A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl Page 17

  Her mother was awake again. “Hi Mom. How are you feeling?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I stayed here, I was here all night.”

  Her mother closed her eyes again. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “OK, I’ll get somebody to help you.” Grace went out to the hallway, then walked to the nurse’s station, where people were already busy with phone calls and paperwork. They would send an aide, they said. She would have liked to ask them when Dr. Park was coming, but they were all absorbed in their tasks and did not seem eager to have more conversation. It was the way that hospitals always made you feel.

  Grace waited at the door of her mother’s room for an aide to come, and finally flagged one down. She walked a little ways along the hall to give her mother some privacy. When she came back, her mother was sitting up in bed. The aide had opened the blinds and a square of clear sky showed in the window. “I brought you some coffee,” Grace said. She steadied it as her mother took it and drank, wincing.

  “Too hot.”

  Grace set it down on the plastic arm of the bedside table. “How are you feeling?”

  Her mother raised both hands to her face. “Do I look terrible? I bet I look just terrible.”

  “You look fine, Mom.” Her mother’s hair was lopsided and without her glasses her face seemed unfocused.

  “My chest hurts. What did they do to me?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. I didn’t get here until later.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say or not say. It was better to wait for the doctor.

  “I guess I was coming down with something and it just hit me. Oh my goodness, I felt bad.”

  “Are you hungry? I bet you’re hungry. I bet they bring you breakfast pretty soon.”

  Grace’s father arrived just after the breakfast tray. “How’s the patient?” He leaned over and kissed Grace’s mother, who was struggling with the plastic utensils and scrambled eggs.

  “When can I go home? I need a shower and I don’t want to take it here.”

  “We have to wait for the doctor. He has to check you out and make sure you don’t end up right back in the hospital.”

  “I feel fine, just tired,” her mother said, giving up on the scrambled eggs. “I feel like somebody beat me up.”

  “Where’s Michael?” Grace asked her father. “Is he coming?”

  “I didn’t see him this morning, I don’t know what he’s doing. What else you got here, Laura, a biscuit? How about a biscuit with jelly?”

  Michael came in, still smelling of whatever man-scented shampoo or body wash he’d used in the shower. It had been a long time since Grace had shared a bathroom with him and his commercially virile products. “Hey Mom, how you doing?” Michael went around to the far side of the bed so that he could give her a hug. “Wow, you seem a lot better than you were last night.”

  “Everybody agrees on that,” their mother said. “And that’s a comfort.”

  Grace asked him how he got to the hospital, and Michael said he called somebody for a ride. He and his father avoided looking at each other. Couldn’t they even manage to get here in the same car? She guessed not.

  Grace said she had to call work and tell them she wouldn’t be in, and her mother protested that she didn’t have to do that, somebody else could stay, and Grace said that no, she wanted to. In fact it was the last thing she wanted to do, be there when two tons of doctor news landed on them all. Her head hurt from her bad night’s sleep and her throat had been sandpapered. The coffee had been a mistake. “I’ll be right back, OK?” So chickenshit glad to have an excuse to get out of that room. She called from the lounge, not staying on the phone long enough for her coworker to express great amounts of her shock and sympathy. Then she stopped at the nurse’s station to ask about Dr. Park, who he or she might be, and when they might be expected to put in an appearance. As soon as he can, she was told.

  Most of what you did in a hospital was wait. A nurse came in and took Grace’s mother’s temperature and blood pressure and listened to her heart. Grace’s father tried to find out more about Dr. Park and when he or anybody else in this place might bother to show up. The nurse was a pro and didn’t rise to the bait. Michael turned on the television and ran through the channels but their mother said there was nothing she wanted to watch. Michael said he was going to the cafeteria and did anybody want anything. “I don’t know why I can’t just get up and go,” Grace’s mother complained, and Grace’s father said that wasn’t the way they did things.

  Dr. Park arrived midmorning, a carefully smiling presence. He was accompanied by a medical student who typed into a laptop. The doctor used the laptop to illustrate the anatomy and function of the lungs: bronchi, pleura, alvioli, bronchioles. He had her mother’s X-rays on the computer also and he pointed out the areas of concern. The masses. That was what he called them. He said he was ordering a CT scan and would arrange an appointment with a specialist who would perform a diagnostic bronchoscopy.

  Grace’s mother asked what that meant, did it mean she had lung cancer? Looking around at the rest of them for support; how ridiculous was that? “I’m not a smoker. Honestly, I’m not.”

  Dr. Park explained the episode of discomfort she’d had the day before as a symptom, a complication, of what was going on in the lung. A pericardial effusion, it was called. They were fortunate it was discovered and treated promptly. Someone would be here soon to take her for the CT scan. She should consider this a step-by-step process. He wanted to be reassuring. At each step they would get more information, and as they got more information they would better know what to do. How to help her. There would be treatments, monitoring, goals. She and her family would be involved and informed. Active participants. It was made to sound a little like one of those television series where people competed in teams and exhorted each other in the performing of tasks and stunts.

  Once the doctor had gone, her mother looked around at the rest of them. “I’m not even fifty-four years old,” she said.

  Michael said, “Come on, Mom. I didn’t hear him say anything all that bad. This is early days, there’s all this stuff they don’t know yet.”

  Grace’s father said, “We’re going to research this. We’re going to find out who the top doctors are for this kind of thing. Experimental treatments. We’re going to be all over it.”

  Grace said nothing, and she was the one her mother’s gaze sought out. In the look that passed between them they seemed to know what was to come, and what would be required of each of them.

  * * *

  Things started off well. They all learned to think in centimeters, which was how tumors were measured. They became familiar with the names of heavy-duty, cancer-killing drugs like methotrexate and Abraxane. The doctors were encouraging. It was a Stage III diagnosis. Several lymph nodes were involved, and there were several tumor sites. That sounded bad, but it could have been worse. They could work with Stage III, they’d seen it before. Grace’s mother had pneumonia as well, it was discovered. She admitted that she’d had a cough for, oh, a while now, but hadn’t thought much of it. And wasn’t that just like her, to ignore a problem with her own health, while she worried and fussed about everybody else’s? It was exasperating, it was enough to make you angry, if you let it, for the backward reason that she had not valued herself enough to spare the rest of them her sudden need.

  Then again, lung cancer, whose fault was that? How angry could you be, and what could you blame? Her mother hadn’t smoked, or been around smokers, or worked with asbestos, or anything else you could point to as a risk factor. The doctors said that 10 percent of lung cancer cases had no identifiable cause. “Ten percent!” her mother said. “Well, aren’t I special!” She was wry and humorous, as always.

  Although there were also times she would say things about life going on without her, or what her family ought to do once she was no longer here. But that was when Grace, or her brother, or her father, would tell her not to be negative, it did not hel
p anything to dwell on the negative. They were all of them vigilant against negativity. People died of cancer. It happened every day. Fear was another disease that could kill you from the inside out if you let it. No no no, there was to be no talk of doom and gloom! And Grace’s mother would say she supposed they were right.

  She spent a few days in the hospital so she could get IV antibiotics to clear up the pneumonia. The family brought her magazines and warm socks and a bathrobe she could wear in bed. People called and sent cards and flowers. Her mother made friends with the doctors and nurses. She said it was all so much easier when you got along with people, wasn’t it? Grace supposed that was true, although there was something too eager and placating about it, something childlike, as if jollying up the medical staff might help the course of the disease.

  Of course they were all of them busy jollying things up, just to get her mother through it. There was a week of daily radiation treatments, followed by once-a-week chemotherapy for six weeks. She was a trouper, she was doing great. And she was, on balance, although the radiation made her throat so sore she had trouble swallowing, although her chest hurt, although the chemo gave her diarrhea. Her white blood cell counts were worrisome; they had to back off the chemo for a bit. But you had to expect some of that. You had to push on through.

  Grace’s father talked to the doctors and satisfied himself that they knew what they were doing. He followed the latest cancer news online, the targeted therapies for genetic mutations and all the clinical trials going on. It was hard to say if anything he found was helpful, but then, it was hard to say if anything was helpful, including her actual treatment. The scans of the tumors were sometimes good news and sometimes did not show the kind of improvement the doctors would have liked to see. Surgery was discussed; surgery was ruled out. Nothing was certain except the nerve-jamming uncertainty of it all.

  There was even a truce of sorts between Michael and his father. Grace had come to realize, or perhaps she had always known, that their quarrels were a competition between them for her mother’s attention and approval. And now they were competing to see who could be the best behaved, the most helpful, the most sympathetic. Michael spent more time at home. He kept his music down, or plunked away on his old acoustic guitar. Their father backed off his automatic complaints. Grace brought chicken broth with garlic and ginger, rice pudding, yogurt with honey, green tea. They were all making an effort at getting along and pulling together and whatever else families were supposed to do at such times. What did they know about cancer? What did they know about how families were meant to be?

  By Christmas, Grace’s mother was through with the first round of treatment. They set up a tree in the usual spot and brought the boxes of decorations down from the attic. Michael and Grace strung lights across the front porch and hung a wreath on the door. Their mother cried a little because, she said, it all looked so lovely, just lovely. Uncle Mark flew out for a few days before the holiday, and there was an early Christmas dinner, supervised by her mother, assembled by the rest of them. Michael produced some cookies that approximated the ones their mother made, though the Santa heads were lopsided, as if Santa had been squeezed in a vise. But it was good to have something to joke about.

  And it was good to have Uncle Mark there, someone who was outside the push and pull of their daily routines and aggravations. He told stories about things that had happened when he and their mother were kids, like the time he’d put the thermometer under the hot-water tap to get out of going to school, and had overshot any normal range and registered a temperature of 125.

  “The jig was up. Your grandmother smacked me a good one.”

  It was a funny story, he made it funny. Grace’s mother laughed along. She was so much thinner than she’d been, whittled down. One morning she had woken up to find handfuls of her hair on the pillow. She had muscle weakness and fatigue. Foods developed unpleasant, metallic tastes. Chemo was a bitch. Hang in there, the doctors said. Like you had any choice. She sat at the dinner table wearing a fancy lounge outfit that Grace’s father had bought her, a dark blue velvet top and pants. She’d tied a scarf around her head to cover the patchy places in her hair. “I know how I look,” she told everyone who tried to compliment her. Waving her hand. “Please.”

  Uncle Mark said, “Hey Laura, do you remember when we went to a football game and Mom got into a fight with some fat lady who kept squeezing her out of her seat?”

  Michael said, “How do you do that, just take over somebody else’s seat?”

  “They’re bleacher seats, there’s lines to show which one’s yours. What, don’t you go to the games?” Michael shrugged; they did not. “Sacrilege! How about it, Laura? You remember?”

  “A fight, what, she hit some lady this time?”

  “No, but she wanted to. Dad had to switch seats with her and try to calm everybody down.” Mark chuckled and shook his head.

  “I guess I don’t remember that,” Grace’s mother said.

  “Who was playing?” Grace’s father asked. “Maybe that would jog your memory.”

  “I doubt it. We got dragged to all the games, I never paid that much attention.”

  “That’s just like you, Laura,” Grace’s father said. “Can’t take you anywhere.” He chuckled. He was drinking but it was the benign part of an evening’s drinking.

  “It might have been a Wisconsin game,” Uncle Mark put in. “I think we beat them.”

  Grace’s mother said, “It was always either too hot or too cold. That’s what I remember about those football games. We always had to go because Mom and Dad were such rah-rah boosters.”

  “Count me out,” Grace’s father said. “Football, it just goes better with television and beer.”

  “Good old Memorial Stadium,” Uncle Mark said. “Lest we forget.” He smiled and looked around the table, as if some other conversation was going on, something humorous. “We heard a lot about the veterans, about war history, you know, on account of Dad being in France and Germany.”

  Michael, who had been suffering through a spell of polite sitting, roused himself. “Which war was that? First or Second?”

  Grace said, “Honestly, Michael.”

  “Well I don’t know. So I’m asking.”

  “He fought in World War Two,” Uncle Mark said. “But the stadium was built in honor of the World War One soldiers who died. I don’t much blame you, Mike. They were both well before your time.”

  Grace’s father said, “See, Michael, the First World War was almost a hundred years ago. Your grandfather would have had to be, what, ah, really old.” It was the instructive part of the evening.

  Michael shrugged. “Thank you. I have it figured out now.”

  “A war’s nothing to joke about. People go and never come back.”

  “What makes you think I’m joking?”

  “A hundred years,” Grace’s mother said. “A hundred years is nothing. It’s like, you stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and throw a paper airplane into it.”

  “Well that’s kind of a strange thought, Laura,” Grace’s father said after a moment.

  “Is it? I guess I shouldn’t have had that glass of wine. I didn’t even drink the whole glass.”

  “It might not have been the best idea, honey.”

  Her mother waved this away. “I have a better appreciation these days for the passage of time. A different perspective. I think about Mom and Dad a lot. They’re in a memorial too someplace. Well, Dad is, at the law school. There’s a plaque right inside the front door. More than I’ll ever have.”

  Grace stood up to clear the table. “We have cheesecake, if anybody wants it. And coffee.”

  “What are you all afraid of?” her mother said. “Dead people? I’m not nearly as afraid of them as I used to be. There’s things I’ve had to think about. Good for you all, if you haven’t.”

  Michael said, “Come on, Mom.”

  “Come on what? Stop having cancer? That would be nice. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spoil thing
s. Dinner was really good, thank you, everybody. I’m going to lie down now.”

  She went upstairs and soon after, Grace’s father followed. Michael said he was going out. No one had eaten the cheesecake. Uncle Mark said he’d share a slice with Grace. Grace cut off a portion and put it on a separate plate. She ate two mouthfuls of it but it was too rich and insinuating and she set it aside. She said, “Mom does pretty good, actually. There are just these times.”

  “How could there not be. It’s OK.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Uncle Mark. It helps.”

  “She’s my only sister. Just like you have only one brother. You know what that’s like.”

  “Sure.”

  Her uncle took off his glasses, examined them critically, polished them, examined them again, and put them back on. He was younger than Grace’s mother but he looked old now too. “And here I’ve done the same thing with Dylan and Tracy. We were going to have a third kid. But I guess Brenda and I weren’t on the same page about that.”

  “Well, that’s . . .” It was mildly embarrassing to hear about such things. And to imagine skinny Aunt Brenda clamping her knees together and refusing access, or whatever the horrid details were. She got up to empty the dishwasher and start in on the kitchen. “No, that’s all right, you don’t know where anything goes. I don’t mind doing it.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to get stuck with a lot of things, Grace. It seems like women always do.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said again, although she did, she minded fiercely. She wouldn’t be like her mother, who lived for everybody but herself. She wouldn’t get cancer and make everybody feel bad about it. Or maybe she would, maybe it was some kind of freakish genetic destiny.