by Laura Roppé
Each and every time I returned home from bunco, I was surprised and relieved to see that Brad had capably put the girls to bed and the house was still standing. Not once did I come home to find my family huddling and shaking in a corner in their own feces, like dogs at the pound. Not once!
Now that we felt confident our husbands and children could manage—briefly—without us, the time had come for the Bunco Girls to venture out for a girls’ weekend. In Las Vegas, no less. After kissing our husbands and kiddies goodbye, we piled into a limousine headed for the airport, wearing matching pink tank tops that read MOMS GONE WILD.
In Las Vegas, the Bunco Girls danced into the wee hours of the morning among the twentysomethings in the clubs. We lounged at the pool and drank fruity drinks with pineapple garnishes. We played blackjack and craps in the casino. We ate uninterrupted meals at fancy restaurants and resisted the urge to cut up anyone’s meat but our own. We sat in the front row of the ABBA musical, Mamma Mia!, singing along to “Dancing Queen” and waving our arms in the air. We were like caged animals who’d been set free. And when we returned home, though our heads were pounding and our eyelids were drooping, we were revitalized and energized. We kissed and hugged our husbands and kids and thanked our lucky stars to have them. Our hearts were full.
She was up four times in the night with Baby
Can’t think clearly to save her life
Laundry piling up is downright dreary
And the older one’s begging for a pony ride
There’s only one thing to do, if she wants to stay sane
She calls up her girlfriends all with babies on the brain
“Put your kids to bed, get your skinny jeans on
Bust me outta here, ’cuz I’m so far gone”
Moms gone wild, Mama needs a girls’ night out
Moms gone wild, Lord knows she loves her child,
But Mama needs a girls’ night out!
Chapter 21
Brad and his partner in crime, Sophie, had started making noise about wanting a puppy. Whenever we saw someone walking a Boston terrier along the sidewalk, they would coo, “Oooh, so cute!” and, “Let’s get one!”
“A puppy would be good for the girls,” Brad reasoned one day. “They would learn responsibility.”
“No way,” I said, without a hint of equivocation. Between work and the girls, I didn’t have any extra energy or time to spend housebreaking and training a puppy. “I’m the one who’s gonna have to take care of it, and I’ve got enough on my plate. Absolutely not.”
“Oh, come on, honey,” Brad tried to charm me. “It would be so fun to have a new puppy.”
But I wouldn’t budge. “No way.”
“C’mon, honey,” Brad persisted. He wasn’t used to my resisting his charms.
“Brad, no.” And, knowing my husband all too well, I added, “If you go out and get a puppy without my consent, so help you God, you will rue the day. Not only would you be the sole caregiver for that puppy—and how you would handle that while at work all day is beyond me—but you’d also have to learn to enjoy life with a wife who hates your guts.”
I couldn’t have been any clearer.
And so, a week later, right before a three-day weekend off from work, Brad and Sophie came home with a brand-new Boston terrier puppy—a little mound of fur that looked like a black-and-white guinea pig. He looked quite a bit like our poor, departed Crazy Buster, but even I could see that this one didn’t have crazy eyes. He actually seemed pretty calm.
Still, I was livid. “I told you no!” I yelled at Brad. “I told you no!”
“I know,” Brad soothed. “But isn’t he cute?”
I was speechless.
Brad switched to a conciliatory tone. “Sophie and I went to a breeder just to look. And then the look on Sophie’s face . . . I just couldn’t say no.”
Silent treatment. A volcano about to erupt.
“Buddy, I promise, I’ll do everything,” Brad coaxed.
“You got that right.” I walked away in a huff.
Four-year-old Chloe, who had been just as surprised about this new development as I had, ran out into the alley behind our house and hollered at the top of her lungs, “We got a puppy!”—just as I had done thirty years earlier, when my parents (note to Brad: “my parents,” plural) had brought Darrow home.
At Chloe’s magic words, a horde of neighborhood kids descended upon the furball in Sophie’s lap, oohing and ahhing and jockeying to hold him. The expression on Sophie’s face was priceless—as if she had just sprouted magic wings that could fly her to Disneyland.
I wouldn’t hold the puppy, cute as he was. And I refused to pet him. I knew we would wind up returning him to the breeder within mere days, and I didn’t want to get attached. My heart ached for poor Sophie. She would be devastated when we told her the puppy had to go. She had just turned seven, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to understand. But really, how could Brad have gone out and gotten a puppy against my express wishes? It was inexcusable. Irresponsible. Disrespectful!
Over the next few days, while the girls cuddled and snuggled the puppy, Brad became that dog’s bitch. When I found a little puddle of puppy pee on the floor, I turned on my heel in the opposite direction, calling, “Brad!” When I found a little turd on the carpet, I just kept right on a-walkin’, shouting, “Brad!” And Brad, bless his heart, was Johnny on the spot with the Nature’s Miracle cleaner. At night, he woke up to take that puppy outside, and first thing in the morning, he did the same thing. He praised the puppy for every outdoor pee and poop, as if the dog had brokered world peace. Every day, Brad shoved the puppy blob through a doggie door over and over, just to show him how it worked. The dog looked quizzically at Brad with his Tootsie Roll eyes, as if to say, I don’t know why you keep shoving my butt through that little door, but I like it.
“What should we name him?” Brad asked the girls enthusiastically.
I pulled him aside. “Brad, we can’t name the dog. Once we name the dog, we have to keep the dog. And we’re not keeping the dog. You see how much work it is, and you can’t keep this up when you go back to work after the long weekend. And don’t even think about me helping you.”
Brad mumbled something that sounded a lot like, “You’re probably right.” He sounded dejected. It broke my heart, really, but our lives were complicated enough. We didn’t need to take on another dependent being. This would teach Brad not to go against my explicit wishes. He needed to realize that, on occasion, I actually knew best.
The next day, as if on cue, the puppy flopped his guinea-pig body right through the doggie door all by himself and then trotted off outside to pee under a bush. The whole family, even me, cheered maniacally. “Good puppy! Goooood puppy!”
I had to admit, the puppy was a genius. And so darned cute. And sweet. I’d never seen such a calm, affectionate puppy before. He was already following simple commands, just out of an innate desire to please. It seemed that Brad and Sophie had picked out a truly one-ina-million little dog.
Again, Brad asked the girls, “What should we name him? I was thinking maybe Boomer the Boston terrier. Or maybe Bruiser. Or Bubba?”
“No, Daddy,” Sophie said. “Let’s call him Buster.”
Brad and I looked at each other. Although Sophie did not have any firsthand memories of our departed Crazy Buster, she had long been watching family home movies featuring her toddler self dressing Buster in socks and hats. But wasn’t it weird to name successive dogs the same name? Wasn’t it odd that George Foreman had, like, six sons all named George? Yes, we were pretty sure it was very strange.
“Maybe let’s try another name?” Brad suggested. “How about Bandit?”
“No, Daddy.” Sophie was certain. “He’s Buster.”
We shrugged. What’s in a name? It certainly was easy to remember. I picked up the puppy and kissed his soft face. He was so warm. Just a little angel.
“Okay,” I proclaimed. “He’s Buster Francis Martín Hoffman Roppé II.” And
there was no chance anyone was going to return this sweet little puppy back from whence he had come.
A week later, I called Buster “Buzzy Wuzzy” when I nuzzled his fuzzy face. And that’s when I knew: I’d fallen hard.
You see, my name is Laura and I’m a hardcore nicknamer. It’s a disease.
Buster the First was Buzzy Wuzzy, Buzz Saw, and Buzzard. And now Buster II would inherit all of those nicknames, and probably more.
Brad, my lucky love, gets to endure being called Bird and Buddy. Not too crazy, right?
Sophie, is Soph-a-Loph, Fifi, and Fee. Still within the realm of reasonableness, right?
But my little one, Chloe, is my nicknaming masterpiece, my magnum opus. She is Chlo-Chlo, Coco, Coco Chanel Number Five, and Coco Puff. Puff Daddy. She is Cokie, which morphed into Cokie Roberts (a reference to the journalist) and Cokie Rabinowitz (a reference to no one). Cokie became Kookoo, which morphed into Kookoo for Coco Puffs, at which point I congratulated myself on artfully merging the Kookoo and Coco nickname branches.
You see? I can’t stop.
When Chloe was about three, Brad and I became acquainted with another couple, whose son was on Sophie’s T-ball team. After we’d been friendly with them for about six months, the husband told me he’d only just realized Chloe’s real name.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” he said. “You never call her the same thing twice.”
“Oh, you know how it goes with nicknames,” I laughed. “What silly names do you call your kids?”
He looked at me blankly. “I call them by name,” he answered. “By their given names.” And though he didn’t say it, I’m pretty sure what he meant to say was, “Duh.”
Chapter 22
Chemo Day had finally arrived. As Brad and I entered the chemo infusion room, I told myself I was She-Ra, Princess of Power. I was ready to rumble.
The chemo infusion center was a huge room with rows and rows of Barcaloungers, in which rows and rows of cancer patients—some better off than others—were receiving infusions from adjacent IV bags. Little whirs and beeps, as well as the sounds of televisions turned to low volume, filled the otherwise hushed room. My stomach was churning.
I smiled at the other patients as Brad and I walked to my Barcalounger at the end of the row. Some met my smile, but others, whose eyes were vacant, could not. They had been fighting this fight for a long time. I took a deep breath and settled into my chair, white-knuckled with fear. It was going to take about eight hours to administer my chemotherapy drugs, Nurse Julie advised me. The drugs had to be infused very slowly, or else severe complications—like a racing heart or closed throat—could occur.
Just do it already. The anticipation’s killing me. I winced at my casual use of that particular idiom at a time like this.
Nurse Julie began slowly pushing a drug called Adriamycin—what the other patients called the Red Devil—into my port. It was blood red (hence the nickname) and was so toxic, I was warned, it would burn my skin severely if it were to leak during administration. The sight of it entering my body was horrifying to me.
After my first dose of Adriamycin had been administered, I visited the bathroom (wheeling my IV stand along with me) and was traumatized to see bright red, Kool Aid–colored pee coming out of me. Alarmed, I told the nurse about it.
“That’s good,” she told me. “That means the drug is going through you.” She told me to drink tons of water to flush it through as quickly as possible.
Brad held my hand throughout the whole thing (except when I went into the bathroom). We talked. We stared at each other. We nibbled on bagels. He often touched my face or kissed my forehead.
The infusion itself wasn’t too bad, actually. Exhausting, but not painful. But when I got home that night, a debilitating nausea descended upon me. I felt like I was dying. And, for the first time in my life, that didn’t feel like a figure of speech.
A couple days later, hunched over and groaning in pain, I shuffled to the computer on my desk and wrote my first postchemo message to My Dearest Jane: “Oooh, Jane, I am having a rough go of this. Tried all the antinausea meds, but spent a grueling night. Slept with a bucket. Woke up today, and I can’t eat, I am so nauseated. Brad is so sweet, he keeps making me protein shakes, but it’s hard to get them down. I am going back to bed now, just wanted to ask for a cyber hug, and give you one in return.”
Despite the time difference, Jane’s reply came quickly: “Oh Laura, I am sending you massive cyber hugs. You can do this, you are a strong, beautiful, intelligent woman. You have the inner strength to get over this—even if your innards just feel like they wanna be your ‘outtards’ at the moment. I am holding your hand; I am sending you so much love. You can do this. We can do this!” Apparently, Jane had not encountered the same degree of nausea I had, though her chemo had, of course, kicked her butt, too.
For five days and nights after my first chemo, I lay in bed. Brad came in and out to check on me. The girls came in and out to kiss and hug me or tell me about their day at school. Even I came in and out of being there, so to speak, though my body was mercilessly there the whole time. But do you know who never left, who stayed by my side, even when I had deserted myself? Buster the Second. That sweet little dog lay in bed right next to me, nuzzling his body right up to mine, for five days and five nights. When I groaned in pain, he laid his head right on my chest, as if to listen for my heartbeat. When the house was quiet and everyone else was asleep, I looked into Buster’s brown, buggy eyes, and I felt as if our souls were communicating.
Buzzy, you’re healing me.
Love, he relayed back. He put his head on my chest and looked up at me with soulful eyes. He sighed.
A week passed, and, like magic, I emerged from the dark cave. I took Buster on a five-mile walk, gratefully breathing in the fresh air and sunshine. I played board games with Brad and the girls. I did laundry. And, I was thrilled to realize, I actually felt hungry. Just in time, because it was Turkey Day.
Brad and I took the girls up to the mountains for a big Thanksgiving feast with my entire extended family, who welcomed me with tearful hugs and heartfelt words. Dad in particular was beside himself with worry, telling me repeatedly how much he loved me.
I could not actually taste my favorite meal of the year, because chemo had dulled my taste buds (a common side effect). But no matter. This holiday was not about the meal.
After the dishes had been put away, I trudged into the kitchen, pulled out an electric razor, and announced to Brad and the girls and my entire extended clan of parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews, “Let’s do this thang, people!” I knew my short hair wasn’t long for this world, and I wanted to take control of the situation.
As I dragged a wooden chair from the dining room and seated myself ceremoniously in the middle of the kitchen, my large family assembled around me, tittering and laughing with nervous excitement.
“Okay, let’s do it!” they responded back, readily understanding my need for a celebration—whether forced or not—instead of tears.
Through nervous giggles (and a few unavoidable tears), each and every family member took a turn swiping that electric razor across my head. And with each vibrating pass, I felt empowered. You’re firing me, hair? Oh, no—I quit!
In short order, my hair was shorn to military standards, except for one solitary patch at the crown of my skull that looked like a tiny yarmulke.
Everyone in the family had taken a swipe—except for Sophie. She stood in the back of the room, alone, cowering, and unwilling to touch the razor. Slowly, the group’s attention shifted to my sad little Sophie.
The room became hushed.
In a flash, the charade of our celebration came to an end. Sophie’s anguished face brought us back to reality. This wasn’t fun. This was ripping all of our hearts into little tiny bits.
“Sophie,” one of her triplet cousins coaxed, “it’s kinda fun.” Thank goodness for eight-year-olds.
“You can do it, hone
y,” I echoed, choking back tears. “C’mon.” I wanted Sophie to feel more powerful than the cancer that had been stalking her mommy. I wanted Sophie to look back on this moment one day and remember that she had fought back.
The entire family added their words of encouragement.
Sophie timidly stepped forward, and Brad placed the buzzing razor in her slender hand.
Just behind me, I could feel the warmth of Sophie’s breath on my cold, bare neck.
She hesitated.
“It’s okay, honey,” I reassured again from my chair in the middle of the kitchen. Hair shavings dusted my shoulders and surrounded my chair. The room had become quiet, except for the soft hum of the razor.
Sophie exhaled softly. Finally, I heard the razor rise up behind my head and graze the top of it oh so briefly—followed by a rising cheer from the family. It was hardly a swipe at all, more of a . . . touch. But still . . . Sophie did it.
After a pause, someone else relieved Sophie of the razor and she quickly retreated to the corner of the room again, but this time, she was surrounded by her doting cousins.
Someone else finished the job, leaving me with uniformly quarter-inch-long hair all over my head, just like Demi Moore in G.I. Jane. I was, once again, a badass.
On our way home from our Thanksgiving feast in the mountains, I ran in to the local grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk while Brad waited in the car with the kids. As I walked down the milk aisle, I passed a surly-looking dude—we’re talking shaved head and neck tattoos—who winked at me and mumbled, “Hey” as we passed each other in the aisle.
Oh my god, I thought. He thinks I’m edgy. Little did he know, I had looked like a soccer mom in my not-too-long-ago past life.