Choose Me (37 page)

Afterward, the church leaders left to help with accommodations for people staying overnight, preparing meals with the help
of a nearby church so visitors wouldn’t go broke in the hospital cafeteria. They offered to sit with Tony so I could take
a break, but I kept my vigil, eating little of whatever people brought and washing up in the sink in his room.

Pastor Zeke stayed behind, sitting in the chair on the other side of Tony’s bed.

“Pastor, I broke my contract,” I confessed.

“Did you ask for forgiveness?”

“Yes.”

He covered my cold hands with his warm ones. “Do you remember what Jesus said to the woman who was about to be stoned?”

“’Go and sin no more,’”
I answered.

With that, he said nothing more. The paging system announced that visiting hours were over, and with one last prayer, the
pastor left. Only the immediate family was allowed to stay overnight. Anthony stayed with Eli while I remained with Tony,
reading the Bible to him, hoping the words would find their way to his soul as I simultaneously sought comfort. Periodically,
I stroked his arms, his legs, his scalp. Sister Erma had provided a portable stereo from which gospel and worship music had
been softly playing non-stop, competing with the beeping, clicking, and whooshing of the multiple machines surrounding him.
In the short time that I had been there, I had come to rely on all the sounds together, lulled by their cacophonous rapture.
They were a constant reminder that my son was still alive, trying to find his way back from the abyss.

On the fourth day, my father showed up. Even though he had called the hospital a couple of times, I hadn’t expected him to
come at all. I glanced at him briefly, then turned away as if he were one of the many nameless hospital personnel who streamed
in and out of Tony’s room around the clock. I hadn’t seen him in months, but he hadn’t changed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprisingly calm.

“I can’t come see my grandsons?” He sounded offended that I would even ask such a question.

“You didn’t before,” I said, making no attempt to cover my disdain.

“What are you talking about?”

“When was the last time you called them to see how they were doing? They would always have to call you.” The words rushed
from my mouth before I could stop them. I sounded like a child but I didn’t care. Fear and grief had made me bold. I knew
it was not the time; I didn’t want Tony to hear us arguing. But I couldn’t stop myself. It was the closest I had ever come
to telling my father how I really felt.

“Why are you saying this now?” He walked to Tony’s other side, reached out his hand but uncertain where to set it down, gripped
the side guardrail.

Because I can get away with it,
I thought bitterly. I turned away from him and turned back to my Bible, but I had lost my place just as I had forgotten my
place as the quiet obedient daughter. “We needed you when Ma died. But you just dropped us off at Titi’s like you were the
only one suffering.”

“You girls were teenagers; you needed a woman in your life. I wasn’t in any shape to raise two girls.”

“We still needed a father.”

He didn’t respond, nor would he look at me as he sat in the cushioned window seat and stared out the window. We didn’t speak
for the rest of the evening, which was just fine with me. Ordinary conversation was useless if it had to be forced. I was
through trying to make an effort. The only things that mattered at that moment were my sons.

In the middle of the night, as I slept in the bedside chair that converted to a recliner, I heard someone talking. My first
thought was that Tony had finally awakened. I leaped out of the chair, throwing the covers off, expecting to see Tony alert,
his dry lips parted in speech. But it was my father.

“I fell apart when your ma died. She was my life. Do you know what it is to love someone so much, for so many years, and then
lose her like that?” He held up his hands helplessly. “And you girls, you looked so much like her. Looking at you both was
like seeing her ghost.”

In the semidarkness, I could see him sitting in the window seat, staring into the pitch-black rural night. His lips were barely
moving, his voice a monotone. I looked back at Tony and watched as the respirator forced his chest to rise and fall.

“The people you love are yours only temporarily, but in the end, like in the beginning, we all belong to God.”

He sounded so distressed, it made my heart clench. I couldn’t understand it. My father, who refused to go to church on Sundays
and cursed God when my mother died, was acknowledging His supremacy.
Why was he being so philosophical now?
I thought resentfully.
What was he asking of me?
I needed to lean on
him.
Yet something was telling me to go to him, but as I fought it, I could feel my heart shutting down. I had to save my strength
for Tony; I had none to spare. As I drifted back to sleep, I tried to shut my father out with my nightly prayer:
Please, Lord, let my son live.

Out of the blue, the low-pitched howl of a wounded animal startled me awake.

“God, I loved her so much,” my father whimpered, his sorrow-filled tone piercing through me.

I forced myself to go to my father, sitting behind him and wrapping my arms around his chest. He clutched my hands, and after
so many months—years—his touch felt strange, and at the same time so familiar.

“He’s going to be alright,
mija.
He’s going to be alright,” he assured me. “He’s watching over him.”

And as we held each other, my faith became like a child’s, believing without seeing, without question. I regressed to a motherless
child again, trusting him, believing everything he told me.

I STARED BLANKLY
at Dr. Desai, then looked past her, out the window. It was just beginning to snow. A pigeon sat on the ledge,
the dumb city bird that didn’t fly south for the winter, content with the scraps it was able to find in the gutters. It reminded
me of a story my mother told me one night when I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about something. She said birds were
never concerned about where their next meal came from; God took care of their every need. Surely, I was more important than
a bird, so it was silly for me to fret. Mama told me this story to illustrate the futility of worrying and the significance
of God’s role as my provider. But at the time I was young and I didn’t get it. I told her birds were stupid; they didn’t feel
concern because they didn’t know how to.

Although I had asked Dr. Desai to give me the results without pulling any punches, I was still shocked, unable to speak. Ironically,
I was thinking how badly I wanted a cigarette.

“The cancer’s back,” she repeated. “And you
have
to have the orchiectomy this time—no ifs, ands, or buts. The tumor’s grown larger this time. You should’ve come in sooner.
I told you if you opted for no surgery, you’d have to adhere to the surveillance protocol; blood tests and CT scans every
four months, chest X-ray, every eight months. You missed your last appointment. What’s wrong with you?”

I took my scolding like a condemned man who knew there was no use pleading innocent. I thought of the symptoms I had had,
the soreness in my chest, the nausea, the lump. I wanted to believe that if I ignored them, they would disappear. I had been
neglectful and it was hopeless to lie or make excuses.

When I was referred to Dr. Anjali Desai the first time, I protested, suspicious that a female doctor could be as knowledgeable
and sympathetic about testicular cancer as a male. Her French and East Indian beauty and accented English initially made me
even more uncomfortable. But after two doctors insisted they couldn’t treat me without surgery, she believed it could be done.
After the preliminary consultation, she was all business and I became a believer.

“After the surgery, depending on the blood test results and the CT scan, you have two options: surveillance, which in your
case, I don’t recommend since you’ve been noncompliant; or chemo, no radiation this time.”

“Aw, that was the best part,” I said sarcastically, finding my voice. I knew the cancer’s return in less than two years wasn’t
good.

She ignored my sarcasm. “The body can’t tolerate large amounts of radiation; the damage is cumulative. You may need more cycles
of chemo, but that’s up to the oncologist. We can schedule you in next Monday. For the surgery.”

Things were going too fast. I tried not to think of how I was going to break the news to my mother and Jade. The first time
they had taken the diagnosis worse than I did. My attitude had been positive, all about survival. No one could tell me I wasn’t
going to pull through. Now, I wasn’t so sure. From the beginning, Mama had been against the radiation and chemotherapy, insisting
they were poisonous and would do me more harm than good. And in a way she was right. Sometimes the treatment is worse than
the disease. It weakened my immune system, leaving me more prone to infections and more susceptible to other cancers, like
leukemia. She urged me to see her homeopathic doctor and seek alternative nontoxic treatment. Jade, already emotionally distraught
over her pending divorce, cried whenever she came to see me. When she wasn’t crying, she was smothering me. I knew they would
both blame it on my smoking, forgetting that my father had passed his cancerous genes to me.

“Do you have any questions?”

I shook my head like an automaton. My PDA was in my right hand, the stylus pen poised over the calendar menu, but at the moment
my left hand was trembling so badly I couldn’t use it.

“So Monday, eight a.m., alright?”

The pigeon was bopping its head as it walked back and forth across the ledge, pecking at the air, then down at the concrete
ledge. It came up with something in its mouth, some obscure crumb. Three stories up, it had found its lunch. Good thing about
being that pigeon; it didn’t have cancer.

“Adam?”

The pigeon gobbled its lunch, looking at me through the glass, head bopping, mocking me. Then I watched with envy as it flew
away.
Stupid lucky bird.

“I think I’m available,” I answered lightly, trying to sound nonchalant, but my voice betrayed me. It was important to let
her know I wasn’t intimidated by the news or the pending surgery, because it was partly my fault; I hadn’t followed the protocol.
Reoccurrence had always been a possibility—I knew that—but I never wanted to believe it would happen to me. Then I remembered,
my birthday and Christmas were right around the corner.
Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to me.

“She cried?”

Luciano chuckled and nudged me lightly with his fist, nervously eyeing the IV on the back of my swollen hand and my frequent
wincing from the pain in my groin. “So either you did a really good job—or a really bad one.”

I didn’t know why I thought telling him about my night with Eva would provide some insight. But there was no one else I could
talk to about my confused feelings. When cancer or serious illness strikes, people usually fall under one of three groups:
supporters, drifters, and deniers. The supporters, like my mother and sister, remained loyal and sympathetic, albeit sometimes
overwhelmingly. Then there were those who drifted away and stopped visiting out of fear of the unknown or because they just
didn’t know what to say or how to act. Luciano fell under the denial category. His objective was to avoid any discussion of
cancer at all costs with humor, diversion, whatever. The first time I had undergone treatment, he was living in Phoenix with
his second wife, the Tex-Mex one, visiting only when he came to see his Chicago relatives. He hadn’t witnessed the majority
of what I had gone through.

The surgery had gone “as well as can be expected,” considering I had lost part of my manhood. If I wasn’t already sterile,
the doctors would try to convince me I could still have children, but since I was, there was no consolation. The results of
my blood tests and CT scan would not be available for several days to a week, the medical profession’s idea of torture. The
only good news I got was from the chest X-ray; my lungs were clear of disease.

“I’m trying to have a serious discussion with you, man,” I told Luciano. “You think I should call her?”

“Remember what I said about Black women being too much drama? She’s in that category,” he said callously. “If you ask me,
she ain’t worth it. You got enough problems.”

“I didn’t ask you all that. I just asked you if I should call her,” I said, suddenly irritated.

The anesthesia was beginning to wear off and I grunted, swallowing hard to keep from groaning. An hour after the surgery,
Dr. Desai had encouraged me to get out of bed as soon as possible and walk around the room. If I hadn’t been in so much pain,
I would’ve laughed. The sooner I could move, she said, the quicker my recovery, and the sooner I could leave the hospital.
But considering how much time I would be spending in and out of the hospital in the next few weeks, I was all for getting
discharged “STAT.” After mediating the discussion between my body and my mind, I got up with the help of the nurse and hobbled
around the room like a ninety-year-old with a walker. The pain was ten times worse than the time Kia had jumped on my lap
without warning. I hobbled right back into bed, not caring if I looked like a wimp in front of the nurse.

“If you want the additional drama, call her,” he answered, shrugging as he fumbled with his PDA. He had brought my own PDA
and laptop but I had no energy or desire to type, not even to check my e-mail. “Need anything else, man?”

I shook my head and closed my eyes. What I needed, he couldn’t provide. I pushed the nurse’s call button to request more pain
medication.

“So she cried, huh?”

I turned my head away to indicate that I didn’t want to talk anymore. All I wanted was to return to the numbing comfort of
anesthesia, where things were tranquil and pain-free.