American Sycamore, page 19
And so, well, now I am crying. I admit that there are certain very specific recollections that make me so happy that I grow sad at what we have lost. But I want to make an important point to you, which is that grief has another side in that it opens opportunities to think about all of the things in your life that were so beautiful and filled with love. It goes without saying that those were the best eleven years of my life. Dad’s, too, of course. You made our lives perfect in so many ways. You were the person who completed life for us.
Thomas, I am worried about your father. His cancer has gotten loose in his body and the prognosis is uncertain. He is feeling quite sick lately, not from the cancer itself but from the treatment. So many side effects. He is just not himself and honestly I have never seen him like this. It scares me. If you were here, you would make all the difference. In fact, you do make a difference, because he has told me that when his time comes, even if it is soon, he will welcome the opportunity to cross into the realm over to where you now exist. We don’t know exactly what that realm is, of course, but we know without doubt that you are there in some form somewhere because you still have such a presence. And because your life was so beautifully lived. You were our Big Bang. At one moment you did not exist, and seconds later you burst into the world and created an entirely new universe for us. You were everything to us, Tom. Everything.
29
Unthinkable
On a balmy evening in early May, Rob received an email from a faculty colleague with a one-word subject line: UNTHINKABLE. Rob opened the link to an article on the Politico website. Never in the history of the Supreme Court had a draft decision been leaked, and it was hard to say which was more shocking to Rob, the fact of the leak or the draft opinion itself, which suggested the court was about to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Rob took his laptop downstairs to the den, where Julia was watching a movie. He placed the computer on the coffee table facing her.
“What?” she asked.
He had no words. He nodded toward the screen. Julia read for no more than thirty seconds. “Oh, my God, Rob!” she cried, her face flushed. She stood and glared at her husband. “God damnit, Rob! You said this wasn’t going to happen! Roberts to the rescue, and all that. How can they do this? How does this not shake even your faith, Rob? So, after half a century of constitutional protections, they can just ignore precedent to remove a constitutional right women have had for fifty years?”
Rob shook his head and sat down heavily in the chair next to her. “I don’t know what to say, Jules,” he said.
Julia stood there looking down at him, conflicted, not wanting to make him feel worse, but she couldn’t help herself. “The majority just flouts tradition, laughs in the face of precedent. They just denied a state’s authority to regulate guns. Never mind that our public squares are routinely killing fields, but then they contradict themselves and rule that states have the authority to regulate women’s bodies.”
Julia started to cry, then caught herself, eyes narrowed, as she looked accusingly at her husband. “The court has become the tool of the extreme right, out of step with Americans, and what’s our recourse? Now what do you think about the great experiment in democracy? A democracy if you can keep it, Rob. If.”
She would realize later that she was angry not only for the loss of rights to women but angry as well that the court was possibly proving her skepticism right. In their decades-long quarrel over who was the dreamer and who was the realist, Julia wanted Rob to be right. But perhaps she was the one who saw the ominous signs in a more clear-eyed manner. Maybe the country really was crashing.
After Julia had gone to bed, Rob sat up in his study, a tumbler of scotch on the side table, and reread the full text of the Alito draft. There was something about Alito’s tone that bothered him more than anything else. It seemed a mix of I-told-you-so and arrogance. Was it malicious? Maybe in a few spots. There was a burn-down-the-house undertone to it that offended his sense of restraint. He knew it would offend the chief, as well, and that was when Rob recovered his sense of hope. He came, in that moment, to believe that Roberts would figure out a way to navigate a more restrained middle ground.
Rob awoke to the light of dawn slanting through the eastern-facing windows. He had fallen asleep in the chair and woke with his back and neck stiff. He stood and stretched. Yes, Roberts would be able to fix this. He was cheered by this thought. The chief justice wouldn’t permit the court to self-destruct. He had saved the day with the Affordable Care Act, and he would do so again with Roe. “I’m sorry, Rob.”
Julia was there all of a sudden in her robe, hair disheveled, eyes puffy. “I was venting too much last night. I was just so shocked by the whole thing.”
“No, Jules,” he said, smiling at her and taking her in his arms, “you have nothing to apologize for. I got your hopes up. But, Jules, it’s not over yet. The chief can be counted on. The center will hold.”
30
God Keeps His Eye on Us All
In the garden, Rob hung up the phone and turned to Ray, who was in the process of lighting a joint. “Am I wrong to care about this award, Ray? Because I do.”
“These symbols matter,” said Ray. “And you deserve it. Forty years, brilliant teaching, writing, advocacy. What the fuck else do they want you to do, serve breakfast?”
Darkness had fallen and there was a bright moon. “I look up at the sky, and I think, an award for a teacher, how can it matter in the scheme of things?”
Rob got up and went inside, grabbed two beers, and returned.
“Something else is on your mind, my friend,” said Ray. “Lupron?”
“Not due for the next shot until July,” Rob said. “But I’m not myself. I’m just kind of . . . I don’t know how to describe it. I feel sick all the time on the Lupron and enzalutamide. The whole thing has turned me into a worrier, and you know me, was I ever like this? Anxious, unfocused?”
“Never,” said Ray. “Literally never.” He started laughing. “You’re a freak of nature, Rob! You know, my friend, you’ve been through brutal times in your life, and you are reacting in a very human way. The cancer business is scary as hell, so much uncertainty.”
“I’m afraid for Jules,” Rob said. “I just . . . Ray, I have a hard time seeing her without me.”
“I know,” Ray said, “but there are other options. And regarding Julia, yeah, I have a hard time seeing her without you as well. Hell, yes.” Ray leaned forward and placed his hand on Rob’s shoulder. “But I don’t think she’s going to be without you, my friend, at least not for quite a long time. Let me tell you about one of the other potential arrows in the quiver. My former student, Nita Gretzle, is back in the US. I hired her for our faculty. She trained with us, went to NIH, then Novartis in Switzerland where they are doing some radical stuff with targeted therapy, and they have more latitude with human trials than we do. I sent her your file, and I want us all to sit down with her and get her thoughts. Let’s consider a plan B.”
Rob nodded. “Okay, thank you, I hope, Jesus, honestly, I hope it doesn’t come to that. But you have to promise me that if anything happens to me—”
“You mean if you die.”
“Yes, or more precisely if I predecease Jules, you have to promise me that you will—”
“Rob, please,” said Ray, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, looking intently at his friend. “I already have committed to be there for her forever. And the same is true if she predeceases you. Christ, you know I am there for you both.”
Rob was a bit tearful. “I do, Ray, I do. I just am not myself these days. All of a sudden I’m fragile. Never before. Never in my life, you know that.”
“Cancer messes with the mind,” Ray said. “Sometimes the psychological damage is as debilitating as the physical disease itself.”
“In the middle of the night, waking up in the old days, I used to think about legal issues,” Rob said. “There was comfort in that. Now, though . . .” Rob sighed heavily.
“It’s the big questions,” Ray said. “The scary ones.”
“Exactly,” said Rob.
“We’re the only species that knows our fate,” Ray said. “It’s a blessing in a way and a curse. Our entire adult lives we know where this is going, never a doubt. Eventually, all the systems fail, and any sort of life within flickers, goes dark. But then, Rob, comes something else. What is it exactly? Nobody knows. No one ever in the history of mankind has known before the body dies what happens next. Or whether anything happens next. But, as you know, I am a believer. I have to be. It was confirmed in my mind while I was in Phu Bai. The suffering of those boys. And I realized while I was there that, like the song goes, God keeps his eye on us all. And because I believe that he is a benevolent being, I believe that God has a place for those who have suffered.”
“Ray, I know you’ve told me this, but come on, was that to soothe us in some way after we lost Thomas or is that something . . . I mean, it seems so improbable.”
“I get it,” said Ray. “Galileo and Newton were men of faith, but it was easier then. You were expected to have faith, almost required. And they did. Newton was emphatic. He said the universe was a beautiful construct guided by an ‘intelligent being.’ I was with a colleague a few months ago, a Mormon who has unshakable faith. This is a really smart woman from MIT, and she says she has absolutely no difficulty in reconciling science and faith, and part of what she meant by this is that it is deeply unfashionable within science to have faith and, more to the point, to express faith. The scientific establishment laughs behind religion’s back. I don’t like that. The light that we can see from the most powerful telescopes goes back eleven or so billion years ago—not all that long after the Big Bang. What will we learn in the future when we have more powerful instruments? Will we see the explosion itself? We see remnants of it now. But the big question is will we ever see what came before the Big Bang. If there was anything. Think about it, Rob. There is a possibility that there was nothing before there was something. Or maybe there was something but the something was infinitesimal. And some nuclear force triggered an explosion that caused all of this. Or a benevolent being triggered the forces of nature, and boom!”
Ray took another hit on the joint, then carefully extinguished it, setting it on the side table.
“It’s humbling,” muttered Rob.
“Humbling because we don’t know anything about what is beyond the known universe. Places where the laws of physics do not apply. Where there is a God who rules by whatever laws or construct he or she wishes. At MIT there’s an oral history of faculty members who were part of the Apollo project, and it shows that virtually all of those mathematicians, engineers, physicists, etc., were praying on the day of the launch. The best scientific minds at one of the world’s great universities asked God for guidance and inspiration. Maybe we should take note of that. So yes, I absolutely do believe. Peace itself. Grace itself. And I believe Thomas is in that state, Rob. His spirit, no question in my mind, his spirit is in a perfect state of peace and grace and will be for all of eternity. Perfect harmony. And I believe the same is true for all the boys I cared for in Phu Bai. I believe that every name on that granite wall in Washington is in this state.”
Ray stopped, looked at the darkened sky and then at Rob. “That’s what I believe.”
Later that evening, Jerry called Rob. “You saw the editorial, I assume?” Jerry said.
“Read it online.”
“Rob, the committee is unanimous, locked in full support of you, and we are going to fight like hell, I want you to know that. You deserve this award. There is no question, and if I have anything to say about it, you will receive this award. If they want to blow the whole thing up next year, fine, blow it up, Molotov cocktail, Weather Underground, Mark Rudd, whatever the hell they want. But not this year. Keep the faith, Rob.”
“Will do, Jerry, and thank you.”
Jerry and several colleagues had organized a letter-writing campaign on Rob’s behalf to the president, supporting Rob as a worthy recipient of the Griswold.
“Everybody wants to sign, Rob!” said Jerry. “All the old guys, anyway. Our vintage, you get the picture. It’s sad. And I get that these kids, they make some excellent points. The deck has been stacked! Women, Blacks, immigrants, the historical discrimination is a crime, literally. So let’s unstack the deck! Let’s correct past mistakes. Sign me up! But do not, do not on my watch deprive one of the finest faculty members in this fucking mental institution of what he has earned because he disagrees with your particular orthodoxy or, worse yet, disrespects your lived experience.”
As he and Jerry were wrapping up the call, one of the medical office phone numbers showed up as a new call on his cell phone. These were perilous technological waters for Rob. How to shift from one call to the other. “Jerry, hang on one sec, please,” he said as he managed to cut Jerry off and worried he might have cut off the doctor’s office as well. Annoyed, he feverishly pressed buttons on the phone, hoping the doctor’s office was still connected, but then suddenly, weirdly, he heard a voice that he did not initially recognize. It was the voice of that Crimson reporter, Judith Jansen. Somehow, Rob had inadvertently hit random buttons on his phone that had recorded their conversation.
“Professor Barrow?”
“Speaking.”
“Hi, professor, it’s Judith Jansen at the Crimson, and I wonder if you have just a minute?”
“Ahh, well, Judith, I am a bit distracted at the moment.”
“I promise it will be quick, professor. I’m writing a piece about progress on the New York Times 1619 Project. It’s the two-year anniversary of the project, and I’m asking faculty members their thoughts about its impact thus far. Any thoughts, professor?”
“I read the article, of course, some time ago, but, to be honest I haven’t given it much thought since then.”
“Is it something that you have considered integrating into your courses?”
“In Constitutional Law? Well, never say never, I suppose, but I don’t think, at least from what I know about it, I don’t think it’s quite relevant for what I am teaching these days . . . Judith, I apologize, but I have to run, My wife just got home. Sorry I can’t be more helpful. Call any time.”
31
Subatomic Particles
Rob marveled at the science. He had come to understand from his reading as well as from discussions with Drs. Chen and Lee along with Ray that men stricken with his disease back before the 1970s had little hope. Medical science at the time had no answers for the proliferation of cancer cells, but since then the subspecialty of radiation oncology had advanced. Big Pharma had become an enemy of the left, but a heroic force for people with various diseases. But while Rob was grateful for the power of Lupron every ninety days, the high daily doses of enzalutamide were driving him nearly mad. The drug grew more punishing over time, crushing his energy and gradually reducing his ability to concentrate. Not even halfway through a walk one day, strolling at a snail’s pace, he was forced to rest on a bench while Julia hurried home, got the car, and came to pick him up.
“I’m becoming a zombie,” he told Julia.
Rob had a catlike ability to move silently during the night when the side effects of treatment often wrested him from sleep. Rarely did his movements awaken Julia, but they did on this night. He made his way unsteadily downstairs to the library, where he sat glumly trying to read. But he could not.
“Not feeling great, huh?” she said, as she came down and sat in the cushioned chair across from Rob’s. She seemed to have aged. She looked so vulnerable.
“I’m not doing this anymore, Jules,” he said.
“But Rob . . .” she started.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Julia was about to interrupt to protest, but she caught herself. She knew her man. She knew that this was no way to live.
“I drag myself into class and give distracted lectures. I can’t even focus when I read. I’m not taking those pills anymore.”
“Rob, really, you—”
“I talked to Ray,” Rob said. “He told me to take half the dose starting in the morning.”
“Oh, I wish you had told me,” she said.
“You were asleep when I talked with him,” Rob said. “He sent my whole file to a former student of his, researcher from Novartis. Ray just hired her for his faculty. Dr. Gretzle. He’s going to let us know when she can meet.”
“We will find another approach,” she said. “I am sure of it.”
They went back to bed, to restless sleep that was better than nothing. After breakfast, Rob said he was going to go for a short walk.
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“Thanks, but I have to think.”
He hugged her and headed out the back door, down the flagstone steps and along the walkway to the street. She went out the front door and stood by their gate watching him trudge along. Rob made his way through a series of back streets to the banks of the Charles. Until he reached the river, he’d been too glum to notice what a glorious morning it was on the seventh day of May. He found a bench with a view across to the Boston side of the river and settled down to watch the scullers— they were disciplined and determined people, he thought—move at a slow, steady pace. He was letting his mind wander when, suddenly from his left, the eight-man crew emerged from under a bridge rocketing west at what seemed, compared to the single scullers, an astonishing speed. Eight fit young men committed to a collaborative enterprise. Rob marveled at it. In less than a minute, the boat had disappeared in the distance, headed upriver. Rob gazed across toward Boston. What a lovely city it was—centuries-old bricks and mortar and nature and institutions that collectively cradled the city’s accumulated traditions and wisdom. It really was a place where people with particular types of brains were drawn. He liked it, was comfortable here.
It was a very unusual time in Rob Barrow’s life, and not only because he had cancer. He never recalled being disappointed in himself the way he was now. He had committed the cardinal sin of reacting to it with emotion rather than reason. Not that an emotional reaction was unwarranted. His life was at stake, after all. But for Rob, reason had been the North Star that had guided him throughout his life. As he sat on the bench watching high clouds drift by, feeling the soothing spring air, he resolved to get a grip. The best antidote for all these swirling emotions, he thought, was to try to focus on gratitude. Rob knew the power of gratitude. It had been the force he had harnessed in the years since Thomas. I am blessed, he thought. He had so much in his life to be thankful for! Julia, Ray, work he loved, friends and colleagues. And, of course, Thomas. He had a son. And perhaps, if Rob’s time was coming to an end, he would be guided by the spirit of his son, perhaps even reunited with him! He thought of their home, their refuge, where the most joyous times happened; where Thomas had lived and grown and embraced life. If only they could have switched places. Rob had often thought about that, and he realized that if God was a negotiator, he/she might have allowed for switches at the time of death. If Rob had died back then on August 15, 1991, Thomas would now be forty-two years old. Oh, how Rob wished this were true. If Rob had been able to trade places with his son, what would Thomas’s life have been like? This was a question Rob carried with him at all times, no matter where he went or what he was doing. He knew that Julia and Thomas would have mourned his death, missed him, but moved on. Natural progression. Rob took a certain satisfaction in thinking about Julia and Thomas together, closer than ever after Rob’s passing, Julia guiding Thomas, watching over him, protecting him, measuring how much freedom to grant him through his teenage years. Rob smiled as he thought about what he felt sure would have been one of the biggest days of Thomas’s life—when the listing of those making the school’s varsity hockey squad was posted just prior to Thanksgiving weekend. Making the team had been so important to Thomas that he now felt nervous worrying about whether his son would have made the roster had he lived. How crazy am I, Rob thought.
