I’d give up love forever if only I could have my one life. If only I could have my minutes back, the minutes that I lost pining, regretting, crying, the minutes I spent wallowing over boyfriends who betrayed me, over friends who ditched me, over my mother who stopped being a mother to me, over my father who forgot to talk to me on the telephone, over my beloved brother, God! my brother, who is hiding from me. I don’t want to know, don’t want to believe. I just want LIFE!
I want to be that girl with a red scarf and flowing brown hair, all alone in Times Square, standing by the wall as she looks upon the enamored and the entwined, the coupled and homeless, wishing for a bit of what they have—LIFE. Except that now the girl stands and doesn’t even look at them, but stands, eyes closed, slightly smiling, grateful only for her small insignificant but vivid Self in Times Square one late wet December evening.
Is Spencer looking thinner, paler, or is Lily just projecting? She can’t tell.
No, that’s not true. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about the news, about movies, about politics. She doesn’t care about Amy or Andrew, or her mother. She doesn’t care about anybody. Lily feels only for herself. Week six she gets on the scale—eighty-six pounds bald. Week six she notices lesions on her face, on her body. The leaves are falling. She loves the fall, but she can’t go outside, she can’t let anyone see her like this.
On Friday night Rachel and Paul come uninvited. The shock in their eyes is unmistakable. They try to hide it but can’t. She hears Rachel on the landing crying as they descend the stairs.
Lily is not a very good patient, a good aunt, a good sister, a good friend, a good anything. She is barely a Lily.
On Sunday, Amanda asks her to come and spend the day; Lily wishes she could bring Spencer. She calls to tell him not to come in the afternoon, and takes a hired car to Bedford. Lily thinks the visit might be good for her, but the girls running around, shouting, jumping on her, despite their mother’s strong protestations and Lily’s feeble ones, exhaust her after an hour. She is not up to going to the playground, not up to crawling on the floor, not up to board games, or helping with dinner. She is not even up to talking. She goes and sleeps in the guest room, and then takes a car back home, where she calls Spencer who comes over late for another installment of couch and Groundhog Day. “I know this stupid movie by heart,” Spencer says.
“That’s funny, because I could watch it again and again and again.”
“Funny, Harlequin.”
Spencer called her Harlequin. “Okay, now that’s funny.”
Just eight more treatments. Just eight more treatments, just eight more treatments.
And then somebody coughs.
“Somebody’s cough is your coffin,” DiAngelo had said to her.
The shell casing of a body depleted of all antibodies gets sick. It catches bacteria that travel from the tongue to the throat to the stomach to the intestine to the blood to the lungs.
In the lungs the infection becomes pneumonia.
Lily, feverish and bleeding from her gums and teeth, is flown via helicopter to Mount Sinai. They hook her up with some antibiotic, some glucose, some morphine through her Port-a-Death. But all her vital signs are down. She has almost no blood pressure, she barely has a pulse.
Lily doesn’t know how long she is out—it seems like one long sleep—but when she opens her eyes she finds a priest by her side. She looks at him; he looks at her and says, You’re closer to God now, my child, and Lily shuts her eyes and thinks That’s unmistakable but I don’t want to be this close just yet and doesn’t open them again until he is gone. Three, four days later? Three, four years later? Twenty years later? Perhaps it’s not he who is gone.
Instead of the priest, in the chair next to her bed sits her grandmother, and next to her stand Amanda, and Andrew, and Anne.
Andrew!
Lily’s gaze stops on him; she watches him, wants to say something, but can’t open her mouth to speak; a breathing tube is inside her throat. The lung machine again keeping her breathing. Lily holds out her hand to him, and he comes, and she grasps him, and tears run down into her ears. He looks away from her even at this moment.
Andrew, why are you here? Lily wants to cry. Why are you here, you who betrayed me, who have hid from me all these months? Amy’s vanished and you have vanished, too. Both of you have gone away from me, and I don’t know why and I don’t know how to fix it. How to fix anything. Come all without, come all within…
Spencer is not here.
Looking into the eyes of her grandmother and seeing something peculiar and disturbing there, too—though markedly different from Andrew’s expression—Lily asks for a pen and paper, and writes, “You think I’m going to die, don’t you?”
Her grandmother doesn’t reply at first, and then looks away. “No, darling. I think you’re going to be just fine.”
Lily looks at Andrew again. That’s why he is here! He thinks I’m going to die. My whole family thinks so. But there is something else in Andrew’s eyes, other than that tacit acknowledgement. Almost as if he hopes I will.
Lily doesn’t know what to say. She thinks of writing nothing. But she can’t not write anything.
“Where is my mother?” writes Lily.
35
Lily’s Mother is Here
George came back from the beach by eight, and as soon as he walked in, he saw Allison on the floor near the kitchen, struggling to get up. He had just come back from an hour-long walk, a swim. He hadn’t had a cigarette, or a coffee, and there Allison was, already on the floor. Through the double glass doors, in the darkness of the morning apartment, with the curtains drawn, on the floor, struggling to get up. George went to help her up. But she couldn’t stand. She reeked of alcohol. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, letting go of her. She couldn’t talk, she was incoherently mumbling. Drool was coming out of her mouth, her eyes were rolling in their white sockets.
This morning George felt anger at her—and striking pity for himself. Hawaii, he decided, was not for him, a sixty-six-year-old man. Hawaii was for young people. For snorkeling, deep-sea-diving, jet-skiing, volcano-climbing, uphill-bike-riding young people. For Lily perhaps. The things that gave him most pleasure—fishing from a rowboat, a vegetable garden, he couldn’t have in Hawaii. And his other passion—sports—was rendered meaningless by the hour-long tape delay. No live sports coverage in Maui. He couldn’t get a satellite system because he was not allowed to install it on the roof of the condo. So he entertained his love of cooking. But Allison wouldn’t eat his food. What she ate, she threw up. Cooking for just himself was meaningless. Like singing for just himself. He liked to be praised for his gifts.
Allison threw up on the carpet. George couldn’t even get into his kitchen to make his morning coffee. He cursed and walked past her to the shower. He spent a long time shaving, washing. When he came out, the vomit was barely cleaned up and Allison was nowhere to be seen. She must have made it to her room. He went to check on her, to ask her if she wanted coffee. She was unconscious on the floor and he couldn’t pick her up to put her on the bed. He left her there.
George didn’t have many days like this, but there were some, he had some days like this, where he lay down on his bed in the middle of a God-like day, put his arm over his face, and thought, I can’t believe this is my life.
Today Allison must have drunk more than usual, quicker than usual. When George went to check on her again, she was lying in her own vomit and moaning.
“Allison,” he said, “I’m going to go to New York to see Lily. I’m going to leave tomorrow. Do you hear me?”
“I’m dying,” she moaned. “I’m not going to do this again, but please…I’m dying. Call for help.”
George stayed, called for help. Allison managed to recover.
She had showers every three days now. Maybe not that frequently. It was hard to tell, she spent so many of her days in a haze. She couldn’t go swimming or for a walk: her unshaven legs embarrassed her. But why didn’t s
he shave them?
Because she couldn’t bend down without falling over. And Allison couldn’t put one leg on the edge of the tub without losing her balance and falling over. Falling over seemed to be what she did best these days, and so she refrained from shaving her legs, not by choice but by necessity, because one time she slipped and fell, and really hurt her rib. There was a good chance she had broken it. But after six weeks, the rib didn’t hurt as much anymore.
Her hands shook. They began shaking in the morning and didn’t stop all day. When she raised her glass to her lips, her hands shook, and the cigarette shook in between her unpainted nails. Allison could no longer write letters to her friends, and she could not sign her name to her checks. She did it anyway because she had to, and she didn’t care how sloppy her name looked on the signature line. It was illegible. But she couldn’t write illegible letters anymore. She could barely dial the phone. There was only one thing that stopped Allison’s hands from shaking. Where was that one thing now?
36
Lily’s Stations, Continued
Lily regains consciousness, and breathes on her own and even puts food into her mouth. Of course! They had to forgo the chemo while they were getting her blood pressure up. She had had a blood transfusion, and was sitting up when DiAngelo came to see her. “You’re doing great, Lily. I’m telling you, you’re going to lick this thing.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Do you notice I’m going especially great when I don’t have chemo? Look, I’m having Jell-O. I used to love Jell-O. What do you think? Should we just forget the whole thing? Let me go home and eat and buy that Prada purse my sister has been telling me I absolutely must have if I’m to have a life at all, even a short one?”
DiAngelo smiled. “Eight more weeks of chemo, Lil. Almost halfway done. Then you can sleep in an extra large Prada purse. By the size of you, you won’t even need that big a one. But this is what I wanted to tell you—I’m restricting your visitors. For just a little while.”
“Until when?”
“Until you’re discharged.”
“Oh, come on! Who are you trying to keep from me, Doctor D?” Lily lowers her voice. “Are you like Grandma and are keeping the detective away?”
“He’s the only one who can come,” says DiAngelo. “And only for ten minutes.”
Spencer doesn’t come at all, but the next day, Lily wakes to find Anne by her side, clearing her throat for five minutes.
Finally Anne speaks. “As your older sister, Liliput, I hate to be the one to advise you on these matters, but it’s my responsibility. Please understand. Have you thought—even briefly—about getting your affairs in order? You don’t know how sick you’ve been.”
“I don’t know? What are you talking about?”
“Lily, must I spell it out for you?”
“Yes, you must. If you want me to understand, you must.”
“Have you thought about a will? Funeral arrangements? Have you thought about at least a living will?”
“A what? And isn’t that an oxymoron?”
In hushed conspiratorial tones Anne asks Lily if she will consider signing a DNR form for the hospital.
“What’s DNR?”
“Most hospitals require you to sign a release because normally they will try to keep you alive at all costs.”
“I like that.”
“Stop being funny.”
“Who is being funny? Really. I like that.”
“Listen, when all your faculties are gone,” Anne says, “and you’ve slipped into a coma, and there is no chance of coming out of it, a Do Not Resuscitate clause, a DNR, will save you and your family a lot of grief. It’s more decent, more humane. After the kind of toll that cancer’s taken on you, a DNR means comfort for your family.”
“Annie, I’d like the hospital to keep me alive at all costs, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Even if your body has been ravaged beyond all healing? They keep you alive artificially.”
“Any which way they keep me alive is fine with me.”
“Suit yourself. I just want you to know your options. Some of them are a little kinder on your family.”
“I’m assuming my family would like me to survive, no?”
“Well, of course, but if there is no hope…”
“Mrs. Ramen!” DiAngelo walks in officiously. “No visitors before six. I was very specific.”
“But it’s visiting hours,” Anne says petulantly. “Cancer doesn’t know about visiting hours,” says DiAngelo. “Cancer is here for Lily twenty-four-seven, and she needs her rest. No, not even family during the day. No one. It’s for Lily’s protection. And you must wear a mask. I told you that time and time again. Come back in the evening if you wish. Actually, this evening she’ll be getting a CT scan. Perhaps you should come back tomorrow.”
By tomorrow, having skipped a week of cancer for pneumonia, thus prolonging her agony to fourteen weeks, Lily is discharged and sent home.
Lily makes herself get out of bed. She forces herself. She makes herself make the bed every day even if she then gets on top of it and sleeps until after lunch. But every morning, on her hands and knees, she crawls around her bed tucking in the edges.
Week eight Lily can’t get up except for the bed-making. Mondays and Tuesdays are gone. Wednesdays are non-existent, Thursdays are foggy. Fridays she makes the bed. Saturdays she used to go out for a walk down the block with Joy. She eats a little. Sundays she reads, bathes, sleeps until Spencer comes. Sundays are her best days, but then Monday comes again.
Amanda is doing Thanksgiving this year and she wants Lily to celebrate with them, but there is no way Lily can. She’d ruin everybody’s time. She gives Joy a day off, and tells Spencer she is going to Amanda’s, but she is alone on Thanksgiving. He has gone to Long Island to be with his family. Rachel, Paul are with their families. Jan McFadden calls early to wish Lily a happy holiday, crying. “People say such awful things to me today. They say, well, consider yourself lucky, be thankful they say that you still have two other children.”
“They just don’t know what to say, Mrs. McFadden.”
“They show their true colors. They say, everything happens for a reason.”
“I hate that one the most, I know.” Lily knows.
“Oh, Lil, you’ll be all right, you just have to be strong.”
Is that all she has to do? Or just one of the things? Mrs. McFadden too falls into the trap of not knowing what to say. “You too, Mrs. McFadden. You too.”
Spencer never says anything except, I’m sorry and eat. Why can’t the rest of the world be like him?
She has lost track of time in these last months and to help herself stay sane she has put clocks on every wall in the house—chiming clocks, Mickey Mouse clocks, digital clocks, secondhand clocks, Mexican clocks and Chinese clocks to tell her what her mind cannot. Such as: how long she spent bleeding from her nose into the toilet on Thanksgiving afternoon when she couldn’t stand up long enough over the sink. Sixty-five minutes, Lily thinks. She can never remember the hour anything starts. She can’t remember anything. She has to keep Spencer’s beeper number by the phone.
Week nine all the leaves are gone, and the weather gets cold. But Lily can’t put on her coat and go for a walk because she can’t get out of the house, can’t walk down the stairs, doesn’t have the strength to move her legs down the steps. Joy force-feeds her reluctant mouth some home-made chicken soup her grandmother has brought. Lily fights to keep it in. Rachel comes to visit and goes on and on about how she always gains weight in the winter and how there is no diet good enough to stay on permanently. Lily jokes that a permanent diet is probably a misnomer and Rachel laughs too, and says, am I an idiot for talking to you about this? And Lily says, what else are you going to talk to me about?
Rachel asks what Lily and Spencer talk about.
“Nothing,” replies Lily. “Seriously,” she adds when she sees Rachel’s skeptical face. “Nothing. He sits, we watch TV, we laugh sometimes if the comedy
is funny, he goes home. The other day we were watching Something About Mary, and you know how obscenely raunchy that movie is, I couldn’t even look at him, I was so embarrassed, but he was laughing so hard, he nearly cried.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“He doesn’t ask how you’re feeling?”
“He knows.”
Lily can’t come to the phone. She records a message to tell callers how she’s feeling, which is not good, not feeling good. But when she plays back the messages, sometimes the patient grows agitated. “Lily, it’s your mother. I don’t understand. You’re never home…Or maybe you are home and are just not picking up. Lily? LILY?” That is guaranteed to upset Lily. Thereafter, contrary to Lily’s express wishes, Joy answers the phone. In a machine-like voice, she gives out some clinical information and informs the caller that Lily is sleeping. She offers to take a message. She almost beeps the tone. So Lily gets her messages through the mediation of calm and dedication to the cause—getting Lily well again. What would Lily do without this nurse machine?
Joy doesn’t say, Lily is in the bathroom retching. Or unconscious. That Lily can’t watch TV, cannot concentrate on the newspaper. Cannot sit up long enough to draw. Sometimes Lily sketches with charcoal while lying on her side, and falls asleep, her face on the paper, and when she awakens, her cheeks are black from coal.
Lily’s skin suddenly has patches on it she has never seen. All over, strips of reddish brown. Her skin’s coming off. It’s the chemo, Dr. DiAngelo tells her, burning her from the inside out. Lily thinks her brain’s burning up as well.