Molly lay in bed fiddling with her lunch. She had asked for fish, and here was baked macaroni and cheese and Jell-O. She was just about to call Gary, to ask him if he could bring her something from the Kiev, when Dr. Price came in. He frowned.
Molly slid lower onto the bed.
“Well,” he said heavily. “You still are not well. Not by a long shot.”
Molly braced herself.
His face seemed to grow darker. “The clotting inhibitor is still in your blood. We’ll up the steroids you’re getting. We’ll watch the inhibitor levels even more closely. If they don’t keep going down, we might want to try chemo again.”
At the word chemo, Molly sank lower in the bed. She pulled the sheets up to her chin.
“I didn’t say we’d do the chemo now. For now, you need a great deal of rest.”
Molly shut her eyes. Still the hospital.
“But perhaps you can do your resting at home.”
Molly opened her eyes. She looked up at him, stunned. He gave her a faint smile. Molly swallowed. She found her voice. “Are you serious?” she said.
“You have to stay in bed. You have to take your meds. You have to get a home nurse for yourself to come in and check on you every single day, twice a day, without fail. And you have to come in and see me three times a week for blood tests. In a wheelchair. No walking. No real movements. Nothing that could cause an accident. No lifting. No cutting with knives. Nothing that could make you bleed. And you must promise to call if you feel anything unusual. Immediately.”
“Am I getting cured?”
He was silent for a moment. “Let’s just leave it up to rest and luck, shall we?”
Luck. Molly hesitated. “Am I getting cured?” she repeated.
He shrugged. He waited a moment. “We don’t know,” he said finally.
Molly swallowed. She couldn’t let it go. “But wait, wait, if I am getting better, then is that it for the inhibitor? Does it mean that once it’s out of my system, my blood is normal again, does it mean I can never get the inhibitor again?”
Dr. Price put his hands in his pockets. He studied her for a moment. “We don’t know,” he said finally. “We don’t really know what causes it, and we don’t really know what makes it leave. Only that it sometimes does.”
After Dr. Price left, she couldn’t move. Molly looked at the walls of the hospital room. We don’t know. Could she live with that? We don’t know. She thought of going home. She thought of all those months she had been at the hospital, nearly as helpless as a newborn. Then she thought of what it would be like when she was home with the baby. Suddenly, she was terrified. Her body felt like a tire with the wrong amount of air filled into it. If she even pricked her finger, she could be in danger. She could die. Nowhere felt safe to her. No one knew what was going to happen. Except that she was going home.
She thought suddenly of all those people she had read about who had supposedly had near-death experiences, who had seen white lights, long tunnels, been transformed. Molly didn’t remember seeing anything. The memory blockers had taken care of that. Had she been transformed? Did she have a new insight? Only her body felt different. The rest she’d have to live to find out. And then she reached for the phone to call Gary.
Gary hung up the phone with Molly. He went into Otis’s room, even though he had just put Otis down for a nap, and picked him up and held him while he cried and cried and cried.
That evening, Gary walked around the neighborhood, Otis strapped against his chest. This was family, an extra heartbeat strapped against him. Lights began going on in the neighborhood. Doors began slapping open, cars came home. Otis yawned and snuggled deeper against him. He thought about Molly coming home. Ada would have said it was destiny. That it was fate. But to him, it seemed that Molly’s coming home was as much a fluke as her getting sick. As mysterious and openended. She still had the inhibitor. She still was in danger. He could make himself crazy thinking about it. He didn’t really believe that things were meant to be, that fate might come through for you. Events didn’t turn out the way you always hoped they would. But the thing was that sometimes people came through. The most unexpected people in the most unexpected ways.
It was fall again in the neighborhood. A clear and cold Halloween. Paper ghosts flung themselves off the rooftops. Pumpkins grinned from porches. The streets were crowded with kids and parents, and everyone was dressed up in shiny store-bought costumes, in elaborate handmade outfits. Ghost and goblins, pizzas and refrigerators all wound their way in the annual Halloween parade. Girls in skimpy red uniforms high-kicked their way down the street. The mayor waved ferociously from a car.
Right in the thick of the parade, Molly clung to Gary’s arm. She took baby steps down the street, stopping to rest every few minutes, bracing her hands against Otis’s stroller. Each step felt awkward, like she had doll feet that any moment might not support her.
This walking business was still new to her. This was the first time she could walk more than a block, and already she felt drained. Her doctors wanted her to walk a little more now, but they still cautioned her, a catch-22. Too little activity, and her muscles would atrophy. Too much and she could tear a muscle. A tear could bleed. A bleed could hemorrhage. She had to think about how she moved, find the happy medium. One foot lifted, planted down and lifted again. But she was determined. Danger or not, she was going to walk this parade with her family. “You want to sit?” Gary asked. He had painted blue stars on his face and Molly’s. Otis, in the stroller, had on a mini Harley jacket and shades. Her weight on the stroller knocked it a little and Otis cried. She reached to soothe him and he twisted, ignoring her, looking for Gary, not calming until he saw him. “All right, all right,” Gary said. Stung, Molly retracted her hand.
Gary looked at her and ruffled her hair, which had started to grow back in curly tufts. Just last week, when the tufts were poking through her old ruined hair, Suzanne had talked her into a short, wild cut, a boost of color. “Live a little,” she said. Molly had never had short hair in her life, had always hated it, and the whole time Suzanne cut it, she had kept her eyes squinched shut. Suzanne worked quickly and efficiently. She kept up a patter of talk. She put on music. But Molly cried as if even the sound and slide of the scissors hurt her. But now, all she knew was she could tilt her head and not feel like people were staring at her hair. Her head felt impossibly light. She could feel almost normal. Gary toyed with her earrings, big complicated tin pieces Suzanne had surprised her with, so she wouldn’t feel so shorn. “Want to keep going?”
All Molly wanted to do was go home. “Sure I do,” she lied, trying to sound jubilant. “This is great!” She didn’t tell him she felt more than a little lost. There were too many people here, and she didn’t know any of them. She didn’t recognize a few of the stores on the street, either. Had things changed so fast? When had that Italian restaurant opened up? Where was the pastry shop she used to buy their breakfast Danish from? There was new red brick lining the sidewalks. New bright red benches. She stumbled on a stone, but caught herself, trying to cover it up so Gary wouldn’t worry. She quickly looked down to make sure she wasn’t bleeding.
“Am I going too fast for you?” Gary asked.
“I’m fine,” she lied. Neither one of them ever mentioned she was still sick.
Three times a week, Gary and Molly and Otis trooped back to the hospital. Every time Molly saw the hospital, she burst into tears. “Don’t make me go back there,” she begged. “We can turn around now. We can go to the movies. We can go to a restaurant. Come on. My treat.”
Molly hated going back inside the hospital. She felt as if any moment the door would slam shut and they would never let her back out again. As soon as she was inside, a man she had never seen before said, “Molly, you’re looking better.”
“Who was that?” she asked but Gary just shrugged.
A doctor passed by and said, “Molly, how nice to see you up and about! And what a big boy Otis is.” Molly smiled weakly as the do
ctor passed.
“I don’t have a clue who he is, either,” Gary said. “Come on, let’s get your blood drawn and get out of here.” The last time she had gone for her blood test, they had sat her in a little room, papered with signs. Plant Ps. Peace. Prosperity. Prayer. There was a poster of an alarmed kitten hanging on to a high branch by its claws. Lord, with your help, I can hang on. There were two fluffy puppies sitting in a vat of mud. Some days, Lord, we need a little help. If she were well, she would have laughed and made fun. Now, she just quietly studied the posters. “Everyone loves those,” the person taking her blood told her.
It took ten minutes to get the results, ten god-awful minutes that felt like ten years, while she sat in the waiting room with Gary and Otis, pretending to relax, stiffening every time someone came out with the reports and mispronounced someone’s name. “Molly Goodman!” someone shouted, “Molly Guttman!” and Molly waved her hand. Who else would it be? She didn’t even bother to correct his pronunciation. She didn’t relax until she saw the numbers on her report, which she could read like a pro. Some days, she had a reprieve. Some days, when the numbers were bad, when her hematocrits hovered dangerously low, she knew the doctor would start talking to her about chemo again. “You can feel fine and still be sick,” he told her.
She saw the surgeon and the hematologist and neither one of them made predictions for her. The surgical wounds had healed into angry red scars, raised across her torso like Braille. Sometimes, at night, she woke to find Gary awake, sitting up, looking sorrowfully at her, and when she sat up, his face suddenly changed. He got cheerful. He pretended he was up for some other reason. “Had to pee,” he said, but she hadn’t heard the toilet flush.
The band perked up. And out-of-tune rendition of “When the Saints Come Marching In.” She took Gary’s hand and held it. The high-stepping girls pranced backward and forward. Her legs didn’t feel like they belonged to her. She had this funny, weird walk, as if everything were off-kilter. Her lungs didn’t feel big enough for the breath she needed. And everything seemed too bright, too noisy.
Gary coughed. He bopped his fist against his chest and coughed some more. “Get something to drink,” Molly said. Gary looked around. A bench near them was covered in kids. “Go,” Molly ordered. “I’ll wait right here. I’ll lean on the stroller and be just fine.”
He hesitated.
“I can do this,” she said quietly.
“I’ll be two seconds,” he promised.
She watched him disappearing in the crowd. She leaned on the stroller. Otis sputtered crankily. Lately when she and Gary talked about the future, she had begun to mention that maybe they could adopt a child. A newborn. She knew that in the shape she was in, no one would even think of giving them a child, it was purely a dream, but it made her feel good to think about it. To have those months back that she had missed with Otis, to start from scratch with a new baby who might love and need her right away. To have a future.
“Otis!” someone called, and she craned her neck, but she didn’t see anyone. But Otis cocked his head and burst into tears. He kicked his legs.
“Oh, don’t,” Molly pleaded. “Please, please, please. Can’t you wait until your daddy gets here?” She looked wildly around, but Gary was gone. A little kid in a green dragon suit zipped by, nearly toppling her, jostling the carriage so Otis screamed louder.
“Hungry?” Molly tried. She bent and got his bottle. She tried to pop it in his mouth but he batted it angrily out of her hand, so it rolled under some feet. She grabbed for the pacifier clipped to his sweater and tried to get him to take it, but he spat it out, wailing at her. His lovely little face was turning a violent crimson. His eyes were slits. She felt herself getting desperate. Two women walked by and gave her pointed stares, and Molly flushed, hot with shame. They probably thought she was a terrible mother.
She couldn’t just stand here and let him cry.
She still wasn’t supposed to lift. She didn’t know what else to do. She bent and unbuckled Otis. She put both arms around him. And then she started lifting him up. He kicked against her, and every muscle in her began to scream. “I won’t drop you, I promise,” she said, but the truth was, she wasn’t so sure. Her hands felt like claws gripping him. His weight loosened her fingers. Her breath came in gasps, and then she hoisted him up, so he was resting against her shoulder. She hadn’t known anything so small could feel so heavy. She waited in sudden terror for pain. For any sign that meant bleeding, that meant she had to go back into the hospital. But nothing happened. Not this time. Not yet. She waited for Otis to scream even louder. She didn’t think she had even a chance of lowering him back into the stroller. If he kicked and thrashed against her, she didn’t know how long she could even hold him. “Okay, is that better?” she said, almost pleading, and abruptly, to her astonishment, Otis stopped crying. His face was inches from hers and she locked eyes with him. He stared at her gravely for a moment, unsure. He opened his mouth and she braced herself for his screams. She looked wildly around for Gary again, and then Otis grabbed at her collar and began sucking on the edge of it, all the while carefully watching her. Molly felt a strange new exhilaration. She held on tight to Otis, she swayed a little to keep her balance, to keep him close. She looked down at Otis again, and this time, his eyes were closing. He lifted one hand drowsily and rested it against her cheek.
And then she saw Gary winding his way through the crowd toward her, holding two sodas, flagged with straws, aloft. And then she saw Emma, leaning toward Gary, patting him on the shoulder, and then they both looked up and saw her holding the baby, and Gary suddenly looked struck. Molly, determined, gently hoisted Otis higher. The pain was less this time, or maybe just more familiar. She shifted Otis so that he was nuzzling her shoulder now. She saw Theresa, calling, “Molly! Otis!” She saw Suzanne, in a French maid’s costume, winding her way through the crowd, looking around until she suddenly spotted Molly. Otis yawned and burrowed deeper against her.
Molly felt a rush. She rubbed the baby’s back. She was like any mother holding her baby, being out in the world. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her, but did anybody? Gary, Theresa, and Emma were almost to her. Suzanne was halfway there. Otis yawned and snuggled deeper against her. Right now, right this minute, Molly didn’t feel so terrified. She felt like she really belonged in this sea of people, like she was a part of them. Right now, she lived here in this neighborhood. Right now, she lived.
acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without Rochelle Jewell Shapiro. She took time from writing her own novel to read endless drafts, and to comment and critique even the conjunctions. She calmed and cheered, she was the perfect critic and the perfect friend, and she cared about this book as much as she cared about me. Thank you, thank you, Rochelle.
For years I’ve seen the name Gail Hochman praised in acknowledgment after acknowledgment of my favorite books, and I’m so thrilled that now I get to do the same. I couldn’t ask for a smarter, funnier, warmer, and more completely wonderful agent, champion, and friend. My gratitude is boundless, my devotion absolute.
A multitude of deepest thanks to Jennifer Weis, Joanna Jacobs, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press.
My gratitude, too, for the support and kindness of Nancy Lattanzi, Lindy Judge, Jo Fisher, Jane Praeger, Linda Corcoran, Peter Salzano, Andrea Valeria, Micky Pearlman, and Fatima Bayati; and for my mother, Helen Leavitt, my sister, Ruthy Rogers, and Hillary and Jonathan Rogers, too.
I’d also like to thank Dr. Steven Ordorica, Dr. Henrietta Lackner, Dr. Kenneth Hymes, Dr. Robert Wallach, Dr. Francis Adams, Dr. Steven Hoffstetter, Dr. Elliot Newman, Dr. Steven Rosen, and every single person at Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center. I would also like to thank Dr. William Bell of Johns Hopkins.
More thanks and love than I can say to Jeff, who took infinite, loving care of me and this book both, who read every single night with thought and attention, even as his own book deadline loomed, and who lived these pages along with m
e.
And for Max Henry Leavitt Tamarkin, who’s the reward.
PREVIOUS BOOKS BY
Caroline Leavitt
Living Other Lives
Into Thin Air
Family
Jealousies
Lifelines
Meeting Rozzy Halfway
about the author
CAROLINE LEAVITT is the author of six novels: Meeting Rozzy Halfway, Lifelines, Jealousies, Family, Into Thin Air, and Living Other Lives. Various titles were optioned for film and condensed in magazines.
Caroline Leavitt has written essays for Parenting, Parents, Redbook, More, Salon, McCall’s, Mademoiselle, and New Woman. Her essays and short stories have also appeared in the anthologies Father, Forever Sisters, A Few Thousand Words About Love, and The Most Wonderful Books.
She won first prize in Redbook magazine’s Young Writers Contest in 1978 for her short story “Meeting Rozzy Halfway,” which grew into the novel. The recipient of a 1990 New York Foundation of the Arts Award for Fiction for Into Thin Air, she was also a judge for the 1990 Fiction Competition for the Writers’ Voice Awards in New York City.
Caroline Leavitt lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with her husband, the writer Jeff Tamarkin, and their four-year-old son, Max.
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. Gary and Molly are drawn together because they both feel orphaned. When they move into New Jersey, they find a tightly knit community that perceives them as outsiders, which makes Gary and Molly so uncomfortable that they draw even closer together. What is Leavitt saying about the notion of community? How and why does this notion change throughout the book?
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