Before Everything

by Victoria Redel

  Molly worried to the others about a baggie of weed she’d found in Tessa’s desk drawer. How much was her daughter smoking? She was so uncommunicative most days. There have been terrible fights. Molly raked her fingers through her cropped hair. “She’s not a girl you’d at all recognize.”

  Anna thought it would help to remind Molly how when they were in eleventh grade they’d snuck out every afternoon that spring to smoke pot behind the woods near school. There’d been no shortage of baggies and film canisters of pot. There’d been no shortage of battles with parents.

  But it took such effort to bring the spoon to her mouth, to swallow the soup.

  It was enough to think, Molly, it will be fine.

  Molly and Serena. Their two children. Once, all of that had been radical—a woman, a mixed-race couple, children—these had been the battles Molly had fought. Eighteen years later they’d all danced at the wedding. Molly had a house in the Boston suburbs just miles from where they’d all grown up. A thriving therapy practice. Now Molly’s golden mane of hair was silver, cut in her mother’s short, blunt cut. Serena was talking about retiring from her surgery team.

  We were children. Give it enough time, Anna thought, and The Old Friends actually become old.

  Then she remembered what her son had told her. His beautiful secret. The beginning of his fatherhood. Was it just yesterday he’d come to her room to tell her the secret? These were her dear friends. She could boast to them. They had been children together, and then they were mothers together. They would know what this meant to her. But she would not tell. Not even Helen, her ultimate secret sharer. She could barely look at Helen. Still, she would say nothing. She had nothing left to give her son except her word.

  When

  Ming first, then Anna the same year, then Caroline, then Helen, and last, Molly, with two daughters from the sperm bank’s same anonymous donor. Between them, twelve. It shouldn’t, but it still surprised them. “Mom,” one of the kids called out, and any of them might, without stopping what she was doing, call back, “Yes.”

  And Other Good News

  She’ll have long hair at the end. Her own. There had been that first wig, hand-tied, expensive, from a store on Newbury Street in Boston. But the stiff bangs made Anna look like a young Orthodox wife. The next time she’d gone synthetic and cheap with multiple wigs, brunette and pink, a shag, a bob. One, her homage to Stevie Nicks. The third time—come on, who was she kidding?—a floppy cotton hat some days, on others a knitted beanie.

  Lather

  Once they’d gotten Anna out of the leggings and T-shirt she’d been wearing God knows how long, Molly shot Helen a this-feels-precarious look as they maneuvered Anna through the bathroom door. The towel they’d wrapped around her slipped undone. Why hadn’t they left this to the nurse? Molly stood inside the shower with Anna, Helen, just outside, holding under Anna’s other arm. They kept small talk going. As if this were something they’ve always done together, as when, at the end of a playdate, before starting dinner, they’d thrown batches of their kids into the tub. Helen and Molly worked together. Each lathered up one hand, trading secured holds of Anna. The skin was pebbly and dry, mottled blue and purple. If even lightly touched, would it abrade, slough off in pieces? They checked for splits, broken patches. There were no grazed-open bits. Molly lifted an arm, and Helen circled the hollow. Helen lifted the other arm, and Molly made circles with her hand. They will not describe her limbs to anyone; there was no word for what a leg becomes. Instead Helen had gossip. One of the guys they’d known in high school was in jail. Another—remember Eddie?—marriage gone south, a wife who’d run off with her yoga instructor. Still, the wife got beaucoup bucks. He apparently was worth a barrel of millions. Who could have guessed that one? Back in high school, they agreed, Eddie had been pretty cute but otherwise pretty useless.

  “Wasn’t he someone you did something with?” Molly asked Anna.

  Anna’s lips were blue, a tremor moving through her body. Molly motioned to Helen to shut the faucet.

  “You definitely did something with Eddie.” Helen held a towel open while Molly lifted Anna’s foot over the tiled shower lip.

  “I did something with a lot of them,” Anna said.

  “Lucky them,” Molly said, steadying Anna while Helen swaddled her in the towel.

  Art History 1

  Helen’s fingers sketch against the wale of her jeans. Involuntary. This is what she does. Look and take measure. The distance between bodies. The thin shape Anna makes on the velvet love seat. The way the others group, gesturing, leaning toward her, their faces wrenched and taut, echoing centuries of deathbed paintings. The room. The suffused light. Who hasn’t painted this? Rembrandt, Picasso, Munch. Paintings of men gathered around Christ. Alonzo Chappel’s canvas of Lincoln’s room crowded with men paying homage. She draws the shapes. The hard line of the sofa back. The women stack close to Anna. Anna’s pale face, a blue tint to it, already distant, not quite of them anymore but offering some last glowing courage. This, too, is part of the iconography. Always someone in the painting looks away. And someone turns to face the viewer as if to plead for hope.

  Train

  “I actually feel pretty good. Is that strange?” Anna was bright-eyed, pink in her cheeks. She sat upright and tossed away the velvet pillow Helen had wedged behind her.

  “You look great,” Helen encouraged.

  Anna rocked into a Bee Gees chorus: stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. The others chimed in, arms pumping: Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive. Anna’s voice was strong. Caroline took up the harmony. They had years and years of singing together—Aretha, Poco, Cat Stevens—even their goofing around sounded pretty good. At least to them.

  “It’s the soup.” Ming glowed. “I’m taking all the credit.”

  “I didn’t want you to come today,” Anna admitted. “It seemed pitiful and dramatic. But it feels good. Almost weird. Like I’m getting better.”

  “Then go back on medication,” Helen spit out. “You’ve done so well before.” She tried to adjust her voice. Less harangue. More bolster. “Better than well, you’ve kind of been a miracle.”

  “I’m just glad you feel good,” Caroline said.

  “Forget feeling good,” Helen snapped. “Anna can come through again. It’s another bout. That’s all. This whole hospice is ridiculous.”

  Helen shot a please-back-me-up at Ming. Ming welled up and glanced away.

  Really? This sudden, teary quiet. They’d already wasted two hours talking nonsense. They’d all witnessed the other unexpected recoveries. There was reason to hope. More than hope, it was even pretty logical.

  Helen levered herself up from her place behind Anna. She climbed over the back of the couch till she was standing. She needed to stand. To be able to see each of their faces. Pitiful. Hadn’t Anna just full-throated belted out “Stayin’ Alive”? Hadn’t Anna admitted she felt well?

  Looking across at Anna, sparkly, actually sparkly. “Basic question,” Helen challenged. “Who thinks hospice, right now, right here, is an excellent choice? Raise your hand.”

  She fidgeted through the room, skulked close to each of them like she was ready to tag them for Duck, Duck, Goose.

  “Come on, Ming, tell me. You think this seems right?” When Helen touched her, Ming flinched.

  “It’s Anna’s decision.” Ming’s voice was dry and wiry.

  “Since when have we ever stopped from chiming in on any of each other’s decisions? That’s what we do.”

  Did Helen need to remind them that Anna had been ready to toss in the towel during the last recurrence? Did she need to remind Ming of that brutal day, Anna’s mouth and throat so thickly blistered from medicine that when she’d whispered, “I’m done. I’m stopping,” they’d both said, “We understand.” It had taken Anna’s brothers barging in for her to grudgingly agree to adjust medications. One more month, they’d negotiated, and th
en make a choice. Did Helen really need to remind everyone how, less than a year later, at the Thai place in Great Barrington where they’d met for dinner before the Red Molly concert, Anna admitted she was ashamed to have considered giving up treatment? She’d thanked them for their steadiness. There’d already been so many peak nights—“peak nights” was Anna’s exact phrase. “Like tonight.” Anna smiled. “And we haven’t even gotten to the concert.” “Believing for you, that’s our job,” Helen rushed in. “That’s what friends are for.” Without missing a beat, they’d burst into song, giddy and crooning, That’s what friends are for, which led to Caroline and Anna harmonizing on Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”

  Now Helen pleaded. “What about more peak moments?” She was pacing. She didn’t care if it sounded like pleading. “You say you feel good now. Please.”

  “I’ve told the kids, Heli. I’ve gotten them on board.”

  “That’s idiotic, Anna.”

  “Helen, stop,” Molly cut in.

  “Just try for a while.” If she was going to have to push this all on her own, she’d better go tough. “What’s the big problem? Hospice is going to have a conniption? They’ll kill Anna for changing her mind?”

  “Helen.” Anna patted the cushion next to her.

  “No, Anna.” No way was Anna going to try her usual bossy routine.

  “It’s all I can do.” Anna was clear-voiced, nothing tired and quavery. None of her usual stubbornness. She sounded so open, so loving. It hurt. “You’re going to have to live with my decision.”

  Then Helen was yanking open the sliding glass door to the porch. “I’m going to have to live with your decision? That’s the whole problem.”

  1965, Bunnies, Too

  First day of second grade. Anna stands at recess in a circle with the other girls. Her hair, plaited in tight, thick braids, is so shiny. And her delicate ears, pierced! A tiny garnet pinned on each lobe. Where has she come from? Newness makes her exotic. She tells the other girls she has two younger brothers, a dog called Kissy, a cat named Sweets, and a wounded crow she’d found with her father. The bird has her name. Anna. The other girls shout, “A crow with your name?” Yes, she and her father have saved lots of birds. Bunnies, too. They set them free after nursing them to health. She’s held mauled bunnies, run-over bunnies. She’s splinted the broken legs of birds found in marsh grass. She’s given every one of them her name, Anna.

  Years later, at Anna and Reuben’s wedding, Helen held up her wineglass and told the story. “Imagine all those bunnies. Just to be clear, she’d actually name every one of us here today Anna if she thought she could get away with it.”

  “Right there, on that second-grade playground,” Helen said when the laughter quieted, “I determined I wasn’t going to let this oddball out of my sight. That our friendship would be the adventure of a lifetime.”

  When the last of the wedding party hung at two pushed-together tables, everyone wielding a fork and having another go at the whipped-cream tiered wedding cake, Anna’s father sat down next to Helen.

  “Good toast, kiddo.” He looked gleefully exhausted.

  “Thanks, Mr. Spark. If you don’t get it right for your oldest friend, who are you gonna get it right for?”

  “That’s funny.” Anna’s father took a drink from a glass Helen didn’t remember him holding when he’d sat down. “I came over to tell you we never saved anything. No wounded anythings. Not a rabbit or a bird.”

  The Matter, Exactly

  All heart. Heartsick. A heart-to-heart. Heart on your sleeve.

  The heart of the matter?

  It was in her heart. Cross your heart and hope to die.

  NK/T, rarest of lymphoma cell types, and this, hers, the rarest of the five strains of NK/T. An NK/T-cell mass in the left atrium. The heart pump, with its continuous flushing system, was not a place where anything easily roots. A lifetime in the field, and it’s still a remote statistic. The first time, the first occurrence, it was so rootled that when they opened her chest, cracking ribs to see if it could be dislodged, they found the matter branching deeply into the ventricle wall and they just sewed up. Began CHOP chemo, the four-part cocktail. But can it be shrunk without tearing open the heart? Doctors who are not her doctors swipe open the curtain, shake their heads staring at Anna’s chart.

  Even now, this final time, who didn’t flinch when they heard that it had returned to Anna’s heart?

  To Be More Exact

  There should be no medical jargon. What does NK stand for?

  Oh, Natural Killer.

  1975, What Are You?

  The two girls look down the steep ravine to the railroad tracks. The spring foliage is not fully in, the leaves a vivid, electric green. Wind gusts up the embankment. Everything vibrates. Helen feels too high. Even the rocky escarpment is a glittery vibration.

  Anna says go with it; the vibration is excellent. Anna wants to smoke the second joint.

  “You go on,” Helen says.

  Anna can take more. She wants more. Always more than Helen. Always been that way. Now it seems Anna wants to blaze all the time. Party with Molly and Ming. Helen wishes that she had it in her. Even when Anna is wildly wasted, she’s sweet and lovable and pretty. Helen’s unwildness feels clunky.

  A train passes. Heading into the city.

  “Lean back.” Anna stretches flat to feel the motion of the train rumble up the hill.

  Knees pulled in, Helen’s wrapped tight to stop the shiver in her legs. Tries to keep her gaze steady. Helen can’t take any motion. Needs something solid to ground her.

  Anna slips the roach flat between two matches. “Let’s at least smoke this doobie down.” Anna hands the matches to Helen.

  Last Saturday night, at another party that Helen didn’t want to be at, a boy tapped the back of her head to say Anna needed her. She found Anna in the backyard, a group of girls clustered close. “Helen’s here,” and the circle instantly opened to let Helen kneel close to Anna. Anna was a mess. A drunk, stoned, crying mess. Anna reached for Helen, her arms moving through something thick and viscous.

  “I knew you’d come,” she repeated like a revelation.

  Helen took off her flannel shirt and used it to wipe Anna’s mouth and arms where she’d puked on herself.

  “I need you to tell me I haven’t made the biggest ass of myself. He hates me.”

  There was puke in Anna’s hair. Helen didn’t know who this “he” was, but there wasn’t a “he” worth a nanosecond of Anna’s time. Definitely not worth getting fucked up over.

  It had taken a bit of annoying drunk-convincing, but Helen got Anna out of the yard. They found Ming and Molly in front of the house, and the three girls led Anna through their suburban streets. They were taking the long way home, walking her sober. Cool spring night. They stayed outdoors. Anna seemed in okay shape. They did cartwheels in line on the empty streets. The girls wandered through the estate section, massive Tudors and Colonials, every house with a winding driveway, landscaped yards, a swimming pool in back.

  “Let’s pool-hop.” Anna was so enthusiastic.

  “It’s only April,” Ming said.

  “Who cares. I’m ready to jump.”

  “You would, Anna,” Helen said dryly. “But it’s better to jump when the swimming pools are filled.”

  Now, with the wind and her shaking fingers, lighting the roach seems an insurmountable task for Helen.

  “You’re hopeless,” Anna says.

  “I’m high.” And like that, that’s all Helen is—high—not shivery or jittery but happy to be stoned with her best friend out in the woods.

  “I’m really high,” Helen announces, her voice singsong. “Extremely high.”

  “What are you, high?” Anna lifts a lilting question inflected in her voice. The girls break out in uncontrollable, snorting laughter.

  “What a
re you, high?” This time British.

  Then French.

  They’re hysterical; it’s hysterical. Just as they pull back, almost back in control, one of them says in a clipped German accent, “What are you, high?”

  Half Husband

  Caroline took Reuben’s groceries as he struggled through the back door, and then the women, one by one, hugged tight to him so it looked to Anna like a country line dance. Years earlier she would have implored him to give her time alone with her friends. These last years, since their separation, if Reuben showed up at the house without first calling, she glared, told him flatly to get out and leave them alone. Helen argued with her about the hard line she, Anna, had taken, saying, “Admit it, this is really the way you want the marriage, Anna. A half husband. Separation works for you. If you weren’t so stubborn, you’d see that.”

  Now, despite a faint rash of old angers—what were they?—Anna was pleased that Reuben was here. No need to rally for him. No need to pretend for Reuben.

  But where was Helen?

  Stormed out in a huff. Not in the room.

  Reuben switched out an empty roll of paper towels on the wooden holder. Then started in unpacking groceries. Always so pleased with what he accomplished. Endless lists of what still needed to be done. All that exhausting energy, that infuriating energy, that demanding bubbly energy Anna wanted to quell in her husband.

  “I made a mistake,” she told him the day he set up the mechanical bed and took out her four-poster bed. Her bed that had been their bed in the bedroom that had been their bedroom. Now it was her room. Reuben rented another house in a town the next town away. She’d refused to set foot in that house. But still, he was here, helping set up the motorized bed that had been brought in. “I thought I could do anything and you’d stay.” Anna spoke from the corner chair as Reuben stretched the fitted sheet over the crunchy, plastic-covered mattress. “I thought no matter what, I was really the one in charge.”