by Suzie Carr
Just then, a rabbit scurried by her, and she called out to it. She leaped off the bench and onto the rocky ground, bending down to its level. She picked it up, and nuzzled its neck. It closed its eyes, obviously comforted by her sweet and innocent soul. The entire forest beamed to life with her presence. The green leaves danced in the wind, waving their beauty and offering her a light breeze to once again dance with. The ground smelled fresher. The air lightened. The sky looked bluer above the canopy of trees.
Willow twirled the rabbit with her, kissing its nose and humming a melody to it.
I wanted to dance with her like that. I wanted her soft lips to tickle my skin. I wanted her to spin me around in wide, wonderful circles as she tilted that umbrella at just the right angle to award us a splash of freshness without getting pummeled by the bigger drops. No distractions. No disease. No worry of psychic snippets slipping in to steal the moment. Just me and Willow, dancing to our own song, in our own forest, in the valley of greens, violets, yellows and pinks.
Mesmerized, I inched closer to the water’s edge. Suddenly, the ground moved, pulling me away from her. It swept me so far away that she turned into a speck amongst the colorful backdrop, still twirling her pretty umbrella. Then, like a star in its final state, a small light flickered and grew into a great big light, too bright to look at. I peeked through my fingers, but the light blinded me.
Then, the ground stopped moving, and the light vanished.
I once again found myself in the bottom of that well staring up at the small light at the top of that long stairwell. I began to climb, and with each step I took, the heavy loss knocked me to my knees. I climbed those steep stairs on my knees, reaching up for the next step, desperate to get out of the damp darkness and back into the warm, healthy, healing light of Willow.
I reached the top and climbed out, staring in awe of the now gorgeous landscape in front of me. Wildflowers bloomed at my ankles as far as my eyes could see. I peered up at the sun. It beamed high in the sky. Its warmth trickled inside of me, protecting and loving, and reminded me that no matter where in the world I stood, I only had to peer up at the sky and know an energy existed on a universal level that would always work in my favor if I chose to invite it into my heart. I closed my eyes and fell to my knees in gratitude. I feared nothing. I controlled nothing. I wanted for nothing. In those brief moments down below, Willow had shown me life’s true colors in the form of her love and admiration for life.
The air smelled so crisp, fresher than the ripest cucumber and nectarine and the most mature sprig of the garden. I dizzied myself on it, trying to capture as much of it as I could. I was ravenous and greedy and wanted to stockpile it until it overflowed, seeping into every single morsel of my being. I wanted to trap it inside of me and save it for those days when the skies opened up to torrential rain and when I sat alone in my condo playing Solitaire to pass the time. Yet, I knew better than to harbor such an incongruous dream. I couldn’t trap something that offered so much freedom.
So, I enjoyed the moment, curling myself right up into it until I could stay there no longer.
Chapter Eleven
Dean and I sat in the oncologist’s office in silence. He flipped through a magazine, and I watched as his chest heaved up and down. We’d already waited forty-eight minutes for the doctor, and if I had to wait another twenty seconds my heart might implode.
Finally, the door opened and in walked a middle-aged man with short gray hair and a clean-shaven face.
We all exchanged the usual niceties about the beautiful weather and the smooth traffic flow before he got down to business and put Dean’s MRI up on the light box.
He examined it, moving in close to the series of thumbnail-sized images of Dean’s head and neck.
He closed in on one of the images, cupping his hand to his chin. “It’s unremarkable, at best.”
Dean and I exchanged panicked faces.
The doctor walked towards Dean. “That’s a good thing. You never want a mass to be considered remarkable.”
Was he cracking a joke?
“So what do you think it is?” Dean asked.
The doctor examined the lump. He craned his neck and closed his eyes as he circled it. “It feels innocuous.”
I needed a freaking thesaurus to understand the doctor.
The doctor tore off his gloves. “We’ve got two choices for next steps.”
Dean swallowed hard.
“We can do a needle biopsy and see if it’s cancer. Or we can just forgo the biopsy and remove it surgically, then test it in the lab. If it’s not cancer, you’ll be on your merry way. If it is, then, we’ll deal with prognosis and treatment options at that point.”
“The needle biopsy sounds like a no-brainer,” I said.
“I’m with her,” Dean agreed.
The doctor cocked his head. “Here’s why I don’t recommend the biopsy.” He folded his hands under his chin. “Regardless of the results, I’m still going to recommend we surgically remove the mass. Leaving any kind of mass on a gland would be highly irresponsible.”
Dean stretched his eyes. “So, I have to have surgery?”
“I advise it, yes.”
“So is it considered minor surgery?” I asked. “You just create a small incision, take it out, sew it back up and call it a day, right?”
“No. It’s sitting on the parotid gland, which means I have to go over some risks with you.”
Dean labored to remain still, gripping the edge of the table. “What’s a parotid gland?”
“The parotid salivary gland is the largest of three and contributes to about twenty-five percent of our total salivary secretion. It releases saliva that contains an enzyme, which helps in digestion by breaking down starch into maltose.”
“Am I in serious health trouble here?” Dean asked.
The doctor wore no expression. “The majority of parotid gland tumors are benign, however twenty percent of parotid tumors are found to be malignant. A parotidectomy is an inpatient procedure, which means you’ll stay in the hospital anywhere from one to three days depending on how you are healing. Typically, when I perform a parotidectomy I cut a small incision near the crease of the ear, just like in a facelift, and continue behind the ear. I’m careful not to distort the anatomy of the ear. I create a small flap on the surface of the parotid gland to help expose the gland and tissue that I’ll be removing.”
Dean shuddered.
“Once I’ve successfully removed the parotid tissue, I’ll test the facial nerves for correct function and then I begin the reconstruction. The procedure usually takes about two to five hours. Now, some risks involve nerve dysfunction, Frey’s syndrome, which is an uncharacteristic sweating near the glands, numbness, facial asymmetry, necrosis, which is death of skin near incision, and tumor reappearance.”
Dean trembled now.
I gripped my chair, on the verge of fainting.
“You have a twenty-five to fifty percent risk of facial weakness directly after the surgery and a one to two percent risk of permanent weakness. Frey’s syndrome may occur in up to ninety percent of patients.”
“My God, that sounds horrible,” I said, unable to hide my shock.
Dean’s jaw hung. He fought for control over his quivering chin. “You’re saying I have to have this surgery? I have no alternative?”
“We need to remove it. We can’t leave it there.”
Dean flicked his eyes. “How soon do I need to have the surgery?”
“It’s not a fast moving cancer if it turns out to be that. So, a month would be fine, if you want to look at your schedule and clear your plate.”
“How about three months?”
“Dean, just get it over with.” I rose. “You have a tumor growing in your neck. It’s not going to just disappear with a few prayers.”
“If it goes away, I don’t need surgery. I don’t have to risk facial paralysis and sweating on my cheeks for the rest of my life.”
That freaked me out more than an
ything. My poor Dean may never be able to eat a plate of calamari or a bowl of salad drenched in Italian dressing again without wiping the sweat from his cheek.
“I’ve seen patients cure themselves through prayer and meditation.” The doctor scribbled notes on his clipboard. “I wouldn’t recommend waiting three months, though.”
“I want a chance to take care of this on my own first. If the bump is still there in three months, then I come to the hospital and you remove it. I just want a chance to heal it using holistic techniques.”
I ground my teeth, frustrated with his innocence. What did he think? Yvonne would wave a sage brush over his neck and it would magically disappear? Or he’d light some incense, say a few prayers, and wake up to find the tumor vanished? Since when did he become a natural-born healer?
“We’ll go with that plan, but if you see the mass growing, you need to call us and schedule it earlier.” The doctor extended his hand. “I’ll have our coordinator set up a date.”
“Fantastic.” Dean shook his hand. “I look forward to not showing up.”
# #
On the drive home from the doctor’s office, Dean asked me if he could have the rest of the week off to plan his next steps. Dean hadn’t taken a vacation since the Tuesday following Labor Day one year ago, and then for a two day span when his brother visited Washington, D.C. from India.
My central nervous system went into deep panic mode, already fishing for ways I would be able to get through the next week without him. Of course, no bait in the world would produce the answers I needed.
Nothing that day had turned out as I expected. I expected that we’d walk in there, have a good laugh with the doctor over how Dean’s primary care had been too quick to act, out of fear of litigious backlash, and be on our way to some backstreet dive that served dollar beers and all the onion rings we could eat. Instead, we drove hunkered down with a heaviness that turned the beautiful summer day into a noxious nightmare where all the brilliant colors of summertime turned gray.
Once we got back to the office, Dean decided not to come up. “I’ll call you and let you know when I’m going to the wellness center.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He stared at me as if waiting on something from me.
“Okay, then. We’ll be in touch.”
He nodded. “Yes, boss.”
I watched him walk to his car with slumped shoulders. “Hey,” I called out.
He turned, and a new defeat sat on his face.
“You’re going to be fine.”
He offered me a wry smile. “I’ll try to get my head back in the game quickly.”
I sighed and shrugged. “Please do. I already miss you.”
A few minutes later, I sat at my desk and cried.
Bitterness boiled up inside of me, coursing through me like a raging inferno, burning up all sense of peace and reason. I opened up my file cabinet and tossed file after file against my door, cursing God for punishing a man who knew nothing about being mean, greedy, insincere, or cruel.
“Why?” I yelled to my empty room. “Why do you take innocent people and trash their lives?”
I dropped to the floor and bowed my head. I cried for his loss of peace in the coming months, for his potential cancer, for his potential loss of vitality and spirit, for the loss of his laughter, and the pain I might see lining his face.
I cried like a blubbering baby, dull to the vast emptiness of the office without him in there to poke fun at me and challenge me with this quirky factoids and debatable issues.
I remained curled up in that ball pose until the sobs subsided. Then, I looked up to the back of my door and sobered to the fact that not one of my staff members had even knocked to check on me while I yelled and cried.
About half an hour later I summoned up the energy and desire to pull myself up off the floor, walk over to my desk, and face a pile of needs assessments for three large organizations who sought us out to bid on a marketing consultant contract. Landing those accounts had been my goal, my main focal point, and my reason for getting up in the morning lately.
I threw those papers too, not caring about any of it anymore. None of it meant anything without Dean there to cheer me on and share a toast once we acquired their accounts.
I counted on Dean. He kept me in line. His brain worked in mysterious ways as if powered by some outrageous force foreign to the planet. He could come up with new angles on every client, every time we wrote proposals. Clients sought us out because of Dean’s creative ingenuity.
My chest tightened, imagining the future of Stone Advertising without him. What if his condition landed him in that twenty percent dismal zone? He’d need so much time off to get treatment. How much time? More than a month for sure. Maybe six months. What if he needed chemo? What if he wanted to go home to his family in India to heal? What if he decided he no longer wanted to work as a marketing assistant at Stone Advertising because it no longer fit in with his life plan? What if he wanted to teach kids, build houses, go back to college, or become a holistic healer?
Everything was temporary, especially life itself.
I stood up and paced my office.
What if, when he evaluated his life over the next week, he actually decided he no longer gained happiness from hanging out with me, and would rather seek solitude to heal himself? My God, what if I no longer fit into his plan?
# #
For three days, I hadn’t heard a peep from him. Then, on the fourth day, he called to tell me we had appointments at the wellness center for that next morning.
“Tomorrow I’ve got a meeting with Mr. Allen to go over his campaign.”
“Right. Okay, I’ll just go alone.” His voice sounded so fragile.
“No,” I said. “I’ll see if I can reschedule.”
“It’s no big deal. I can go alone.”
The disappointment sat on the edge of his words like a fog horn.
“I’ll be at your place by eight.”
“Okay,” he said, weakly.
Annoyed with his drama so early in the journey, I sighed too loudly.
“Am I troubling you?” he asked.
“No. Of course not. We’ll figure everything out. We’re going to get through this.”
# #
On the way over to Dean’s, I stopped at the pharmacy. As I stood in line to purchase a bottle of vitamin D pills, Anna called. “Dad came over to fix my DVD hookup last night, and we got to talking about that day that he helped you with the thermostat at the wellness center where Willow works. He told me you’re taking on Willow as a client? Is that true?”
I stepped out of line and stood in front of a display of Doritos and Coke, hurt that my father would talk to her about that. “What did he say, exactly?”
“He’s worried that opening yourself up to someone like Willow is a terrible mistake and he wanted me to talk to you about it.”
My blood boiled. Suddenly, I was a teenager again, falling into her shadow. “Dad has nothing to worry about. Willow has turned out to be a nice person.”
“Just be careful. People are good at faking it.”
Anna, the all-knowing savior, emerges to save the day. “I have to go.”
“Be sure to come by soon. The kids miss you.”
“Sure.”
“Bye, sis.”
“Bye.” I clicked off the call and attempted to cool myself as I stood in front of the display and focused on the bags. Of course that only reminded me of the days at the campground a year or two after my parents had flown to Korea to bring Anna home and into our family.
Back then, Anna and I would plow through a bag of Doritos and a large, two liter bottle of Coke while huddled up in one of the pull-out couches in the back of my parents’ trailer. We’d sit in the shadows formed by a small television and munch until our fingers turned orange, gossiping about everyone at the campground, including more times than anyone, Willow.
Anna carried herself with an air of sophistication that few people had. From th
e first moment we met, I admired her. She was beautiful like a doll, laughed as if joy bubbled over inside of her, and was super smart about things that one could only learn from intelligent books. I felt smarter in her presence, and never wanted to upset that sweet spot.
I first learned about Anna’s crush on her now husband Jeff over a bag of Doritos. Anna loved when we talked about boys, and so we bonded over that. She wanted to hear every last detail about my kissing experiences with them. Well, I didn’t have any. So, I made them up. She wanted to hear all about how he smelled and tasted. How his tongue swirled around my mouth. How he caressed me when we kissed. Apparently, she had not kissed Jeff at that point, but rather, hid behind trees or any other large object she could find and dreamed about a life where she did kiss him.
I described my kisses in such detail that her eyes would nearly pop out of her head. Her heart even beat faster than normal, and her cheeks flushed.
I should’ve grown up to be a storyteller the way I weaved fictitious lies. I even started to believe them myself.
During our late-night talks, Anna would confide in me about how the campground kids wished I would be friendlier. I sensed no one liked me and that they only tolerated me because I was Anna’s sidekick sister. Eventually, she stopped asking me to hang out with them at the rec hall. Her popularity grew, and apparently, I tossed a wrench into that equation. She started to draft excuses as to why I couldn’t hang with her anymore, saying things like the kids asked her to be part of a planning group for game night and only so many of them could be a part of it.
When she started to date Jeff, she warmed back up to me and included me in playing card games in the trailer with them and hanging out by the bonfire at night.
Jeff adored her and did everything for her. She could do no wrong in his eyes. Now at thirty-five years old, she lived an altruistic life. Shortly after marrying, the two of them entered the Peace Corps where they traveled to foreign countries and taught English to teenaged children. When they returned, they became assistant professors at Rhode Island College and have been there ever since. My father bragged about her success to anyone willing to listen.