Chapter 38
2004
Madeline dangled her cap and tassel above her lap in the back seat of the car as Peter and Tara buckled them into the front seat. Around them, crowds of high school graduates in their shining black gowns filled the sidewalks among their parents, laughter and congratulations ringing out in the warm spring air.
“I’ve never seen such a lovely graduate cross a stage in my entire life.” Peter reached over his shoulder toward Madeline as he pulled away from the curb with one hand.
Tara sighed. “Just like a beauty queen.”
“Oh, you guys have to say things like that. You’re my parents.” Madeline waggled her tongue at Tara in the rear-view mirror, while she made a face back at her.
“Honey, I have never been more proud of you.” Peter maneuvered carefully between graduates and their families crossing the street in front of the high school. “The way you delivered that speech was so moving.” Once they had passed the intersection, he speeded up to blend into the traffic of the wide, busy street.
“Your father cried like a baby when you thanked us.” Tara nodded.
“I didn’t!”
“You certainly did.”
Tara and Madeline laughed out loud as Peter blushed and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.
“Dad, would it be all right if I didn’t go to the hospital with you and Aunt Amy? If I just went home with Mom?”
Peter glanced over at Tara, who nodded.
“Don’t give it a second thought, honey.” He met Madeline’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “You’ve had a long day, and I would assumed you had plans with your friends. Besides, I don’t think Grandma knows what’s going on lately.”
Tara’s reassuring hand gripped his shoulder when he pulled up in front of their house and stopped the car. “How are the new meds? Any change?”
Peter sighed as he set the brake. “Amy says they make her even more lethargic than before. The last time I visited, all she did was stare out the window at squirrels. I don’t think she said a single word to me.”
“I’m sorry, babe.” Tara leaned in to kiss him on the cheek and then opened her car door.
Maddy threw her arms around Peter’s neck from the back seat and kissed him resoundingly on the cheek. “I love you, Dad. Thank you for everything—for my entire life.”
Peter cupped her face on his shoulder with one hand, his eyes lighting up at the sight of her in the rear-view mirror, her almond eyes so large and intense, her dimple flashing in her cheek exactly like Tara’s, only no longer a baby-face.
“I am so proud of you, honey. Go have a good time, okay?”
Madeline smiled as she stepped out of the car, and he could see her waving, her shining black gown swaying with the motion, as he pulled away.
Amy had missed Madeline’s graduation to stay with Sheila, who had been having a particularly bad morning. The days since Sheila’s diagnosis of dementia and, eventually, her placement at an assisted-living home had folded into weeks and now months. It was getting harder to go every day, more stressful to acknowledge the fact that their mother no longer recognized who they were.
The pain Peter felt every time he visited Sheila had become burdensome. Ever since Richard’s death, Peter had detested hospitals. The smell of disinfectants hurled him back to Tara’s laborious, endless chemotherapy treatments, to that terrifying moment in the doorway of Richard’s room listening to the doctor shout, “Clear!”
He was relieved to know that Sheila lived in a very different environment. The assisted-living center he and Amy had chosen had the feel of an apartment, with individual suites equipped with sleeping, sitting, and dining areas. Although it was expensive, they had discovered when they settled Richard’s legacy that he had planned for his insurance to cover Sheila in any medical emergency.
“Your plan is your road, son.” Peter heard Richard’s voice echoing through his mind as he pulled around the box hedge into Amy’s driveway. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
Amy appeared at her front door, shielding her eyes with one hand, while Peter clicked his car alarm and moved as quickly as his arthritis would let him up the walk. Her eyes were filling with tears as he approached the steps.
“What is it?” Peter reached around her for the storm door.
Amy blocked the doorway, tissues wrapped between her fingers. “It’s Mom.” Her chest heaved as she broke into sobs. “Peter, this afternoon during her nap—Mom passed away.”
Peter and Amy sat on the old Queen Anne sofa, Amy resting her head upon Peter’s shoulder as he gently held her right hand in his. She had finally quieted down. Her muffled cries gently subsided as Peter had rubbed her head and whispered in her ear a few comforting words. They sat quietly in their parents’ living room near the old leather recliner that used to nestle their father every evening in front of the television set, creases still intact in the leather.
The sound of rain echoed as raindrops tapped the windows. The living room seemed so empty, so quiet. Peter had never realized before how quiet that room could be. It had always been filled with noise and people and a fire crackling on the hearth, but now with the lights dim and shadows dancing against the curtains, it was painfully desolate. He stared at the grooves in the wide plank floor, so many markings that gave the floor its character. He looked at the moldings on the high ceilings and the drapes his mother had sent away for, made especially in Boston. He had lived in this home for so many years and taken for granted so much of its meaning.
Amy turned her head for a moment and looked up at him. She looked exhausted and frail. Her eyes spoke volumes. After a moment, she leaned back into her spot against his arm, and he pulled her over the old tricolored granny-square afghan that their mother had crocheted. Amy looked up and smiled, her eyelids partially closed. She stretched the afghan over his legs as well.
Peter smiled and kissed her head. He could hear her breathing as he adjusted his leg and positioned a pillow behind his back. For an instant he saw himself on that very couch with Amy after a family movie night, as Sheila reached to wake them both for bed. He was twelve again, and Amy was eight.
He leaned his head against hers as she slowly fell asleep.
It was the next Wednesday afternoon, and Peter was staring at a framed photo of three anonymous girls curled together, hugging each other with matching smiles. The picture frame was white with a thin gold rim, the matting deep blue. He used to know the name for that shade of blue.
The doctor sat with his hands folded, nodding his head, and Tara sobbed into Peter’s handkerchief.
Peter squeezed her hand tightly in his, but he missed the forceful return squeeze with which she had stubbornly met both her previous diagnoses.
The doctor was speaking. “We’ll start chemo immediately, of course, but with metastasis this severe I don’t want to create false hopes. You’ve been through two tough battles already. It’s an even tougher battle ahead.” The doctor shook his head as his cell phone rang in his lab coat. “I’ll give you a moment together. If you’ll excuse me.” He stepped around his desk with the phone to his ear and closed the door quietly behind him.
“We’ll get through this.” Peter leaned over Tara and put his arms around her as her sobs became louder and her shoulders shook harder. “We did it before, and we can do it again.” He gently tapped her knee until she lifted her head and looked deep into his eyes.
“I’m so tired, Peter,” she whispered. She threw her head onto his chest once more and sobbed violently into her hands, and Peter pulled her close, holding back his tears. He clenched his fist against her back at the thought of Madeline. He would have to be strong for her. He would have to be strong for both of them.
“Nothing has ever stopped you from getting what you want,” Peter whispered into her ear as she leaned into his arms. “Never in your life. You know that right? Remember who you are, you are Tara.”
Night had fallen, and the house was quiet. The counters were wiped clean, and the dishwasher hummed. Peter turned off the light in the kitchen and removed his reading glasses to place them on a book on the table near Richard’s old leather recliner.
When the phone rang, he reached it quickly, before the second ring. He didn’t want it to wake Tara.
“Peter.” Jake’s voice was low and shaky.
“Jake, what’s up?” Peter sat slowly down in the recliner.
“Peter, it’s Amanda. The doctors think—” Jake hesitated.
“What? What about Amanda?” Peter moved up in his seat, his voice sharper.
“Breast cancer,” Jake whispered. “Peter, they think she has breast cancer.”
Peter dropped his head into his hand as he listened to Jake’s muffled crying.
“I can’t lose her.” Jake had never sounded like this before. “I could never live without her.”
“Jake! Where is she right now? Can she hear you?”
“She’s upstairs. In the shower.”
“Okay, buddy. Jake, you know what this is all about. You’ve been watching us handle it for years. You can do it. I know you can. We’re with you.”
“Peter, can you imagine what that would mean? A world without Amanda in it?”
Peter heard Amanda’s laughter again as he twirled her on the ice. He saw her face glowing over the tiny head of a newborn against the pillows of a hospital bed. He turned again in his mind and saw Jake’s hand on the elbow of a young woman he had never seen before, a girl with golden hair and laughing eyes and a glance up at Jake as though they shared a sweet secret.
Peter’s tears ran down his cheeks. “No, I can’t, Jake. I can’t imagine.”
“Peter, I couldn’t go on without her. I wouldn’t even know how to try.”
“Jake, no one is saying you’ll have to. You need to be strong for her now. She’s going to need your support. You’re going to have to be the one to listen, to care for her, to make hard decisions. She’s going to need strength from you like never before. You have it in you. It’s always been there, waiting for this very moment.”
“I know. I know. Thanks, brother,” Jake whispered into the phone. “I think I hear her. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You tell her how much we love her.”
“I will.” Jake’s voice was quiet. “I will.”
Peter hung up the phone and sat back against the creaking leather chair. After a long moment, he closed his eyes on the dark room and the heavy silence.