CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
OLIVIA
WINTER MELTS INTO A RAINY SPRING, with slushy puddles covering the streets and sidewalks. Our lives continue to be punctuated by doctor’s appointments and the hours-long chemo infusions, but the heavy weight is eased by the simple fact that every day, something good happens. Every single day.
Bella and I make perfectly round pancakes. Nicholas comes home with a decorated paper bag overflowing with Valentines from his classmates. We find new flowers on my lantana plant in the sunroom. I hear Dean reading Peter Pan to Nicholas and Bella, his deep voice filled with enthusiasm as he says, “I do believe in fairies. I do, I do!”
Friends come to visit almost daily. The Moms bring me a box filled with beautiful cotton turbans and scarves. Dean’s mother and sister send me gift packages of fancy herbal teas, books, and a cashmere shawl. Archer makes me a playlist of classic rock “power songs” to listen to during chemo infusions—or whenever I need to.
Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” proves surprisingly captivating, especially since I’d always thought it was about a psychedelic drug trip.
I guess that’s sort of what I’m on right now, though I’m sure Steppenwolf’s trip felt a lot better than mine.
Each night before bed, all four of us sit in the living room to write in our Important Things journals, then Dean reads our entries aloud. Our family snow globe sits on the coffee table in front of us.
“Superman,” Dean reads from Nicholas’s journal. “Dirt. Pencil sharpeners. Fire trucks. Dogs. Uncle Archer’s motorcycle. Rope swings.”
Dean switches to Bella’s journal. “Elephants. The color blue. Hoot. Santa. The zoo.”
And my journal. “Sunrises. Marzipan. Thank you notes. Singing, even if you can’t carry a tune. Walking in the woods. Origami. Libraries.”
Dean turns to his journal. “Multiplication tables. A good run. The perfect spiral in football. The Piazza del Duomo in Pisa. Comic books. Sandwiches.”
Warmth flows through me, heavy and welcome. Nicholas and Bella are both on either side of me, their heads resting against my breasts. Before long, I lose track of whose journal Dean is reading from, and all the Important Things coalesce and merge into a bright ribbon that wraps around my family like a protective shield of sunlight.
“Finger paints. Sugar cookies. Getting a pet snake one day. Falconry. Keeping your room clean. Oranges. Jellyfish. Hot showers. Gargoyles. Going somewhere you’ve never been before. Fuzzy slippers. Babies. Miniature golf. Picnics. Flying buttresses. The sky. Monopoly. Sleeping in on Saturdays. Swinging so high your butt comes off the seat. Having lunch with a friend. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Filing cabinets. Monkeys. Colored pencils.”
Sometimes Dean’s words are so rich and soothing that Bella and Nicholas both doze off under the spell of his voice. In those moments, I know that our strength as a family is undiluted.
Nicholas will always believe in superheroes and Legos. Bella will always know cute animals and finger paints are better than medicine. I will always champion doing your best and taking risks. And Dean will always stand guard over us, only allowing the good into our dreams.
At least three times a week, a wrapped package appears on our doorstep, holding a butterfly of some sort. We receive a beautifully embroidered butterfly pillow, and a set of colorful wire wall hangings that Dean puts up above the staircase railing.
There’s a painting of an African butterfly, a set of butterfly potholders, a photographic collage of exotic butterflies, pottery jars with butterfly patterns, and a bunch of butterfly balloons. Not to mention plenty of edible things—butterfly-shaped cookies, cakes, and chocolate—along with a butterfly shirt for Bella, and a live butterfly garden with real caterpillars, which appeases Nicholas’s demand for a greenhouse.
The thrill of the mysterious sender is a bright spot in our lives, and Nicholas descends on each gift with a plastic magnifying glass to check for clues and fingerprints.
I love that our house is now filled not only with butterflies, but the unspoken power of their lovely transformation.
On my good days—or in my good hours, as is often the case following an infusion—I try to get things done, even if it’s just cleaning up the sunroom or filing Nicholas’s school papers. Allie emails me different projects, but I suspect it’s all stuff she has already completed and is sending to me as busy work. I do it anyway, glad at least to have something else to fill the time in the hours when Dean is on campus and the kids are at school.
I also make an effort to continue drawing “things that make me happy.” I can grudgingly admit North was right—creating pictures of the Eiffel Tower and a lantana plant refills the dry well inside me, filling me with the reminder that I’m so much more than my illness. That this will not last forever. I will get through it to decorate cupcakes again, see Notre Dame cathedral again, dig my toes in the sand at the beach again.
Friends drop by with gifts and meals, often staying to visit. Kelsey comes to see me after work every day, always bringing little gifts—a new fluffy pillow, a pair of slippers, bottles of thick, rich cream to help with my increasingly dry skin, tubes of fruit-flavored lip balm. She and Archer are always on hand to help, and they often stay into the evening to spend time with Nicholas and Bella.
“I picked this up on my way over.” Kelsey opens a shopping bag and holds up a boy’s leather jacket. “I guessed at the size, but I think it’ll fit him.”
“Cute.” I struggle to sit up on the sofa. “What’s it for?”
“Nicholas’s school concert tomorrow, remember?”
I search my fuzzy brain for something about a concert, but come up empty. “No, I don’t remember.”
“The first-grade classes are doing a concert with songs from the 1950s, and the director asked parents to have the boys dress up like Elvis or in jeans and leather jackets. The girls are supposed to wear poodle skirts or something similar. Dean said Nicholas didn’t have a leather jacket, so I picked this up. Got him some hair gel too, if he’ll let me give him a James Dean pompadour.”
Something inside me cracks. I pull my knees to my chest and rest my forehead on them.
“Hey.” Kelsey puts her hand on the back of my neck. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t go.” Tears clog my throat. “I can’t go to my son’s first-grade concert because I’m so fucking sick. I didn’t even remember he was having it.”
“Oh, Liv, there will be other concerts. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel even shittier.”
“It’s not your fault.” I wipe my eyes, lifting my head. “Thanks for taking care of it for him. I just wish I could go, you know?”
Kelsey March is nothing if not a woman who gets things done. So I shouldn’t be surprised when she shows up at the front door at ten a.m. the next morning and tells me to take some anti-nausea medication, get dressed, and get in the car. I shouldn’t be surprised when she drives me to the school gym, where dozens of parents are seated in folding chairs arranged in rows in front of the tiered stage.
I shouldn’t be surprised when Dean and the school principal come into the gym and lead me to a set of empty chairs with a clear view of the stage.
I shouldn’t be surprised when the first-graders file in, heartachingly adorable in their 1950s costumes, or when Nicholas spots me and Dean in the audience and waves with surprised excitement.
I shouldn’t be surprised when the off-key, six-year-old chorus of “Hound Dog” and accompanying dance makes me cry. I shouldn’t be surprised afterward when teachers and other parents greet me warmly, when children from Nicholas’s class shout “Hi, Nicholas’s mom!” in passing, or when my son gives me a bear hug before trotting back to his classroom.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
But I am.