“I can’t wait for him anymore. I’m going to do the tubal thing. I just don’t know how to afford it….”
“How’s he doing? Billy?” Cassie asked.
Again Julie looked down. “He’s sad. He’s very, very sad. He can’t look me in the eye. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me.”
“Okay, wait. Let’s get real here. That was the path of least resistance, pulling the IUD. This was going to happen, anyway—pulling the IUD just made it happen earlier. You get pregnant in the tube, the IUD keeps the fertilized egg from sticking, that’s all it does. You never know what flowed out every month—a regular period or…”
“Or a baby?”
“Or a fertilized ovum. Do you have any idea how many fertilized ova don’t stick, anyway, without the presence of an IUD? How many times you manage to fertilize an egg? No one knows, that’s how many. Beth was right—you didn’t have any control of the outcome. You had no way of knowing if yanking out that IUD would cause a miscarriage or not. It was a risk. But not much more of a risk than having it in there with the baby in the first place, so give yourself a break. It would be different if you went out and had an abortion behind your husband’s back….”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Thinking about it and doing it are two different things. Julie, you couldn’t even keep from him the fact that you were pregnant! You tell him everything.” She patted her hand. “He’s feeling some loss, just like you are. You both need time to grieve, but you’ll get beyond this. Come on.”
The doorbell rang and Cassie put down her wine. “I’m on that,” she said, rising to leave. She was back in less than a minute with Beth trailing along behind her.
“How are you feeling?” Beth asked, sitting on the bed.
Julie struggled against tears. “Empty.”
“Aw, honey. I’m so sorry things haven’t been easier….”
“Is it true? I could’ve lost it later? Like even after feeling it move?”
“We’re making lots of progress with the rare IUD baby, keeping everyone safe and intact, but there are still occasional problems. The further the pregnancy goes, the better our chances. But then, every day is a stressful day, hanging on. The important thing is you’re fine. Fine, Julie. That’s worth being grateful for.”
The doorbell rang again. “I’ll get that,” Cassie said once more.
In less than two minutes Marty came into the room, carrying a glass of orange juice for Beth. She sat on the bed along with everyone else. “Pregnant? And you didn’t tell us?” Marty said.
“I was embarrassed,” Julie said. “It was another accident. How can anyone believe me that I have this many accidents? I know in your hearts you must think I’m making excuses, that we took a lot of stupid chances…”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You can be depressed if you want to, but no paranoia,” Marty said. “We know you, Jules. We know you had signed off on reproduction.”
“Really, three kids—it’ll put you right over the edge.”
“Oh, yeah?” Marty laughed. “One more and I might hang myself!”
Beth turned to stare at her. “Is Jason a tough kid?”
“Nah, he’s an angel. Joe’s a tough kid.” Then Marty looked at Julie and asked, “So, what’s going on here? I mean, I can understand wanting to cut it off, but is there something else? Something you should be telling us?”
Julie just dropped her chin and shook her head.
“Yes, there are money problems,” Cassie said, breaking the silence, giving her up. “Serious money problems—and since Billy and Joe work together, that can’t go any further. Are you in this pact of silence?”
“Of course,” Marty said. “Oh, my God! Did you think you couldn’t trust me?”
“You know, I don’t even care,” Julie said. “Billy does nothing but work, and there’s no reason he should be embarrassed around his friends. The truth is, we’re just about bankrupt. If a car goes right now, we’re doomed. It’s old loans for college, maxed-out credit cards, a second on the house, a loan consolidation thing—it all piles up. It just keeps getting worse instead of better. There’s no end in sight. Another baby sure wasn’t going to help us dig out.” She took a breath. “I panicked.”
“Well, maybe bankruptcy is the answer,” Beth said. “Have you talked to anyone about that?”
“That would be so humiliating….”
“But have you?”
“We’ve been to the bank,” Julie said. “They discourage that.”
“Of course they do!” Beth laughed. “They wouldn’t get their money back! Oh, jeez—girl, you don’t even know what you don’t know!”
“Beth, I just don’t think I could bear the shame of it. We pay our bills, or at least we do everything we can.”
Beth just laughed and all eyes were on her. “That’s very noble, but there comes a time when your family is more important than all that pride. I worked with a vascular surgeon who filed for bankruptcy, and he sure didn’t look ashamed. I think he gave up his leased Ferrari, but he didn’t move out of his eight-thousand-square-foot house with the pool! Jules, you have to get some help.”
“We’ve had a couple of loan consolidation deals. We can’t get ahead of them. The bills just keep getting bigger.”
“That’s what I’m saying—some of those bills have probably been paid ten times over with just the interest. There are solutions.” Everyone just stared at her. “I read money magazines to relax.”
Cassie just shook her head. “Oh, God, only you would read money magazines to unwind.” Then to Julie she said, “Until you get this straightened out, we can help.”
“Oh,” Julie said, shaking her head. “No…”
“I don’t mean with money,” she said. “I’ll commit to two casseroles a week. Big ones. I guarantee leftovers. And everything that’s left in the garden.”
“I can cover two. Joe will never know,” Marty said. “I’ll make them up on days he works and I’m home— I’ll freeze them.”
“Ah, since I don’t even know how to cook,” Beth weighed in, “what in the world can I do?”
“Can you buy lettuce and tomatoes?” Marty asked.
“I can,” Beth said with a big smile. “Actually, I’m very good at fruits and vegetables. I’m also good at bread! Well, I’m good at buying it…. It won’t solve all the problems, but it might get you over the hump.”
Julie put her hands over her face and began to cry.
“Aw, now what are you crying about?” Cassie asked, tugging at her hands.
“This is what friends do when someone dies!” she sobbed.
“Or when someone’s a little down on their luck,” Marty said, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. “Now, come on—you’d do the same. What are you crying about?”
“I don’t know,” she said through sobs. “I don’t know if I’m totally embarrassed, totally touched that you would do that or just helpless. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know myself anymore….”
“Join the club,” Marty said. “I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately. I walked out on Joe the other day. We had a fight—same fight. I was furious that he couldn’t pick up his own mess or take a shower. I drove around and ended up at Martinelli’s for takeout and who’d I run into? Ryan Chambers!”
“Oh, no,” Cassie said. “What did you do?”
“Just talked to him awhile, waiting for my pizzas. Jules, baby, I wish you could help me with my problems by fixing a couple of casseroles every week. I don’t think we’re going to make it—me and Joe.”
The conversation shifted to Marty and Joe, as happened with them routinely. When one of them became more revealing, others opened up even more. They didn’t realize they were like that, but they traded secrets. Marty laid it out—she didn’t even want to sleep in the same room with Joe anymore. He’d begun to repulse her. The thought of his whiskers against her breast was unimaginable. She wanted to cut up the gym shorts, sink the boat, put a pipe bomb in the
goddamn big screen. She longed for a romantic partner, even if it was only occasional. She’d be happy if he’d shave and shower before coming to bed, even sometimes.
Cassie confessed about the assault, tilting Beth and Marty back on their heels. She admitted to becoming friendly with her rescuer. And she was adamant—she was positively through with dating. Walt was just a diversion, a good friend to pass some time with.
The one person who didn’t have anything to share was Beth.
Beth knew that closing herself off was not only a bad idea, it was going to ultimately be impossible. First of all, she’d had to meet with the senior staff at the clinic, let them know she’d begun treatment that would soon not only affect her schedule, it could diminish her energy and ability to put in those long hours. Of course, she was extended all the support her colleagues could offer—it was, after all, a women’s clinic. They dealt with these medical issues with patients every day and, unfortunately, had a couple of staff members who had faced similar challenges. Their head nurse was a breast cancer survivor; their senior female physician had undergone a hysterectomy several years ago for a cancerous tumor in her uterus.
The rest of the world she hoped to hold off for a while, at least until and if she began to lose her hair.
She’d always been a private sort, not because she was secretive, but because she had a tendency to be intense, to think about things deeply for a long time before putting her emotions out there to be examined. Some of that was natural, some learned during the minefields of residency when it felt as if everyone was constantly gunning for the young, inexperienced doctor. And, of course, she’d had that history—her last bout with this disease.
She had been in her third year of med school, only twenty-five, and involved in a very comfortable relationship with Mark, a first-year surgical resident. It was serious; he’d chosen his residency to be in the same city with Beth while she finished school. They had moved in together a few months prior to the diagnosis and had casually kicked around the idea of getting engaged as soon as she graduated, got her M.D. It was, in fact, the first serious relationship she’d had.
The news of the malignancy devastated her, threw her into a complete tailspin. She wasn’t a totally abnormal girl—she’d cried before—but nothing like the hysteria brought on by facing that battle. Of course, her parents came at once, although, God bless them, they weren’t much comfort. She’d never seen her mother more scatterbrained and fretful, her father more helpless than ever. Since they’d never been in the least domestic to start with, they were more trouble than help around the house and with meals. They drove Mark crazy in two days.
Her girlfriends were better, especially Cassie, a born nurse. All three girls were completely domesticated and nurturing; they knew exactly what to do to bring comfort, order and nutrition. And for young women, they had been so wise, coming in turns instead of en masse. But they had such pain, pity and fear in their eyes. They were too quiet and polite, too careful of her feelings, void of the usual relentless laughter when they were together.
She survived the surgery and was managing the chemo fairly well; she didn’t have to leave school, though she suffered too much time off. And she held her parents off to keep her medical and personal lives from converging; instead of having them visit to “help” she took a few very quick trips home to let them look at her, see that aside from being a little on the pale and thin side, she was holding up well. But all this time, she could feel Mark shrinking away.
It was so gradual, she hadn’t been sure until the end what was coming. Her treatment lasted for six months, and it was hard to pin down what was happening to her relationship—first-year residents are worked so constantly, his absence was not suspect. Mark’s time at home was minimal at best.
Within a year of her diagnosis her energy was back. Her MRI looked good, she appeared to be in remission if not cured. There was color in her cheeks again and a soft cap of hair on her bald head when Mark said, “I’m sorry. This is the most terrible thing I’ve ever done to anyone in my life, but I can’t go on. I don’t know if the illness took its toll, or if this was going to happen to us, anyway. I swear to God, I don’t know.”
“What did I do?” she asked. “What didn’t I do?”
“You can’t have done anything wrong, or neglected anything. Beth, you’ve been amazing through all this. Maybe we’d end up in this place, anyway. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sorry.”
It was impossible for her to believe that a surgeon, a man who not only cut people up for a living but loved his own work, would have trouble looking at that rugged scar. But slowly, through his leaving and talking about his departure, she realized that it probably had everything to do with cancer. He was twenty-eight; he wanted a family, as did she. He didn’t want to be a widower at thirty or thirty-two, starting over. He didn’t want to be a husband whose wife wouldn’t be a good candidate for pregnancy or motherhood. Beth had no crystal ball, but if they’d already been married, she thought he might have stuck with her. No telling on that.
It destroyed her. In fact, his leaving was harder on her in many ways than the disease and treatment.
She thought she had survived both.
“Don’t think of this as a continuation of the disease,” Dr. Paterson had said. “Frankly, it’s not as rare as you might think. What’s rare is breast cancer at twenty-five. But this is exactly why we follow so closely, observe so diligently, in the chance this is a vulnerability. We’re going to treat this a little more aggressively than the last time, and your odds are as good as anyone’s with early detection and reliable treatment. You’re not doomed, Beth. You’re not.”
She liked him. She didn’t necessarily believe him, but she liked him. She ran her vitamin regimen by him and he approved. One week after her first appointment with him, she had begun radiation. A couple of weeks later, the start of chemo. She began the long, difficult, lonely climb back to freedom. She’d had two months of chemo and radiation. She was physically weakening; she could feel it.
Billy brought an accordion file folder home from the firehouse and began to gather up all the bills, check registers, receipts and related paperwork. “What are you doing?” Julie asked him.
“I’m taking this mess off your hands.” He shoved the last of the stack into the folder and turned to her. “It’s a disaster, and it’s got you completely stressed out. It’s too much to ask of anyone.”
“You can’t do that!” she said in a panic. “You can’t take all my papers! I won’t know what’s going on!”
“I’m not going to keep anything from you, Jules. I just want it out of your hair. It’s worrying you too much. It’s like leaving you with the yard work and car maintenance along with everything else, expecting you to shoulder this alone. Besides, you’ve been asking me to get involved for years, but I spend too much time at work.”
“I’ve been doing the best I can, Billy,” she said, getting teary.
He dropped the folder on the bed and put his arms around her. “I’m not taking this stuff because you’re not doing a good job, baby. I want you to let go of it. As soon as I get it figured out a little bit, we’ll come up with a budget you can live with and I’ll just put aside what you need to get you and the kids through the week. I can’t have you eating cereal so I—”
“I should never have said that,” she said, leaning against his chest and sniveling. “It was just an emotional outburst, that’s all. I can keep juggling. I’m good at it by now. I have a system….”
He stroked her back. Her system included so much anger and desolation it was wiping her out. It had caused her to take a chance on losing that baby, and no matter what was happening in their lives, Julie came alive with happiness when they were having a baby. Once she got used to the idea, that is. “I’m probably going to be asking about your system before I start bill paying, but all I want right now is to see where we are, then maybe I can take on some of the stress.”
“How are you going to manage
this? With two jobs?”
“I’ll see what I can do at the firehouse. We have some downtime. A lot of the guys do their bill paying and stuff while they’re there. We’ve got one guy studying all the time, trying to finish up his degree. A couple are working on the captain’s test. It’s okay. I’ll gnaw away at it a little bit every day.”
“It’s impossible,” she whimpered. “How are you going to concentrate on work if you have this on your mind?”
“Same way I concentrate on work with you and the kids on my mind. I think about you guys every second. Half the time we have a sick kid or some disaster going on. I’ll do just fine.” He lifted her chin and smiled into her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged. “Physically, I’m fine. Emotionally…I have a lot of regrets.”
“Let’s not waste too much energy on that, huh? It’s over. We have to move on.”
“But I look at you, and it doesn’t feel over. You don’t look at me the same way. You don’t sleep with me like you used to….”
“You’re out of commission for six weeks,” he said. “At least four to go.”
“You’re usually begging after two….”
“Not this time,” he said, looking briefly away. “I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“You don’t curl around me. You don’t kiss me and ask me if I love you all the time. I think you’re still mad.”
“No, honey, I’m not mad about anything. Shoot me for being such a guy, but curling around you when you’re untouchable isn’t real easy. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately….”
“About me. About the baby. About what I did—”
“Jules,” he said, stopping her. “About what I can do to change things. I talked to Chelsea. I—”
She pulled away from him. “You talked to Chelsea?”
“Stop. I asked her about car sales. I’ve been looking around for something better than cutting wood for cupboards and countertops on my days off. She offered me a job….”
“I bet she did.”
Billy grinned. “Selling Hummers. Don’t worry, I won’t be working for Chelsea. I don’t care what she says, I don’t believe they’re selling that well. I think she’s full of shit. But the commission on just about any new car is pretty good. Problem is, I just don’t think I can be without a paycheck long enough to find out. And there aren’t any days left.” He kissed her nose. “Let me get the lay of the land here, huh? Then we’ll talk.”