by Pamela Morsi
“Right,” Sierra agreed. “And that’s why we should be doing everything we can to encourage that romance. Love is the glue that keeps life together.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s just crap,” I told my sister. But a part of me continued to wonder about it.
REAL LIFE
19
It was the first day after her second cycle of chemo that Mom’s hair came out.
Vern had decided to take us all on a day trip to Norris Lake. We were getting dressed and packing up our swimsuits when she came into the room and got us.
“I need you with me,” she said.
At first I thought she only meant Sierra, but she motioned for me to come, as well. We went into her bathroom. She sat down on the stool in front of the mirror and pointed to her hairbrush. A huge wad of hair clung to it.
“There was scads of the stuff on my pillow this morning,” Mom said. “Sierra, brush it out. Let’s see what we’ve got left.”
I took a seat on the vanity, and Sierra stood behind Mom. It was weird to see it just come out. It wasn’t as if it was hurting Mom. Or that it was being pulled out by the brush. It was like it wasn’t attached at all. Like it had been lying on her head by force of habit.
About three-fourths of her hair came out. She was left with a couple of completely bald patches and a visible scalp covered by a few long, reddish-blond wisps.
We were all staring in the mirror together. Silently, solemnly staring at the reflection.
Mom suddenly chuckled and shook her head.
“Sierra, can you see your own expression?” she asked. “Sweetie, you look like you just had to sit through an Ultimate Fear Factor marathon. It’s just hair.”
Sierra nodded, but she still looked concerned.
“I’m not sure how we should fix it,” she said.
Mom gazed in the mirror. “Get the razor I shave my legs with out of the bathtub,” she said. “I think a bowling ball would be preferable.” We lathered Mom’s head, but Sierra was still hesitant to do the deed.
Mom handed the razor to me and I shaved a section right down the middle.
“Now we really have to do it,” she said. “Come on, Sierra. We’re making progress here.”
Sierra took the razor from me and finished the job. Mom looked over her efforts like a new do from the salon, even using the hand mirror to get a view of the back.
“Well, now I know what my head looks like,” she said. “I’ve been alive for thirty-four years and this is the first unobstructed view I’ve ever had of it.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.
“The scalp is very white,” Sierra pointed out. “But I think it keeps you from looking quite so pale.”
Mom shot her a look and nodded.
“Very good, Sierra,” she said. “You girls are really getting the hang of this support thing. Try to see this as a lesson. Don’t place too much value on your looks, because they can desert you on very short notice.”
“Your looks haven’t deserted you!” Sierra insisted.
“No, Mom,” I agreed. “It’s only your hair that’s gone.”
“We can get you a wig, Mom,” Sierra said. “I think that’s what most women do.”
Mom nodded. “I can’t have a wig today. Maybe I can tie a scarf around my head or something.”
In the end, Mom settled on a red bandana covered with a baseball cap. Mrs. Leland noticed, but didn’t make any comment. Vern gave her an upbeat grin.
“Nice hat,” he said.
We stowed all our gear in the trunk and squeezed into the back seat of the Saab, with me in the middle. Rocky sat in Sierra’s lap, his snout hanging out the open window.
The state park lake was about an hour’s drive. It was rustic and a little run-down. But in the middle of the week, it was clean and fairly quiet, not overcrowded.
“We haven’t been out here in twenty years,” Vern told us. “The Tennessee Valley Authority built this place in the 1930s to show people who’d never seen nature controlled that a big damn project could be both practical and beautiful. It’s hard to argue with the outcome.”
The lake, with its deep cove beach and clear blue water, was surrounded by high forested ridges, that somehow made the big lake seem private and secluded.
There were sun worshipers laid out on towels, little kids with shovels and buckets, volleyball players facing off across a net and a couple of kite flyers gazing skyward.
We stripped down to our bathing suits and immediately went for a splash in the shallows of the cove. Rocky was running, jumping, swimming, barking like he was a puppy. Vern joined in as we kicked around in the water, playfully getting each other wet.
Mom was wearing her red vinyl bikini. I remembered it from the previous year, when it was still in fashion. It was very revealing, but what it revealed was a little scary. Standing next to Sierra, Mom looked as if she’d lost a tremendous amount of weight. She and Sierra had the same body style, curvy, hourglass. Now, Mom’s ribs were visible and the prominence of her pelvic bone at the side of her hip drew more attention than the skimpy suit she was wearing.
We decided to swim out to the platform. Mom declined.
“You go on,” she told us. “Rocky and I will hang here next to the shore.”
“I’ll stay here with your mother,” Vern said, sitting down in about a foot of water. “Keep her and the dog safe from drowning.”
Mom sat down next to him, laughing.
Sierra and I swam out. The platform, a twelve-foot square with diving boards on two sides and ladders on the other, was the hangout for teenagers. A few younger kids were trying to enjoy themselves. But mostly it was kids our age. Some were wild and crazy, having fun. Some were acting cool.
We didn’t know anybody, of course. But we didn’t have to. From the moment my sister stepped up on the deck, she was the center of everything, the focus of everyone. Guys of every stripe—geeks, jocks, poets—clamored for her attention. At least Sierra wasn’t one of those prissy types afraid to get her hair wet. She didn’t accept her natural charisma as a license to play queen. She genuinely liked people and wanted to have fun. And when she did, the kids around her did, as well. Almost instantly she had every guy on the platform wanting to hang with her. And most of the girls simultaneously wishing she’d be their best friend or drop from the face of the earth.
Sierra’s popularity didn’t bother me. For one thing, I was used to it. In my lime-green tank suit—flat in front, flat in back, but with big thighs—nobody noticed me. And with everyone concentrating on her, I was always free to do whatever I wanted without the annoyance that anybody might be watching me. I dived and leaped and tried to perfect my clumsy backflip without any unwanted attention. It was fun and I didn’t need anybody else. Though a friend would have been nice. I momentarily wished that Spence had come with us. But his dad was working and he was in day camp.
I took a break to catch my breath. Finding a seat on a corner of the platform, facing the beach, I dangled my feet in the water and gazed out at the shore.
Mom and Vern were still sitting together, both of them were looking in my direction, keeping an eye on us at the platform. And they were talking. I wondered what they had to say to each other. Maybe it was just ordinary stuff like how warm the day happened to be and the likelihood that there would be rain next week. But it might be more. Mom could be telling him about how it felt to have cancer. Was she saying how sad it was to lose her hair? Or were they talking about twenty years ago, when Vern last came here, probably with my dad.
That thought went over me with goose bumps.
Maybe Sonny Leland once sat right where I was sitting. Maybe he had practiced his backflip, just like me. I glanced back at Sierra, who was joking with a couple of boys. Mrs. Leland said my dad had Sierra’s disposition. Maybe he was the popular guy. He probably wouldn’t have noticed me, either.
No, I was sure I would have been special to him. If he’d known me, he would have liked me.
Beyond Mom
and Vern up on the shore, Mrs. Leland had a picnic table laid out. I was far away, so I really couldn’t see clearly, but it looked as if the table was full of food and drinks and a trickle of smoke rose from the nearby barbeque grill. Mrs. Leland was sitting alone. I couldn’t see her expression, of course. But there was something about the scene, something about her all by herself, that was just sad. I didn’t even like the woman, but somehow it just looked so sad.
I glanced back at Sierra. She was in the middle of a gaggle of guys. They were sharing diving secrets. Other girls were hanging around the edges, trying to worm themselves into the conversation. There was no place for me. Mrs. Leland was alone all by herself. I was alone in a crowd. I pushed off into the water and swam toward shore. When I got to the shallows, I stood up and walked leisurely past Mom and Vern.
“Hey, sweetie,” Mom said. “Did Sierra forget you exist again?”
I shrugged. “No big deal,” I assured her. “I’m just going up to get something to eat. You want something?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on your sister.”
“Vern? You want a soda or something?”
He shook his head. “Not right now,” he said.
I walked up the rise to our picnic site. Mrs. Leland was sitting on the concrete bench on the near side of the table. She was facing the lake, looking out at the action on the platform. But I knew somehow that, unlike Mom and Vern, she wasn’t watching out for Sierra.
“Hi.”
She glanced in my direction, though not quite at me and offered that tight smile that was about all she could ever manage.
“There are soft drinks in the cooler,” she said. “And if you’re hungry, you can fix yourself a plate.”
My stomach was rumbling a little, so I looked at what was available to eat. It was astounding. It looked like she’d picked up one of those lifestyle magazines with a glossy color photo and a caption reading “Elegant Lake Luncheon.” There were no hot dogs on buns with mustard and potato chips. There was a lattice-topped quiche, a salad with beets and pine nuts, a huge bowl of fruit and melons and a plate of cheeses.
“What are you going to grill?” I asked her, pointing to the charcoal.
“Chicken satay,” she answered, pulling the cover off a dish filled with meat on sticks. “Would you like some?”
“Maybe later,” I told her, thinking to myself that it was a stupid, showy, pretentious kind of picnic.
I grabbed up a piece of bread and bent it around some cheese before taking a seat beside her. All of the sad, loneliness that had struck me as so obvious from the distance of the diving platform was overridden up close by Mrs. Leland’s deliberate dislike and disapproval. We had that in common. She didn’t like me and I didn’t like her. But she knew things. Things that maybe it might hurt to ask. I didn’t care if she hurt.
“You used to come out here with my dad.”
It was a statement not a question.
At first I didn’t think she was going to respond. She continued to look out over the water. Finally she spoke.
“We came out in the summertime from when he was just a toddler until he was old enough to drive himself,” she said. “Some days he’d swim. Some days he’d hike. He loved it out here.” There was a long hesitation. “I didn’t think I would ever come back.”
“It’s a nice place,” I said. “That’s reason enough to come on your own.”
“It’s a family place,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “But that’s not everybody here. There are couples. And see that old lady down there near Mom and Vern? She’s all by herself.”
Mrs. Leland glanced down at the woman. About thirty yards across from them she sat in a webbed lawn chair, a huge beach bag at her side. She was curiously watching everything. Occasionally trying to strike up a conversation with passing children.
“Pathetic,” Mrs. Leland declared.
“Why?”
“She’s sitting there in the middle of today and remembering her own children and times long gone,” Mrs. Leland said. “She should be dealing with the realities and getting on with her life. It’s pathetic to cling to the past.”
I thought about Mom losing her hair.
“Maybe the present is too miserable and the future looks too scary,” I said.
Mrs. Leland shrugged. “Perhaps,” she said and looked away as if the subject no longer interested her.
Mom and Vern were headed our way. Vern was talking. He had his right arm bent and Mom had her hand on his bicep, leaning on him for support.
Mrs. Leland was watching them, too. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but she didn’t look all that happy.
When they reached the picnic table, Mom sat down beside me.
She gave me a wink and a tired smile.
“I don’t know what you two were thinking, sitting out on the beach for so long,” Mrs. Leland said. “They were very clear in that pamphlet on lymphoma that you should be limiting your exposure to UV rays.”
“We were watching Sierra,” Vern said.
“You could have watched her,” his wife said. “And allowed Dawn to get out of the sun. The chemotherapy makes her skin a lot more sensitive. Or did you know that?”
“I knew it,” Mom said quietly. She turned to me. “What are you up to?” she asked me.
I suppose my typical answer to that question would have been “nothing.” But at that moment, I knew Mom needed more from me. I felt that she needed me to talk. She needed me to distract attention from her, to take on Mrs. Leland when she didn’t have the strength to do so. She needed me to do something, so I did.
“Isn’t this lunch spectacular?” I said. “Real plates instead of paper. And every food you ever wanted to try. There’s crackers with fancy stuff on them. I bet it’s yummy.”
“Goose liver pate,” Vern said, smiling at me. “That’s one of my favorites.”
“I’ve never eaten any,” I told him. “I hope it’s better than regular liver.”
“Infinitely,” he said.
“And Mom, there’re some shish kebab things that go on the grill,” I said.
“Satay,” Mrs. Leland corrected me. “Chicken satay. With peanut sauce for dipping.”
“We really want to try that, don’t we, Mom?” I said.
Mom nodded. She gave me a little secret smile to let me know that she understood what I was doing and why I was talking. I was taking care of her.
“I’ll get this on the grill,” Mrs. Leland said as she picked up the container with the meat on sticks.
I hurried over next to her.
“Let me help you, Mrs. Leland,” I said, putting on my best Helpful-Hannah demeanor.
The woman startled slightly and looked at me, really looked at me, eye to eye for maybe the first time ever.
“Please, Dakota, you may call me…”
She hesitated, not sure how to finish her sentence. What was she thinking? Grandma? Phrona? I knew she wouldn’t be able to bear hearing me use either one.
“Well, you needn’t call me Mrs. Leland,” she said finally.
SONNY DAYS
20
They brought the baby home from the hospital. Not to the crowded, run-down mobile home, but to the Leland house in Old North Knoxville. It was a magic time. Sonny thought, more than once, that they should have named the little girl Peace instead of Dakota. She was the shred of common concern that now seemed capable of weaving his family back together.
It appeared to Sonny that his mother had been impressed by Dawn’s grit. His mother wasn’t one of those women who could quickly change her mind, but it was as if she had at last found something to admire in her daughter-in-law. And she was beginning to accept her granddaughters as a part of herself. She allowed Sierra to follow her around like a puppy all day long. And she was willing and eager to hold the baby anytime she was asked.
Sonny worried that Dawn might feel threatened by Phrona’s help. And he was pretty sure it would h
ave been true if the baby was their first. The advantage now of having two in diapers, an active toddler and a newborn, was that Dawn was too busy, too tired, too frazzled, to peer closely at family dynamics. When a helping hand was offered, she had no time to examine it for agendas or speculate on ulterior motives.
Of course, nothing was perfect.
“Your mother is going to spoil Sierra,” Dawn told him. “She dresses her like a princess. And she lets her watch too much TV.”
Phrona voiced her own concerns. “The new baby is neither as pretty nor as cheerful as Sierra. Despite the breast-feeding, I don’t think Dawn is bonding with her appropriately.”
Sonny patiently listened and reassured them both. They were the two women he loved most in the world and helping them get along was a role that he welcomed.
Two families living in one house was guaranteed to create a certain amount of friction. He knew that Dawn was eager to have a place to call her own again. And he was sure that his parents would be happy to get their lives back to normal, as well.
It was an outside source that brought the subject up for discussion.
Sonny received a call from a representative from the company. He wanted to stop by to see him in the afternoon. He had some papers to be signed.
Vern was home with the sniffles. He’d spent the entire day dozing in his chair in front of the TV hugging a tissue box. By chance, when the company man, Mr. Webb, arrived, both Sierra and the baby were napping. A rare occasion for both to be down simultaneously. So when Sonny, who had graduated from crutches to a cane, welcomed the guest and invited him into the living room, everyone was there.
There were a few moments of idle chitchat with polite as well as official inquiries about the condition of Sonny’s leg.
“Workmen’s compensation should be taking care of the medical bills,” Mr. Webb told him.
Sonny nodded. “I haven’t noticed any problems so far.”
“Has the doctor given you any indication of when you’ll be cleared to go back to the job?”