“Most of the time.”
“Oh dear, I’m sorry. That must have been very lonely for you.” She flips more pages. “ ‘In effect, the myriad municipalities in the metropolitan area act like tiny city-states—carefully drawing economic and color barricades around their boundaries; exercising their sovereignty, protecting their limited resources via zoning and building codes and the unwritten covenants of discrimination.’ ”
“Reading your thesis last night, Mom, it all made sense to me, looking back.”
“The five of us lived in the same little house for the four years that I was analyzing the politics of our town, all of us experiencing it differently. What were we each doing during that time?
“You were typing.”
“Ira was sailing.”
“Madeline was having fun with her friends.”
“Jennifer was my happy little girl—at least I think she was.”
“And I felt like was standing in the crossfire of a dangerous battlefront.”
“Always?”
“No, but it often seemed like I lived in that tiny city-state you described.”
“You modeled yourself after me, Alice. Walked in my footsteps, for better or worse, by choosing the vantage point of a pint-sized social scientist. You observed our striated, factionalized neighborhood, with its ethnic, religious, racial, socioeconomic boundaries, just like I did.”
“Not just like you. My technique was different. I climbed the tree and spied on you guys—”
“You spied on us?”
“Yup.”
She laughs. “Good for you, for discovering an original method for conducting fieldwork. I’m starving. Let’s order dinner.” She finishes the second bottle of beer and waves to the waiter.
THAT NIGHT, MICHAEL, Eliana, and I stay up late and watch the election coverage. I feel bad sending Eliana to bed at midnight, before the results are in. She cries and storms, but it’s a school night and it’s already way past her bedtime. Michael and I stay up. It’s a thrilling night. When I finally go to sleep, I feel more patriotic than I have ever felt before. Obama’s election would have made my mother so happy.
EIGHT
“Is your cancer cured now, Mom?”
“I think so, yes.”
“That’s great!” Eliana throws her arms around me. I wince, but don’t tell her how much it hurts.
“Mom, when is my surgery?”
“In thirteen days.”
“That’s soon.”
“Yeah.”
The school bell rings, and she sprints into the building.
IT’S MY LAST treatment.
I’m going to miss Jamal and Reggie.
I am going to miss the women in the waiting room. We sit around in our gowns reading women’s magazines. We wish each other luck. Patients come and go—younger and older than me. Some have both radiation and chemo, some just radiation. Some of us will survive. You get to know someone on your first day here, and she finishes treatment when you’re in the middle of yours, and someone new shows up. The magazines don’t change, so we tell each other which articles are our favorites. Six weeks ago, I was the new one in the room. The more seasoned radiation patients gave me tips.
“Take naps every day.”
“Take warm baths with scented candles.”
“Read this inspiring article in Oprah magazine by a breast cancer survivor.”
Now, I’m one of the experienced patients, giving tips to the newbies.
“Try walking through the Ramble in Central Park. And read this inspiring article in Oprah magazine.”
THERE IS THE customary sound of the low drone and rhythmic beeps, the hum of the fan and the muffled chords of classical music. The robotic arm of the radiation machine makes her slow circle one last time, hovering above me, smoothly arcing to the right, hovering at my side.
And now my mother’s arm encircles me. I don’t see her, but I feel the warmth of her arm reaching around me.
“I’m going to miss you, Mom. I mean, I’ll miss having you in the room with me. I’m grateful for these ten-minute interludes that have conjured our reunion, and for the flood of memories I’d blocked out for so long and that came back with such force. But Mom, when this last session is over, I won’t want you with me anymore. It’s time for me to concentrate on very real maternal responsibilities. I’ll need to focus on Eliana and getting her through this difficult procedure.”
“I could help you with that.”
“What makes you think I need your help?”
“You invited me.”
“Why did I do that?”
“You want my advice.”
“Okay, give me a quick synopsis, before the ten minutes are up.”
“Don’t try to be a perfect mother.”
“I reject that advice. Because—sorry if this offends you—I want to be a better mother than you were.”
“Maybe you will be, but there’s no such thing as a perfect mother.”
“Okay, not perfect. Unambivalent.”
“Good luck with that!” she laughs. “You are your mother’s daughter.”
“Okay, okay. Unwavering, then.”
“We all waver. Every mother fails her child at some point. I did. You did. Zoe did. The kids turn out okay.”
“I guess so.”
“If you try to be perfect—”
“Please, Mom, I want you to leave before Eliana has surgery.”
“—you’ll end up letting everybody down—”
“Or I’ll get really confused.”
“—including yourself.”
“Are you sure I invited you? I don’t remember inviting you.”
“This will help you to remember.”
I feel my mother’s hands on my back, X marks the spot, with a dot, dot, dot, and I do remember. Her hands are so warm. She’s teaching me to knead dough, she combs my hair, she sings a lullaby, she’s laughing, she’s admiring my drawings and paintings, she makes chicken soup, she brings a gray kitten home for me after I have chicken pox, she makes oatmeal cookies, she leads my Camp Fire Girl group on a hiking trip, she watches Julia Child on television and makes us boeuf bourguignon, she strokes my back, with a dash and a line and a big question mark, she throws salt over her shoulder for good luck, the air tastes like salt, everything is salty, like tears, like the ocean, like wind over waves at the beach, trickle up, trickle down, trickle all around, and I want the trickle up trickle down part to last forever.
“We are finished, Ms. Cohen. You may move about.”
“Are you alright?” Reggie asks, after I pull my robe on.
“I’m fine,” I say, wiping my tear-streaked cheeks.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Ms. Cohen,” says Jamal, “but we hope we never have to see you again.”
FOR TWO WEEKS after radiation ends, I’m wiped out, as predicted. My radiated skin looks and feels like it’s sunburned. It peels off in small strips. Underneath the peeling skin are patches of brand-new pale pink, damp skin. Itching and stinging. Cool baths help, for the duration of the bath. When I finish molting, the new skin on my left breast is pink and tender, like a newborn’s. My treatment is finished, except for tamoxifen, the estrogen blocker I’ll start next month and continue for five years.
“Mommy, when is my surgery?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
My heart sinks lower and lower in my chest, as if weighted down with lead weights, like the ones Daddy and I tied onto string to fish for bottom-feeding flounders. My weighted heart sinks all the way down and lies in the sand under the sea.
I reach for Michael’s hand, in bed, late at night.
“Michael, I’m scared of Eliana’s surgery. Are we doing the right thing?”
“Yes.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“What if it’s too much for her to bear?”
“It won’
t be.”
“I’m having second thoughts.”
“You always have second thoughts.”
“How do we know it’s the right thing to do?”
“Because three doctors said she needs this surgery.”
“How do we know those three doctors are right?”
“How do we know anything?”
“I don’t want to do it.”
“I can’t take your waffling, Alice.”
“I’m having really strong second thoughts.
“Don’t let Eliana know that.”
“Okay. But I can’t stop feeling that it’s a mistake.”
“Get over it. Eliana’s having surgery the day after tomorrow.”
PART 3
“Never say good-bye because good-bye means going away and going away means forgetting.”
—J. M. BARRIE, Peter Pan
ONE
“You look like a snowman,” Eliana said groggily, while she was still conscious. I was wearing a billowy white coverall, surgical mask, slippers, and hairnet. “You should wear that for Halloween.”
“I will,” I promised.
I held her hand as she was rolled into the presurgery room. She was hooked up to an IV and quickly going under, her eyelids fluttering. “I love you,” I whispered, kissing her forehead.
There was no turning back.
I joined Michael in the waiting room, and we stared out the picture window at the red sunrise over the ice-capped East River.
“I wish we’d braided her hair,” I said hoarsely, after a few silent minutes.
“I was just thinking that,” said Michael.
“No clips or rubber bands allowed,” the nurse told us. “Just pile her hair up in the net.” But I knew how tangled Eliana’s long, thick hair could get, and I regretted not braiding it. I also regretted . . . I suppressed the thought. There were steps I could take to repair tangled hair. My other misgivings were without remedy and therefore pointless to dwell on. So I obsessed about her unbraided hair and drank bitter waiting-room coffee.
An hour passed, and Dr. Campbell appeared.
“The surgery went like clockwork!” he proudly announced.
Michael and I held hands as we walked into the recovery room, cheerful as a morgue. Unconscious men and women lay in two rows of beds, tethered to breathing tubes and IVs.
Eliana was the only child. She looked like a beautiful fairytale princess who wound up in the wrong story. Her face was pale and still. We sat and waited and watched. Finally, her eyelids flickered and her fingers twitched. As she awakened, she was animated, surprisingly cheerful, kind of loopy. I was glad we’d prepared her for the discombobulating experience of waking with no sensation in her legs. She delivered a slightly demented and very funny running commentary on her sensations and lack thereof. She made us laugh.
But when the anesthesia wore off, she felt the bulky metal rod on her right leg. She realized that her thigh was impaled, through flesh and into bone, with six long bolts, which fastened the heavy fixator to her. She realized that this contraption would be attached to her leg for six months, and that she couldn’t move her leg without intense pain.
“I wouldn’t have done it, if I knew it would hurt this much,” she sobbed.
Eliana wanted to forget the four terrible days and nights she spent in the hospital: the pain and dislocation, the excruciating hours of physical therapy. I felt responsible for her agony, and regretted everything. Michael wanted me to stop my self-reproach, for God’s sake, and move on.
Eliana’s hair was so tangled by the first night that it was impossible to comb without causing more pain, so we postponed the inevitable task. The second day, her hair was a single dreadlock. The third day, her locks were more tightly locked, her dread more dreadful. On the fifth day, the physical therapist on staff said Eliana had made sufficient progress to be released from the hospital.
THE ORDERLY HELPS us get into a cab. The three of us squeeze into the back seat and hold hands. Eliana’s pediatric-sized walker—with which she is able to take a few painful, hesitant steps—lies folded on the floor in front of her. The taxi careens through Central Park and takes us home.
TWO
Eight months, for an eight-year-old girl, might as well be forever. The doctor said she had to begin weight-bearing immediately, even though each step is painful. This is more terrible than Eliana could have imagined. This is exactly as terrible as I had imagined. This is precisely the manageable challenge Michael had imagined.
Unlike me, Michael is not collapsing into a puddle of emotional ineptitude. He’s on top of it. He remains even-keeled, matter-of-fact. He deals with everything. He’s a rock. He’s the man. He’s the father. He sometimes has to be the mother, since I’m too incapacitated by sadness and fear and regret to be of much use. So much for my goal of maternal perfection.
Before the operation, Eliana was private and modest. She would get upset if I inadvertently opened the door while she was getting dressed. Now, she has to compartmentalize her modesty. She closes the door when she dresses herself in the morning, but accepts, resignedly, that Michael has to bathe her every night. I’m not strong enough to pick her up. Michael lifts her into the tub, carefully seats her on the plastic stool, and bathes her with the hand-held showerhead we installed before the operation. She wraps herself in a towel while he cleans the six pin-sites on her thigh, where the fixator is attached, with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and saline solution—literally pouring salt into her wounds. With six holes in her leg, infection is a constant danger, and Michael is vigilant.
If only I could kiss her boo-boo and make it better. I try to do the pin care, but when she cries, “It hurts so much, please stop, please stop!” I stop. It’s a reflex. I can’t continue when my child cries.
Eliana is able to temporarily lose herself in movies and television. She watches every episode of The Brady Bunch and Little House on the Prairie, and countless hours of SpongeBob SquarePants. On the third day home, I ask her to choose a movie so I can attend to the one problem I know I can fix. While she’s reviewing her options, I run across the street to the small salon where Ahmed cuts my hair.
“Try this,” says Ahmed, handing me a large bottle of extra-strength detangler, “And this.” He grabs a jar of hair goo from a high shelf. “Comb one small strand at a time, starting at the ends and slowly moving up to the scalp.”
“Thanks, Ahmed. How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. Just tell your daughter to get better, and bring her in if you need my help.”
Grateful for his kindness, I race back with the loot.
“I chose The Wizard of Oz.”
“Focus on the movie and pay no attention to me.” I liberate one strand at a time, while Dorothy survives a tornado, vanquishes the Witch, and outs the Wizard. By the third click of her ruby slippers, the tangles are out.
Eliana refuses to take pain medication. I stroke her back to help her fall asleep, trying to channel my mother’s expert touch. “X marks the spot, with a dot, dot, dot, and a dash and a line, and a big question mark. Trickle up, trickle down, trickle all around, with a pinch and a squeeze, and a cool ocean breeze.”
“Again, Mommy,” she murmurs half-asleep, reminding me of myself as a child.
“X marks the spot with a dot, dot, dot . . .” I can comb her tangles and give her back rubs, but I can’t make her better. I’m too weak and too squeamish to give her the medical care she needs. Michael is in charge of that. I’m merely his assistant, his sous-chef. It isn’t enough.
When she’s asleep, I swallow my first dose of tamoxifen. I put the pill bottle back, close the medicine cabinet, glance at the mirror, and see my mother’s face.
In a panic, I swing open the door of the medicine cabinet, so I can’t see the mirror. I distractedly rearrange the clutter of antacids, tamoxifen, Band-Aids, and pain meds, and sit down on the edge of the tub, my heart pounding.
Why is she here? I told her to stay away, that I didn’t want her aroun
d right now.
Yes, I want to remember my mother. I miss our talks and those radiation sessions, when we were transported back in time. But I refuse to be literally haunted by her. Mom wouldn’t have believed in this version of herself—showing up as a ghost in my bathroom mirror. She adamantly did not believe in an afterlife. No heaven, no eternal spirit, no ghosts, no angels, no visitations. “I want to be cremated,” she said, though her wish was trumped by her father’s wish for her to have a Jewish burial. “When you die, the body is meaningless, except that it makes excellent fertilizer. New flowers will grow where old ashes are buried,” she told me. She subscribed to no concept of a hereafter, except for her pantheistic belief that everything and everyone is part of one infinitely connected Cosmos, guided by Mother Nature. She herself wouldn’t endorse this vision of her ghostly face in the mirror being anything but a product of my imagination. She can’t be here. She has to leave.
I slowly close the medicine cabinet—and see only my own face.
I look older. I’m beginning to look like my mother. I stare at my silvering hair, the circles under my eyes. When did I get this old?
I turn from the mirror. This is not the time to dwell on mortality.
THREE
Eliana’s classmates send her an enormous get-well card. Her teachers send her a cookie telegram. Madeline sends books. Jennifer sends her a sock-puppet-making kit.
She gets a stomach flu. She grips her walker and slowly shuffles back and forth between living room and bathroom many times a day. No one can visit. She’s lonely and sad.
A week after her surgery, we begin to lengthen her leg, one millimeter a day. We do this by fitting an L-shaped Allen wrench onto the bottom bolt of her metal fixator, and turning it ninety degrees, four times a day. It is astoundingly low-tech. Eliana often lengthens her own leg. It takes only a few seconds to turn the wrench 90 degrees, and—Voila!—the leg is a quarter of a millimeter longer. After the fourth turn of each day, her leg is one millimeter longer; in ten days, a centimeter. After seven weeks, her right leg will be five centimeters longer, about two inchs. At the end of the whole procedure, she’ll still need a one-inch shoe lift, down from her current three-inch lift.
The Year My Mother Came Back Page 12