Chapter Twenty-Four
ANN MARIE
Chicago, 2008
Mom is diagnosed with a malignant glioma. We got the results about three days ago, and today we’re back at the hospital, waiting on Dr. Elena Crane, who will see Mom through the treatment process. Dr. Marcus and I have exchanged a few e-mails, and he said he’d stop in and see us if he was around. My mother has our china pattern picked out already.
“I’m sure the handsome doctor wants a still-married mom of three boys who now lives with her ailing mother.” I wink.
Mom puts her hands in the prayer position, and we both laugh.
We’re escorted to a patient room, where we wait for another twenty minutes, flipping through old copies of Redbook.
“I will never understand why doctors can’t be on time,” I say as the door opens.
“Hi, ladies. Good to see you both,” Dr. Crane says. “How have you been feeling?” she asks my mom.
“I’ve been better.”
The doctor smiles. “Of course. Well, we know that the tumor is inoperable, but we’re going to do our best to treat it through targeted radiation and chemotherapy.”
“Treat it?” I ask. “Like, make it go away?”
“More like tame it,” she says, and we both look at my mother to see if she has anything to say.
“I don’t want to be throwing up all day.”
“In the thirty-two years I’ve practiced, I’ve never seen this particular treatment make a patient sick or nauseated, but it will make you very tired.”
As we’re walking out of the office, we find Dr. Marcus in the hall. “Hi, Doctor,” I say with a wave.
“Please call me Scott.” He has a stack of folders in his hand and a granola bar in the other. “I was just going to stop in and see you both. How did everything go?”
I look at my mom, and she excuses herself to go to the ladies’ room.
We watch her turn the corner. “Thank you for stopping by, and for e-mailing me. I really appreciate it.” I pause. “It’s a lonely and scary process, as I’m sure you know.”
“I do, and please don’t hesitate to reach out or think you’re pestering me whatsoever.”
“OK.” I nod. “Are you this attentive with all your non-patients?”
He laughs a little. “Well . . .”
“I’m sorry. That came out all wrong. I’m sure you are.”
“I’m not.” He looks at me.
I clear my throat and resist the urge to fall to my knees and break down in front of him. No one has any idea how frightened I am about possibly losing my mother. As a mother myself, I have no opportunity to crawl into a hole and stay there.
We stare at each other for a moment, and I’m comforted by the peace and understanding in his eyes. I can sense that he knows my heart is breaking. “I have three little boys,” I blurt.
“I have a daughter.” He smiles. “Looks like we have some things in common.”
I nod and smile back. “I promise I’ll keep in touch on how we’re all doing.”
“And I promise to reach out if I don’t hear from you.”
“Thank you.”
Scott puts the granola bar in his front pocket and opens his arms. “You’re a hugger, right?”
Once she began treatment, my mom never went home to Connecticut. I had her cousin Laura clean out her condo and ship her things to my house, which included her Rottweiler, Snoopy. Named for being meddlesome, not after the Peanuts character.
“The boys will be over the moon to have a dog, but a lot of people are scared of this breed. I’d better calm Jen Engel about it before she harps to the other neighbors.”
“He’s very sweet,” Mom says.
“You know how people are.”
“Just don’t yell spider,” she warns.
“Excuse me?”
“The only time he’s been aggressive was once when I was in my kitchen and screamed because I saw an enormous black spider.” She looks at me sheepishly.
I throw my arms up. “Great. Like I’m going to be able to make sure the boys never yell spider in the house. Do you have any idea how many bugs come through here each summer? It’s like Grand Central for spiders and mosquitoes and silverfish.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Just don’t yell about it.”
There was no way Mom could manage all alone, and I didn’t want to take any chances. She’s with the boys and me now, where she belongs. She’s happy, and the boys are happy to have a dog. According to Monica, my therapist, Mom and I desperately need each other, and I couldn’t agree more.
The already chaotic world I’m living in has officially stopped moving forward and begun spinning in circles. Some mornings I sit on the edge of my bed, feeling like there’s no floor beneath me. Like stepping off will send me plummeting into a black hole.
Adding to my baggage carousel is Todd, although I had some good news on a conference call with my attorneys the next morning. Todd’s girlfriend is almost six months pregnant by now, and the great thing about that is she has zero interest in his current children.
“It’s an unexpected blessing, if you can call it that,” Stewart says. “If Todd’s with her now and she doesn’t want the boys living with them, then we’ll certainly be filing for sole custody.”
“Something Todd originally said he’d never allow,” I add.
Amanda chimes in, “We also won a judgment against him that blocked him from laying any claim to the money in your trust or the boys’. I know you’re happy to hear that.”
“I am. Thank you,” I say. But he’s still acting like a prick and delaying signing documents and claiming he doesn’t have any money, while simultaneously posting pictures of himself with his girlfriend at a spa in Scottsdale. “Were you able to do anything with the photos I sent?”
“Yes,” Amanda says. “We were able to subpoena his credit card receipts. And since you’re not divorced, he can’t use marital funds to indulge himself or anyone else.”
“You mean he can’t say he has no money for child support and then treat his baby mama to a prenatal massage?”
I hear her chuckle on the line.
“All right,” Stewart says. “Bottom line is that he has no reason not to sign the divorce papers, other than to be difficult at this point. So, I’ll be more than happy to destroy him in court, if that’s his wish. In fact, I’m going to set a trial date. That should be enough to scare him into acquiescing.”
At least that will be settled soon.
I also make the grave mistake of Googling glioblastoma and haven’t been able to sleep through the night ever since. Getting my bearings on a daily basis has become a challenge, and sadly, any social life I had has slipped through the cracks. I’ve been pushing people away, blaming my mother’s illness for my indifference and impatience with everything. Monica says I’m scared to commit and have my heart broken again. She also thinks I have Daddy issues, only not the good kind.
“I’m paying you one hundred and ten dollars an hour to tell me what I could be reading in Glamour magazine,” I say to her during one of our sessions.
She makes a face but maintains an air of composure. Monica Farlander is around my mother’s age, in her late fifties. She has twin boys who are grown and married and live out of state. She has wiry gray hair and wears glasses with red fames. I’m guessing it’s a look she’s had since her thirties and that if she ever took off those red frames, she’d be unrecognizable. I’m very comfortable talking with her, but she rarely tells me what I want to hear. Maybe that’s what a therapist is supposed to do. Make you look at things another way, especially yourself. I had been managing just fine without a therapist until my husband cheated on me. How is it that a well-adjusted, educated woman like myself with friends and children and organizational charts can be so easily uprooted? Todd is the one who tossed gasoline on our lives and lit a match, not me. So why am I the one sitting here with a therapist, trying to figure out what the hell happened? This wasn’t my fault! I’d been doing everything right. If Monica can look me in the eyes and admit some men live solely for their penises and there’s nothing I can do to change that, I’ll pay triple her hourly fee.
I sigh. “I wish I knew why he did this to me.”
She crosses her legs and arms. “Tell me why you married him.”
My eyes wander to the corner of the room. “It’s something I’ve been asking myself.”
“I mean it. We both know what he’s turned into, but you wouldn’t have married the man he is now. What was it about him?”
“He was handsome and fun and charming. Oh, was he charming.” I take a breath. “And I think he was impressed with my family. He always wanted to visit Greenwich and hang out with my mom. She loved him, too, my mother. He wasn’t always the scumbag he is now, but he’s always had a healthy ego and a sense of entitlement.”
“How did you two meet?”
“Friend of a friend in college,” I say. “I think he loved me once. At least, that’s what I’d like to believe. When we moved into our first apartment together in Chicago, he used to cook dinner for me and pack my lunches for work. I had a job as a marketing assistant at an advertising agency, and he’d put little Have a Great Day notes in with my food. One time when I was sick with the flu, he took two ‘L’ trains to get to Manny’s Deli in the South Loop because he insisted they had the best chicken noodle soup in the city.” I smile for a second at the memory. “He certainly swept me off my feet and then just left me to fall on my ass.”
“Do you wonder if your father may have been the same way?”
“I don’t know much about him.”
“Would you like to?”
I take a moment to answer. “Maybe.”
“Maybe one of our goals can be for you to reach out to him,” she suggests.
Her words halt the conversation, and I can feel myself getting uncomfortable. I reach inside my bag for a bottle of water and take a sip. Then I reach inside for something else and pull out my mom’s journal.
“Funny you should bring him up,” I say and place Mom’s journal on the coffee table between us.
“What’s that?”
“It’s my mom’s journal, one of many. She kept them for most of her life when she was a young woman and then a young bride and then a young single mother. I’m not quite sure yet when and if she’s ever stopped writing in them.”
“And she’s given them to you?”
“She has.” I pause. “At first, I wasn’t sure why she was sending them, but now I worry she wants me to have them because she’s . . . sick.”
Monica stares at me for a moment. “Would you care to share with me what’s inside?”
“I really would, although I’ve brought it here without her knowledge.”
“If you’re uncomfortable, then it’s not necessary,” she says.
“Something tells me Mom would agree it’s necessary.”
I lift the book off the table and open to the entry on Christmas Day, 1970.
Our first Christmas in Beirut. What a glorious morning I had. I’m feeling healthy and happy. I went to a lovely bakery this morning and bought some dessert to bring to Brigitte, but Gabriel has just told me that our plans have changed and that we’re going to see some wealthy friend of his instead. I hated to cancel on Brigitte, but she didn’t seem put out in the least. I guess I’m excited for a new holiday experience. It will be challenging for me to miss out on traditions and foods that I look forward to once a year, but I will just have to begin to build new traditions for my new family. Tonight should be fun and exciting, and I hope to make some new friends.
I close the journal before finishing the entry.
“Why are you crying?” Monica asks.
“Because she’s young and hopeful and in love”—I dab my eyes—“and I don’t know this person.”
Monica nods and lets me catch my breath for a moment. “I want you to strongly consider reaching out to your father,” she continues. “How do you feel about that?”
I nod my head. “I’m nervous about it.”
She doesn’t respond.
“I have nothing to say. It’s been too long.”
“Have you been writing in your gratitude notebook?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“That’s good.”
“Until I threw it in the trash?”
She gives a little shrug. “There are no rules to break. It’s whatever you are comfortable with.”
“I hate when you’re so accommodating. You should be mad that I didn’t take your sage advice.”
She lets out a small laugh. “Are you more comfortable when people are angry with you?”
I lean back into the couch. “I threw it away because I don’t see the point of it, not because I wanted you to be mad at me. And no, I’m not remotely comfortable with anger. Just the opposite.” I pause. “Also, I was focusing on the wrong things.”
“Like what?”
“Like anger and revenge, I guess, when I really needed to focus on the boys and now my mom, and keeping the peace for everyone.”
She smiles proudly. “So, maybe the pink notebook I gave you did precisely what it was supposed to do.”
“Oh, and Todd knocked up his latest bitch. And I hate pink.”
Mom is sitting at my kitchen table when I get home. She has her reading glasses on and is squinting at a laptop screen. Her pearls are draped around her neck, and she’s dressed for the day with her hair washed and styled, but she looks tired. Behind her are two baskets of dirty laundry, and the dishes from breakfast are still where the boys left them on the island. I give her a kiss on the head and quickly clean up the mess.
It’s been four weeks since the cancer cloud landed above our house, and Mom has just completed her second week of radiation and chemotherapy. The radiation and chemotherapy seem to have had an immediate effect on her in that she’s dreadfully tired and appears disoriented throughout the day. But so far, the treatments have been gentle on her stomach, as Dr. Crane said they would be, and she continues to e-mail me with ways to make her more comfortable. Mom’s a little angry about having to take so many pills, but at least her appetite is on fire, and she has no nausea.
The weather is starting to turn here in the Midwest, and soon she’ll be confined to the house because of the snow and cold air. Her spirits seem to be good, but expressing any type of thought has become almost impossible and incredibly frustrating. It’s agonizing to watch her try to communicate with the kids or the neighbors, especially when they don’t quite understand.
“I have an idea,” I say to her. “Let’s get you one of those ‘vow of silence’ badges so when we’re out and about, no one will say anything to you.”
She laughs and nods with enthusiasm.
“It’ll be fun to watch people’s expressions when they look at you strangely.”
She rolls her eyes.
Every day there are so many e-mails coming in from her friends and family back in Connecticut that I can’t keep up. Everyone is eager to speak with her, but she can’t stand talking on the telephone because it’s too stressful. Which is ironic because while she refuses to talk on the phone, she still manages to sneak in late-night orders to QVC, as evidenced by the constant stream of jewelry showing up at my front door.
She looks at me, straining to say something. “I like you in yellow.”
“Thanks, Mom. You look pretty, too. I like your earrings.” I tap my ear. “Can I get you something to eat?”
She shakes her head and points to a banana peel in front of her.
“OK, good. You need to eat, even if you’re not hungry.” I walk over to her to see what she’s doing on the computer. “Is that your e-mail?”
She nods.
“Who’s Yasmine?” I ask. “Does this have anything to do with Beirut?”
Her face goes pale.
“I know I said I wouldn’t read your journals without you, but I couldn’t resist. I only read through the first few pages of one of them. It was Christmastime, and you were in Beirut. I hope you’re not mad.”
She shakes her head no, but seeing the slump of her shoulders and the dark circles under her eyes, I try to push my questions aside. “I’d really like to know more, but the last thing you need right now is anything that’s going to upset you.”
Mom turns slightly toward me. Her lips tighten, and her brow furrows as she struggles to communicate. She lifts a hand to steady herself and hold my attention. “It’s time you know.” Next, she grabs a journal that she had by her side and hands it to me.
She has a grocery coupon of mine holding the page.
I take the small book from her. It has a leather cover soft from years of wear. I open it. Mom gestures for me to read aloud.
It’s our one-year anniversary, and the tides have turned. I no longer feel loved and safe with him. I’m so ashamed to be writing this with our beautiful baby daughter next to me. I could just scream! Why is this happening? I’m grateful for the opportunity to write about things because I have no one else I can confide in. Brigitte was kind and had some good advice, but I don’t think I can stay in this marriage. And there’s absolutely no talking to Gabriel! His tolerance for me has disappeared. The only thing that makes him happy is Ann Marie. He dotes on her like he used to dote on me. And that is not to sound jealous by any means, but he can’t expect me to stay in this relationship if he continues to lie to me and ignore me and stop me from communicating with my family.
It was a stark contrast to the little I’d read about her first Christmas as a married woman. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you lived in Beirut? That I was born there?”
She grabs a notepad and writes. Your father destroyed your birth certificate, and I wanted to erase that period from our lives. I should have told you.
She starts to cough, and I stand to get her some water. I have a million questions, but I can’t press her in her condition. She will tell me everything when she’s better. But for now, we are two women who love each other and have a lot more in common than I thought.