And then she holds up a syringe.
“It's only a little stick,” the doctor promises, exactly the wrong
words, and Anna starts thrashing. Her arms clip me in the face, the belly.
Brian cannot grab hold of her. Over her screams, he yells at me. “I
thought you told her!”
The doctor, who's left the room without me even noticing, returns with
several nurses in tow. “Kids and phlebotomy never mix well,” she
says, as the nurses slide Anna off my lap and soothe her with their soft hands and
softer words. “Don't worry; we're pros.”
It is a deja vu, just like the day Kate was diagnosed. Be careful what
you wish for, I think. Anna is just like her sister.
I'm vacuuming the girls' room when the handle of the Electrolux smacks
Hercules' bowl and sends the fish flying. No glass breaks, but it takes me a
moment to find him, thrashing himself dry on the carpet beneath Kate's desk.
“Hang on, buddy,” I whisper, and I flip him into the bowl. I fill
it with water from the bathroom sink.
He floats to the top. Don't, I think. Please.
I sit down on the edge of the bed. How can I possibly tell Kate I've killed
her fish? Will she notice if I run to the pet store and get a replacement?
Suddenly Anna is next to me, home from morning kindergarten. “Mommy?
How come Hercules isn't moving?”
I open my mouth, a confession melting on my tongue. But at that moment the
goldfish shudders sideways, dives, and starts to swim again. “There,”
I say. “He's fine.”
When five thousand lymphocytes don't seem to be enough, Dr. Chance calls for
ten thousand. Anna's appointment for a second donor lymphocyte draw falls in
the middle of the gymnastics birthday party of a girl in her class. I agree to
let her go for a little while, and then drive to the hospital from the gym.
The girl is a sugar-spun princess with fairy-white hair, a tiny replica of
her mother. As I slip off my shoes to trek across the padded floor, I try
desperately to remember their names. The child is… Mallory. And the mother is…
Monica? Margaret?
I spot Anna right away, sitting on the trampoline as an instructor bounces
them up and down like popcorn. The mother comes over to me, a smile strung on
her face like a row of Christmas lights. “You must be Anna's mom. I'm
Mittie,” she says. “I'm so sorry she has to leave, but of course, we
understand. It must be amazing, going somewhere no one else ever gets to
go.”
The hospital? "Well, just hope you never have to do the same.”
“Oh, I know. I get dizzy going up an elevator.“ She turns to
the trampoline. ”Anna, honey! Your mother's here!"
Anna barrels across the padded floor. This is exactly what I'd wanted to do
to my living room when the kids were all small: cushion the walls and floor and
ceiling for protection. And yet it turned out that I could have rolled Kate in
bubble wrap, the danger for her was already under the skin.
“What do you say?” I prompt, and Anna thanks Mallory's mother.
“Oh, you're welcome.” She hands Anna a small bag of treats.
“Now, have your husband call us anytime. We'd be happy to take Anna while
you're in Texas.”
Anna hesitates in the middle of a shoelace knot. “Mittie?” I ask,
“what exactly did Anna tell you?”
“That she had to leave early so your whole family could take you to the
airport. Because once training starts in Houston, you won't see them until
after the flight.”
“The flight?”
“On the space shuttle…?”
For a moment I am stunned—that Anna would make up such a ridiculous story,
that this woman would believe it. “I'm not an astronaut,” I confess.
“I don't know why Anna would even say something like that.”
I pull Anna to her feet, one shoelace still untied. Dragging her out of the
gymnasium, we reach the car before I say a word. “Why did you lie to
her?”
Anna scowls. “Why did I have to leave the party?”
Because your sister is more important than cake and ice cream; because I
cannot do this for her; because I said so.
I'm so angry that I have to try twice before I can unlock the van.
“Stop acting like a five-year-old,” I accuse, and then I remember
that's exactly what she is.
“It was so hot,” Brian says, “a silver tea set melted.
Pencils were bent in half.”
I look up from the newspaper. “How did it start?”
“Cat and dog chasing each other, when the owners were on vacation. They
turned on a Jenn-Air range.” He peels his jeans down, winces. “I got
second-degree burns just kneeling on the roof.”
His skin is raw, blistered. I watch him apply Neosporin and gauze. He keeps
talking, telling me something about a rookie nick-named Caesar who just joined
their company. But my eyes are drawn to the advice column in the newspaper:
Dear Abby,
Every time my mother-in-law visits, she insists on cleaning out the
refrigerator. My husband says she's just trying to help, but it makes me feel
like I'm being judged. She's made my life a wreck. How do I make this woman
stop without ruining my marriage?
Sincerely,
Past My Expiration Date, Seattle
What sort of woman considers this to be her biggest problem? I picture her
scrawling out a note to Dear Abby on linen-blend stationery. I wonder if she's
ever felt a baby turn inside her, tiny hands and feet walking in slow circles,
as if the inside of a mother is a place to be carefully mapped.
“What are you glued to?” Brian asks, coming to read the column
over my shoulder.
I shake my head in disbelief. “A woman whose life is being ruined by
rings from jelly jars.”
“Cream gone bad,” Brian adds, chuckling.
“Slimy lettuce. Oh my God, how can she stand to be alive?” We both
start laughing then. Contagious, all we have to do is look at each other to
laugh even harder.
And then just as suddenly as all this was funny, it isn't anymore. Not all
of us live in a world where our refrigerator contents are the barometer for our
personal happiness. Some of us work in buildings that are burning down around
us. Some of us have little girls who are dying. “Slimy fucking
lettuce,” I say, my voice hitching. “It's not fair.”
Brian is across the room in an instant; he folds me into his embrace.
“It never is, baby,” he answers.
One month later, we go back for a third lymphocyte donation. Anna and I take
our seats in the doctor's office, waiting to be called. After a few minutes,
she tugs on my sleeve. “Mommy,” she says.
I glance down at her. Anna is swinging her feet. On her fingernails is
Kate's mood-changing nail polish. “What?”
She smiles up at me. “In case I forget to tell you after, it wasn't as
bad as I thought it was going to be.”
One day my sister arrives unannounced, and with Brian's permission, spirits
me away to a penthouse suite at the Ritz Carlton in Boston. “We can do
anything you want,” she tells me. “Art museums, Freedom Trail walks,
dinners out on the Harbor.” But what I really want to do is just
forget, and so three hours later I am sitting on the floor beside her,
finishing our second $100 bottle of wine.
I lift the bottle by its neck. “I could have bought a dress with
this.”
Zanne snorts. “At Filene's Basement, maybe.” Her feet are on a
brocade chair; her body is sprawled on the white carpet. On the TV, Oprah
counsels us to minimize our lives. “Plus, when you zip up a great Pinot
Noir, you never look fat.”
I look over at her, suddenly feeling sorry for myself.
“No. You’re not doing the crying thing. Crying is not included in the
room rate.”
But suddenly all I can think of is how stupid the women on Oprah sound, with
their stuffed Filofaxes and crammed closets. I wonder what Brian made for
dinner. If Kate's all right. “I'm going to call home.”
She conies up on an elbow. “You are allowed to take a break, you know.
No one has to be a martyr twenty-four/seven.”
But I hear her wrong. “I think once you sign on to be a mother, that's
the only shift they offer.”
“I said martyr,” Zanne laughs. “Not mother.”
I smile a little. “Is there a difference?”
She takes the telephone receiver out of my hand. “Did you want to get
your crown of thorns out of the suitcase first? Listen to yourself, Sara, and
stop being such a drama queen. Yes, you drew a bad lot of fate. Yes, it sucks
to be you.”
Bright color rises on my cheeks. “You have no idea what my life is
like.”
“Neither do you,” Zanne says. “You're not living, Sara.
You're waiting for Kate to die.”
“I am not—” I begin, but then I stop. The thing is, I am.
Zanne strokes my hair and lets me cry. “It is so hard sometimes,”
I confess, words I have not said to anyone, not even Brian.
“As long as it's not all the time,” Zanne says.
“Honey, Kate is not going to die sooner because you have one more glass of
wine, or because you stay overnight in a hotel, or because you let yourself
crack up at a bad joke. So sit your ass back down and turn up the volume and act
like you're a normal person.”
I look around at the opulence of the room, at our decadent sprawl of wine
bottles and chocolate strawberries. “Zanne,” I say, wiping my eyes,
“this is not what normal people do.”
She follows my gaze. “You're absolutely right.” She picks up the
remote control, flipping channels until she finds Jerry Springer. “That
better?”
I start to laugh, and then she starts to laugh, and soon the room is
spinning around me and we are lying on our backs, staring up at the crown
molding edging the ceiling. I suddenly remember how, when we were kids, Zanne
used to always walk ahead of me to the bus stop. I could have run and caught
up—but I never did. I only wanted to follow her.
Laughter rises like steam, swims through the windows. After three days of a
torrential downpour, the kids are delighted to be outside, kicking around a
soccer ball with Brian. When life is normal, it is so normal.
I duck into Jesse's room, trying to navigate strewn LEGO pieces and comic
books so that I can set his clean clothes down on the bed. Then I go into Kate
and Anna's room, and separate their folded laundry.
When I place Kate's T-shirts on her dresser I see it: Hercules is swimming
upside down. I reach into the bowl and turn him, holding his tail; he wafts for
a few strokes and then floats slowly to the surface, white-bellied and gasping.
I remember Jesse saying that with good care, a fish might live seven years.
This has only been seven months.
After carrying the fishbowl into my bedroom, I pick up the phone and dial
Information. “Petco,” I say.
When I'm connected, I ask a clerk about Hercules. “Do you, like, want
to buy a new fish?” she asks. “No, I want to save this one.”
“Ma'am,” the girl says, “we're talking about a goldfish,
right?” So I call three vets, none of whom treat fish. I watch Hercules in
his death throes for another minute, and then ring the oceanography department
at URI, asking for any professor that's available. Dr. Orestes studies tide
pools, he tells me. Mollusks and shellfish and sea urchins, not goldfish. But I
find myself telling him about my daughter, who has APL. About Hercules, who
survived once against all odds.
The marine biologist is silent for a moment. “Have you changed his
water?”
“This morning.”
"You get a lot of rain down there the past couple of days?”
“Yes."
“Got a well?”
What does that have to do with anything? “Yes…”
“It's just a hunch, but with runoff, your water might have too many
minerals in it. Fill the bowl with bottled water, and maybe he'll perk
up.”
So I empty out Hercules' bowl, scrub it, and add a half-gallon of Poland
Spring. It takes twenty minutes, but then Hercules begins to swim around. He
navigates between the lobes of the fake plant. He nibbles at food.
Kate finds me watching him a half hour later. “You didn't have to change
the water. I did it this morning.”
“Oh, I didn't know,” I lie.
She presses her face up to the glass bowl, her smile magnified. “Jesse
says goldfish can only pay attention for nine seconds,” Kate says,
“but I think Hercules knows exactly who I am.”
I touch her hair. And wonder if I have used up my miracle.
ANNA
If YOU LISTEN TO ENOUGH INFOMERCIALS you start to believe some crazy things:
that Brazilian honey can be used as leg wax, that knives can cut metal, that
the power of positive thinking can work like a pair of wings to get you where
you need to be. Thanks to a little bout of insomnia and way too many doses of
Tony Robbins, I decided one day to force myself into imagining what it would be
like after Kate died. That way, or so Tony vowed, when it really
happened, I'd be ready.
I kept at it for weeks. It is harder than you think to keep yourself in the
future, especially when my sister was walking around at the time being her
usual pain-in-the-butt self. My way of dealing with this was to pretend Kate was
already haunting me. When I stopped talking to her, she figured she'd done
something wrong, which she probably had, anyway. There were entire
days where I did nothing but cry; others where I felt like I'd swallowed a lead
plate; some more where I worked really hard at going through the motions of
getting dressed and making my bed and studying my vocab words because it was
easier than doing anything else.
But then, there were times when I let the veil lift a little, and other
ideas would pop up. Like what it would be like to study oceanography at the
University of Hawaii. Or try skydiving. Or move to Prague. Or any of a million
other pipe dreams. I'd try to stuff myself into one of these scenarios, but it
was like wearing a size five sneaker when your foot is a seven—you can get by
for a few steps, and then you sit down and pull off the shoe because it just
plain hurts too much. I am convinced that there is a censor sitting on my brain
with a red stamp, reminding me what I am not supposed to even think
about, no matter how seductive it might be.