The Healing (16 page)

chapter eighteen

Karen walked along the side of the road, covering nearly two miles before she started to feel the tension ease its grip on her body. She kept a brisk pace and tried to internalize all that was calm and beautiful about her surroundings. The air smelled salty, a light breeze was blowing off the water, and the summer sun was dazzling in the cloudless sky—a celestial gift for those hoping to enjoy the holiday weekend. The traffic was already whizzing by on the main road, so Karen detoured onto the side streets. She purposely didn't go anywhere near Founders Landing, knowing she would be tempted to sit and think. At the moment, she desperately needed to unwind and feel alive.

It had been a chaotic morning. The occupational therapist had arrived while Raymond was in the middle of bathing Mike. Lori had seemed totally out of sorts, and as her grandmother tried to engage her in conversation, Karen's parental radar told her that her daughter had started drinking again. It was all too logical; Lori couldn't face what was happening to her father. And to put the cherry on Karen's parfait of bedlam, Nora had sighed and clucked and shaken her head throughout the morning as if she didn't know what to do with herself. As Karen headed out the door for her walk, Nora whimpered, “You'll be back before the health aide leaves, won't you?”

More tragic than Mike being drained of life by a devastating disease was the fact that his own mother couldn't get past her psychological hang-ups to help care for him. Not even for an hour.

Where was the light at the end of the tunnel? When was it going to get better?

Karen found herself on Terry Lane before she realized it. She hadn't even decided whether or not she was going to stop for tea when she saw Grace emerging from her house, garbed in her familiar black shift and carrying her straw tote with the sunflower on it. The threads of distress that were knotted in Karen's stomach unraveled a little.

“Good morning!” she called to Grace while they were still yards apart.

As always, Grace was reserved, as though she had expected everything to happen just as it did. “Were you coming for tea?” she asked.

“I didn't really have a plan,” Karen replied.

“Then why don't you walk with me? I have to go to the market, but maybe we can take a leisurely stroll past the farms first.”

“Sure.”

Grace gave a stately nod and smiled. “But remember, I don't walk as fast as you do.”

“That's all right,” Karen said. “I've been walking at top speed for over an hour.” She allowed Grace to set the pace, and they fell into a relaxed stride. It was a rhythm as natural as a heartbeat.

“So did your mother-in-law come out last night?” Grace asked.

“She certainly did.”

“How did it go?”

“Just like I predicted it would. She lost it.”

Grace was quiet for a moment. “Some people just aren't equipped to deal with illness,” she finally said, as if she had known Nora all her life. How did she manage to simplify such a complex issue and rationalize it with one sentence? It almost made Nora's behavior acceptable.

“Is that supposed to get my mother-in-law off the hook?” Karen asked.

“Not really,” Grace replied. “It's just a fact of life.”

“Well, I have no patience for it.”

“You have more patience than you think.”

Karen clammed up and reflected on the previous day. Somehow things came into clearer focus when she talked to Grace, as if the older woman knew how to organize her thoughts and make sense of every circumstance. Karen was able to see herself interacting with her family and struggling to be civil under tremendous pressure. “You're right,” she said after a few moments. “I had extraordinary patience with Nora. But I'm afraid I took out my frustration on my husband. I wasn't very kind to him yesterday.” She paused, recalling all too vividly what she had said to Mike while getting him ready for bed. She had actually accused him of enjoying his mother's angst. “As a matter of fact, I was downright nasty.”

“Sometimes a simple apology goes a long way.”

Karen felt her throat close up a little. “Funny you should say that. Mike was the one apologizing to
me.
”

Grace didn't respond right away. She didn't seem to hear Karen's comment. As they emerged from the shade of the tree-lined side road, Grace squinted up at the late morning sun and inhaled the fragrant sea air with an expression of utter contentment, slowing the pace just enough so Karen noticed the change in rhythm. Their sandals clopped softly on the pavement as they crossed the main road and headed toward the few farms that were left in the center of town.

Soon Karen realized that Grace was simply enjoying her walk. She wasn't just enjoying the glorious day or the familiar scenery. She was enjoying the connection of mind and spirit induced by the simple act of walking.

Then Grace dropped her pearl of wisdom. “We take so much for granted. Don't we?”

Karen stopped midstride and placed a hand across her forehead as her trains of thought collided.

Mike.

And the simple beauty of walking.

She realized where they were—close to her cousin Anya's old house—and she remembered walking along that very stretch of road with Mike every summer until her aunt and uncle moved to Florida. She remembered how they held hands, ate ice cream, laughed, talked . . . and walked.

He walked her out of the church after they were married, their arms linked.

He walked her to the train when she had to go to work in the snow, his arm around her to keep her warm and make sure she didn't slip.

“Karen?”

She couldn't speak for a minute. She could barely look up. “Oh, God,” she croaked.

Grace stopped and turned a few paces in front of her. “Are you all right?” she asked softly.

“I was so horrible to him yesterday,” Karen confessed, afraid she would burst into tears right there on the road.

Grace just listened.

“Sometimes I don't even know what I expect of him. It's so unreasonable. He keeps talking about going into a nursing home, and all I do is get mad at him for it. I want him to keep fighting. I want him to be Mike again. But—” Her voice shook. “There's so much he really can't do anymore. He can't walk. He can't go to the bathroom. He can't even stand up. Pretty soon he won't be able to feed himself.”

It was like she truly comprehended the magnitude of it for the first time. And Grace was peering at her with soulful understanding, her brow contorted above her sunglasses. When she spoke, it was with gentility and warmth. “You seem to be doing everything in your power to keep your husband at home with you for as long as possible.”

The profound words rang in Karen's ears like the last note of a song. They infused her with self-awareness, forcing her to confront the uncertainty of the future. She envisioned her living room without the hospital supplies, her schedule without health aides, nurses, and caregiver duties . . .

. . . Her home without Mike.

Tears sprang to her eyes so fast that she had no chance to stop them. “Of course I want him at home with me,” she said, squeezing the words past her constricted voice box. “I can't imagine it any other way. Not yet.”

“Then that's all that should matter to you right now,” Grace said, allowing the remainder of the message to sink in.

Karen received that message loud and clear. Mike wasn't going to grow old with her. The doctors and medical pamphlets had told her as much. His illness was rampantly progressive, and there was a possibility he would die within the decade of serious infection or respiratory failure.

They weren't going to sit under the apple tree and watch their grandchildren play in the yard. They weren't going to enjoy bus trips to Atlantic City and take advantage of the senior citizen discounts. They weren't going to laugh with their aging friends about how they were dealing with the challenges of the golden years.

Karen started walking again, and Grace fell in step beside her. A few more tears fell from her eyes, but she didn't allow herself to fall apart. Grace had already seen her in that deplorable state once. “It all happened so fast,” she said, her words barely audible. “Even the doctors said it was way too fast.”

“Mike must have had symptoms for a long time before he was even diagnosed,” Grace said.

Karen nodded, feeling more composed. “His foot used to flop when he walked,” she said. “That went on for over two years, getting progressively worse. And there were times his legs would go numb. But he always claimed it was a bad disk in his lower back. ‘Occupational hazard,' he said.”

Grace was thoughtful for a moment. “Sometimes it's harder to be the person who's watching it all happen,” she remarked.

But Karen saw herself clearly for the first time in months. “The problem is I
can't
really watch,” she said, her voice sounding thin. “I'm so afraid to let myself see it. Do you know what I mean? I'm afraid Mike will know how much it hurts me.” Once the words were out, Karen couldn't believe she had actually uttered them. She had never admitted such a thing to her own sister.

Grace's profile was serene. “I don't presume to know you that well, but I get the impression you and your husband have had a strong, loving marriage.”

A wistful smile tugged at the corners of Karen's mouth. “Yeah,” she replied. “A match made in heaven, as they say.”

“Then wouldn't it be worse for Mike to think it
doesn't
hurt you?”

Karen couldn't even form a reply. She stopped walking. Once again, Grace stopped a few paces ahead and turned around. She wasn't finished.

“And you have to ask yourself a very important question.”

Karen listened intently.

“All of these things that you do for your husband, would he do them for you if
you
were sick?”

chapter nineteen

October 1992

The first thing Karen saw when she woke up from surgery was Mike's face hovering over her. His black brows were the first features she could distinguish. They were drawn together just enough to create a worry line over the bridge of his nose. His deep blue eyes were searching for her through the delirium, twinkling when she finally focused on them with recognition.

“Hi, babe,” he whispered. His lips, warm and moist, brushed against hers, cool and dry. Then he smiled. He was evidently relieved that the woman he always called the love of his life was fluttering back to consciousness. “How're you feeling?”

“Like hell,” she replied, her throat as parched as her lips.

He picked up her hand—the one without the intravenous tube—and kissed it tenderly. “Dr. Lipton said everything went great. All the tissue samples were benign, and there was hardly any bleeding.” As he spoke, he caressed her hand, pressing it lovingly between his own.

Karen felt too groggy to appreciate what Mike was saying. But she knew how anxious he had been about her hysterectomy and how the ominous threat of uterine cancer had been hanging over their heads since before Lori was born. Mike wasn't just relieved that Karen was safely out from under the knife, he was also relieved that the source of all her medical problems had been excised along with the endometrial abnormalities that could have turned malignant.

She wasn't too groggy, however, to realize her husband looked tired and needed a shave. He probably hadn't slept a wink the previous night, and he certainly hadn't made it a priority to groom himself this morning when his wife had to be at the hospital at the crack of dawn.

Karen managed a weak smile and closed her eyes because it was too hard to keep them open. She breathed the words, “Love you.”

“Love you, too, babe.” Mike kissed her on the lips again. Then, so quietly she wasn't sure she even heard it, she thought he said, “More than anything in the world.”

She slipped back into oblivion, and the next time she came around, she didn't know if five minutes or five hours had passed. But Mike was still at her bedside like a sentinel.

“I feel sick to my stomach,” she told him, and he was ready with the basin when she gagged. Nothing came out, but Mike wiped her face with a cool cloth until the nausea passed.

“Go home,” she told him, and went back to sleep.

The next time she woke up, she was out of recovery and in her hospital room, and Mike was sitting in a chair reading an issue of
Sports Illustrated
. As soon as he saw her move, he was up and leaning over her in a flash. “Hi, babe.”

“Why are you still here?” she asked. “Lori's probably home from school by now.”

“And your mother is there with her,” he replied, brushing the hair off her forehead. “How do you feel?”

“Awful. Go home,” she told him again. “You have better things to do than sit here and watch me sleep.”

He pretended to reflect for a few seconds and then shook his head. “I can't think of any.”

“Go get something to eat.”

His whole face seemed to curl with secret mischief. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

She humored him. “Yeah. My husband will be here any minute.”

He chuckled and kissed her on the lips, moister now because of IV fluids. “Good. Let's make him jealous.”

It took all of her energy to stroke his face, still so handsome at close range. “Your five o'clock shadow is pretty heavy.”

“That's because it's seven-thirty.”

Karen felt her entire body seize up. “Don't you dare make me laugh. It hurts.”

“Sorry, babe.”

Karen sat motionless in the passenger seat of Mike's compact Toyota. She'd never felt more miserable in her life. The smell of the hospital stayed with her like a toxic cloud, even with the car windows cracked and the brisk autumn air blowing in. She could tell Mike was trying to take it easy behind the wheel, but it still felt like her insides were going to spill out with every bump and turn. Far worse than the physical discomfort was the deep melancholy that had taken hold of her. Karen started thinking about the finality of her surgery—how she no longer had the womb that bore Lori and how she would never be able to have any more children. It overwhelmed her with a deep, inescapable feeling of loss. And the tears started to fall.

She kept her head turned toward the window, purposely not wiping the wetness away because Mike would surely notice she was crying.

He noticed anyway. “Karen? What's wrong?” Out of the corner of her eye, Karen could see his head whipping back and forth as he checked both the road and her state of being. “What's the matter, babe?”

Everything.
“Nothing,” she replied without facing him.

“Do you need me to pull over?” he asked.

“No. I want to get home.”

Keeping his left hand on the wheel, Mike reached over and gently cupped her chin to turn her head, but Karen couldn't even look at him without breaking down all the way. So she pulled away and continued to stare out the window.

Mike gunned the engine to get her home as fast as he could.

When they pulled up to their modest split-level in Massapequa, Mike wanted to carry her inside. “The doctor said I have to walk,” she reminded him.

“But the steps—”

“I'll be all right,” she insisted.

Mike practically lifted her out of the car. Karen felt like cannon fire ripped through her as soon as she put her feet on the ground, and she couldn't straighten up. Mike was her rock-solid support as she hung on to his arm for dear life and moved forward in extreme slow motion.

As they hobbled to the door, it occurred to Karen that her husband would have given anything to trade places with her. The realization only made her want to cry more. She made it up the three front steps, scaling each one as if a land mine were planted beneath the tread and pausing to rest in between.

Luckily, their seven-year-old daughter was still in school, and Karen's mother had prepared lunch for them and then wisely cleared out, so they were alone. Karen was especially grateful that nobody was around, because as soon as Mike eased her onto their comfy sofa, she felt a new tide of tears stinging her eyes. He sat beside her, his soulful gaze breaking the dam.

“Oh, Mike—” she choked, her arms slithering around his neck. He embraced her, not too tightly but with the warmth and affection that held her together.

“Everything's going to be okay now,” he said.

“I'm so sorry,” she sobbed into his neck, dampening the crew neck of his FDNY T-shirt with her tears.

He drew back, gripping her by the upper arms, to search her face for an explanation. “Sorry for what?”

“I know you wanted more kids,” she said.

He looked a little confused at first. But then he just gathered Karen in his arms again, careful not to squeeze too hard. “Oh, babe. Is that what this is all about?”

Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.
“You must feel cheated.”

He chortled a little, like a parent who finds his child's innocent misconceptions adorable. “Who said I wanted more kids?”

“We always talked about having a big family. And I always pictured you with a son.”

Mike looked at her again. He was smiling, but Karen could see the shine of emotion in his eyes. They had been through a similar scene many times, back when she was desperate to get pregnant and had suffered one disappointment after another. They hadn't revisited those deep-rooted sentiments since before Lori was born. But Mike still gave the same reassurance. “Well, I can't picture myself with anything more than what I have,” he said. “And I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.”

“You're just saying that,” she replied.

“I have everything I need right here in this room with me. Everything else is gravy. Don't you know that by now?”

Karen clung to him, absorbing his inexhaustible love for her, which was always a palpable part of him. Deep down she knew he meant what he was saying. Their devotion to each other was the primary source of everything else in their lives. Including Lori.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he asked, wiping the tears from her face.

She nodded and looked up at him with a shaky smile. “That sounds good.”

Mike retrieved her pillow from their bed, fluffed it behind her, and helped her put her feet up. Then he brought her a shopping bag filled with books he had borrowed from the library the day before. Over the years, he had seen her consume hundreds of novels in addition to the manuscripts she reviewed for her job, remembering how she loved reading and how she favored historical fiction and family sagas. “There may only be a couple in there you haven't read, but I took a chance,” he told her.

Her bleary eyes lit up a little. “Thanks.”

Karen did not comment on her husband's thoughtfulness because she didn't want to start blubbering all over again. Rifling through the bag, she checked titles and read summaries on back covers while Mike went into the kitchen and put the coffee on. He started whistling almost immediately, obviously content to do something as mundane as make a pot of coffee.

The sound of his whistling made Karen feel good, too. When she realized what tune it was, something clicked in her memory, and she lowered the book she was holding. She had bought the 45 the day after their first slow dance at the wharf and had played it on her beat-up old record player until the grooves crackled. He was whistling “The Air That I Breathe.”

By the time Mike brought in her cup of coffee, Karen was staring into space.

“Hey, are you somewhere else?” he asked.

She snapped out of her daydream and grinned at being caught. “No, I'm right here.”

He pulled the coffee table close to the sofa and set her cup down. “Well, you were thinking pretty hard about something.”

“I was thinking about how much I love you, Michael Francis Donnelly.”

He straightened up and rattled his head as if Karen had put smelling salts under his nose. “Wow. I oughta bring you coffee more often.”

Karen relaxed on the sofa. She wasn't paying too much attention to what was on TV because the interaction between her husband and their daughter was much more entertaining. Mike had told Lori to get ready for bed, and Lori was trying to charm her way out of compliance.

“But can't I stay up just a little longer?” Her tone was laced with a hint of the whining her parents rarely tolerated. But Karen knew that with Mom and Dad home around the clock, and Grandma and Grandpa picking Lori up from school and coming over for dinner almost every night in recent weeks, it was easy for a second-grader to feel like she was the center of the universe.

“No way,” Mike said. “You'll fall asleep watching TV, and I'll have to carry you all the way upstairs.”

Karen wondered how Mike ever got Lori to obey when he acted like everything she did amused him.