Ever since the fart joke incident, we’ve been trying to keep the humor level high, since it seemed to do Mom so much good.
RJ and I got together in his room last week and between us we subscribed to thirty different “Joke a Day” email lists, so we always have a supply of silly humor on hand. BethAnn suggested I start a Tumblr, so I did—Humor for Healing. When I told Grandma Sally and Grandpa Marty about it, Grandpa emailed me Proverbs 17:22: “A cheerful heart brings good healing, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
It’s not been easy to keep a happy heart with everything that’s going on.
I’ve had to learn how to get through every single painful moment when my spirit does feel broken, when I’m overwhelmed with sadness or anxiety or anger or guilt, or sometimes all of them in one giant tornado of feeling so that it feels like I’m going to explode from the pressure. Sometimes it feels just too hard for one person. Sometimes it is. Writing in a diary helps, but it’s not enough. You need people. People who listen, who understand because they’ve been through what you have, or who do their best to even though they haven’t. And sometimes, you just need to be around people who know when to tell a good fart joke.
Even though we’ve been warned that chemo is going to make Mom tired and probably sick, it’s not until she starts the first round that we truly understand just how tired and sick. Grandma Sally took her to the hospital because Dad had to go to work—the repercussions of the hack are still ongoing and now he has to testify before another congressional committee, this time the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. When I get home from school, Mom is in bed.
“How is she?” I ask Grandma.
“Wiped out,” Grandma says. “Completely. She barely has the energy to get herself out of bed to go to the bathroom.”
“Is it okay to visit her?”
“Sure, honey,” Grandma says. “But if she’s sleeping, let her rest.”
The curtains are closed in my parents’ bedroom, leaving the light dim. I can barely see the outline of my mother’s form in the king-size bed.
Tiptoeing to the side of the bed, I listen for her breath, relieved when I hear her exhale.
I go to the other side of the bed and crawl in next to her, not wanting to wake her up by holding her hand. Instead, I clutch the bottom of her T-shirt between my fingers and lie beside my mom, listening to her breathing.
“Don’t stop, Mom,” I whisper. “Just keep going. We’re going to get through this together.”
I want her to wake up. I need her to wake up to show me she’s going to survive this. But Grandma says Mom needs rest.
Gently squeezing her hand with its Glittery Grape painted nails, I get off the bed and leave Mom to sleep, closing the door behind me.
When Mom does wake up, she’s still feeling rough. We have to make sure she drinks lots of fluids to flush the drugs through her system, but she doesn’t want to drink or eat.
“I can’t, Mom, I feel too nauseous,” she complains when Grandma Sally tries to get her to take sips from a glass of water through a straw.
“Just a few more sips,” Grandma cajoles her. “We have to keep up your fluids.”
Mom reluctantly gives in to Grandma’s nagging, but as soon as she’s taken a few sips, she gestures for the bucket, which we’ve been keeping by the side of the bed in case she feels sick.
The moment I give it to her, she heaves, but there’s not much in her stomach to throw up.
Grandma strokes Mom’s hair away from her face.
“My poor baby,” she says. “This isn’t any fun.”
“Understatement of the year,” Mom groans into the bucket.
It’s weird to watch my mom being taken care of by Grandma. As Grandma wipes Mom’s face with a cool washcloth and then straightens the sheets around her, I see my own mom’s gestures when she’s looked after a sick me. Mom clings to Grandma’s hand tightly as if there’s magic there that will help her to feel better, just as I did to Mom when I was little. I wish like anything I could give that comfort and strength back to her now.
I leave Grandma with Mom and go downstairs to make dinner for the rest of us. I guess when you’re feeling awful, it doesn’t matter how old you are. You still want your mom.
Dad comes home relatively early, considering everything that’s on his plate at work. He talks privately with Grandma to catch up on what’s been happening here, then heads upstairs to see Mom as soon as Grandma leaves.
I give Dad some time with Mom alone, but then I go up to see if there’s anything my mother wants or needs.
“I’m fine, honey,” Mom says.
“Sally said you need to try to drink more fluids,” Dad tells her. “How about sipping a little ginger ale?”
“Ugh, no,” Mom groans. “Just the thought … bleah.”
“How about if I cut up some watermelon?” I suggest. “You could try eating a few little pieces.”
I’d read about watermelon on an online chemotherapy support board—people who actually were going through chemo and trying to figure out how to stay hydrated when they felt sick and their taste buds were messed up from the chemicals comparing notes on different suggestions with each other.
To my surprise, Mom says, “Watermelon. That sounds good.”
I practically run down to the kitchen, I’m so excited that there’s something my mother wants to eat. I slice the watermelon into thin pieces, so it will virtually melt on her tongue, and then bring the plate upstairs. Dad is on the bed next to Mom, holding her cradled against his chest. He takes the plate from me and gently holds a piece of fruit to her lips.
“Here you go, Hels,” he says. “Try this.”
I stand next to the bed, with the bucket to hand, just in case. But Mom swallows, takes a breath, and smiles.
“Great idea, Sammy,” she says. “I could go for another.”
“Your wish is my command,” Dad says, feeding her some more watermelon.
As I watch Dad sitting with my mom, taking amazing care of her, I wonder how he can be one way at home with us, and then stand by while people say the kind of things they did in those emails about his colleague Aisha Rana. How do I reconcile that?
I’m not going to be able to trust him again, or trust anyone totally, until I’ve found the answer to that question—and the only way I’m going to do that is to ask again.
I know he’s tired and stressed and worried. I know it’s probably not the best time to ask. But I don’t know if there will ever be a right time to have this conversation.
I wait till he’s gone downstairs. I thought he’d be in his study working on the testimony for the congressional hearing, but he’s slumped on the sofa in the family room in front of the TV with a beer. Comedy Central is blaring out of the TV, instead of the news or the History Channel, which are usually the only channels Dad watches.
I turn to go upstairs, to leave him to relax in peace. But then I stop. I’m under stress, too. And because my parents haven’t been honest with me—because they haven’t told me the things I need to know under the vague illusion of protecting me, they made it way worse. And while they expect so much of me in school, they didn’t think I could actually deal with the real world.
“Dad, we need to talk,” I say.
I wonder if my words make his heart sink the same way it does when my parents tell me we have to talk. I wonder if he thinks, Uh-oh, this can’t be good.
Dad looks like he’s coming out of a trance. “What’s that, kiddo?”
“Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure,” he says, switching off the TV, but I can’t help noticing the sigh as he does it. He was switching off, and I’m making him switch on again.
I start to feel guilty, but too bad. Being my dad is his job, too.
He pats the sofa next to him, but I take a seat on the chair opposite, where Mom sat when she confronted me about going to the concert. I want to look him in the eye when we talk. We’ve been not talking about this f
or long enough and I don’t want to have him put his arm around me and give me comfort and say, “It’s okay,” and believe it when it’s not, just because he’s my dad.
“What’s on your mind?”
“The emails. The ones the hackers posted.”
Dad’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “They posted thousands of emails, Sammy. Could you be a little more specific?”
“The ones where you talk about Aisha Rana.”
“Those again.” My dad looks down at his beer bottle and starts picking at the label. “What is it you want to know?”
I want to know which is the real you.
But I can’t ask him that. And even if I did, I’m not sure I’d trust the answer. What question can I ask that will give me a truthful answer?
“Yeah, Dad. Those again. The ones you avoid talking about every time I bring them up. I guess what I want to know is—no, forget that, I need to know—is that what I have to look forward to?”
“What do you mean?” he asks, still not looking at me.
“I mean, you always tell me I can do anything I want with my life if I work hard and do well in school. And I’m doing that despite everything raining down on my head, everything I thought was private about myself being made public through no fault of my own—”
“It wasn’t my fault, either, Sammy.”
“Well, it was even less my fault, Dad. You’re at least the guy in charge at the bank. You at least had some control of the security. People reported to you on it, didn’t they? You could have spent more money to upgrade the systems or trained people better or whatever. There’s not a single thing I could have done to change the outcome of that except not keep a journal on my laptop.”
“But—”
“Can you just listen to me instead of telling me the hack wasn’t your fault!” I yell at him. “The hack isn’t the point!”
My father sighs wearily. “So what is the point, Samantha?”
He’s using my full name. That means he’s getting impatient before I’ve even got out what I want to say. Too bad. I’ve waited long enough for this conversation to happen.
“You want the point, Dad? Fine. What I’m asking is, if I do all the things I’m supposed to do, all the things I’m doing now, and I get into a good college and then work hard there to get good grades so I can get a good job, is it just so I can get paid less than a guy and so someone else’s dad will make comments about me like your colleagues did about Aisha Rana and then the head of my company won’t do anything about it?”
My father finally looks up from his beer-label picking, stricken, like I’ve gut-punched him. Good, because that’s exactly how I felt when I read those emails.
Now will he show me who the real Dick Wallach is?
He puts the beer bottle down on the table and buries his face in his hands. His breathing is loud and heavy, and I don’t know if he’s trying to control his temper or fighting back other emotions he doesn’t want me to see.
Either way, my hands are trembling on my knees as the moments tick by, heavy with the weight of my unanswered question.
When he finally raises his head, he looks even more sad and weary than when I first walked into the room.
I did this to him.
No. I didn’t. I just asked a question, one it was fair to ask. It’s like he’s never put two and two together to come up with the answer that a woman like Aisha Rana could be me someday. When you think about it, that’s pretty dumb for someone who is supposed to be as smart as my dad.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” he says. “I told you we just make it up as we go along. And that’s not just with parenting.”
That’s his excuse?
“What do you mean? You’re the head of the company. You’ve been on the cover of Forbes and Fortune and written up on Bloomberg and Business Insider. And you’re just making it up as you go along?”
“Not when it comes to strategy. Business I know. Give me data, give me probabilities, give me facts and figures, I can deal with that. It’s dealing with people where I have to make it up as I go along,” Dad says. “Every time I think I’ve got the people thing figured out, another person comes along and changes the model.”
Oh my god. Is he for real?
“Um … Dad … that’s because people aren’t widgets. They might share some common attributes, but they have infinite variables.”
He sighs and gives me a tired, lopsided grin, which almost reminds me of Scruffles. “It’s times like this when I wonder how my kids got to be so much smarter than me,” he says.
“That’s because we got the benefit of Mom’s genes, too,” I tell him. “Which brings me back to my question—which you still haven’t answered. How can you tell me that I can do anything with my life, and then be okay with people writing stuff like that about a woman who works for you? How can you justify paying women less for doing the same job? Is that what I have to look forward to?”
Again, silence. Why won’t he answer me? Is it because he can’t?
I get up to leave, fighting off frustration. I don’t want to believe that my dad is the Richard Wallach in those hacked emails, but if he can’t even give me a straight answer, then maybe that’s who he really is.
“Sammy, wait. Sit down.”
I turn back, but I don’t sit. I’m not in the mood to be ordered around like Scruffles.
“Please,” Dad says.
I shake my head no and remain standing, arms crossed over my chest. My father sighs, and continues.
“We all play different roles in our lives, Sammy. I’m sure you do, too. You’re a daughter when you’re at home, and you’re a student at school, and a friend when you’re with your friends, and a babysitter when you babysit, and an employee when you have a summer job …”
“Okay, Dad, I get it. So?” I mean, Rosa and I talked about the same thing. I guess I just didn’t get that while I was being different versions of myself, so is everyone else.
“So when I’m at home, I’m a husband and a father,” Dad says. “And when I’m at work, I’m the CEO. And I have to play by the rules of that game, whether I happen to like those rules or not. Just like you might behave one way with one group of friends and another way with another.”
“So you’re saying you do it because everyone else does it?” I say. “Because that’s completely lame, Dad. I can just imagine how you and Mom would react if I told you that’s why I lied about going to the Einstein’s Encounter concert.” I put on my Dad imitation voice: “If all your friends jump off a cliff, are you going to do that, too?”
“I’m not saying it’s because everyone else does it,” Dad says. “Not exactly. It’s that trying to change corporate culture is like trying to steer a supertanker. It takes a long time to change course. “
“But it’s never going to change course if you keep doing the same thing,” I point out. “You’re the captain of the ship. The crew takes cues from you.”
“I’m not the only captain. I’m just one captain of one ship,” Dad says. “This is bigger than just me.”
“You always quote Winston Churchill to me. Didn’t he say ‘I never worry about action, but only about inaction’? How are things going to get better for me and other girls like me, if my own dad as head of a company doesn’t even try—if he just shrugs and says, ‘That’s the way things are in business’?”
By the time I’m done, I’m shaking with self-righteous anger. I just want to make him see. He has to understand. Why can’t he get it? He’s my dad. Doesn’t he love me and want what’s best for me?
Dad sinks his face in his hands again. He can’t even stand to look at me. But then I hear a sound like the cry of a dying walrus. My dad’s shoulders are shaking and I realize that he’s crying.
Not just crying. My dad is sobbing.
All because of me. Okay, maybe not exactly because of me—he got himself here. But having to explain what he did to me was definitely a waterworks trigger in this moment.
But as mad as I am, I l
ove my dad. And I’ve never seen him like this. So while I want nothing more than to keep yelling at him, I can’t bring myself to. Because I think I need to be the bigger person. Which kind of sucks in terms of dealing with my frustration.
I move next to him on the sofa and put my arm around him and lay my head on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Dad. We’ll be okay.” At least I hope we will.
He raises his head, his eyes red, cheeks damp. I’ve never seen my dad show this much emotion before. He’s always been the master of control.
“You’ve never reminded me as much of your mother as you did just now, Sammy,” he says. “She makes me a better person. I can’t lose her.”
“You won’t,” I say. “We won’t. We’re going to fight this together. All of us.”
Dad takes my hand.
“We will,” he promises. “And I will fight for you, Sammy. Because you’re right. I can’t just make excuses when I’m the captain of the ship. Someone has to start giving the orders to change the course, and if it’s not me, then who?”
I think I can believe him. I want to. This is the dad I’ve always thought I’ve known and loved.
Love is enough to make me give him the benefit of the doubt. Unless he proves me wrong.
May 24
It’s almost here! Tomorrow night’s prom—or for some of us, Faux Prom. Why couldn’t they have scheduled prom the week AFTER the SAT instead of the week BEFORE? Then I wouldn’t be sitting at home the night before prom, taking practice tests.
There are plenty of people who aren’t at home doing that, judging from the pictures I’m seeing on Instagram. Maybe I wouldn’t be either if Mom wasn’t sick. If the hack hadn’t happened, and I were going to the actual prom, I’d probably be getting together with Margo and Rosa and figuring out how we were going to do our hair and stuff like that.
Rosa told me she’s going to get her hair done professionally in an updo tomorrow. If I had straight hair, I’d try to do an Audrey Hepburn updo to go with my dress, but with my mop o’ frizz I’m not sure it’ll work. I’m just going to pile it on my head, stick it with pins, and hope for the best.
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