The small room had a couch and a chair. We sat on the couch; the surgeon sat in the chair and crossed her legs.
“Things did not go as we had hoped with the debulking surgery.”
That was the last sentence I heard in complete clarity. The rest blurred together, as my mind spun. I started to get that panicky-can’t-breathe feeling. “Tumors had not shrunk enough . . . even if we resected the colon itself . . . identified other tumors . . . best option at this point is palliative care.”
Dad leaned forward in his seat. His head was in his hands and he was crying. Openly weeping.
It was like when I’d fallen off Frankie. Everything had been one way and then the next moment I was on the ground trying to figure out what happened. The whole world had shifted and I was a having a hard time catching up.
The surgeon waited patiently until Dad picked up his head. “So you just closed back up?”
The surgeon looked at me and then quickly averted her eyes back to my father. Perhaps I was too young to be there.
The words came in undefined chunks again: “Only option . . . if we resected the colon . . . in her weakened state . . . best chance for quality time.”
“Okay, okay,” Dad said.
He reached out and pulled me to him, almost too hard. It felt wrong coming from him—he was always so gentle. It scared me to feel him so scared. This was it, the moment we knew she would die. Still, did either of us truly believe it? Was Dad’s brain doing the somersaults mine was, thinking, well, maybe they’re wrong, maybe more chemo will help, maybe there will be a wonder drug that will fix her? Thinking, no, no, no.
When we went into recovery, Mom looked like someone else, someone not even qualified to be a ghost of herself. She was barely conscious and didn’t really seem to know we were there. And this was all without having taken anything out of her.
Nurses came and checked all the beeping machines. At one point Mom looked at us, but she couldn’t hold eye contact and returned to kind of staring vacantly. It was awful seeing her like that and I got the feeling that maybe Dad was realizing he’d made a mistake by letting me come with him. Soon, he suggested that we let Mom rest and I could go to the barn with Lauren and come back later, when Mom was more “up and about.”
At the barn, everyone wanted to know how the surgery went and I just said we didn’t really know yet. I couldn’t bear to say any of the words the doctor had used. After the hospital, the smells of the barn that I usually took for granted smelled stronger: the sweet, musky smell of leather, the thick scent of horses’ sweat in the July heat, and the rich aroma of manure. Everything looked wonderfully bright and it felt comforting to put on my half chaps and helmet.
The next few days were spent going back and forth to the hospital to visit Mom. She got better and was able to have conversations and ask me annoying questions about whether Tyler was ready for Pony Finals. But she still tired easily and slept a lot. The nurses helped her shower, but she still didn’t look herself. She didn’t wear her wig anymore, just one of those cancer-scarves tied around her head. It was hard to believe she could get thinner. Her eyes retreated into deeper sockets in her face and even her nose looked more angular. At some point, she and Dad must have discussed the situation. I didn’t mind that I was left out of that conversation. Dad told me we didn’t know how long it would be now, but it was months, not years. And only months if we were lucky.
She came home two days later. We moved permanently into the house in Darien. It was farther from her doctors, but I had the feeling she didn’t need them in the way she had before. It was closer to the barn, which made it easier for me to slip out to ride. I also had the feeling that it was all planned out—if she died there we could sell the house and maybe put those awful memories behind us.
She set up camp on the couch in the living room. It hurt for her to bend over or get up so she had a little table next to her with everything on it: phone, iPad, remote, box of tissues, glass of water, orange-colored bottles of pain meds with unpronounceable names.
As the week passed, Mom was able to do more things around the house and have visitors. It was strange to see her get better when we knew things were going to get much, much worse. Even though she was physically a little stronger, sometimes she’d look incredibly confused. Once I found her in the kitchen with the cabinet open. She said she was looking for milk. I pointed to the fridge, and she quickly said that of course she knew the milk was in the fridge. She didn’t explain why she’d been looking in the cabinet.
Visitors often came when I was at the barn and they didn’t stay long. Mom had to conserve her energy. They left all kinds of things that were supposed to bring her comfort. Books she didn’t have the energy to read, photo albums that sat untouched, crystals with supposedly mystical healing powers. All those things seemed ridiculous, but I guess people just wanted to bring something.
She still took drugs to slow down the growth of the tumors, but she was deemed too weak for any more infusions. Every once in a while there would be talk of a medical trial, a not-yet-approved drug. Dad would fly into a fit of action, calling any influential people he knew who worked in medicine to try to get her enrolled. But nothing ever worked out.
We watched TV together, mowing through back episodes of shows we’d missed. Often while I watched I doodled, usually drawing Frankie’s brand over and over again. The mystery of Frankie had taken a backseat to everything with Mom, but I was still intent on figuring it out. Sometimes I drew a picture of him or his blue eye, coloring it in with my pen. I started jotting down words: circus pony, blue eye, vaulting, moon, half-moon, triangle, triangle on top. Words flowed into my mind and I scribbled them all down, repeating some again and again. Moon, circus pony, triangle on top like a hat, top hat, big top.
I pulled back my pen and stared at what I’d just written. Big top. I sat up in my chair and said out loud, “Wait a minute.”
“What’s up?” Mom said.
“Frankie—his brand. I think I can finally read it!” I dashed out of the room to my own room where my laptop was. The triangle above the half-moon—what if it was actually a symbol for a big top? Maybe the circus Frankie was in had ‘moon’ in its name, or half-moon, or crescent moon. I went online and googled the words ‘circus’ and ‘moon.’ One of the first entries that came up was for the Circus of the Moon. I clicked on it, but the link was dead. I googled “Circus of the Moon.” I scanned the list of hits. There was a listing for a novel. There was a store that sold handmade plates. At the end of the second page was a link to a short news item in the town paper of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania dated from a year ago. My heart charged in my rib cage as I clicked on the link and the town paper’s screen appeared.
Chapter 44
* * *
THE SHOW WILL NOT GO ON
The Circus of the Moon, a small-scale circus, was due to make a stop in Bryn Mawr and many residents had purchased tickets after seeing advertising. But the circus never came to town. Proprietor Lincoln Morse had gone bankrupt and was no longer able to pay the circus performers or feed the animals, which included a bear, a lion, several birds, and one pony. Sources say that Morse did not adhere to any standards for ethical treatment of his animals. While sources also believe he may have sold the bear and the lion, Justin Hillerman, who worked as a roustabout for the Circus of the Moon, claims the birds and pony were simply let loose to fend for themselves. Attempts to locate Morse have been unsuccessful.
Mom poked her head into my room. “You lost me there. What’s going on?”
I could barely tear my eyes away from the screen. “I think I just found out the circus Frankie came from.”
“Circus?”
I nodded, realizing that I’d kept all the research I’d done on Frankie from Mom. “We found out Frankie used to be a circus pony.”
“Really?”
Mom looked actually interested and it was enough to encourage me to tell her everything that led up to my finding the Circus of the Moon.
; “Listen to this—” I read Mom the brief article. I found myself racing through it and made myself slow down. It was so exciting I couldn’t help myself. It all finally made sense. Either Lincoln Morse, or whoever was in charge of the animals, was probably the one who wore the baseball hat. In the whole mess of Mom’s cancer, there was the tiny gem of solving Frankie’s mystery.
I finished reading. “Like the article says, he probably just let Frankie loose and that’s how he ended up in one of Vi’s pastures. Her farm isn’t far from that area.”
“And you figured all this out?” Mom had a hand on the doorknob. Standing for so long was probably making her tired.
“Well, Jane and Hailey helped, too.”
But I had been the one to put together the pieces. I had stuck with it.
“I’m going to call Hailey and Jane and tell them.”
“Okay,” Mom said. “Come back in after and we’ll finish the show.”
“So they just let him loose?” Hailey said when I got her and Jane on conference call.
“I guess so.”
“And he jumped into Vi’s pasture?” Jane still sounded a little skeptical.
“Or wandered in . . . remember how she admitted that her fences were always coming apart and ponies were getting loose.”
“I can’t believe you actually figured it out,” Hailey said. “I bet that Lincoln guy abused the animals.”
“Yeah,” Jane said. “That’s why Frankie’s weird about some things.”
“You can’t blame him,” I said.
Our conversation drifted to Pony Finals. It was hard to believe that it was almost here. We’d have a few weeks left of summer and horse showing after, but Pony Finals still always felt like the end of something, in part because later in the fall we often moved on to bigger ponies, selling the ones we’d outgrown. The fall shows were always a time of people trying ponies for sale. It was a time of change in the horse world, of bittersweet endings and new partnerships.
“Is your dad going?” Hailey asked me.
“He might come later. I’m going with Susie.”
“I think we’re all on the same flight,” Hailey said.
“Not me.” Jane sighed dramatically. “Fourteen hours in the car with Alex.”
Alex. My hand tightened on the phone. He said to let him know if we found out anything more about Frankie. I’d text him after we hung up.
“You got your outfit for the lip sync?” I asked Hailey.
“It’s awesome. You guys have to see it.”
I heard Hailey’s mom calling her in the background. “Coming!” she yelled.
We hung up and I went back into the TV room. Mom was on the couch. She hadn’t heard me come in and I stood there, watching her. Her eyes were on the TV, but it wasn’t clear whether she was actually watching.
I couldn’t believe she would miss Pony Finals. Before her cancer, she never missed any of my shows. It hit me right then how much of my life she would miss. How everything, not just horse shows, would be without her. Breakfast, and homework, and bedtime. I wanted to yell out to the world that it wasn’t fair. But I sank down in the chair instead, keeping it all inside.
Chapter 45
* * *
The last days before Pony Finals dragged on. We didn’t want to overschool the ponies—they needed to be sharp and fresh. But we still needed to practice. Susie had us do gymnastics and two days before the ponies were set to leave we jumped a big course.
I packed my bag days before in case I’d realize I was missing something. Mom sat on my bed while I packed. After I had packed my show clothes, I started going through some of my regular clothes, and soon we were cleaning out my closet, deciding what to keep and what should go. I often brought clothes to Darien instead of giving them away, and my closet was filled with things that didn’t fit anymore or that I never really wore. We made a pile for Goodwill and, feeling inspired, Mom suggested I help her with her closet. We went into her room, which was enormous. She and Dad had a king bed with a ton of pillows on it and there was a couch on the side of the room. She had a huge walk-in closet and she sat on her bed while I pulled things out and brought them over for her to see. Mom was objective, never waffling on an item the way I did.
“Donate,” she said when I held up a fancy dress she’d worn to some charity event. “It never fit me right. I bought it to go with . . .” She made a face like she was searching for a word. “These things . . .” She frowned and looked at her slippers. “Things that go on your feet.”
“Um, shoes?” I said.
She laughed. “Yes, shoes. These shoes I loved.”
I pulled out a scarf and draped it around my neck. “How about this?” It was an expensive brand and a pretty design.
“I got that in Paris. Your father bought it for me shortly after we found out we were pregnant. You should keep it.”
I looked in the mirror. I looked all wrong in it now, but somehow I could see myself in five or ten years time, growing into its classy style.
“I want you to have some things of mine,” Mom said.
It was the closest we’d gotten to talking about her dying, to talking about what was going to happen.
“You should have the scarf and there will be other things just for you, too.”
Maybe she’d done more than clean out her closet—it would be just like Mom to have everything in order. I fingered the scarf still around my neck. I couldn’t bottle my sadness and anger up this time and I started crying.
“It stinks you won’t be able to come to Pony Finals,” I said.
“I know,” Mom said. “But I’ll be there in spirit.”
I twisted the end of the scarf around my hand. “Do you believe in that stuff? Spirits?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded choked up. “I’d like to.”
I’d always thought I’d have more time to figure out religion and the whole life-after-death thing. We didn’t go to church or temple and so I only knew about the ideas of heaven and hell from TV and books. Susie sometimes used an animal communicator and she told us that the communicator could talk to animals that had died, too. But I still wasn’t sure whether I believed in supernatural stuff. I thought that I’d figure out how I felt about whether there was a heaven and whether you could talk to the dead before I lost someone really important to me.
“I’d like to believe in it, too,” I said.
“Then let’s believe.” Mom’s voice sounded upbeat, like it could be that simple.
“Like believe people see each other again, and watch over people?” Mom had always been so practical minded, I was surprised she would go in for all this stuff now. But maybe dying could do that to you.
“Yeah, let’s believe in all of it,” she said.
“But what if it turns out not to be true?”
Mom smiled at me with tears in her eyes. “We’ll be sad.”
I climbed onto the bed next to her. The scarf was still around my neck. We snuggled close, like we never had before. I could feel her body against mine. Even though she was nothing but skin and bones, I could still feel the weight of her.
Chapter 46
* * *
That last day before Pony Finals, Mom decided she’d drive me to the barn. No one ever officially said Mom couldn’t drive. It just seemed to be something she didn’t do anymore, along with go for jogs, wear anything besides comfortable clothes, wear her wig, and put on makeup. Lauren was supposed to drive me, but she’d called because there was a huge accident and she was going to be at least an hour late. Dad was at work. He didn’t go in often anymore, but he had decided to take one important meeting.
“This is ridiculous,” Mom said, grabbing her keys.
“It doesn’t matter if I don’t go till later,” I said. Everyone at the barn was willing to do whatever to make things easier for us. Without me telling them, they’d found out about the failed surgery and how it was just a matter of time.
Mom grabbed her purse. “No. It’s the last day
before Pony Finals and I, at least, want to drive my daughter to the barn.”
Mom looked okay with her purse and keys and I wasn’t going to tell her I wouldn’t go with her. It was only a half-hour ride to the barn on roads we’d driven countless times before. She was weak, but she would be fine.
Once she was behind the wheel, Mom looked impossibly small and frail. She backed out of the driveway and I had the queasy feeling I should have come up with some reason why she shouldn’t drive me. I sat upright in my seat, playing with my seat belt, and hoping she was up to doing this. We were halfway to the barn and she still seemed fine when we came to the four-way stop sign. She turned left instead of right.
“Um, Mom, you went the wrong way.” I glanced at the gas gauge to check if it was low, but the gas station wasn’t in that direction anyway. Had she forgotten how to get to the barn? How was that possible?
She increased her speed. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, the barn’s that way—” I pointed back in the other direction. “You were supposed to go right.”
She leaned forward, close to the wheel. “I think I know how to get to the damn barn.” Her voice had a hard edge, one I’d never really heard from her, even when she was angry. This tone was different than her angry or let down tone. It was like she was a different person speaking.
She was going too fast for the small road and we were going the wrong way. But what was I supposed to do? I tightened my grip on the seat belt, feeling like the ground was shifting underneath me again the way it had when we’d talked to the doctor after the surgery.
We came to another four-way stop. She braked and then just sat there. The car behind her honked and she shouted, “You moron, give me a sec!”
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