The Secret to Hummingbird Cake

by Celeste Fletcher McHale

  Ella Rae laid her head on Laine’s chest and completely crumbled. They both began to sob. I was frozen, unable to react verbally or physically. It was one of the truest moments of my life. I wanted to sob along with them, but the tears in my throat were as thick as the July humidity. That in itself was an anguish I couldn’t describe or ignore.

  Surely there was something else when tears weren’t enough, some other outlet for these emotions I had never experienced. I felt numb and inadequate. I couldn’t talk, and evidently couldn’t move. I just stared at them, crying quietly now and clinging to each other.

  Then Laine reached her hand out to me. I zombied over and sat on the side of the bed, trying to find my voice.

  Finally I managed to squeak out one weak sentence. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “Of course it is,” Laine said. But the second our eyes met, I knew neither of us believed it.

  She gently pushed Ella Rae away from her. “You got my gown soaking wet, Rae,” she said.

  “Laine! I’m so sorry!”

  Laine shook her head. “I was joking . . .”

  Ella Rae and I looked at her and neither of us laughed.

  “Come on,” she said. She sat up straighter in the bed. “I know this is bad. But, please, don’t either of you get all weird on me.”

  I looked at Ella Rae, who was staring at her hands.

  “Please,” Laine said, more forcefully this time. “I can take it from anybody but the two of you.”

  “Okay,” Ella Rae and I said in unison.

  “Look, I know this is . . . shocking for you both,” Laine said. “But I’ve had some time to digest it.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked back and forth from Ella Rae to me. “And I need to say something to you both. Today. Right now, while it’s just us and before Mother and Michael come back in here. There are some things I need you to do for me, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. The conversation was making me terribly anxious. “Listen, we’ll do anything you want us to do, but this isn’t . . . you know . . . Nobody’s giving up here . . .”

  She smiled a little and grabbed my hand. “Just listen to me, okay?” She took a deep breath. “First of all . . . never turn weird on me again. I’m still me. I’m just . . . sick. If I can’t count on the two of you, I don’t know . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Of course you can count on us,” I said. “For anything.”

  Laine nodded, obviously relieved. “I need to know the two of you will always, always tell me the truth no matter how bad the truth is. I’m not sure Mother and Michael will. They want to protect me. And I know y’all do, too, but promise me.”

  We nodded.

  “And one more thing.” Her lips trembled. “I need you both to stay with me, no matter how hard it gets. Can you do that for me?” A tear fell from her cheek onto my hand. Ella Rae began crying again, and I felt as if I had been punched in the gut.

  “Of course.” I choked out the words.

  Laine gathered her composure and cleared her throat. “I . . . understand what the prognosis is. I understand the cancer is in stage four and it is a rapidly growing type.” She paused and looked at me. “I know you won’t like what I’m about to say, Carrigan, but this is my decision and I’ve made it. I am at peace with it.” She took a deep breath before she spoke again. “I have chosen not to take chemo. I don’t want them injecting me with poison that won’t prolong my life by much but will make me sick for the remainder of it.”

  I finally found my voice. “Are you crazy?” I snatched my hand from hers and stood up. “Of course you’re taking the chemo!”

  She put her hand in the air. “It’s not negotiable, Carrigan,” she said, “and it’s not your decision.”

  I sucked in my breath to speak again, but she shook her head. “Don’t. Please.”

  I pressed my lips together. I would let it go for now, but not for long. If this cancer was as aggressive as Doctor Rougeau said it was, there was no time to waste. I wanted to wheel her over to the chemo store right now. She was absolutely taking it, whether she knew it or not. I would somehow convince her to do it. I had to.

  “I am sorry,” she apologized again, “sorry for putting you both through this.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t say that,” I told her.

  Ella Rae couldn’t respond.

  Laine smiled. “I’m glad y’all are here,” she said. “Makes it more bearable.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t shake this pill they gave me. I’m gonna catch another nap, I think. You’ll be here when I wake up?”

  “Where else would we be?” I said.

  Ella Rae held Laine’s hand and laid her head on the bed next to her. I might never get her to leave that chair, I thought. After a while, they were both asleep.

  I sat on the windowsill and watched them for a very long time. I finally looked out the glass across the courtyard to the other wing. I wondered whose lives had just changed on the other side. Who’d just had the rug pulled out from under them over there? What doctor had just said, in a matter-of-fact voice, to some other unsuspecting group of loved ones, that death was on the horizon and you better get used to it ’cause you sure couldn’t stop it? I had lost loved ones in my life, my grandparents, uncles, aunts. I had loved them and grieved for them when they passed. But the young buried the old—that was just the way the world was supposed to work. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal. It was unnatural. This was Laine. A healthy, vibrant, thirty-year-old woman. Nobody had ovarian cancer at thirty. It was absurd! It had to be some kind of mistake. It just had to be.

  I was mad. No, I was worse than mad, I was furious. So furious I couldn’t cry. I was mad at the doctor. How dare he speak to me like I was a child? We’ll make her comfortable? Sometimes these things just happen? That wasn’t good enough.

  I was mad at Laine too for refusing the chemo. Why on earth would she say that? Did she want to die? Nobody wants to die. Of course she was going to take the chemo, if I had to administer it myself. I was mad at Ella Rae and myself for letting our friend waste away before our very eyes. The guilt I felt was an albatross around my neck, a burden that I didn’t foresee lifting anytime soon. And I hoped everyone involved had the good sense not to speak to me about God. I was mad at him most of all.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped.

  “Hey, baby,” Jack said, kissing my forehead.

  I was so glad to see him I could have crawled inside his shirt. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Who’s at the Farm?”

  “Some things are more important.” He squeezed my hand. He looked over at Laine, still asleep and lightly snoring. “How is she?”

  I didn’t answer. His unexpected presence was such a relief. The tears I couldn’t cry earlier were threatening now. But I couldn’t cry in here, not in front Laine or Ella Rae either. Somebody had to be strong, I reminded myself. I couldn’t afford the luxury of falling apart, although the temptation was gathering momentum at the speed of light.

  “It’s okay.” He pulled me closer. “You don’t have to answer.”

  I pulled away from him and faced the window again. His tenderness would make me soft, and I couldn’t afford to be soft right now. I bit my lip so hard I thought it would bleed, but gathered my composure and said, “It’s fine. I’m good. I am.”

  I am sure he knew what I said was complete and total crap, but at least he didn’t call me on it. “I know you’ll be here with her until she goes home, so I have checked into the Hilton down the street.”

  I turned around then and put my hands on his arms. His daddy would have a stroke if he knew Jack was going to be gone from the Farm that l
ong. “Jack, you can’t,” I said. “You need to be at the Farm. We’ll be . . . okay here.”

  I didn’t know what this journey would bring. Or how long we’d be on it. The truth is, I hated hospitals, but the only thing that horrified me more was the idea of leaving Laine in one.

  “Carrigan . . . I’ll be down the street until we all go home. I know what you’re thinking, but Daddy would endorse this.” He exhaled. “I know this is hard for you. It is for me too.” He looked at Laine. “She is . . . special. I’m staying.”

  I swallowed the lump and hugged him as tightly as I could. He loved Laine. Of course this was difficult for him. He was such a good man. How had I ever questioned who he was? Even if he’d made mistakes, so had I. But he’d always been there for me when the rubber met the road. Even at the lowest point in our lives, he’d always had my back. I shoved the guilt and regret from my mind. This was no time to, yet again, wallow in my disorder. I closed my eyes and lingered in his embrace.

  “Cut that mess out.” Laine’s voice was soft, but I could hear the smile in her tone.

  Jack walked over to the bed and took her hand. “What do you need?” he asked. Straightforward, no-nonsense Jack . . . always cut to the chase.

  Laine shrugged slightly and pondered for a moment. “I think I just need the people who love me to love me, indeed.”

  “Done.” He kissed her hand and held it against his face a moment, then abruptly left the room.

  “What did I just witness when I woke up?” Laine asked as the door closed, her eyes twinkling.

  I smiled. “Hell freezing over?”

  “Start from the beginning.”

  Mrs. Jeannette and Michael walked in, and our conversation ended.

  Ella Rae stood up and Laine’s mother took her chair beside the bed. Michael stood behind her. These were two of the finest people I knew. Mrs. Jeannette had taught school for over thirty years and had just recently retired. It was easy to see where Laine’s dedication to the profession and her love for the job had come from. I think she would’ve taught forever, but her health wasn’t up to par. She’d struggled with rheumatoid arthritis for years and it had become quite a battle recently. In fact, Laine had toyed with the idea of moving in with her to help her with day-to-day needs, but Mrs. Jeannette had nixed the idea. Independence was very important to her. Laine’s father had died suddenly of a heart attack several years before, when Laine was still in college. She’d wanted to move home then, too, but Mrs. Jeannette wouldn’t hear of it. Michael lived here in Shreveport, but he was married with four kids, and the twins were still in diapers. I wondered fleetingly what would happen now.

  Jack came back into the room, shook hands with Michael, and hugged Mrs. Jeannette. He asked her if he could see her in the hall. She took his hand as he led her out.

  Laine shot me a questioning look.

  I shrugged.

  “Carrigan,” Michael said, “it’s been ages since I have seen you. You look well.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “So do you. How are Belinda and all twelve of your kids?” I laughed at my own joke.

  “It seems like twelve at bedtime, I assure you. But they’re all doing fine.”

  “They call me about once a week,” Laine said, “but they all talk at one time and I never understand a word they say.”

  “I haven’t understood a single sentence uttered in that house for years,” Michael said.

  “Wait until they all become teenagers,” Laine said, “and good luck with that.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed that statement, each of us thinking of the future and what it might mean.

  The subject quickly turned to the weather, the humidity and lack of rain. Why is it, in Louisiana anyway, when a conversation becomes strained or lags, the chatter turns to weather? Even in the closest circles.

  Mrs. Jeannette entered the room again, followed closely by Jack. I could tell that she had been crying and was clinging to Jack’s hand. She thanked him before she sat back down beside Laine. I had no idea what their conversation had been about, but she looked grateful and relieved.

  I had been yearning to ask a question, but wanted to wait until Mrs. Jeannette and Michael were both in the room, and now was my opportunity.

  “Laine,” I said and sat down on the edge of her bed, “why don’t we get another opinion? You know, just to be sure. I mean, doctors make mistakes all the time. They’re as human as we are. This diagnosis just can’t be right.”

  Even the thought of a second opinion had given me something to hope for. Actually, it had felt like manna pouring from heaven and gave me some sliver of control in an out-of-control situation. Of course we needed a second opinion. You didn’t just get news like this and swallow it without a fight. The only thing Doctor Rougeau had left me with was despair and terror. He wasn’t the be all, end all of the doctor community. There were hundreds of others we could ask. We’d go to Zimbabwe if we had to. The thought of a second opinion gave me confidence and hope and direction.

  Laine didn’t answer and began smoothing the sheets on the bed with her hands. She looked at her mother and then at Michael. They both looked at the floor.

  “What is it?” I said. The silence continued. “Tell me.”

  Laine took my hand in hers. “I need you to listen to me, Carrigan, you and Ella Rae both. Really listen, because you never do. And don’t say anything till I’m done, you hear me?”

  I frowned, but agreed. Ella Rae nodded her head as well.

  She took a deep breath, looked at Ella Rae, who had never in her life been this silent, then looked back at me. “I have known I was sick for a while—”

  “What do you mean you’ve known?”

  She threw her hand up. “Listen to me.”

  A thousand questions were running through my mind, but I kept quiet. For once.

  “I already have a second opinion, and a third. I don’t want another one.” She paused. “This is what I’ve been given, and this is what we’ll deal with.”

  The room stayed still save for Ella Rae’s quiet weeping.

  I could feel the explosion rising inside me. “What?” I shouted the question, and had no reservations about it. What kind of irrational, idiotic announcement had she just made? Was she kidding me?

  “Carrigan,” Laine said, unsurprised at my reaction. “I knew you weren’t gonna like the answer, but I need you to accept this . . . You . . . you have to help me accept this.”

  Accept this? Was she out of her mind? I wanted to punch her in the mouth and I know how that sounds, but it was the truth.

  “Are you crazy? Are you all crazy?” I said, looking at them all. I was sure they’d slipped Laine and the rest of these people some sort of mind-altering drug. I turned my attention back to Laine. “And you! Are you just gonna . . . quit? And what do you mean you have three opinions? How long have you been sick? Why didn’t you tell us? Who else knew? Why didn’t you say anything?” I looked at Ella Rae, hoping for someone to take my anger out on. “Ella Rae, you better hope you didn’t know anything about this!”

  Ella Rae, still crying, finally spoke. “I didn’t, I swear.”

  “Where did the other two opinions come from?” I yelled. “Jekyll and Hyde? Rougeau’s partners? This is crap, Laine.”

  I paced in front of the bed and fumed with anger.

  Mrs. Jeannette, ever the lady, began to look really uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I needed her to back me up or get out of the room. I needed anybody to back me up, but they all sat like statues, watching me. Except Jack, who began to walk toward me, but I put out my hand to stop him.

  “He’s a go
od doctor, Carrigan,” Laine said. “I trust him.”

  My mind began grasping at straws then, for something that could make a difference, change the outcome, and give me just one more glimmer of optimism. I finally seized a thought through the chaos in my brain. “Okay,” I said, “okay, if you trust him, then take the treatment. We’ll help you if it makes you sick. You know we will. They don’t know if it’ll fix you or not. Miracles happen every day. So just take the treatment.”

  “Carrigan, please . . .”

  I saw the tears in her eyes and I knew I should shut up. I knew I should. But I couldn’t and I didn’t. “Laine, you can’t just quit! You have to fight! You can do this, I know you can. We will help you, I swear! But you have to fight.”

  “Carrigan,” Mrs. Jeannette said, “we all know you love her, but this isn’t helping. You need to—”

  I was furious now, furious and frustrated and helpless—the worst combination of emotions imaginable for me. They made me unpredictable, irrational, and sometimes hateful.

  “I need to what?” I said. “Dig her grave? Is that what y’all want?” I gestured wildly at the hospital room. “Let’s just call the funeral home!”

  “Carrigan!” Ella Rae said. “Stop it!”

  “Why?” I said. “I just said what everybody else is thinking, didn’t I?” I looked at Laine. “So, fine! If you wanna die, do it! We’re all here and there’s no time like the present. I’m ready! Do it! Do it, I dare you! Just die now.”

  The tears that had threatened all day had finally started to spill, and my words were coming out in a torrent of sobs. I was powerless to stop them, even though I knew they were hateful, mean, and cruel. But I wanted her to be mad at me. I wanted her to get her spirit back. I wanted her to fight. I didn’t care if she never spoke to me again as long as she stayed alive.

  Jack was at my side in an instant, this time not allowing me to push him away. “Carrigan,” he said, “come on, baby, let’s go outside.”