by Lou Aronica
“I know it doesn’t, honey. I know it doesn’t. But we can’t just do nothing. The side effects of that are worse, in case you don’t realize it. This drug has gotten some great results.”
Something told Becky that her only real hope lay with Dr. Nella, just as it told her that her dad was the key to solving the blight in Tamarisk. If Dr. Nella came up with some kind of treatment and she had this other drug in her system, would it screw things up? At the very least, she’d probably have to go through another battery of tests in Tamarisk.
Still, how could she explain this to her mother? Becky realized she had to try. Things were too important now. She couldn’t do something that felt wrong and could dash her last hopes simply to avoid an outburst.
“Do you think we could maybe put this off until next week?” Becky said tentatively.
“Why would we do that? You know that every day matters. I tried to get the doctor to see us today.”
“I’m waiting to hear back from someone.”
Her mother’s head snapped back and her brows folded inward. “What are you talking about? Did your father take you to see someone without discussing it with me?”
Gee, Mom, have you had a long conversation about Gleevec with him? “It wasn’t Dad. It was . . .” Becky hesitated, bracing for the tirade to come. “. . . Miea.”
Mom’s expression was blank. “Miea?”
“The queen in Tamarisk. She took me to her doctor because their medicine is different.” Becky cringed inwardly as she said this and didn’t look her mother in the eye. When Mom didn’t say anything right away, though, she glanced up and saw that her mother’s head was bowed.
“Mom?”
Mom looked up with her face masked in sadness. “Becky, Tamarisk is something that’s happening in your imagination because of your illness.”
“I know you think that, Mom, but it’s not.”
Mom reached out and touched the side of Becky’s face. “It feels real to you.”
Becky clasped the hand on her face with both of hers. “It is real, Mom. I not only feel it but I can smell it and hear it and taste it and see it.”
Mom put their hands to her lips and then lowered her head again.
“Come with me,” Becky said. “We’ll go to Dad’s house tonight and I’ll take you there. Then you’ll see.”
“Honey, don’t make me do this to you,” Mom said, her eyes still facing the table.
“Do what, Mom?”
Her mother took a deep breath and drew herself up. Her lips were tight, but her eyes were still soft. “I can’t go to Tamarisk with you. Please don’t bring that up again. And we are going to keep that appointment tomorrow. We can’t give up, Becky. We just can’t.”
Mom stood, pulled Becky toward her, and then walked away.
Why won’t she go with me? What is she afraid of? Becky watched her mother walk into the den and then went up to her room. She wanted to do her own research on Gleevec. Then she desperately needed to take a nap.
Nights without Becky had become borderline intolerable. The clock just kept whirring by with dizzying speed. How many more days did he have left? What would the quality of those days be as Becky’s illness progressed? The fact that he was able to see her more frequently now almost mocked him, taunting him with the knowledge that this extra time came with an unbearable price. Still, the nights she was here were so much easier to take than those she spent with Polly. When Becky was with him, he could convince himself to focus on the moment—especially on days when she seemed relatively hale—and tell himself to enjoy what they had together.
Those nights also included trips to Tamarisk and the befuddling complexities of that world. Until he had a better sense of their ecosystem—the knowledge of which deftly eluded him—he couldn’t attempt to devise a solution to the blight and couldn’t do any meaningful work on it at home. This meant that on the days Becky was gone, he not only missed his daughter desperately, but also had nothing to divert his attention from how much he missed her.
For the first time since he’d learned that Becky was sick again, he accepted an invitation to dinner from Lisa. They spoke on the phone almost daily, but facing Lisa was tougher than speaking with her. She wanted to meet at one of her usual places, a boisterous Indian restaurant where fervent sitar music wended its way through the din of the room. Chris just simply wasn’t up for that. He convinced her to meet him at a sedate New American café instead.
“It’s strange to hear the sound of your fork and knife on your plate while you’re eating,” she said when their food arrived. “Do you really find this relaxing?”
Chris shook his head at the kind of observation only someone like Lisa would make. Then he shrugged. “I don’t find anything particularly relaxing anymore.”
“I know, sweetie,” she said, reaching across the table to stroke his arm. “I know you don’t.” She kept touching him much longer than she usually did and she seemed surprisingly pensive. “You need to prepare for the future, you know,” she said thoughtfully.
Chris found her change of tone irksome. “What does that even mean?”
“I know you understand this intellectually, but that isn’t the point. In the near future, you’re going to face a painful reality, the kind that destroys people. You can’t let yourself compound the tragedy. Becky wouldn’t want you to do that.”
Chris looked toward the ceiling. “Why do people always say things like that in these situations?”
Lisa sat up straighter, and when she spoke, she sounded like herself again. “Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. Really, think about it. Becky hated it when you hid under a rock after your divorce. You know how she feels about this.”
That tone really wasn’t any better. There was a reason Chris stayed home on nights without his daughter. “So, what do you think?” he said sharply. “Dancing after the funeral? Maybe we could hit some strip clubs, or go all out and spend the weekend in Vegas. If Becky really cares about me, she’ll die before the height of tourist season.”
Lisa’s response was equally sharp. “Stop twisting my words, Chris. You know that isn’t what I meant.”
The room felt too quiet for this conversation. Maybe the Indian place would have been better. At a table across from them, a man smiled shyly at his female companion. It was probably an early date in their relationship and he was just beginning to understand how much he liked her. “I know that’s not what you meant, but the idea of preparing for this seems ludicrous. The only thing I’m certain about is that no matter how terrible I think this is going to be, it will be a hundred times worse.”
“I know you feel that way. That’s why I’m worried about you. This has more potential to knock you out permanently than it does most people.”
“Lisa, most people never get over the loss of a child.”
“They remain functional, though. I’m seriously worried that you won’t. Thank God that you have that fantasy place to go to now. Maybe if you keep traveling there after Becky’s gone you won’t go entirely cata-tonic.”
Lisa accompanied the word “traveling” with air quotes. Chris didn’t want to pursue what that meant. The conversation at hand was already disturbing enough. “I can only go to Tamarisk with Becky. I assume when she’s gone Tamarisk will be gone as well.” He’d never had that thought before and it made him suddenly and deeply sad. He washed back a sob with a sip of water, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
Lisa’s voice softened again. “Maybe you’re wrong about that, Chris. Maybe you get to keep Tamarisk.”
Chris shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“People need a place to go when they’re grieving. Maybe this is your place.”
“That was never the point of Tamarisk, Lisa. Tama-risk was always Becky’s place. Maybe it was Becky’s and my place. It was never meant to be only mine.”
“Maybe the thing you were meant to do is keep it alive after she’s gone.”
Chris looked at Lisa fo
r several seconds without saying a word. Then he looked down and returned to moving his food around his plate. Lisa couldn’t understand this. No one could understand this.
Including him.
19
Becky was still up in her room when Polly heard Chris’s car on the driveway. There was a time when the sound of his car door closing and Becky’s barreling down the stairs to greet him were intertwined as though they were eternally connected. Polly remembered being surprised the first time Chris came to pick Becky up after the split that he made it all the way to the porch with her still in her room.
It wasn’t surprising today, though. For the first time in years, Polly missed the connection between those two sounds. Hearing them united again would mean that what Becky was going through now was nothing more than a bad dream.
The doorbell rang and Polly answered it. Chris threw her the little uplift of his chin that he offered whenever she opened the door for him and she let him into the foyer. She then walked to the stairs and called up. “Honey, your father is here.”
“Thanks. Two minutes.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No, I’ll be okay.”
She turned back toward Chris. She was never sure what to do while he stood there waiting. A part of her wanted to invite him into the kitchen until Becky came down. Another part wanted simply to leave him standing there by himself. She’d done the latter countless times, but she didn’t want Becky to exert herself further by seeking her out to say good-bye tonight.
Polly had talked to numerous divorced friends about the awkwardness of pickup and drop-off. One friend actually said she looked forward to seeing her ex-husband and catching up with him. She was the decided exception, though. Most expressed feelings ranging from animosity to indifference to sorrow to discomfort. Several talked about how the experience brought back bad memories. Polly didn’t get that, though. After all this time, she could barely recall the feeling of being married to Chris. Their relationship was entirely about Becky in the present day.
Of course, none of her friends had any experience dealing with what “Becky in the present day” meant now.
“How’s she been?” Chris said, glancing up the stairs.
Polly closed her eyes and nodded slowly. “Not a good day.”
Chris looked down at the floor. “Any reaction to the new drug?”
“Nothing extreme. She’s vomited a couple of times, but the doctor said to expect that. I haven’t seen any of the other possible side effects.”
“But it’s been a bad day?”
“Yeah. She seems . . . limp. Like she’s wilting.”
Chris took two steps toward the stairs and then stopped. What did he think he was going to do? He made eye contact with Polly for a second and Polly saw the frustration there. “We’ll have a quiet night,” he said.
“That would be good.”
Chris looked defeated and Polly wished she had some strength to offer him. Did intact families handle something like this differently? Polly guessed that no one had the reserves needed to bear up well.
Polly and Chris stood in the foyer, ten feet apart, silently, for a few more minutes until she heard Becky coming down the stairs. Chris met her halfway and held her for a moment before they came down together. He walked Becky over to her, and Polly gave her daughter a long hug.
“Have a good night, honey,” Polly said, stepping back.
“I will, Mom,” Becky said softly.
Chris followed Becky to the door. Before he left, he turned to her and did the chin thing again. This time, Polly thought the gesture had a different meaning.
The meeting was as dismal as nearly every one had been since they’d first identified the blight. Miea felt physically heavier as the session wore on and she received more damage reports. This set detailed the loss of a microfarm, the devastation of one of the largest groves of plumas trees in the kingdom, and the horrifying news that diseased nuts from blight-infested bushes had poisoned an entire chorus of norbecks. Miea observed the people around the room and thought she read defeat on the faces of her advisors for the first time. She knew they’d maintained the façade of hope for her benefit, but it had become too difficult. Dyson somehow managed to survive the litany without bowing to it, but Miea knew he wasn’t immune to the hurt associated with realizing that your world was slipping away.
Looking at Dyson now reminded her of their last meeting alone together. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought of that conversation since it happened. For the briefest moment, she felt connected to him the way they had been at the university. She didn’t need to ask herself if he’d felt it as well; his eyes confirmed it. He’d wanted to say something else that day. Maybe there was a great deal more he wanted to say. However, Miea wouldn’t allow it. Couldn’t allow it. Now, only a few days later, she wasn’t entirely sure why. If the end was really upon them, what good did her resolve do her?
Mercifully, the meeting finished minutes later. After the cataloguing of several more casualties. After her declaration of a state of emergency in three more regions. How long would it be before she dispensed with the specifics and simply declared what everyone at the table already knew: the entire kingdom was in a state of emergency.
“Dyson, would you mind staying behind a minute?” she said as the council filed out of the room.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Dyson said something to Thuja and the minister nodded before looking in Miea’s direction and bowing gently. Not even Thuja had the heart to be brusque with her anymore. Dyson approached, but Miea said nothing as the room emptied. She turned to face the window overlooking the courtyard. A hoffler boldly stared up at her from the lawn and she offered it a tiny smile. The lizard darted away quickly.
“Is there something I can do for you, Your Majesty?”
“Trepidation is either the sign of great weakness or great wisdom,” Miea said, quoting Professor Liatris as Dyson had the other day.
Dyson stood next to her now. “I took the professor at his word back then, but I’ve come to learn he was right.”
Miea turned toward him, realizing they hadn’t been this close physically in more than four years. For a moment, she couldn’t utter a word as her training warred with her instincts. She could only look at Dyson’s face and note how unchanged it seemed from the days when she’d memorized its every contour and line. “At the moment,” she said, surprised at how slight her voice sounded, “I feel both very weak and very wise.”
“You aren’t weak, Miea. You have never once been weak.”
She smiled joylessly and lowered her eyes. Her tears welled much too quickly for her to catch them. “But I am very, very scared.”
Miea reached out and took Dyson in her arms. She held him as though he was responsible for gravity itself. It took her some time to notice that he was holding her as well, that he’d dropped his head onto hers, that her embrace had neither surprised him nor disturbed him.
It was terrible and thrilling. Just as her trip out to the fields to examine the first blighted leaves had been. Holding Dyson this way offered her rare comfort, but she never would have crossed this gulf if not for a tragedy even greater than the one that had torn them apart.
“We’re losing this battle, Dyson.”
“But we haven’t lost it. Not yet. As long as that is true, we might never lose it.”
“I don’t know what to say to our people anymore. I’m supposed to speak for the kingdom, but I can’t think of anything to say other than ‘I’m sorry.’”
Dyson tightened his arms around her. “The people know you’re doing everything you can.”
“Do they?”
Dyson pulled back enough to look her in the eyes. “Of course they do. They loved you as a little girl, they loved you as a princess, and they love you now. The way you bore up after your parents’ death and the way you returned a sense of celebration to the kingdom after we mourned was an incredible inspiration.”
Miea chuckled softly. “I wa
s crumbling inside and crying in private.”
“We all assumed as much, and that made us love you more.” He moved his head closer to her. “Even those of us you left behind.”
Miea’s tears returned and she buried her face in Dyson’s chest. “I never left you behind. Not in my soul. The demands of the kingdom overtook me to the point where I could never do anything about it. My parents’ deaths devastated me, made me want to hide in my room, and yet I had so much responsibility. Then, on top of that, there were the ongoing investigations into what killed them, the endless standoff with the Thorns, and now this crisis that has dwarfed everything else.”
Dyson ran his fingers through her hair soothingly and allowed her to feel what she was feeling. To Miea, this was a remarkable luxury. For several minutes, they stood against the backdrop of the courtyard and said nothing. At last, he guided her to a sofa and sat facing her.
“I have something to tell you about what happened on the Malaspina Bridge.”
The cloud around Miea’s head cleared as she heard the words. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been conducting my own investigation these past four years using resources available through the university, the minister’s office, and some people I never thought I’d associate with.”
“Why?” Miea said, stunned by this news.
“Because I knew you. I knew you wouldn’t believe what the investigators told you if it didn’t coincide with your assumptions. I was sure, though, even as the distance grew between us, that you would believe me. I received the definitive results from the investigation not long after Minister Thuja asked me to become your contact with Agriculture. I wanted to say something sooner, but I’m afraid our personal history got in the way.”
Miea shook her head sadly. “Our personal history. I thought you despised me.”
“‘Despised’ is definitely not the right word.”
Dyson smiled at her with a warmth she hadn’t seen in so long. An array of unexpected feelings raced through her. Still, she needed to know what he had discovered. “What did you learn from your investigation?”