Sunday, February 22, 2015
Itasca, Minnesota
“We’re afraid Cecily may be taking a turn for the worse,” Dr. Olson told Liz and Molly at noon on Sunday. They’d ended up pulling into the parking lot at the same time and walking in together, without having exactly planned it, and Dr. Olson had just been coming out of Cecily’s room. Now he adjusted his glasses. “Her body is healing fine, but, as of this morning, she’s beginning to show signs of delirium. And agitation, which can be a sign of developing depression. This isn’t uncommon in older patients after major surgery, especially just coming out of anesthesia. We were hopeful it wouldn’t turn up at this stage. And she seemed fine yesterday. But, this morning, one of the nurses said Cecily was talking to her mother, as if her mother was in the room, and then she got very agitated when the nurse questioned her.”
Molly glanced at Liz and quickly saw: nope, they were not going to mention how Cecily had never actually known her mother. “What’s the plan, going forward?” Liz asked. Thank God, at least she was acting more normal today. Molly, even after two large cups of coffee, did not feel like herself at all. Last night, when Evan had dropped off Caden, as Molly had fussed over their son’s awful-looking black eye, Evan had insisted on scheduling a conversation. For today! Caden was spending the day with Evan again, then they would all meet back at the bungalow at five, so Evan and Molly could talk while Molly made supper, trying to keep on track for an early night, so Caden would get plenty of rest before tomorrow’s game.
Naturally, Molly had stayed up till 2 a.m., reviewing her court papers and googling things like “reasons a judge will change custody agreement.” What she’d found had not been encouraging. What if some judge actually believed she’d acted in bad faith by not letting Caden travel to see his dad at Christmas, despite the weather and the fact that he’d had hockey games on either side of the planned dates, or by not rescheduling another trip? (As if there’d been time, with hockey!)
Now her stomach was hurting, too, over Cecily, as Dr. Olson went on about adjustments to medication, adverse effects on her recovery, possible delay of her transfer to The Pines.
“I’m sorry,” he finished. “I know, after getting through surgery and the last few days, it’s tempting to think you’re through the worst, but, with a person this old, this is where it gets really hard, unfortunately.”
Liz and Molly thanked him, glanced at each other—Liz looked as stunned as Molly felt—then squared their shoulders and walked into Cecily’s room.
Cecily was lying back with her eyes closed, her white hair frizzing out across her pillows. She looked exhausted—and incredibly, undeniably old.
“Mom?” Liz said, going straight to Cecily’s bedside. “Mom!”
Cecily’s eyes fluttered open. Molly waited by the door, hoping for the usual joke or sarcastic comment.
Nothing. A couple of blinks.
Liz was frowning, her face flushed. “Mom, Dr. Olson said you seem to be getting depressed. Are you? Are you feeling confused at all? Listen, I’m not going to have you give up on me. I’m not going to have you leave me.”
Slowly, Cecily smiled. “Now, that isn’t up to either of us, is it?” She patted Liz’s hand. “Though I’ve tried so hard, all these years, to keep you.”
Liz looked at Molly, and Molly could tell she was thinking the same thing: what an odd thing for Cecily to say.
Liz regrouped. “Mom, the doctor said you were talking to your mother.”
“I never knew my mother,” Cecily snapped. “You know that. When I was four years old, she left me at the Home! I never knew her at all. I don’t remember, I mean!”
“She left you?” Liz said. This was new information, and a fresh shock, almost more than the shock of Cecily’s appearance or aggravated tone. Molly—and Liz, too, she knew—had always assumed that Cecily’s parents had died, that that was how she’d ended up in the orphanage.
“Yes! She checked it on the form that she was going to come back for me, but she never did!”
“Oh, Mom.” Liz reached for Cecily’s hand. Tears were in both their eyes.
“I really can’t think of anything,” Liz said later, when Molly asked again what she could do to help. They’d spent an hour trying to get Cecily to tell them more, learning only that she remembered, as a child, seeing on some form that her father was dead and there was no known address for her mother. The subject did obviously agitate her—little wonder—so they’d finally given up and tried to engage Cecily in small talk instead. They’d had no more luck with that, ending up talking more to each other across the bed about Evan’s demands and Caden’s black eye and the predictions people were making about tomorrow’s game—that it was going to be tough, that the defense was really going to have to step up. Cecily stared at the wall, seeming barely to be listening, then finally said she was tired and they should go. Liz and Molly had looked at each other in alarm: Normally, Cecily would have been the most up-in-arms of anyone about any hint of a threat to Molly, the most excited about Caden’s team making the next round of playoffs. “We can only hope tomorrow will be better, and that she’ll be able to go over to The Pines,” Liz had murmured as they’d walked out.
Now they were in the visitors’ lounge, and Liz was finishing spitting into her own Ancestry test tube. Molly, in the end, had forgotten to have her do it yesterday. As Liz handed over the tube, yesterday’s same strange sheen was back in her eye.
“Is something wrong, Mom?” Molly said, trying to sound offhand, as she twisted on the cap to release the stabilizing fluid, shook the tube for the required five seconds, then slid it into its plastic sleeve and sealed it up. “On top of what’s wrong with Grandma, I mean. You don’t seem like yourself.”
“No, no. I’m fine,” Liz said, sounding distracted, as she searched her purse for her gloves, her keys. “Think I’ll go to SuperValu. I’m running low on things, and I need to bake a cake for Harold and Bess, to thank them, you know?”
“Right now? You seem exhausted. And you need to keep your strength up, for Grandma. Hopefully the transfer will go through tomorrow, right?” Molly refused to believe that Cecily’s turn for the worse wasn’t going to turn right back around, and quickly.
“No, no, they need a cake,” Liz said absently, as she stood to wind her scarf around her neck. “It won’t be fancy like one of Mom’s fifteen-layer jobs.” She laughed a little. “Maybe an applesauce spice.”
“Let me make it, then. I can do it tonight. You need to get some rest, because you’re coming to Duluth for the game tomorrow with me, right? As long as Grandma’s okay, I mean, and you can get the transfer done early in the day? Caden would be so disappointed if you weren’t there.”
“Oh, no. I want to make the cake. I’ll be fine for the game. Anyway, you’ve got that talk with Evan tonight.” Liz shrugged into her parka, then hugged Molly briefly. “Good luck. Don’t let him rattle you. Now, when do we expect those DNA results, again?”
That odd light was still in Liz’s eyes. “I’ll get them sent out tomorrow,” Molly said, then remembered: with the game, tomorrow was going to be nuts. They’d have to leave by three thirty at the latest to drive to Duluth, and Molly hadn’t even checked the forecast yet to see if they’d need to add extra time for weather. “Or Tuesday, at the latest. Then it’ll be six to eight weeks.”
“Okay, then.” Liz gave her trademark nod, like she’d just decided something. Molly just had no idea what.
Six to eight weeks, Liz thought, as she walked out of the hospital into the breathtaking cold of the sunny afternoon. I’ll live that long, won’t I?
Then, she had to laugh, and scold herself for being overdramatic.
It was just a biopsy. Having to have a biopsy didn’t necessarily mean you had cancer.
It had all happened so fast. Just Friday morning, in the shower, she’d felt the lump. It was tiny, hard, like a pebble, just under the skin of the lower portion of her right breast. Probably a cyst. She’d had one of those ten years ago. Nothing to worry about. Still—she heard her father’s voice—it was always best to be sure; to get an exact diagnosis. “Nothing can be assumed,” Sam had always said.
So, on arrival at the hospital that morning to visit Cecily, she’d headed first to the office of Dr. Hokannen, who was head of oncology and an old friend of her father’s. Sam had been one of his mentors, in fact, when Dr. Hokannen had first arrived as a young resident, right around the time Molly was born—almost forty years ago. He’d been taken in as part of the extended Larson family, attending Fourth of July picnics and Thanksgiving dinners, watching Liz’s little family grow, even golfing with Dean and Sam from time to time. Then he’d married Nancy Carlson and had a family of his own. Dean had sold them their house—a modest Victorian not far from the hospital—and Molly had babysat for his two kids, who’d now be in their late twenties. Five or so years ago, Nancy had divorced him and gone off to Florida. Official gossip was that she just couldn’t stand Itasca winters anymore, but Liz remembered Dean laughing about that as he took off his socks one night before bed, saying there had to be more to any divorce than that.
Dr. Hokannen was, luckily, in the hallway outside his office, and he grinned at the sight of Liz and hugged her. “I was just thinking about you and your parents! I meant to call you!” he said. He’d heard about Cecily, had even stopped by her room to visit. “She seemed mostly like herself, I was glad to see. I know you must be concerned.” He wanted to know if there was anything he could do. “Well, actually,” Liz had said, and asked to speak with him privately. It wasn’t like her to ask for special treatment, but, in the middle of everything going on with Cecily, and the long road of recovery ahead, she hadn’t wanted to be worrying about this little cyst of hers, not even at the back of her mind.
A quick examination made Dr. Hokannen frown. He said there was no need to waste time; an ultrasound would tell them everything they needed to know. With one phone call, he was able to slip her in for one within an hour.
Two hours after that, she was back in his office, and his frown had deepened. “There’s no fluid, so it’s not a cyst,” he said bluntly. “I’m going to schedule a biopsy.”
He was able to wedge her into Monday morning’s schedule—early, 8 a.m., before Cecily’s scheduled transfer to The Pines. He didn’t want to waste time, he said again, though this time with a new gravity.
“Even if it’s cancer, in all likelihood, it’s treatable,” he said, his gentle seriousness reminding Liz of her father. She had to think that Sam must have schooled him in how to deliver such news. “At least we know your mom hasn’t had any trouble with this, so there’s no genetic suggestion that it would be cancer.”
“We’ll wait for the evidence, then,” she’d said.
Now she got into the cold Grand Cherokee and started it up. She clutched the steering wheel and looked out at the snow-crusted river. It had been hard to spend hours with her mother and daughter yesterday and today and not say a word, not scream out, I’m having a biopsy tomorrow!
But how could she have, really, even if she’d wanted to—especially today, between Molly’s upset over Evan and Dr. Olson’s bad news about Cecily?
Liz took a deep breath. “Dad,” she said out loud. “I’m scared.”
A crow cawed. A nurse hurried past, headed for her car, post-shift, parka open over her scrubs, sneakers avoiding ice patches.
“I’m really scared!”
It wasn’t as if she heard a voice, not exactly. But she got a sense: Tell your mother.
What?
She sensed it again: Tell your mother.
“No way. I can’t tell Mom. You heard the doctor. She’s getting weaker. More confused. She needs to focus on her own recovery, not start worrying about me.”
She’s stronger than you know.
Liz shook her head. Hearing her father’s voice? Talking back to him? Impossible. She clearly needed rest. She’d slept hardly at all Friday night, instead watching eight straight episodes of Law & Order on cable—winking in and out of dreams on the last three, admittedly—after opting out of Caden’s game out of simple fear that Molly would be able to tell something was wrong. Last night, she’d slept a little longer, more at ease with her secret, and she’d felt more optimistic today. It was just a biopsy. Not the end of the world. Only 20 percent of all biopsies turned out to be cancerous, a quick Google search yesterday had told her.
No, she did not want to burden Molly with this. Nor her poor mother, certainly. Telling Eric wasn’t an option; she hadn’t even heard back from him since the message she’d left on his voicemail last week about Cecily. Chances were good that all this meant was that he hadn’t come down off the mountain yet—although there was that same old chance he’d been buried in some avalanche.
But she’d had twenty years now to practice the art of surrender on that score, while Eric financed annual “big climbs” with camp counseling in Utah, fishing in Alaska, climbing-guide jobs in Patagonia, Switzerland, Tanzania. Liz still (and, yes, maybe it was delusional) hoped he’d settle down, have a family, even move back to Itasca. She’d had a moment of hope at Dean’s wake, when, rushing to bring a stack of dirty plates to the kitchen, she’d spotted him and the recently divorced Tori Amundson—his old high school flame—in the Adirondack chairs overlooking the lake, obviously deep in conversation despite the cold air, the snow dusting the ground. But, two days later, he’d hugged Liz goodbye in the driveway, climbed into his rental car with a flash of his devil-may-care grin, driven to Minneapolis, and boarded an airplane. She hadn’t seen him in the three years since.
So, no: it wasn’t as if she could call him up to chat about her biopsy.
Anyway, maybe there’d be nothing to tell.
All these years tending to my family, she thought, and, yes, she was feeling sorry for herself, and I’m left so alone.
She heard her father: One step at a time. We wait for the test results.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said out loud. Who cared if she was off her rocker? It consoled her to think he might be watching over her.
Why, she wondered briefly, did she so rarely try to talk to Dean? Just because she was still so mad at him for leaving her?
Well, that was one more thing she couldn’t think about now. Wouldn’t, anyway.
She shifted into reverse and headed for SuperValu.
Hours later, with the applesauce cake in the oven and the kitchen cleaned up, Liz stood in the doorway to her pottery studio, the three-hundred-square-foot building she’d had built to her exacting specifications when they’d bought the house. Dean had insisted that there’d be no more frustrations with a too-small space, like the one she’d fashioned off their garage at the house in town. Here at their dream lake house, she’d have everything just the way she wanted it.
Last night, she’d turned up the heat, and this morning she’d switched on the water line. Now the late afternoon sun, setting over the snow-covered lake, streamed in, showing dusty surfaces too long unused. Liz flipped on the lights, pulled a piece of clay from a bag she’d nearly used up last fall. A little dry. She wrapped it in a moist towel and let it sit while she slid a rag over the worktable and shelving. Last fall, she’d fired everything she’d made, and sold a lot of it, so there was a feeling of empty space, of starting over. That seemed good.
The clay was ready to be wedged. She patted and dragged it along the table until it was brick-shaped. Then she pushed it away and down; lifted it up and pulled it back toward her. Down, away, up, back; pressing with her hands to get any air out. Down, away, up, back, over and over again.
The sun was level with the horizon when she sat down at the wheel.
A piece of the clay brick. Water on the hands.
She flipped on the motor, and there was the familiar whir, the clay beginning to turn.
Her wet hands slid along it, shaping it; being shaped. Waiting to see what would emerge.