Although Wayne had only recently qualified on this particular aircraft, he still had thousands of hours of flight time under his belt. He knew Joe was using humor in an attempt to lighten the load of responsibility that comes with command. Joe didn’t have to do that. I’m not worried. I figure if I get my butt safely on the ground, my passengers are sure to follow. But I appreciate the gesture.
Wayne Foster was a friend of the family, and Joe was thankful he was in the right seat this month. Wayne loved Olivia. He joked he only bid on flights with Joe on the off chance he would see her. He knew the heartache of cancer all too well. He had lost both his father and older brother to this dreadful disease. Wayne asked Joe how Craig and Chrissie were dealing with Olivia’s struggle. Joe told him Craig was an absolute rock, but Chrissie wasn’t handling it very well.
Craig and Joe had shared a great deal lately, Joe about his impending loss of Olivia and Craig about his marriage. Craig told Joe he and Chrissie were barely keeping it together.
Chrissie refused to discuss her mother’s illness, let alone her death. She told Craig she couldn’t even handle taking her mother to the cancer clinic. Whenever Craig tried to talk to her, Chrissie would change the subject or leave the room.
Initially, Craig believed Chrissie blamed her mother for her own illness by willfully subjecting her body to years of alcohol and tobacco abuse. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Craig wondered if it was fear that was driving her. Maybe Chrissie saw her mother’s illness foreshadowing her own future and was terrified by the prospect—but not terrified enough to stop drinking and smoking herself. But the reason for Chrissie’s behavior was secondary. More important was the fact he and Chrissie were drifting further apart and Craig felt powerless to stop it.
Joe checked the aircraft clock. Today is Liv’s radiation treatment; Craig is probably on his way to pick her up right now. He’s such a good guy. He loves Olivia so much.
* * *
Craig pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital. “We’re here, Mom.” He helped her out of the car and told her to wait inside while he parked.
“I think I know the drill by now,” Olivia said.
“Sorry, O. I know you do. I’m just trying to make it easier for you.”
“I know, honey. I’m a bit short of patience these days. Hurry back.”
The cancer clinic was relatively new and attached to the East Wing of the old hospital. Craig had been here with Olivia many times over the past few months. He knew the best place to park, the quickest route to the cancer clinic waiting room, the nearest coffee machine and the closest public restroom.
Olivia was waiting inside and smiled when she saw Craig walk in. Man, he thought, she looks like she’s aged twenty years since our last visit.
“Always so good to see your smiling face,” Olivia said. “You make these visits easier, if that’s possible.”
“My pleasure, madam.” Craig held out his right elbow. “Now—please allow me to escort such a beautiful lady.” Olivia hooked her left arm through his. She knew Craig was deliberately being nice by not focusing attention on the fact she actually needed his help. The walk from the main entrance to the cancer clinic was becoming an effort for her, but she refused to use a wheelchair. She was determined to stay mobile as long as she could. She said she wasn’t ready to lie down and die, not yet anyway.
Olivia checked in with the nurse behind the desk while Craig looked for new magazines. She sat down beside him and then squeezed his arm as she leaned towards him. “The saddest thing about this place is these kids. Sometimes one of them is missing, and I wonder if they’re cured or—”
Craig looked into her weary eyes. He didn’t know what to say. He knew what she meant. He had seen the kids’ gaunt faces, the dark circles under their eyes and the baseball caps or kerchiefs covering their bald heads. He tried not to think about how he would feel if it were Robbie or Heather. Marital problems were so trivial in comparison. Craig watched a painfully thin boy in a baseball cap playing with a fire engine. Death is close here. You don’t have to look very far to find it.
Craig read a magazine while Olivia talked to an elderly gentleman seated beside her. The man laughed several times and was hanging on her every word. Craig marveled at Olivia’s ability to make others feel good. She would speak to anyone, anytime and anywhere, even in this place. She was always smiling, happy and optimistic. The world will miss her. And so will I.
Olivia was called for her radiation treatment. She had offered no clue as to her prognosis and whether, or not, these treatments were having any effect on her tumors. Craig was afraid Olivia was fighting a losing battle. If she’s willing to ignore the odds and put herself through this torture, I’ll do whatever I can to help her. I wish her daughter had only half her courage and tenacity.
Chrissie was working long hours at Towercrest to keep her mind off her mother. She told her employees she preferred not to discuss it. She asked them to carry on as usual. The entire staff knew her bravado was a façade; they knew she was fortifying herself with alcohol.
* * *
Chrissie was writing an offer to purchase when Eric Millard called. He asked how she was holding up through all this. Chrissie’s guard was up. She’d had no contact with Eric for a while and wondered why he was calling. She politely replied she was okay. He invited her out for lunch and, before she knew it, she accepted. Chrissie suggested an out-of-the-way restaurant across town. He chuckled and agreed discretion would be wise.
She was full of anticipation and uncertainty for the entire hour before leaving for her lunch date. Chrissie hoped Eric was calling just as a friend and at the same time wished he wasn’t. Be careful what you wish for, she thought. It may come true.
She felt something wasn’t right about this lunch with Eric. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she had a feeling she should cancel. As usual, Chrissie’s libido trumped her doubt. She had to meet him; he was sexy, and she was still attracted to him. The mere hint of sex with him aroused her.
Chrissie was meeting Eric at Amelia’s, a trendy café near the Woodland Estates Mall. As she drove up, he was standing outside the front entrance. For a split-second, she considered not stopping but quickly changed her mind. She quivered with excitement.
* * *
A light rain was falling from a gray overcast sky as Craig drove Olivia home after her radiation treatment. The only sound was the wipers chattering on the windshield. Craig tuned the radio to a soft jazz station. Olivia reached over and switched it off. She looked at Craig; tears were running down her cheeks. “The radiation and chemo haven’t done anything. My cancer is spreading. Dr. Stuart says further treatment would be pointless.”
“So that’s it then, O? There’s nothing more anyone can do? We just give up?”
Olivia dried her eyes with a tissue. “Well, this type of cancer is very aggressive, and the survival rate is low so—”
Craig was not ready to accept defeat, especially with someone he loved as much as he loved Olivia. “I know all that! But what about Mexico? I hear that—”
Olivia stopped him. She explained she did not want to spend the short time she had left searching for a miracle cure in Mexico or anywhere else. “I want to be here with my family.” Olivia was looking out the side window at children walking home from school. “That’s what important to me now, time with my family.”
“I understand,” Craig said. “Nothing is more important than family.”
* * *
Chrissie’s lunch with Eric turned out to be exactly that. He wanted to know if he could help in any way. He told Chrissie every realtor in town had expressed sympathy over her mother’s illness. Chrissie felt at ease with Eric. She found herself admitting her inability to handle the situation. “I feel bad, Eric. I can’t even discuss this with Craig, let alone my mother. I’m not sure I can get through this without cracking up.”
“You’re stronger than you think, Chris. You’ll handle this. I think you can handle almost anything.”
“You don’t know the real me. I’m not as strong as people think. My own mother is dying, and I can’t help her. Hell—I can’t even face her.”
Eric reached over and squeezed her hand. Chrissie felt an old feeling surge back to life. Their eyes met and locked for a moment. Chrissie looked away. She didn’t want to open that door again. She changed the subject, and Eric took the hint.
From that point on, they were just two old friends having lunch. They talked about business and shared the latest gossip from the real estate world. Their conversation was peppered with giggles and laughter. Chrissie marveled at the fun she was having. It had been a long time since she had been able to put her problems aside and enjoy herself. Chrissie thanked Eric for asking her out for lunch. Somehow, he had made her forget her troubles for a while. She was very grateful. Eric smiled. “That’s what friends do,” he said. “They help each other.”
As Chrissie and Eric stood up to leave, they didn’t notice the two Towercrest realtors across the restaurant. They had witnessed Chrissie and Eric’s lunchtime rendezvous.
Towercrest Realty would be abuzz with rumors.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Money Clip
The elevator jerked to a stop. Craig looked up at the illuminated number three. He hated this place. This was Three West - Oncology. The ward was in the oldest part of this aging hospital. It was the last stop for those who were losing their fight. They came here to die. The hospital staff called it: “God’s waiting room.”
Craig was in the hospital cafeteria one evening when he overheard two nurses at the next table discussing a patient who had just died. “He was lucky,” the cute brunette nurse had said. “He only ‘circled the drain’ for a few weeks.” Circled the drain, Craig thought at the time, how callous is that. Now, he understood.
Over the past few months, Craig had spent a great deal of time at this hospital. Olivia, his mother-in-law, was here. She was dying of cancer. Craig’s wife Chrissie visited her mother as often as she could force herself. She was having trouble controlling her anger. She blamed her mother for getting cancer. She told Craig: “I feel like this is mom’s own fault. You can’t smoke and drink like she did and expect to live very long.”
Craig had to agree. Olivia was two years sober when Craig started dating Chrissie. She was still a heavy smoker. Olivia said she would deal with one addiction at a time. She quit smoking the day she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Almost everyone does.
* * *
Over the years, Olivia had taught Craig everything she knew about alcoholism. He was interested and she was more than willing to talk about her road to recovery. She also wanted to prepare him for what he might face in the future.
“I believe alcoholics are born, not bred,” Olivia said. “For example, Joe is not an alcoholic and neither is anyone in his immediate family, past nor present. Therefore, statistically, Chrissie has a one-in-two chance of being an alcoholic.”
Craig had no idea alcoholics were genetically predisposed to addiction and had a physiological need for alcohol. I’ll keep a closer eye on Chrissie from now on, he told himself. I won’t let her become a drunk.
“My yardstick is,” Olivia said, “if drinking is causing a problem in your life, you have a drinking problem. Alcoholism is a fatal disease. It is also a process of progressive loss. First, you may be caught driving under the influence and lose your driver’s license. Then, your drinking causes problems at work and you get fired. Then, you lose your family. If you don’t quit drinking, you lose your health and finally—your life.”
She gave Craig a copy of Twenty-Four Hours a Day, a self-help book for recovering alcoholics. It had the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of A.A. and a thought, meditation and prayer for every day of the year. She signed it: “To Craig … Love, O … XXOO.”
Craig remembered Olivia telling him about the various types of alcoholics. “I wasn’t a binger; I was a maintainer—a sneaky boozer. No one would believe I had a problem. I was never falling-down drunk and made sure my breath never smelled of liquor. At one A.A. meeting, a guy admitted he ate so many Clorets he used to crap green.” Craig gave her a strange look.
“Oh, I used breath spray—dahhling,” Olivia said in her best socialite voice. They laughed until they cried.
Olivia believed her sobriety depended on attending regular A.A. meetings. She had ten sober birthdays to back that up. She always said talking to Craig counted as an A.A. meeting. Craig didn’t mind. He loved to hear her stories. He learned so much. Olivia hadn’t been able to attend an A.A. meeting for quite a while. When she was diagnosed back in September, she had been given the proverbial “six months to a year.”
“How do you know how long she has?” Craig asked her doctor. “You don’t know—no one does!” Craig looked at Chrissie. She was in shock. Olivia’s doctor did his best to explain it to him but Craig wouldn’t listen. The doctor decided to ignore Craig and continued to explain the prognosis.
Craig remembered the words he heard that day. Horrible words no one wants to hear. Words like: biopsy … malignant … chemotherapy. Olivia knew this would be a tough fight. Craig saw it in her eyes. It wasn’t fair. Why her?
Olivia was the kindest person Craig had ever known. She wouldn’t intentionally hurt a soul. She was nice to everyone she met and made the world a better place. Olivia vowed to fight this to the end. She wanted to see her grandchildren grow up. The cancer spread like wildfire. No one realized how horrible she looked at Christmas until the snapshots were developed. She looked dead already.
* * *
Olivia’s room was halfway down the hall on the right. The cancer ward was ancient—its hallways smelled of death and disinfectant. The walls were painted gunmetal gray. The floor tiles were worn through in spots from countless gurneys and footsteps. What a horrible place to die, Craig thought, but then again—what does it matter where you die? You’re just as dead.
Olivia was lying in the middle of her bed, hooked up to all the monitors and tubes you would expect with a terminal patient. Craig looked at her. Oh man, won’t be long now. She was asleep but woke up when he touched her hand.
“Hi, Craig. So nice to see you.”
“How are you feeling today?” Craig asked. Then he thought, what a ridiculous question, but I never know what to say. What do you say to someone who’s dying? Where do you find the words to comfort someone who means so much to you—someone who always treated you like her own son? Craig did love Olivia like a son loves his mother. He was afraid her death would break his heart.
“Craig, honey, I have something I want to give you something that means a lot to me. I asked Joe to bring it to me last night. It’s in my bedside table.”
In the drawer, Craig found a small black velvet box. He had no idea what was inside but thought it must be something very special. That would be so like Joe and Olivia, thinking of others—even at a time like this.
* * *
Joe and Olivia DeVries had been married for thirty-seven years and loved each other the way two people should after a lifetime together. They struggled like most young couples in the early years. They lived in a tiny apartment above a pizza joint. Joe was working hard to support his family while studying for his commercial pilot’s license. Olivia was a homemaker and mom to their beautiful baby girl Chrissie. They had an old car that kept breaking down, a television that flipped whenever a subway train went by and they were happy.
Their love grew and sustained them through the tough times like Olivia’s alcoholism and recovery, the sacrifices they made to pay for Joe’s flying training and the financial troubles during his lay-offs. Difficulties that could easily become irreconcilable in a weak marriage, only made Joe and Olivia’s connection stronger. He w
ould be lost without her.
* * *
Craig handed her the small box. Before she opened it, she cleared her throat and a long raspy coughing spell erupted. When it finally ended, Craig passed her a tissue. They’re becoming more frequent and intense, he thought.
Olivia opened the box and handed Craig a sterling silver money clip. The money clip was obviously well used. Even the sterling silver heart adorning it was pitted and worn. “It’s beautiful, O. Where did you get it?”
Olivia smiled. “This little money clip has always held special memories for me. I was with my parents on vacation in New York. I saw it in Tiffany’s window. I didn’t dare ask them to buy it for me. I never thought they could ever afford something so elegant. But they bought it for me as a high school graduation present. I couldn’t believe it. I actually had something from Tiffany’s in New York.”
As Craig was about to give it back to Olivia, she took hold of his hand and gently closed his fingers around the money clip.
“Craig, I want you to give it to Heather. She’s my only granddaughter, and I want her to have this.” Choked with tears, Craig hugged this pile of bones that once was a vibrant and beautiful woman.
“I love you, Olivia. I’ll take care of this until Heather’s older. I promise, she’ll know all about you.”
It wasn’t long after that—God took Olivia home.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Departures
The memorial service for Olivia was held at the chapel in Hillside Memorial Gardens on a sunny, warm spring day. That’s the way she would have wanted it.
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