A Mother's Goodbye

by Kate Hewitt

  I shift on the sidewalk, feeling the heat wafting up from the concrete. It’s one of those muggy, stifling days in the city when everyone who possibly can has left. The air shimmers and people walking past me in their business clothes are already sweating through their shirts.

  ‘Grace.’

  I turn and see Heather striding toward me, an uncertain look on her face. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she’s wearing a t-shirt and stonewashed capri jeans. For a second I recall the time I first met her, standing in the doorway of my apartment, wearing that same uncertain look, it morphing into a smile. It feels as if time is in a kaleidoscope, endlessly twirling.

  ‘Hey.’ Her smiles widens as our gazes meet, and then, to my surprise, she envelops me in a hug. Her body is soft and pillowy and she smells like Ivory soap. The contact is shocking; I can’t remember the last time I’ve hugged someone besides Isaac, and I’m usually the one hugging while he twists away. Eileen, maybe, in the hallway.

  Hugging Heather feels strange but also deeply comforting in a way I didn’t expect. I find myself returning the hug, even clinging for a second, like a child with her mother.

  Then we separate, both us seeming a little abashed by the surprising intimacy. ‘Hi,’ I say, and I brush tears from my eyes, quickly, so she doesn’t notice. I am amazed at how undone I’ve become; I’m so very raw right now, everything exposed. I breathe in and out in an attempt to restore my composure.

  ‘Should we go in?’ Heather asks, and I nod.

  I’ve become used to hospitals since that first time, seven years ago, when just walking through the doors sent a shudder of memory through me. I’ve had to go to ER a couple of times with Isaac for minor injuries and accidents, the bout with pneumonia, and then of course since starting the chemo treatments I’ve had to get used to hospitals in a whole new way. Now, instead of remembering my father’s illness, I am remembering my own.

  Heather glances at me, a faint smile creasing her face. ‘Okay?’ she asks quietly, as if attuned to my feelings and even my memories, and I nod. Gulp.

  ‘We need to go to the Breast Center.’

  ‘Sounds like the right place.’

  I’m feeling weirdly disconnected from everything, letting Heather lead me to a place I’ve been dozens of times already, for the chemo. I don’t know why Heather being here has reduced me to this unsettling, child-like status; maybe I’ve finally reached the end of my fraying rope and I just need someone else to take control. To take care of me. And she is willing.

  In the waiting room Heather goes up to the front desk to check me in while I sit on a chair and flip through a magazine, the pictures and words blurring in front of me.

  She comes back with a couple of forms that I need to fill out; they never seem to end. Then it’s more waiting; we sit side by side, just as we did for Heather’s ultrasound, and the memory makes me smile. Heather, noticing, glances at me curiously.

  ‘I was thinking about your ultrasound,’ I admit. ‘How we were both sitting like this. And how absolutely ignorant I was about everything. Pregnancy, motherhood… I had no clue.’

  ‘I think there’s really only one way to learn,’ she says with an answering smile.

  ‘Yes… those first few weeks with Isaac…’ I shake my head. ‘That was a crash course in just about everything.’ I don’t know why exactly I’m talking about Isaac with Heather now. We’ve never really talked about him in seven years of this open adoption that I was, until a few months ago, trying to bring to an end.

  ‘You seemed to do okay,’ Heather says, and I can’t help but arch an eyebrow in disbelief.

  ‘I barely knew how to hold him.’

  She winces at the reminder, but I’m past feeling insulted or hurt by that. Way past.

  ‘The first diapers—the first twenty diapers—just fell off.’

  ‘I think everyone feels that way about a newborn baby, especially their first. They’re so tiny and scrawny.’

  ‘Yes, he certainly was.’ I brought Isaac home when he was only five pounds, one ounce. I could have held him in one hand, if I’d been brave enough. I glance at Heather, whose expression is cautious and I feel compelled to include her in the memories. ‘Do you remember?’ I ask almost shyly. ‘How small he was?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Heather smiles faintly. ‘I remember. He was so tiny and red when he was born. Bright red and wrinkly and screaming.’ She looks away, and I feel a lurch, as if someone has pushed me off balance, because of course that is a memory I don’t have.

  Impulsively, perhaps because I am so raw, I touch her hand. Squeeze. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you for giving him to me.’

  Heather’s face crumples briefly and she gulps a couple of times. I keep my hand on hers, so unlike me, but necessary in this moment. ‘You’re welcome,’ she whispers, and in that moment we are as connected as we were that night long ago when Heather put her hand over mine on her baby bump. We will always be joined by the son we share, no matter how we might have wanted to claim him solely for our own.

  ‘Grace Thomas?’ A nurse with a clipboard appears in the doorway. The smile she gives me is kind, too kind. My insides wobble.

  ‘That’s me.’ My voice sounds scratchy, like a pen on paper, one running out of ink. Heather stands with me, and together we walk toward the door and what awaits us beyond.

  We are led to a small room, where there is a clean hospital gown draped over the examining table.

  ‘Change into that, no undergarments please,’ the nurse says. ‘I’ll come back to check your vitals before you’re prepped for surgery.’

  Prepped, like a piece of meat, rubbed dry and seasoned. I am shaking.

  ‘Shall I give you some privacy?’ Heather murmurs and I nod jerkily.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She steps out of the room and with hands that tremble I take off my cotton top and navy blue capris, clothes that suddenly seem to belong to another life. Another me.

  In the hospital gown, with its gaping back, I feel as if I have been turned into someone anonymous. Patient. That’s all I am now. I take off my wig, because I suspect I’ll have to at some point, and lay it on top of my folded clothes. Now I am completely exposed, and yet I know there will be more to come.

  There is no mirror in the room, and there is probably a good reason for that. I glance at my wavy reflection in the steel basin of the sink, but I can’t see much. I pat my hair and feel how wispy it has become. I have not gone completely bald, but I almost wish I had. The thinning strands and wisps with glaring bald patches feel worse, more depressing.

  Taking a deep, even breath, I open the door and beckon Heather in. Her glance takes in my hair, or lack of it, with a flare of surprise; she hasn’t seen me without it. I manage a small, wobbly smile.

  ‘Yet another one of the perks of chemo.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice is soft, heartfelt. ‘It must be awful.’

  ‘It is.’ I perch on the edge of the table. ‘But hopefully I’m on my way up now.’ It’s just there is a long, long way to climb.

  We sit in silence for about twenty minutes, but it’s not uncomfortable. I’m glad Heather doesn’t feel the need to fill the quiet with banter or meaningless chitchat, because I’m really not in the mood.

  The nurse comes in to check my vitals, tick boxes on her chart. Then she tells me Dr. Stein will be here in a few minutes to talk to me before the surgery.

  We wait some more, and I feel the tension tautening inside me, like a rope about to snap. Dr. Stein comes in, dressed in surgical scrubs, her manner professional but friendly as always.

  ‘Hello, Grace. How are you feeling this morning?’

  ‘A bit nervous.’

  ‘Understandable.’ Her gaze flicks to Heather.

  ‘This is…’ A quick breath. ‘My friend, Heather.’

  ‘Great. Heather, you can stay with Grace until we wheel her into the operating room, okay? Right up until the last minute.’ She flashes a quick smile before adopting a serious expressio
n. She sits on a stool and wheels it closer to me.

  ‘I know we’ve talked about this before, but I just wanted to have a quick chat about what I’ll be doing while you’re in surgery.’

  ‘Right.’ Although actually I don’t want to hear, because the last time she told me the nitty gritty of what a double mastectomy entails, I nearly passed out. Still, I fix a polite and faintly interested smile on my face as Dr. Stein launches into a description of how she’s going to cut into my breasts and suction all the tissue out. I glance at Heather and see how pale she looks, and amazingly, I almost laugh. This is definitely not for the faint of heart.

  ‘As for the reconstruction, we’re not going to be able to determine whether we have the right conditions for that until during the operation.’ Conditions. I think of weather conditions; it’s a little too stormy for that. I nod.

  ‘Okay, great. Any questions?’

  ‘When… when will I feel better? I mean, enough to call my son and talk to him?’

  ‘The mastectomy takes about two hours, and if we’re able to do a reconstruction, that will be another two to three hours. Then you’ll be in a recovery room for about three hours, before you’re back in your hospital room.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s nearly ten now, so I’d imagine you might be up for making a phone call tonight around nine or ten, but if not, definitely by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Okay.’ Tomorrow morning. I can hang on that long if I need to.

  ‘So all I need to do now is make some marks with my special pen.’ She brandishes what looks like a child’s marker.

  ‘Do you want me to…?’ Heather begins, but I shake my head.

  ‘It’s okay.’ I feel badly, making her leave the room every time I need privacy, and the truth is, I don’t want to go through these moments alone.

  ‘All right.’ With brisk movements Dr. Stein slips the hospital gown off my shoulders and I am naked to the waist. I thought she’d be a little more discreet, but obviously discretion went out the window a long time ago.

  Dr. Stein asks me to sit up straight while she makes some lines and crosses on my breasts, which look flabby and old, but they’re still mine. They’re still there. Heather is averting her head, and I appreciate the effort.

  ‘So that’s where you’re going to cut,’ I say, and Dr. Stein nods cheerfully.

  ‘You’ll find the incisions will be barely noticeable once we’ve reconstructed your breasts.’

  Which is a sentence that in another situation, another life, might have made me laugh.

  ‘All right.’ Dr. Stein helps to pull up my hospital gown. ‘I’ll see you in surgery in about ten minutes.’

  She leaves, and quite suddenly, I am seized by panic. I’m having one of my old panic attacks, like I did right after my father died. I can’t breathe; air comes in and out in wheezy gasps and I bend over, my arms wrapped around my waist.

  ‘Grace?’ Heather rubs my bare back. ‘Grace, it’s going to be okay.’

  I am gulping for air, sweat prickling across my shoulder blades and pooling between my breasts.

  ‘I’m scared,’ I say through chattering teeth. ‘I’m so scared.’

  ‘It’s all right to be scared.’ Heather is still rubbing my back, the way I rub Isaac’s after he’s had a nightmare. ‘Anyone would be scared in this situation. I’m scared.’

  I laugh, or try to, but it comes out like a sob. I put my hand to my mouth to keep the rest in. Heather puts her arms around me.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ she whispers. ‘It’s going to be all right, Grace.’ I close my eyes as I relax into her embrace, the comfort she offers me freely, that I never, ever expected to receive – and yet so desperately need. Yes, it’s going to be all right, I think, lulled by her words, her motherly tone. It has to be.

  Part Three

  Twenty-Four

  HEATHER

  I stay in the hospital until long after Grace goes into surgery. I accompanied her into a little room, some kind of pre-operating room, where she lay down on a stretcher and they hooked her up to an IV. Machines were beeping and the number of nurses and doctors bustling around with tubes and needles surprised me; this was clearly a major event.

  Grace looked small on the stretcher, her face pale, her poor head with its wispy hair as fragile as an egg. I could have wept for her. The whole experience cut me to the bone, as I sensed the pain and fear she felt. I hadn’t expected to feel so much, to ache so much… for Grace.

  After they wheel her into the operating room a nurse ushers me out, and I wander down antiseptic corridors before I find a café. I buy a latte and sit at a table, lost in a haze of thought, my coffee forgotten.

  I am thinking of Isaac as a baby, Grace under the knife. The way he smelled in those newborn days, when I buried my nose in his neck. The way Grace looked on, anxious and exhausted, while I pretended to know it all. It all seems so unbearably petty now, the deliberate one-upmanship I couldn’t keep myself from, even though I knew it didn’t do any good for either of us.

  Then my thoughts move to my own family – Amy’s anger, Emma’s confusion, Lucy’s needs, Kev’s resentment. So much to deal with, day after day after day. And then back to Grace, wondering how she has coped with cancer all by herself, and then considering how much she needs me right now. How much I want to finally be needed. It all drifts through my dazed mind as I sit and stare into space while the hours tick by unnoticed.

  Eventually I startle awake, blinking the world back into focus. My muscles are sore from sitting still for so long. It’s nearly one, and Grace might still be in surgery for several more hours. I need to pick Isaac up in less than an hour, and so I hurry from the café, stepping through the swinging doors of the hospital into the humid haze of a hot summer’s day. Heat boils up from the concrete and the city smells dirty, a whiff of garbage and gasoline in every breath. It hasn’t rained for weeks.

  I take a deep breath, wanting to focus on Isaac, even though my mind is full of Grace. He’s the one who needs me now. I take the First Avenue bus uptown to 92nd Street, resting my head against the window as it lumbers and wheezes up the avenue, stopping every other block to let someone on or off. The trip takes thirty minutes, and by the time I reach the Y on Lexington Avenue it is forty-seven minutes past one, and I am sweaty and out of breath.

  As I hurry inside, nannies and a couple of parents march by with their charges. I don’t think I’m imagining their superior smiles. In this world – Grace’s world – you don’t show up two minutes late.

  Isaac is waiting by the door of his classroom, backpack on, expression dour. His leader or teacher or whoever is tidying up; she shoots me a quelling look as I hurry in. I feel scolded.

  ‘Sorry, Isaac. The bus took longer than I thought. How was camp?’ I reach out to touch his hair but my hand just hovers before I drop it.

  Isaac shrugs one bony shoulder. ‘It was okay.’

  He doesn’t look at me as we both walk out of the Y. ‘Do you want to walk home?’ I ask brightly, even though the heat feels suffocating. Isaac just shrugs. ‘Do you and your mom usually walk?’

  ‘We take a cab.’

  ‘Do you want to take a cab, then?’ Grace told me she’d left money on her kitchen counter, to pay for anything while I’m taking care of Isaac. I don’t know how much it is, but knowing Grace, it will be in the hundreds. We can afford a cab.

  Isaac doesn’t answer, just steps out onto the curb, one arm raised. Seconds later a cab pulls over. I am impressed and a little unsettled. Seven years old, and he hails a cab without blinking an eye. Even Amy would be unsure, asking me how to do it, and I wouldn’t really know.

  We slide inside the blissfully cool air-conditioned car, and Isaac scooches over to the window, as far away from me as possible. I tell myself not to mind. I have two or three days with him. I can handle a little awkwardness at the start.

  I try not to think of Kev, simmering with silent resentment at being left in charge, or Emma, who will actually do all the work, or Amy, who
is likely to spin further out of control without me there, or Lucy, who will certainly whine and cry and be difficult. Two, maybe three days. That’s all I’ve got, and I want to savor them.

  I glance at Isaac, whose face is averted from me. It gives me the chance to study him properly, from the sweet, round curve of his cheek to those skinny shoulders and almost concave chest; he really does have Kevin’s build. Kevin’s eyes and hair, too.

  My glance moves down to Isaac’s scabbed-over knees, such a little boy, always jumping and running, no doubt. One of his sneakers is untied, and I have to keep myself from reaching down and tying the laces.

  The cab pulls up in front of Grace’s building, and Isaac slips out without a word, running ahead into the building, as I fumble with crumpled bills to pay.

  I follow him into the air-conditioned, potpourri-scented elegance of the building’s marble-floored foyer. The doorman greets Isaac with friendly kindness and then raises his eyebrows, waiting for me to declare myself. I know I must look like I don’t belong here.

  ‘I’m Heather McCleary,’ I say. ‘I’m staying with Isaac for a few days. Grace left me a key.’

  ‘Of course,’ he answers smoothly, and then produces an envelope from a drawer. I take it with murmured thanks, and then we are in the elevator. The button lights up before I’ve pushed it, and I realize the doorman must have done it from his station.

  ‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’ I ask Isaac. It feels too hot to go to the park, but I don’t want to squander our time together with Isaac glued to whatever device is his current favorite.

  Isaac gives me a considering look, wondering, I think, how much he can ask for. ‘We could go swimming,’ he suggests after a moment.

  The elevator doors open and I step out into the hall and fit the key in the lock. ‘Where do you usually go swimming?’