Friday, April 3, 2015
Duluth, Minnesota
In the waiting room at St. Luke’s in Duluth on Friday, Molly couldn’t focus on her magazine.
She hadn’t wanted to tell Caden that his grandma Liz had cancer (his grandma Liz had cancer!), so had told him instead that, as she’d “just happened not to have any clients scheduled,” she and Liz were going to Duluth for an impromptu “girls’ day” of shopping.
In retrospect: a pack of cowardly little lies—but meant to protect him from worrying, give herself time to process the news, and figure out the right way to deliver it to him. Thinking of it this way, she guessed she could begin to understand why her mom hadn’t told her sooner. Still, though—she wished Liz had.
She took out her phone. No messages.
After a second, she clicked on Evan’s name. That stupid thumbs-up emoji was the last thing he’d texted her. He still hadn’t called since he’d left Itasca on March 7. Four weeks ago.
Maybe he was over his head with the expansion project at the brewery. Maybe he even thought July and August were a done deal.
She really could let sleeping dogs lie. She had enough on her plate—
But, suddenly, she didn’t want to. Maybe it was the shock of her mom being sick, but something in her now was saying life was too short to keep avoiding and evading the difficult conversations. She would’ve told a client: Avoidance and evasion are the things that will keep you stuck.
Hey, she typed. Can you talk?
Inside the tube of the MRI machine, Liz stayed stock-still, as ordered, while the machine whirred and buzzed and beeped all around. It’s going to be loud, the technician had told her with a smile that seemed out of place; placative, at best. Be prepared.
But how could you prepare for your body becoming a foreign thing, for the disconnection from self, the odd sensation of the daughter—once a part of your own body, after all—waiting in the waiting room?
How could you prepare for the sense of separation that came when a part of your body was diseased? And you said, No, not me, that is not me. That is my breast. (My bones? Another organ? The MRI will show me.) No, it is not me. It is not me at all. I am an artist, I am my dreams, I am my creations, I am not my body at all, the cells of my body may be diseased but my body is not me.
Or is it?
And she realized, This is real. This is happening. This is me.
And she heard her father, Sam, plainly: Tell your mother. She’s stronger than you know.
“I don’t want to argue anymore,” Molly said into the phone. “Let’s just decide something.”
“What’s wrong?” Evan said. “Your voice sounds funny. Is your grandma okay? Why did you want to talk all of a sudden?”
“Why haven’t you called me? I thought we were going to get this figured out.”
“I thought maybe we needed a break. Anyway, it’s the summer and fall we’re talking about, so it seemed like there was a little time.”
“So, you’re not out there lining up a lawyer?”
“No, Moll. I told you. Last resort.”
Molly sighed. Unclenched her fist, which she hadn’t realized she’d been clenching. “My grandma’s doing okay,” she said. “It’s my mom, this time.”
Liz insisted afterward that they had to eat. “You look pale,” she told Molly, and Molly laughed and made the bad joke that she wasn’t the one with cancer. They drove down to Canal Park and had lunch at Taste of Saigon. The piled-high plates—cream cheese wontons, shrimp with pea pods, sesame chicken—were quick to come out, the food was hot and delicious, and refills on hot tea were endless. They talked about nothing—the fundraiser yesterday, the support groups Molly hoped to start offering this spring, Caden’s need for new shoes again, as his feet never seemed to stop growing. They did not talk about cancer, DNA, Cecily, Evan. Their fortune cookies indicated prosperity and health, and they laughed and said, “Here’s hoping!” Afterward, they walked together in the blustery wind and mist over to the ship canal and Aerial Lift Bridge, pulling wool hats down low over their ears, shoving hands deep into parka pockets. “I don’t know why Mom hates to come here so much!” Liz said, like a joke, almost shouting to be heard over the wind, and Molly laughed, because it was true: every single trip Molly had gone on as a kid with her parents to Duluth, Cecily would all but rage about how she couldn’t stand the thought of going over there, and Itasca was where life was, and why did they need to go there to “shop” and “dine out,” anyway, and, no, do not think of bringing her back a T-shirt!
Now piles of dirty snow littered the walkways. Icy, gray water lapped the canal’s concrete walls. As they reached the bridge, Molly squinted up at the web of steel girders through the mist, remembering how, much as she had loved those family trips, she’d always, at a certain point—like, standing right here—worried that this mass of steel would crash down on top of her as it was raised to let the colossal freighters pass through. She found herself remembering how her dad had always reassured her that it wouldn’t, and, just like that, she was thinking of Evan. “Call me anytime, Moll,” he’d said, in that voice that still made her insides zing. “If you need anything.” And, oh, again—the familiar comfort. She did not want to fall into it.
Yet—she kind of did want to.
Suddenly, Liz blurted, “I think I’m going to have to keep your grandma in The Pines for a few more months.”
Molly was instantly back to the present, alarmed—as if some giant object had crashed down. “Months?”
“I don’t know what I’ve been thinking, to imagine she could actually go home, even with at-home care. She’s doing okay with PT, but it’s still slow, you know? She’s not strong—I mean, she doesn’t seem strong mentally. And she can’t do stairs! I guess we could set up a bedroom in Dad’s old office for her, but, even then, I’d worry about her being alone, and you know she’d end up trying to do the stairs, anyway, and all kinds of things she shouldn’t, and twenty-four-hour care is seemingly impossible to find, not to mention out of sight financially, and I’m going to be going through my treatments, so I’ll be of no use for a while—”
“I can help, Mom. That’s what I moved back home for.”
“But you can’t stay with her twenty-four hours a day, any more than I can. You have your clients. You have Caden. And, even if you could stay with her twenty-four hours a day, even if you moved in, you’re not a nurse, and your grandma is going to need a lot of actual nursing care. And I may need help, too, unfortunately. We just need to face facts, you know. Be realistic.”
“We’ll figure something out, Mom,” Molly said, trying to retain the optimism she’d felt in the restaurant, though Liz had made it seem suddenly unfounded.
Her phone dinged, and, out of reflex—it could be a client—she pulled it out of her pocket. Saw a new text from Evan: I don’t want you to worry about this stuff with Cade for right now. We’ve got time to figure it out. Tell your mom to give Cancer hell. Plus an emoji of a fist. And a heart.
In her head, Molly said to him: Stop trying to convince me I made a mistake. Just stop it!
Not that he really was, but—seriously.
She texted him back: Thx.
And a heart.
She gave her mom the message. And Liz gave a far-off-seeming smile, her hair whipping in the wind.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cecily said, on Saturday at The Pines. She was half sitting up in bed atop straightened covers; she’d had her hair set and was wearing a bright purple track suit, plus red lipstick, applied crookedly. Perhaps these small improvements could be attributed to the five new flower arrangements that lined the windowsill, a sure result of Vivvy Bengtson’s announcement at the Empty Bowl the other day. “I’ve been in here long enough already. Almost two months! I walked the length of the entire hall yesterday!”
“Hanging on to the rail, right?” Liz said. “Need I remind you there are no rails in your house? And there are stairs, which you can’t do at all!”
Cecily frowned. “But I’m miserable here. And misery leads to death, I’m sure you know.”
Liz wished for her father, who had always known how to calm Cecily, how to make the drama tone down. She also wished she didn’t have to tell her about the cancer, but it seemed inevitable, suddenly. “Mom, listen, I haven’t wanted to tell you this. But I need you to understand.” And Liz began describing, in calm, clinical language, about her lump, her biopsy, her MRI. “Now we’re just waiting for the results,” she finished, “to see if it’s spread. I’ll know in about ten days.”
Cecily blinked, looking puzzled. “But I have taken the best care of you since you were the tiniest little baby. How can this be?”
Liz wiped a sudden tear from her eye. They seemed to spring from nowhere lately. “I think it just happens, Mom. I don’t think anything you could’ve done would’ve stopped it.”
Now Cecily looked brokenhearted. She reached for Liz’s hand and squeezed it. “Oh, but honey, you know I would have, if I could!”
Liz laughed away more tears. “Oh, Mom. I know.”
They went back and forth a few more times—Cecily didn’t believe it, wanted to know exactly how and when everything had unfolded, and “why on earth” she hadn’t been informed. She seemed the most like herself that Liz had seen her in weeks—
Liz reminded herself: she had to be realistic. “Mom, listen, the important point here is that I’m not going to be in any shape to take care of you. Not even to visit you every day, for a while, probably. As much as I hate to say that. And Molly has said she’ll help, but she’s already got her hands full.”
“Well, I don’t accept this,” Cecily snapped. “If you’re going to be having cancer treatments, I want to be there with you. I’m not going to stand for being cooped up in here. You’re going to stay at home with me, and I’m going to go with you to your treatments, I’m going to make you soup, I’m going to keep your spirits up, just like you’ve been doing for me.”
“Mom, I appreciate that, but we have to face facts. You’re in no shape to do that.”
“I am your mother, and it’s my job to take care of you!”
“Mom, please.” Yet, Liz began to think: maybe Cecily could come stay at the lake house for a while. It was all one level, so it would be safer, and Liz could get one of those hire-a-nurse services to stop in and help out. Twenty-four-hour care wouldn’t be needed, because Liz, even as she dealt with her own treatments, would be there to keep an eye on Cecily, to make sure she didn’t take any unnecessary risks.
Obviously, Cecily would prefer being in her own home, but maybe this could be a stopgap measure, a stepping stone. Probably she’d be well enough in a couple weeks to make such a move, right, based on how improved she seemed today?
Of course, she and Liz would drive each other crazy. But even that thought cheered Liz, and, in her enthusiasm, she proposed the idea to Cecily.
Cecily frowned. “No. I only have a short time left on this earth, and I want to be in my own home. In town. With my books, and near my committee work. You’ll stay with me. It’s your home, too. I’ll be better able to take care of you there.”
“Mom, I’m sorry, but that just isn’t realistic. You can’t climb stairs, and that’s that. And I don’t think you’re going to be in shape to do much committee work, let alone take care of me. Now, I will do anything for you, you know that. As I know you would do for me. But we have some limitations we have to work within right now. Remember how the doctor said that one in three people who break their hips end up being in a nursing home for at least a year afterward? We’re talking about a significantly shorter time than that, even if you stay here a few more months, until I can get through my treatments. Or you can think about coming to stay with me, if you continue to improve over the next couple weeks. Those are really our only options, as far as I can see.”
Cecily sighed. She looked very tired, suddenly. Almost defeated. “I don’t like this.”
Liz’s stomach twisted. She didn’t often allow herself to think: What if Cecily didn’t improve? What if she simply spiraled down? “I know, Mom,” she said, and her heart felt squeezed in a fist of love, duty, impossibility. “I know you don’t like it. I don’t, either. I’m sorry.” But she simply did not know what else she could do.