Corpus Christi

by Bret Anthony Johnston

“If no one explains it.”

  “Oh,” she said, then paused. “Lee, she’s a trouper. More radiation could slow, or possibly stop, the metastasis.”

  He imagined his mother turning to him upon receiving the news, her eyes clouded with disbelieving panic. Or would she hide behind a veil of smug morbidness? No matter, however she heard the diagnosis, it would rip the rug out from under her. She was not one for surprises. She was not a trouper.

  Wood’s voice softened. “And you don’t have to tell her, Lee. But as her physician, I’m obligated to when I see her.”

  He caught himself wrapping the phone cord around his hand again. How peculiar that his thoughts went to the librarian in St. Louis; a week before he’d learned of his mother’s tumor, the woman had come into his classroom and accused him of being unable to accept kindness.

  On the phone, he cleared his throat and asked the doctor, “What if you don’t see her?”

  MINNIE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THE INSURANCE company needed another MRI, or why Lee had mentioned the appointment only the night before. She had started to argue, then relented. Lee had been distracted and addled lately, she thought, given to an absentmindedness that reminded her of his first days of grade school. She had tried to bolster him then—the good breakfasts, afternoon Popsicles, trips to the toy store his father didn’t know about—as this past year he had tried to rally her. In their last week together, she welcomed her role back again.

  They sat in the waiting room of the radiology lab—not at the cancer center but in a hospital across town—and she drank the syrupy, cherry-flavored liquid they gave her before MRIs. “There’s a new cologne this month,” she said. “It’s called Rodeo.”

  “I’ll take three,” he said. He was flipping through a magazine. He hadn’t shaved; his eyes looked bleary.

  “The nurse has taken a shine to you,” she said. “Want me to fake a seizure?”

  She’d expected him to laugh or glance at the blonde behind the registration desk, but he said, “She’d call the doctor.”

  “Maybe the doctor’s cute, too.”

  The nurse checked her makeup in a compact mirror. Minnie wished she’d brought catalogs to leave on the orange chairs.

  “Lee,” she said quietly, “is something on your mind, baby?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Are you nervous about going back?”

  He tipped his head to his shoulder, his eyes returning to an article. He said, “There’s just a lot to do before school starts.”

  “You put so much pressure on yourself. Daddy did, too.”

  She finished another cup of the syrup, thinking vaguely of Richard, of his hands, how Lee’s fingers resembled his. She recalled Richard carving a turkey before they were married, maybe their first holiday together, when she already loved him so much she could hardly breathe.

  “I was thinking I’d come up for Thanksgiving,” she said. The words surprised her as much as her voice. Such an idea had never occurred to her before, but now it was enticing; now it was a trip she’d always wanted to take. “I’d love to see the fall leaves. I can cook for you.”

  “Maybe I’ll come down here. The weather will be nicer.”

  “No,” she said. “I’d like to visit you. I intend to start traveling more.”

  In the MRI machine, it was not lassitude that descended but an unexpected zinginess. She felt like a child on a playground, shooting through a tube slide. The air smelled steely. The cylinder’s ceiling hung an inch above her; she touched her nose to it, just for a goof. Cold. The machine whirred and thumped and clanked, then went silent for a spell before the racket resumed. During one of the silences she said, “Kiss a fish” and made herself laugh. How long since she’d heard that? During the years when Lee had resented having his picture taken, Richard would say it to make him smile. “Kiss a fish,” she said again, louder, then laughed again. How strange to hear her cackle reverberate, ever so slightly echo; she would mention that to Lee later. She tried to imagine him starting a conversation with the blond nurse. He’d blink twice before each sentence, look at his hands while he spoke; if things went well or very badly, he’d find something to fidget with. She knew, though, that he was sitting in the same orange chair, poring over a wrinkled magazine.

  Then, instantly, time started dragging. Sweat on her forehead, under her arms. Her spine ached and her nose itched; she felt a sneeze coming, but couldn’t move enough to let it go; she flexed her toes, heard them pop like twigs. In high school she’d learned it wasn’t the joints themselves, but bubbles of sinovial fluid bursting between bones; that was the year she and her girlfriends sprawled on the beach, sharing cigarettes and mixing iodine with baby oil for darker tans. What a thing to recall. The machine cycled again, the noises grinding more harshly, as if unbuffered. A grating thrum seemed centered over her chest; the cylinder seemed to tighten, the ceiling seemed to lower. An acute terror: What if the exam revealed something unexpected and she detained Lee another five months? Assuming he’d stay; maybe such news would be the last straw. Then, strangely, as if allowing the thought to form nullified its possibility, the terror dispersed. She sighed to hear herself sigh. Now she only wanted lunch and a cigarette, to be freed from the cylinder, to become the child dropped from the slide onto the sand. Hawaii. Ukulele music and umbrellas in tangerine-colored drinks. How much darker would the nights be on the island, how much brighter the stars? Had Richard ever been? She had a vague memory of him liking the Pearl Harbor museum. She imagined forcing herself to mingle, telling tourists about Richard and Lee, about living in Corpus and about her remission, then she would hear about their lives until the time came to ask if they’d like some catalogs. She smiled at the idea of appearing in random snapshots; years later, the photos would be rediscovered and the viewer would eventually find her in a slippery, pleasant recollection: the Avon lady.

  LEE FIXED HIS EYES ON THE ARTICLE WHILE A WAVE of shock rose in his chest. His muscles tensed. Nothing had been settled with Dr. Wood, but she’d convinced him that regardless of treatment, an MRI was necessary to assess the extent of the metastasis. She’d scheduled the tests at this lab because it was more expeditious than her own; he’d brought his mother under the pretense of an insurance company request. But she seemed suspicious. Her questions were snares, and he was misremembering what he had and hadn’t told her. And now this: “Is something on your mind, baby?” His thoughts scrambled to find the letter he’d left on a table, the phone message he’d not erased, a doctor’s call he’d not been home to intercept. This is where you’ll tell her, he thought. This is where she’ll find out, in a waiting room with old magazines and orange-cushioned chairs.

  MEXICAN FOOD AFTER THE MRI. HER IDEA. DURING chemo, she’d craved enchiladas and assured Lee and herself that if she ate slowly and responsibly, she wouldn’t get sick. Or she had assured Lee, but told herself the retching wouldn’t strike until later, an acceptable consequence for tasting something more than rice cakes and chalky protein drinks. But that afternoon she had vomited into her plate after only a few bites, and today the smell of pico de gallo shamed her.

  “My file was marked ‘Urgent,’ ” she said after the waiter left the check. “I saw it on the way out.”

  “Go figure,” Lee said. “They probably consider all insurance work urgent.”

  He took a long drink of water. Around the restaurant, red, white, and green streamers trimmed the windows. Years before, on road trips and in pediatricians’ waiting rooms, they’d had a game. She’d say, Riddle Miraddle Marie, I see something you don’t see, and the color is black, or maybe yellow or purple, and he’d try to name whatever she’d spied.

  He said, “They probably get paid more quickly if it’s marked urgent. Company policy.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to get tested for another six months. Maybe something’s wrong.”

  He sighed, lidded his eyes. “Let’s give this a rest, okay?”

  “I don’t see why they need more exams. I get scared, honey.”
<
br />   “You’re looking for something to scare you.”

  She lit a cigarette, shook out the match. He was right.

  He reviewed the bill and motioned for the waiter. He said, “We’ll be fine.”

  THE DILEMMA CONSUMED HIM, AND THE MORE HE considered it, the more withholding the news seemed appropriate, merciful. Whatever time remained would not be marred by a clock ticking in her head; it would tick in his alone. Contriving reasons for not returning to work would be easy enough—he’d already canceled his flight and contacted the school’s principal. Then he could concentrate on making her last months comfortable. That, he thought, was what his father would do. He could start cooking her meals again, rent movies, read to her. They could play cards and work puzzles, the pieces growing larger and thicker as her faculties failed. He could drive her into the Hill Country, to the beach. He could take her to Hawaii.

  What he could not do was ignore a passing, but potent realization: He knew that every word of his staying to care for his mother, and word of her dying, would eventually find Moira Jarrett, his old friend Russell’s sister and maybe the only woman he’d ever loved. For the last year he’d stayed immune to the encroaching, regrettable thrill that came with imagining how Moira would react to all he’d endured, but now he would succumb to it. And now became clear the twofold feeling of escape he’d enjoyed when he thought he was leaving: His mother was safe from cancer and he was safe from memories of Moira. In the few times he’d seen Russ since returning to Corpus, he’d avoided talk of his sister, and he’d taken pride in how little he knew of her life. Now that he saw the hopelessness of his guardedness, he wondered why he’d ever struggled to deny himself. Because there seemed a certain dignity in not admitting how vividly the city recalled her for him? Because when he and Moira were dating, his mother had called her trashy and warned him of women who trap men with pregnancies? Moira had never known about this, and despite her leaving him years before, Lee knew she wouldn’t miss his mother’s funeral; that he understood this, that the understanding awoke a fluttering optimism in him, left him nettled and nauseous. Regardless of terms like misplaced guilt and coping mechanisms that he’d read in Dr. Wood’s caregiver’s manual, he could no longer trust his motives, either toward himself or toward his mother.

  “Oh,” she said when he mentioned postponing his flight. She sounded taken aback, as if she’d planned on renting out his room. They were in the den, watching television; a stratum of cigarette smoke hung over their heads. He said he’d overestimated his prep time and could stay another two weeks, at least. “Well, super,” she said at a commercial. “I’ll go to the store tomorrow. We’ll need more food.”

  That night it clicked for the first time that denying her this choice could be unforgivable, tantamount to holding a pillow over her face as she slept. Perhaps the doctor would be right, perhaps her decision would surprise him. Maybe the remission had so restored her spirit that more radiation would seem easy and she’d be baffled by his distress. He lay in bed, hearing her laugh, then cough, through the wall. He imagined barging into the den and delivering the news in a single breath. Then it would be over. She would be confused and shocked, but soon her newfound optimism would kick in. She would draw him near, massage his temples with fingers that smelled of lilacs and nicotine. She would say, “There, there. It’s okay now.”

  He started watching her with pity—lamenting her wax-yellow skin, her miserable, unflinching optimism—and he thought telling her would make her less pitiful. But it also seemed selfish—a cop-out to ease his own burden, not hers. Or perhaps he lacked such courage and simply cowered from bearing the worst news. For two weeks he’d viewed himself as trying to save her, like a trainer poised to throw in the towel for his outmatched boxer; now he realized that the longer he remained alone with the information, the longer he himself was saved.

  They were working in the garden when she said, “We should still arrange my funeral. Even if I live another fifty years, it’s a good idea.”

  “Maybe we can arrange mine, too. Buy one, get one free.”

  “I’m serious, Lee. I’m thinking pragmatically.”

  Even in the incandescent sun, he felt chilled. Color flushed or left his cheeks—he couldn’t tell which. She scattered hibiscus seeds in the soil, and he wondered if the blooms would eventually make him weep. He wondered how long his weeping would last. Finally he said, “You’re right.”

  “And I have a living will. You have power of attorney, so we’ll be set.”

  He kept quiet for fear of betraying himself. He felt it coming, the gravity of inevitability, but didn’t want to surrender thoughtlessly. He intended to rehearse the words and prepare responses, to anticipate her reactions and stand ready to fight and console her.

  “I ordered your new cologne. Rodeo.”

  He smoothed the soil. His mind strove to find a joke, something about lassos or cowgirls or horses, but nothing came.

  “You seem preoccupied,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Or no. Yes and no.”

  She removed her gloves, took a sip of water. Her tumbler perspired. Flecks of soil clung to her neck. He wanted to brush them away but feared his touch would tear her skin. She said, “Let’s go inside.”

  “No, I’d like to stay here. Sitting here suits me.” His tone was too pensive; he felt the stress creasing his brow; he felt his mother’s eyes lingering.

  She took another drink. She appeared neither anxious nor worried but resigned to whatever he would say, as she must have been when he was young, when she could glue whatever he’d broken. She lit a cigarette, blew the smoke over her shoulder, away from him. And, briefly, he felt absolutely and desperately calm, himself resigned to whatever the future held. His calm was not born of hope—and perhaps, he feared, neither was hers—but of hope’s absence. He had never expected her to live. Even when news of remission enveloped and intoxicated them like the smell of a new, beautiful home, and even when they confirmed and celebrated their luck with plans for the coming years, he had never trusted her recovery. Since her initial diagnosis, he’d known but never admitted that she wouldn’t survive; he’d started mourning her on the afternoon she called him home. Now his last obligation was to wait.

  “So what is it?” she asked.

  “School,” he said. “The district’s laying off teachers. It might be a year before I can go back.”

  LATELY SHE’D STARTED WONDERING WHAT KIND of mother she’d been, too lax or strict, too clingy or absent; she wondered how, when the time came, Lee would remember her. When he was young, she had forbidden movies his friends were allowed to watch, and had sometimes done his homework when he was ill. She’d insisted he play only touch football but let him wear a Mohawk. She’d given him condoms too early, and called him too often at college. She had fallen apart when his father died, and she had never recovered. She had convinced him she would live when he moved to St. Louis, then she had dragged him home again.

  Originally, she had considered not telling him of the disease. He’d been in Missouri for two years, happy and thriving, and she didn’t want to interfere. And she was more scared of the treatments than of dying. She knew the misery of chemo, knew radiation guaranteed nothing. After her doctor said “cancer,” she’d tried writing a letter for Lee to find afterward, but the words sounded feeble, clumsy. How to tell your son you’ve decided not to go on? Then suddenly she found herself on the phone with him, spilling the diagnosis and sobbing because she was afraid of everything. She had endured the treatment to keep him beside her, but recovering had never been more than a distant, cursory consideration, like a roadside attraction she might stop to see if time allowed. She had never wanted to live, had only wanted not to die alone.

  Tonight she waited until he’d eaten and relaxed before saying anything. They watched television in the den, then when the timing felt right, she said, “No more treatment.”

  He looked caught, trapped, astonished. Poor thing.

  She exhaled smoke, stab
bed out her cigarette. “I delivered Dr. Wood’s Avon a few days ago.”

  The consternation on Lee’s face made her feel as if she’d told him of some metastasis in his own body. Her heart lurched; she wanted nothing more than to gather him in her arms and apologize, but she didn’t move. She saw him gauging what would be best to say, what would be worst. Richard had done this, deliberated each word or thought before granting it voice. It was considerate and nerve-racking. She lit another cigarette, forced herself to feel the cold-hot cloud in her lungs. She stopped expecting him to deny the implications of what she’d said. Rather, she tried to stop. For days she’d struggled to purge such a prospect from her mind, and though she’d mostly succeeded, times came when she indulged herself, like sneaking a bite of cookie dough. Grandchildren, the trip to Hawaii, seeing Lee’s life unfold. Now she needed to stay composed and discard everything except his silence that confirmed her dying.

  “I’m not angry,” she said.

  He nodded. Maybe he said that he’d planned on telling her, that he’d decided he must and was only awaiting the right time, but she heard very little. Her pulse raced. Her skull pounded. Undoubtedly this would spawn a migraine. She told herself to stay calm, to take deep breaths, to bear up. Then, at the oddest moment, a memory: Lee, in third grade, doing magic at a talent show. She had sewn his costume, fashioned a top hat from posterboard, and Richard had paged through a book of beginner illusions with him. He hadn’t won the contest—Who had? The pigtailed soprano? The brothers staging the detective play?—so afterward she and Richard treated him to ice cream. Vividly, she recalled thinking such a night was all she’d ever wanted, thinking for half an hour that she’d known precisely what life was for; it was for this.

  In the den, Lee said, “There is treatment. The doctor—”

  “No more.”

  She’d anticipated him getting righteous and angry and lobbying for radiation. Her mind stayed poised to grapple with him, to spar until he agreed to let the disease run its course. But he didn’t argue. His silence disoriented her. Suddenly time needed filling, and in those still, hushed moments she realized it: They would never fight again. Starting now, their lives would fray and splinter and speed away from each other. All of their future interactions would be strained pleasantries, empty and courteous conversations that meant nothing except I’m sorry or good-bye.