by Pamela Morsi
That ticked her off.
Mrs. Leland glanced first at Sierra and then at me. “I have concerns of my own,” she said. “We’ve lived in Old North Knoxville for thirty-seven years. We know everyone and they all know us. You’ll need to impress upon your daughters the need for them to be on their best behavior.”
Mom went silent. I could tell by her eyes that she was mad enough to reach across the table and choke Mrs. Leland. Instead, she retaliated with dark humor.
“Oh, of course,” she told her and turned to us. “Girls, you can only stay out drinking and gambling on the weekends. And please remember, it’s polite to step out to the porch when you light up your crack pipes.”
Mrs. Leland looked like a deer in headlights.
Vern laughed, a little too deliberately.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Dawn,” he said. “Sierra and Dakota will be fine. Two bright, enthusiastic young girls, I’m sure they’ll be no trouble and a big help to all of us. We had a lovely time at the library. I gave them a little minitour of downtown. Not much to see, I suppose when you’ve lived so many places. But there is a lot here to explore. It will be wonderful. We’ll do hiking trips and go swimming. The summer is a magic time in Tennessee. I know you both will just love it here.”
Mrs. Leland didn’t comment, she went back to eating.
“My neighbor, Del, takes his boy to a day camp thing at the church,” Vern said. “Would you girls be interested in doing something like that? You could meet a lot of nice kids.”
Sierra smiled at him, a little too sweetly. “I’m probably too old for that,” she said and then looked at me, her eyes sparkling, devious. “But I’m sure Dakota would like to go.”
My sister should have known not to try to match wits with me.
“Yeah, that would be great,” I said. “Spence told me that lots of cool guys hang out there. They actually have skateboarding as one of their special activities.”
One of the big advantages of having a sister with the brain function of a pea pod is that you can really put stuff over on her. Sierra’s eyes got big, her mouth opened, but she didn’t know what to say. She knew I might be lying, but she couldn’t be sure.
Unfortunately, Mom is not so easily fooled.
“I don’t think either of the girls really needs to be in camp,” she said. “They’re used to being on their own while I’m working. I’m sure they’ll do fine while I’m in treatment.”
“Okay,” Vern agreed, nodding. “They’ll meet most everybody in church anyway.”
There was a long silent pause before Mrs. Leland spoke up.
“Yes, I suppose we will have to take them to Sunday services,” she said, almost sighing. “I don’t suppose they’ve had much exposure to religious life.”
Mom took the bait again.
“No, unless you count those animal sacrifices under the light of the full moon.”
“That is not funny.” Mrs. Leland was miffed. “Knoxville is a very conservative community.”
“You say the word conservative as if it were a virtue instead of a mind-set.”
“What would you know about virtue?” Mrs. Leland said under her breath, just loud enough for everyone to hear it.
“Phrona!” Vern’s voice was harsh.
Both women immediately became silent.
He gave his wife a stern look and then one almost equally as censuring to my mother. “We’re not going to have this kind of bickering among the family.”
“It’s my fault,” Mom said, startling Sierra and me. Her tone was unexpectedly conciliatory. “I really want the girls to get on here,” she told the Lelands. “I want Knoxville to be a good experience for them.”
“Of course it will be,” Vern said.
I don’t think anybody else was as certain.
REAL LIFE
13
They cut the bad lymph node out. It was what the doctors in Texas had thought it was, what the doctors in Tennessee hoped that it wasn’t. It was Mom who told us.
” It’s what they call a high-grade large cell lymphoma,” she told us. “It’s considered very aggressive. So we have to be aggressive, too.”
She was to start chemotherapy the very next week. She’d go to the clinic once a week, where they would give her IVs. At home she would wear a pump that would give her another medicine. And she would take pills every day. She’d do this for three weeks and then she’d get a week off. Mom said that like it was some kind of vacation. Then the next week the chemo would start up again.
“How long does this go on?” I asked her.
“Only six or eight cycles,” she said.
I wasn’t sure what she meant. “How long is a cycle?”
“Well, it’s the whole month,” she answered. “Three weeks of chemo and a week off.”
“You’re talking like six to eight months?”
“Well, for sure I’m going to be hanging around with you girls, living off the Lelands, like a big old slug all summer,” she said.
Sierra laughed. “A summer of slugs. I can go for that.”
Mom talked like it was no big deal. Medicine was medicine, she said. But I knew this stuff was no aspirin or cold pill. It was like taking poison.
To be reassuring, Mom took us to the hospital to show us around.
“I just want you to see the place, so you’ll know where I’ll be all the time,” she told us.
I think she was trying to make us feel better about everything. The Cancer Center at the University of Tennessee was brand-new. It was clean and bright, the walls were adorned with beautiful artwork and the floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on views of south Knoxville and the river. I guess she thought we’d see what a nice place this was and we’d be more confident that everything was going to be all right.
The staff all seemed young and friendly, laughing and joking around, a lot different than the patients. The place was filled with thin, frail-looking people with off-color complexions and hollow eyes.
It was Mom’s appearance that was the most reassuring. She’d thrown off the dowdy wardrobe that had been her basic uniform since arriving at the Lelands. She was wearing a spaghetti-strap knit top that clearly showed off her nipples and was cut low enough in front that the entire heart-shaped vine of roses tattoo was visible. Her favorite jeans were low-riding and tight fitting. The rhinestones along the hem drew attention to the five-inch glam high heels that made her look tall and sexy.
It was Mom at her most ultimate Mom-ness. This is the person I knew her to be. And it felt a lot better somehow looking at her like that than the way she’d been these last few days.
She was flirty and sexy with all the guys. Doctors and janitors alike were given her brightest smile and teasing attention. That allowed me to sort of shine in the glow of the attention around us. It’s hard not to enjoy that.
I got stuck sitting in the waiting room. She had Sierra go back to a treatment room with her while they put in the catheter port.
“Your sister has a better stomach for this kind of thing,” she told me.
I didn’t think that was true. But it was clear that Sierra was more fun to be around. It was all I could do not to mope and whine. I needed Mom and I was scared.
Sierra either didn’t have my worries or she hid it better. She was a kind of G-rated version of Mom’s frothy, sparkling personality. The two of them together could warm up a steel girder. Nobody in this place was nearly that cold.
Even the nursing staff, which was mostly female, seem to get a kick out of them. Mom never suffered a lot from other women’s jealousy. Somehow her exuberance was so infectious it was hard to work up any competitive feeling. And having cancer gave her even more leeway than usual.
I sat there on the narrow mauve chair, trying not to look at the other patients. Trying not to imagine my mom looking so sick and old.
There was a rack of pamphlets on one wall. I wandered over and checked out the titles. Lots of different kinds of cancer were represented. I didn’t see
anything on the kind Mom had. There were leaflets about chemo and other therapies. Some about diet and exercise during cancer treatment. A couple on psychological aspects. Then one caught my eye. Helping Your Children Cope with Your Cancer. I picked it up casually. Somehow I didn’t want anybody looking at me.
I carried it back to my chair and read it. I caught myself hoping that it was going to tell me something, something that would make me feel better and safer and all right with this. I read nothing like that.
Mom and Sierra finally came out. Mom was pale but she seemed all right. She’d buttoned her sleeves back down so I couldn’t see what they had done.
Sierra couldn’t talk enough about it. She was fascinated.
“And they put like a metal wire into the tube and took an X ray so that they could see that it was going right into the heart.”
The folks in the waiting room, in general, were not interested in my sister’s chatter. I thought we ought to get out of there before we were likely to wear out our welcome.
“I’m getting hungry,” I told Mom. “Can we go get something to eat now?”
Mom happily agreed.
I think she assumed that she’d succeeded in calming my fears.
As we headed toward the parking garage, Sierra was chattering about being a nurse.
“You know it might be really fun,” she said. “Except for those baggy pants uniform things are totally gross. Do you think there might be other clothes that a nurse could wear? I’d really want to look better than that.”
Mom was nodding and listening. I had to speak up.
“There’s more to nursing than the clothes you wear,” I pointed out.
Sierra waved away my concern.
“Oh, I know there’s blood and stuff,” she said. “I think I could stick one of those tubes up someone’s heart. Well, maybe not the first time, but eventually.”
“I wouldn’t want you practicing on me,” I said.
“Not all of them do that kind of thing,” she said. “Maybe I could be one of those nurses that just walks around with the doctor and cheers people up.”
“Nursing, the cheering profession?” I questioned sarcastically. “You’re confusing it with another vocation that involves megaphones and pom-poms.”
I didn’t get to say anything more as along a long sunlit corridor that separated the Cancer Center from the parking garage we unexpectedly met up with a couple of familiar faces.
“Well, hello!” the guy said. “Look, Spence, it’s the girls next door.”
Del Tegge was looking really good in Dockers and a button-down shirt. Not good like hot. But good like good. It was as if he had a sign around his neck that said Hey, This is a Really Nice Guy.
Just like our last encounter, he brought out the best in me.
“Hi, Mr. Tegge, hi, Spencer,” I said, politely. “This is my mom, Dawn Leland, and my sister, Sierra.”
The guy was all smiles and friendly. He allowed his gaze to drift downward for just one quick glance at Mom’s tattoo, then he kept his gaze focused very deliberately on her eyes.
“Mrs. Leland, Sierra, it’s so nice to meet you both,” he said.
Mom laughed and feigned a horrified expression. “Dawn, call me Dawn,” she told him. “When you said Mrs. Leland, I had to look over my shoulder to make sure Sophrona wasn’t standing behind me.”
“Dawn,” he agreed, nodding. The way he spoke the name it sounded almost lyrical. “And you have to call me Del. We’re your neighbors in Old North Knoxville.”
“Well, how lucky is that for us!” Mom said, a little bit over the top. “And you’re Spencer?”
Mom bent over to ruffle the kid’s hair and get down to his eye level. He didn’t have his dad’s basic decency. He was staring in openmouthed awe at her breasts. Of course, with her bent forward like that, she was practically shoving them in his face.
The same behavior that had given me such hope inside the Cancer Center was now hopelessly embarrassing me. Why did she have to be like this? How come she couldn’t see how un-Mom-like she was behaving?
I couldn’t lash out at my mother, so I went after Spence.
“So what are you doing out of kiddie camp?” I asked him, snidely. “Time off for good behavior?”
“It’s Saturday,” he answered, defensively.
“Spence is meeting his mother and stepdad for lunch,” Del clarified.
“They’re here?” Mom asked.
“His stepfather is Wiktor Bodnarchuk.”
He said the name like we would know it. We didn’t.
“He’s Chief of Oncology,” Del said. “If you do your treatment here, I’m sure you’ll meet him.”
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. I wasn’t sure just why, until Del stammered into apologetic explanation.
“I’m…I’m a close friend of Vern,” he said. “I asked about your visit and…he…mentioned your illness.”
Mom shrugged. “It’s not some big secret,” she said.
I think she was offended, but Del came across as so sincere, it would be hard to be angry at the guy.
“Listen,” he said. “While you’re in the hospital or whenever, we’d be delighted for the girls to hang at our house. Wouldn’t we, Spence?”
The kid didn’t answer, he was still partially mesmerized by my mother’s chest.
Mom managed a polite, noncommittal response and we said goodbye.
I had no intention of going over to hang out with Spencer. But the truth was, when the next day came, Mom had Vern drive her to the hospital, Sierra parked herself in front of the TV and Mrs. Leland went out to her garage office, and I was pretty bored. And being bored gave me too much time to worry about what was happening. I just didn’t want to think about it. I tried to believe it was as simple as Mom said. Chemotherapy was just a fancy name for medicine. Mom would take her medicine, she’d get better and we’d move on. That was how it had to be.
The fear that it might be something else drove me next door. I rang the doorbell.
Spence opened it up. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to be there.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I answered. “I’ve got nothing to do. I thought I’d come over here.”
He nodded, a little uncertain.
“Who is it, Spence?” his dad called from another room.
“It’s Dakota Leland.”
“Hey, Dakota, come on in,” Del Tegge called out. I could hear him before I saw him.
Spence directed me toward the dining room. The table was covered with papers spread out all over it and more boxes all around.
“What are you doing?”
“Preparing for a public meeting,” Tegge answered. “I’ve got to get all my ducks in a row if I have any hope of getting them going in the right direction.”
“My dad’s an environmental activist,” Spence said.
“Oh.”
Del smiled at me. “I bet you’re a friend to the environment,” he said.
I shrugged. “I’m not an enemy of it, I don’t guess.”
He laughed.
“Kids like you and Spence, that’s what activism is all about,” he said. “Adults like me are creating a mess that you’ll have to spend your lives cleaning up. I’m just trying to get a little head start for you.”
I nodded. “So you’re like saving species and stuff like that.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “That’s a big thing, a dramatic thing. But a lot of the work that we need to do is small. Just tiny little steps that can make a difference. Tonight is a public meeting on a landfill site. It’s my job to try to anticipate all the possible impacts to groundwater, air quality, vegetation and wildlife. Wading through all the science and speculation is like working out a really complex mathematical problem. And then being able to explain it so that everybody can understand it is like starting with molecules of hydrogen and oxygen to make iced tea.”
I didn’t really understand what he meant, but I acted like I did. We watched him for
a few minutes. He sorted papers and made notes. Finally he suggested that Spence show me his room.
“Sure, come on,” he said.
We went upstairs and toward the back of the house. The room was pretty big, and not particularly uncool. He had a dormer off the back that led to a small balcony with a telescope pointed up toward the sky. The walls of his room were decorated with space posters and vivid Hubble photos. A very cool and expensive laptop computer sat open on his desk. The screen saver was a slide show of the constellations.
“So you’re like into astronomy and that stuff,” I said, voicing the obvious.
“Yeah,” he told me. “I’m geeky and I’m a science guy. You should really keep your distance. Don’t want anything to rub off.”
I couldn’t really pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. I hadn’t been too nice to him. I guessed I was going to have to try.
“Honestly, I kind of like science myself,” I told him as an apology. “Sorry I’ve been so snotty.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
I figured he got that nice stuff from his dad.
“I guess it hasn’t been such a great time for you, with your mom sick and all.”
“I don’t want to talk about my mom,” I told him as I plopped down on the bed. It had a navy-blue comforter with tiny stars and four big star-shaped pillows.
“This is pretty cool,” I told him.
Spence shrugged. “My mom picked it out,” he said. “My other bedroom is decorated in music.”
“Like rock stars?”
He shook his head. “Like sheet music. I play the piano. But I don’t have a piano here.”
“So you have two bedrooms.”
“Yeah,” Spence said, slumping down to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Two stereos, two computers, two TVs, two of everything. That way I can go back and forth without carrying a suitcase. So neither parent feels like I’m visiting.”
“That seems good,” I said.
“It’s good for them.”
“I can’t imagine having two bedrooms of your own. I’ve never even had my own bedroom yet,” I admitted. “I always have to share with my sister.”