by Sarah Price
But Laura’s words left a hollow in the conversation. After all, no one was supposed to share information about the patients.
Frances, however, didn’t care. “What? What happened to her? You have to tell me!”
“Oh, Frances,” Laura said. “I’m so sorry.”
Frances stared at her, her eyes wide with apprehension.
“She’s gone.”
For a moment Frances didn’t know what to do or say. Madeline is gone? Just like that? Surely, she had been mistaken. Laura just meant that she no longer needed chemo and was gone from treatment. “I don’t understand you. What do you mean ‘gone’?” she asked at last. “Where is she?”
“She . . .” Laura opened her mouth but didn’t say anything else.
Frances could understand Laura’s hesitation to mean one and only one thing: Madeline was dead.
“When?” she whispered.
“Monday.” Laura glanced around as if to make certain no one could hear her. Laura knew that Frances and Madeline had become friendly, even friends, during their chemotherapy treatments. “She had a fever again, and apparently she collapsed on Thanksgiving morning. She passed in the hospital early Monday morning. I’m so sorry, Frances.”
Sinking into the empty chair beside Madeline’s, Frances stared out at nothing. Is that how it happens? An infection that can’t be managed? And suddenly the cancer wins?
They had both been in the hospital at the same time. Only, upon her admittance, Frances had been taken to a different wing of the hospital, since Franklin Four had no available rooms. Apparently, Thanksgiving had more on the menu than food and festivities for cancer patients. If only Frances had known that Madeline was there, she could have visited her and, perhaps, been with her when she passed away.
The thought dawned on Frances that Madeline had probably died alone. Her daughters hadn’t come to say good-bye to their mother. And James . . . Frances wasn’t certain whether he would have visited again.
Alone.
Her eyes couldn’t focus on anything, and her heart pounded against her chest.
“You all right, Fran?” Nicholas asked when he walked over to her, his hands laden with a tray of drinks and snacks.
She shook her head, and as she did, she realized that the reason she couldn’t see was because her eyes were filled with tears.
“Hey. What’s going on?” He set the tray down on the floor and quickly pulled up a chair next to her. “I’m here, Frances,” he said as he reached for her hand. “I’m here for you.”
But she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t even breathe. Even her arms shook as her shoulders were racked with sobs, each one causing her to fall deeper into hysterics. It was as if all of the tears that she had been holding back for the past two months had suddenly been released. She let them fall, not caring if other people were watching.
Two months of dealing with cancer, worrying about other people, arguing with Charlotte, hiding things from the children, and fearing Nicholas’s reaction. Everything combined had built up inside of her, and now the floodgates had opened.
“Let me close this,” Laura said in a soft voice as she pulled the curtain around the chair, giving both Frances and Nicholas some privacy.
Nicholas rubbed her hand as he looked at Frances, his eyes laden with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Frances. Please. You have to forgive me.”
She tried to wave her hand at him, wanting to let him know that her tears were not really about him, but she couldn’t even do that.
He pulled her into his arms, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “Shh. Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see. I promise, Fran, you do not have to walk one more step in this awful journey without me beside you. You will never be alone again.”
Just the word sent her into a new round of sobs.
Until she had collapsed at the Thanksgiving table, she had been alone. The only difference was that she hadn’t known it. Andy with his sports, Carrie with her attitude, and Nicholas with his work obsession had created a large void in her life. Each day she had moved through her routine with no one showing her any love or tenderness. Instead, everyone had just focused on their own needs, not realizing that Frances had been just barely treading water in a sea of neglect.
While life had pushed them apart, cancer had brought them back together.
And now that her family had the pieces in place to work on their relationships, Madeline was gone.
CHAPTER 22
No one at the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center knew any details about when the service was being held, so Frances had contacted Pine Acres to inquire about Madeline’s funeral. When she learned that it was to be held on Friday, she thanked them and took down the rest of the information. But after she hung up the phone, she sat at the kitchen table, alone and staring at the wall. The finality of life, so neatly wrapped up by a single day of recognition before lowering that casket into the ground, struck her as being particularly depressing. Why didn’t a person’s life require more than just one day to say good-bye?
After the children left for school on Friday morning, Frances managed to take a shower, letting the hot water cascade down her back. With her eyes shut, she tried to shake the lingering nausea from the previous night. She had forgotten to take her medicine and had spent a good portion of the early evening vomiting in the bathroom. This time, Nicholas was by her side, dabbing a cool cloth at the back of her neck and rubbing her back. She had been surprised at how comforting it had actually been to have someone telling her that everything would be all right.
She shut off the shower and stepped onto the soft bath mat. One glance in the mirror told her all she needed to know: she looked as bad as she felt. Her face looked puffy; whether from the chemotherapy treatment or the sleepless night, she was not certain. And her bald head was a constant visual reminder of what she was battling, the very battle that her friend had just lost.
“You OK?”
She looked at the closed door, glad that she had remembered to lock it. “Yes, thanks. Just drying off.”
“We should leave soon, Fran.”
As she wrapped the towel around herself, she avoided looking at her reflection again until she found her wig and situated it on her head. She tried to apply some makeup, hoping to look halfway decent for Madeline’s funeral.
Her mind reeled with what little she had learned about Madeline’s death. Her white blood cell count had dropped again. Only this time, she had caught an infection in the hospital. On Sunday she had lost consciousness, and Monday she’d slipped away in the early hours of the morning.
Frances still couldn’t believe it. One minute Madeline was here. The next she was gone. And never far from Frances’s mind was the fact that it could have been her who’d caught the infection and died.
As she sat in the church, wearing her black dress and black high heels, she looked at the casket, a plain brown coffin, and the truth suddenly sank home. She reached out and grasped Nicholas’s hand, clutching it in hers.
He had insisted on attending the funeral with her even after Frances had told him that she didn’t want him to accompany her. Ever since she had awoken at the hospital, she had been greeted by a new Nicholas, one that seemed much more like the Nicholas from their dating years: attentive, concerned, loving. And while she was thankful for his 180-degree turnaround, she needed some space as well as time to get used to the new Nicholas. She had told him as much, something she wasn’t used to doing. But despite her protests, he had insisted. He hadn’t wanted her driving alone, and she finally agreed. Her last chemotherapy treatment had made her extraordinarily fatigued.
But as her eyes took in the sight of the casket, she was beyond grateful that he had been so persistent.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“That could have been me.” She swallowed and looked at him from the corner of her eye.
He pressed his lips together and slowly nodded his head. “I’m well aware of that, Fran.” He squeezed her hand.
> If there were twenty people at the church, Frances would have been surprised. She refused to count, horrified at how few people had shown up. She recognized one of the Pine Acres staff members from her sole visit to the nursing home. There were two older people seated next to the staff person, and Frances suspected that they, too, were from the nursing home. That warmed Frances’s heart. Perhaps Madeline had truly not given the place a fair chance.
Other than those people, there were just a few others, most of whom Frances did not know. Older people who sat by themselves in the different pews scattered throughout the sanctuary, which made it look as if even fewer people were there.
She thought it was odd that James had arranged for the funeral to be held at a church, especially after Madeline had told her that she didn’t attend church. But the Methodist pastor had apparently been quite familiar with Madeline, for when he spoke, he referenced several different occasions when they had been together for fund-raisers, church socials, and even Bible study.
“What’s wrong?” Nicholas whispered.
“That pastor,” Frances whispered back. “He’s talking about how Madeline was involved with the church. But she told me that she didn’t believe in organized religion.”
“So?”
“It just doesn’t ring true.” Frances tried to return her attention to the service, but she still had a niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Up ahead, in the second, not first, pew, she saw the back of James’s head. Seated next to him was a woman with long, straight hair. It was a mixture of brown with gray, and she wore it in a classy blunt cut that reminded Frances of the country club women. Both of them stared straight ahead, their eyes riveted on the pastor. Not once did Frances see them tilt their heads in grief or dab at their eyes in sorrow.
In the next pew, two women with dark-brown hair sat so close together that their shoulders touched. Frances wondered if they were her daughters. Was it possible that they had made the journey to New Jersey to finally visit their mother, even if it was only to say good-bye to her body, for her spirit was already long gone? That seemed like a waste to her. How much more meaningful it would have been had they visited Madeline during her lifetime, rather than after death!
She leaned over and nudged Nicholas. “I don’t want to stay afterward,” she whispered.
“Are you feeling all right?” The concern in his voice, so different from the previous months—no, years—of contempt was such a change that Frances wasn’t certain if she could get used to it. Not as fast as he had been willing to offer it to her.
“I feel fine, but I get the sense that something isn’t right here.”
At that moment the pastor asked for James to step forward to the podium because he had some words about his mother.
Immediately, Frances gave her full attention, forgetting about how uncomfortable she’d just felt.
James took his time sliding out from the pew and walking to the front of the church. He nodded toward the pastor and took his position at the podium, pausing to gaze around the room. Frances wondered if he felt the same way that she did when he saw how few people were in attendance. If so, he did not show any signs. Instead, he cleared his throat and moved the microphone so that it was positioned better to carry his voice.
“When I was a child,” he began, “my world revolved around one and only one person: my mother. During the course of her life, Madeline Cooper had that effect on many people. She was both the rising and setting sun for so many that have come and gone before us. As Pastor Ralph said, her involvement in the church made her a beacon for many during the storms of life. She was always there for people in need.” He paused and glanced toward the two women who Frances thought were his sisters. After he looked at them, he averted his eyes. “What is a beacon? I looked up that word in the dictionary and was not surprised to see it defined as a light set in a prominent position to serve as a warning or guide for others. My mother was certainly that: a beacon.
“Yet, like so many others, the time comes when spring turns to summer and then autumn to winter. And like those changing seasons, so, too, do people adapt and adjust. We have no choice but to accommodate the seasons of life. Yet my mother fought those changes, refusing to accept the fact that she was not only aging but ailing. She tried to defy the odds by fighting her diagnosis, and when offered only two years to live, she decided to engage in war with her cancer, rather than succumb to it.
“She lived for ten years, flouting the medical diagnosis with pride and dignity.”
He cleared his throat, his eyes once more flickering in the direction of his sisters.
“But that was how she had lived her life, ignoring common wisdom and sometimes avoiding what was practical. During my youth, she did her best to protect us from the ugly side of life, to the point that she built a bubble that, once burst, was hard to repair.”
James paused. He removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief that he had pulled from the inside breast pocket of his jacket. When he replaced his glasses, he continued speaking.
“Standing on conviction is a dangerous thing, but my mother believed in her own opinions and love for her family so much that she was willing to do just that: live according to her own ideas. Some might say that it cost her more than she could have envisioned. Now that she is gone, we must all be at peace with some of the decisions and demands that she made in her life.” His eyes swept the scantily attended gathering and landed upon his sisters. “We do that because we loved her.”
Frances leaned over to Nicholas. “I can’t listen to this anymore,” she whispered. “Please. Let’s go.”
He took her hand and gently squeezed it, but remained looking straight ahead.
“None of what he’s saying makes sense,” she pleaded. “I need to get some fresh air.”
She withdrew her hand from his grasp and quietly slid down the length of the pew. She knew that everyone could see her getting up, but she didn’t care. Staring straight ahead, she walked toward the back of the church and out the front door. Outside, she took big, deep breaths and shut her eyes.
How could Madeline’s son stand up there and speak about his mother in such a way? Nothing of what he said seemed to line up with what she knew about Madeline. Instead of speaking a proper eulogy, James seemed to have a hidden agenda, and that did not sit well with Frances. How could a grown man do such a thing? First, he forced his mother from the home that she loved, then he ignored her during her illness, and now he misspoke at her funeral!
Preposterous!
Fifteen minutes passed before the door opened and a few people began to step outside. As she waited for Nicholas to emerge, Frances moved to the side so that the other people could pass her. Most of them glanced at her and smiled as they passed. They appeared much happier outside of the church than inside.
The pastor emerged and, upon seeing Frances, walked toward her as if he had a purpose to do so.
“Excuse me,” he said in a soft voice that Frances found rather soothing. “You’re one of Madeline’s friends?”
“I am.”
“You left before the announcement that everyone is invited back to Madeline’s home in Madison after we conduct the interment, for some coffee, sandwiches, and fellowship.” He placed his hand in hers. “It would be a great comfort to her children, I’m sure.”
Frances didn’t know how to extract herself gracefully from the pastor’s hand or request. The last thing she wanted was to go to Madeline’s former—and James’s current!—home. “I . . . I’ll see what my husband says.” It sounded dull and uncaring, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“Excellent. I look forward to seeing you there after we leave the cemetery.”
He stepped aside as a large black hearse drove up. The driver stepped out and opened the back door. Frances felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She almost doubled over when she realized that by saying we the pastor was including her. She was about to correct him, to tell hi
m that she would not be going to either the cemetery or the small gathering at Madeline’s—now James’s—home. But a movement just inside the open church doors distracted her.
Several men were walking out, Nicholas included, each one positioned at a corner of the casket. They were carrying it outside to the hearse. Their faces looked forlorn, even her husband’s. Despite not having known Madeline, accompanying someone on the final journey was a reflective, if not humbling, experience. How could anyone not think of their own ultimate demise?
Standing to the side, Frances watched, feeling a lump form within her throat. It was a passage that everyone would take, no ticket needed to step on board. She began to feel panic rise within her stomach, realizing that she could have been the one that Nicholas helped during those final steps to the shiny black car.
As they slid the coffin into the back of the hearse, Nicholas stepped back, his eyes moving to meet Frances’s. His cheeks were pale and his eyes wide with a look of fright as he, too, seemed to share her thoughts. She wanted to turn around, to not see the expression on his face that mirrored her own anxiety. But she couldn’t. Even after the pastor said a prayer just before the back door was shut and the driver got back into the car, she remained staring at her husband.
And without speaking to him, she knew that he would insist that they accompany Madeline to the cemetery. It was the least that they could do, especially since Madeline had kept Frances company during her cancer journey at a time when she had not invited anyone else to accompany her.
At that moment Frances understood that she, too, would have it no other way. She owed it to Madeline to see her through this final stage in life’s journey.
CHAPTER 23
The house on Woodland Avenue took Frances by surprise. It was larger than she anticipated: a two-story white colonial with an addition on the side that looked like a sunroom. It sat on a section of the Madison street that backed onto parklands, behind which was Drew University. It was located in a nicer section of town, many of the residents being New York City commuters.