by Ka Hancock
“That’s not true, Lil.”
“Yes, it is. There has never been anything you couldn’t handle. I’ve never seen you falter. Not when we were babies and Daddy died, not when Mom died, not any of the hundred times when Mickey’s been Mickey. Not even the last time you were sick.”
“You know that’s not true, Lily.”
“Yes, it is. I’m not saying you were never frustrated or scared. I’m not saying you never pulled your hair out. I’m just saying you never fell down. You can’t be beaten, Lucy. You just can’t,” she whispered.
I watched my sister, my luminous, green-eyed, hopeful sister. I watched her grapple with her own thoughts, trying to convince herself that my strength would triumph over the ruin inside me. I tugged at her hand and her gaze fell again on my face. “I hope you’re right,” I whispered.
She cleared her throat, and her doleful expression transfigured itself into a mask of composure. She let go of my hand and pulled a napkin from the holder on my table and blew her nose. The moment passed.
“I’m actually excited to go back to work,” I said, meaning it. “I want to live as normally as I can for as long as I can. And before we know it, the baby will be here.”
“And then you can start chemo . . .”
I nodded. “That’s the plan, Lil.”
twenty-five
SEPTEMBER 21, 2011
Gleason says I’ve stabilized. But I don’t feel stable—I feel bridled. The new pills make my fear stop short of panic, and they help me think clearly. They have trapped my impulses in a small jar where they eventually die, which I guess is a good thing. I’m not sure they’re working completely. Not when at times I think I can see my wife’s cancer. I can almost see it, like it’s another woman living right there under Lucy’s skin. I watch her take hold of my wife until Lucy can’t stand the pain. And I hate myself because I can do nothing but watch it happen. Lucy has no choice but to give in and ride it out until this terrible cancer witch loosens her hold. Then Lucy tries to smile and pretend it’s not as bad as I think.
I’ve asked Charlotte what these episodes mean. She tells me the cancer is growing. I nod and take another pill.
I went back to work as I’d promised. The second week in September, I geared myself up and walked through the blessedly normal doors of Midlothian High School. Nowhere else is there an environment more replete with undiluted self-interest than the halls of a high school. Because of this, I was able to walk my afflicted self anywhere within its walls and remain nearly unperceived.
Of course, Miriam Brady had informed our shared students of my situation, but the news seemed to have caused them but a momentary hiccup, quickly forgotten, or at least blissfully unacknowledged. It was a win-win for me. Being back in the classroom fed my soul and strengthened my ability to pretend I wasn’t sick.
When Mickey walked home from Edgemont a few days later, we started over, the way we always do after he’s been hospitalized. At first we were careful with each other. Mickey was quiet, but sweet. And with us both back to work we got into a routine that, from the outside looking in, probably seemed a lot like an ordinary couple going about the business of preparing for a baby. We did fine for several weeks.
But one night in late October, I woke up in a wet panic. I couldn’t breathe. As surely as if someone had a clamped a sweaty hand over my face, I could not get air. This paralyzing attack came out of nowhere, and gasping, I slapped at Mickey to rouse him—to save me—to get this building off my chest.
He bolted upright in the dark and flipped on his lamp. When he saw me sucking impotently for breath, he pulled me up by the shoulders and began shaking me so hard my head snapped back. He was yelling at God, I think, as I felt myself start to evaporate. But he must have jarred something, and suddenly a small avenue to my lungs opened up, as thin as a straw, but wide enough that I could inhale. Within a few agonizing moments, I was able to breathe again. But I was left with a terrible pain, like a fresh bruise, inside my chest, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
Was this it? Was it happening? I was so scared that I let Mickey swallow me up, and I wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could. I’d been pretending for days—even at home—that I was more okay than I was, and this is where it had gotten me: two thirty in the morning, drenched in cold sweat, my heart hammering, certain I was dying.
Even in this state, part of me was devising some way to soften this troubling episode for my husband. But I couldn’t. I was powerless to do anything but hold tight to Mickey’s T-shirt and tremble against his solid frame. Mickey stepped up and held me in strong, steady arms instead of the death grip of desperation I was so accustomed to. He rocked me like I was a small child, all the while murmuring composed words of assurance: “You’re okay. Just breathe, Lu. Just breathe.”
There was no hysteria on the edge of his voice. He knew just what to do and what to say. And in the midst of my panic, it felt unbelievably good to give myself up to the feel of his hand stroking my back. As I started to relax and trust my breathing, I loosened my grip on Mickey’s shirt and looked up at him. He kissed my forehead, and then I saw the film of tears in his eyes, the terror that never did reach his voice. I ran a trembling hand down his cheek.
“Should I call Charlotte?” he whispered.
“No, I’m okay,” I insisted, knowing she’d send me to the hospital.
“Can I get you anything, some water?” Mickey was out of bed before I answered. He went downstairs for some ice and brought back a roll of cherry Life Savers from my purse. “Maybe these will help,” he said, peeling back the paper.
“Thanks, sweetie,” I said in a hoarse voice.
“Lu, maybe we should call Dr. Gladstone.”
I felt my face crumple. “Can you just come back to bed and hold me for a minute?”
He rolled this request around for a while, then said, “I guess I can do that. But if it happens again, I’m calling 911.”
“I’m okay now,” I promised, exhausted. “I just want to lie down.”
After a few minutes of watching me, convincing himself that I was all right, Mickey turned off the lamp and spooned himself against me, his hand coming to rest on my stomach. The baby was active, but considering what I’d just put her through, she seemed relatively calm. I wove my fingers into Mickey’s and felt her kick against our palms. I stared at the full moon framed in our window and listened to the in and out of my untrustworthy respirations. I pulled Mickey’s arm tighter around me.
“I’m right here,” he whispered into my hair with a calm voice that I barely recognized. I rolled over. The light of the moon was settled on Mickey’s face, and he was looking at me. I kissed his chin.
He squeezed me, and we stared at each other for a long time before he said, “Lucy, what do you really think it is? Death, I mean.”
I traced his jaw with my finger. “I wish I knew. I’m almost to the finish line, Mic. I want to know what comes next.”
“Me, too,” said Mickey thoughtfully, his eyes glistening in the moonlight.
“I should have been more religious,” I whispered. “It seems like a terrible mistake, like I’ve missed out on something—we’ve missed out on something—so important. I know there’s a God. But there’s so much more to understand about Him and life and eternity and death. The man I met on the plane—he knew something, Mic.” I bit my lip, remembering. “Talking to him made me feel like I haven’t read the newspaper in a year, and I don’t know the things other people know.”
“Shhh.”
“I can’t. My whole life I’ve hung my hopes on a statement my dad made to me when I was just a little girl.” I took a breath, grateful that Mickey was brave enough to open this door. “I’ve never doubted it,” I insisted. “In my whole life, I’ve never doubted what he told me, Mic. But what does it all mean? Is death just a step into another life? Do I get to remember everyone I love?” My voice was suddenly small and high.
“I want to believe those things,” he said. “Maybe then it wou
ldn’t hurt so much.”
“That’s what I mean. We should have explored it, Mic. We should have found something solid to believe. It would have been so much easier.” I thought again of what Thomas Worthington had said on the plane—with not a moment of hesitation. His belief in a hereafter filled with the people we love—and in perfect health—was second nature. He knew what he believed.
Mickey and I had been quiet for a long time when he lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. “It doesn’t matter where you are, Lucy. Here, there, wherever. I’m just going to keep on loving you. I figure I’ll always have that.”
“Me, too, baby.” He kissed me then, softly. “Make love to me, Mickey,” I whispered.
“Lu, no. We can’t.”
“Yes, we can.”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.
“Shhh,” I said, gently tugging on his bottom lip with my teeth.
He kissed me then, a cautious kiss that still managed to betray his appetite for me, and I sighed into his mouth, willing to go anywhere with him.
Mickey and I have made all kinds of love over the years; contrary to popular belief, there are upsides of bipolarity. Sometimes it seems a parade of passionate men has found habitation in my husband, making me, I’m convinced, just about the most satisfied woman in the world. But when Mickey took me in his arms that night, I was to meet my favorite.
As though he was fearful of hurting me, Mickey made slow, melting, unbelievably tender love to me. I was a mess in my sore and unwieldy body and felt, at first, like a stranger beneath his hands. But the longer he touched me, the higher I rose above the pain and rebellion until I was lost in nothing but sensation. He stroked my scarred breast and swollen places so indulgently and with such unhurried grace, I don’t think in all my years of making love with him I had ever responded so absolutely. It was the purest thing I’d ever known, and I didn’t want it to end. Our bodies did the work, but it was our souls that conjoined.
We both wept through it and clung to it. When it was over, I think we both realized that it was probably the last time.
I finished out the weekend without another episode. Mickey babied me and hovered over me, barely letting me get out of bed. By Monday morning, I was feeling my usual run-down self, but I was breathing, so I was fine.
Or I thought I was fine.
It came out of nowhere. I was driving to school, and I started to cough. It felt like my chest was being torn down the middle. The sound was terrifying, like a strangled bark, wet and desperate. I couldn’t breathe. As panic bubbled in me, I prayed I wouldn’t pass out and cause an accident, and by the grace of God I made it into the school parking lot. Beads of perspiration had bloomed on my forehead and my face was starting to tingle. When I coughed into my hands, I coughed droplets of blood into them, and my heart started to pound. I willed myself to calm down. But I couldn’t catch my breath. The baby! I couldn’t breathe! I remember digging through my purse for my phone, but I don’t remember dialing it. . . .
The beep of monitors seeped into my awareness, followed by the sound of familiar voices talking over me. I was in a hard bed that was not my own and someone with cold hands was taking my pulse. I was in the hospital. That realization should have filled me with anxiety, but it didn’t. I wasn’t coughing, and I wasn’t starving for air. Someone was taking care of me. Having established that, I let myself be pulled down again into leaden sleep.
This happened a few times—same routine, same series of realizations, same conclusion—until I was finally close enough to the surface that I was conscious. It took everything I had to pry my eyes open, and even then I could barely manage more than a slit. Someone was holding my hand, rubbing it, but it didn’t feel like Mickey. I forced a sound out of my throat, a little moan that might as well have been a scream for all the effort it required.
“Lucy? Honey?” It sounded like Priscilla. I felt long, cool fingers on my face. “Lucy, wake up. Open your eyes.”
I turned my head and lifted my eyelids to the sound of her voice. Something was over my face, and when I tried to push it away, I found I couldn’t lift my hand. I tried to move, but as I strained, I realized I was tied down.
“Lucy, you’re okay.” My sister was standing over me, her breath warm on my cheek.
“Baabee?” was all I could force out of my dry mouth.
“The baby’s fine.” Then I felt the weight of Priscilla’s hand on my stomach.
Mickey was suddenly on the other side of me, kissing my face, coaxing me to open my eyes. “C’mon, babe, look at me.”
I moaned and Mickey laughed, relief floating tangibly on the sound.
Later, that night, Charlotte explained that my lungs had filled with fluid, which had impeded my breathing. The technical term for this malady was malignant pleural effusion. That problem, in conjunction with a cough that took my breath away, had caused me to black out. While I was in the emergency room, a tube had been threaded into each of my lungs to drain the fluid.
“If you weren’t pregnant,” Charlotte told me, “Dr. Gladstone would have removed your left lung. Before this is over, you will probably need surgery, Lucy.”
I had an oxygen mask clamped over my nose and mouth, but I could tell that Charlotte was still able to decipher my hardening expression. She took my hand. “I know how you feel. We all do. But you need to understand: at this point we’re just trying to keep you alive, Lucy. We’ve kept you sedated for the past three days so you could be mechanically oxygenated and give your overworked system a little rest.”
“What about the baby?”
“We’ve monitored the baby the entire time. She’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
For a moment as I looked into her eyes, fear washed over me. I needed more time. I squeezed her hand and Charlotte did not avert her gaze; steady, strong, and true. “Charlotte,” I whispered. “Whatever you have to do to make sure this baby is born, you do it.”
She nodded. “I will.”
twenty-six
NOVEMBER 1, 2011
Last night I dreamed Lucy had died and no one told me. I came home from the club and she was just gone. I woke up from this nightmare in a cold panic, my heart racing, and had to remind myself why I was alone in my bed; Lucy was still in the hospital. I sat up and tried to settle myself before I called to check on her. The nurse assured me that Lucy was resting comfortably, and I breathed out my thanks on a shaky breath. When I couldn’t go back to sleep, I walked down the hall and quietly opened the door to the nursery—or what would have become one. I didn’t turn on the light, but I could see it all clearly by the glow of the moon. Walls not painted, wood floor not finished, an empty closet where little dresses were supposed to hang.
I looked around at what should have been: a little girl’s haven, a place of dolls and books and soft things. I would have built her a two-story dollhouse that would sit in the corner. I would have filled it with carved furniture and papered each small room. I would have . . . I would have. A familiar ache spread through me as the bright image of my family—Lucy, me, and our baby girl—faded with my tears. It didn’t belong to me. Not anymore.
Within a couple of days, I was amazed at how good I felt. I wasn’t even pretending. There was no need. Suddenly I could breathe without my chest hurting. I could actually feel my lungs expanding, and my cough had been reduced to a mere annoyance again. I asked Dr. Gladstone about it when he came in to discharge me. He shook his head, his expression grim. Peter Gladstone is tall, imposing, with a blond flattop. His face is chiseled in serious lines that make him look angry, even when he’s not.
“Sorry to tell you it’s temporary, Lucy. We’ve drained your lungs, but, unfortunately, they will fill again.”
“How long will it take?”
“You might have a week or two, or just a couple of days. There’s no way to predict, other than to say your condition is advancing. I did an ultrasound, and the left lung is far worse than the right. I’m not sure simply drain
ing it will suffice next time.”
I nodded.
“I’m going to have a respiratory therapist set you up with a tank and nasal cannula—a device that blows oxygen into your nose. You’re going to need it frequently from now on.”
“Okay,” I said in a shaky voice.
“Stay in touch with me, Lucy.” Dr. Gladstone looked hard at me and nodded. “I want to see you in my office the day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there.”
He turned to leave just as a young girl in a white lab coat walked in dragging a green tank on wheels. Her name badge said DAPHNE and she had a Julia Roberts smile. “Hi,” she said.
“Hello.”
“The best doctors are so serious,” she clucked, placing a small device on my finger. She introduced herself as the respiratory therapist, then informed me that she was checking my saturation level, whatever that was. “It was normal last night when we took you off the O2. Let’s see if you’ve maintained.” After a moment, Daphne nodded, pleased. “Good.”
She then pulled up a chair and started writing on a flow sheet. As she wrote, she instructed me on how to use the green oxygen tank; her advice was repeated, word for word, on the instruction sheet she handed me. Daphne wrote down her department’s beeper number. “Feel free to call us—even in the middle of the night—if you run into any trouble.”
I nodded.
“Do you have any questions?” she asked, finally making eye contact.
I cleared my throat. “Do you know about me? That I’ve had my lungs drained?”
“I know.”
“How long does it usually last? I mean, in your experience, how long before . . .”
Daphne Boyd stood up and leaned over the railing of my bed. “Not long. Could be a few days or it could be a week. If I were you, I’d enjoy this small reprieve. It gets tough from here on out. You know your cancer is growing.”