Miracle in a Dry Season (8 page)

“Cancer,” snorted Dad, relieving his son of that responsibility, at least. “What’s that fool know about me having cancer? Pokes at me, asks a few questions, hooks this contraption up to me.” John tugged at the IV line again. Sister Agatha grabbed the stand and then checked the connections. “Don’t make no difference to me. Just get me on home.”

Casewell had no idea what to say to convince his father to stay in the hospital. Reason, threats, pleading—none of them seemed the way to go. Then Mom stepped forward.

“John,” she said, her eyes soft and her hand gentle on her husband’s arm. “I’m asking you to do what the doctor says. You’re a strong man, and I don’t have a doubt that if you do have cancer, you’ll get over it. But until we know just what it is we’re dealing with, I’d be grateful to you if you’d stay right here where the doctor can get at you.”

The fire seemed to go right out of Dad, and he sagged back against his pillow. He laid one hand over his wife’s and closed his eyes, squeezing them shut for just a moment. “All right,” he said. “But just until tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Mom agreed. “Until tomorrow.”

Three days later Dr. McNeil informed Casewell and his mother that John Phillips had lung cancer as well as black lung. The cancer was likely caused by cigarettes, and the black lung was from coal mining. Mom protested that John had given up mining years ago and that he didn’t smoke that much, not really.

“Black lung can only be caused by inhaling coal dust,” the doctor explained. “There are various causes of lung cancer, but smoking is the likeliest culprit.” Dr. McNeil rubbed his hands on his pant legs. “Unfortunately, the cancer has spread to John’s bones—that’s what caused the extreme pain he was experiencing.”

Mom stuffed a knuckle between her teeth and seemed to gnaw at it. Casewell opened his mouth, trying to find his voice, but the doctor understood his question before he found it.

“I’m afraid the prognosis isn’t good. Actually, there’s not a
whole lot we can do other than keep him comfortable. Surgery isn’t an option at this point. We can try chemical therapy—what they call chemotherapy—but I don’t want to get your hopes up.” The doctor looked from Casewell to his mother and back. “I’m terribly sorry.”

Casewell was surprised to hear himself speak. “How long?”

“No one but God knows that, son. But I’ve not seen anyone last much more than”—he hesitated—“than six months.”

Mom gasped and gulped as if she couldn’t get any air into her lungs. Casewell put his arms around his mother and held her steady until she began breathing normally. Her gasps turned to pants and then to a soft crying that seemed to bore into Casewell’s skull. It was impossible. He wouldn’t accept it. Not now, not today. His father could not be dying of cancer. No.

“Does Dad know?” he whispered.

“He knows he has cancer,” Dr. McNeil said. “I’m not sure he understands what that means.”

His mother’s hand tightened around Casewell’s wrist, the nails digging into his flesh. “Go to him,” she said. “I’ll be along.”

Casewell started to protest.

“Go,” she said. “Now.”

Casewell walked into his father’s room. Dad sat up in bed smoking a cigarette.

“Dad, you aren’t supposed to have that,” Casewell said, feeling weariness well up in him like a black tumor, pressing against his stomach, his lungs, even his heart.

“What the devil does it matter?” Dad snapped. Casewell had rarely heard his father speak so harshly. He supposed if there was a time to do it, this was that time.

“Right,” he said, waving smoke away as he sat on a chair next to the bed. “So you’ve talked to Dr. McNeil.”

“That quack told Walt Farmer he was dying eight years ago, and Walt feels better today than he ever did. Bunch of crap.” Dad coughed so hard tears came to his eyes. When he got his breath back he inhaled deeply on his cigarette, burning it down to his fingertips. He ground out the butt in a kidney-shaped pan on his bedside table.

Casewell watched his father’s yellowed fingers and thought about how rarely his father had touched him. He’d gotten a few good-boy pats as a child and slaps on the back once his father deemed him an adult. There had been spankings, of course, but even then his father was more likely to use a switch than his bare hand. He racked his brain trying to remember a hug—something his mother handed out daily—but the best he could come up with was the time his dad had put an arm around his shoulders after he graduated from high school. He also remembered that Dad had quickly removed the arm, as if afraid someone would see.

“When are you taking me home?” he growled. His now empty hand lay on top of the cover, and he kept pinching the sheet between his thumb and forefinger and then smoothing it down again.

“They want to try a treatment out on you—some kind of chemical therapy. Dr. McNeil thinks it might help,” Casewell said. “I figure—”

His father cut him off. “You can figure all day long if you want to. They’re not trying some sort of experimental whatever on me. Let someone else be their guinea pig. Now get out there and find somebody to unhook me from this contraption.” He shook his arm so violently, he nearly dislodged the IV on his own. “Now.”

Casewell went out into the hall and leaned against the wall, trying to breathe deeply in and out, trying to find a pocket of calm in the midst of the whirlwind. Neither of his parents seemed to be taking this news well. He wasn’t taking the news well, either, but that could be because he hadn’t been given even a moment to take it all in.

My father is dying
, he thought. He felt he barely knew the man, but he loved him fiercely and unreasonably. He had no better reason for loving his father than that he was his father. It shouldn’t have been enough, but it was. Casewell didn’t mean to slide down the wall, but he found himself sitting, his knees at eye level. He placed one hand on each knee and waited for the tears running down his face to subside.

Casewell didn’t see Sister Agatha approach, but he felt her settle next to him like a pigeon fluttering to the ground. She handed Casewell a plain white handkerchief. “I thought I’d come pray with you,” she said. “Would you prefer I did so aloud or silently?”

“Silently.” Casewell knew there were no words for this situation, but as long as Agatha prayed silently, he could imagine that there were. She bowed her head, and he felt peace radiating out from her. But like a kerosene lamp on an icy morning, it could not reach his core.

After a few minutes, he placed his hands on the floor and pushed himself to standing. He reached down and helped Sister Agatha to her feet. She kissed the rosary around her neck and made the sign of the cross. Casewell thanked her. He looked into her eyes and thought maybe she understood that while she had not reached him with her prayers, she had been a sort of help after all. He went back into his father’s room.

His mother had slipped into the room while Casewell was
in the hall. She had to have seen him hunkered there, but she didn’t mention it. She barely looked at him at all. Her focus was entirely upon her husband, who was holding her hand and staring at the ceiling.

Casewell cleared his throat. “I think you should stay and try this treatment,” he said. He thought he saw his mother squeeze his father’s hand harder. He knew she closed her eyes and bowed her head.

His father took a deep breath that sent him into a brief coughing fit. When he had composed himself again, he looked his son in the eye. “I appreciate that you want me to fight this thing. And I’ve always been one to fight for what I want.” His face convulsed slightly and he cupped his empty left hand over his wife’s and his own. “But what I’m after now is the right to go home and . . .” He coughed again. “To go home and let be what will be. You don’t have to understand it, son. Just go along with it.”

“Mom?” Casewell said the single word, and it was a question, a command, and a plea. “Mom, what do you think?”

“We’re going home,” she said, looking at her husband with a depth and a rawness that somehow embarrassed Caswell, as if he had walked in on his parents being intimate. He ducked his head.

“Well, then,” he said.

“Well, then go find that old fraud who’s trying to tell me how to die.”

Casewell went.

The old fraud was more than reluctant to let his patient go, but he’d been doctoring the Phillips family for several generations, and he said he guessed stubborn was a genetic predisposition. He made Casewell and his mother promise to bring John in for a check-up every two weeks, although Dad indicated
that he’d be less than cooperative. Still, he was too eager to leave the hospital under his own power to fuss too long and loud about Dr. McNeil’s requirements. He agreed grudgingly and the doctor threatened to come to the house if necessary.

“Come around dinnertime,” Dad growled. “Least that way it’ll be worth your time.”

By the end of the day Casewell was driving back the way they had come just three days earlier. The world looked different. His mother sat in the center of the truck’s bench seat this time, clutching a bag with prescription painkillers that Dad swore he would never take. Casewell found himself hoping that his father’s stubborn streak could somehow ward off cancer, could somehow change the rapid division of cells. That stubbornness could keep his body from turning against him—from turning against them. Casewell prayed and watched the familiar, unfamiliar landscape roll by.

The family made an effort to return to normal. Casewell went home to catch up on his carpentry projects, his mother spent her days working in her kitchen garden, and Dad continued to walk the fields, tending to the spring calving. He walked more slowly and rested more often, but he refused to give up his work.

When Casewell came to supper about a week after his father’s return from the hospital, his mother called him into the kitchen to help her. “He’s taking them pills,” she said. “Not many and not often, but he’s taking them.”

Casewell nodded. “I guess that’s good.”

His mother gave him a sharp look. “I wouldn’t say that. He must be in a world of pain to take help from a pill bottle.”

“But at least he’s taking help,” Casewell said.

Emily made a
tsking
sound and began dishing up the meal. After they ate—mostly in silence—Dad scooted his chair back and pushed himself to his feet. “Come on out here on the porch with me, son.” He began fishing makings out of his breast pocket. Emily opened her mouth as though she would speak, then pressed her lips together in a tight line.

On the porch, Dad rolled his cigarette and then stood looking at it. “Reckon it’s too late to quit now,” he said. But he didn’t raise the cigarette to his lips. “We need a good year, son,” he said, squinting across the pasture. “Even if I die quick, it’s gonna cost money.”

The frank statement hit Casewell hard. He knew his father’s prognosis, but to hear him speak of it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, took Caswell’s breath away.

“I’ve got some pretty calves coming on this spring. All we need is a summer with good grass and plenty of hay to put up for winter. Come fall, we can sell off some of the cows for good breeders and keep some younger ones for stock. By spring the yearlings will be ready to go to market, and you can turn a nice profit that’ll keep your mother. Beyond that, I leave the running of the cattle to you. Sell ’em or keep the line going. All I ask is that you always take care of your mother.”