I said, “Did I mention that I have a lump in my breast?”
And so I waited for the appointment, week after week. It was a cold, snowy January in Maine. I kept the fires roaring in our woodstoves, and I shoveled the ice and snow off our front walk.
On the day of the appointment, a classic nor’easter screamed up the East Coast, taking down power lines, closing schools, blocking off roads. I got a call from the doctor’s office. “Sorry,” she said. “We’ll have to reschedule.”
I said, “When can we reschedule?”
The receptionist made a sad sound. “I’m sorry, Jennifer. We’re really booked. I think I could get to you in the last week of March.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” I said. Last week of March. My breast throbbed.
I hung up the phone and looked outside. Snow blew horizontally past the window, past the four-foot-long icicles hanging off our gutters.
I built up the fire and sat down to read Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad in my rocking chair. I heard the ding from my computer that indicated there was fresh e-mail. So I put down the book and checked it out. It was a letter from the rhythm guitarist in Nasty Habits.
Sorry, Jenny, he wrote. It’s just not working out.
THEN THE HEADMASTER called. “It’s about your son,” he said.
“What about him?”
“We’re asking that you remove Zach from the campus community. We’d like you to have him see a psychiatrist. If he gets a clean bill of health, we can talk about him returning to the school.”
“What’s this all about?” I asked. “Did he do something?”
“You’ll have to discuss that with him,” said the headmaster. “He’s posted something on his Facebook page. It gave me chills.”
“Wait,” I said, still trying to catch up with this conversation. “He’s being suspended? For something he put on Facebook?”
“It gave me chills,” said the headmaster.
ZACH HAD A FRIEND we’ll call Pete. Pete was a sweet, ironic young man who wore his hair short and, like a lot of Maine kids, liked going hunting. He had put a photograph of himself on Facebook wearing camouflage and holding a toy gun. Zach thought it would be hilarious to put a caption below this photo. The caption was “Guns don’t kill people; I kill people.”
This was just about a month after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.
I drove to the school and picked Zach up and took him home. As we drove, he stared out at the snowy mountains of central Maine, the frozen lakes, the pine trees burdened with icicles.
“They’re acting like I’m a stranger,” he said. “I’ve been part of that school for three years now. I’m the head of Amnesty International. I’m part of the GSA. Everyone knows I’m a pacifist. And now I’m being thrown out of school for making one joke? On Facebook?”
Deedie and I started calling psychiatrists. Thanks to her deep connections among the social work community in Maine, we were able to find a therapist qualified in counseling “student threats” within a day or so.
Unfortunately, Deedie was, at that same hour, heading down to Pennsylvania to escort my mother to her annual retreat in Florida. And so it fell to me to drag Zach to two consecutive days of therapy, each session lasting over four hours.
As Deedie headed for the airport, she hugged us all in turn. She was feeling the same ambivalence that I was, although it’s fair to say her exasperation with Zach was winning out over her anger at the school. Her last words as she left were, “What were you thinking?” a phrase so handy among parents of teenagers I sometimes thought we should get T-shirts made up bearing exactly these words.
That night, I turned off the lights and lay in bed. Ranger jumped up and lay down in Deedie’s spot, and moaned sympathetically. But I would not be consoled. I could only imagine Zach interviewing at colleges next summer and having to explain his suspension. Yeah, like I posted on Facebook about this friend of mine who I said was going to shoot people. It was supposed to be funny.
I woke up in the middle of the night and sat bolt upright in bed. Something had happened to my family that I could not fix. But then, this was hardly the first time this was true.
IN THEORY, DEEDIE was supposed to get my mother as far as Delray Beach in Florida, stay with her for a couple days, and then hand responsibility for her care over to a series of friends and cousins. My mother was ninety-four years old at this point, not that you would have thought she was a day over thirty-nine to judge from her buoyant nature. Plus, she had amazing skin; even now it was as soft and elastic as a pair of underpants.
But Deedie called me from my mother’s house the next day to tell me that Mom was out of sorts—the lifelong pain she had suffered from a back injury in 1966 had flared up again, and she didn’t seem to be able to get out of bed.
“I’m calling her doctors,” Deedie said. “Something’s not right.”
In the days that followed, my wife shepherded Mom to the hospital and back. Nothing seemed to help Hildegarde except painkillers, and these made her deranged and depressed.
She never did get to Florida that year. As it turned out, Hildegarde never went south again.
SEAN GOT LICE.
Now, when you’re in this situation, the only thing you can do is give them (the children) special shampoos and then coat their heads with olive oil or mayonnaise, and wrap their juicy craniums with cellophane. The idea is to drown them (the lice). This also has the effect of permanently spoiling one’s appetite for mayonnaise.
And so: It came to this. I was out of the band. My older son had been suspended from school. I had a lump in my breast. We all had lice. My mother was dying.
Sean and Zach and I sat around the dining room table eating Kentucky Fried Chicken with Saran wrap wrapped around our heads. Liquefied mayonnaise dripped down our temples.
“So,” I asked. “How’s everybody doing?”
MY FRIEND RICK RUSSO sent me a letter concerning the situation with Zach. He wrote, “Now that I’ve had a chance to digest what you told me, I hope you won’t mind my sharing a couple thoughts. While I understand that this is serious business and that the school, for liability reasons, has to take it seriously, what we’re really talking about here is a bad joke and poor historical timing. Also, there’s context. If inappropriate jokes were a criminal offense, you’d be serving a life sentence, and I’d be in the adjacent cell. Zach has grown up in what might be called the Boylan/Russo school of comedy, which requires all goofs, amateur and professional, to joke tonight and regret the joke in the morning.
“The only reason this seems important to say is that Zach’s now living in a world where it seems to him that people who thought they knew him—friends, teachers—suddenly aren’t so sure, and it’s important for him to know that those who love him most harbor no doubts. That’s another reason you might consider consulting a lawyer. Zach needs to know that while you’re seriously pissed at him for making such a boneheaded mistake, you’re going to defend him because you know better than anyone who he is. Don’t let him wonder if Deedie’s profession or your personal politics (gun-wise) have you feeling in any way conflicted about what you should do.
“I don’t worry about Zach learning the lesson he’s supposed to learn, but I worry about other more insidious lessons that might trail in its wake. Don’t get me wrong. I know you’re on his side. Just don’t treat what he’s done as seriously as everybody else is going to.
“I’ll end this the way I should end every letter: But what do I know?”
SEAN AND SHANNON had a fight. I didn’t know what it was about. The only way I knew they were having trouble was that I overheard Sean Skyping with her, using a tone of voice entirely new to me. Later I saw him looking out the window with a melancholy expression.
“Anything I can help you with, Seannie?”
He just shook his head, but I thought I saw his eyes shimmer. For a moment I thought of the days back in fourth grade when he’d had such a hard time getti
ng out of bed in the morning. One of the strategies I’d used back then to raise his spirits was to purchase a life-sized stuffed black Labrador retriever toy and leave it in his room smiling at him.
It occurred to me that my sons had reached an age at which their problems could no longer be solved with stuffed animals.
“Seannie,” I said. “I know it’s not my business. But if I know anything it’s that if you love someone, you should always forgive them. There’s nothing more powerful than forgiveness.”
He looked at me as if I were speaking a language he’d never heard before. He thought this over. “Seriously?” he said.
WE SPENT TWO full days with the psychiatrist. When all was said and done, the doctor produced the following report: “Zachary’s teachers, coach, and administrative personnel at Kents Hill consistently describe him in very positive terms. Overall, Zachary is seen as a very well adjusted young man who is at extremely low risk for violent behavior. He is much more likely, and better equipped, to be involved in efforts to reduce violence in the lives of others.”
He headed back to school the following week. The school decided not to enter the incident on his permanent record, and we all chalked the experience up as a Lesson Learned. He and Sean jumped out of the car that morning, and halfway to class, he turned back to me and grinned sheepishly. As I watched him, I thought of my favorite line from the report.
“He is well aware that his posting of an image of another student with a gun and a caption referring to killing people was a serious mistake.”
Yeah, I thought. You think?
DEEDIE RETURNED FROM Pennsylvania after two weeks, having helped set up ongoing home health care for my mother. Hildegarde had plateaued after her terrible first week or two and now had aides on hand to help her get through her day. Still, it was clear that the long years of good health that my mother had enjoyed seemed to be ending at last. Her doctor had told Deedie that we all needed to start being philosophical about her, and what the future might hold.
I WENT TO DINNER with some of my friends from the best band I was ever in, Strangebrew. (I had ingeniously called the band “Blue Stranger” in earlier published works, thinking that this camouflage would make us all undetectable.) Another friend of ours, Dave, was there. “Jenny,” he said. “We were just talking about you.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked.
“Me and Tom. Remember Tom Ferris?”
I did remember Tom. Once he’d tried to pick me up at a bonfire, which is a good place for it.
“We got a new band. It’s Tom and me, Randy on the bass, and this guy Luke playing fiddle. We’re called the Stragglers. You want to play with us? It’d be wicked awesome.”
I thought about it. “Okay,” I said. “I’m in. Only you have to promise me that you’ll never throw me out of the band.”
Dave thought about it. “Jenny,” he said. “How can I promise that?”
ONE DAY I SAW Sean looking out the window with that look again. “Well?” I said.
“I was thinking about what you said,” he said. “About forgiving people for things.”
“What were you thinking about it?”
“I was thinking I might give it a try.”
I nodded. He walked into his room and closed the door. Later, I heard him speaking quietly, and I knew that he and Shannon were Skyping. I couldn’t hear the words. But the low murmur of my son’s voice made me think about the concert, when Sean had played Gustav Holst and Shannon had sat by my side gazing at the French horn section with love.
A little later, my son came out of his room.
“How’d it go?” I said.
He gave me that wry grin of his. Then he gave me the thumbs-up sign.
I GAVE UP on my family doctor and went to a local health clinic, where a physician’s assistant felt my breasts. It didn’t take her long to find the lump. “Okay,” she said. “I’m setting up an appointment for you at the hospital for tomorrow. I want you to have a mammogram and a sonogram.”
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
She looked at me sadly. “Nothing good,” she said.
Another nor’easter blew in the day of the procedure. As I headed toward the hospital, howling winds and swirling snow whipped around my car. I drove toward Waterville—the nearest big city—at fifteen miles an hour. It took me over an hour to make a journey that usually took twenty minutes.
I was wearing a pair of boots I had just mail-ordered from the Internet, made by a company called Sorel. It was a good thing I was wearing those boots, too, because just getting from the parking lot and into X-ray was like hiking the Appalachian Trail.
I was ushered into the mammography chamber, removed my shirt, wiped off my antiperspirant using a special pad, and then, with the technician’s help, lowered my breasts one at a time onto the glass platters, where they were, in turn, squashed like a panini.
“Hm,” the technician said, examining the image on her computer screen. “Can you point to exactly where you feel the lump?”
I did so.
“Hm,” she said again. Then she turned to me. “Okay, I’m going to do a sonogram now. I’m not entirely certain what it is I’m looking at.”
“Okay,” I said.
I sat in the room by myself waiting for her to return with the equipment. There was a clock in the room that ticked loudly. I sat there listening to it, trying to imagine the future.
I thought about my boys, and Deedie, and the journey we had all been on together. What could I do but give thanks for the gifts I had been given? I tried to imagine my sons growing old without me, thought for a moment about all of the adventures and sorrows yet to come.
The technician returned. She had me lie down, then started sliding the sonogram wand around my chest. The last time I’d seen one of these was when we had gone to the obstetrician together, Deedie and I, when she was pregnant with Sean. Out of the mysterious murk we had seen a tiny face emerge.
“Okay, so is this it?” the technician asked.
I nodded, unable to speak. That was it.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s not a tumor. That’s what we call a pseudolump.”
“A pseudolump?”
“Yes,” she said. “You see?” She pointed at the image on the computer screen. “Right there? Is that it?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s it.”
She snapped off the machine. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Get yourself dressed. You’re going to be fine.”
She left the room for a moment and I lay there in a strange mixture of embarrassment and gratitude. So you’re saying—I don’t have cancer? You’re saying—I get to stick around just a little bit longer? I’ll hear my Seannie blow his horn?
When the tech came back in the room, she found me in tears. “Well, this is a surprise,” she said. “Usually, people cry at bad news.”
“I’m just so grateful,” I said. “I was expecting the worst.”
“You’re very good to find that. That means you’re doing your self-exams. You should keep doing them.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise I will!”
I sat up and put on my bra, and then began to button my shirt.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” said the tech. “But you have really nice boobs.”
This caught me by surprise. It didn’t seem exactly like the professional thing to say. Still, it was nice enough.
“Thank you,” I said.
“No, seriously,” the woman said. She smiled enthusiastically. “They are really beautiful.”
Now I was getting a little bit weirded out. Wasn’t she supposed to buy me a margarita or something first?
“Thank you,” I said again, a little more tersely.
“Do you mind if I ask you where you got them?”
I was just about to say, Well, Wisconsin, actually, when I suddenly realized that she hadn’t been saying boobs. She had been saying boots. She thought I had nice boots. My mouth opened wide in surprise.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I didn’t think you were saying boots.”
“Really?” she said. “What did you think I was—?”
Her mouth opened wide, and her cheeks flushed red.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, please,” I said. “My mistake.”
She started laughing. “Oh my God,” she said. “You must’ve thought—”
“I didn’t think anything,” I said.
I left her office, amazed by the unexpected prospect of being alive. The snow howled all around.
I CALLED MY MOTHER on the phone the next morning, after I had fed everyone their bacon.
One of her home health care aides answered the phone and then got her on the line. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “Do you want to do the Jumble?”
“The what?” she said. “Who is this?”
“It’s Jenny,” I said, and I felt my throat close up. There was a long pause. I wondered if I needed to remind her that this wasn’t the name she’d given me, fifty-three years earlier.
Then she snapped back. “Oh, Jenny,” she said. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to call. What ever happened with your breasts?”
“It’s fine, Mom. It turned out to be nothing.”
“Oh, I’m so glad.” She laughed to herself.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was thinking if you ever wrote another book, you could call it Thanks for the Mammaries.” She laughed again. “Wouldn’t that be terrible?”
At my end of the line, I nodded. Yes, Mom, I thought. That would be terrible.
“So, Mom,” I said. “Do you want to do the Jumble?”
She thought this over. “Do the what? What do you mean?”
Stuck in the Middle with You Page 19