The Lovely Shadow (33 page)

It wasn’t only her weariness that concerned
me. June had begun complaining of lower back pain, and was eating
like a bird, trying to convince me that she just wasn’t hungry. I
also noticed that she seemed to be making an awful lot of trips to
the restroom.

Every month that went by seemed to leave her
weaker and more worn out than the month before and by November I
began pestering her to go to the doctor. She resisted, of course.
She was convinced that it was just the heavy workload she was
bearing at work, and the fact that she was growing older.

Dinner had always been a special time in our
family, similar to June and my morning ritual around the kitchen
table. When Miss Lilly was still with us, the three of us used to
sit around the dinner table, laughing, telling stories, talking
about our day, and life in general.

I was afraid that our evening soliloquies
might be dampened by Miss Lilly’s passing, but if anything, June
and I became more engaged with each other and grew even closer
during the dinner chats. Possibly because we realized in the face
of Miss Lilly’s death that the only thing either of us had standing
between us and a life of lonely solitude was each other.

It was nearly always at the dinner table that
June and I had our most serious discussions, and it was where I
most often brought up the topic of her going to see the doctor.

“I’m just gettin’ to be an old bitty, Baby,”
June said to me one night at supper as I pestered her about going
in for a checkup, “I’m going to be forty-five soon you know. It
ain’t like I’m a spring chicken.”

I chose to turn her reasoning against her.
Normally, even as clever as I was, June could usually beat me in a
battle of wits, and always beat me in a battle of wills, but I was
determined not to let that happen this time.

“Yes, June,” I said emphatically. “You are
getting older, which is exactly why it is so important for you to
get yourself checked out. Even if it’s just old age creeping up on
you, at least we’ll know that that’s all it is and not something
worse.”

“Oh, Johnny, you’re bein’ dramatic. All I
need is a week or so off to relax and I’ll be right as rain. Maybe
this spring when you have your two week break from school I’ll get
the time off from work and we’ll take a trip to the beach or
something, get a little R and R then, okay? Now stop pestering me
to go to the doctor.”

I exploded. I didn’t mean to explode, and
wasn’t even aware that I was going to explode until I jumped up
from my chair and words came gushing out of my mouth. “GODDAMMIT
JUNE! Don’t you get it? You are the only goddamn thing I’ve got
left in the world! You…that’s it…nothing else, I can’t lose you
too, June.”

As my flash flood anger subsided tears began
to well up in my eyes, and I could say nothing. All I could do was
stand there, with my muscles tensed and my fists curled into tight
balls, staring at June as the tears spilled over my lower eyelids
and ran down my cheeks.

June got up and came to where I stood and
held me as I lost all composure and sank into her, sobbing some
incoherent string of jabber about being alone into her shoulder. I
hadn’t intended to cry, but was glad I did.

Turning on the eye faucets has been a
reliable tactic that women have employed against men for millennia
to get their way, and I found it to be an effective weapon against
June’s stubbornness—albeit a weapon that I hadn’t used
intentionally.

“Ok, Baby,” June cooed as she rubbed my back
with one hand and held the back of my head with the other. “Shh,
shh, ok… I’ll go…I’ll go… ok? You’re right, it’s time. I’ll
go.”

Once I realized that the tears were working
wonders, (much better than my fake, onion induced tears from years
earlier) and appeared to be the one weapon I could use effectively
against June’s stubborn will, it became difficult to focus on what
she was saying because I was busy wondering how many past battles I
might have won if I’d been able to cry on command without the
pervasive smell of onions accompanying my tears.

When I finally stopped my mind from trying to
figure out new and exciting ways to use tears to my advantage and
began paying attention to June again, I was devastated to see that
she was feeling horrible about the “trauma” she’d put me through by
being so “selfish” and never stopping to think about how
“terrified” I must be at the prospect of being left alone in the
world.

In some ways she was right, I was terrified
of losing her, but I didn’t feel that she had been selfish, and I
was fairly certain I hadn’t been traumatized by her inaction—just
frightened and exasperated.

Even in light of my victory in our battle of
wills, the resultant guilt I felt for feeling like I had somehow
misled June or misconstrued my true feelings was enough to convince
me that using tears to one’s advantage was a dirty trick, and one
that I’d never employ again.

Two weeks later June had an appointment with
her doctor. Her doctor was not certain what was bothering her but
he was fairly certain that it was a lot more than heavy workloads
and old age so he ordered some blood work and asked June to come
back in a week later to go over the results.

The following week when June went to the
doctor, his prognosis was not at all encouraging. The blood tests
had come back showing a significant increase in white blood cell
counts as well as elevated CA 125 levels.

He suspected, but had no concrete evidence
that June may have ovarian cancer. He assured her that elevated
blood counts and CA 125 levels could have many different causes and
certainly were not the signature on a death warrant.

He performed an initial gynecological
examination and detected several masses in her uterus and decided
that it would be prudent to send her on to a specialist for further
evaluation. He set up an appointment with a local gynecologic
oncologist for the following week to do a thorough physical
examination on her.

June was terrified of what the oncologist
might find and it was all I could do to keep my own fear swallowed
down in order to be able to support and encourage June.

The old gambler known as Time was marching
relentlessly forward in November of 1999 and He had stacked the
cards against us, no doubt smiling as hope and joy were being
systematically removed from our lexicons.

The oncologist’s discoveries were not good.
June was diagnosed with stage-four ovarian cancer which had already
metastasized into her lungs and liver. The five year survival rate
for women diagnosed at this stage was only around eleven
percent.

If June was going to have any hope of
survival she would have to have a complete hysterectomy, as well as
have part of her liver and pieces of both lungs removed in order to
remove as much of the malignancy as possible (the oncologist called
this process “debulking”) before starting chemotherapy and drug
regimens in hopes of getting the cancer under control.

At the tail end of November, 1999, winter was
descending on the farm with unusually cold temperatures and
unusually distressing news. June came home from the doctor looking
as pale and as weak as I had ever seen her and I knew the news was
grim before she even said a word to me.

Before she was even halfway done
disseminating all the information the doctor had given her, Elle
breezed into the room and put her cold hand on my shoulder. As
usual I could not see her, but I could smell her as well as feel
her.

I was glad to know that she was there, but
her cold touch did little to warm my heart in the face of the grim
prognosis that June was delivering to me.

June was able to deliver her message without
tears. And until she was done talking I withheld my own tears, but
when she finished her dialogue we both broke into tears and
practically leapt into each other’s arms. Both of us were holding
onto the other for dear life, as if by holding on tightly in that
moment, we might never have to let go.

When June and I finally broke our embrace and
stepped away from one another I was somewhat startled by her
appearance. The faint shimmering outline that I saw around all
physical objects was suddenly much brighter around June.

It shone much brighter and had a much greater
depth of colors swirling about it in it, and they swirled at a much
more frantic pace than they ever had before. Her aura also extended
further out from her body than it previously had. Instead of the
normal inch or two that the aura normally extended, it now extended
at least six inches and seemed to be vibrating along the outer
edges of its perimeter.

By that point in my life I had already began
to suspect that my gift was increasing in power as I matured. At
that moment, while staring at June’s much more powerful aura, I
began to suspect something about the nature of the auras that I was
able to see, and I prayed silently that those suspicions were
wrong; dead wrong.

June’s oncologist had scheduled her surgery
for the middle of December which gave June and I only two weeks to
prepare ourselves for a major change in lifestyle.

I wanted to drop out of school so June could
recover quietly in the comfort of her home with me as her
caretaker, but of course June wouldn’t hear of it. We argued about
the topic incessantly. Both of us were so worried about the other
that we were constantly on edge. It was like we were walking a
constant tight rope, constructed of fear, tensioned by stress, and
ready to snap at any moment, sending us tumbling helplessly toward
the ground at death inducing velocity.

During all of our arguing I never resorted to
tears. Although I was close to real tears a few times from the raw
emotion of love and concern, I managed to keep my eyes dry so I
would not feel like I was being dishonest with June.

June did not, however, have a desert in her
tear ducts like I did, and was constantly weeping when we’d
argue.

I have never considered myself to be a cruel
person, nor selfish or unsympathetic, but looking back at those
arguments with June, I can see that I was far crueler, more
selfish, and had less sympathy than all the great monsters that had
come before me. My own shortcomings made Charles Manson and Ted
Bundy seem like tender hearted Samaritans by comparison.

Having recently discovered the power of tears
as a weapon for winning a disagreement, I immediately assumed that
June was turning on the water works in order to get her way, which
infuriated me for the simple fact that I had risen far above those
dirty tricks and I expected her to treat me with the same level of
respect that I bore for her.

In my anger I accused her of being selfish. I
told her that she was trying to manipulate me so she could get her
way, and that she was completely insensitive to my needs. I told
her she was cruel to treat me with such disregard.

I was an idiot. In my selfishness, in my
cruelty, in my voided empathy, and in my own preposterous self
righteousness, I had never once stopped to consider that June’s
tears were real. I had never stopped to consider that she was as
terrified as I was, but not only for herself, but also for what
might happen to me if she should die. She was doubly frightened,
where I had only been frightened for her.

I hate who I was during that time in my life.
It was not someone I’d ever been, and I have taken great pains to
ensure that I never become that person again. I am also terrified
when I consider that I might have never known that I was becoming a
creature of evil if it had not been pointed out to me by Elle.

Two days before June’s surgery, we were
having our same argument and I was making some particularly biting
remarks about how selfish June was being by trying to keep me out
of her recovery by planning to stay in a nursing home, and was just
opening my mouth to tell her how much she obviously didn’t love me
anymore when I was suddenly slapped—hard.

I was so shocked by the sudden pain that
flared across my cheek that I was rendered speechless for the
moment. During that moment of silence I heard Elle whisper in my
ear in an unmistakably seething tone of anger and disgust.

“Johnny Krimshaw, you are making me SICK! You
stand before this terrified woman and belittle her love for you
when she is facing these horrors simply to spare you grief. Do you
think it would not be easier for her to give up and die?”

“Are you so blind to human suffering that you
cannot see that her tears are real, and that in them is the sum of
her hope for your future? I can see not only your body Johnny, I
can see your soul, and what used to be bright is growing dark. You
are becoming less the man I fell in love with and more like the one
I died to forget. If you continue on this path, there will be no
hope for either of us, or for June. You have been my hope for these
nine years, Johnny... and hers.”

I felt a breath of wind blow past me as Elle
whisked herself out of my presence. I was dumbfounded by the
revelation that she had imparted to me. I stared at June who
suddenly looked small and frail, and I opened the dams in my eyes
and fell into her—begging for forgiveness.

I was overwhelmed by the sudden and complete
knowledge of all I’d done to hurt her over the past couple weeks
and I could not bear to look her in the eye, as I suddenly knew how
undeserving I was of the love that she’d been pouring out to me
unceasingly since rescuing me from my mother’s basement.

June held me through my tearful apologies
until I quit sobbing and finally she pushed me away and looked me
straight in the eye, I tried to turn away, too ashamed to hold her
gaze, but she grabbed my head and turned it back towards her,
forcing eye contact.

“Baby Doll,” she said, “I love you. No more
apologies, ok? We’ll make it through this together.”