chapter eleven
Other than my prayers on the rescue boat, I’ve never done this before. I sit in the hospital chapel wondering if there’s some sort of protocol for talking to God. Do I simply tell Him what I want? Do I have to fill out some kind of form? Will He even bother listening to someone like me?
Not that I didn’t attend church as a child. I did. My parents took me to Sunday School when I was younger. But when they opened the restaurant, we didn’t go very often. Owning a business took up every waking moment, and devoting time to church fell low on their list of priorities.
Still, I’m pretty sure I believe in Him. Especially after seeing Bean’s ultrasound. How could something as remarkable as the ability to grow another human inside oneself even be possible without a powerful being to drive it all? I believe there are things in the world that can’t be explained away with science. I believe that if you’re a good person, good things will happen to you.
That last belief is pretty much shot to hell as I think of Erin lying lifeless in a bed somewhere in the hospital. She’s the best person I know, inside and out. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She accepts people with all their faults. She doesn’t deserve to have this happening to her. I would trade places with her in a minute if I could do it without hurting their baby. I make all kinds of deals with God if he will let her be okay.
I recall the horror in Griffin’s voice when I calmed down enough to call him on our way to the hospital. I selfishly wondered if there would ever be anyone in this world who would care about me enough to have the reaction he did if anything happened to me. I could hear the helplessness. I sensed the tears spilling out of his eyes. I knew he was having flashbacks to all the horrible moments he’d already lived through with Erin and his mom.
While Griffin sits in the waiting room, ready to be called back at a moment’s notice, I remain holed up in the chapel. I know with her husband and most of her family here, I’ll be the last one to get to see her anyway.
Erin’s family members come and go, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder or commiserating with me for a quiet moment before they silently pray. I try to offer them comfort, but strangely enough, it seems it’s me they think needs comforting. They all look to my belly when they talk to me. Every one of them knows our situation. Every one of them feels as bad as I do for the child who may grow up motherless. They all still praise me for what I’m doing. Not one of them understands I don’t deserve it.
When the chapel is empty except for me and Erin’s older sister, Jane, she comes over to sit with me. “Some of your friends are waiting out there with us. Erin sure has met a lot of wonderful people since you came into her life. I’ve never seen her surrounded by such a following. Not since high school. You are very special to her and not just because of the baby.”
I shrug off her un-deserving words. “Can you tell me about that?” I ask. “I’ve always wondered how someone as great as Erin doesn’t have people knocking down her door to be her friend. She’s so nice to everyone. But she seems like somewhat of a . . . loner, I guess.”
Jane nods her head. “She is a loner. Well, until you came along. But she wasn’t always that way.”
“Yeah, she told me that her looks intimidate other women and because of it, she doesn’t make friends easily.”
Jane laughs. “Is that what she told you?” She shakes her head, amused. “Erin could have all the friends she wanted. Women would line up to be accepted into her world. But ever since high school, when her large group of friends couldn’t run away fast enough from the girl with cancer, she’s been hesitant to let anyone in. She’s nice to people, and they always attempt to friend her, but she pushes them away. You’re the first one she’s let in for long time.”
I look down at my belly. “Well, she kind of had to, Jane.”
“No, she didn’t. Just because you’re her surrogate doesn’t mean she was forced to make friends with you. The way she talks about you, it’s like you’re her female soul mate. I know you two lead very different lives, but she feels a connection to you. One she hasn’t had with anyone else. Maybe not even Griffin. She loves you like a sister, Skylar.” Tears spill from each of us as she continues to speak. “And no matter what happens here, we will always welcome you as part of our family.”
A sister. Erin considers me a sister? I look at the cross perched in the corner of the room, along with symbols of some other religions. A sister would never do to her what I’ve done. A sister would never, for one second, want what she has. A sister would never sink as low as I have.
“Erin has an uncanny ability to see things in people.” She puts a comforting hand on mine. “Sometimes she sees things that they don’t even see in themselves. Don’t sell yourself short, Skylar. She believes in you.”
As she rises to leave the chapel, I wonder if I said all those things about sisters out loud.
I reflect upon the past months that Erin has been a part of my life. They’ve been the happiest I can remember, despite my inappropriate longing for her husband. I vow right now, right this very second, to do everything I can to become the person she thinks I am. I will force myself to accept Griffin as a friend, to no longer look at him or think of him in ways that make me a bad person. I make a promise to myself and God to be worthy of her and the way she sees me. To be her very best friend. To be her sister.
I don’t even know how long I’ve been sitting here when someone sits down in the empty pew behind me. Someone who I can tell is quietly sobbing. I know who it is. I always seem to know when he’s near.
I turn around, shocked at what I see. I gasp, thinking the worst. Griffin’s eyes are red and puffy, the lines of his face etched in deep concern. His cheeks are wet with tears he’s tired of wiping away. He looks broken.
“Oh, God . . . is she—”
“No,” his voice breaks. He clears his throat. “She wants to see you.”
I have a momentary feeling of elation that relaxes my whole body before I realize something is wrong. If she’s okay, why does Griffin look utterly wrecked? “What’s going on?”
“She asked to see you before anyone else,” he croaks out, his voice hoarse. “I’ve been in to see her, too. But now she wants you. Room 817. Just go.”
He offers no other words before he gets up to leave. My mind doesn’t know what to do. Should I jump up and down because she’s alive? Should I be wary of what I might find in room 817? I tentatively rise from my seat and take slow steps towards the door. I glance down at my watch to see I’ve been here for hours. I look back at the cross and send up one last prayer.
I ride the elevator with others going to see loved ones. I chastise myself for not stopping at the gift shop for flowers or balloons like they have. In my haste to get to her, I’ve forgotten all about visitation protocol dictating I bring a symbol of my well wishes. I vow to send her the biggest arrangement of white lilies I can find as soon as I leave here.
I find my way to room 817 and stop at the partially opened door. I listen for a beat to see what I can hear that might prepare me before I walk in. Silence. I take a deep breath and blow it out. Then another.
When I walk through the door, I’m stunned at what I find. Erin is sitting up in bed, looking like her usual self except she’s in a tawdry hospital gown instead of designer clothing. Her hair has been done and makeup applied. She looks completely different from how she looked mere hours ago. When she sees me come through the door, a smile brightens her face. It’s a smile that tells me everything Jane said is absolutely true. The only other people who look at me this way are my family. I know for sure now. Erin is my family.
My legs propel me over to her so quickly I almost fall over the bed. I wrap her in an uncharacteristically-tight hug. “You scared the shit out of me, Erin.”
She nods into my shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry, that must have been terrible for you. It’s only happened once before, the week Griffin was in Africa. I’d hoped you wouldn’t have to find out this way.”
I pull back, but keep my hands on her arms. “Find out what? Do you have epilepsy?”
She sighs.
I probe her eyes for an answer. I don’t get the one I want. The answer I want is that she has some strange virus that made her have a seizure, and they gave her antibiotics to make her better. Or that she hit her head a while ago causing some sort of brain bleed they’ve now found and corrected. But the answer I see burning deep within her eyes is neither of those things. It’s so much worse. “What is it? Tell me, Erin. I could see how wrecked Griffin was. I know it’s something bad. Is your cancer back?”
She grips my hands, one of mine in each of hers. “Yes and no.” She releases one of my hands and pats the bed next to her, scooting over to make room for me. “I do have cancer again, but it’s not the same cancer I had before.”
I gasp. “Oh, God, Erin. No!” Tears roll down my cheeks only to be absorbed by her hair as I pull her in for another hug. I remember everything she told me about the first time she had cancer and I regurgitate it back to her. “You beat it before. You’re such a strong person. And this time, there are so many more of us who will be here for you. We’re not going anywhere. You can count on it.”
She nods. “I know. And I love you guys for it. But this time is different, Skylar.”
“Different how?” I ask.
“Let me start from the beginning.” She leans back into her pillow to get comfortable. She holds my hand in hers as if it’s a lifeline. “Back in high school, before my diagnosis, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t anything big, just little things like a twinge here and an ache there. But still, I was young and I thought it would go away and I’d live forever. So when I started having those same feelings a few months ago, I was not ready to hear that I’d have to go through it all again.”
“A few months?” I close my eyes tightly, wishing it all away. “You’ve known about this for a few months and didn’t tell anyone?”
“Can I finish?” she scolds me with a playful wink.
I nod and give her hand a squeeze.
“A couple of weeks after we found out you were pregnant, I started getting headaches. I’d had some headaches before, when I went through menopause, so I didn’t really think much of it. Then other things started happening. I experienced weakness in my right arm. I started having occasional trouble recalling words. And I would sometimes get lightheaded.”
My brain cycles through all the times I was with her when I simply ignored those things happening to her. When she almost fainted on my couch. The missed words I’d attributed to drinking or emotions. The trouble she had with her wallet at the maternity store. “I should have said something. I noticed all those things, but made excuses for them in my head. I’m sorry. If I had mentioned it back then, maybe you would have been checked out sooner.”
She shakes her head. “No, I wouldn’t have. I was in denial. Even when things progressed and I knew for sure there was a problem, I still didn’t go to the doctor until the week Griffin was away. That’s when I had my first seizure.”
My hand comes up to cover my sob. “No! I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there. I should have been around for you while he was away.”
“It’s not your fault, Skylar. Anyway, Jane was with me when it happened. She took care of me and made sure I went to the hospital.”
“Jane knows?”
She nods. “My whole family does. I swore them to secrecy.”
My brow furrows in confusion. Then it dawns on me that Jane didn’t seem nearly as wrecked by all this as Griffin or I. She was comforting me in the chapel when it should have been the other way around. “Griffin didn’t know either, did he? I saw him just now, and there’s no way he’s known about this for six weeks. Why didn’t you tell him? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have gone to chemo or radiation or whatever with you.” I admire her long, thick head of hair. “At least you aren’t losing your hair this time. That’s something.”
“First off—no Griffin didn’t know, not until today. That’s the way I wanted it. I didn’t want him feeling sorry for me and treating me with kid gloves like he did last time. I didn’t want you guys to know until you had to. I didn’t want to burden you.
“And there won’t be any radiation or chemo this time.” She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. “What I have isn’t curable. It’s terminal, Skylar.”
Terminal? Tears stream out of my eyes faster than I can wipe them. “God, no!” I sob, turning my head into her shoulder. I wrap my arms around her once again in an attempt to hold on to her. To keep her here with me in this world as long as I can. I hold her until my arms give out, the whole time silently screaming my apologies for all the horrible things I’ve done to make this happen.
Erin allows me to cry until my tears dry up. I heave and hiccup before my breathing steadies again. I look up to see her cheeks wet with tears. “Tell me more. I want to know everything. Maybe there’s something we can do.”
“There is nothing to do. I have a grade four glioblastoma. An inoperable brain tumor. It’s one-hundred-percent fatal.”
I tense up next to her. “You are twenty-seven years old, Erin. You’re still so young. There has to be something we can do. Did this happen because of your other cancer? Did it spread to your brain?”
“Glioblastomas are a medical mystery. Most often there’s no explanation for them. They don’t appear because of another cancer. There’s a small possibility it was caused by the radiation I had when I was eighteen, but there’s no way of knowing. It’s just one of those rare, unexplained things that happens.”
“Can’t they operate and remove it?”
“They could operate and remove some of it. But it will grow back. They always do. And recovering from brain surgery is not how I want to spend the last few months of my life.”
“Months!” I gasp, now sobbing again.
She nods.
“Why aren’t you falling apart?” I yell at her. “Why aren’t you fighting this? There has to be some way to extend it. Can’t they give you drugs or something? How can you sit here and calmly tell me you only have a few months to live? What’s fucking wrong with you?”
Erin smiles. She actually smiles at me. She’s dying, but she smiles anyway. “Skylar, I’ve had six weeks to accept this. I grieved already. I went through all the stages of accepting death. I spent weeks wallowing in anger, denial and self-pity to get here. You and Griffin are just now finding out, so it will take you time to get where I am.”
I realize what she’s been telling me and my mind goes back six weeks. She became withdrawn right after the ultrasound. The week Griffin went to Africa. I thought she was freaking out about the baby. Griffin noticed the change as well. It lasted for a few weeks and then she started doing all kinds of crazy things. Dragging me around to places she’d never been. Making vague comments about missing out on things.
“I’ll never get to where you are. I’ll never accept that there is nothing we can do. There has to be something. Don’t you even want to try to be here when the baby comes? Your baby?” I grab her hand and stick it on my small baby bump.
“There are chemotherapies I could try that might add a month or two to my life. Might. But they come at a price, Skylar. I don’t want to spend what time I have left gorked out on drugs, throwing up, and losing my hair. There are so many side effects from chemo that my quality of life would be awful. Even if by some miracle I made it as far as the birth, I may not even be alert enough to realize it.”
“But it’s a chance,” I plead. “Don’t you owe it to the baby to have a chance to meet you?”
“No,” she says emphatically. “I want to feel good for as long as I can. They’ve got me on steroids to reduce any swelling caused by the tumor. That should help alleviate some of my symptoms. But it won’t prolong my life; it’ll only make it a little less unpleasant until the end.”
Still in shock, and barely able to get out my words, I say, “And how exactly will we know when that might be?”
“They tell me it could happen any time, but when it happens, it’ll happen quickly, probably over a period of a couple weeks. That’s the way I want it. I don’t want to stretch out my suffering—your suffering—on the potential for a few more days or weeks. Even if it means I’ll never get to see the baby. I want to die peacefully and quickly. I don’t want Griffin remembering me like some vegetable. It was like that with his mom. It took her months to die. He watched her waste away to nothing. I don’t want that. And I expect you to respect my wishes. My family has. I’m going to die and everyone needs to accept that.”
My hand covers my sob once again as I recall what I said on the ferry earlier. It’s not like you’re going to roll over and die. “Oh God, Erin. I’m so sorry about what I said this afternoon, about you dying. I’m such an inconsiderate bitch. Can you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. It’s not your fault. It was a perfectly valid comment based on my behavior. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Don’t beat yourself up about anything, Skylar. But please, I need your support on this. I need your support more than anyone’s.”
I look down at my stomach. “But what about—”
“Don’t worry about anything. It will all work out,” she says. “We can talk more tomorrow. Right now, I want to rest and then I’m going to make some plans. There are things I want to do before I go. Things I need you to help me with.”
“Anything,” I say through my tears. “I’ll help you with anything, Erin.”
“I need you to talk to Griffin. You two are going through this together. My family will be there to support both of you, but you need to lean on each other. Go. Find him and work your way through this.”
I nod my head and give her one last hug.
“Now get out of here. I’m tired. I have to get my strength back for all the shit I’m going to make you do with me.”
I force a grin at her choice of words. Then I get up and hope my trembling legs can carry me across the room. I take one look back at Erin as her heavy eyelids close and she falls into a peaceful slumber. She’s so beautiful. Even the way she’s handling this is beautiful. I vow to do everything in my power to make sure her time left is filled with love, laughter and friendship. I will do anything she asks of me.
Anything.