All You Could Ask For: A Novel, page 19
“So in this case, what you’re telling me is I have breast cancer that has spread to my bones?”
I thought I saw just a little bit of emotion then. He seemed to swallow especially hard before he answered. “That’s what we need to find out. We’re going to send you for a biopsy, we’re going to get a CAT scan of your chest and belly, and we’re going to do a bone scan. You’ll be back by the end of the week and we’ll go over the results.”
I could go on and on about the subsequent tests I took and the chalky fluid I drank and the Ambien-fueled nights that passed, but there isn’t really much point in any of that. By Friday I was back with Dr. Z and he was telling me, in a matter-of-fact tone, that I have breast cancer that has probably spread to my spine.
What was amazing about that moment was that I had no reaction whatsoever. You know how when you see someone in a courtroom be pronounced guilty and sentenced to life in prison, they don’t ever seem to scream or cry or even flinch? I’ve always wondered how they manage to remain so stoic, but now I understand. It is because they already know. Just as I did. I knew what Dr. Z was going to tell me before I set foot in the office.
“Are you saying I have a terminal disease?” I asked.
“What I’m saying is that you have a disease we cannot cure,” he said. I could tell he’d made this speech many times. “That does not mean we can’t treat it, we can often treat it for years, but based on what we know now this is not a disease that we can cure.”
I wanted to ask him how long I had but the words got stuck inside.
“You should know, Katherine,” he went on, “that miraculous progress is being made in research every year, every day, every hour. We will treat this, we will make this as comfortable as we can for you, we will see to it that you will live your life however you choose to, and we will be comforted by the fact that five years ago there was a lot less we could do for you than we can today. And by that, I mean that there is every reason to believe that next year there will be more we can do, and even more the following year. So that is the game we are playing.”
I closed my eyes and asked, “How much time do you think we have to play it?”
He smiled. “How’s your sense of humor?”
“Some people say it’s my best quality.”
“Okay, then I’ll tell you that if you are asking me when you are going to die, I will tell you that if I knew I would arrange right now to take that day off, because there’s a lot of paperwork involved. And then you’d smile—just as you are right now—and I’d tell you I’m not giving any thought to when you are going to die. The only thing either of us needs to be thinking about is how you’re going to live.”
So, Samantha, that is my story. I haven’t been back to see him yet. I will go, probably tomorrow or the next day. I just haven’t been able to manage it yet. I haven’t been able to do anything. I haven’t left my apartment, have hardly eaten, barely slept. I can’t really describe the way I feel. But I can tell you that I’m afraid I can’t do what the doctor is asking. Because I am so alone. I don’t have a husband, a boyfriend, a sister, or a priest. I can’t involve Maurice in this. He’s a wonderful man but he’s my driver, and I can’t put all of this on him. You can’t ask people who work for you to do things like this, because the truth is you don’t know how they really feel about you and it’s probably better that way.
And while I don’t know if I can face this alone, I know I would rather try that than involve my mother. I haven’t told her a word of this and I don’t plan to. If I die, she’ll find out when someone invites her to the funeral.
So, what I’m saying is that I just don’t know that I am ready to go back to the doctor and hear all of it and ask the questions and get the answers and begin the treatment all by myself. I’m sure I will change my mind tomorrow or the next day. I’ll go back because I have to. But it would be a lot easier if there was someone with me. To take notes. And ask questions I don’t think of. And maybe hold my hand. No one has held my hand in a long time. I know we have never met, and so I am a little embarrassed to say this, but right now I think you may be the best chance I have. Probably because you’re the only chance I have. So if you want to meet in the city tomorrow, maybe I could buy you lunch and we could talk, and who knows what might happen next.
You just might save my life.
* * *
Person2Person
From: Samantha R.
To: Katherine E.
BreastCancerForum.org
* * *
What time and where?
SAMANTHA
I HOPE I DIDN’T do too blatant of a double-take when the maître d’ led me to the table. It’s just that if you had given me the choice of any of the women in the restaurant—Michael’s on the East Side—I think Katherine would have been the last one I’d have guessed. She looked so healthy, so well put together, she didn’t look at all unwell or uncertain, or un-anything. She isn’t a beautiful woman but she is striking, and younger than I expected.
“I’m Katherine Emerson,” she said, rising, as I approached. She had a deep voice, not masculine, more like she might sing opera in her spare time.
“Hi,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else.
She extended her hand and I shook it. Her grip was firm, the way my father shakes hands, but when it was time to let go she didn’t. She held my hand a beat longer than I know she normally would have. That’s what having cancer does. It makes you hold someone’s hand a beat longer than usual, no matter how fabulous you look.
“It’s good of you to meet me,” Katherine said.
“It’s funny,” I said, as I sat opposite her at a sunny two-top with a gorgeous centerpiece of white lilies, “I feel as though I should be saying that to you. I know that makes no sense, but somehow I feel like I’m the one who should be grateful.”
I laughed a little. Katherine did not, she didn’t even smile. Actually, she didn’t look like she smiled much, even before she had cancer.
“Here’s my story,” she said. “I’m a single woman. I quit my job the day I was diagnosed, literally the same day. The timing of that didn’t work out so well for me, but there isn’t much I can do about it now. I had plans to go out West to be with a man I just met, and that doesn’t seem to be in the cards now either. In a nutshell, I am all alone and I have to deal with this, and something inside of me is saying that if I don’t have someone to encourage me, then at some point I’ll just decide it isn’t worth it. So, I guess that’s what I’m looking for, someone to tell me it’s worth it on days when I’m not so sure.”
I heard a clinking sound and thought for a moment someone had dropped some change on the ground, then I realized it was Katherine’s silverware. Her demeanor was placid, her voice calm, her facial expression stoic, but her fingers were in a frenzy. She was puttering with the left side of her place setting, the forks rolling frantically in her hand, and I don’t think she even realized it, or heard the clinking, or anything. It made me think of when I was a little girl in the country and my father and I saw ducks swimming on the pond, and my father told me ducks were his role models.
“Their feet are paddling like crazy beneath the surface,” he said, “but you’d never know it.”
I reached out and put my hand over hers, and I heard her breath catch. She let her hand go limp beneath mine, and when she looked up again into my eyes, she was entirely different.
I hadn’t realized it at first but she is a small woman. I suppose I didn’t notice because her appearance is so striking, her presence so magnified, but everything about her is small. Her hands are tiny, her fingers as narrow as tightly rolled dollar bills. Her facial features are small, her eyes, her teeth. And, looking closely, I had a sense her shoulders ended a long way before her blouse began. She was what my mother would have called “petite,” and with my hand on hers, her face told me she didn’t mind that I knew it, even if few other people did.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said cheerily, giving her hand a squeeze and then taking mine back. “There’ll be plenty of time to figure all the rest of this out.”
“I like that idea,” Katherine said. “Do you want a glass of wine?”
“Can you drink wine?”
“You bet your ass I can drink wine, and right now it sounds awfully good.”
“All right, I’ll have a glass.”
“Perfect,” she said, “and I’ll have the rest of the bottle.”
This time, she smiled.
Two glasses later, she began telling me how bored she is.
“You know, I always wondered what I was missing by working all the time,” she said, slurring only slightly. “I realize now I wasn’t missing anything. Trips to Paris, London, Aspen, maybe, but you can’t do that all the time. This week I have been sitting in my apartment watching television. I have over eight hundred channels and there isn’t a single thing worth watching.”
“I love game shows,” I said.
Katherine almost did a spit take. “Oh my god, those are the worst of all!”
I laughed. “I love them. I love the people.”
“The people?” she exclaimed. “They are the worst part! I have to believe the stupidest people in the world are the contestants on these game shows. Because if there are actually stupider people out there, we are doomed as a civilization.” She refilled her glass.
“Oh, but they’re so earnest,” I said, “they try so hard.”
“Please.” She took a gulp of wine. “I was watching Family Feud this morning, the old version, when Richard Dawson used to kiss all the women—which is so gross, and could be a whole other reason I hate game shows—but anyway, after this woman gets finished kissing Richard Dawson he asks her to name a country in South America, and she says ‘Spain.’ And I’m thinking, ‘All right, she’s not Magellan, but it’s not the end of the world.’ Then her idiot brother is next in line and Richard asks him to name a country in South America and he looks up, totally cross-eyed, with an expression like a dog going to the bathroom, and he says: ‘You know what Richard? I really thought she was right, I’m going to have to say Spain too.’”
I burst out laughing.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head, though I could see my laughter was contagious, it was spreading toward her, and then she started to chuckle too. “I guess it is funny, if you think about it.”
“It’s hilarious,” I said, “and it’s so sad. I feel sorry for the people on those shows, they try so hard. It makes me cry sometimes.”
She looked me square in the eyes. “You cry watching game shows?”
“All the time.”
“I see,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, we’re going to get along just great.”
“That’s right,” I said, using the linen napkin to wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes. “We’re going to be BFFs.”
“I like that,” Katherine said. “Breast Friends Forever.”
KATHERINE
I LIKED HER IMMEDIATELY.
What is there not to like? She’s a sensitive, sweet, intelligent person. If she were a man, I would have fallen in love with her before the cork was out of the second bottle. Maybe I did anyway. Maybe you can fall in love with someone without wanting to make love with them. If you can, then I did. I fell in love with Samantha the first time I met her.
The only thing I told myself before she arrived was that I would have to be fully honest with her. It seems the time for playing games in my life is over, and even if it isn’t, there certainly isn’t anything to be gained by playing them with her. So I would answer her questions with truthfulness, whatever they might be, rather than the defensive posturing that has characterized pretty much every relationship of my adult life.
When finally we had stopped laughing over the tragic game-show contestants, I sighed deeply and tried to steer the conversation back to what I really needed to talk about with her. “I have been doing a little research on the Internet about the disease. There is so much out there that I feel somewhat overwhelmed. I don’t know what’s credible and what’s not.”
“I did the same thing,” Samantha said. “I felt the same way. I was all over the place. The truth is I got the most out of the social sites, like message boards and Facebook.”
“I’m not even on Facebook. I think that’s why I’m always behind on all the gossip,” I said. “I don’t know why I haven’t signed up. I guess I just figured if I haven’t heard from you in twenty years it’s probably for a reason.”
Samantha laughed at that, but I didn’t. That wasn’t honesty. That wasn’t what I promised myself I would bring to this lunch. That was my typical use of humor as a defense mechanism, and what good was that doing me here?
“Actually,” I said, glancing away, “that isn’t the reason. In all honesty, I think I never signed up because I was afraid no one would friend me. Even now I don’t want to go on and talk about my diagnosis. I guess I’m afraid there’d be no one who cared.”
I kept my gaze away, waiting for her reply, but she didn’t say a word. It was quiet for so long I finally had to look at her. She is a very pretty girl. Her eyes are deep blue and she has the sort of cheekbones people would pay anything to have surgically implanted. But her best feature is her compassion, her humanity. You can see it in her face. It oozes from her.
“My god, Samantha,” I said, “I am so alone.”
She put her hand back on mine. “Not anymore.”
I cleared my throat a time or two. I was afraid I might begin to cry. I wanted to keep talking but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Do you need a minute?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said. “Just talk to me. Tell me about yourself. All I really know is that you weep during game shows, and, frankly, if I’m going to put my life in your hands I’m going to need to know more than that.”
She seemed to get my sense of humor, which is nice, because I happen to think it is my best quality. Not when it is being used to deflect or to compete, in those cases my humor probably does me more harm than good, but in the right moments saying something funny is the best thing you can do for a conversation. I could tell Samantha could appreciate that.
Then, to my shock, she told me the story of her ill-fated marriage. I hope my genuine reaction wasn’t evident in my face, meaning I hope my jaw didn’t actually hit the table. It all just seemed so unlikely, so unlike the woman Samantha is. She seems so stable, so together. I don’t know what type of person you expect to have her marriage annulled after three days, but whoever that is she is the opposite of the woman who was sitting across from me.
“All I can say,” I told her, when she finished her story, “is that this guy has got to be one of the most irretrievably stupid people on the planet to let you get away. And while I realize I barely know you, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“What an asshole,” I said, for emphasis, and she laughed.
“What about you, Katherine? Have you ever been married?”
“I’ve never been married,” I told her. “I was close one time. At least I thought I was, maybe I wasn’t as close as I thought. Actually, my history with men is something of a horror show. You’re either going to laugh or punch me when I tell you some of the crap I have put up with.”
“Try me.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, I once was dumped in the midst of a session with a couples therapist. I suppose being in couples therapy before we were married should have been a sign, but somehow I missed it. Another time, I cooked dinner for a guy, he arrived, we had sex, then he broke up with me, then he asked if he could still stay for dinner because if he left he would hit traffic, and I let him.”
Samantha started to respond but I cut her off.
“Then there was the time I tried to break up with a guy and he talked me out of it, and we went home and had sex and then, while he was smoking a cigarette in my bed, he told me I was probably right and we should break up.”
She was laughing again. Not the contagious, hysterical way she had earlier, but the knowing laugh of a woman who understands what complete scumbags men can be.
“But I didn’t almost marry any of those. They were like buses or trains, always another coming along if you miss one,” I said. “Phillip was different. We went to business school together. We studied together, traveled together, never actually lived together but may as well have. I don’t know that he was ever in his own apartment in the two years we were together. When we were close to finishing school, he told me about another woman he had met in Cambridge, a townie. She was stunning and she was easy. Not just in a sexual sense. She was easy on him. She thought everything he said was brilliant and funny, she thought every idea he had was genius. I did too, of course, but I was his equal and she wasn’t, and he acknowledged that there was something he liked about that. She worshipped him, and it was fun to be worshipped.”
Samantha was leaning forward now, perfectly still.
“I remember where we were sitting when he told me. In a diner, in a booth in the rear. He was drinking a vanilla milkshake and I was having coffee. I listened to every word, and then I said to him: ‘Listen, I love you as much as you will ever be loved and I will marry you this minute if you ask me to, but I am a Harvard-educated woman with plans to do exactly what you’re planning to do when we get out of here, so play me or trade me, Phillip, but don’t ask me not to be your equal.’”
I poured myself a bit more wine before I finished the story.
“I went home and waited. Three days went by, four days, five. I didn’t hear a word. Then he called. It was a Saturday. And he said, ‘I miss you so much it aches. Can I come see you? I have something important to say.’ And I cried with joy, because I knew what it was going to be. He was at my door twenty minutes later, and he carried me into the bedroom and made love to me before either of us said a word, and in the afterglow I could see tears in his eyes and so I started to cry again and I almost told him he didn’t have to ask me, because I knew, and I loved him, and I wanted to get dressed right then and run to City Hall and get married that night and decide what to tell our families about it afterward. Then he lit a cigarette and sat up, and his first words were: ‘Christ, Kat, I am going to miss you so fuckin’ much,’ and all the blood just drained out of me. I didn’t even get angry, not immediately, or even sad. I just got small. I felt so small it was as though you wouldn’t even be able to see me, as though I practically disappeared. And in some ways I guess I’ve stayed that way for almost twenty years.”
