Friday, March 13, 2015
Itasca, Minnesota
“Caden, a little help, please?” Molly said, as she wrestled two heavy sacks of groceries out of the back of the Mazda. But he was already going inside the bungalow, the front door swinging shut behind him.
Well, he was mad at her. Again. Still.
She could’ve killed Evan when she’d found out he’d told Caden it was “almost a sure thing” that Caden would be spending July and August in Newport and Maine, the Brainerd hockey camp notwithstanding. “Maybe we can get a refund, Cade, or find some other time you can go,” he’d told him. Molly, of course, had not yet agreed to this—but how could she refuse now? And damn Evan, anyway, for making her doubt all she’d managed to build here, not to mention doubt her conviction that everything in the years leading up to now had happened for a reason. That here in Itasca was exactly where she was supposed to be, right now.
No, he just thought she’d made a “bad, bad” mistake!
And what had she done? Said? That day? Just agreed to keep talking, basically; to keep trying to come to some arrangement. This even as she’d found herself back-of-mind wondering—did he think they’d made a mistake divorcing?
Surely not. She’d seen him on the phone late at night after each of the hockey games. A girlfriend back east seemed the only possible explanation.
And so, after dinner at the Thai Garden that Friday night (the three of them; it was Caden-focused, peaceful, fun), Evan had hit the road at 4 a.m. on Saturday—the weather was clear; a near-miracle, in early March, blizzard season—to catch his flight back to Providence. After he’d told Molly, on his way out the door of the bungalow on Friday, “We’re going to figure this out, Moll. I swear, taking you to court would be my very last resort.”
Her mind had not exactly been at ease in the week since his departure—to say the least.
And, for some reason, she hadn’t told her mother about any of this. Maybe because she still had the feeling Liz was keeping some secret from her, or else just because Liz obviously had enough on her plate already. Molly had tried telling Cecily, but Cecily got overwhelmed so easily now. When Molly got emotional in the telling (“And then he . . . and then he . . . !”), Cecily just closed her eyes and asked Molly to turn on Jeopardy! “These exercises make me so tired,” she said. “Three times a day, can you imagine?”
Molly’d had a constant lump in her throat, this entire past week. (Cecily had not been putting on her makeup, though Liz had left the cosmetics bag right there on her bedside table, and for Cecily not to “put on her face” was clearly not a good sign.) And now—Molly was realizing—she’d just asked Caden in the car if he knew if any of his friends were going to the hockey camp in Brainerd in July.
So that was why he was extra pissed off. And, yes, maybe she’d been trying to sway him to her side—she didn’t want him to leave her for two months, not during the summer, not any time at all. Damn Evan, anyway, she thought again, wrestling the bags up the icy concrete steps, balancing one bag on her hip to open the door. Getting Caden’s hopes up that way.
Evan had been gone almost a week and hadn’t called. (Hadn’t called Molly. He’d been calling Caden twice a day.)
What did that mean, the not calling? She thought he’d said he’d wanted to keep talking. Taking you to court would be a last resort, Moll.
She really should call him, in case he was out there interviewing attorneys or something. She should be proactive.
She didn’t want to. Just couldn’t face it. Not right now.
“Caden, would you please come help me put the groceries away?” she called into the quiet house, pulling the door shut behind her to keep out the cold, struggling to balance while she pried off her boots, using the edge of the mat for leverage.
No answer.
Mastectomy. Lumpectomy. Radiation. Tamoxifen. Herceptin. Chemo.
Words that Liz had never, ever thought would apply to her.
Cancer.
Dr. Hokannen had taken her through her options on Monday, and ordered a bunch of blood tests. On Wednesday, results in hand, he’d called to say he was going to refer her to a breast cancer specialist in Duluth, adding that he would “hazard a guess” that they’d recommend a lumpectomy rather than a full mastectomy. Before seeing the specialist, he said, she should have an MRI—to be sure the cancer hadn’t spread. “That way, they’ll have all the information they need to proceed with your treatment plan, all right?”
Liz wished she could ask Dr. Hokannen to go with her to her appointments in Duluth, but she guessed that would be inappropriate.
She just felt so alone.
She knew she was going to have to tell Molly eventually—obviously—but she was holding off, hoping to limit the amount of time Molly had to spend worrying before Liz’s treatment got underway. (Not to mention Eric—should Liz tell him at all? Expect him to come jetting home from South America? Certainly not! And if she told him and he didn’t come, how would that feel to Liz? Awful! Yes, this was what the kids would call a “no-win,” for sure.)
The MRI was scheduled for eleven days from now, which was good—Liz would be able to see Cecily through that much more rehab before needing to decide about or schedule a surgery for herself—and also, bad, because Liz was obsessing about it. At her wheel out in the studio, throwing bowl after bowl, she’d find herself going down an imaginary checklist of what might have caused the cancer. The chemicals in the glazes she’d been using for almost fifty years? Too many McDonald’s french fries during the ’80s? The short amount of time she’d breastfed her kids? (It had been the ’70s; her doctor, and her father, had both said formula was just fine, if not actually better.)
She’d find herself wondering, despite herself, not if the cancer had spread, but—how far?
In the end, what felt like the only thing she knew for sure about her cancer: she did not want to tell her mother she had it.
She’d always been fearful of hurting Cecily—maybe due to the scar down Cecily’s midline. (Maybe this was why Liz had never truly rebelled; why she’d left it at bell-bottoms and becoming a potter.) Liz had seen the scar just once, when she was about eight—Cecily wasn’t one to show off her midsection for any reason—and, when asked, Cecily had explained it was where Liz had been born out of. So, you see, I always love this scar, because it’s from you! Cecily had said, and Liz had felt the pang of regret—she’d hurt Cecily—the sting of pride, and the solace of knowing exactly where she belonged.
There was a delicacy to Cecily underneath her hard-charging ways. Most people didn’t see it, but Liz did.
So, no, Liz was not going to tell Cecily she had cancer—no matter what her father might try to tell her from the other side.
“Mom, why don’t you tell me some stories from when you were young? Before I was born?” It was Saturday and, out the window of The Pines, snow was pouring down. Liz would need to head out soon, get over to check on Cecily’s house, get to the store, get home.
But she didn’t like how pale Cecily looked. How out of sorts. Shouldn’t she be getting better by now, not worse? Another reason not to tell her, Liz thought, deep down.
Cecily licked her lips. “Did some magazine tell you to ask me that?” Cecily had sharp edges now that she’d never exhibited before. From the pain? Had to be, Liz thought. “Is it supposed to increase my chances of survival? Make me remember what it was like to be happy and young?”
“No!” Liz lied. “I’m just curious. You’ve never told me much about your life before.”
“Oh, honey.” Cecily sighed. “Young and happy don’t always happen at the same time.”