“What will we do over there tomorrow?” Anna asked. Harley detected fear in her voice.
“Saturday afternoons are an extension of Friday nights,” she said. “It’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about you know who. He isn’t the chatty type normally, especially with my friends. He’ll be curious, and if I can say it without embarrassing you, probably more than usual because you are so beautiful.”
“Aw, thank you. I don’t feel that way about myself,” Anna said. “I was wondering if he’d be around.”
“He’s finishing our basement,” Harley said. “He’ll be busy down there with his brother and father. They’ll come up for dinner and might stay for a game or two. We don’t have any set rules; just take it as it comes.”
The next morning, Harley was in a deep sleep when Devon came in, sneaking past the others who’d issued warnings not to disturb her mother. Carefully crawling into bed with Harley, Devon lay next to her with two Barbie dolls who whispered to each other, dancing on the comforter, doing gentle gymnastics with their rigid limbs.
“Devon Jones,” Angie whispered. “I asked you to stay out of here.”
“I’m being quiet,” she said her little girl voice. “I want to be with Mommy.”
Harley heard murmuring voices. Slowly entering consciousness, it took all of the power she could summon to speak. “That’s okay, Angie. I’m awake. What time is it?”
“Ten-thirty,” Angie said. “You stay there. Devi, you too. I’ll bring coffee and breakfast in bed.”
Harley struggled to keep her eyes open. She’d read cancer patients who remain active did better than those who were sedentary. But she was at the cusp of giving up, staying in bed, letting nature takes its course. Glad Devon was in bed with her, it would force her to get moving.
“Okay, Miss Devon, help Mommy up,” she said, pulling herself into up on an elbow. “Boy, I’m so sleepy.”
Devon got behind her and started to push on her back, shoving her to the edge of the bed while Harley laughed. Jason appeared in the doorway. “Devon! Stop that,” he shouted.
Harley put up her hand. “I asked her to help me, Jay. Relax.” Yawning, she inched her legs over the side of the bed as he came to help her.
“Sorry Devi,” he said, smiling at her.
“That’s okay Daddy,” she said. Devon hopped off the side of the bed and took Harley’s hand while Jason was on the other side.
“Jerry Michaels called an hour ago,” he said.
“He did? About my blood work?”
“Yes,” Jason said.
They didn’t say more, leaving her at the bathroom door. She shut it, and Jason turned to the bed. “Let’s straighten Mommy’s bed for her,” he said, wishing he could pack the family up and return to the beach and wait it out. Trying to be normal, going through the motions, working to get everything perfect so Harley could die in peace was exhausting.
Bennie came into the bedroom to find out how Harley was. “Angie has her breakfast just about ready,” she said.
“Hold off, honey,” Jason replied. “Take Devi out with you.”
“Was that the….” she mouthed doctor…”On the phone?”
“Yes,” he said. “We’ll talk in a bit. I need to talk to Mommy.”
“Come on Devi,” Bennie said. “You need to clean up your room.”
“Oh, all right,” she answered.
Jason sat on the bed, waiting. He heard the squeaking of the shower being turned off.
“Where’d Devon go?” Harley asked, toweling the white down on her head.
“Bennie came to get her so we can talk,” he answered.
“She’s regressing,” Harley said, sad. “Have you noticed? Talking baby talk, she even wet the bed this week. This is messing up my family.”
“Look, you’re doing everything you can to make this as smooth as possible for the girls. Some things are just out of our hands.”
He knew it was a ridiculous thing to say. Everything that was happening was out of their hands.
“What’d Jerry say?” she asked, sitting on the bed next to him.
“Your liver enzymes are elevated,” Jason said.
“Ha!” Harley barked. “I don’t need a doctor to tell me that.” She pulled her shirt tightly across her belly for Jason to see. “This is relatively new.”
Leaning closer to her, he put his hand on her and could feel the heat coming off her. “Do you have a fever or are you just hot from the shower?”
“I don’t have a fever,” she said. “Probably the only thing that is normal on me is my temp. I’ve been taking it because I know it will start to go down when…”
Pulling her gently onto his lap, Jason embraced her, burying his face in her neck, missing her long, red hair, because there wasn’t anything to grab on to. Angry he was going to lose her and not able to control what was happening in their life, he started to sob. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost it, and she didn’t join in in despair like she did the first few times he broke down. She patted his back, smoothing his hair, thinking of other hands which would soon replace hers, preforming the same acts of compassion. Numb, Harley preferred this to the crazy despondent hysteria she felt just a few months ago. Numb was good. She could sooth Jason without pairing up with him in anguish. One grief-stricken soul in a couple was enough.
Calming down, Jason left for the bathroom to wash his face. Harley climbed back in bed, waiting for him there. He came out, expressionless.
“I need to run to the hospital pharmacy,” he said. “You’re getting IV meds.”
“And you’re going to start my IV?”
“Yep, I get to stick you. Although I’d rather stick you with something else, an IV catheter will have to do.”
“You are so romantic, Jason!” Harley said, laughing out loud.
“I’ll let the girls bring your breakfast in and I’ll head out.” He bent down to kiss her.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “The thought of food makes me sick.”
“It’s the ascites,” he said. But the moment the words were out of his mouth, he was sorry he couldn’t take them back. The cause of ascites wasn’t something from which a patient would recover.
“I know what it is,” she said. “I only have to hang on for six more months. Just 180 days until Angie graduates.”
“You’ll make it,” Jason said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’ll help you. You’ll make it.”
“If you say so,” she answered.
“Let me at least bring you coffee,” he said, getting up.
Harley watched him walk out of the room. The switch from husband in denial to truthful, straightforward husband was a little jarring for her. Maybe she preferred the sobbing husband who proclaimed his misery over a situation out of his hands. This rational, calm husband seemed a little too eager to accept the status quo.
Pondering it, she looked around the room, shocked at how detached she’d become over night. It might be a knee jerk reaction to the sudden appearance of her swollen abdomen, but whatever its cause, she decided it was good. It was a slow acceptance of things to come, unlike what an accident victim would experience; someone who didn’t have days and weeks to cycle through the stages of grief.
Voices coming down the hall, she saw her family entering, Jason helping Devon manage the tray.
“Breakfast in bed for ma lady,” Jason said, the girls laughing at his ridiculous accent, part Julia Child, but more Dan Ackroyd imitating Julia Child.
The tray was beautifully appointed using their good dishes and a bud vase with a chrysanthemum bud plucked from a plant on the porch. “Oh look! How pretty,” Harley exclaimed. “Thank you so much, girls.”
“Daddy helped,” Devon confessed.
“Just selected the jelly,” he replied. “I know your favorite, do I not?”
“Yes, you do,” she said, examining the tray. It was obvious someone who’d been through nursing school had a hand in preparing her breakfast. Just one piece of toast, buttered and
spread with strawberry jam, cut into quarters so not to overwhelm the frail appetite. A saucer with less than a few spoonful’s of cooked oatmeal with brown sugar, making it like cookie dough batter. A small juice glass with watered down orange juice and a mug of coffee with pumpkin spice creamer.
Harley couldn’t help herself; she started to laugh. “Thank you for this delicious breakfast,” she said. “If I can’t finish this, well I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s mouse portions,” Jason said, and the girls burst out laughing.
“I’ll do my best.”
While she ate, the girls piled on the bed, Jason hovering nearby, Harley regained some of her previous will to fight. She finished her meager breakfast and shooed everyone away so she could get dressed.
“I forgot to tell you a friend is coming by today. Anna, an art teacher, just like Aunt Bea. She has two kids, a girl twelve and a six year old boy.”
No one appeared to be too interested in Anna, for which Harley was grateful. A few minutes before, while she sat on Jason’s lap and he had his melt-down, the urge to tell him about LoveMatch.com grew, but she fought it. She’d wait until the last possible minute.
Jason picked up the drugs and IV tubing from the hospital pharmacy and was back by noon to administer the drugs. Within minutes the fluid which had filled her abdomen to swelling started to leave her body.
“I feel better already,” she told Jason.
As soon as it finished, he took out the IV and Harley was back to being the mother and wife, preparing for company, doing laundry, readying her girls for the following week. Following her around the house, Jason knew her well-being would be short lived, but for the time being he’d be able to relax and let her take over.
Sitting at the counter, Harley started writing notes in a small notebook. “What are you writing?”
“I’m taking notes for you. Things that I take for granted about caring for the girls and tasks around the house that I might have forgotten to share with you.”
“Like what?” Jason asked, frowning.
“Well, like Tina is allergic to laundry detergent that has perfume in it, but the rest of the family isn’t.”
“So just wash everyone’s clothes in the non-smelly stuff.”
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, Jay. Trust me on this. It’s just easier to keep her things separate. The girls do their own laundry for the most part, all but Devon. But I wash the sheets and towels and our stuff.”
“What else?”
“Well, they’re particular about certain brands of food. You know Tina’s a vegetarian. The older girls all watch their sugar intake. I read labels.”
“Jeez, that’s why it takes you so long in the grocery store,” Jason said.
Harley chuckled, agreeing with him. “I have all my recipes in this book,” she said, pulling another notebook out from the shelf above her kitchen desk. It was a drill she’d gone through with him before but a new urgency drove her to want to repeat it. This time, he listened instead of blowing her off, thinking they had a lot of time to work out all the kinks of her absence.
Skimming through the pages to find a certain recipe for pasta salad she knew would be missed if no one made it again, Jason stood next to her looking down at the book, interested. Speaking the ingredients, pointing with her finger, Jason thought of a summer holiday in which friends and family applauded Harley’s pasta salad. The first thing Andy Forman said on Memorial Day was, “Where’s Harley’s macaroni salad?”
But it wasn’t really about a recipe for macaroni salad that was moving Jason. His wife was trying to maintain her place in the family by teaching her methods of caring for them. He didn’t have the heart to tell her they would probably work things out on their own, that the way she did things was imprinted in her brain, the nuances and techniques that were particularly Harley wouldn’t be available, no matter how much effort he put into trying to emulate her.
“We all love your macaroni salad,” he said as she put the book back on the shelf.
“Ha! That’s really all it is, we call it pasta salad but it’s just plain old macaroni salad. You’ll make it, won’t you?”
She’d turned to him, her scant eyebrows in a questioning expression. “Of course I will,” he said, taking her in his arms. “Don’t worry Harley. I promise to keep it together. Like you’ve said, the girls are old enough now to help out. Next year we’ll have two girls in college. Can you believe it?”
Feeling safe and warm in his arms, Harley nodded her head. “Two in college,” she echoed. “Wow, that’s unbelievable.”
“Tina’s old enough to drive this summer, but I don’t think she will.”
“That’s true,” Harley replied. “Tina behind a wheel isn’t a pretty thought.”
Laughing, they held on to each other, enjoying a normal moment. “I guess I’d better head downstairs. What time’s everyone coming?”
“I told them around three. We’ll have a late lunch.”
Harley watched him descend to the basement, and soon the sound of the saw and nail gun filled the house with a reassuring sense that life was moving on in a positive way, in spite of the reality.
The girls went about their Saturday routine; Bennie starting in on homework, Angie getting back into bed to read, Devon engrossed in Barbie, Tina sitting at her sewing machine, putting together a new design which had haunted her in the night; a dress with a full skirt, right out of the fifties.
“I couldn’t wait to get up and start working on it,” she confessed to Albie during their morning chat.
“It sounds over the top,” he confessed. “I’ll look forward to seeing you in it.”
“I guess we should talk about the Senior Prom,” Tina replied. “It’s sort of why I’m making it.”
“You want to go to my prom? Whoa, girl. Where’d this come from?”
“I think my mom would like to see me dressed up for a prom, that’s all.” The unspoken; since she won’t see me for my own prom.
“So, will you take me?” Tina asked.
“Of course! I was going to ask you even though I was almost sure you’d say no,” he said, not addressing her motivation for going.
“Since we’re talking prom here, you know Christmas is almost here.”
“Don’t get me anything,” she replied.
“Tina, what fifteen year old girl doesn’t want a Christmas gift from her boyfriend? You’re scaring me.”
“I just don’t think we should give gifts this year. There’s nothing to celebrate. And are you my boyfriend?”
“Ah, yeah, I think I qualify as being a boyfriend. Do want a ring to prove it?”
“Like a going steady ring?”
“Something like that. How about my class ring?”
“I’m not sure I’m allowed,” she said, concerned. “I should probably pass it by my folks.”
It would be another first. Her sisters never dated. Both attractive, smart and funny, everywhere they went, they went in a group. Even Angie, who was ravishing, even she never had a boy come to the house just for her.
“Well do you want me to come along when you ask?”
“No, that sounds too formal, like an engagement or something. I don’t want my mom to freak out.”
“Okay, well whatever way you want to handle it, just let me know,” Albie replied. “By the way, am I going to see you this weekend?”
“Come over at three. Everyone will be here,” she said absently, wanting to return to her dress. Proms, class rings, her mother’s death loomed large.
They said goodbye. Tina wanted to tell her mother about the prom first. She checked her appearance in the mirror. Training her hair into dreadlocks was not a favorite of Jason’s, but Harley loved it. The alternative to shaving her head when Harley’s hair started to fall out; she couldn’t justify the time she spent on her hair when her mother was losing hers, everyone finding Harley’s long, red hair all over the house. Wearing the dreadlocks piled on top of her head with a bandana w
rapped around them kept them off her face.
“Mom,” she called out, waiting in the doorway of her bedroom. “Where are you?”
She knew Harley was in the kitchen but one of her precious memories was of all the sisters’ voices calling for her and Harley answering back, “I’m in the kitchen,” or “In the den,” or wherever.
“I’m in the laundry room,” she called out. Tina went through the kitchen to the laundry room off the garage.
Harley was still wearing her crocheted bedcap. “Mom, I have something that is more daytime appropriate for you to wear.”
Putting her hand up to her head, Harley couldn’t remember what she had on. “Don’t you like this?”
“You look great, but I made you a flapper cap with a big flower that will go better with your jeans.”
“Okay, whatever you think,” she said, throwing Tina the end of a sheet. “Help me.”
While they folded sheets together, Tina told her about the vision for the dress and then Albie asking her to prom. They commiserated about it, excited, talking about the shoes she’d get and how she’d do her hair now that it was in dreads. The key was being in step with the rules of the school. No one had challenged her hairstyle yet.
“There’s one more thing,” Tina said. “Albie asked me to go steady. He’ll give me his class ring if you and Dad say it’s okay.”
Harley stopped folding and looked at Tina. She was growing up, almost sixteen, such a good kid, as her sisters were. Was sixteen too young to go steady?
“What will happen when he leaves for Michigan in the fall?”
Receiving early admission from University of Michigan, his departure was too painful for either to contemplate.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how it will work. I don’t see him waiting around for me, do you?”
“Gosh, Tina, I don’t know either. It doesn’t seem realistic, or fair. Could you go steady until he leaves?”
Harley wanted to be part of her daughter’s dating life. She wanted to be there to guide her for as long as she could. If Tina went steady now, Harley could micromanage the relationship. But then common sense hit and the ridiculousness of it magnified.
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