“Can I go home now?” Elizabeth asked.
“No reason why not,” Doctor Sorenson answered. “Just realize you’ve got to take it easy, get lots of rest.”
She handed Claire three prescriptions. “Have these filled as soon as possible. The Desmopressin will get rid of Elizabeth’s thirst and help her reduce the fluid build-up. It replicates the hormone her pituitary gland is no longer producing.”
Charlie prided himself in being pragmatic, a man capable of cutting through the emotional upheaval of a dilemma to focus on solutions. Claire would fly into a tizzy over some insignificant thing, but not him. He believed every problem had a solution and his job was to find it. As the doctor began slipping X-rays back into their envelopes, Charlie asked, “Is there anything we can do?”
“Families can always help,” Doctor Sorenson said. “Radiation treatments, if we do proceed with them, can take both an emotional and physical toll on a person. Elizabeth will need a lot of love and understanding. And,” she added with a touch of sarcasm, “you might mention that to her husband.” She gathered her papers and left the room.
For a long while, no one said anything; the only sound came from a loudspeaker somewhere down the hall echoing out a call. The clock on the wall continued to move forward, minute after minute. Elizabeth looked at the clock and wondered how many of those precious minutes she had left.
She was so very tired—tired of the pain, of being poked and probed. Tired of the way this thing chipped away pieces of her mind and robbed her of yesterdays. Tired of struggling to move a finger or lift a hand. Elizabeth closed her eyes and saw three small faces looking up at her. Babies who needed a mother, children who would be left without someone to tell them stories, tuck them into bed at night, chase away demons, and offer a hand to hold.
She hesitated for a moment, looking at the future inside her eyelids. Then in a voice weighted with the challenge ahead, she said, “I can conquer this. I’ll insist on the radiation. It’ll work. It has to.”
Moments later JT walked into the room.
“Don’t get on me about not being on time,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “I’ve already had all I can take!” He gave the McDermotts a slight nod, then turned to Elizabeth. “I suppose the doctor’s been here and gone, right?”
“Yes,” she answered wearily.
Claire took Charlie’s hand and said, “We’ll step outside for a while and give you time to talk.” Together they left the room and disappeared down the hall.
Elizabeth waited for Jeffrey to speak.
After a few moments of pacing, he said, “Sorry I’m late.”
“What the doctor had to say was very important. You should have been here.”
“What the hell do you want from me? I already said I’m sorry!”
“I wanted you to be here. It looks like—”
“Get off my ass!” he screamed. “I’m killing myself, and all I get from you is—”
“Don’t take it out on me because you’ve got problems. You think I don’t have—”
“I knew this was gonna happen! I busted my ass to get here, and you give me a shitload of grief for being late. But do you ask why I’m late? No! Cause you don’t give a hairy-assed bean about my problems. All you care about is—”
“Okay,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I’m sorry. What’s the problem?”
“Not that I think you really give a shit, but I was in an accident. My car’s got three, maybe four thousand worth of damage.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Yeah, me! I’m up to my balls in debt now. How the hell am I supposed to pay for this? This shit’s never-ending! It’s one thing after another!”
“I know it’s not—”
“You don’t know the half of it!”
“Jeffrey, it’s not that I—”
“Look, I feel for you, being sick and all. But don’t compare your problems to mine. You don’t have bill collectors banging at the door. You don’t have kids bitching about this, that, and the other thing. You think my life’s a picnic? Well, think again, because it sure as hell ain’t!”
“I know it’s been hard—”
“No, you don’t! You’ve got no money worries, because Big Daddy takes care of you. But me, I’m dog-shit stuck to his shoes.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really. Daddy cares about you the way he would a son.”
“Sure he does.” JT gave a contemptuous sneer. “A son he’s willing to toss to the wolves! You think I haven’t told him how bad things are? My back’s to the wall. I need a loan, or I’m gonna lose the store. Instead of helping out, he’s paying for you to have a private room!”
“I’ll talk to him,” Elizabeth volunteered.
“You’d better, because I’m at the end of my rope.” JT nervously paced alongside the bed. “If he doesn’t come through soon, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” His words rocked between anger and whine, then more anger, and now the pitiful sound of a trapped animal.
“I’m sure he will,” Elizabeth said.
“I just can’t handle everything myself,” he moaned. “You’ve got to get out of here, Liz, and come home.”
“I am. The doctor said tomorrow, maybe the day after.”
JT stopped pacing and turned. “Great!”
“Yes, but there’s more.”
“More?” he said apprehensively.
Elizabeth took a deep breath and began slowly. “The scan they did showed a growth in the back of my brain—”
“A what?”
“A tumor,” she continued, trying not to let her fear expose itself to him. “Doctor Sorenson said that’s why I’ve gained so much weight and why I’m having trouble remembering things. This tumor’s pressing on the part of my brain that—”
“So what happens now? They remove it?”
Elizabeth slowly shook her head. “I wish.” She gave a sigh that came from deep inside, from the part of her where each of her babies had once lived. “Because of where the tumor’s located, it’s inoperable.”
“You’re kidding! So what happens in a case like this?”
“I think they’ll try radiation treatments. I have to get a second opinion.”
Jeffrey gave a groan and started pacing again. “More doctors, more money. Please don’t tell me you’re not coming home. Please don’t say this is just going to go on and on—”
“Jeffrey!” Elizabeth exclaimed, her eyes growing teary. “I know you’ve got problems, but you could be more sympathetic about what I’m going through.”
He stopped. “It’s hard to be sympathetic when you’ve got alligators snapping at your ass.” The trace of a smile softened his face. “But I am glad you’re coming home. At least I won’t have to pay Maria to take care of the kids.”
“I wish that were true,” she said sadly, “but we’ll need someone to take care of the kids and help me. Mom can do some of it, but she can’t—”
“You’re too sick to take care of your own kids?” he said sarcastically.
“Yes,” she answered. “The left side of my body is partially paralyzed. I can’t stand or walk alone, and I can barely move my left arm. I would have told you sooner, but with all the problems you’ve had…” Elizabeth stopped when she noticed the way JT eyed her with a hateful glare.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” he said. “Haven’t I got enough on my plate? I can’t take care of me and the kids. How am I supposed to take care of an invalid?”
“I’m not an invalid,” she answered indignantly. “I’ve got a problem, and hopefully in time it will—”
“Are you nuts? Out of whatever mind you have left? If you can’t stand, walk, or move from one spot to another, you’re an invalid!”
“Don’t say that! There are plenty of other things I can do. Anyway, Mom and Dad will help out.”
“Help out with what?” JT asked angrily. “Help play with the kids? Help take away the last drop of privacy I’v
e got? Help you nag me about what a failure I am? No, thanks! If they want to help, your daddy can give me the loan I need. Other than that, I don’t need their help. And I don’t want them at my house!”
“Maybe not,” Elizabeth answered, “but I do.”
“Then go home with them. Go back to their house, and let them take care of you until you’re well enough to come home! They can afford it!”
JT stomped out the door before Elizabeth could explain the seriousness of her condition. To warn him that she might never again be able to care for their children, dance with him, stand in line at the supermarket, or clean the house. The precious ordinary everyday things she’d taken for granted were now gone.
~ ~ ~
When Elizabeth’s parents returned, Charlie asked, “Where’s JT?”
Elizabeth wanted to lie, to hide the embarrassment and hurt of being cast aside as worthless, but what purpose would that serve? They’d learn the truth tomorrow or the next day. In time she’d have to confess she’d be going home with them, not to her own house, to her children, to her husband.
“He left. He had to open the store.”
“Did you tell him?” Charlie asked.
Elizabeth nodded. She waited, trying to swallow the tears, then said, “He’s having a really hard time dealing with the pressure of all this—the bills, the store, taking care of the kids. He thought maybe it would be better for me to go back to your house when I leave the hospital.”
“Our house?” Claire said quizzically. “Well, we’d certainly be glad to have you, but aren’t you anxious to get home to the kids?”
“Of course I am. And JT will bring them over to spend time with me. But right now I can’t even take care of myself. How can I take care of them? JT thinks it would be better this way. If it weren’t for all these money problems, he could hire somebody…”
She looked at her father. “Can’t you just give JT the loan he needs?”
“I’ve already given him several loans, Liz. If he needs more, why doesn’t he ask his parents?”
“He already asked them, but they said no. They spent most of their savings to buy that place in Florida.”
“Did JT put you up to this?” Charlie asked. “I know him; he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. JT told you to ask me, didn’t he?”
“Not specifically,” Elizabeth replied. “But I know he’s behind on our mortgage payments and worried about all the bills.”
“When he finished complaining about his problems,” Charlie said sarcastically, “did he have anything else to say?”
“Not much; you know JT.” Elizabeth shrugged with her right shoulder.
Charlie shook his head in disgust. “It’s high time he started remembering what’s important.”
“His store is important,” Elizabeth said defensively.
“Nothing is as important as a man’s family!” Charlie’s words had an unusually sharp tone. “I have no respect for someone who values money more than his wife. Jeffrey’s a poor excuse for a man!”
“Daddy, that’s an awful thing to say.”
“No, it’s not. I know he’s your husband, but he’s using you to get to me. I’ll bet he said if I give him the loan, you can come home. Right? That’s what he said, wasn’t it?”
A tear fell from Elizabeth’s right eye.
“I knew it. That’s the kind of man he is.” Charlie’s voice suddenly got louder and angrier. “Well, no more. I wouldn’t give him a dime if he were standing on the corner with a tin cup. He’s a bum, a good-for-nothing bum!”
“Charlie,” Claire interrupted, “stop yelling at Elizabeth.”
“I’m not yelling!” Charlie shouted. “But I’m not going to allow that bum to mistreat my daughter! I will see him bankrupt before I give him one cent of financing for that travesty he calls a business.”
After that, no one talked about JT or the reason for Elizabeth not returning to her own house.
Charlie eventually left for the office, and Claire once again began plumping the pillows and straightening blankets.
“I know you’re disappointed,” she said. “But try not to let it get to you. Sooner or later JT will figure this out by himself.”
“I hope so,” Elizabeth said. “I surely hope so.”
“He will. In the meantime Daddy and I will take care of you, and you won’t have to contend with his grouchiness.”
Elizabeth only could manage a fragile smile
A week later, on the same day Elizabeth left St. Barnabas to return to her parents’ house, Christian was also released from the hospital. JT carried him home and handed him to Maria Ramirez, along with David and Kimberly. From that point on, he stopped calling Elizabeth altogether. She telephoned him countless number of times to ask if he’d bring the children but his answer stayed the same.
“Too busy,” he’d say. “I’m taking care of three kids and trying to run a business.”
“If you can’t come, let the kids come,” Elizabeth begged. “Mom will pick them up and bring them home.”
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
Elizabeth noticed that each time they spoke his voice sounded sharper, his resentment more pronounced. Claire knew when those conversations took place because for the remainder of the day and sometimes for days following, Elizabeth was red-eyed and locked within herself. To cheer her, Claire would ask, “Would you like a cup of tea? We can watch How the World Turns.”
“No, thanks,” Elizabeth would answer gloomily. “I already know how the world turns.”
Claire, who at times could become emotional over a broken teacup, stood firm as a rock. Never once did she reveal the agony inside her. Instead, she forced herself to be cheerful. To pull happy thoughts from the air and hand them to Elizabeth. In return, she got a fractured smile, halfhearted at best. Claire knew nothing could restore the magical laugh Elizabeth once had, but still she tried.
Without her children and Jeffrey’s arms to hold her, Elizabeth’s pain increased. She woke thinking of them. Fell asleep with them on her mind. Maybe constantly asking that he come for a visit drove him away. But how could she not? For the past eight years they stood side-by-side, weathered storms, endured hardships, shared joys. How could she give up trying to resurrect such a relationship? True, JT had moods. He could be difficult, even impossible at times, but without him she felt like half of her old self.
The worst happened when the discussion turned to blame. In those conversations the realization that JT no longer loved her hit Elizabeth head on. Regardless of how much she had given, regardless of how much she still had to give, he no longer loved her.
“Please come over,” she said, “even if it’s only for a little while. I really miss you and the kids.”
“Let’s not go through this again.”
“Don’t talk like that. I don’t like this situation either. I know it’s hard on you. It’s hard on me too.”
“I doubt that!”
“Well, it is. At least you’ve got your health and the kids—”
“And you’ve got Daddy-Big-Bucks,” he snapped. “This whole situation is his fault—”
“Stop it!” she said. “Stop acting like Daddy is to blame for your financial problems. He’s not. He’s no more to blame for your problems than I’m to blame for getting sick. It happened, that’s all there is to it! Let’s stop arguing about who’s to blame and get back to loving each other.”
“Screw you!” Jeffrey said and slammed the receiver down so hard it left a ringing in her ear.
That afternoon, for the first time, Elizabeth shared her pain with her mother.
“I don’t understand how it can end this way,” she sobbed. “How he can stop loving me just because I’m sick. What about our kids? What about all the things—” She fell into her mother’s arms and wept like a child. “It’s unfair, so unfair…”
“Yes, it is,” Claire said. “But Jeffrey’s the one to be pitied. He’s got a
cancer far worse than yours. His eats the soul and lets the body walk around more dead than alive.”
She put her hand beneath Elizabeth’s chin and tilted her face upward. “Try to understand, Jeffrey’s not mad at you. He’s mad at himself. He looks in the mirror and sees a man who’s failed at life. He can’t do anything about those failures, so he gets angry and smashes the mirror.”
“But,” Elizabeth sobbed, “I still love him.”
On the second Tuesday in September Claire took Elizabeth to Sloan Kettering for a consultation. That same afternoon JT visited Charlie at his office, asking again for a loan and upping the ante to twenty-five thousand.
“No,” Charlie said flatly without apologies or explanation.
“No?” JT repeated with a slit-eyed expression. “No?”
“That’s right, no.”
“Didn’t Liz talk to you? Didn’t she explain? I gotta have that money to keep going. How am I supposed to support my family if the store goes bankrupt?”
“That’s not my problem,” Charlie answered. “I imagine you’ll have to get a job like most other men.”
“A job doing what? I’m a retailer. Women’s clothing, that’s what I know. I’m no good at anything else.”
Without lifting his eyes from the ledger sheet in front of him, Charlie said, “Well, since your store is about to go under, you’re probably not very good at retailing either. Maybe it’s time to consider a change.”
JT slammed his hand on the desk. “I need that money! It’s not just the store, I’ve got bills! I can’t pay the mortgage, how am I supposed to pay for food, gas, electricity, and a babysitter for those three kids? You got any idea how much babysitters cost?”
“Liz has been begging to see her kids. Bring them to our house, and Claire will watch them for free.”
“If Liz gets the kids during the day, will I get the loan?”
“No.”
“I’ve got more than babysitting bills! What about all the other things, food, gas, electricity? What am I supposed to do about those?”
Charlie’s sympathy was long gone. Although he never mentioned it, he knew of the telephone conversations that left Elizabeth in tears.
“As I suggested,” he said icily, “get a job.” He handed the classified section of the Newark Star Ledger to Jeffrey. “This should help.”
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