Homecoming Queen, page 20
The moment her back was to him her demeanor changed. “That useless piece of crap car,” she seethed, her voice muffled though her thick scarf. “I hate its frigging guts. Nothing but a pile of trash. Leave my husband out there to freeze to death. No way.
“And you God. Where in hell are you? How could you let a good man like this go through all this? Why don’t you pick on some damned axe murderer or something? We’ve got plenty of them around. They seem to be healthy enough to kill and kill over and over again. Where are you? You bastard. I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you!”
Her tears froze the moment they fell from her eyes, forming tiny globules of ice that clung to her lashes. The inside of her nose froze, too, making each breath feel like a freight train moving through her nostrils. The deep snow fell into the sides of her boots causing each step felt like she was lugging lead. Trouncing through snow banks, sometimes three feet tall, she cussed and cried all the way across the field that appeared to be a shortcut between the Cutlass and what should be the end of the exit ramp.
Twenty minutes later an old gent glanced up in surprise when she entered his Shell station. He hadn’t seen a car drive up.
“Why, hello, miss,” he said politely.“My gosh. Here, let me help you.” He took the crying snowwoman by the elbow and led her around the counter to the back of the small station, where an even older man sat by the fire of a Franklin stove. He immediately gave up his chair and Llayne plopped down.
The first man said, “Miss, we have coffee and cocoa. Would you like a cup?”
“Co… cocoa,” she said, her sobs finally subsiding. “But I can’t stay here. I have to get help to my husband. Our car is dead out on the highway and he has to get to the hospital right away.”
A pause ensued as the gentlemen absorbed what she’d said.
“Okay,” the older one said, taking over. “You stay right here by the fire. Get out of your wet coat and boots while I call the police. Won’t do any good to call a wrecker, but the police will answer. Now, you get dry and warm or you’ll catch your death of pneumonia.” He went to a greasy yellow wall phone and dialed while the other guy went to the back of the room to get her hot chocolate.
“But, but…” She popped up out of the chair, not knowing what to do. “We have to get back out there.”
“Now, now,” the younger of the old codgers came back with her steaming cup of cocoa. “You need to get warm. The police will take care of this. There’s nothing you can do at the moment. If you try, you’ll only get lost in the storm and then the police will have to try to find you.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay.” She took off her gloves and hat and scarf and coat and laid them out on a stack of tires near the stove. Then she took off her boots and turned toward an oily patch of cement to empty them of snow. She left on her thick, wet socks as she stuck her toes up to the toasty, warm fire. The heat felt like heaven.”
While she drank her cocoa, the older man still talked on the phone. The other one rummaged around in a bucket and came up with a pair of hand-knitted wool socks. “Here. Jacob’s wife…” he nodded toward the man on the phone “…always keeps us in good supply. I’m Caleb.”
“I”m Llayne. Thank you so much, Caleb.”
She set down her cup and had to struggle to get her wet socks off her feet. When her feet were finally bare, Caleb handed her a towel, which looked like it was meant to be used when working on a car. She didn’t care. It felt wonderful to dry her frozen tootsies. When she pulled on the wool socks, she wanted to cry from the sheer bliss of it. She rubbed each socked foot to get the circulation going then put her feet up to the fire.
“Caleb, this is the best gift I’ve ever received. Will you be sure to thank Jacob’s wife for me?”
“I sure will. She’ll be so glad she was of help in this horrible situation. Now, Llayne, you walked here. I’m wondering if I could walk out there while we wait for help, so your husband won’t be alone. I know the lay of the land and won’t have any trouble. You can stay right here.”
She didn’t get a chance to answer.
“The police want to talk to you,” Jacob said. The wall phone had a long, spirally cord, so he was able to hand her the receiver without her needing to get up.
They wanted to know if her husband’s illness was contagious. “I hope not,” she said. “It’s cancer.”
Within five minutes a police cruiser with heavy, metal snow chains on its tires pulled into the station to pick her up. It was miserable putting on her damp outer garments and leaving that fire to go back out into the cold, but at least her feet were warm and dry. Relief swept over her that they’d be getting back to Lex.
They drove backward up the ramp, which didn’t matter as no traffic was moving in either direction, and turned the cruiser around beside the Cutlass. Lex was so exhausted that one of the two officers had to help him into the back of the police car, beside Llayne. A wrecker showed up to take the car to the station to be fixed. The police car inched its away down icy roads to get to the front entrance of the University of Michigan Hospital, and again one of the policemen helped Lex as he shuffled inside the building.
It wasn’t until later that Llayne realized she hadn’t thanked Jacob or Caleb or the police. It was inexcusable, but she didn’t have the energy to worry about it.
After a half-hour examination of Lex, a Dr. Germaine came out to the waiting room to talk to Llayne. No one else was there, so he didn’t hesitate to say, “Mrs. Lexington, I’m so sorry, but your husband’s condition has deteriorated rapidly. I found a lump today on his neck, which means the cancer has developed into lymphosarcoma, a much more aggressive cancer than what they’ve seen in him to this point. That’s why he’s had these flu-like symptoms. He was in pain again, so I gave him another strong pain pill. He’ll be out for five or six hours. The experimental drugs that Dr. Klickensteiner wanted me to try on him won’t do any good now. The cancer is too far gone. The drugs wouldn’t do anything but make him sick. I’m so sorry. The prognosis has changed.”
When she didn’t say anything and merely stared at a bland abstract painting on the wall, he added, “Mrs. Lexington, do you understand what I’m saying?”
She didn’t look at him. “I understand.” With that she dismissed the useless physician by putting on her soggy coat and going to get her groggy husband.
Back in the hospital lobby, Jacob and Caleb waited for them. An attendant had brought Lex down in a wheelchair.
“We’ve fixed it, Llayne,” Caleb said. “Your car had a dead battery, but there’s a bran’ spankin’ new one in there now. It’ll be fine.”
Jacob asked, “Do you need help finding a place to stay tonight? I’m sure my wife wouldn’t mind if you came to our place.”
At that moment, they all looked out through the big glass doors, their attention caught by intense late afternoon sunlight, blinding as it reflected off of snow and ice.
“Wow. Look how pretty it is outside,” Lex slurred. “It stopped snowing. I’m so sleepy. I sure would like to go home to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Oh, no,” both men protested at the same time.
Jacob said, “The snow clouds have passed over and the sun’s out, but the roads will be impassable for days.”
Llayne didn’t give it a moment’s consideration. Her husband wanted to sleep in his own bed, and so he would. “Thank you so much,” she said, “but we already have a place to stay.”
The men nodded, no doubt assuming she meant a nearby hotel. It was then she remembered she needed to pay them. However, they absolutely refused to let her give them money. At least she remembered to thank them this time.
They settled Lex into the back of the car, and she got in and took off toward home. This time it was a fairytale journey in a wonderland of crystal and white. She wondered if it was possible that the same vengeful God who had made the first trip such hell had given her this one as a gift. Although a few cars were splayed about on the highway like tinker toys buried in sparkling sugar, the Cutlass was the only vehicle in motion, blazing a trail through thick snow that parted to reveal a mirror of ice underneath. Surely it was the hand of God which nudged the machine in the right direction. Heavy icicles hung from snow-laden trees and power lines, glistening in the setting sun. Even those lines that were down and criss-crossing one another on the sides of the road added an element of tangled glory. It was like journeying through a web of wonder. Millions of diamonds, droplets of melting ice, twinkled everywhere.
About forty miles from Mt. Pleasant, after it had grown dark, a snowplow joined her, so she fell in fifty feet behind it to make the drive easier. As the stars took their tour of the night sky, she pulled up at the apartment.
Lex got out on his own, gazed up at the sky, and said, “Look at the Milky Way. It’s a miracle, this life we have here on Earth, with all that’s going on out there.”
He went inside and slept in his own bed.
Utterly exhausted, Llayne built a fire and drank more cocoa in front of it, cozy and warm in her comfy robe. She’d left on her wool socks, the small gift that meant so much. It seemed as if her skin felt the kindness of the woman who’d made them. And the kindness with which they’d been given offered hope for all humankind. There truly were selfless, wonderful people out there, random strangers brought into her life for the most horrific reason.
She had been blessed in so many ways with so many good people in her life. But the best one of all would soon be gone.
When she finally finished her cocoa and tamped out the fire, she went to bed and wrapped her arm around her sleeping husband.
But tried as she might, her eyes refused to close for sleep.
CHAPTER 28
“If you die, I want to die, too,” Llayne rolled over in bed and faced her husband. “I can’t live without you.” The comment came out of nowhere. They hadn’t discussed the trip to Ann Arbor a few days earlier or the prognosis that came from it.
“Don’t talk like that,” he soothed, stroking her cheek. “That’s ridiculous. If one of us has to die, the other needs to live. Live for both of us. Get married again, have children, enjoy life. That’s what I want you to do. That’s what I would do.”
His generosity floored her. If she was dying, she’d want him to mourn her for the rest of his life. She thought he might cry but instead he made love to her. He tired quickly and she pushed aside her fears to provide most of the effort. It was a kindhearted, gratifying sharing for them both.
By mid-January, they both gave up trying to go to work. She’d been trying to go a few days a week, but the dean of her department had suggested she take a leave of absence.
That offer came on the day he arrived at work at eight in the morning and Llayne had already been there for three hours. Her sleep each night, and Lex’s, was so often interrupted with his pain and with getting up to give him medication, that she lost track of time that night. Thinking it was six-thirty, her usual time for getting up, she’d arisen at three-thirty, dressed for work, driven the thirty miles, and not realized her error until seeing the empty parking lot. It’d been pitch black outside, but it was always dark during her morning drive in wintertime.
The night janitor had been shocked when she came in at five. He’d hung around to keep an eye on her and to tell the dean, who in turn suggested she stay home for a while. She accepted the offer and drove home so dog-tired she could hardly make the trip.
Worn-out and depleted, the couple stayed home for the next couple of weeks. Lots of people came to visit. Chief Johnson and his granddaughter, Sue, stopped by regularly with the tribe’s medicine man, who burned the magic sticks that made the house smell like musty springtime, which Lex loved.
As she watched them one day, Llayne realized the Chippewas were helping Lex prepare to die, unlike the American doctors who had done everything they could to keep him alive. The cultural difference struck her as phenomenal, with each having a place in this ritual for dying.
Teacher friends came over. The high school principal dropped in one evening, looking haggard and bereft. A thoughtful woman who worked with Llayne drove sixty miles one Saturday afternoon to bring them a loaf of home-baked bread. And a professor at the community college called to tell Llayne that Lex had been included in his church’s prayers.
Kerina, unusually somber, came over to bring them a beautifully crafted gold cross, an antique from her homeland. She offered to hang it on the wall opposite the bed where Lex could see it and he agreed, which surprised Llayne. He’d never given a hint of being religious. He genuinely appreciated the gift.
Priscilla and Conrad visited often, and Priscilla spent a day cleaning their apartment while she sent a willing Conrad out to do the laundry. Their living conditions had become a bit ratty, but neither Llayne nor Lex had noticed, let alone cared. Kevin and his wife visited, and Dr. Klickensteiner called to check on them. Conrad’s parents came over, and Bob and Delia came from Detroit on weekends.
It was on the third weekend in January when the weird incident took place. Lex, Llayne, Priscilla, Conrad, Bob, and Delia were watching the news on TV. The newscaster said, “It appears that President Nixon may soon be ending the war in Vietnam. He continues to cut back troops. Some analysts speculate it may all be over by next year.”
Llayne said, “It’s about time. There’s never been any reason for us to be there anyway.”
It was true, she reflected later, that it had been a terribly callous and insensitive remark. But still, Lex’s fist rocketed through the air so fast there was no way she could have anticipated or escaped the punch had he not changed its direction at the last instant and landed his boulder into the wall instead of her jaw. Even though he hadn’t touched her, she reflexively tumbled backward off her chair and onto the floor at the same moment Lex’s left hook blew a hole in the plaster beside where her head had been.
They all sat as frozen as arctic glaciers. Lex most of all. Then, quaking in terror over the depth of his anger, he started to cry. He reached pathetically toward his wife, only to recoil, as if not trusting himself to touch her.
It was Bob who responded first. “Girls, go for a ride. Now.” Llayne was in such a state of profound shock, she didn’t question the mandate. The women put on their coats and left.
When they came back an hour later, Lex was in bed, lost in a deep sleep. Bob and Conrad were quietly fixing the wall, each nursing a Bud. Llayne never asked them what they did to calm Lex down, and they never offered an explanation. All she knew was that from that day forward, her husband was his old self - the most gentle teddy bear alive.
She knew she could never again mention Vietnam to him. He’d wasted a year of his short life there. It was cruel to say it was a waste. Of course, she realized that wasn’t the only source of his anger. The real source, the one that ran deeper than any wound that any word or even any weapon of war could make, was the anger that Dr. Leibowitz had told her about. The one a person feels when death is “imminent.”
In the week that followed, with his bolt of frustrated fury unleashed and spent, Lex gathered a tad more energy and went outside the front door each day to fill the bird feeder. She’d been doing it for him, but he enjoyed doing it again himself and would stand in the snow watching the small creatures excitedly come to feed. Many times he reminded Llayne that the feeder must be kept full because the birds had come to depend on it and had not flown south because of it. Without its seed, they would die in the barren winter.
Then, as the flu-like symptoms set in again with a vengeance, Lex wanted to be left alone in their bed more and more often, with easy listening music on the radio. His body was so achy, he thrashed about trying to get comfortable. Still affectionate, he hugged her, kissed her, and held her hand when he was awake. But once in bed, his body couldn’t tolerate much cuddling.
Somewhere in the deepest, darkest corner of her soul, Llayne felt relief at his desire to be left alone. It was an abatement her conscious mind dare not recognize for fear of guilt, tumultuous guilt over being afraid of the cancer that devoured his torn body, afraid that she might “catch” it, afraid of making love for fear that the deadly chemicals from the intense treatments or the dreaded disease itself might spill from his emaciated body into the core of her own, afraid of the ugly surgery scar that cut his once handsome body from waist to groin, afraid his dying breath would be breathed into her during a kiss, afraid of life without him, afraid of missing him so much she would wither away and die herself….
Afraid.
Routinely, she sat beside their bed and silently stroked his head as he fell asleep, then got up to watch television alone for an hour or two, then crawled in beside him and wrapped her arms around his ravaged body. It wasn’t long, though, before he sloughed her off in discomfort.
“Lela! Lela! Wake up!” he shouted.
He stood at the side of their bed, jiggling her shoulder. In utter confusion, she squinted her eyes open and looked at the bedroom window. It was still dark outside, the middle of the night. What was he doing up and alert at that hour?
“Come in the kitchen! Those people are in there!” He was as gleeful as a kid at Christmas.
My god, she thought, we’re being robbed and he’s too doped up to realize it. She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the phone to call the police.
“What’re you doing?” he asked.
“Calling the police.”
“No! The police won’t understand. They might hurt them, and they’re really nice. They took my hands and we danced around the kitchen. They’re happy ‘cuz I’m gonna come be with them soon. They said I get to see my mommy and daddy real soon!”
A flash of fear seized her chest. It was obvious he was hallucinating because of the drugs. She hung up the phone.
“Wanna come meet them?” he asked excitedly. He took her by the hand, pulled her out of bed, and led her into the kitchen. “Oh, they’re gone.” His disappointment was obvious as they entered the dim room, lighted only by silver-blue moonrays coming through the window over the sink. “Oh well,” he decided brightly, “they said they’ll be back.”
