Fine things (17 page)

She tried on the rest of the wigs, and they decided on the page boy for her first entrance. She put it on, and changed her blouse. It required something more sophisticated than what she'd been wearing and she walked into the living room, trying to look casual, as Bernie did a double take and stared at her in amazement.

“Where did you get that?” He was smiling. He liked it.

“Grandma Ruth. What do you think?” She asked in an undertone.

“You look great.” And he meant it.

“Wait till you see the others.” It was a gift that had boosted her morale immeasurably and Bernie was grateful to his mother, even more so as Jane came bounding into the room and stopped dead.

“You got your hair back!” She clapped her hands with delight, and Liz smiled and looked at her mother-in-law.

“Not exactly, sweetheart. Grandma brought me some new hair from New York.” She laughed and suddenly Jane giggled.

“She did? Can I see?” Liz nodded and took her in to look in the boxes, and Jane tried on two or three of them herself. They looked funny on her and she and Liz laughed. Suddenly it felt like a party.

They all went out to dinner that night, and like a gift from God, Liz felt better over the holidays. They managed to go out two more times, she even went downtown to see the Christmas trees at Wolffs with Jane and Bernie, and Ruth pretended to disapprove, but Liz knew she really didn't. They had celebrated Chanukah, too, and on Friday they lit the candles before dinner. And her father-in-law's solemn voice as he intoned the prayers seemed right to all of them. Liz closed her eyes and prayed to their God and her own that something would save her.

Chapter 19

Their second anniversary was very different from the first. Tracy invited Jane and Alexander to spend the night with her, and Bernie's parents went to dinner on their own. Liz and Bernie were alone for once, and they spent a quiet evening. He had wanted to take her out, but in the end she had admitted she was too tired. He uncorked a bottle of champagne for her instead, and poured her a glass which she barely sipped as they sat by the fire and talked.

It was almost as if they had made a silent vow not to talk about her sickness. She didn't want to think about that tonight, or the chemotherapy she had to go back for in a week. It was hard enough doing it without talking about it all the time, and she longed to be like everyone else, complaining about her job, laughing over her kids, planning a dinner for friends, and worrying if the dry cleaner could fix her zipper. She longed for simple problems, and they held hands quietly as they stared into the fire, moving carefully through the obstacles of all the difficult subjects to avoid …it even hurt to talk about their honeymoon two years before, although once Bernie reminded her of how cute Jane had been on the beach. She was only five then. And now suddenly she was nearly eight. And Liz surprised him by mentioning Chandler Scott again.

“You won't forget your promise to me, will you?”

“What promise was that?” He was pouring more champagne, even though he knew she wouldn't drink it.

“I don't ever want that bastard to see Jane. You promise?”

“I promised you, didn't I?”

“I meant it.” She looked worried, and he kissed her cheek and smoothed away the frown on her brow with gentle fingers.

“So did I.” He had been thinking a lot recently about adopting Jane, but he was afraid that Liz wasn't well enough to go through all the legal hassle. He decided to put it off until she was in remission and feeling stronger.

They didn't make love that night, but she fell asleep in his arms by the fire and he carried her to bed ever so gently, and then lay looking down at her, feeling his heart break as he thought of the months to come. They were still praying for a remission.

On January fifth his parents went back to New York. His mother offered to stay, but Liz said she was going back to teaching anyway, and even if it was only for three mornings a week, it was going to keep her very busy. She had already had her chemotherapy right after the holidays and she had done well this time. It was a relief to all of them, and she could hardly wait to get back to teaching.

“Are you sure she should?” his mother asked him when she came to see him at the store the day before they left.

“That's what she wants.” He wasn't crazy about it either, but Tracy said it would do her good, and maybe she was right. It couldn't do any harm at least and if it was too much for her, she'd have to give it up. But Liz was very insistent.

“What does the doctor say?”

“That it won't hurt her.”

“She should rest more.” He nodded, he told Liz the same thing himself, and she would look at him with angry eyes, knowing how little time she had left. She wanted to do everything, not sleep her life away.

“We have to let her do what she needs to, Mom. I promised her that.” She was extracting a lot of promises from him these days. And he walked his mother downstairs quietly. There wasn't much left to say, and they were both afraid of the words they had to say. It was all so terrible, so incredibly painful.

“I don't know what to say to you, sweetheart.” She looked up at her only son with tears in her eyes as they stood in the doorway to Wolffs, with people eddying around them.

“I know, Mom. … I know …” His eyes were damp and his mother nodded as the tears came and she couldn't control them. A few people glanced at them, wondering what drama they were playing out, but they had their own lives to lead and they hurried on as Ruth looked up at him.

“I'm so sorry. …”

He nodded, unable to answer her, touched her arm, and went back upstairs silently with his head bent. His life was a nightmare suddenly and it wouldn't go away no matter what he did to stop it.

It was even worse that night when he took his parents back to the hotel after Liz had insisted on cooking dinner. They were leaving the next morning, and she wanted to cook for them. The food had been wonderful, as it always was, but it was a ghastly strain watching her struggle to do all she had done so effortlessly before. Nothing was effortless for her anymore, not even breathing.

He kissed his mother good night at the hotel. They were going to the airport on their own the next day, and then he turned to shake his father's hand, and their eyes met, and suddenly Bernie couldn't take it a moment longer. He remembered when he had been a little boy and had loved this man …when he had looked up to him in his white doctor's coat…when they had gone fishing in New England in the summer…. Suddenly it all came rushing back to him and he was five years old again …and his father, sensing that, put his arms around him as Bernie began to sob, and his mother turned away, almost unable to stand it.

His father walked him slowly outside, and they stood there in the night air for a long, long time, as his father held him.

“It's all right, son, it's all right to cry …” And as he said the words, tears slid down his own face onto his son's shoulders.

There was nothing anyone could do for him. And at last they both kissed him goodbye and he thanked them, and when he got back to the house, Liz was already in bed, waiting for him, wearing one of the wigs his mother had brought her. She wore them all the time now and Bernie teased her about them sometimes, secretly disappointed that he hadn't thought of buying them for her himself. She loved them. Not as much as her own hair of course, but they saved her vanity, and it was a subject of constant conversation between her and Jane. “No, Mommy, I like the other one …the long one…. This one's pretty good.” Jane would grin. “You look funny with curly hair.” But at least she was no longer scary.

“Were your mom and dad okay, sweetheart?” She looked at Bernie questioningly when he got back. “It took you a long time to take them back to the hotel.”

“We had a drink.” He smiled, pretending to look guilty instead of sad. “You know how my mother is, she never wants to let go of her baby.” He patted her hand and went to change, and slipped into bed beside her a moment later. But she had already drifted off to sleep, and he listened to the labored breathing beside him. It had been three months since they'd found out that she had cancer, and she was fighting valiantly and the doctor thought the chemotherapy was helping. But in spite of all of that, Bernie thought that she was getting worse. Her eyes grew larger every day, they sunk deeper, her features grew sharper and she lost more weight, and there was no denying now that she was having trouble breathing. But he wanted to hang onto her anyway, for as long as he could, doing whatever they had to do, no matter how difficult it was for her. She had to fight, he told her constantly … he wouldn't ever let her leave him.

And that night he slept fitfully, dreaming that she was going on a trip, and he was trying to stop her.

Her teaching seemed to bring some life back to her. She loved “her” children, as she called them. She was only teaching them reading this year. Tracy was teaching them math and another sub was handling the rest of the curriculum. The school had been incredibly flexible about letting Liz reduce her schedule. They cared about her a great deal, and they had been stunned at the news she had told them so bluntly and quietly. And word had traveled around the school fairly rapidly, but it was still being spoken in hushed whispers. Liz didn't want Jane to know yet, and she prayed that none of the children would hear it from their teachers. It was no secret to her colleagues, but she didn't want the children to know yet. She knew she wouldn't be able to come back next year. It was too hard getting up and down stairs, but she was determined to finish out the year, no matter what, and had promised the principal she would, but in March word got out and one of her students looked at her sadly, with tears bright in her eyes, and her clothes disheveled.

“What's up, Nance?” She had four brothers and loved a good fight. Liz looked at her with a special smile and smoothed down her blouse for her. She was a year younger than Jane, who was in third grade now. “You get in a fight with someone?”

The child nodded and stared at her. “I punched Billy Hitchcock in the nose.”

Liz laughed. They gave life back to her every day she was there with them. “Why'd you do a thing like that?”

She hesitated, and then jutted out her chin, ready to take the whole world on. “He said that you were dying …and I told him he was a big, fat liar!” She started to cry again and used two fists to wipe her eyes as she mixed tears and dirt and left two giant streaks down her cheeks as she looked up at Liz, begging for a denial. “You aren't, are you, Mrs. Fine?”

“Come here, let's talk about this.” She pulled up a chair in the empty classroom. It was lunchtime, and Liz had been looking over some papers. She sat the little girl down next to her, and held her hand. She had wanted this to come much later. “You know, we all have to die sometime. You know that, don't you?” The little hand in hers held fast to her, as though trying to be sure she'd never leave them. She had been the first to make her a present for Alexander the year before. She had knitted him a little blue scarf with holes and knots and dropped stitches everywhere, and Liz had loved it.

Nancy nodded, crying again. “Our dog died last year, but he was real old. My daddy said that if he were a person, he'd have been a hundred and nineteen years old. And you're not that old.” She looked worried for a minute. “Are you?”

Liz laughed. “Not quite. I'm thirty. And that's not very old …but sometimes …sometimes things just happen differently. We all have to go up to God at different times …some people even go when they're babies. And a long, long time from now, when you're very old and go up to God, I'll be waiting for you there.” She started to choke, and fought back tears of her own. She didn't want to cry, but it was so hard not to. She didn't want to be waiting for anyone. She wanted to be there with them, with Bernie and Jane and Alexander.

And Nancy understood that perfectly. She cried harder and threw her arms around Liz' neck, holding her tight. “I don't want you to go away from us … I don't want you to …” Her mother drank, and her father traveled a lot. Since kindergarten she had had a passion for Liz, and now she was going to lose her. It wasn't fair. Nothing was anymore. And Liz gave her some cookies she had made as she tried to explain about the chemotherapy and that it was supposed to help her.

“And it might, Nance. I might stick around for a real long time that way. Some people do that for years.” And some don't, she thought to herself. She saw the same things Bernie did. And now she hated looking in the mirror. “And I'm going to be here at school all this year, and that's a pretty long time, you know. Why don't you not worry about it for a while? Okay?” Little Nancy Farrell nodded, and eventually went outside to think over what Liz had said, with a handful of her chocolate peanut cookies.

But on the way home in the car that afternoon, Liz felt drained and Jane was staring silently out the window. It was almost as though she were angry at her mother, and just before they got to the house, she snapped her head around and glared at her, her eyes filled with accusation.

“You're going to die, aren't you, Mom?”

Liz was shocked by the suddenness and vehemence of what she said but she knew instantly where it had come from. Nancy Farrell. “Everyone will someday, sweetheart.” But it wasn't as easy to put her off as Nancy. They had more at stake between them.

“You know what I mean …that stuff… it isn't working, is it? The chemo.” She said it like a dirty word as Liz watched her.

“It's helping a little bit.” But not enough. They all knew that. And it was making her so damn sick. Sometimes she thought it was killing her more quickly.

“No, it's not.” Her eyes said that she thought her mother wasn't trying.

Liz sighed as she parked the car in front of the house. She still drove the same old Ford she'd had when she married Bernie, and she parked it on the street. He used the garage for his BMW. “Baby, this is hard for all of us. And I'm trying very, very hard to get better.”

“Then why aren't you?” The enormous blue eyes in the child's face filled with tears and suddenly she crumpled on the seat beside her mother. “Why aren't you better yet? …Why? …” And then she looked up at her, terrified. “Nancy Farrell says you're dying….”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Her own tears rolled down her face as she held Jane close to her. And Jane could hear the labored breathing. “I don't know what to say to you. One day everyone has to die, and maybe it won't happen to me for a long time. But it could. It could happen to anyone. Someone could drop a bomb on us while we're sitting here.”

She looked up at her mother and sobbed raggedly. “I'd like that better. … I want to die with you. …”

Liz squeezed her so tight it hurt. “No, you don't…. Don't ever say a thing like that…. You have a long, long life to live. …” But Liz was only thirty.

“Why did this have to happen to us?” She echoed the question they all asked themselves, but there was no answer.

“I don't know …” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as they sat in the car, together, holding each other tight, waiting for the answer.