The Words We Leave Unspoken

by L. D. Cedergreen

  “I’m sorry,” he says, running his hand down my arm. I shake off the wave of chills his touch invokes.

  “I need to call my mom,” I say as I pull my phone out of my purse. “Give me a sec.” I step away and dial my mother.

  She answers on the first ring as if she’s been waiting by the phone. I give her a quick update on Gwen.

  “Oh thank God,” she says, relieved that Gwen is finally awake. I repeat John and Gwen’s requests and she assures me that she’ll be here as soon as possible.

  “How are Max and Olivia?” I ask.

  “Max seems fine. Olivia is upset and anxious to see her mom,” she says.

  “That’s understandable,” I say mindlessly, staring out the window, feeling sick with worry for both the kids and Gwen. For all of us.

  I say goodbye, toss my phone back in my purse and turn to Grey.

  “You don’t have to wait around for me. My mom’s bringing my car and I’ll most likely be here all day.”

  He doesn’t argue as he says, “Okay, but please call me if you need anything and tell John the same. Okay?”

  “I will,” I answer, nodding my head. And then add, “Thank you.”

  “I’ll check back in later then,” he says in a questioning tone.

  I only nod again and watch as Grey makes his way toward the elevator, wondering what happens when the weight we carry becomes more than we can bear.

  Chapter 30

  Gwen

  I feel out of sorts with the way everyone is fussing over me. I feel completely helpless, lying in this bed with barely enough strength to raise my head. I’ve had a series of tests and scans already this morning and John, Charley and I sat at full attention as Dr. Sheldan explained that due to the toxicity of my heart, we have to stop treatment. He suggests we wait a month, monitor my heart and when I feel stronger begin a new treatment, an oral medication that is less aggressive but still effective. My scans still showed promise, meaning the cancer has not grown or spread since we started two months ago. I don’t feel any sense of relief from this news. He explained that my heart is not pumping blood efficiently, the muscle severely weakened and damaged, and went over a list of medications that I will have to take in order to treat this condition. I listened to Dr. Sheldan, hanging on his every word but my mind was screaming, Why is this happening? It all feels like a dream. John asked a thousand questions: How will this effect my daily life, my routine? Can I drive? How do we know that I won’t have another episode? Does the new treatment change my prognosis? Questions that I would not have thought to ask and could not articulate in the moment. Dr. Sheldan answered each one clearly: I should feel like myself in a few weeks; No driving until he gives me the okay; As long as I am taking my meds and getting plenty of rest, I shouldn’t experience another episode, but that I need to listen to my body, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness are all symptoms that need immediate assessment; and the new treatment offers a similar prognosis - a hopeful five years but longer if we’re lucky.

  Lucky. I’m feeling anything but lucky.

  As if to disorientate me further, it seems that Charley, of all people, has assumed my usual role. Once Mom arrived with Olivia and Max and two separate packed bags for John and I, she sent John to her house for a shower and sent Mom and the kids to a coffee shop down the street where she swears they serve the best cinnamon rolls in Seattle. I tried to argue as I was desperate to see the kids, but Charley insisted that I freshen up a bit so that my appearance wouldn’t scare Olivia and Max. Now she is brushing the tangles out of my hair and helping me brush my teeth. All difficult tasks when you’re lying on your back with your head elevated only thirty degrees. She washes my face with a warm cloth and applies a light moisturizer. I’m not sure if I look much better, but I sure feel better.

  After what feels like forever, John reappears in my room looking freshly showered and clean-shaven. He looks tired as hell but I’m glad that he’s here.

  “Ready for the munchkins?” he asks as he bends down and kisses my cheek.

  I nod, feeling anxious. John and I decided to tell the kids that I have cancer. We aren’t going to tell them what that means for all of us, agreeing that we should keep things simple and easy.

  “Technically, they’re not supposed to be in the ICU, but I did some schmoozing and they can both come in for awhile,” John says.

  “I’ll go get them,” Charley offers. “Be right back.”

  Moments later, I see their heads poke in from behind the curtain that is pulled closed across the open doorway.

  I try to sit up a little straighter, ignoring the pain in my chest and my labored breath.

  “Hey,” I say. “Come here you two.”

  “Hi Mom,” Olivia says first as she steps into the room followed by Max who is distracted for a moment with all the gadgets around us.

  I pat the empty space next to me on the bed and Max runs and leaps up beside me, hugging himself tightly against my side. I wince at the pain but wrap my arms around him.

  “Mommy,” he says into my chest.

  “Hi Bubs,” I say around the lump in my throat as tears sting my eyes.

  I watch Olivia as she hesitates, unsure of the situation. “Come here, Love Bug,” I say and motion for her to join Max on the bed. She sits beside me stiffly, opposite of Max. I run my hand down her back and brush my fingers through her hair. “How are you?” I ask her.

  I watch as she tries so hard to be strong but I see her bottom lip tremble before she bursts into tears. I pull her to me and John walks over, leans down and embraces us all and we stay like this, as if time is at a standstill, even if only for a few moments.

  I feel Max trying to wiggle out of our group hug and so I clear my throat as I reach up and wipe my tears away. We all disengage and John sits next to Olivia on the bed.

  “So Daddy and I want to talk to you about why I’m sick.” I look to John for reassurance and he nods and places his hand on Olivia’s shoulder for support. “I have cancer. It’s like a bunch of bad cells that spread in my body, taking over the good cells. I can’t get rid of it, it’s something I’m always going to have, but I have medicine that will help stop the bad cells from growing. I don’t want you to worry though. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “But if everything’s okay, why are you sick?” Max asks, innocently.

  “Well… I was taking the wrong medicine before and my body didn’t like it and that’s why I had to go to the hospital, but now I’m going to have the right medicine.”

  “Are you going to die?” Max asks bluntly with his eyebrows pulled in tight.

  “Well...” I look at John, unsure of what to say.

  “Not for a really long time, Buddy,” John says and reaches over and musses Max’s blond curls. This seems to placate him.

  “I don’t want Mommy to die. Who’s going to cut the crust off my sandwiches? Who’s going to tie my shoes in double knots, the way I like it?” I smile at the simplicity of his thoughts but my heart breaks at the same time.

  “So you’re going to be okay?” Olivia asks hesitantly, much less confident than Max with our answers.

  “Yep. I’m going to be okay. I have to take it easy for a while until my body heals from being sick, but after that, everything will be back to normal,” I say, squeezing her hand.

  “Promise?” she asks, her eyes so big I am reminded of her face as a toddler. I hesitate for the briefest moment, not wanting to make a promise that I can’t keep, but knowing that I need to reassure her, that it is my job to protect them both from the horrible truth, the crippling fear of my death; I lie.

  “Promise.” The physical ache in my chest morphs into a stabbing pain that takes what little strength I have to contain. John and I exchange a look and then he gives me a slight smile. I feel exhausted all of a sudden and John must sense it. He stands up and says with more energy than I can muster, “Who wants a hamburger?”

  “Me,” Max cheers.

  Olivia’s not buying John�
�s enthusiasm, she sits still and stares at me as if I might disappear the moment she turns her head.

  “Go eat, Love Bug,” I say. “I’m just going to rest for a while.”

  She stands up, albeit reluctantly, and follows John and Max out the door.

  I exhale the breath I’d been holding as a flood of suppressed tears pour down my cheeks and a choked sob echoes in the abrupt silence of the room. I give in to the pain as I wonder how much more my damaged heart can endure.

  Chapter 31

  Charley

  After leaving Olivia and Max with Gwen and John, I lingered outside the door to Gwen’s room, just waiting. I’m not sure how much time has passed when John and the kids finally step into the hallway, moving so slowly, it’s as if their feet are weighted down with bricks.

  I quickly muscle a smile and say, “Hey guys, where to now?”

  “We’re heading across the street for a burger,” John says. “Wanna come?” he asks almost as an afterthought. Knowing he needs some time alone with Olivia and Max, I decline.

  “You guys have fun and I’ll see you in a bit,” I say. Neither Olivia nor Max respond. John pats my shoulder and then I watch the three of them walk away, hand-in-hand.

  I poke my head into Gwen’s room, but she seems to be asleep and I don’t want to wake her.

  I watch her chest rise and fall for a moment, trying to imagine how hard this must have been for Gwen, putting on a brave face to tell her children that she’s sick. I worry about Olivia and Max and how this moment changes the course of their lives, thrusting an unfair dose of reality into their naïve world that no child should have to face.

  I leave Gwen and return to the waiting room.

  I spot my mother sitting alone in the corner with her back to the only window; a small pool of light shines through like a halo around her face. Her eyes are vacant as she stares at nothing in particular, her fingers fanned across her lips. I sit down in the chair next to her and several minutes tick by before she acknowledges me, as if her mind had to travel back from some distant place before it could land here in this bleak reality.

  She drops her hand from her mouth and says my name.

  “Hi Mom,” I say. Her mouth lifts on one side in a half grin as if a full smile requires too much energy or happiness.

  She turns her body toward me and takes my hand in both of hers. I look at our hands and note how similar they are, small and thin with long, spindly fingers. It feels strange to hold my mother’s hand, intimacy has never really been our strong suit.

  We both stare at our hands, our heads tilted so close to one another that I can smell her strawberry scented shampoo. Her voice is quiet and soft as she says, “I keep going back in my mind to when you and Gwen were young and I keep asking myself if things would be different if I would have handled it all better. I look at the both of you and I’m so proud of the strong, competent women that you’ve become, but over the past few days I’ve seen firsthand the cracks in your foundation and I can’t help but feel that it’s my fault.”

  I look up at my mother’s face; her eyes are fixed on our hands as if she’s afraid to look into my eyes. Tears slowly trickle down her cheeks and she reaches up with one hand to wipe them away. I don’t know what to say. We’ve never talked about the past or our feelings or anything else involving matters of the heart. I have always blamed my mother for my issues with relationships and intimacy and anything else that seems to go wrong in my life. But I have to wonder what “cracks” she is referring to. The part of me that seems hell-bent on spending my life alone rather than risk my heart? I know that love can lift you up and make you feel invincible but I also know how vulnerable it can leave you. The higher the high, the harder the fall and the more violent the shatter, scattering a million tiny shards of your heart into a thousand different directions. I don’t know how many falls a heart can take before there is nothing left to put back together, but I have never wanted to find out. And Gwen? What “cracks” does she have? The fact that she couldn’t tell her own husband that she’s sick? That she felt she couldn’t rely on someone else? I’ve never thought of Gwen as anything but whole and strong, shatter-proof and well... perfect, really. But my mother is right, Gwen has her own deep-rooted issues but she hides them better.

  “I’m sorry Charlotte,” my mother says quietly. My heart is in my throat, choking me. I feel shocked that she has uttered the words after all these years but I feel angry at the same time. I’m angry that she has not said them sooner, I’m angry that she feels this way now, that it took a family tragedy for her to admit she was wrong.

  “It’s a little late, don’t you think,” I mumble, pulling my hand out of her grasp. She looks up at me; tears are flowing steadily down her face now.

  “I guess I deserve that,” she says, reaching into her purse and retrieving a tissue that she uses to wipe under her eyes and nose. A few uncomfortable moments pass as my mother sniffles beside me and I pick at my cuticles, trying to rein in my anger. Part of me wants to leave her sitting here to wallow in her self-pity, escape this emotional confrontation while I still can. But instead, I stay rooted in my chair wanting desperately to know what else she has to say, starving for some sort of emotional connection that I didn’t realize I even wanted or needed from her. From the corner of my eye, I see her pull her slouched shoulders back and straighten her spine, sitting up tall in her chair as she gains her composure.

  “Let’s take a drive. There’s something I want to show you,” she says, as she pulls my car keys out of her purse and stands.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, suddenly very curious as to what she feels I need to see right this very minute.

  “You’ll see,” is all she says as she makes her way toward the elevator, leaving me no other choice but to follow her.

  A few minutes later, she is driving my car out of the hospital parking garage, heading deeper into the city. My nerves are frayed as my mind flashes through all of the possibilities and, with each turn she takes, I wonder where on earth she could possibly be taking me. We are driving into the bowels of the city, a darker part of Seattle where I would never willingly go. She finally pulls over and parks the car on the side of a deserted street. We’re underneath the freeway and the noise from the passing cars overhead fills the quiet space around us. I look at my mother, waiting for her to tell me what the hell we’re doing here.

  She turns to me and says, “Do you see over there?” as she points across the street. My gaze follows her finger to where a group of homeless men are huddled around a small, make-shift fire trying to keep warm in the chilly winter day, the freeway overpass protecting them from the elements. There are a few battered tents set up nearby as well as the cliché cardboard shelters. The men are dirty and dressed in layer upon layer of ripped and faded clothing. Knit stocking hats, fingerless gloves, and worn shoes. So my mother wants me to appreciate my life more? Brought me here to show me how blessed I am in comparison? Because it’s working. I am just about to ask her this question aloud when one of the men turns and looks in our direction. One minute he looks like every other hopeless man on the street, dirty and broken and the next minute I recognize the knit hat he’s wearing. It’s so thin and faded that I have to look extra hard to be sure that my eyes are not deceiving me, but I recognize the thick blue stripe framed by thin bands of white and green. A Seahawks stocking hat that my mother made during her knitting phase, a hat my father wore religiously in the cold mornings on the boat. I remember it vividly, and once my eyes confirm that it is, in fact, the same hat, I now see the hazel eyes directed my way and recognize my father’s face. Through the overgrown gray beard and ragged skin, the tired eyes and yellowed teeth, through the overall haggard appearance, I can see my father. I gasp and feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder, grounding me. Why did she bring me here? Why would she want me to see what has become of my dad? How could she know that he’s here, living this way and not do something, anything? How can she live with herself, knowing that she did this t
o him? Every part of me is frozen except for my mind, which is firing questions so rapidly it’s like an AK-47 is discharging in my head.

  I try to recall the image of him that I keep on file in my mind, what he looked like the last time I saw him. Side by side, it seems inconceivable that this is the same man, but there is no mistaking the eyes. As if all at once my body thaws, tears make their way down my cheeks as I reach up and spread my hand out against the cold passenger side window and whisper, “Daddy.” He’s been so close all this time. I always pictured him living far away in some exotic place, living far too good a life to come back to ours. Fishing on a big boat in the middle of paradise, anything, but not this. I hear my mother’s voice and like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard, I cringe.

  “I thought that it was time you knew the truth.”

  Without taking my eyes from the man who looks like nothing but a stranger yet somehow the same man that I have loved and yearned for all this time, I ask, “What truth?”

  “Why he left?”

  I wait, knowing that she will blame him, make herself a victim, that is just her way.

  “Charlotte, you were too young to remember and I was always grateful for that. I let you blame me, hate me even, because I thought that it would help you cope. And there were times I hated myself, so it seemed rightfully deserved.” She stops and blows her nose and I stay fixated on the man across the street who is now looking through a deserted trash bag. I swallow a mix of shame and longing, pity and resentment, swallow it down until I feel like I might be sick. My heart is beating so hard I fear that it will march right out of my chest and then keep going like the Energizer bunny banging on its drum.

  “The truth is that the boat was leaving the dock every morning but your father wasn’t on it, not in the end anyway. He was a drunk, still is. He was always a good man though, Charlotte, always. In his heart, he had good intentions; I believe that. And he loved his girls. He loved you so much. But Lord knows, he loved the bottle too and in the end he couldn’t give it up. And he couldn’t risk hurting you. So he left.”