If I Lose Her (23 page)

 “Fifteen,
maybe eighteen hours a day.” Then she handed me the blanket. “You should try
and get some sleep so you can be awake when she wakes up.”

 “But what
if…”

 “Shh…” she
said putting a finger to my lips. “We don’t ask that question. Otherwise we
wouldn’t get the little sleep that we do. We just say good night and God bless
and hope that tomorrow will be another day.”

 Samantha
turned to Jo and leaned over her daughter’s face.

 “Goodnight
my beautiful girl, the joy of my life. I pray to God almighty that you sleep
well and rise with the morning.” Then I watched Samantha kiss Jo’s forehead as
gently as the falling of a feather. A tear streaked down her cheek and fell
from her chin onto Jo’s.

 “Good night
Alex,” she whispered. Then she closed the door.

 I sat in the
chair next to Jo’s bed in the room lit only from the light of a single small
lamp, and I just watched her for what seemed like hours. I watched her eyes
move slightly underneath her eyelids, and I wondered if she was dreaming; I
wondered if she was in pain. I watched the sheet over her chest rise and fall
so slowly that every pause before the next breath made me worry that she wasn’t
going to take another one, then she would. I watched the tips of her fingers
lying half-curled on her blanket as they flittered and twitched. I never
realized how much we move when we are asleep.

 Forty-eight
hours earlier I was in a Caribbean-jungle getting my passport stamped for entry
back into the United States. Now the mix of travel and the crash of my emotions
had left me mentally numb and my eyes feeling like grit. I leaned my head back
on the large chair and let sleep pull me into its oubliette when I was suddenly
woke to coughing. I sat up and saw Jo reaching for something. It was the small
plastic trashcan.

 I handed it
to her just as she threw up.

 “Oh baby,” I
said putting my hand on her shoulder.

 She wheezed
and started crying. “I’m sorry.”

 I handed her
a tissue. “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.” Then she closed her eyes and laid back
on her pillow. I took the plastic bin into the bathroom, cleaned it out in the
shower and came back to the bedroom. She was shaking.

 I pulled the
covers up over her shoulder as she reached out and wrapped her fingers around
my arm. “Will you lay with me?” she whispered.

 I pulled the
covers back and laid down next to her. She put her hand on my arm and I pulled
her close.

 She rolled
onto her side and opened her eyes. Then she traced the edge of my face with a
single finger like she was exploring the country of her childhood.

 “I missed
you,” she whispered.

 “I missed
you too.”

 “Where were
you?”

 “Colombia.”

 Her brow
dipped in puzzlement as she touched the bridge of my nose.

 “Colombia?
As in South America?”

 “Yeah. Dan
had something he wanted me to photograph for the paper.”

 “Did you
find your story?”

 She circled
the edge of my lips.

 “Yeah.”

 “Tell me
about Colombia.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’ve missed your voice.”

 I told her
about the children who would play in the streets and the vendors selling fruit.
I told her how the city is so full of tourists and so full of poverty at the
same time. I told her about the pastel buildings and the gold museum and soup
that gave me the runs for three days. I told her how I would go walking at
night and wish that she was there with me, how I’d fall asleep in my lonely
room with a photograph of her laying on the pillow next to me. Then I told her
how I realized on those cool humid nights when the trade winds would blow the
smell of damp trees through the streets that there was just no way I was going
to be able to live my life without her. I stopped. I looked over at her and
knew that she was sleeping.

 “How am I
going to live without you?” I whispered. Then I laid her hand on my face and
fell asleep.

 The next
morning I woke up as Susan was helping Jo walk in from the bathroom.

 “Hey you,”
she said with a soft smile. Then she sat down on a chair positioned next to the
window. “I get so tired of that bed.”

 “I’m heading
out to the store. Do you want me to get you anything?” Susan asked me.

 “No, thanks.
I’m alright.” Then Susan kissed Jo’s head and left.

 “How are you
feeling?” I asked Jo.

 She smiled.
“Well you’re back. And to celebrate I think I will have a piece of chocolate
with my soup.”

 “Mmm how
about a latte?”

 “Ahh I wish.
I don’t think I’d be able to hold it down.”

 “Oh. Sorry.”

 “It’s okay.”
Then she looked out the window. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”

 “Anything,”
I said sitting up.

 “Would you
photograph me?”

 “Uh…”

 “But not
like a journalist. I want you to find some way to make me beautiful.”

 I rose from
the bed and walked over to her. Then I knelt down and kissed her hand. “You are
still beautiful.”

 She pressed
her forehead against mine.

 Then there
was a knock on the bedroom door. I stood up and opened it to a man in his
fifties wearing a nice suit and carrying a large, black leather bag and a metal
case.

 “How’s my favorite
patient?” he said entering the room.

 “Good
morning doctor. I’m okay. I got sick again last night. Alex, this is Doctor
Peterson. Doctor this is my boyfriend Alex. He’s been in Colombia covering a
story for his newspaper.”

 “Good to
meet you,” he said giving me a robust handshake. Then he turned back to Jo.
“Have you had any fluids this morning?” and he helped her over to the bed.

 “Yes. I
drank half that bottle.”

 “I need you
to try to drink more than that for me if you can okay?” He reached into his bag
and pulled out some instruments. “What about your medication? Are you done with
your morning doses?” He asked checking her pulse and blood pressure.

 “Yes sir. I
know the drill. I decided to try and have some chocolate today.”

 “Really?
That’s good. Just take it easy okay, maybe a small piece to start with.” He put
his instruments away and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Today I want to
start you on that new treatment I talked to you about. Do you remember us
talking about that?” he asked, looking at her with a down turned chin.

 “That cell…
cell something treatment?

 “Stem cell
therapy, yes. It’s a new treatment that is showing a lot of promise. It will
require a series of injections every three days for the next three weeks. It
won’t have the same kind of side affects as the chemo, but I’m going to keep
you on the chemo for now just to be sure. Are you up for that?”

 “When do we
start?”

 “Today if
that’s alright. I brought the first series with me.”

 “Is it okay
if you don’t show me any needles?”

 He smiled.
“No problem. I’m going to have to ask you to leave now Alex. Just for a few
minutes…”

 “No. I’d
like him to stay if that’s alright.”

 “It’s
probably better if we have some privacy.”

 “With all do
respect, I’ve been gone three-months too long already,” I replied.

 He looked at
me for a minute.

 “Alright
then. Let me just use the restroom and we’ll get started.” Then he stood up and
walked to the door. “Alex, do you want to show me where the bathroom is?”

 “Sure.”

 I followed
him out into the hall and he closed the door.

 “I just want
to make sure that you are ready for this.”

 “I’m not
squeamish around needles.”

 “I’m not
just talking about the needles. She is going to start drawing her strength from
you.”

 “Okay.”

 “You and
Michael and Samantha and Susan are all as much a part of this battle with her
as I am. That means you need to eat and you need to sleep and you need to walk
away and try to get some exercise once in a while so that you can be on top of
your game for when she needs you.”

 “I
understand.”

 Then he
nodded and we both went back into the bedroom.

 He helped
her sit up on the edge of her bed, and he untied the back of her robe.

 “You’ll feel
some cold, but this is just alcohol,” he said. Then he reached in his bag and
took something out of his case that I couldn’t see.

 I kept
watching Jo and she kept watching me.

 “Now, you’re
going to feel some pressure,” he said. “Okay, here we go.”

 She winced
and squeezed her eyes shut.

 “Just look
away from the pain Jo,” I told her squeezing her hand.

 The
slightest of smiles crossed her lips.

 “Does it
work,” she whispered.

 “Not
really,” I said.

 Over the
next fifteen minutes he gave her two more injections through her back and into
her lung, each targeting a different area. I could tell that the last one hurt
because of how hard she squeezed my hand. Finally, he put an IV into her arm to
help her get some more fluids and a squirt of something to help her sleep.

 I walked
down to the living room where the doctor told her parents how everything went
and how she looked. I let them know that I needed to go back to my apartment to
pick up some clothes if I was going to be staying for a while. Then I went
outside, closed the door, dropped to my knees and started crying again. I never
considered myself a crier but I just couldn’t stand watching Jo in pain. I sat
on the concrete steps of their front porch and leaned against the brick wall
trying to pull myself together before the doctor came out and saw me in a mess
just minutes after trying to convince him that I was going to be strong for Jo.
Crawling across the concrete step was a black, orange and yellow butterfly with
what looked like a damaged wing. I reached down and it crawled onto the tip of
my finger. It washed its face with its legs and bobbed its head while it
stretched it wings and moved them back and forth.

 A minute
passed.

 I stood and
walked the tiny creature over to one of the bushes, and as I reached out to put
it on a branch it fluttered away. I don’t know how but somehow that gave me a
tiny drop of perspective that life outside of this house was still moving
forward. I sighed, got in my car and dialed my mom’s number on my cell.

 “Hello.”

 “Hi momma.”

 “Hey honey!
Are you back in town?”

 “Yeah, I got
in night before last. Are you at your store?”

 “No, I’m
home. You wanna stop by or are you busy?”

 “Can I?”

 “Of course!
Come on over. Have you eaten?”

 “No. I
haven’t really eaten since yesterday afternoon.”

 “Oh honey.
Come on then. I’ll fix us some lunch.”

 I drove to
her house in Lakewood and knocked on the front door. She opened it with a smile
then noticed that I was wearing a seriously wrinkled pair of dress slacks and
white shirt that was now untucked.

 As soon as I
saw her I felt the burning wave rise in the back of my throat.

 “Oh honey
what’s wrong? Come on in.”

 I walked up
and hugged her. “She’s dying momma.”

 “What? Who’s
dying?”

 “Jo.”

 “What!?”

 “I got back
from my trip and went to her house yesterday to apologize for everything that
happened; to apologize for just leaving like I did, but when I got there she
started crying and saying how she didn’t think she was going to ever see me
again. I told her how I had said I would be back in a few months in the note
that I left, but then she told me how she was diagnosed with some sort of tumor
in her leg that spread to her lungs before they could remove it.”

 “Oh no.
You’ve got to be kidding.” And she sat down on a chair in the kitchen.

 “I stayed
with her last night, but it was rough. Her color is gone. Her hair is gone. And
I can’t stop thinking about how I wasted the last three months that I could
have spent with her while she still had some strength.”

 “Oh honey.
You can’t think like that. You didn’t know that she was sick. You wouldn’t have
left if you had.”

 I sat
quietly for a minute while she tried her best to absorb what I had told her.
Then she asked me some more questions and I tried to answer them the best I
could. I was starving so she made me a bowl of my favorite comfort food that
she always made me while I was growing up: grilled cheese with a bowl of tomato
soup just for dipping.          
More time passed and I still needed to get some clothes from my place so I went
home, washed up and packed a bag. I looked at the camera gear sitting on the
kitchen table. It made me angry looking at it, angry at myself. But, Jo asked
me to take her photograph and I’d be damned if I was going to fail her again,
so I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and left.

 As I was
leaving my apartment I had an idea. I drove to Paris on the Platte, went in and
searched the menu. Mmm, chocolate-truffle cake. That will do. I bought a piece,
had them wrap it in their nicest, largest box and put a bow on it. They didn’t
have a bow, but when I explained that it was for my girlfriend who was dying,
the barista left the coffee shop and came back about five minutes later with a
beautiful, white satin bow.        Apparently, he
went down the street to a wedding planner and told them what he needed the bow
for, so they found him the best bow they had in their shop, and it was big and
beautiful and perfect.

 When I got
back to Jo’s house the doctor was gone and Jo’s parents showed me the guest
bedroom down stairs in the basement that I could call my own for as long as I
needed it.

 “Is she
still sleeping?”

 “Yes,”
Samantha replied.

 “Good.”

 I walked up
to her room, set the chocolate cake on her dresser with a fork and sat down
with a copy of ‘The English Patient’.

 Every three
days the doctor would come by and administer his injections with something to
help Jo sleep off the immediate pain. The times that she was awake were few and
far between, and I cherished every minute of them with the ever-looming
knowledge that any one of them could be our last.

 When I first
arrived she was walking around, slowly, but on her own. Then the days came when
she could only go up and down the front steps holding someone’s arm. That only
lasted about a week before she couldn’t walk at all anymore.

 I would talk
to her. Tell her how mom was doing. Tell her again about days in Minnesota.
Tell her about our first date and how scared I was and how much I loved what
the apartment smelled like when she was in it.