Not To Us (32 page)
Authors: Katherine Owen
I let Lisa read what I’ve typed.
“I did
not
say he was too wise!”
“I’ve got to let him down easy. If I say he’s too young for me, he’ll be crushed,” I say.
“Well, we wouldn’t want
that
,” Lisa says sarcastically. “He wasn’t too young for you?”
“No. He was amazing.”
“Jesus…and you get Michael, too?”
“Not perfect; far from perfect, but Michael’s my soul mate. Tenable and real.” I blush, take the phone back, and press send.
I type another text:
You should buy my house on Bainbridge Island; good things happen there. Love, Ellie.
And, press send.
My phone chirps and I get a text back.
I WALU
“Okay, what does that mean?” Lisa asks. The doctor with two advanced degrees reads the text over my shoulder.
“I will always love you,” I say unevenly.
“Oh my God,” Lisa says.
I power off the phone completely.
≈ ≈ ≈
Questions and Answers
W
e’ve spent the week on the Oregon coast in some of the most pristine ocean beach front in the world. It has been just the two of us. It has never been just the two of us—not in the twenty years that we have known or been aware of each other.
We have asked the hard questions. We have asked the easy ones. We have asked the fun ones and the not so fun ones. By the end of the week we are out of questions. We have answers.
Michael has told me that he loved me when he first met me at college. He thought the thing with Robert Bradford would blow over. Then, before he could declare himself for me, Bobby and I got married. He admitted his own culpability in marrying Carrie on the rebound and trying to make something work that was doomed from the start. He admitted that he went along with the whole sperm donor thing because he thought maybe a baby would make a difference and, of course, Elaina was the best thing that ever happened between Carrie and Michael. Elaina did make a difference.
Since I was pregnant with Nicholas, he knew it was less likely I would ever leave Robert. He admitted that he had thought about leaving Carrie a dozen times over their marriage.
When I asked him what stopped him from doing that? He replied, “
You
, Ellie.” Michael said he didn’t want to leave his life and me behind. He figured having me so close would be enough.
“You must be going crazy now,” I teased him.
“Pretty much,” he said with a laugh.
I told him that Robert and I had been growing apart for a long time. I, of course, refused to see my marriage as less than perfect. I think that is why it was so easy to overlook Bobby’s affair with Carrie, which, on some level, I think I knew was going on before I actually discovered them together at the Four Seasons all those months ago.
≈≈
Today, we walk along the beach with the mist coming in all around us. It’s a partly sunny, partly cloudy day. I hold on to Michael’s hand.
“So,” I say. “What are we going to do with twins?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to bring that up. How do you feel about that?”
“Well, baby, I’m a little freaked out. I’m not a super-mom.”
“We’ll get a nanny.”
“I don’t know Michael. Can we afford that? I want to be here for everything.”
“Are you excited or scared?”
“Can I be both?” I look over at him uncertain, seeking his reassurance.
“Yes. Ellen Kay, I’m right here. I’ll always be here standing close enough, so I can touch you whenever I want. Is that going to be enough for you?” Michael stops walking. He’s looking for an answer. His blue eyes look at me expectantly now. I reach my hands out to his chest and pull him to me. I look up into his face and he bends it towards me. Our kiss is sweet; and then turns fiery and passionate right there on the beach.
“Dr. Michael Shaw, do you still have doubts? Insecurities? Really? Does a soul mate really have to ask?”
He doesn’t smile. “I saw your texts. I know what IWALU means, Ellen Kay.”
I hold up the palms of my hands imitating a balancing scale. “Tenable and very real.” I lift my left hand. “Untenable.” I lift my right hand. “
Who
to choose?” I do the balance demonstration a couple more times and I see him watching me. I push against him. “No contest. Come on Michael. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
“I don’t believe you.” His voice is that of a sullen little boy. It makes me laugh.
“Okay, let me show you.” I take his hand and lead him back to our oceanfront home. “What are you going to be like when we have four kids running around?”
“I’ll need lots of reassurance and attention from you,” he says in this wounded voice.
“Well, let’s get to work on that right now. I have a little time for you, Dr. Shaw. Let me help you out.”
“Ellie, I don’t want to share you with Court Chandler.”
“I’m aware of that. I don’t want to share you with Carrie Bradford.”
“Well, I guess we’re on the same page.”
“Let me show you what page we’re on.” I take off his jacket and then, slip off mine. I light the gas fireplace and then, pull him down to the rug with me. “Now, what seems to be the problem, Dr. Shaw? Show me where it hurts. I’ll kiss it and make it go away.”
≈≈
Our week in Oregon has renewed our love, our spirit and our life together. We arrive home to the beach house in a better place. It is still difficult. Grief over Nicholas and Elaina steals into our home and into our hearts at unexpected times, but instead of hiding from it, Michael and I reach out to the other to make it through.
It is the third week in May. I’m at the end of week thirty-four of my pregnancy.
Mathew and Emily are in a state of constant wonder over the news that they’re going to have a brother
and
a sister. These are amniocentesis results on the smaller baby come back with.
So far, the genetic testing on baby two is all good news, just like baby one. The good.
The Doctors Chatham are still guarded about the “no chemo” directive from me. The bad. Michael hesitates too. I sense his reluctance with my decision, but he continues to support my choice.
We are way out of protocol, at this point. Everyone on our team is on edge with us.
Everything is out of process, out of protocol, at this juncture. I should have had a double mastectomy with complete reconstruction by now. That is what all the research tells me. I should never have had the radiation, since I was probably pregnant by then. We are talking days plus or minus based on these calculations. I shouldn’t have had the MRI, but then, we may not have seen the right breast tumor on Ultrasound. Should have. Could have. Would have. All these uncertainties weigh down on everyone, including me. The bad.
≈≈
I’m brushing my hair and then pull it up in a ponytail like Elaina used to wear hers. My long blonde hair shines in the mirror from the overhead lighting in our master bathroom and I stop and look at myself in the mirror. Am I really so vain that I would rather keep my hair, then have the chemo? Am I so deluded to think that I can beat odds that other people have succumbed to? And, am I willing to risk my life by not getting chemo therapy against the Doctors Chatham wishes because…I don’t want to be here in two years? Is that the path I’m choosing? These wayward thoughts come out of nowhere.
I pick up my cell phone with trembling hands and stare at it for a long time. Finally, I press the familiar number.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
“God, it is
about
time,” Lisa says in irritation. “I’ll be there within the hour.”
I’m out at the beach walking the shoreline. We’ve been blessed with a perfect day. The sun is shining and the water is this intense vivid blue with these pure white caps floating on top. The breeze is gentle and blows at my clothes and hair like a caress.
Michael and Robert have taken the kids sailing. This is new. We purchased a sailboat with Robert and Carrie about a week ago. The gorgeous thirty-five foot schooner is now moored at the Bainbridge Island Yacht Club, when they aren’t out sailing her. I’m not comfortable on a sailboat, right now, so I beg off on the trip. And, because I don’t go; Carrie doesn’t go either. We have this unwritten, unspoken agreement going on between us. Carrie does not attend functions with Michael, if I’m not there. We’ve never talked about it again, about her and Michael, since our shared car trip that brought me back home, but knowing Carrie as I do, I know she’s very afraid of her life with Robert Bradford completely unraveling. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that doesn’t happen.
I’ve accepted the loss of a close friendship with Carrie. The trust and love that we had for each other is far away from us. I feel sorry for her, but not enough to risk having her insecurities and her twisted moral code around Michael and me. So, we’re distant. She’s doing more and more things with Marjorie Bingham. This doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t amuse me. It makes me sad. She chose this course for us. I can live with it.
≈≈
“Well, I guess I can see why you came back from Italy, after all,” Lisa drawls. She stands with her arms crossed in front of her from the edge of the lawn, watching me.
I take leisurely strides towards her. My sandals fill with the warm sand and I smile at her.
“It’s a form of paradise,” I say. I hug her for a moment. “Thanks for coming.”
“Been waiting for your call for a while now,” Lisa says with a sigh. She goes over to the far chair and sits down. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” I sense her frustration. The miracle worker is way out of her element and definitely not in control.
“Why did you go into a practice for both gynecology and cancer?” I ask. She gives me a wary look. I realize that as close as Lisa and I have become in these past months, I don’t know the answer to this question. She looks over and studies me, measuring my ability for secrecy, I think. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m not worried about that.” She hesitates. “I don’t want to
scare
you more than you already are.”
“I’m not scared.” I can still lie like a tarot card reader.
“Sure you are,” Lisa says with an edge to her voice. “And, you
should be
. Cancer is a wicked…a wicked thing.”
She gives me an appraising look and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. She just stares out at the water. Finally, she sighs. “My mother died from cancer. I was fifteen. She was six months pregnant and discovered…a lump in her breast.”
My head whips up at this revelation. I stare at her, open-mouthed, in shock.
“Well, this was twenty years ago.” Her face contorts with unforeseen pain. “So, a pregnant woman with breast cancer was virtually unheard of and they followed the protocol of the time. Cut her up like a filleted fish
—
took her breasts and her lymph nodes, but they didn’t catch it. It had already spread to her bones.”
She stops. Then, she looks at me for a moment, studies my reaction. “I watched her die a little bit each day. The baby died, of course. They didn’t exactly perform an abortion, but they basically killed that baby. They dumped so many drugs into her system, trying to kill cancer that they almost killed them both. And…she died anyway. She was thirty eight.
Thirty-eight
. Two years older than I am now. Your age, Ellie.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lisa.” My heart pounds wildly in my chest. I feel like I am hearing the story of my own fate at her words.
“Me, too,” she says back to me. I see the sorrow and pain in her golden brown eyes. “So, I’m driven to go into medicine to become a specialist in fighting cancer and helping pregnant women keep their babies, while fighting this wicked, awful disease because of my mother. But…” I see regret in her expression, as if, she has said too much.
“But what?” I grab her hand, imploring her to tell me.
“I don’t know if we’re winning,” Lisa says with a sad smile.
I drop her hand, get up, and begin pacing the lawn back and forth in front of her. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know if what I’m doing is the right thing for anyone.” I look over Lisa and stop pacing. “I miss Nick and Elaina. Sometimes. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m supposed to be with them.”
“God damn it, Ellie! Don’t ever say that!” Lisa is on her feet and towering over me in this frightening fury. “Ellie, you have everything to live for. You have two beautiful children and two more on the way. You have Michael. You could have Court Chandler if you want; you just have to say the word. He still calls me every other day to ask how you’re doing.”
“He does?” I ask in this faraway voice.
I have ignored his texts on my cell phone for weeks, not that I didn’t still think about him and wonder what could have happened between us if…if I didn’t have cancer, if I wasn’t married to Michael, if he wasn’t under thirty, if I wasn’t pregnant with twins. Twins just seemed to make it completely impossible to be with Court Chandler. As soon as I learned I was carrying twins, it seemed to kill the last of the connection between us. Of course, not seeing Court has helped out with that as well, but now, hearing Lisa say his name brings it all back.
Untenable, but real enough,
I think now.
“Have you heard a single word I’ve said?” Lisa asks in exasperation.
“No,” I say with this twisted smile. “I lost you when you mentioned Court’s name and the fact that he is still checking up on my every other day.”
“Come inside, Ellie,” Lisa says gently, now. “Let’s get some iced tea and talk this through.” I nod, while Lisa leads the way inside my home.
Home
, the one I share with Michael and Mathew and Emily, not Court Chandler.
Guilt courses through me because, today, I feel like making a trade in wish lists. I
want
to choose Court Chandler. Lisa fills two glasses with ice and pours the tea over them. The house is quiet, as I sit there with my friend, Dr. Lisa Chatham, my oncologist, my gynecologist, my truth-seeker.
“Lisa,” I say. “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I move past this? Past
him
?”
“I know more than I should about what went down this spring,” Lisa says to me now.
I lift my head from my fascination with the iced tea in my glass that I’ve been absently swirling and look at her. I flinch at her words.
“I think Court represents the purity of what love can be. I’m not saying I condone getting back together with him,” she adds. “But you are going to have to decide if you
trust
Michael.”
“I thought I’d already dealt with this.”
I did.
I thought we’d made it through this intense truthful discussion at the Oregon coast. Lisa’s right. I have to decide if I trust Michael as well as myself.
“Ellie, what do you want?” Lisa asks me now.
“I want all of my wishes. I want Nick and Elaina back.”
Lisa grabs both my hands.“I’m sorry they died. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a child, but, Ellie, you have to look at your future and decide what you want it to be.”
“Do I have a future?” I ask with a trace of hostility
—
a permanent side effect of grief and cancer.
“Ah, so that’s what this is. You’re afraid of dying as much as you are afraid of living. It’s okay to experience joy again, Ellie, to go on without Nick and Elaina,” she says gently.
