boundary. Richard hadn’t observed the fear in Elizabeth’s eyes when she saw the company logo on the envelope, how she had dropped it on the table where she stood, as if it contained anthrax. “Should I open it? What if it says something bad? I can’t take any more.” Richard didn’t know that only after two days did Elizabeth summon the courage to open his letter.
In full-blown hostess mode at the bat mitzvah, I mingle with friends and family. “Alexandra did a fantastic job,” my friend Lynne says. “So poised. Great party,” she adds. We have transformed the Rose Wood ballroom into a South Beach- style nightclub, with floor-length white tablecloths, orchid centerpieces, and clusters of pastel ballo
ons. The DJ plays Top 40 music by Usher, Alicia Keys, Maroon 5, Jay-Z, and early Beyoncé. Our guests dance and socialize, drinking mojitos and champagne.
It’s 2004, and the recession we faced in the early ’90s is long over. Rose Wood members are radiant with prosperity- no amount of cosmetic work can match a financial face-lift. Investments are up, especially in finance and real estate, Richard and Jake’s fortes. The stock market rises steadily. Some in Wellesley are benefiting more obviously than others- it’s at Alexandra’s bat mitzvah that I first hear someone say they invested with Madoff. Those whose profits are less visible snipe about a bubble.
But no amount of celebratory music, cocktails, and cheer will change the fact that Elizabeth has cancer. Iressa or not, cancer management or not, I’m coming to terms with the fact that my sister won’t live a full lifetime. I stand, smiling and gracious, taking in my friends’ compliments, but I actually feel shaky. My legs wobble on my high heels. Champagne in hand, I walk to Elizabeth’s table. My beaded gown makes a light swishing.
I stand behind my sister, with my hands on her shoulders, and beckon for the photographer.
“Let’s hope the big guy doesn’t see,” she says with a quick laugh, self-conscious.
After the first portrait, Elizabeth stands. We put our arms around each other, tilt our heads, and smile as the light flashes in our eyes.
“I’m so proud of her,” Elizabeth says, turning to me. “I love watching Alexandra with all her friends. She’s got her whole life ahead of her.”
“Everyone played a part in how she turned out,” I say. “She sure loves her auntie.”
“She spoke so beautifully. So did you. She really takes after you.”
“Thanks.” I pause. “How are you holding up?” This is Elizabeth’s first big event since her diagnosis. I regret the question as soon as she tugs at her wig.
“I’m definitely tired, but overall pretty good.” We embrace.
Appearances Page 13