Brave words from a young girl. But in the back of Lily’s sick heart was the mother she wanted her mother to be, the mother, who, upon hearing that her daughter was gravely ill, dropped everything, let everything go to pot, and flew seven thousand miles to take her daughter to the hospital on Monday for induction chemotherapy. Induction into the rest of her life. A mother, who came in, and cleaned up, and cooked weak chicken soup for her, and washed all her towels, dragging them to the Laundromat, a mother who talked no nonsense to the doctors, who read medical reports, who drew Lily a bath, even though Lily hated baths and waited for the day she could stand up long enough, be strong enough, to take a shower.
It was for the purple-rose, wishful, child-like vision of that mother that she so desperately wanted that Lily called Maui. Her father picked up the phone.
“Hey, Papi.”
“Hey, Liliput,” he said, and Lily nearly broke down.
“How are things?”
“Oh, you know,” he said, and her mother came on the other line.
“Lily?” she said in a slurred voice. “Get off the phone!” she screeched, and Lily wasn’t sure who she was talking to until her mother added, “Iwantshoshalkshomydaurreralone.”
“Papi, no, don’t hang up, I have something to tell you.”
“He izh driving me crazy,” Allison said, “I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to throw myself out the window. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME??”
And George in a gritted voice, said, “I hear you, I hear you. The whole world hears you.”
Her mother dropped the phone and started screaming at her father. Her father started screaming back. Lily waited for an impolite moment, then another, and hung up.
The phone calls were unending. News of the lottery was drowned out by news of Cancer, news of Andrew. Amanda, Anne, Grandma, Rachel, Paul, Dennis, Joshua! Rick from the diner, Judi, Jan McFadden. Amanda and Anne didn’t know what to do—cry for Lily or cry for Andrew as they told Lily about her brother being interrogated in his own house on a Saturday afternoon by intrusive and objectionable NYPD detectives. “That Detective O’Malley needs some sensitivity training,” Amanda said in a finger-wagging voice. “He’d put his own grandmother in jail.”
The doorbell rang. It was one in the afternoon. Lily had to put Amanda on hold, tell Rachel she would call her back—again—and go to the intercom. “Who is it?”
“Spencer.”
“Amanda, I gotta go.” It’s the jailer of grandmothers, she wanted to add.
She buzzed him in, running a hand through her hair, and changed into pants from shorts, to cover from him the bruises on her legs.
Spencer, unshaven, looking beat and pale and red-eyed himself, brought with him electric hair clippers. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Like I have cancer.” She pointed to the razor. “What’s that for?”
“I’m going to cut my hair.”
“You came to my apartment to cut your hair?”
“Well, yes. I thought I’d cut mine, and then…” He smiled thinly. “Cut yours.”
“What are you talking about?” Lily said, stepping away from him, touching her own hair. She was not finding him to be of sound mind this morning. “I’m not cutting my hair.” The phone rang. They looked at each other. “I’m not picking up. I’ve been on the phone all morning. Hearing about you at my brother’s house yesterday.”
He took a step to her. “I’m sorry about that. This is a terrible time. Don’t read the papers.”
“I don’t intend to. It’s all lies. Please put the clippers away, you’re scaring me.”
He came closer. “You’re going to lose your hair.”
“Not by your hand.”
“Your hair is going to come out in chunks. You’ll have bald spots all over your head. But my way, I’ll cut it all off evenly, snazzily even, and to show you I can do it, I’ll cut mine off first.”
“I’m not cutting my hair,” she said, but less forcefully. Chunks?
“Fine,” Spencer said. “But I’m cutting mine.”
She watched him in the kitchen, with a hand held mirror propped up on top of the dish-drainer rack. He had taken off his denim jacket and polo shirt and was suddenly and inexplicably undressed to the waist. His chest hair was still brown, barely graying at the edges. He was lean; there was not a scrap of fat on him, as if he played soccer one time in his youth. Though well-formed he looked like he didn’t eat well. Seeing a man even remotely naked in her apartment made Lily uneasy. Not bad uneasy. Just tense uneasy. He was crazy. He really was cutting his hair.
And now it was all gone. Spencer turned to her. “What do you think? Good?” He looked ready for the army. He left himself with an eighth of an inch of brown fuzz, to match his stubble.
“Frightening. And bald.” But his eyes were large and blue and his very full mouth looked sculpted on, drawn on as if in caricature with heightened lines all around. The jaw line, the cheekbones, the eyebrows, the ears, the stubble, everything on him was somehow made more pronounced through his absence of hair.
“Yes. You next.”
“No.”
“Lily.”
“I don’t care what you call me or what kind of tone you use. No.”
He tilted his head to look at her with mock-seriousness.
“Stop.” She left the kitchen. He followed her.
After fifteen minutes of trying to get away from him in her closet of an apartment, Lily relented. “I’m not getting undressed though.”
“I think that’s wise.”
She sat in front of him on a chair. “I don’t want you to do this.”
“I know. But look at me. You think I wanted to do this? And I’m not even sick.”
“I don’t know why you did it. Clearly you’re sick in the head. But besides, you’re a man, what do you care about hair?”
“All right, fine, you’ve obviously never met a man before.”
Lily sat uncomfortably as the razor whirred close to her ear, and sheaths of her brown, highlighted hair fell to the floor. “Spencer,” she said, “Didn’t the doctor say all my hair is going to fall out?”
“Yes, he did.” He continued cutting. His hand was holding her head to keep her steady. Lily closed her eyes. She was being touched by someone other than herself.
“Spencer.”
“What?”
“All my hair?” Lily didn’t open her eyes, because she didn’t want to either smile or go red. She really shouldn’t be making a joke like this to a police officer.
Spencer leaned around to stare into her face. She opened her eyes, saw his expression and laughed. His eyes were smiling. “Would you like me to cut all your hair, Lily?”
“No, thank you.” She turned red.
“That’s what I thought.”
Finally done, he ruffled her buzz head and dusted her shoulders off with a towel. Without hair she looked worse than him. Simply frightful. Her bark-colored eyes, bare forehead, half-asleep mouth and drawn oval facial bones were doing nothing for her. “You look much better bald than I do,” Lily said in a disagreeable voice. “How is that fair?”
“I think it’s hip. You look like Sinead O’Connor.”
“That’s great. Well, my grandmother would be proud. I look like a survivor from one of the camps she keeps telling me about. All I’m missing is the pajamas.”
Spencer offered to take her for brunch at the Plaza. Lily had once told him she’d always wanted to go, and so he offered. But she felt too self-conscious today with her porcupine head to go to a place like the Palm Court; she didn’t have a wig or a nice hat for cover-up, all she had were Amy’s skicaps.
“Thanks, Spencer, but maybe I can take a rain check on that? I have no appetite anyway.”
As if he knew why she didn’t want to go, he said, “We’ll get you a hat at Bergdoff’s, if you want.”
“I haven’t been paid yet.”
“I’ll buy it.”
“No. Really, it’s fine. Another tim
e, okay? I just can’t today. You understand.”
He understood. He stood silently, cleaning out his razor. “Well,” he said after he was finished. “The barbershop’s closed. So…do you want me to go?”
Lily didn’t. Her mouth twisted a little, and not looking at him, she shook her head.
He asked her what else she wanted to do, and she said maybe walk in Central Park, and that’s where they went, but she got so tired, she couldn’t even get to the entrance to the zoo which was just off where the cab dropped them at 59th Street. It was a sunny and hot August Sunday. They sat on a low stone wall, in the shade. He bought her some water and an ice cream, while he had two hot dogs and an Italian ice.
She was feeling weak and needed to go home and lie down in her bed; needed to but didn’t want to. After a bit of energy returned to her, they strolled to Wollman’s rink. There was no ice in August, but they went around to the bleacher seats and climbed to perch high in the blue benches.
Quietly, quietly they sat in the summer. There was much weighing heavily on Lily, and she didn’t want to talk about any of it. “Do you know who Oliver Barrett is?” she asked him instead.
“No.”
“Jenny Cavilleri?”
Spencer shook his head.
“Never saw Love Story when you were a kid?”
“Thirteen-year-old boys don’t watch Love Story. Night of the Living Dead, more like it.”
“You weren’t thirteen in 1970!” exclaimed Lily, mining his face. Was Spencer older than her brother?
“Well, yes, there were thirteen-year-olds running around even in 1970.”
“Did they even have moving pictures back then?”
“They had barely invented money.”
“I thought so.”
They continued to sit side by side, their domed round heads bobbing together like fishing floats in the swaying waters.
“So when did you join the police force?”
“In 1978.”
“You’ve been a cop for almost as long as I’ve been alive?” How was that possible?
“Guess so. How long has Amy been leaving her ID on the dresser?”
“Ah. Please. Don’t know, Spencer.” Lily sighed. “Look, I know you want to tell me what you and my brother talked about yesterday…”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to hear it. I can’t hear about it, you understand?” She emitted a small groan.
He pressed against her shoulder. “I understand.”
“Did he say…he knew where she was?”
“He said he didn’t.”
“Do you believe him?” Lily didn’t glance at him when she asked.
Spencer stared straight ahead. “Chicks. I thought you didn’t want to talk about it?”
“I don’t. Let’s go.” She struggled up.
They took a cab to 11th and Broadway.
“I don’t live here,” Lily said as they got out.
“I do,” Spencer said.
They stood on Broadway in the late afternoon heat. He put his hand over her cheek. “You got nothing to worry about,” he said. “Come upstairs. I’ll make you a cup of tea. You can watch TV. Why don’t you have a TV in your apartment?”
“Joshua took it.”
“He’s just a prince of a man, isn’t he? Well, when you get out of the hospital and your money comes, you can buy yourself a plasma screen for every room, even the bathroom.”
“Oh, that’ll show him.”
His place was clean. The newspapers were on the floor, the mail was on the table. The kitchen looked infrequently visited, like hers.
Lily liked his twelve-foot ceilings and Broadway right out of the ten-foot windows. Right across the street was Dagostinos in front of which she had run into him and Mary last month. The thought of Mary made her twitch, and Lily backed away from the window, sitting down on his taupe-colored L-shaped couch and picking up a Sports Illustrated while Spencer was in the kitchen, making her some tea. The leafing of the pages, the distant drone of Sunday cars outside, the clanging of doors, the occasional honking, the whistling of the kettle, the clinking of the silverware, and Lily was asleep, with the magazine on her lap, her hairless head falling back.
When she woke up she found herself covered by a blue cotton blanket with cats on it, while Spencer sat in the corner of the couch, watching something on TV. She tried to focus, couldn’t. A movie and the music was familiar, and the faces…who was that? There was snow and a snowball fight and happiness and lilting waltzing music. Lily lay down, curling up under the blanket and went back to sleep. When she woke up, it was dark, and Spencer was still sitting in the corner of the couch, watching a baseball game this time.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to get up.
He got up to help her. “Don’t be sorry. I better get you home. It’s late. You have to be up early tomorrow. What time do you have to be at the hospital?”
“Six in the morning for blood work.”
“Come on, the nurses aren’t awake at six. They’re just messing with you.” Spencer watched her as she straightened herself out. “Do you…need me…to come and take you?”
“No, no. My sisters are drawing the short straw to see which of them will do it. Don’t worry. I didn’t mean to be so out of it. I’m such bad company.” And in the foyer, Lily asked, “What were you watching?…When I was sleeping?”
“I went to Blockbuster and rented Love Story,” Spencer replied, holding the door open for her. “To see what all the fuss was about.”
“No fuss,” she muttered, unconditionally pleased by that. “So what did you think?”
“Eh. I liked Night of the Living Dead better.” He grinned.
When he brought her to her apartment, he patted her shoulder, and she said, “I’m so scared, Spencer. Of what’s ahead. What if I can’t do it?” And he said, “You’re going to do great, you’re going to be all right,” and Lily tiptoed up and softly kissed his stubbly cheek in the beige corridor.
23
Chemotherapy 101
On Monday at five-thirty in the morning Lily’s front door intercom rang.
“It’s your grandmother,” the voice said.
“Who?”
“Let me in.”
“Grandma?” Lily buzzed her in.
Ten minutes later her grandmother showed up at the door, clutching the walls and panting.
“Grandma?”
“Oh my God, those stairs! Oh my God—what have you done with yourself, what have you done with your hair?”
“I cut it. It’s all going to fall out anyway. Grandma!” Lily put her hand on her heart.
“What? Come on, ready to go?”
“Grandma!”
“What?” Her grandmother was looking at her as if she had no idea what the fuss was about.
“You left your house!” Lily said, trying not to cry. Left her house for the first time in six years.
“Yes, so?” said her white-haired little grandmother, opening her arms to her. “I left my house for you. Now get ready. But for the love of Mary and Joseph, do yourself a favor and don’t read the newspapers. The news is terrible today and overwrought.”
“Remember what Truman Capote said, Grandma. He said he didn’t care what people were saying about him as long as it wasn’t true.”
“Well, let’s just pray your brother feels the same way. Come on, let’s go.”
At Mount Sinai, at six in the morning, Marcie and Dr. DiAngelo were already waiting. He was wearing hospital whites, not a track suit this time, to impress her grandmother, Lily was sure, and he had on glasses, and didn’t look like a kid. Grandma was not impressed. “He looks too young to be a doctor,” she stage-whispered.
“Thank you for that,” DiAngelo said, “but I’m fifty-four this year.”
“As I was saying,” Claudia whispered, but quieter. “A child.”
After DiAngelo explained what was about to happen to Lily, she got up off the bed and said, “
I’m going to have a hole in my chest?” She shook her head. “I’m going home. Thanks anyway.”
Marcie said, “A little Port-A-Cath, so we can administer the meds, take blood, give blood, without having to scar up the veins on your arms. The Hickman catheter is nothing to be worried about. A central venous catheter is implanted just under your skin above your chest plate. It goes straight to your vena cava, which goes straight to the heart.”
Lily would take Vitamin A once a morning by mouth, and then in the afternoon, bagfuls of liquid drugs would pour into her vena cava. She would do this for seven days. Then she would have three days to recover. They would then do a biopsy and start again. And then again. Three treatments, thirty days.
“Very very aggressive,” said DiAngelo. “But we have no choice.” He coughed slightly. “Just to let you know, these doses of Vitamin A, or ATRA as it is known in pill form, are associated with the potentially lethal pulmonary leukostasis syndrome.”
“What?”
“White blood cells clump in your lungs and cause you to stop breathing.”
“Oh.”
“ATRA is very toxic.”
“So what about chemo without ATRA?”
“Varying degrees of success and major morbidity. I don’t recommend it. ATRA works very well, however, in combination with the other drugs.”
“What are the names of these other drugs, young man?” said Claudia, officiously, as if she was going to look them up as soon as she got home.
A smile crossed DiAngelo’s face. “Cytarabine, to kill the existing cancer cells, cerubidine, to stop the cancer cells from reproducing, and VePesid, which does both, for good measure.” Cytarabine, or Ara-C as it was called, would be on a continuous drip for seven days.
“That sounds like a tremendous burden. Is this going to affect her?” Claudia asked.
“Oh, yes, but not as much as dying would affect her,” DiAngelo said.
Claudia gasped. Lily, in bed, in her ugly gown, patted her grandmother’s pale hand. “Sit, Grandma. He’s just joking with you.”
“That’s not funny, young man. We don’t appreciate that kind of humor in my family. We survived the war, the death camps, we lived through too much to—”