Now they were full-blown teenagers, their faces speckled with acne, further evidence of their galloping hormones. Before she knew it, they’d be packing their bags for college. Even as angry as she’d been with Chris this vacation, there was no stopping her crazy, wild love for her boys. They were hers—the attitudes, the smelly socks, the occasional good night hug—all of it, the good and the bad. She and Sam would weather the storms of adolescence just as they had the sleepless nights of the boys’ youth.
Sam pulled off his glasses. “Me either. I can’t imagine it.” He folded the paper and set it down on the table. “In many ways, we’ve been very lucky.” For a moment, Abby wondered if they might talk about “it” now, about what might come next and how best to handle it. How would they tell the boys? And when? What else did they need to put in order besides their wills and their bank accounts?
Instead, he asked, “Feel like a walk?”
Abby hesitated, but a faint smile crossed her lips. No, Sam wasn’t ready. She wouldn’t push. Not yet. They still had some time. Abby worried about how little time, whereas Sam looked ahead to how much, but somewhere in between those two extremes lay a happy medium, she thought. Her condition, her diagnosis, whatever she called it, seemed dire only on her worst days, when she asked herself questions like Why me? Why me, when I have two boys to look after? It seemed outrageously unfair. But a piece of her, maybe the old Abby, also allowed herself to think sometimes, Why not me? Why couldn’t she be the one to survive the longest, to beat the odds? Why not her when it came to imagining another decade or two with her family? It was possible, remote, but possible.
“Sure,” she said now. “Couldn’t hurt to burn off the three million calories I just consumed.” She reached for her tray before remembering there were people here to tidy up after her, to take care of her when she needed it. It was a strange feeling, and she didn’t know if she’d ever get used to it.
Out on deck, they walked briskly, Sam pumping his arms and Abby trying to keep up. Her husband was in better shape than she, but she was determined to match his stride for at least a few laps. They circled once, then twice, passing several other walkers as they went. Sam fell into the “serious” walker category, meaning he didn’t like to talk while he paced. Occasionally, he would grunt in acknowledgment when Abby pointed out a loose shuffleboard puck headed his way or when she noted an interesting feature on the boat, like the hot tub on the bow, a few flights below.
By the third lap, though, she was feeling weary. Somewhere around the second lap, their leisurely stroll had evolved into a competitive speed walk. Abby was more of a lounge-by-the-pool vacationer than a walker.
“How many laps for a mile?” she huffed.
“Not sure,” Sam replied, his elbows still pumping gamely. “Maybe four or five?”
Abby slowed her pace intentionally. “Phew! Well, I think I’ll sit and rest at the next bench.”
“Oh?” Sam slowed down, too. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. I was enjoying our walk. I thought you were, too.”
“I was!” Abby protested. “But I don’t have quite the same energy I used to.”
“Right. Sorry.” He followed her as she headed for a bench. “You should have said something. Guess I got a little carried away. It feels good to stretch my legs.”
“Yes, it does,” Abby agreed. They settled next to each other and gazed out on the water while catching their breath.
“Everything okay?” Sam asked after a few minutes. “Are you feeling all right?”
Abby began to reply, automatically upbeat, but then stopped herself. “No, actually,” she conceded. “Damn it, Sam. Don’t you ever get angry? About how unfair this is?” She gestured out to sea. “All this beauty to share, and I may not be around much longer to see it?”
Sam stared at her, surprised. “Angry? Sure I do, but that’s not going to change anything. I’d rather spend my time with you being happy than mad.”
Abby huffed.
“What?” Sam pried. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s just so typical!” She stood up, her hands waving in the air, her voice rising. “Sam, the Saint. You always have the perfect answer for everything. Seriously, don’t you ever get mad? I mean really, really angry that this thing has chosen me, our family?”
“Of course I do!” he exclaimed. “You think I like any of this? That there’s something inside of you, eating away at you? How could I possibly be okay with that? I hate it.” He turned away from her for a moment. “Every morning,” he began again, “I wake up and I have to remind myself that this horrible disease is our new reality. That it’s not a bad dream but something you have to fight every day. That the person I love most in the world is sick,” he said softly, his voice cracking. “And it breaks my heart, every single day. But I have to be strong for you.”
“Oh, Sam.” Abby came back and sat down next to him. She took his hand. “I love that you’re my rock, but you also have to let yourself feel all those things. It’s good to be angry, I think.” She sighed. “I’m glad you told me. I was beginning to think you weren’t human.”
Sam reached out to smooth her hair. “Yeah? You mean, you don’t think I’m a weak-kneed flimflam for admitting it?”
Abby laughed, finding herself again, hearing the old Sam in those words. “I’m not even sure what that is, but no. You’ve always been my rock. You know that.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Oh, Abs, my dear, dear Abs. What would I do without you? Please don’t leave us. You can’t leave us.”
Abby sighed again and faked her best smile. “I’ll do my best, honey,” she said. “I’ll try my very best.”
Because, really, she thought, as she looked out at the majestic sea, what was the alternative?
“What was I like when I was a kid?” Lacey asked. They were sitting by the pool, trying to squeeze in a few last rays of sunshine before docking in Boston tomorrow morning. Lee was reading a home-improvement magazine, and Lacey was working on a crossword, which involved more erasing of wrong answers than anything else.
“You were adorable,” Lee said. “You had this long blond hair that you loved to wear in pigtails. And you were very good at entertaining yourself—a creative child. You would spend hours making up stories and acting them out. When it rained, you liked to sit on the porch with an umbrella and pretend it was your own little house.”
“Really? I did that?” Lacey laughed. “I don’t remember that at all. Was I a good kid or did I drive you crazy?”
“You were generally pretty good, although, around seven or eight, you’d have this maddening way of asking me what your punishment would be if I told you to stop doing something, like you were weighing the odds of whether it was worth it. You’d press me on the details—How many more minutes in time-out? you’d ask, or How many more minutes of TV time will I lose?” Lee smiled. “That’s why giving you a warning hardly ever worked. You’d press me on the details when I was trying to invent something midair. You were usually better at thinking up punishments than I was.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “I sound so annoying.”
“You weren’t that awful. Really. Even if there were days when I wanted to lock myself in the closet for a few hours, you were still pretty amazing. I was Thelma and you were—”
“Your Louise. I know, I know,” Lacey interrupted. That’s how it had always been for the two of them, until recently. When Lacey was growing up, all her friends had thought her mom was the coolest, the prettiest. Like a big sister. And Lacey had agreed. Sometime during the summer of her senior year, though, things had shifted. Lacey was suddenly quick to point out her mother’s flaws. She criticized her hair, her job, her clothes, even the way Lee answered the phone—Hello, Minor residence—in her pleasant, singsongy voice. Nothing her mom did was right. And though in the back of her mind, Lacey knew she was being unfair, cruel even, she hadn’t cared. Because she was leaving for college, far, far away, and her mom couldn’t stop her.
Now she wonder
ed, had she been waiting for her mom to tell her not to go? Lee had given her carte blanche to apply to any college she might want. “Aim high, Lacey girl,” she’d said. And Lacey had done just that, getting accepted at several top schools.
But she’d been confused when Lee hadn’t pushed back even slightly once Lacey decided on a college in Maine. “That’s a great school, Lace,” her mom said, all congratulatory and proud. Later, after Lacey accepted, she’d panicked that she’d made a huge mistake. Why was she going so far away, when she and Lee did everything together?
The first few weeks at school, sure enough, she cried herself to sleep, missing everything about home. She missed their lazy Saturdays shopping at the Market and their walks through Waterfront Park. She definitely missed the warm Charleston nights. And the silly, insignificant things—like eating frozen cookie dough while they watched TV together—Lacey missed that, too. She’d craved Magnolia’s pecan pie so much that she’d ordered one online, a little slice of the South delivered to her mailbox at college. And then Tyler had shown up, helping to dampen her loneliness ever so slightly.
It was as if Lacey’s relationship with her mom had been cleaved in half over the past year. And Lacey missed it. Terribly.
But now she allowed herself to think that maybe with her pregnancy scare had come a blessing of sorts. It reminded Lacey why she’d missed her mom in the first place. She’d almost forgotten: Lee supported her, no matter what. She might disagree with Lacey (and would make those feelings known), but her mom would be there regardless. Because the world is hard enough, Lacey, she used to tell her. I’ve got your back, always. Lacey hoped Tyler would be supportive when she finally told him what had happened, but somehow his response mattered less now. Her mom knew, and her mom still loved her.
“Hey, Mom.” Lacey turned to Lee.
“Yeah?” Lee lifted her eyes from her magazine.
“Thanks for being so cool about the whole—you know,” Lacey said. She didn’t say anything more, such as that this morning her period had arrived, as if her body had been playing a mean trick on her.
“You got it,” Lee said. “My support, one hundred percent.”
Lacey nodded, thinking for a moment. “Mom?”
“Yeah?” Lee looked up again.
“I was just wondering. Can I ask what you would have done? I mean if the test had been positive?”
Lee set down her magazine and studied Lacey for a moment. “The better question, honey, is, What would you have done?”
Lacey shook her head. She’d been trying to figure that one out. “I don’t know,” she said now. “I honestly don’t know.” It was the truth. She was relieved that she didn’t have to answer that question quite so soon in her life. “I suppose I would have wanted to talk to Tyler first before making any decisions.”
Lee nodded. “That makes sense.”
“But I’m still curious. If you were me, what you would have done?”
“If I was you?” Lee’s face broke into a radiant smile. “Oh, Lacey, honey, you already know the answer to that question,” she said. “I’m looking at her.”
23
That evening, Abby asked all the adults to meet her in a remote restaurant-bar at the back of the ship, Finnegan’s. She had no idea how her friends would react. Or how she might react. But a secluded spot with dim lighting seemed the best place to reveal her secret. Earlier in the cruise, she and Sam had stumbled onto the cozy bar with supple leather seats and glass jars filled with peanuts. Every time they’d gone, a crotchety older man stood behind the bar, taking people’s orders as if he’d rather not. It made them laugh to have found such a malcontent on a ship where everyone else practically hummed with enthusiasm. The walls were paneled in dark oak, the tables a polished cherry, a fitting spot for the news she was about to deliver.
Earlier, she’d felt nauseous, though she couldn’t say whether it was nerves or the events of the last few days. Or her medicine. There were too many factors rolling around in her head. She knew she had to tell her roommates, and yet a part of her still wanted to guard her secret. To put it out in the open, to actually speak the words to her best friends, would make it all real. For the past eight days, Abby had been able to pretend she was perfectly fine, albeit a bit tired.
Sam sat next to her, a whiskey at his elbow. Abby sipped her iced tea. They’d talked it over, and they’d both agreed: short and sweet was best. No sense in prolonging the conversation. Abby would deliver the news and tell her friends not to worry. Just that it was the luck of the draw and Abby would ride it out, however her body saw fit. She might still outlive them all, who knew? They’d decided not to include the boys or Lacey tonight. Lee could tell Lacey on her own time, and she and Sam agreed that the twins could wait until they were back home, in a familiar setting with their friends.
Caroline and Javier were the first to arrive. Caroline, her skin bronzed the color of copper, glowed as she clasped Javier’s hand. With her hair swept up in a loose ponytail, she looked twenty again, a beaming bride-to-be. Abby realized that marriage already suited her friend—Caroline was a natural.
“So, is this where you tell us that we’ve won an extended cruise, a whole extra loop to Bermuda and back?” Caroline teased.
“Ha, I wish.” Abby played along. Just then, Lee arrived and pulled up a seat.
“Hi, sorry I’m late.”
“No worries,” said Abby. “You’re not late at all.” She rested her elbows on the table and knitted her fingers together.
“So, what’s the big news now?” Lee inquired. “I’m not sure my heart can handle much more on this cruise.” Abby understood that Lee had been fighting her own battles with Lacey, but that the pregnancy scare had been just that, a scare.
“Well,” Abby began. “As it turns out, Sam and I do have some news for you.” She glanced at Sam, who nodded. “So, it turns out.” She hesitated. “It turns out,” she tried again, “that I have leukemia.”
Lee fell back in her chair, and a small sucking sound escaped from Caroline. “Oh, no,” she said.
“I know.” Abby gave it a moment to sink in. “It stinks. I found out a couple of weeks before the cruise, and I didn’t want to spoil everyone’s fun. But I thought you both should know.”
Sam stepped in. “We haven’t even told the boys yet. We will, of course, when we get back to Boston. But Abby wanted you two to know.”
Lee grabbed a cocktail napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “Jesus, Abby, I knew something was up. But this? I had no idea.”
“Yeah, I figured you guys would pick up on the fact that I wasn’t drinking much. Doctor’s orders,” she explained. “But I wanted to enjoy our trip. Celebrate twenty years of marriage. Of friendship.”
Caroline’s face was drawn and pale. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe it.” She eyed Sam’s tumbler of whiskey. “May I?” She took a long sip and set down the glass. “I’m so sorry, Abs.” She reached across the table to take her friend’s hand. “Well, one thing’s for sure: you know we’re here to help you fight this however you need to.”
Abby swallowed hard.
“Leukemia is one of the curable ones, right?” Lee leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “We’ll kill that bastard. Wring its little neck,” she said, prompting a laugh from Abby.
“Right now I’m on all sorts of pills that are my chemotherapy.”
Caroline’s eyes widened. “You mean to tell us that you’ve been undergoing chemotherapy this whole time?”
“Yep. Tiny little pills. The miracle of modern medicine.” Abby held her forefinger and thumb a centimeter apart to approximate the size of the pills she’d been swallowing over the last few weeks.
“And they’re not making you sick?” Caroline pressed. “I mean, you’ve been acting perfectly healthy. Maybe a little tired, but healthy.”
“Not really. At least I don’t think so. Just a little queasy sometimes, but it’s hard to know if that’s the boat or the medication.”
�
��So, Abby.” It was Javier, the first time he’d spoken. She was grateful now that she’d told him earlier, a calm presence to help her steer her friends through the shock of her news. “What can we do to help?”
“Yes,” Caroline chimed in. “Tell us. Anything we can do. I can fly to Boston on a moment’s notice. I can go to your doctor’s appointments with you. Or maybe we can help with the boys. Do you like your doctor? I know Boston has great clinics, but I can ask around about top oncologists in New York.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do,” Abby said now. “But I think we’re all set for the moment. I have Sam, and my doctor is supposedly one of the best. My prognosis is pretty good, as long as I keep taking my pills. The doctor says I could live another twenty years. Of course, it might be closer to ten or five, but who knows?”
Caroline pulled her lips into a tight line. For once, Abby’s roommates had nothing to say.
“Anyway,” Abby pushed ahead, “it turns out only four in one million Americans get this particular kind of leukemia each year. So, there’s that.” She flushed. It was a stupid thing to say, but she was still struck by the infinitesimal odds.
Lee slammed her hand down on the table. “Damn it, Abby. It’s just like you to go and get something that only three other people have.” She shook her head. “I don’t care how rare it is, we’re going to beat this.” And there it was, the collective we. Just like that, her friends had taken her disease on as their own. It was no longer only Abby and Sam fighting this battle. She’d almost forgotten: she had her forever sisters. Through thick and thin.
“When will you know if the chemo works?” Caroline asked quietly.
“That’s the thing. With this type of leukemia, there’s no cure, per se. You just keep taking a low dosage of chemo for the rest of your life. My doctor called it a chronic condition, not a terminal one.”
The Summer Sail Page 19