Not To Us (36 page)

“My mother just took them for ice cream,” I say in a tired voice. “I wasn’t aware of your plans.” I transfer the hair in my left hand to my right still behind my back and try to casually wipe the tears from my face with that now free hand.

“Your mom’s here?” Michael asks in surprise.

He is fully aware that Helen Katherine Miles is better taken in small doses. One visit a year is about all I can normally handle and she has already been here twice this year.

“Yes. She wanted to visit before the babies arrived,” I say so convincingly; I almost believe it myself. I see Michael nodding. “So…I guess you could try Mathew’s cell phone and catch up to them.”

Michael stares at me, while I stand there, hiding my clumps of hair behind my back. I’m not exactly sure how my head looks. I have a lot of hair in my hand, but convince myself that what remains on my head looks normal; however, keeping up this façade of nonchalance is wearing on me.

I’m feeling vulnerable and exposed with only a bath towel around me. I stare back at him with defiance. My body betrays me further as the nausea rises, too.

“I need to get dressed.” I give him this imploring look, but he still he stands there. “I need to get dressed
alone
.”

“Sorry. I’ll leave you,” he says and gets this wounded look.

He turns toward the door and I take a shallow breath. “Okay. Call Mathew. I’m sure they would love to see you,” I say in a kinder tone.

I watch him go; then, immediately run over and lock the door behind him. I stare down at the clumps of hair in my right hand for a long moment; then drop them in the sink. I’m not sure what to do with it, just yet. Overwhelmed, I lean against the vanity and start to cry. I say fuck, over and over, at least a few dozen times. It makes me feel slightly better.

Once dressed in maternity jeans and the red blouse Lisa picked up for me, I finally face the mirror and take a good look at my hair. No bald spots are prominent. I gingerly comb through it and part it slightly different.

I’m sure I’ll have a few more days of normalcy. Then, I’ll have to deal with this latest issue. I leave it down and let it dry naturally. I’m afraid to do any blow-drying; fearful that may cause it to fall out even faster.

I don’t even contemplate rational thought at this point. I’m too uneasy at seeing Michael again and losing my hair all in the same day. It’s too much for me.

I’ll admit it. I’m vain about my hair. I considered it my second best asset right behind my bodacious tah tahs and look where that got me.

I make up my face and stare at the woman looking back at me. I guess my cheekbones are an acceptable asset and my lips are a natural rose color. My blue eyes are kind of pretty, this kind of glacial aquamarine. I apply a little blush and a light beige eye shadow and pencil in a light brown across my eyebrows. Lisa already warned me that my eyebrows will go by the wayside, just like my head of hair. With make-up, I feel slightly better and due to being pregnant, I’m somewhat glowing, despite chemo. I finish up by brushing my teeth, again.

I’ve almost convinced myself I’ll be okay, if I can keep the nausea at bay for a little longer.

With reverence, I grab my hair from the other sink, intent on keeping it, until I can figure out what I want to do with it. Can you donate stuff like this? Or, is chemo hair the wrong kind of thing to donate? I move cautiously down the stairs, grabbing the railing with one hand as I descend. I’m so tired. It’s hard to keep going, even at this glacial pace. I move even slower towards the kitchen intent on finding a Ziploc bag, now. I’m still holding my hair in one hand, when I turn around and discover Michael coming from the direction of the family room. I thought he’d gone.

“What are you doing?” Michael asks in bewilderment.

“Nothing.”

I have nothing left to say. I have nothing left to give.

It has all been taken from me. I have paid the price.

I frantically search the cupboards looking for the Ziploc gallon-sized bags, no longer caring that Michael is watching me. I put my hair in the bag and zip it up.

“Are you doing
chemo
?” Michael asks, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I look over at him and just shake my head without answering. Nausea comes back full force at this action and I race back up the stairs at a frantic painful pace and head for the first bathroom. I barely make it to the toilet before I’m dry-heaving again.

I sink to the floor and wait, knowing another session of this will follow within five minutes or less. Michael watches me from the doorway with this renewed intensity. He seems desperate to try and put this all together for himself.

“Tell me
why
you’re doing chemo,
now
, after all this time.”

“No,” I say with as much dignity as I can manage.

Michael stands there, with his hands on his hips, contemplating me. He has this bewildered look.

I turn away from his scrutiny and finally vomit once more before pulling myself up from the floor. I wash my hands and grab a new toothbrush from the drawer and begin brushing my teeth and continue to ignore him.

“What’s the regimen? What did Lisa and Stephen put you on?” Michael finally asks.

“Adriamycin and Cytoxan,” I say too easily.

I move past him, while he’s still taking in what I’ve just told him. Intent on escaping these close quarters as I realize my mistake in telling him the regiment for AC too late.

I go to the master bedroom determined to make the bed, since I can’t stand crawling into an unmade one. Of course, he follows me.

“I thought you were going to call Mathew and catch up to the kids,” I say irritably. I’m at the breaking point. I don’t want him to see it.

“Adriamycin and Cytoxan would only be appropriate if you had another reoccurrence,” Michael says slowly. “AC is a good combination chemotherapy. Lisa and Stephen only talked about using one of those drugs, not both. And, why wasn’t I
told
?”

“You’re
off
the team.” I see him wince.

With false bravado, fighting through the pain pulsating through the middle of my torso, I pull up the sheets and start to make the bed. I’m so tired. My whole body seems to ache.
What’s wrong with me today?
Then, I remember I haven’t taken any pain medication this morning. And, my hair is falling out. And, now, Michael is here asking me too many questions, when all I want to do is crawl into the bed and really, at this point, die. Truly, I do.

“Ellen Kay,” Michael says unevenly.

I look up at him. Apparently, he’s been helping me make the king-size bed, while I’ve been lost in my own feel-sorry-for-Ellie-soliloquy.

“It came back,” I finally say.

The last of his resolve crumbles away. His shoulders sag and his eyes fill with tears. I’m reminded of the day with the big burly movers. I step back away from him.

“I can’t take it anymore, Michael. Your
sadness
.
Mine
. I can’t take any of it anymore!” I move out of the room away from him. He catches up to me, of course, because I can’t move that fast between being this pregnant with twins and this pain that’s become unbearable by the minute. He grabs me by the arms and I cry out.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you in pain like that?” He unbuttons my blouse. “They went back in, again?” He examines the incisions as he talks to me. “A
double mas
with reconstruction? And, no one
told
me.”

“
The team
was told not to say anything to you.”

“By who?” Michael demands.

“By me!” My voice trembles. “Lisa. Stephen. Josh did the surgery and Tom did the reconstruction.”

Michael is looking at me in utter astonishment. “When?”

“The day after you left.”

I try to give him a nonchalant shrug, but the movement causes me to recoil in pain. My hands shake as I try to button my blouse, but it hurts too much to raise my arms. Michael begins buttoning it for me.

“I can’t do this. I can’t talk to you, not today.”

“Pain level?” Michael asks.

His persistence about my pain level pisses me off.

“A fucking ten! How about that? I forgot to take my meds this morning, not that it would have mattered, since I’ve thrown up five times this morning already.” I pull away from him “I’m too tired to fight with you.”

I race down the stairs, intent on getting away from him before he sees me completely breakdown. With shaking hands, I grab a glass of water from the tap and take two pain pills. I lean against kitchen sink, wipe at my face with the back of my hand, and stare unseeing out the window.

In the stillness, I acknowledge that Michael’s presence is wreaking this incredible havoc on my senses. I shake my head. It’s still a heady experience to have him here, even if my circumstances seem beyond dire. I wearily smile, admitting to the irony of all of this. I stare out at the blue-grey water on this rainy day, while the nausea still threatens. I grab a cracker from the drawer and eat it quickly, hoping to quell it a little longer. Michael comes into the kitchen. He opens the cupboard, grabs a coffee cup and fills it with hot water from the steamer. I look over at him somewhat dismayed, but curious.

“How about a cup of tea? Maybe some soup? Go sit down in the family room. I’ll bring it to you.” His gentle tone brings fresh tears. I turn away before he can see them.

“Fine,” I say with disquiet.

In the family room, I sit down and pull an afghan around my shoulders and close my eyes for a moment and try not to think of him just thirty feet away from me. We are four months and a whole lifetime away from where we were when we said
I do
to each other.

Hearing him come into the room, I open my eyes. He carries a wooden tray laden with a steaming cup of tea, a bowl of cottage cheese, sliced apples, cubed cheddar cheese, and a bowl of hot broth. It is more food than I’ve been able to eat in the last three weeks and keep down, but I don’t tell him this.

I just try to smile one of my yeah-team smiles, but it fails me as I stare up at him.
Michael.

He hands me the cup of tea and sits down next to me.

“Thank you.” I take a few tentative sips, just hoping I can keep it down. “It’s good.”

“It’s tea, Ellen Kay. It isn’t the cure for cancer. It doesn’t excuse what I’ve done. How I’ve hurt you.” Michael gets this tormented look. “It doesn’t take away your pain. It’s a simple combination of hot water and a tea bag, nothing more.”

“It’s good. Thank you.” I take another sip before I set it down. “It’s not going to bring back my hair,” I say sadly, looking over at him again, uncertain.

“Your hair will grow back.”

“It won’t be the same.”

He smiles upon hearing my imitation of our six-year-old’s tone. “No, it won’t be the same. But…you’ll be here and that’s all I ever wished for.”

There’s this long shared silence between us. This sense of peace seems to steal into the room and overpower both of us at the same time.