“It’s not forevs, Zo, it’s just a date. I even suggested a movie so you don’t have to talk.”
With this last statement, Emily’s demeanor had changed a little—only slightly, but Zoe was attuned to these kinds of things. Her voice held an edge. A warning. Do this. Panic started to flood Zoe. This was it. She’d been handed an ultimatum—this date or her friendship. Except, in her case, it wasn’t an ultimatum. An ultimatum indicated choice.
“I know you hate people and generally being social,” Emily continued. “I get it. Hey, I even dig it. You’re weird-chic. But come on! This is one night. If you’re my friend, you’ll do this for me.” Emily was pleading. Zoe had never heard Emily plead. “You know I’d do it for you.”
Zoe did know that. Emily had more than proven herself. Sat with her, just the two of them, because that’s what Zoe preferred. Spent Saturday nights watching movies. Let her borrow (and then keep) the black skirt that always made Zoe feel slightly less horrible, even though it looked amazing on Emily.
“Zo, it will be fine, okay, I promise.” Emily had softened now. “I’ll be right there with you. And Seth is so crazy about you he won’t even care if you don’t speak. Think of it as a date with me. You don’t freak out when we go to the movies, right?”
“No.”
Emily smiled at her with a sense of finality that said, There, that’s settled then. And Zoe fought the tears that welled in her eyes. And, as usual, she had an immediate, sharp longing for her mother. She wondered what it said about her that, at fifteen, when things didn’t go according to plan, the first thing she wanted was her mommy.
7
Alice lay on the couch, dry-eyed and numb. Her brain ticked over the same three things in rotation—cancer, Zoe, her breakdown in front of Mrs. Featherstone and Mary. Amazingly, Mrs. Featherstone had been the one to take control, instructing Mary to find tissues and insisting that Alice head straight home.
Now Alice crossed her ankles on the coffee table, narrowly missing Kenny. Damn cat was always underfoot. Kenny had always unnerved Alice, the way he slunk around, smirking as though he knew her most guarded secret and was going to tell. Zoe said it was the cat’s “wisdom” that made him look like that. One thing to be said for the cat was that it was one of very few living things that Zoe felt comfortable with, and indeed, relaxed around. And for that, Kenny had Alice’s begrudging respect.
Next to her feet was a stack of bills, including those from her medical appointments, out-of-pocket expenses that she had to find the money for. As she flipped through them, Alice considered how her diagnosis would affect her financially. Her business was steady—in fact she had so much work that she’d recently hired two part-timers—but it wasn’t enormously profitable. She always managed to get the bills paid but there was no safety net, no additional pool of money they had to dip into, other than her salary. She allowed herself to fantasize, just for a moment, about having two salaries to rely on. Two parents. The kind of life where an illness meant an opportunity to rest, to sleep, to be cared for by loving relatives. She could concentrate on getting better and leave all the daily stresses of her life to others. She was ashamed to admit that she found that scenario somewhat appealing. As though cancer were a health spa, an opportunity for some “me” time. In that scenario, money wasn’t the concern of the sick person. She wondered if this was how it would have been had she married. Indulgently, she let herself sit with that thought for a moment. But only a moment. If she thought too hard, she’d remember why she hadn’t.
The phone rang. It was Kate, the nurse from the hospital.
“How are you doing,” she asked gently, “after this morning?”
“I’m fine,” Alice said. “I’ve taken the afternoon off work.”
“I think that’s wise. It’s a lot to take in.”
“So, what do I need to know?” Alice asked once the niceties were out of the way.
“You shouldn’t eat anything after midnight the night before the operation. On the day you’re to wear no makeup, no lotion, no antiperspirant, no jewelry, no piercings or acrylic nails—”
“Nothing to tempt the doctors away from their wives,” Alice said. “Got it.”
There was a short silence and for a horrible moment, Alice thought she’d have to explain that she was joking. Then, finally, came the stilted laugh.
All at once Alice had a sharp longing for her father. If he’d been here, she knew, he’d have been chuckling. She thought of that strange, sad day she’d returned to her family home after her mother had died. Alice had been twenty-five. Alice’s brother, Paul, of course, had turned to his best friend Jack Daniel’s to help him through the ordeal, so it was up to Alice to support her father through his grief. He was sitting on the green velvet couch, watching a black-and-white family movie, when she got there. As Alice peered into the room, she saw him crying openly, while an image of her mother, visibly pregnant and smoking a cigarette (because you did in those days), talked to the camera. Alice tried to duck away without being seen, but her father glanced up suddenly, slyly wiping away a tear.
“I was looking for my dirty movies,” he said finally with a shrug. “This was all I could find.”
Humor, Alice always thought, was tragedy’s best friend. Her dad had agreed. A few years back, minutes before his own death, he’d startled a nurse in the hospital who, noticing that his chest had stilled, had leaned over him to listen to his breathing. He waited until she was nice and close before whispering “Boo!” into her ear. Alice was still chuckling a few minutes later when he slowly slipped from this world.
Kate continued with the list. Alice tuned out until the part where she said, “If you have a living will, bring it on the day of surgery.”
A living will, Alice thought. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything funny about that.
“Sonja, one of our hospital social workers, will be in touch with you about providing support these next few weeks. And Alice? I’m here if you have any questions. My cell is on the card I gave you, and you can call twenty-four hours.”
Alice hung up, remembering only the barest details of what she’d been told, but feeling certain that everything would be in the e-mail Kate promised to send. She was comfortingly earnest, Alice thought. Whether it was staged or not, Alice did believe that Nurse Kate would, indeed, be there if she had any questions.
She tossed the phone onto the couch beside her and immediately it began to ring again. Alice silenced it. She didn’t want to talk any more. She planned to spend the rest of the afternoon—or at least until Zoe got home—wallowing in self-pity. But the time went quickly and before she knew it, keys were jiggling in the door.
“Mom?”