The Saving Graces (18 page)

   The sunset was blinding; we had to turn our chairs away until it dropped under the haze on the horizon. "This is the life," we took turns saying, lolling on our backbones, bare feet up on the railing. "This is what it's all about." Rudy couldn't remember if this was the third or the fourth time we'd come to Hatteras to celebrate, and everybody started reminiscing. "Why don't we go for a walk on the beach?" I interrupted to suggest. I had a surprise in store for them, but not until tomorrow night; too much nostalgia this early could spoil it.
The tide was running out. We went along the shore two by two, Rudy and Emma in the shallow surf with their pants legs rolled up, Isabel and me higher up on the wet sand. Isabel wore a pretty red and green scarf around her head, and she looked wonderful, you would never suspect anything was wrong with her. She claimed the drugs were making her gain weight, but I couldn't see it.
"How do you feel?" I asked.
"Great." "It was a long drive-I'm tired myself. Sure you're okay?" "I'm fine." "How's Kirby?" "Great. Sends you his regards." "I really like him." She smiled. "I wasn't sure about him at first," I admitted. "But after that night. That first chemo night." She nodded. "What a night, huh?" Her second treatment was last week, and it had gone a lot better than the first. She wasn't as sick, and the nausea hadn't lasted as long. I didn't stay with her, Emma did, and not all night this time.
"So," I said. "Is he still in love with you?" She shook her head slightly, not to say no but to shake off the question.
She would never talk about Kirby except to say that his romantic interest came at the wrong time, and that she was grateful she still had his friendship. I can't tell if she's sad about that or not. Isabel's serenity isn't always a blessing. Sometimes it's a wall.
I kept slowing my steps to match hers, until finally she stopped. "You go on, Lee, I think I'll sit for a while and look at the water." "You are tired. I'll sit with you." "No, go on, catch up with Emma and Rudy. Pick me up on the way back." These are the little incidents I can't bear. She lulls me into thinking not much is wrong with her, and sometimes I even forget-and then she'll tire out much too soon, or I'll catch her sitting down in a chair too carefully, like an old woman with arthritis. Reality closes in, and it's a new shock every time. I suppose it's the same for her, but worse. Oh, much worse.
We ate dinner in the dining room, with candles and soft music and a bowl of the wildflowers Emma stole from the next-door-neighbor's yard. Everything tasted delicious, even the microwave-baked potatoes. We made a lot of toasts, and by the end of the meal we were quite a merry group. I won't say my outburst in the kitchen was forgotten; in fact, I think it overshadowed the whole evening and made us more careful of one another. Emma in particular was on good behavior, speaking gently to me and never being sarcastic; she kept touching me, too, her hand on my hand, a soft nudge on my arm to share a joke. I must've really scared her.
We took our coffee outside and sat in the deck chairs to listen to the surf and watch the clouds slip past the moon. It was a fine night, soft and starry, with a steady breeze blowing in from the ocean. Neap Tide isn't a waterfront cottage, but from the front deck you can easily see the Atlantic on the left and the Pamlico Sound on the right, and at night, after the traffic on Route 12 dies down, you can hear the waves almost as clearly as if you were sitting on the beach.
"Well, I'm not pregnant, either," Rudy said out of the blue, during a lull in our lazy conversation. "In case anybody was wondering." She had her long legs stretched out on the wooden ottoman, long arms bent gracefully behind her head. The rest of us looked vague and shadowy, but the moonlight glinted on Rudy's black hair and glittered in her gray eyes. Even in the dark, she stands out. I started to say something, but she sat up and leaned toward me. "I just didn't want you to think I was hiding it, keeping it a secret not to hurt you. Because I wouldn't do that, it would be..." "Condescending," Emma supplied. "And not necessary." She smiled at me.
"Yes," Rudy said. "So, I just wanted you to know." To tell the truth, I'd forgotten she and Curtis were trying. I guess I'd put it out of my mind. "Are you worried?" I asked her. "How long has it been?" "Since January. Yes, I am, a little. Because I was reading somewhere that if nothing's happened in six months, there might be a problem." "Well, that's what they say." Something I wish I'd known myself two years ago.
Emma peered at Rudy in the dark. "You really think something's wrong? Are you doing it right, taking your temperature and all that?" "Well, not at first, but for the last two months, yes." "Oh, two months is nothing," Isabel said.
"I know." Rudy heaved one of her long, heavy, dissatisfied sighs.
"How's Curtis?" I asked. "How is he liking his new job?" "Curtis She hesitated for so long, all three of us stopped staring into space and looked at her. "Oh.." More silence. Finally she said, "He's okay," in an airy voice, and stood up. "I'm going for a beer, anybody want one?" How odd. While she was gone, we stared at one another and made soft noises, "Hmm," and "Ha ..." but we didn't speak. This was too new; we didn't know what to think yet. If there was anything to think. Emma in particular looked bewildered.
"What a beautiful night," Isabel said. "Feel that breeze. Anyone mind if I take off my scarf?" We scoffed, we disclaimed, Emma even swore- "Jesus, Isabel, how could you even ask" -but the truth is, it's always a shock to see Isabel's bare head for the first time. But you get used to it quickly, and then I honestly think she looks cute. I do. She doesn't agree, of course, and even for me it's hard to separate her appearance from the reason for it-hard to appreciate how she looks but not suffer over why she looks that way.
"So how's it going?" Emma said softly. She reached her hand out to the back of Isabel's chair and held on to it. "How's every little thing?" Isabel looked over and smiled at her. "It's okay. I get tired easily. That's the worst of it." "What about your hip?" Isabel had been having some pain there lately. She minimized it, but when it was bad it made her limp.
"When it gets worse, the doctor says I can have radiation. That'll take care of it." "You mean if it gets worse," I said.
"Yes." "Because the chemo should cure you. That's what it's for, I mean, that's its job." She nodded, smiled. Sometimes I think I have a better attitude than she does.
"Okay, that's the body," Emma said. "How's the spirit?" "It's fine, too. I'm hopeful." We listened to the sound of that word. Isabel usually says the simple truth. If she was saying it now, I guess we couldn't ask for more.
Rudy got up and went to stand behind Isabel's chair. "Let's try something. I've been reading about healing touch." "Think you've got it?" Emma smiled on one side of her mouth.
"I could. So could you, smarty. You don't know till you try." "I imagine it helps if you believe in it," I said a little coolly. Sometimes Emma's cynicism annoys me.. Isabel closed her eyes and smiled.
"Shh," Rudy said. "Think healing thoughts, everybody. I put my hands like this, not touching you but almost, and I feel your aura, Isabel." She moved her long-fingered hands slowly, cupping the air an inch from Isabel's head. She slid them down lower, along her neck and then her shoulders, her arms. "I'm doing your whole body," Rudy murmured, and Isabel nodded slowly. "Do you feel anything?" "I feel heat where your hands are." I turned my head to send Emma a victorious glare, but she had her eyes closed. She was concentrating.
"I know I can feel your energy," Rudy said positively. "Which hip hurts?" "This one," Isabel said, and Rudy did healing touch there.
I shut my eyes and did my favorite healing meditation. I imagine a sort of Mexican firing squad. Isabel's cancer cells are outlaws dressed in black, with gun belts across their chests-not that they have chests; actually they look more like kidney beans, but with sombreros- and they stand in a long line while a knot of good soldiers takes aim with long black rifles and shoots them. They fall over dead, and another line of cancer cells steps up. Pow, they're dead, and another line steps up. It's very efficient and it can go on indefinitely.
Rudy finished her healing touch and sat back down. "Want to try?" she said to Emma.
"Hell, no. Isabel's a friend, I might send her into relapse." They laughed, but I thought the joke was in poor taste.
I got up to go to the bathroom. Even with the door closed, I could plainly hear Emma's voice gradually rising, getting shrill with anger. When I hurried back, she was on her feet, her back to the rail. Ranting.
"I really hate the mind-body connection, if you want to know the truth, and I can't stand that guy Shorter, I think he's done more harm to sick people than anything since leeches." "Who's Shorter?" I asked Rudy.
"That doctor who wrote the book about-" "He's a jerk, and he pisses me off. If you believe his spiel, then you believe Isabel gave herself cancer by being an emotional cripple. Well, fuck you, Shorter, Isabel is not guilty of cancer." "Em, that's not exactly-" "What gets me is how a doctor could be so stupid about medicine. And so destructive. Now whenever Isabel gets depressed-which seems like a pretty logical way to feel once in a while, wouldn't you agree? Given the circumstances?--Shorter's telling her she's making her tumors grow! What an idiot!" Isabel tried again. "I don't think he's really saying-" "I mean, what a gigantic crock. Whatever happened to science? Isabel, he's as good as telling you you made yourself sick. What about germs? Hm? What about heredity? What about smoking and asbestos? Nitrites! Smog!" The sea air made her hair stick out like a witch's broom. She prowled back and forth in front of the railing, and a couple of times she banged her fist on it for emphasis. She wasn't the least bit drunk, she was just mad.
"What's the difference between Shorter blaming your neuroses for your cancer and Jerry Faiwell blaming your sins for your HIV? Cancer happens. You aren't responsible. Life's not fair-Jesus, do I have to say this? What happened, Is, is that you got a raw deal. That's it. God's little joke. Sorry, better luck next time." "I understand what you're saying-Sit, Emma, would you stop pacing?-and sometimes I feel the same way. But whether we like it or not, there is a connection between our physical and spiritual selves. People with no religious faith die sooner-just for an example. That's been proven." "Not to me." Isabel clicked her tongue. "Well, I can't explain it to you, but it has to do with neuropeptides and T cells and endorphins or something. Your brain communi cates with your body. It does. Take my word for it." "Okay." Emma flopped down in the chair, sullen.
"1 know what you're saying," Rudy said sympathetically. "I don't like it either, the idea that anyone would make herself sick-" "That Isabel would make herself sick," Emma started up again. "It's bullshit. You're going along, living your life the best way you can, trying not to hurt anybody, and wham, one day you get cancer. And then this-twerp comes along and writes a best-seller about how it's all your fault. Insult to injury!" "You know you're exaggerating," Isabel chided. "Nowhere do any of these writers, Shorter or anyone else, say it's our fault." "But that's the implication." Rudy said, "Emma, do you think our healing circles are a crock? Do you think when Isabel meditates, it's pointless?" "No. No. I don't." Isabel said, "Well, then, if you believe I can help to heal myself with positive mental energy, why can't you accept the converse-that my own negative energy might've contributed to my disease?" Emma turned to her fiercely. "Do you believe that?" "I don't know. I think it's possible." "Well, I don't. Somebody else, maybe, but not you, Isabel. Not you." There was a long, charged silence, during which I wasn't sure what might happen, maybe we'd all burst into tears at once.
I'm the one who broke it to say, "I agree with Emma." My voice came out thin and strange; they looked at me curiously. I cleared my throat and said with force, "I think sometimes we can make ourselves sick, and sometimes it just happens. But Isabel isn't toxic to herself. There's nobody"- I searched for the word, and finally came up with-"purer. I mean it. No one gentler." I had to whisper, "And nobody who deserves this less." Isabel held out her hand. I took it and she pulled me close. Instead of weeping, we four looked at one another with sharp, intense stares. I felt a thrill of fear and excitement. I don't know how much I believe in the mind-body connection, but if everything they say about it is true, I know there was so much psychic energy crackling and snapping among us just in that moment, we four could have cured a hospice full of dying people.

   We spent Saturday morning on the beach, listening to Emma warn us about sun exposure. "Don't be fooled because it's overcast," she kept saying, huddled in a beach chair, swathed in terry cloth and smeared with sunscreen and zinc. I don't blame her-she's fair; she freckles first, then burns, then peels. But she sounded like a broken record. "Okay, fine, but when we're old and people come up and ask why a nice-looking young thing like me took a job as nurse-companion to three wrinkled old crones, you'll be-" "We'll be really sorry," Rudy mumbled into the crook of her arm, facedown on a striped towel. Rudy would never be a wrinkled old crone. Looking at her, lean and long and tan in her bikini bathing suit, I was jealous of her body-well, we all were, who wouldn't be?-and until last night I was jealous of her love life. No, I mean her sex life: definitely not her love life, her marriage, or anything to do with Curtis Lloyd. But I always imagined she and Curtis had an incredibly passionate and satisfying time in bed, although I had no better reason for thinking it than that they're both beautiful. Now to learn that, so far at least, they couldn't conceive-it made me feel shallow and silly, for thoughtlessly mixing up physical attractiveness and fertility. You'd think I'd know better, being married to Henry.
And-something else that's hard to confess. There was a dark, ugly place in me that was secretly glad when she'd told us about their problem. I'm ashamed. But it's true. I want Rudy to have a child, of course I do, but I want Henry and me to have one first.
"Going for a walk," Isabel said, shaking sand off her towel and draping it around her shoulders.
"Want company?" I asked.
"No, thanks. I won't be long." She strolled away. We watched her, and when she was out of earshot, we talked about her.
It's what we do when we're together now, we three. At first it felt disloyal, but we've gotten over that. We tell one another everything we know, what we've heard or read lately about cancer, what Isabel said the last time we saw her, how she looked, how she sounded on the telephone.
"She looks good." "She walks so slowly, though." "She hasn't been in swimming yet."
"Think she will? She loves to swim." "She's not very strong. If she goes in, one of us has to go with her." "I don't think she's eating enough."
"She says the chemo makes her mouth taste bad." "Her attitude still seems really good, though." "You don't think she's pretending? Acting more positive for our benefit?"
"Even if she is, it's good for her. Remember that study that showed that smiling makes you feel happier?"
"She's going to get well. She's doing everything right, and the chemo's working." "If it doesn't kill her first." "Thank God for Kirby." "Do you think they'll get together?" "I do. After she gets her strength back." "Did you see her collage?" "No." "Her collage?
"On the wall in her bedroom. She made a poster of her life. Her past and her future, milestones, major events. She cut out photos of herself when she was little, and her parents, her wedding, pictures of Terry. Us." "Us?" "And drawings of herself with cancer, and what she's doing to defeat it." "Isabel can't draw." "It's just cartoons, stick figures representing her." "What did she put for the future?" "Pictures from travel brochures-places like India and Nepal. A drawing of a diploma. A photograph of her with Terry. Another photo of us. Oh, and the banner from the top of an AARP newsletter. And at the very end, a picture of a baby." "A baby?" "She said it's herself. Reincarnated." "Ah," Rudy said, nodding.
"Whatever," Emma said, smiling. Hopefully.
We went out for dinner, as planned, to a new, almost trendy seafood restaurant in Hatteras. It had been cloudy all day; while we were driving home, it began to rain. "There goes our moonlight walk on the beach," Rudy mourned. "Let's stop at the video store and rent a movie." Nobody but me had any objections. "No, let's not, let's do something else," I kept arguing, and when they said, "Like what?" I had no answer. The conversation got more and more ridiculous. Finally I had to tell them. "Oh, all right, then, ruin the surprise. I've already got a video for tonight." "You do?"
"What is it?" "I'm not watching any musical cartoons," Emma warned, obviously tired of being nice to me. She was making an ungracious reference to the last time I rented our beach movies. I got The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas, and Aladdin. I should've realized she's just the kind of person who would hate Disney.
"It's not cartoons, it's us," I said. "Ten years of the Saving Graces. I had all our old film bits spliced together on one tape for our anniversary. It's twenty-six minutes long."
"Oh, that's wonderful," Isabel exclaimed, and Rudy took her hands off the steering wheel to clap. Even Emma looked pleased, although of course she had to slide down in her seat and say, "Oh, Jeez, home movies," for a joke. But she was glad, they all were, and that was gratifying. Occasionally, not often enough, the thoughtful, competent, organized member of a group gets the appreciation she deserves.
*** "Lose the bangs, DeWitt." Emma made a face at her image on the screen. "Talk about a bad hair year. How come nobody told me?" "Shh, I can't hear it." "I want to know who let me out of the house in that dress," Rudy said. "I'm a summer, I should never wear beige." "God, remember when we got our colors done?" "I think you both look beautiful," Isabel said. "We all do." "Wow, look how skinny I was," Emma marveled, pointing. "What year is this?" "You're skinny now, you- just can't see it," Rudy said.