When Angels Cry

by Jennifer Edwards

  “You have your doctor’s appointment, Mom,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, fuck that,” she shrugged, “it’s so lovely out.”

  “Actually, Mother, It’s supposed to rain later, and I don’t think . . .” I stopped mid-sentence and looked at my mother’s distraught face. She looked like a small child who just had her ice cream taken away. I had never seen an expression like that on my mother’s face before.

  “Tell you what. After we see Doctor Dreayer, I’ll get out the picnic basket, and we’ll make peanut butter sandwiches with bananas! How does that sound?” I was acting like a parent, who changes the subject and rambles on about anything in order to avoid a meltdown.

  “Okay,” my mother replied. Spinning on her heels, she walked out of the room.

  “I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes,” she said, smiling happily, as she closed my door behind her.

  Hmmm guess I won’t be taking that bath after all, I said to myself.

  • • •

  I hadn’t seen Doctor Dreayer since my father died. He seemed a lot older than he had even a couple of years ago. He still reminded me of Sigmund Freud, his signature beard now entirely gray. I wondered if he had ever shaved it off for any period of time in all these years. He was a kind, gentle soul and seemed to know what he was doing. The fact that he was still practicing, let alone still standing, was a miracle in my book. He had been my parents’ physician for eons.

  When I walked into his office the smells that permeated the room made me flash back to my youth. There was always the presence of alcohol mixed with an earthy undertone. The good Doctor was obviously a closeted pipe smoker. He had models of various body parts always at the ready. He loved to pick them up and show the insides of a heart or a lung to any willing patient.

  My mother and I sat across from his desk, which was covered and strewn with papers and files. I hadn’t a clue how he could find anything. He began flinging different papers aside and muttering to himself that he knew what he was looking for was “around here someplace!” When he found whatever he was looking for, he seemed astonished that he had.

  “So . . . Olivia . . . and Sarah, of course,” he said, nodding in my direction. “As you know from the last few tests, you have entered a new phase of dementia. The drug that we began you with seems to be helping.” He busily scanned his notes, flipping pages, going back to previous ones, muttering to himself. He seemed to be dotty.

  “Doctor,” I interjected. “I was told that my mother has Alzheimer’s . . .”

  “Shhhh. For God’s sake, don’t use that word,” my mother interrupted. “We had an agreement. Isn’t that right doc? No use of that word.”

  Doctor Dreayer looked at me as if I’d just robbed a bank. “We had an agreement,” he concurred.

  “Well, I didn’t know about it,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I felt like the girl in school who was the only one who didn’t know that Andrew had kissed Emily in the girl’s bathroom.

  Dreayer scanned both our faces, assessing us, then said, “Olivia, would you mind if I had a word with Sarah? Alone?”

  Without hesitation, my mother stood up and said she would go get some coffee.

  “Wow. That was easy,” I said, watching the door shut behind her. The doctor and I stared at one another for a while. My knee jumped up and down under his desk, totally impatient woman that I am. And then, I couldn’t help myself, I asked “What’s up doc?” He didn’t laugh.

  “You are aware of the Alzheimer diagnosis, but has your mother told you about her cancer?”

  “Her what?” I asked even though I had heard him in the first place.

  “She has lung cancer.”

  I sat there shocked, not knowing how to respond. “You’re saying that my mother has cancer in addition to Alzheimer’s?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  I was beginning to wonder just how many more surprises would hit me between the eyes on this trip. “How long?” I took a deep breath and shook in my shoes.

  “If you’re asking how long has she has known? A year. How long does she have? Hard to say.” He paused, taking off his glasses. “Your mother has refused conventional treatments and actually has quite a sense of humor about it. Her response to it all was, “At least I have Alzheimer’s, so I won’t remember I have cancer.” The doctor smiled.

  I was surprised by her wit, but I didn’t find it all that amusing. We sat in silence for a bit, then he cleared his throat.

  “She asked me to talk to you at some point and to ask you to agree to the same request that your father made before he died.”

  Now my head was swirling and my heart racing. I was afraid to hear what he had to tell me.

  Sensing I was totally out in the cold, the good Doc filled me in. “Your father had several prescriptions. Your mother was to help him when the time was right . . .”

  I began to catch on at this point. Music started to play in my brain and bitter saliva began forming in my mouth. “Are you telling me that my mother helped with an assisted suicide? For my father?”

  He looked at me squarely, and began straightening out his pipe collection in front of him. “We were never to discuss the outcome. I don’t know what she administered if anything. Your father was in the final stages of congestive heart failure and wanted to go with some dignity. The weaker his heart became, the more difficulty he had with his breathing . . .” The doctor stopped for a moment. “It was to be between the two of them.”

  “And you were okay with that?” I got out of my chair. “You are a man of medicine, for Christ’s sake. Not Jack Kevorkian!”

  He nodded. “I am also their friend.”

  With that, I no longer felt my legs, the room spun around, and I was out like a light.

  If you have to lose consciousness, the doctor’s office is the place to do it. I highly recommend it. The response is quick and methodical. As I came to, Dr. Dreayer was bent over me with smelling salts under my nose. I think he may have slapped me.

  “You okay, Sarah?”

  My eyelids fluttered and I nodded. I knew that I hadn’t hit my head. After almost forty odd years of this happening, I had become proficient at passing out safely.

  “You are still fainting I see,” he stated. “And you were singing . . . Barry Manilow . . . I think.”

  “Bobby Sherman,” I replied, peeling myself off the floor. I assured him I had been checked from head to toe regarding my tendency to faint. I even had a defibrillator standing by at one point. What I finally learned is that I stop breathing when I am under stress. And we all know what happens then, don’t we?

  The doctor assisted me back into a chair. I continued where I had left off. “Okay, back to the discussion in progress. At what point did my mother think that maybe I would consider helping her with. . .” I couldn’t even say it.

  Doctor Dreayer lowered himself into his old oak swivel chair. He picked up his glasses, once more, and perched them on his nose. “I really am not allowed to discuss what it is either. Anything that a patient decides to do to help ease the final stages of an illness, I am all for, as a human being. As a physician, such a course of action cannot be something that I prescribe.”

  “How long have you known this family?”

  “About thirty years.”

  “So you are aware what my mother has done to herself in the past?”

  Doctor Dreayer nodded.

  “So, here we are, years after my mother’s multiple attempts at suicide, now she wants somebody to assist her?”

  Doctor Dreayer cast his eyes to the floor.

  I stood up abruptly. “Well, I’m not doing it! No fucking way. I saved her sorry ass far too many times as a child. She can’t expect me to bloody kill her now myself! Don’t you see the irony in this?”

  “Look Sarah, I don’t think that’s the ultimate decision on her part. All I know is that when she first received her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she brought up the fact that she didn’t want to be so far gone that she wouldn’t know her fam
ily anymore. Months later when she learned about the cancer, she didn’t want you or your brother to have to suffer along with her. That’s the same way your father felt.”

  “I know you’re just the messenger Doc, but the whole thing is insane.” I turned toward the door and looked back. “How long before one, or both, illnesses kill her?”

  “The cancer? Probably six months. She could live with Alzheimer’s . . . for years.”

  I nodded. “I guess I’ll be seeing you more on a regular basis then?”

  Doctor Dreayer nodded as we said our good-byes and I walked into the waiting room. My mother was chatting with one of the nurses. I didn’t even want to look at her.

  “Come on Mother. Let’s go,” I said, brushing past her.

  On the drive home, I knew she was aware of my anger, but she didn’t say anything. All I could think of was getting back to the house and calling my brother, Henry, to see if he had heard anything about this craziness.

  When we pulled into the driveway, Mother got out of the car announcing that she wanted to check on the garden. That probably meant Manuel, but whatever. She went one way, and I went the other. I knew my mother had Henry on speed dial, so I took the house phone from its cradle and dialed my brother’s number. After going through all the machinations of secretaries and nurses to reach my brother, the Doctor finally picked up the line. “Sissy? That you?”

  I didn’t bother to say hello. I just launched into an account of everything that had gone on in my few days at the family homestead. “Mother may be losing the house. She is definitely losing her mind. Did you know that she has cancer, too? Did anyone ever tell you that dad had wanted her to assist him in death? And now she was asking me to do the same for her?”

  Basically, my brother said “No. No. No. And no!” His voice was calm. He didn’t seem surprised upon learning about all these disasters.

  “Aren’t you at all concerned about what I’m telling you?”

  “Of course I am, Sarah. I guess I’m trying to process it all. Maybe after you calm down a little, we can go over everything one item at a time.”

  “Calm down!?” I yelled into the mouthpiece. “You have no idea what’s going on here. Calm down, my ass! Don’t be condescending, Henry. Maybe when you stop being the doctor man and start being the son- brother- man, we can talk.” I hung up the phone on the one person who understood me better than anyone else in the world. I shot up the stairs, like a twelve-year-old, flew into my room, slammed my door, and threw myself weeping onto the horrible sofa bed.

  I’m not sure when my brother was suddenly better at everything than me. In our early years, I was substantially better at everything. It frustrated the hell out of him, because I could throw a ball, bat a ball, bowl a ball, kick a ball, head a ball, so much better than he could. I could ride a bike, ride a horse, skateboard, roller skate and ice skate without ever falling. On the other hand, he always had skinned knees, cut lips, stitches in his chin and head while I occasionally suffered a bruise.

  He was certainly better at showing his emotions than I was. He used to get so upset with me that he would fling himself to the ground and scream. He could also be the sweetest, most polite little boy in the world. Around the time Henry turned fifteen, everything changed. He must have caught up developmentally. He became a sports fanatic, and I couldn’t keep up. Not that I really wanted to. He also became a brainiac. He read constantly about history, the human body and mind, space, you name it. He became our dad’s pride and joy.

  I was a senior at the time he came into his own and couldn’t wait to go away to college. I was definitely proud of Henry, but he never knew it. The fact that our father paid so much attention to Henry only made me angrier with my father. After I figured out my father was having an affair, it was hard for me to forgive him much of anything!

  Henry wasn’t told about dad and Helen’s affair until years later. I had to swear not to say anything or risk the wrath of the belt. I probably never would have known either, if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  Around the time of my thirteenth birthday, my mother attempted to commit suicide for the third time. She was in the hospital again to have her stomach pumped. I wasn’t sure if my birthday party would happen with her in the hospital again. On our visit the second day of her stay, Dad announced he had to go make a call from the pay phone and asked me to keep an eye on Henry and mother. I don’t know what caused me to feel suspicious. Not long after he left the room, I told Henry to stay put, and I followed my father.

  My dad didn’t smoke around us, but we knew that he did. As I turned a corner in the hospital corridor, I smelled burning tobacco. I heard him speaking in hushed tones when I rounded another corner. I stopped in my tracks. A very tall, red- haired, quite beautiful woman was holding my dad in a very intimate way. He was murmuring softly to her in between his tears. She stroked the back of his head and repeatedly told him that it was okay. He held her tightly with one hand while he gripped his cigarette in the other. In an instant, I knew this woman was more than a friend. I realized that my relationship with my father was about to change.

  He turned as if he sensed someone was watching, and his eyes caught mine. A variety of emotions flashed on his face: astonishment, fear, sadness, fight or flight, repulsion, guilt, redemption. As we stared at one another, I felt a gnawing sensation that began in my loins and traveled slowly up into my chest. I knew that tightness would soon be followed by the ringing in my ears and some stupid song, a sign that I might hit pavement. If I didn’t get out of there, I was going to faint.

  I took off running through doors and hospital hallways barely remembering where I was supposed to go. In complete panic, anger, fear, and frustration, I finally collapsed in a waiting room chair in a distant wing of the hospital and began to sob.

  Crying for me has always been private. I didn’t share the experience with many people. It was mine and mine alone. Not until I was an adult did I realize that I was probably just scared to cry . . . particularly in front of my mother. I had to be the strong one for her. If she saw me crying, she might feel guilty that she brought it on . . . and then what? Maybe she would succeed in killing herself. I could never take that chance. After a good ten minute cry in the waiting room I found a visitor’s bathroom, washed my face, and emerged a bright and cheery thirteen-year-old. By the time I found my way back to my mother’s hospital room, she and my brother were none the wiser.

  I couldn’t bear to look at my father for weeks after that. I understood his need to seek out female companionship, but I was still furious. If he couldn’t talk to my mother anymore, why couldn’t he talk to me? Why did he need to bring in an outsider who had nothing to do with our family? I turned inward and barricaded myself in my room, listening to The White Album over and over and over.

  • • •

  On the first day of summer vacation, my father asked me to take a drive with him to the nursery. “We need to get your mother some flowers for her garden,” he told me.

  I agreed reluctantly.

  On our way, my dad suggested we get a malt first. I think I’d have done just about anything for a chocolate malt. I knew somewhere down deep what he was doing was total manipulation, but I really didn’t care. I was happy to be with my dad. We took up residence in the corner booth of the coffee shop. As soon we slid into the leather seats, my father said “I’m not seeing her anymore, Sarah.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Did you hear me?”

  I was thinking “Gee, Dad, that’s terrific! What a shame Dad. Did you love her? Was she better than Mom? Would you still be with her if I hadn’t caught you?” What was I, a thirteen-year-old kid, supposed to do with this information? I mean really! I did manage to say, “What’s her name?”

  “Her name is Helen,” my father answered.

  After that we sat sipping our malts in total silence. I was relieved that he didn’t want to go on. I was not interested in a discussion about another woman in my dad’s life.

>   At the nursery we picked out a variety of colorful, flowering plants for Mom’s garden and piled them into the back of the Lincoln Continental. The wondrous smells of new plants, roses, hydrangeas, jasmine, softened the tense air as we drove home. My father hummed.

  My mother was surprised, and thrilled with our selection. We rarely saw her thrilled by anything, so it felt good.

  A couple of weeks later, I decided to drop by the library where my father gave lectures during the summer. I slipped into the University Hall just in time to see my dad and Helen having a tete-a-tete. Neither of them saw me. It didn’t bother me this time. Maybe I was numb. Maybe I never really believed my dad in the first place. Maybe I was more understanding than I really knew. I never spoke about Helen to him again.

  Years later, I learned that Helen moved away and eventually got married. My dad spent more time around the house, sometimes even helping mom tend to her garden. It was nice to have him there.

  • • •

  As I came to the end of my sobbing jag, I lifted my head from the sofa bed. Looking around again at what had been my father’s sanctuary, I truly missed him.

  A faint knock at the door interrupted my memories.

  “Come in,” I called out. My mother was at the door wearing a wide brimmed hat and carrying a picnic basket in her hand. Neither of us spoke. A broad smile spread across my face.

  The pond near our house was always full of ducks. It was a short walk from where we lived. When I was little, I would save bread crusts and stale bread for them. I enjoyed feeding the greedy birds. It actually taught me patience. When I was old enough to go to the pond on my own, I would sometimes have to wait, with my treats, for them to notice me if they happened to be the other side of the water. The best part was when all the new hatchlings would swim furiously behind their parents and gobble up my bread in record time. I learned that ducks, geese, and swans are monogamous. Once mated, that’s it. That knowledge made it impossible for me to consume these birds, for fear I was eating a life partner and its mate would forever live alone. Years later I wondered why my father couldn’t be like the mallards I was feeding.