Dancing on Broken Glass

by Ka Hancock

  As for me, I just expect more time. For five years I was happy to be granted life in half-year rations, which I relished and celebrated as if I’d outsmarted fate. Now, if I’m healthy at my checkups, I’m entitled to bigger chunks of time. Today marks my second annual physical, and I have to say, twelve months beats the pants off six. Even so, my routine is the same—I get the good news, praise the Lord, and dance on through my life. But only until it’s time to gear up for my next appointment and again ponder the statistical possibilities, which are bleak. If cancer returns, it usually returns with a vengeance. When fear creeps up on me, which it does occasionally, I repel it with my father’s words from so long ago.

  I wonder sometimes if he had any idea that I would take his wisdom so fully to heart. But because of it, at the end of the day, death doesn’t really scare me. The dying part, however, does give me pause. I’ve done that before and I was not good at it. To watch the people I love, the terror in Mickey’s eyes . . . I thank God every day we’re through that because I’ve figured out that I’m much better at letting go than I am at being let go of.

  “I need a urine sample, and then I’m done with you,” Charlotte said, jolting me back to the business at hand.

  “So, am I good?”

  She placed strong, capable hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “I think we’ll send all your juices to the lab and they’ll call me and tell me you’re fine.”

  “I knew it. So I shouldn’t worry that I’m tired?”

  “Lucy, I’m tired. You don’t have the corner on tired,” she scolded.

  “What about this little tickle in my throat?”

  “Open up.” She probed my mouth with a tongue depressor. “I don’t see anything here that concerns me. Tell me again how long you’ve been coughing?”

  “I don’t know, a few days maybe.”

  “I’ll swab you for strep, just to be safe.”

  “You’re such a good doctor.” I gagged as she reached back for her sample.

  “I try.” When she was done, she placed her swab in a small plastic vial and smiled at me. “Alrighty then, wrap this gown around you and go across the hall for your mammogram.”

  “Yippee,” I said sarcastically. Having my small breasts crushed between two sheets of Plexiglas and examined for microscopic changes was, for me, the hardest part of this ordeal. Cancer starts in a single cell that recruits the surrounding cells in its rebellion, and then proceeds to destroy the neighborhood. Once dots appear on a mammogram, damage has a toehold. Charlotte lifted my chin with her finger and looked at me as if she’d read my thoughts. “Lucy, I’ll call you if we need to talk. But I don’t have any concerns, so don’t be surprised if I call just to chat.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Good. Let’s go to dinner next week.”

  Across the hall, I forced small talk while Aretha manhandled my boobs like they were so much bread dough. She was Brinley’s only mammogram technician, so she knew the breasts in our small community probably better than their owners. She was a tall, horsey woman—all-business—and I found myself wondering what came to mind when she saw us outside the office living our regular lives. Did she recognize the chest before the face registered?

  I liked Aretha. Her son, Bennion, was a student in my history class over at Midlothian, and I knew she checked his homework. I thought of thanking her for that, but as I said, she was busy. In all the times I’d been coming here, Aretha never really said anything to me until she was finished, and this time was no exception.

  “There ya go, Lucy. Always nice to see you. Benny sure liked your class.”

  “He’s one of the good ones. You should be proud.”

  “I am.”

  I got dressed and brushed my hair. It’s long, so I kind of lost track of the brushing as I stared into the mirror looking for her. I have to do this every time I have a physical—it’s part of the ritual. I look for any sign that Death might be lurking in the corner, or in the mirror standing behind me, or floating just outside my periphery. But there was nothing, which was profoundly comforting—right up there with Dr. Barbee’s magic words.

  After I got dressed, I walked to Damian’s, where I was meeting Lily for lunch. The stroll through the sunshine and warm breeze was delicious on my face. I love living here. Brinley, Connecticut, is a small town where you can walk just about anywhere in less than fifteen minutes. From the boat harbor to the Loop—Brinley’s answer to a town square—it’s nearly two miles, and the side streets that make up our neighborhoods stretch only about another mile on either side. Connecticut is rife with history and charm, but to me, Brinley is just about the best of everything: dignified, old neighborhoods, tree-lined streets, the grizzly kind of politics unique to small towns, like emergency meetings in the Loop to discuss the problem of dog poop or the need for a hose-winding ordinance.

  A lot of people were out and about this afternoon, and none seemed in a big hurry to be anywhere. But maybe that was just because I didn’t have to be anywhere now that school was out for the summer, and I’d finished grading 170 finals.

  I saw my neighbor Diana Dunleavy, walking her granddaughter, Millicent, to ballet class. The little jelly-bean-shaped girl was pirouetting her way past Mosely’s Market in a hot-pink tutu. Diana waved at me. “She gets all that talent from me, you know,” she shouted from across the road.

  I laughed watching as Millie glissaded right into Deloy Rosenberg, who was coming out of the Sandwich Shoppe with a takeout order. He dropped his cardboard tray and a bag tumbled, but apparently no damage was done. Still, Millie hid her red face in the folds of Diana’s skirt until Brinley’s police chief gave up trying to soothe her and walked away with his lunch. Every time I see Deloy in his uniform, I think of my dad.

  I spotted Lily and Jan across the street, so I jaywalked toward them. Jan Bates, our next-door neighbor, did eventually become Lily’s mother-in-law, just as I’d predicted when we were kids. What I didn’t know then was that she would become every inch a mother to me as well.

  Oscar Levine was pounding a sign onto the gate of our tiny park when he saw me. The bony little man dropped his hammer and shouted, “Lucy, you’re coming to the Shad Bake on Saturday, right?”

  “Of course she is, Oscar,” Lily answered for me.

  Jan gave me a quick hug. “Just say yes,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “And Mickey will be home by then so he’ll be there, too.”

  “Atta girl.”

  The Shad Bake was a spring ritual all along the Connecticut River Valley, but we Brinlians did it up right. We pay homage to the supposedly endangered fish by nailing it to oak planks around a pit fire, then gorging ourselves on it until we can’t move. It’s just one of the many things I love about living in Brinley.

  “Well, I’m off to teach little boys how to paint pine trees,” Jan said, laughing. “You girls stay out of trouble.” Jan pecked us both and we watched her walk away.

  My sister then turned to me with an overly broad smile that failed to hide her anxiety. “So how did it go?” she said, linking her arm through mine.

  “I’m good. Charlotte had no concerns. And Aretha said my boobs look fantastic.”

  “Yeah, I can just hear her say that.”

  “Actually, she said they’re nicer than yours.”

  Lily laughed. “Well, now I know you’re lying.” My sister was beautiful, with short blond hair, fair skin like Mom’s, and in the sunlight, she looked almost translucent. “So you’re good?” she asked, turning serious.

  “I’m good,” I promised on a little cough.

  She leaned her head into mine and I felt the shudder of relief pass through her. “Liar.”

  “What?”

  “I know it’s too soon to know that for sure.”

  “Maybe, but Charlotte was not one bit concerned, so neither am I.”

  Lily bored her eyes into mine as if searching for a hidden truth. She’d done it our whole lives.

  “I’m fin
e, Lil. I feel it.”

  She nodded, but did not move her eyes from me. “Okay. Because . . . you know, I refuse to bury you, Lucy.”

  “I know,” I said, squeezing her hand.

  At the corner George Thompson, the only florist in town, was loading flats of spring flowers into the trunk of a Cadillac. He grunted an indeterminate greeting at us as he arranged the blooms with a scowl on his grizzled face.

  “How’s Trilby, George?” Lily asked as we approached. “Is she feeling any better?”

  “No, and she’s grumpy as a wet hen. Somehow it’s my fault she broke her foot. Wasn’t me who was jazzercising, for hell’s sake. Stop your laughing, Lucy!” he scolded. “It’s not one bit funny!”

  Lily elbowed me and said to George, “Well, tell her the antique mirror she ordered came in. She can pick it up when she feels better.”

  George stopped what he was doing and straightened. He didn’t seem aware of any antique mirror and the moment was just about to turn awkward when Muriel Piper saved us. “Hello, my angels!” she cackled. “Isn’t it a glorious day! Look, I’m going crazy with flowers.” She laughed, deep and throaty. Muriel was a Brinley matriarch, pushing ninety but not about to admit it. She was wearing pleated blue jeans, a cashmere hoodie, and diamond studs so heavy they made her earlobes droop—a casual gardening ensemble, for sure.

  Muriel pulled me close in a firm embrace that belied her age. “Lucy, you’re too thin. I want you to come over so I can cook for you. You never take care of yourself when Mickey is doing poorly.”

  “He’s coming home on Friday. And I’m eating just fine.”

  “Not till Friday? He’ll miss Celia’s memorial service tomorrow.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, bring him by this weekend so I can give him a hug. I just love that boy.” She turned to Lily. “And yours! Do they come any better looking? Oh, my goodness.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so, Muriel.”

  “Don’t you dare! I’d be so embarrassed! Well, I better skedaddle. These flowers aren’t going to plant themselves.” Muriel waved at us as she drove away with a trunk full of petunias and gerbera daisies.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I flipped it open. “Hey, Priss.”

  “Is all well?” my oldest sister said with no preamble.

  “Charlotte said I looked fine. But she’ll call if my labs are off.”

  “Good. I’m headed into a meeting, so call me later. I want the details.” Then she was gone.

  I snapped my phone shut and looked at Lily. “No wonder she’s a great lawyer.”

  “She just wants to know you’re okay.” Lily shrugged. “So,” she started as we walked into the diner, “Mickey’s coming home on Friday. Did he know about your appointment today?”

  I shook my head. “He’s just barely getting back on top, so I didn’t want to tell him until I had all the good news to go with it.”

  “You’re a good wife, Lu. Mic’s lucky to have you.”

  I shrugged off her compliment thinking it was really the other way around. After all we’d been through, I knew I loved Mickey Chandler more today than the day I married him.

  two

  JOURNALING = PROCESSING = INSIGHT

  JUNE 7, 2011—FOR SESSION WITH GLEASON

  It’s taken a week to lift myself out of the hole this time. But at least I didn’t let go of the edge and drown in its depths. I knew I was in trouble as I balanced on the rim and once more imagined I could lift my feet and be airborne—swoop and glide over and around the chasm that I knew could swallow me. It has before, thankfully this time it didn’t.

  That’s my life: continually stepping up to and away from the edge of a hole that is by turns fascinating and terrifying—filled with whatever my faulty imagination dictates at any given time. It is absolutely imperative that I keep my distance, but the closer I get, the better I feel. Or the worse. And that’s the ridiculous irony because I am compulsively drawn to this danger, and the closer I get, the closer I want to be. Those depths hold unimaginable escape—at times utter exhilaration, at others, pain so intense I can’t begin to describe it. Either way the edge calls to me with its lies that sound like promises. Soft, seductive lies that I can’t always resist.

  Medication helps. That, and regular therapy. My own willpower helps when I can find it. So does my intellect, which astoundingly is not tied to the other rogue functions of my disabled brain. I have the highest education personal experience can offer. In the midst of it, I almost always know what’s happening to me, even if sometimes I know it at a distance, like a spectator. Still, I try to implement one of the many strategies designed to keep me from being swallowed up. It doesn’t always work.

  My strongest influence is my wife. And thanks to her, I am determined to stay a good distance from the edge, even if I’m not always successful. Sometimes, like when she got sick, the edge comes to me. Sometimes that happens for no reason. The chasm widens inexplicably even as I run from it—run for my life—until the ground beneath me evaporates and I am again lost despite my best, but futile, efforts.

  For most people this hole does not exist, but it’s a real threat for those who have bipolar disorder. I know I sound like a drug addict, but no drug feels the way mania feels right before it blows up in your face, or despair just after you give in to it.

  JUNE 7—LATER

  As I reread the journal entry, I checked it for any telltale bullshit that would prompt my psychiatrist, Gleason Webb, to toss it and make me do it again. But I didn’t see any place I’d overdone it too horribly. It was pretty much me, and I thought I’d articulated the situation pretty well for a nut job.

  I was waiting for Lucy on the front steps of this old asylum that sometimes felt like my home away from home. I was having a good day, inside and out. I could feel my stable self emerging slowly but surely, and I had to admit I’d missed that guy. I was content with him. He wasn’t too exciting, but he was comfortable and safe and I could count on him to be a clear thinker.

  I checked my watch and wondered where Lucy was—she said she would be here by now. I got up and started to pace but quickly sat back down. She’d be here when she got here, nothing to get worked up about. I chuckled because, just like that, I realized my meds had kicked in. I was able to reason with myself and it made me smile . . . the miracle of psychotropics. This would make Lucy happy—she liked Stable Guy better than she liked me, which isn’t exactly true. Lucy loved me—the me made up of loose parts and extra parts and screwed-up parts. She loved the whole package—she said she had to or there was no point in loving me at all. She’d sworn it was true a lifetime ago, and she’s been true to her word. Who would have believed it? I’m still in awe of that woman. Especially at times like this, when the first thing I can clearly make out as I climb foggy-brained out of the hole is her love. Every faultily wired nut job of a human being should be so lucky.

  Mickey was waiting for me on the steps of Edgemont Hospital looking not one bit like a patient in his jeans and gray T-shirt. As soon as I walked across the street and he saw me, he lit up and I wanted to giggle, he looked so good, so healthy. His broad shoulders and long legs were signature Mickey. But his smile was the barometer for his sanity, and from this distance it looked just about right. He stood up and pushed his sunglasses into his dark hair that was still thick, the silver thatch of bangs, still as prominent as the day I met him. Mickey walked toward me with a slow grin, and when he got close enough, he wrapped me in his arms and just held me tight. Tight, but not death-grip tight; that was a good sign. I even thought I could see my Mickey in there, in his dark eyes that just days ago had been wild and unfocused.

  “How you doing?”

  Mickey pulled back and ran his hand over my hair. “I’m better, Lu. And I saw Gleason this morning. He said he’d definitely okay me going home Friday.”

  I kissed him. “Good for you. Good for me.”

  “Yeah.” He pulled me close again. There he was. There was my Mickey.

&nb
sp; “What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting for you. Peony said she’s watching me.” He looked up and I followed his gaze. Sure enough, Mickey’s nurse, Peony Litman, was standing at the third-floor window wagging her finger. She was seventy if she was a day and, true to her early training, was outfitted completely in white, including a cap. “She said we can go for a walk if you’ll be responsible for me.”

  I looked up and waved. The old nurse smiled, then wagged her finger at me, too.

  Edgemont is an old colonial hospital that’s been restored a couple of times. It still looks quaint and antiquated on the outside, but this full-service facility accommodates Brinley and New Brinley. The hospital sits in the midst of impeccably tended grounds, and several patients were roaming around on this warm afternoon. I pulled Mickey’s arm over my shoulder and sucked in the soft fragrance of lilac and lavender.

  “I’ve missed you, baby,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  “At least I didn’t get on a plane or steal anything. I didn’t dig up the yard.”

  “Small blessings.”

  Last week, Mickey’s mood and energy had been sky-high, which had come on gradually as he’d tweaked his medication. That’s the rub with Mickey; keeping his depressive symptoms at bay with, say, Prozac, can sometimes push him into hypomania—which he rather enjoys and is not eager to amend. He always thinks he can contain the energy. But this time, despite his doctor’s attempt to manage him outpatient, he’d stopped sleeping. Psychosis would have followed without intervention. Thanks to an adjustment of his medication and a little time here at Edgemont, he was now hovering around what is considered normal for the rest of the world, but feels a lot lower than that to my Mickey. Still, mania was easier to recover from than his depressive episodes.