The Empty Jar

by M. Leighton

“I-I’m fine,” I huff. My heart is thudding so hard, I wonder that the girl can’t see the beat of it through my shirt.

  My first thought is that I should cancel my appointment and go straight back up to the room and tell Nate of my suspicion. In fact, maybe I should have told him as soon as the thought even crossed my mind.

  But then I quickly discard the notion. It would be unforgiveable to put something like this in Nate’s head without confirmation. I could never do that to him. Not until I know. For sure. I have to be certain, which means I need a pregnancy test. Without Nate to help me, though, without a partner in crime, how will I be able to sneak from the hotel and find my way to a drug store? In a town I am completely unfamiliar with and one where I don’t speak the language?

  Mind speeding through options, I realize that I have only one. The only one I can think of, anyway.

  The concierge.

  “Would you like me to call the hospital? Mrs. Grant?”

  “No!” I blurt emphatically. I force myself to calm before I repeat, more reasonably, “No. No, thank you. Uh, but I do need to speak to the concierge briefly. Would you mind if I step out for just a moment to—”

  “No, please. Wait here. I can take care of that for you. I will call him right away. Let me show you to your room. You can wait there for a few minutes, yes? More comfortably.”

  And in private. Where I can melt down if I need to.

  I nod enthusiastically. “Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you.”

  “This is best. You should sit down.”

  I take note of the way the attendant is now watching me, like she’s expecting me to drop to the floor any minute. I don’t doubt that my face is colorless. I feel as though all the blood in my body is gurgling behind my chest wall, a turbulent sea of anxiety and excitement threatening to break the dam of my ribs. If it does, I’ll bleed to death.

  When I’m left alone with my chaotic thoughts, the questions come.

  Is it possible for a person’s biggest dream to come in the midst of their worst nightmare? Can life be so tragic and yet so beautiful, all at the same time?

  I know that answer to those questions.

  I know from vast experience that dream and nightmare can coexist, one wrapping around the other until they become indistinguishable. A blur of black and white, light and dark. Heaven and hell.

  I saw it with my father, through his sickness and subsequent death, I saw it with my mother, who had completely checked out on me after Daddy’s death, and I saw it with a multitude of patients, to whom I’ve had to deliver news of every kind. The good and the bad. The bitter and the sweet. I know all too well that life is both tragic and beautiful most of the time, at least in some small way.

  But this… Could this be? Or is this nothing more than the last act of a desperate mind? A waterfall fantasy conjured from the dry earth of despair?

  There is only one way to know for sure. And the concierge has to help me find out.

  My consciousness tilts and twirls with questions and theories, puzzling pieces and unchanging facts. A tempest rages within the confines of my skull, whipping around. Circling, circling. But as I mull and think, the picture becomes clearer. Or at least I think it does.

  I sit numbly on the edge of the plush white chair in the dressing room, staring at the serene paintings that adorn the creamy walls. As I await the concierge, I agonize over every second that passes. Each one seems like an hour, and my patience grows increasingly thin. When the knock at the door finally comes, I pounce, nearly pulling the knob off in my haste to twist it.

  A short, thin man with ebony hair, olive skin, and wise blue eyes stands in the hall. He is the picture of poise—chin up, spine straight, feet together, hands clasped behind his back. I passingly estimate him to be in his early forties, old enough to be able to understand my distress, surely.

  “Hello? Yes, are you the concierge? Please tell me you’re the concierge. I’m Lena Grant. Were you called here for Lena Grant? I need to speak with the concierge. Please tell me you’re the concierge.”

  I’m vaguely aware of repeating myself. I’m also vaguely aware that my words are like brightly colored blocks, tumbling out of my mouth and falling clumsily to the floor. But what I’m most aware of is my frantic need.

  The man seems unaffected by my rapid speech. He only smiles and nods once. “Enzo Sabbadin, at your service. How may I help you today, Mrs. Grant?”

  “I need something from a local pharmacy. Is there a way you could help me with this?”

  “I can.”

  As delicately as I can, I explain what I want, smiling and describing it as a surprise for my husband.

  Boy, won’t he be surprised?

  The concierge assures me of his discretion and promises to have the package delivered before I leave the spa. I hand him one hundred Euros and thank him again before he leaves.

  “I hope congratulations are in order, Mrs. Grant,” he says, bowing his head and pivoting on his heel.

  Congratulations.

  If this is true, if I am pregnant, that’s what everyone who doesn’t know us will say. Congratulations. Everyone who doesn’t know I’m sick will congratulate us. They’ll smile and shake our hands. Some will tell stories of their own children, some might ask if we’ve picked out names or if we know the sex yet. Everyone will have something nice to say.

  Because none of them know.

  None of them know I’m dying.

  It’s long after Enzo is out of sight that I finally mutter a weak “Thank you” as if he will be able to hear me. Then, dazedly, I close the door on the empty hallway and return to my solitude.

  To my thoughts.

  Robotically, I begin removing my clothes. When I turn to hang my shirt on one of the white velvet hangers provided, I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror affixed to a graceful mahogany stand in the corner. I finish undressing and then approach my reflection slowly, almost skittishly.

  For weeks, I’ve looked at my body as a traitor, unable to see past the intruder, the killer that’s growing inside me. I feel disgust and despair, anger and bitterness, but never pleasure. Never happiness.

  Not anymore.

  Not until now.

  Now when I look at my stomach, fluttering my fingers over the little bulge that has been there for at least five years, I feel an excited wonder about what else might be growing within me. What good thing I might be nurturing.

  In a future that, just a day ago, had zero possibilities, I’ve managed to find one. And as it gives rise to purpose and optimism and energy, I can’t help wondering if this is what kept Daddy going.

  Me.

  His child.

  Eight

  Backdoor to Heaven

  Lena

  Ican’t relax for my massage or my facial. All I can think about is how long it will take for the concierge’s person to get back from the pharmacy and what the test will reveal when I take it.

  What my spa time does achieve, however, is to give me enough time to think about my condition in conjunction with a pregnancy. An unthinkable combination, but I have to think about it.

  Is it even possible to get pregnant? And if so, is it advisable? Will I, will my body and the disease I fight pose a risk to the baby? Will my condition impair me physically before I can deliver? And if so, will it affect a growing fetus?

  All of those unanswered questions bring me back to the present. To the next step.

  What will that be? What should that be?

  Obviously, if the test is positive, I’ll have to see an obstetrician. And a whole slew of other specialists, I imagine. Or will it even come to that? Will this tiny life be nothing more than a blip on the radar of existence? A life rapidly extinguished by the monster I’ll have to carry alongside it?

  If that was to be the case, how cruel would it be to involve Nate? To get his hopes up, to give him what we’ve always wanted and then take it away just as quickly?

  By staying with me, he’s already signed up for heartbr
eak. Could I, in good conscience, risk giving him even more? Would I be better off waiting, waiting until I’m a little further along? When the odds might be better? Shouldn’t I wait until I get back to the States and talk to some doctors? Wouldn’t that be the best course of action?

  I think it is. In my heart, I know it is. If I can spare Nate, I will. I must. But already the guilt of keeping something like that from him weighs heavily on me. Even the contemplation of such a thing makes me anxious. But I have to contemplate it. I have to consider my husband. He’s a good man. The best man. I might not be able to save him from the pain of my awful death, but I can certainly save him additional pain if that’s how it will end—in another loss. Another death.

  To this day, I can still see his face—the hopelessness, the betrayal, the hurt and the sadness—when I told him about my diagnosis. I don’t want to see my amazing husband look that way ever again. I can’t see him look that way ever again. I just can’t.

  My anxiety rises to fever pitch.

  I need help. Guidance.

  I need to talk to someone, but my “someone” is usually Nate. He’s my “someone” in every situation. But he can’t be my someone in this one, and the only other person I’m close to—Nissa—doesn’t even know I’m sick.

  That leaves me with no one. Not really.

  A face pops into my mind. It’s the face of a woman near my own age, one who looks strikingly similar to the reflection I see when I look in the mirror. I’ve heard all my life that I look just like her.

  My mother.

  She’s the only other person I can think of. But she’s unacceptable for a dozen or more reasons.

  I was very young when I learned to hate being compared to my mother. I was young when I learned to hate her, too. Well, almost hate her. In any case, Patricia Holmes is not someone I’ve ever wanted to be like. Yet she’s the only other person I can think of that I could turn to.

  But my mother isn’t really an option.

  Not really.

  The facial is over, and I’m no closer to finding an answer, a direction. It seems that taking the test is the only certain step forward that I can settle on. The result of that test will either bring to life or obliterate all of the complications and considerations my mind is currently plagued by. Until then, all I can do is worry. And that’s not getting me anywhere.

  I figure it’s best not to borrow trouble. I have plenty of my own already. That’s why I try my best to put it out of my mind until I have results.

  Then, everything will shift.

  One way or the other.

  I’m putting my clothes back on when a knock sounds on my dressing room door. My heart leaps in my chest. I hurry to get my shirt over my head, tripping over one of my shoes on my mad dash to the door. I fumble awkwardly to fling it open.

  A young woman with long auburn hair and sharp brown eyes stands smiling on the other side of it.

  “Mrs. Grant?” Her posture is very similar to that of the concierge. The same stiff spine, the same bland expression. Oddly, I wonder if it’s an Italian thing or a hotel thing.

  “Yes. Did Enzo send you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She smiles wider and produces a white paper-wrapped package from behind her back.

  With shaking fingers, I take the rectangle. I stare down at it, almost hypnotized by a mixture of dread and excitement, until the girl clears her throat and shakes me from my thrall.

  “Will that be all, ma’am?”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you.”

  The young woman is turning to leave when my manners finally return. “Miss?” At my voice, the girl stops instantly and pivots to face me. Like beautiful, pleasant soldiers, I think to myself.

  I reach behind for my purse and take out some Euros, folding them twice before pressing them into the thin hand of the person I feel like has delivered to me either really good or really bad news. “Thank you again.”

  Once more, I’m given a calm, polite smile and a nod before the young lady disappears down the hall. The click of the door latch sliding into place is the last thing I hear for several long minutes.

  I make my way slowly across the room, back to the plush white chair, hardly aware of the cool wood against my bare feet. Every nerve in my body is focused on my fingertips and what they’re holding, like the box is the Holy Grail and I have to but drink of it to see my dream come true.

  But that dream will come at a price. An astronomical one. And it could end as a nightmare.

  Gingerly, I sit on the edge of the chair, paying no attention to the way the cushion gives beneath my weight or to the way the room smells of lavender. I simply sit so that I don’t fall.

  Now that the moment is at hand, I freeze. I cradle the package, much like I might cradle the baby I suspect might be growing inside me, and I wait.

  I wait, and I ponder.

  I ponder, and I question.

  “Why now? We’ve tried for so long and…nothing,” I explain to the empty room, unaware of how my voice bounces softly off the walls and falls lifelessly to the floor. “Why now?”

  There was a time when Nate and I would lie in bed at night, nursing our hopes of conceiving a child like a woman might nurse a baby at her breast. We’ve been disappointed more times than I can count, the ghosts of dozens of negative pregnancy tests haunting every bathroom in our home. This was the year, magical number forty, that would’ve been our final year of trying. We’d agreed that if I wasn’t pregnant by forty, we’d look into adoption. I knew we’d try until forty-one, though. I’d already given myself those few extra months.

  But that was before.

  B.D.

  Before Diagnosis.

  I’m startled from my musings by the muted tap of something falling faintly onto the white package held in my trembling fingers. The delicate patter draws me back to the moment at hand. Only then am I aware of the tears streaming down my cheeks, creeks of grief for the life that my husband and I will never have. The life, the family, the happiness. No matter what the test says, no matter how my body is able to perform, there is no future for me.

  Not for me.

  But there could be for Nate. And for our child. I could give him that. I could give him something to ease the pain, someone to share his life with. I could give him a part of me to hold close when he thinks of me, when he’s reminded of all the years we’ve been robbed of.

  That’s something, isn’t it?

  Maybe that’s more than something.

  Maybe that’s everything.

  Slowly, I rise and walk stiffly to the tiny adjoining bathroom. Maybe there are miracles after all. Maybe there is one for me. For Nate.

  I close the door behind me and turn the lock. No one will bother me, I know; I just need that extra measure of privacy, of solitude for this. The moment feels sacred, and I have to protect it from the world, my burgeoning hope as fragile as a butterfly’s wing.

  I slide my finger under the tape that holds the plain white paper over the box, and I fold back each flap with reverence, almost expecting it to shine when I reveal the treasure within. Although the writing is in Italian, I’ve taken enough of these types of tests to know exactly what it says. Or at least what the intent is.

  The glue makes a hollow popping sound when it releases cardboard from cardboard on one end of the carton. I reach inside with numb fingers and remove the sealed stick that will tell me my fortune. Mechanically, I go through the motions, as I’ve done dozens of times before, only this time I feel a sense of providence.

  Fate.

  Kismet.

  I can no longer want this for myself. My destiny has already been decided, sealed more tightly than the box I just opened. But I can want it for Nate.

  And I do.

  Oh, how I do!

  Suddenly, I want it more desperately than I want anything else in the last months of my life. I want…no need to give my husband the gift of our love, personified.

  A baby.

  A child.

  A piece of the
two of us.

  A piece of our love.

  Living. Breathing. Carrying on.

  I find that I’m talking quietly into the small room, my voice foreign even to my own ears. Words tumble from my lips and, for the first time in my life, I understand why my father prayed over me every night. Why he prayed only for me and never for himself. I was more important to him than his own body, his own life. And now I’m praying over the ones more important than my life—Nate and, perhaps, our unborn child.

  Nine

  Keep the Faith

  Lena

  Two pink lines.

  If the diagnosis of cancer had thrown my life into a tailspin, which it had, these two pink lines have centered it. I can feel it.

  They bring my every plan, my every purpose, my remaining energy into laser-sharp focus. In three minutes, my priority shifts from enjoying my last days and bowing out gracefully to survival. Or at least until I’m twenty-eight weeks along. And I need to do it without any drugs.

  By that point in the pregnancy, the baby will be able to live outside the womb and, hopefully, without mechanical life support. The longer I can make it, the better our child’s health will be, but the minimum is twenty-eight weeks.

  That gives my baby a fighting chance.

  A steely resolve fortifies my constitution as I wrap the pregnancy test stick in tissue and stuff it into my purse. When I open the door to exit the dressing room, I step out as an entirely new person. Or at least that’s how it feels.

  Three minutes changed everything.

  I’m no longer making decisions for my own health. I’m making decisions for our baby’s health, too. I have something bigger than myself to consider.

  Now if I can just make it the rest of the way…

  Although my heart stampedes behind my breastbone, and my hands shake like I’m detoxing, I find that I’m smiling brightly at everyone I pass. Life is no longer about the end, but about the beginning. Not for me, but for my child. I’m not just Lena Grant, wife, nurse practitioner, daughter, friend, and terminal patient anymore. I’m Lena Grant, mother. I’m a different woman than the one who left the presidential suite a couple of hours ago.