He showed up in the evening. “How are you feeling, son?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” I grabbed my headphones and handed them to him. “Put these on.” He hesitated, but I knew I had the advantage of lying in a hospital bed. Mom, observing from the recliner, smiled.
Dad listened to the whole song. When it was over, he set the headphones down around his neck.
“What do you think?” I said.
“Quite interesting, especially considering some news I heard on the drive up here.”
“What’s that?”
“Two of President Reagan’s senior officials are in Moscow right now to discuss a U.S.–Soviet arms control agreement.”
“Wow.” It was weird, Dad’s news lining up perfectly with a song on Paul’s mixtape. “What do you think about the Moscow meeting?”
“It’s difficult to say. From a political perspective, our countries are locked in conflict. History—in particular, the Cold War—shows us that our systems do no lend themselves to peaceful coexistence. But Mr. Gorbachev is raising a more important concern.”
“What is it, Dad?”
“That in this nuclear age, all of humanity is under threat. A button is depressed, and soon after, it’s the end.”
A chill went through me as the image of a mushroom cloud formed in my head. I jammed my hands into my armpits. The thought of nuclear war always freaked me out. But then I felt my nostrils flaring. My teeth biting down. My lips beginning to curl.
“Why the heck are we doing this, Dad?”
He looked puzzled. “Why are we doing what?”
“Pointing all these missiles at each other. Getting ourselves set to end the world. It just…well, it makes me angry.”
“I’d say that’s a good thing.”
“What? It’s good that we’re getting ready to end humanity?”
“No. We’ve reached this point because people aren’t adequately animated. We’ve created an extraordinarily dangerous world, and yet people accept it. If you’re angry, then perhaps you’ll be motivated to bring about change.”
Dad let out a slow breath. He pulled the headphones from his neck and handed them to me. “In any case, I share the musician’s sentiment.”
“Sting’s? Which one?”
“I hope the Russians love their children, too.”
* * *
•
After five days’ imprisonment in the ICU, Dr. Egan set me free. I couldn’t go home, but she ordered that the big drain tube be taken out of my head, half of the lines be withdrawn from my arms, and the catheter—the one for peeing—be pulled from you know where. My new room was a thousand times better, too. With a big, north-facing window and every surface covered with flowers, chocolates, and teddy bears, it was a major step up from the ICU.
Dad returned to work. Mom, very occasionally, would sneak out to run an errand. That gave me time to do some reading, which I actually enjoyed.
I was in the middle of The Outsiders when one of my favorite family members—my mom’s first cousin—appeared in the doorway. “Loretta!” I practically shouted, bolting upright in bed. Some cards that had been sitting in my lap went flying.
“Wow,” Loretta said, shaking her ultra-blond hair. “If my husband had ever been this happy to see me, we probably wouldn’t be getting a divorce.”
I busted up laughing. It would’ve gone on for minutes if I hadn’t felt a shooting pain in the side of my head.
She got me caught up on all the family news. She had three daughters, two of whom were the same ages as my brother and me. She was finishing up telling me about her oldest. “Jalee visited some colleges last week. That’s why she couldn’t make your grandma’s funeral.”
I frowned. “Excuse me? What are you talking about?”
Loretta closed her eyes and moaned. She crossed her arms and dropped her head. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything about that.”
I found myself agitated. “About what?” I asked, nudging Loretta’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything. “C’mon, Loretta, what the heck is going on?”
She grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes. “Your grandma passed away last week. The Alzheimer’s finally took her.” Grandma had been living in a hospital for years, unable to move or speak. Still, it was shocking to hear she’d died.
“When did it happen?”
“Last Wednesday.”
My chest tightened. “What, like the day I got admitted?”
“Yes.”
“So when was the funeral?”
“The day of your surgery. Your mom stayed with you.”
It was my turn to moan. I pulled my hand back and covered my face.
Loretta sighed. “Please don’t tell her I told you this, honey. I was supposed to keep it under wraps.”
My mind was squarely on my mom. I’d been so irritated by how neurotic she was acting, asking me millions of questions or going after the nurses or adjusting my sheets—and here her own mom had just died. I felt like a jerk. And Dad, with all his nods of approval when I pretended in front of Mom that nothing hurt at all—he was probably just trying to insulate her.
I dropped my hand and looked back at Loretta. It was time to practice what I knew I had to do in front of my mom.
I smiled at Loretta. I put my hand on her shoulder to reassure her. “This will be our little secret. Thanks for letting me know.”
Loretta was biting her lip. I smiled more broadly, reaching toward her and giving her cheek a pinch. “Are we going to pout all afternoon?” I said.
Finally, she let out a deep breath. Soon after that, we were goofing around.
* * *
•
A few days later, after lunch, Mom and I were playing gin rummy. She seemed to be enjoying herself—it was her favorite card game—except she kept asking me how I was feeling. After I said I was fine for maybe the seventh time, I told her if she asked me again I’d get a nurse to shoot her up with some Valium. For a few minutes after that, she was mostly normal.
We were in the middle of a game when Ted walked in. I wasn’t expecting him. He’d been swamped with a summer college-prep class and get-togethers with friends before the school year began, and Mom hadn’t mentioned he was coming by. “How’s it going?” he said, crossing his arms. Something about him seemed a little off.
I was about to ask what brought him by when Dad appeared in the doorway. The three of them assembled in my hospital room at the same time, completely unannounced—especially after Dad had returned to work—could mean only one thing: Dr. Egan had received the biopsy results. Why had everyone kept me out of the loop? My lips pinched together as I thought about what to say, but not even a minute passed before Dr. Egan knocked on the door.
“Come in,” I said. They’d taken down the metal gate around my bed, so Dr. Egan sat at the end of it and looked straight at me. I swallowed.
There was no small talk. “The tumor cells were cancerous,” she said. It felt like something was stuck in my ears, or they were both ringing. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. I looked at my parents, who were standing behind her. The shock on their faces confirmed the news. Dad let out a sigh. Ted’s eyes fell to the floor. Mom pressed her hand against her chest, as if her heart would fall out if she didn’t.
Dr. Egan let her diagnosis sink in.
“What are my chances?” I said quietly.
“I know you don’t like doctors glossing over things, so I won’t. It’s a very aggressive form of cancer. Statistically speaking—and every patient is unique, Jeff—the five-year survival rate for this cell type and grade is low.” She went on to tell us about astrocytomas and said there were treatment options—radiation, chemotherapy, and so on—and that I shouldn’t just assume I was going to die.
Dr. Egan left. My parents moved next to me, standing by my bed, silent and uncertain. Ted s
tayed back, burying himself behind a huge flower arrangement, as if trying to erase himself from the moment. I wanted to scream. I imagined grabbing the IV pole and smashing it through the window. I was flooded with emotions—anger, fear, grief—and I could feel my muscles tightening.
My father was somewhere else. I looked at him, but he didn’t look back. Emotionally, he’d departed.
Ted’s eyes traced the lines between the black-and-white floor tiles. His arms were crossed, his hands gripping his biceps.
Only Mom was really there, her eyes wide open and focused on mine. Her hands were shaking. Her face was pale, and her mouth hung open. Her whole body seemed unsteady, as if she was about to collapse.
That’s when I remembered the moment with Loretta a few days before, when I committed to bracing my mom, shoring her up. I had to support her. She couldn’t support herself.
With each breath, I buried my feelings. Fear of what was ahead, the possibility of dying—I refused to acknowledge them. One by one, I hid them away, pushing them deep into dark corners. I reached for my mom’s hand, pulled it toward me, and kissed it. It wasn’t fake—I loved her so much and knew that would help her—but at the same moment, my heart went numb.
Everybody’s favorite analogy for cancer, I learned during my time in the hospital, is war. Dr. Egan used that word and several others like it, saying on my last day there that a long, drawn-out fight was ahead. Just before I left the hospital, Dad told me I’d fought my battle admirably. In the stack of get-well cards I carried home, war came up a dozen times.
The analogy never really fit right for me. In real wars, there were combatants, people busy trying to kill each other. Who were the combatants in my war? The cancer cells made up one side, but who was fighting them? It certainly wasn’t me. Dr. Egan and the other doctors and nurses were the ones who did all the work. I was just a spectator. Now I’d be moving on to the next phase of the war—chemotherapy and radiation—and again I’d be sitting around, swallowing pills or getting my head zapped, but not plotting and planning and fighting. People seemed so intent on calling the whole thing a war. But I wasn’t one of the combatants. I was the battlefield.
* * *
•
The day after Dr. Egan dropped the cancer bomb, she said I could go home. Mom’s face broke out into a permasmile you couldn’t get off with a chisel. Dad called from the office, just after Mom gave him the news, and that’s when he told me I’d fought the battle admirably. It was nice to see my parents so enthusiastic, and I was definitely happy to be getting out of that prison. But to me, Dr. Egan saying that I could leave—considering the other news she’d just given me—was more like telling me that home would be a more comfortable place to die.
Mom was folding my dirty clothes and tucking them into a duffel bag when Ted showed up with a couple of cardboard boxes. “Orders from Her Highness,” he said, motioning toward Mom. She smiled and pointed at the flower arrangements. Ted looked at me, winked, and rolled his eyes. I chuckled.
Dad showed up. He looked more relaxed than usual, at least until Mom handed him the mile-high stack of paperwork the nurse had dropped off. He plopped himself into the recliner and started a review I expected would end around Christmas.
I didn’t have anything to do. I offered to help, but Mom told me to stay in bed. Ted said it was the last time I’d get five-star care like this, so I should live it up. That got me thinking something dark, though thank God I didn’t say it out loud: Just how long was I going to live?
Forty-five minutes later, with everything packed up and the papers signed, there was a knock on the door. Ted had been standing in front of it with his arms crossed, but he stepped aside. In walked Dr. Egan, three of her medical residents, and several of the nurses who’d been taking care of me. The room was quickly crowded.
“On behalf of my team,” Dr. Egan began, “I wanted to say goodbye. I can honestly say you’ve been one of the most amazing patients I’ve ever had.”
“One of the most?” I said. Several people smiled. Dr. Egan chuckled.
“Okay, the most. I know plenty of challenges are ahead, but you’ve handled this with remarkable maturity.”
I glanced at Dad. His jaw was jutting out. Mom instantly teared up. Ted smiled at me.
“Thanks, Dr. Egan,” I said. “Thanks to all of you, actually. It’s really nice to be leaving this place still able to think and speak and listen. I’m going to tell you something, but I don’t want any of you to get offended, okay?” I waited until Dr. Egan, her residents, and the nurses looked at me and nodded. “I honestly hope I never have to see any of you here again.”
* * *
•
The first thing I did when we got home, after saying hello to Amiga, who couldn’t stop wagging her serpentine tail until I gave her a five-minute-long tummy rub, was call Paul. Ever since he’d witnessed my seizure at his place, he’d been checking in, and he was the one person outside my family I allowed Mom to keep in the loop.
He answered after one ring. “Dude, are you home?”
“Yup,” I said. “Relaxing downstairs on my couch with half a brain.”
“C’mon, man.” He didn’t think that was funny. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“Overall, pretty good.” I hesitated for a second. “Did, um, my mom tell you the diagnosis?”
I heard Paul suck in a breath. “You mean the cancer part?”
“Yeah, that.”
“She did.” He paused. “But she said the surgery went really, really well.”
I sighed. “I guess. It’s just that the tumor might, you know, grow back or something.”
“Dude, you’ve got to think positive. And also know your friends totally have your back.”
I sat up straight on the couch. “Wait a second, you didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
“You made me say ‘truth’ not to fifteen times.”
“So, truth, you didn’t say a single word to anybody at all?”
“Jesus, truth.”
My shoulders relaxed. “Okay.”
Paul sighed. “I don’t see why you’re so worried about people knowing.”
“Dude, have you forgotten freshman year? My knee gave out in front of the football jocks and the whole year they called me Stumpy. If I caught that much crap for a messed-up knee, just imagine what I’ll get for a hole in my head.”
“Those jocks are a bunch of dickheads. I’m talking about our friends. Which reminds me, everybody’s getting together Wednesday evening at Bahama Lanes—you know, our last hurrah before sophomore year begins. Will you come?”
“I don’t know.” I definitely wanted to see people, but I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me. The thought of having to tell people made Lucia pop into my head. I figured I’d better check with Paul. “So, like, is Lucia going?”
“I don’t think anyone invited her. You want me to call her?”
“Not unless you absolutely want to guarantee that I won’t join you.” I was still having nightmares about her surprise visit after I had my head shaved. What a humiliating experience.
“Whoa, dude, time for a chill pill.” I was quiet, thinking about Lucia, when the distinctive sound of a fart came through the receiver. “I gotta jet,” Paul said.
“You just did.”
Paul laughed. “You’re hilarious. Look, you absolutely have to come next week. I never have fun without you. But I do have to go now. If I could take you into the bathroom, I would.”
I cracked up. “Now you’re absolutely full of shit.”
“Not for long,” Paul said, laughing out loud as he hung up.
* * *
•
My first dose of chemo pills began just three days after I was released from the hospital. Each round of chemo would be four days, with pills in the morning and evening. When Dr. Egan mentioned them, I didn’t realize I
’d be starting right away, and I never imagined they’d be administered at home. Grandma had gone through chemo six years earlier, and she’d stayed at the hospital the whole time.
After breakfast, Mom put on some latex gloves and filled a little paper cup with the morning dose that Dr. Farbstein, my oncologist, had ordered the day before. “Water or orange juice?” she asked. I pointed to the OJ. She poured it and handed me the little cup, and I downed the pills. We sat there together for maybe ten minutes, expecting some of the things the pharmacist had warned us about—nausea, fatigue, and so on—but nothing bad happened. We were pleasantly surprised.
The evening rolled around, and Dad and Ted watched as Mom administered my dose. Dad seemed impressed. He recalled how sick his mother had been when she was on chemo. “You’re tough, Jeff,” he said, which made Ted cringe and me feel a little proud. Still, I wondered whether the pharmacy had given me the wrong pills.
On day two, there was a little rumbling in my stomach after lunch, though nothing major. I ate dinner along with everybody else. I burped a couple of times while reading The Outsiders, but that was it. At ten o’clock, I went to sleep.
The following morning, when I emerged at the top of the staircase, Mom said, “Hello, sleepyhead.” I glanced at the clock. It was half past eleven. “How are you feeling?”
I checked in with myself. No nausea. No headaches. None of the side effects Dr. Farbstein had talked about—save fatigue, considering I’d just slept thirteen hours. I told Mom I felt fine.
She was thrilled. She asked what I wanted for breakfast, and then made me one of her perfect omelets. I ate the whole thing, along with two pieces of toast and a glass of orange juice.
I took my dishes to the kitchen. “Unnecessary but appreciated,” she said, her hands in latex gloves. “Unfortunately, I have to give you these guys now.” She handed me my paper cup of chemo pills and another glass of orange juice. I downed them and headed to the living room.
I plopped myself down on the sofa and opened The Outsiders to where I’d left off, where Ponyboy is reading a Robert Frost poem to Johnny, who’s blown away by it. It was my favorite part of the book. I was reciting the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” from memory when I felt a deep rumbling in my stomach.
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