Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (29 page)

I watch as he heads through the swinging double doors into the ICU. I stand, fold the blanket, place it under the hospital-issue pillow, and leave.

Mimi is here
. She rode the train out this morning, and Sherman picked her up at Princeton Junction while I was sleeping. I haven’t seen her in weeks; we’ve talked on the phone only briefly and sporadically, but ever since late June, when I finally told her about Mom, she has honored Mom’s wishes, better than I. Maybe because of this she knows what Sherman, Olivia, and I have been going through. I’m hoping—perhaps unrealistically—that she will be able to help us in dealing with her mom, Aunt Kay, Grandma, and Uncle Jack. If she is angry with me for putting her in this untenable position—or with Dad, or any of us—she hasn’t let on. The fact that I can’t read how she’s feeling worries me. Will our friendship be a casualty of this whole mess?

Mimi, Aunt Nan, Aunt Lucia, and I are sitting in the kitchen when the phone rings. I pick it up. My father is sobbing.

“Dad, what is it?”

Somehow I know instinctively that this is not
the
call. That fear is gone, at least for now.

“It’s your mother,” he says, trying in vain to contain his emotions.

I wait for him to go on. I look over at Mimi, who is staring at me, clearly terrified. I shake my head, telling her silently that no, it’s not what she thinks it is.

“She wants to be transferred to a hospital in Minneapolis,” my father says. “I told her it’s not possible—not now anyway—and she became furious. She said I’m interfering! She won’t talk to me.”

I tell Dad that I’m on my way. After I hang up the phone, I share with Mimi and my aunts what my father has just said.

“It is very natural for someone who is sick to take out her anger on the person she’s closest to,” Aunt Nan offers. Mimi nods in agreement.

“Your mom knows that your dad is the one person who won’t abandon her,” Aunt Lucia adds.

I’m skeptical. This is all valuable insight for a normal hospital situation. But this is hardly normal. He has already abandoned her once, I think, remembering his two-week class. The possibility of her languishing at Tenacre, pleading to see a doctor, haunts me.

But I also know that if I were lying in a hospital, after being sick and not going to a doctor for nine months or more, it’s possible I’d feel angry with myself, and ashamed. And angry at the person who has been my partner in this from the start. Mom knew better than anyone what was happening to her body. She could have left Tenacre. She could have called me. Or Olivia. Or Sherman. She told me to stop calling.

I find my father and Sherman in the ICU waiting room, sitting at the table. Olivia is in with Mom. Dr. White, who will be Mom’s surgeon, is also here. He has short-cropped white hair, gentle features, and a kindly manner.

“I told Jo she is getting excellent care,” he says to the three of us. “She
does
want to go to Minneapolis. I told her that nobody would advise transferring her anywhere right now, but that it might be possible to move her to an individual room in the Special Care Unit before too long. It will be quieter there, more private, and more comfortable. The noise makes sleeping in the ICU nearly impossible.”

I like Dr. White. Everything about him is reassuring: his words, his smile, his unassuming manner. For the moment, he has offered the tiniest glimmer of hope, that Mom may get some peace and quiet.

On Tuesday morning
, Dad calls from the hospital to say that Mom has been transferred to a single room in the Special Care Unit. We interpret this as a sign of slow but certain improvement. She wanted to be moved earlier, but the doctors said she wasn’t strong enough. With this first cause for optimism (and we will take anything, however small), Sherman and I drive into town for a celebratory breakfast. Olivia stays behind to call Grandma, happy to be the bearer of some good news.

An hour later, Sherman and I are back at the house, preparing to leave with Olivia for the hospital, when the phone rings. I pick it up.

“How could you lie to your grandmother?” my uncle Jack asks coolly.

“What do you mean?” I say, confused.

“Telling her that Jo’s doing so much better. That she’s been moved to a private room.”

“She
is
doing better—” I start.

“She is not better. And she’s not in a private room. She’s been moved to the Special Care Unit.”

“She’s in a private room in Special Care,” I say, “and the doctor only approved the move this morning because she’d stabili——”

“I spoke with the doctor,” my uncle says before I can finish my sentence. “He said he’s never seen a body in a worse state of neglect. You know, Lucia, prisoners in concentration camps are treated better.”

My uncle’s voice cuts through me. My mind fixes on the words
concentration camp
, and I find myself writing them onto a notepad.

“We’re going to investigate,” he continues. “Your grandmother has a right to know what happened. And,” he adds, pausing, “the medical center might launch its own investigation. What happened to your mother at Tenacre could be criminal neglect. Her liver is swollen from six months of starvation. She has a tumor in her rectum that may have spread to the lymph nodes.”

I write down
tumor
and
lymph nodes
. Uncle Jack must have heard something from the doctor that we haven’t. My mind skips over his threat of a hospital investigation to focus on my mother’s condition.

“Did the doctor say whether it is malignant?” I ask, terrified. Olivia and Sherman sit motionless at the kitchen table. I turn my back to them so they can’t see my face.

“It’s malignant,” he says.

Malignant. I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling to contain my tears.

“I thought they couldn’t tell without performing a biopsy,” I say, raising my voice. “They haven’t done a biopsy!”

“They were able to tell from the physical examination; it’s malignant. And your mother has a mass in her lungs.”

I write the words
mass in her lungs
. I glance behind me to see Olivia’s eyes on me. Sherman’s head is down, resting on his folded arms on the table; his shoulders are shaking.

“What happened to Jo at Tenacre is very serious,” he continues. “Very. You might be implicated. You, your brother, your sister, your father … You knew for months and denied her treatment. You could be guilty of criminal—”

I hang up the phone.

I turn around and see Sherman’s tortured face, but I can’t comfort him right now. And I don’t want to talk to my sister. If she hadn’t called Grandma this morning, and made everything sound like Mom was practically ready to come home …

I head for the bathroom and close the door. Why can’t Olivia keep her goddamned mouth shut? Or at least get it right? Olivia wouldn’t intentionally mislead Grandma—I know that—but she is capable of letting her own optimism color her report. You can’t just rearrange the significance of certain facts because you are hopeful, I want to scream.

There is a knock on the door.

“Loosh?” It is Olivia, speaking softly, cautiously. “Do you want to talk?”

“Not now.”

“It’s malignant?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Who?” Olivia asks.

“Uncle Jack.”

“What else did he say?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The silence from the other side of the door tells me my sister is not about to leave it till later.

“He’s pissed off because he thinks we
—you
—lied to Grandma.”

“What?”

“Come on, Olivia,” I say, opening the door. “Maybe you didn’t mean to, but when you called Grandma this morning, you gave her the impression that Mom was practically back on her feet.”

“I only—”

“Look, what’s done is done.”

“What’s done is done?”
There is rage and contempt in my sister’s eyes. “Who the hell do you think you are? You didn’t even hear my conversation with Grandma.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have called her in the first place. If you can’t be straight—”

“I
was
straight!” my sister yells back. “And besides, I told Grandma yesterday that if there were any news, I’d let her know. That’s
all
I did. So
back off
. Grandma was crying this morning. I was trying to calm her. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same. All I said was that Mom looks a lot better than a few days ago. And she
does.
”

“
Sto-op!
Stop fighting!” Sherman pleads with us, through sobs.

We return to the kitchen.

“She’s going to die, isn’t she?” His voice breaks, and he holds his forehead in his palms, his elbows propped on the kitchen table. He seems so much younger than twenty-two, or maybe I just feel so much older than twenty-four. Olivia and I stoop to where Sherman is sitting, and the three of us hold one another.

A few minutes later, the phone rings again. This time it is Dr. Sierocki. I take notes:

• Tumor in rectum has eroded the wall between rectum/vagina
  .
  
• Won’t know until biopsy whether or not malignant
  .
  
• Infection in the blood stemming, apparently, from urinary tract
  .
  
• Lungs appear clear
  .
  
• Needs colostomy before biopsy. But until nutrition improves, no surgery will be undertaken
  .
  
• Temperature down, vital signs stable
  .
  

The report is grim, but I am reassured that there isn’t a definite malignancy. I am struck by the conflicting messages I’ve just received. It seems plausible that Dr. Sierocki suspects a malignancy—and may have intimated as much to Uncle Jack—but can’t verify it without a biopsy. Maybe there is an understanding among all doctors that allows for a preliminary exchange of information not yet intended for patients or their families.

In the early
afternoon, I drive to the airport to pick up Aunt Mary. It is a gray, soggy day.

I need the hour drive from Princeton to Newark to collect my thoughts, to pull back from the rage I’m feeling toward Uncle Jack, and resolve how I will deal with Aunt Mary. I am already on the defensive: it is now
them
versus
us. Them
is Uncle Jack, who has accused all of us of criminal neglect; and Grandma, who has vowed to me she will never forgive Dad; by association,
them
includes Aunt Mary, and Aunt Kay, possibly everyone on Mom’s side of the family (with the exception, maybe, of Mimi?). I understand my grandmother’s feelings, totally; I don’t know if I will ever forgive my dad either. For the time being, though, I have to try to hold these feelings at bay.

Do I—do we—need to contact a lawyer? I realize all this may get much worse.

I know my uncle is not going to see the nuances of how we have come to this point; how Dad, Olivia, Sherman, and I are not a united front. But I also feel this isn’t the time to try to explain to him the catch-22 we—Mom’s children—faced. Doing so will only aid in the destruction of what is left of our vulnerable family, because Uncle Jack will then see the chasm between Dad and us kids. I can’t walk away from us (Mom, Dad, Olivia, Terry, Sherman, and me) because Mom and Dad are still praying together. Maybe there is some benefit in that. I realize, under the gun, that we need to protect the unit we still, barely, make up. So for now, Uncle Jack is our common foe.

I park the car, head into the Northwest Airlines terminal, and wait. I decide I will try to explain what I can to Aunt Mary, but I will not let on about the newly surfaced tension between Mom and Dad; I will keep quiet about that and hope, if Aunt Mary gets wind of it, that I will be led to a solution.
Led
. Christ. I am thinking like a Christian Scientist; all that’s missing is the adverb
divinely
.

Aunt Mary emerges from the gate in a black skirt and stockings, a muted pink cotton blouse, and black flats. In one hand she carries an overnight bag, in the other, a trench coat and umbrella. She stands heels together, toes out, like a ballerina, or Mary Poppins, but her eyes lack their characteristic sparkle. Her hair is now silvery white. She sets down her suitcase to hug me tightly. My aunt feels like Mom. I breathe in deeply, closing my eyes. They even smell alike. I can’t remember the last time I hugged my mother without fear of crushing her. It’s been months since she’s hugged me back; she hasn’t had the strength. My aunt’s embrace feels so good, so familiar and reassuring, that when she lets go, the separation hurts. I hope she will hug me again when everything has played out.

On the drive from the airport to the hospital, I give Aunt Mary the chronology of Mom’s illness, starting with the details of Christmas Day. I tell her about Lucia Chase’s funeral in Manhattan three weeks later; how, after the nightmarish cab ride home, I asked Dad
if we couldn’t take Mom to a doctor, or to Lenox Hill Hospital, right down the street. I tell her about Mom’s move to Tenacre in January, the day after the space shuttle blew up.

I try to give Aunt Mary a primer on Christian Science, to explain the rationale behind the Church’s reliance on prayer over medicine. I quote Mary Baker Eddy from
Science and Health:

Then Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the New Testament Gospel of Matthew:

Aunt Mary sits quietly in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, processing the information without asking any questions. I expected an interrogation, and I am not sure what to make of her reticence.