Not To Us (12 page)

“No.”

“I guess I better talk to Michael.”

Tom nods. “I think so.”

“So, will you be able to make similar bodacious tah tahs for me?” I ask, trying to put a good spin on things. I’m not sure where all this optimism is coming from. It’s like I saved it up from my first thirty-eight years and am using it up now in these past few precious weeks.

“Yes,” Tom says with an easy laugh. “Ellie, you’re going to be okay, you know?”

“Easy for the plastic surgeon to say,” I tease. I like Tom. I trust him.

“Monday, then.”

“Monday, it is,” I say back to him as he leaves the room. “If you see Michael, can you send him my way?”

“You got it.” Tom winks at me as he leaves.

≈≈

“We have a problem,” I say to Michael as soon he comes into the patient room where they have me waiting for the biopsy.

We’ve been here for hours. I would very much like to go home, but I refrain from complaining because I notice my husband-to-be is barely hanging in there.

“Just one?” Michael asks with a faint smile.

He has this wave of stress that continues across his features. His smile is forced. I can feel him breaking apart right in front of me. I take his hand and hold it in mine.

“Well, I’m choosing
just one
to focus on, right now,” I say with a laugh. “I really want to wear that wedding dress. It’s just such a fabulous dress and I know how much you’re going to enjoy it…later.”

“So, you’re saying you want to get married this weekend.”

“I believe that is what I’m saying. If, you’re up for it.” I watch him sigh and take a deep breath. He tries to smile.

“I guess I’m going to have to remind you I’m one that asked you in the first place and couldn’t wait.” Michael takes my hand and presses his lips to it.

“Still can’t wait, though?” I ask a little uneasy, now.

“Still can’t wait.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay.”

“We could still host a party for all those flying in. I would still like to see my dad, my mom, and your parents. You only marry your soul mate once.” His blue eyes light up at this last part and I watch a little bit of his stress ebb away from his face.

“We could get married twice. Different dress,” Michael says.

“Long sleeve, high neck showing very little cleavage number?” He nods. “It’s going to cost you,” I say with a wicked grin.

“Don’t care.”

He kisses me, now. “I love you, Ellen Kay.”

“I love you, Michael.” He presses his lips to my hand.

≈≈

This has been the longest day. The biopsy is finally done and only confirms that the cancer is malignant. No surprise there. I wish I hadn’t had to hang around for two additional hours to find out something that deep down everyone already knew, but there is always process and procedures to follow.

Michael is driving us back off the ferry. We take an unfamiliar route.

I forget that it was only yesterday that we moved the last of our furniture to the beach house. I didn’t even stop to enjoy and embrace the last night I spent in the old house
—
the home I had shared with Robert for sixteen years.

This melancholy steels over me. Damn it. Why am I ready to cry over something that is long gone, long past? Maybe, because it is something I was sure about and the future up ahead now seems uncertain and ever changing.

“What do you want to tell the kids?” Michael asks.

“Well, let’s tell them we’re getting married on Saturday,” I say absently while staring out the window.

“That’s
tomorrow
.”

“It is? Oh, God. I thought it was Thursday.” I stop for a moment. “Okay,” I say and nod my head. “Well, I would rather get married tomorrow, so we have Saturday night to, you know…consummate this thing between us. That way I can eat something, anything I want, past midnight. Tomorrow works.”

Michael is laughing. “Ellie, you constantly amaze me, you know that?”

“I do? Constantly?” I carefully lean over and playfully stroke his face.

“Constantly,” he says.

“Michael,” I say with so much emotion it is hard to speak. “You amaze me, too.”

≈≈

So, telling the kids has not gone as well as we had expected it to go. They’re on edge and suspicious as to why all of a sudden the date for the wedding has been moved up by three weekends. They’re not buying the we-are-anxious-to-get-married-and-just-want-to-be-all-together shtick.

My little biopsy incision begins to ache. Michael looks over at me. “What’s the number?”

“Seven.” I get up from the cozy chair in the family room and go to our fabulous white and gold granite kitchen for a glass of water. He follows me and hands me two white pills.

Emily is watching us the entire time. “What is
wrong
with you, mother?” Apparently, Emily has spokesman status for the entire brood of children, now. Mathew, Nicholas, and even Elaina are looking at her with true admiration. Emily stands there in that all-too-familiar stance, hands on her hips, and asks the question they’ve all been afraid to ask.

“Momma’s sick,” I say in my best and lightest tone. “They found more bad cells and I have to have a big surgery on Monday to take care of all that, so we wanted to get married and have all of you get dressed up and celebrate being in this house…together…this weekend.” I pause, looking for the right words to tell this story. “Because…well, after Monday, we may be having pizza every night for a few more weeks.” I try to smile at them all with this news. “We’re still going to have the other big wedding celebration. This one tomorrow will be just for us.”

“I don’t get it,” Emily says. Her frustration is unmistakable and every child in the room, even the two about to turn seventeen, seems to await my answer. The room holds its collective breath.

I look over at Michael and wanly smile. “Well, I want to wear my most fabulous wedding dress and I won’t be able to wear that at the big party in the next few weeks,” I say slowly. “I’ll have to wear a different dress.”

Elaina starts to cry. She just starts
crying
.

My six-year-old gives her a funny look, trying desperately to understand or read her mind. I see in Emily’s face the question: What does Elaina know that I don’t know?

Then, Elaina comes over to me. I enfold her in my arms even though my upper chest hurts like hell from all the procedures that I’ve had done in the last few hours.

“Ellie!” She cries out.

“Elaina, it’s going to be okay,” I say in my most soothing voice. “It
really
is.”

“How do you know?”

“I believe that. Your dad believes that.” Michael comes to stands beside me. He touches his daughter’s arm with his. She lifts her head from my chest and stares at us.

“Elaina, it’s going to be okay. I promise,” Michael says.

I look over at him. He hasn’t been able to do much promising the last few hours, let alone the last few days. I smile at him, now.

“Mother!” Emily says, all at once, in front of our little group. “Do you have
cancer
?”

Is it possible that we’ve never said the word around her? Around any of them? B
oth my sons’ heads whip around looking at my mouth to see what I will actually utter.

“I do,” I say. “I…do…have…cancer, but the big surgery on Monday will take care of all of that and I won’t have it anymore. I’m going to be fine.” I am not lying. I truly believe this.

My conviction must show on my face because they all come toward me and we do this family hug kind of thing. I can feel the emotion and power of their love. It radiates from all of them. I look over at Michael and I know he senses it, too. There is this look of wonder on his face. I reach out to him and hold his hand and give him one of my these-are-the-moments-we-will-always-have looks and smile for him alone.

≈≈

The bedrooms are situated fairly and far enough apart, everyone is sleeping where they are supposed to be. I tell Michael that we really need to have the Elaina and Nicholas conversation between us; and then, with them, too, sometime soon. He agrees, but says not tonight. I agree.

It is late Friday night. We are both awake and lying there in the dark together.

“I put a lot of pressure on Tom for perfection for the bodacious tah tahs,” I say finally.

We have not spoken of my double mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction surgery scheduled for Monday. Not one word. For a procedure that Michael performs with the surgical team at least once a week, he is reluctant to talk about it. He laughs in the dark at the bodacious tah tahs comment though and reaches for me, now. I am instantly on fire at his touch, in a good way. “Thank God for pain killers.”

“Yeah,” he says back to me. “Thank God for those.”

“I’m not usually this high maintenance, you know.”

“You’re not high maintenance even now,” he whispers.

“I love you, Michael. We’ll make another.”

“We will,” he says back to me.

His tears mingle with mine. I know he’s crying because of the sacrifice that he acknowledges I’m making in giving up this child, but I don’t think he realizes I’m crying because I just want three things
—
him, the kids, and me.

My sense of humor is still intact. Okay, really eight things if I list off the kids separately and count my breasts. Well, really, nine things, if I’m being honest, since I continue to hope for the miracle baby inside, too. Nine things. Only nine, less than ten. That’s it. I won’t ask for more.

≈ ≈ ≈