Not To Us (37 page)
Authors: Katherine Owen
“I’m your only wish?” I ask.
“You’re the only wish I ever had.” He takes my hand and brings it to his lips.
I’m the editor. I’m the one who has worked with words my entire adult life and this is the man who brings me to tears with his every time.
“You’re my wish, too,” I say. “With our two wishes, everything else will be okay.”
“I just need to be able to touch you any time I want.”
He reaches out and traces my lips and the racing pulse at my neck and finally smiles. He trails his fingers down the curve of my new breasts, until they come to rest on my protruding stomach. It’s as if he is igniting fire along my skin; everywhere he touches comes to life. He gets this remorseful look as his hand rests against me.
“I wish for you. I choose you. All I want is you, Michael.”
He tries to smile, but looks at me, powerless, I think. I have trumped him with my words. I lean over, kiss him, and smile beneath his lips, knowing I’ve finally won the words contest.
≈ ≈ ≈
Coming Together
F
ive days later, my hair is all gone. The Drs. Chatham have a special area of the medical spa for their chemotherapy patients facing hair loss. My head is completely shaved now. Hair loss is not an exact science. It comes out in clumps, uneven. The only real alternative is to shave it all off. The Drs. Chatham have a hair stylist on staff, who works with chemotherapy patients and fits them with scarves, wigs or simply just helps the process along by removing all their hair.
I look in the mirror with a contrived lack of interest, masking the horror I feel inside as best I can. Gianna, the hair stylist, I swear Lisa probably hired her for her exotic name, does my make-up. I stare at my face as the anxiety builds inside of me. I’m missing eyebrows, too. I can’t pretend to accept this aspect of chemo. My hair meant a lot to me. It wasn’t everything, but it was right up there in the list of good assets about Ellie Shaw along with the bodacious tah tahs. I stare down in anguish at my silicone replicas peeking out from my lacy white top.
This sucks.
It’s something Nick would have said. Thinking of him almost makes me smile.
I should be grateful. I’m alive. I should be thankful. I have Michael. Emily and Mathew. Two babies in my future. I shouldn’t cry.
I steal a glance at this bald-headed girl in the mirror and angrily wipe away the tears. Gianna leaves the room.
I take advantage of the much-wished-for privacy. I move out of the chair closer to the mirror and touch my shiny bald head. I look like a completely different person. Between being almost thirty-seven weeks pregnant and baldness, I’m officially not myself.
“Fuck,” I say now to the girl in the mirror. In my reverie and disdain for what I see in the mirror, I don’t realize Michael has come into the room until I look up.
“Hi,” he says as he strides over to me with purpose.
“Please don’t tell me that you like me better this way. I don’t think I could take it.”
“Okay, I won’t,” Michael promises. He takes me into his arms and leans down and kisses me. “I just thought we should just get this over with, right away, so you don’t start going into this serious doubting process about how I feel about you, even without your hair.” He kisses me again, even more passionate than the last time and I kiss him back with reluctance. “Ellen Kay, you’re not trying very hard,” he lifts his head from my face, inspecting me.
Waiting
.
“Sorry, I just got shorn like a dog and I don’t feel very sexy. So fucking sorry about that,” I snap at him and move away out of his reach.
“How much more do you have to do here?” Michael gives me this wide grin as if he has a secret that he is just about ready to tell.
“I don’t know. She wants to show me how to fit the wig, apply eyebrows of some sort. Tie scarves around my head. Another hour, I guess.”
“All right. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes. It’s a date.”
Michael starts to leave. At the open doorway, he blows me a kiss. I wave him off and refuse to smile. These insecurities about my appearance still get the best of me, despite Michael’s love and reassurance.
The last five days together have been amazing, but today I struggle to hold on to any of that happiness. Today, happiness eludes me, as I stare at my bald self in the mirror.
A few minutes later, Gianna returns, carrying a long honey-blonde wig to replicate the head of hair I have just lost. She fits the wig on my head and begins cutting the hair into the style of the picture of me that I have shown her. The wig comes in one long length and within a half hour she has replicated my longish style with some subtle layering. With each passing minute, I look a little bit more like my former self.
I’m surprised and intrigued, when she applies replacement eyebrows in a golden-blonde shade and am amazed at how natural they look. She shows me how to do this for myself as well. These will apparently last for up to four months, if I’m careful about showering and avoid swimming pools. Each touch she adds brings me closer to my former self, to Ellie Shaw.
Begrudgingly, I’m pleased with the eyebrows and the wig. I’m not one of those selfless, humble women that can walk around proud of my bald status, this much I do know about myself. And, even though I might be married to the most understanding man in the entire universe, I’m grateful for the semblance of normalcy that eyebrows and the wig provide. I stare at a closer version of myself in the mirror. It’s been days since I’ve seen her. I finally smile.
“Just thought I’d check in.” Lisa sails through the door. “Looking good, Ellie Shaw.” She gives me a wide smile and I give her one of my better yeah-team ones.
“Gianna is a miracle worker, I must say.”
“She’s the best.” Lisa winks over at Gianna and comes to stand next to me. “It looks great! How do you feel?”
“Better. Had long moments of sadness, but I feel better with the eyebrows and the wig. It’s going to be okay,” I pronounce with a slight laugh.
“Gianna, are you done with our best client? I’d like to borrow her for a few minutes.”
“Yes, Dr. Chatham, Mrs. Shaw is ready to go.”
I thank Gianna with a grateful smile. Then, follow Lisa out the door and walk along the hallway, consciously fingering my fake hair. We enter one of the spa exam rooms. I look over at Lisa in surprise.
“What’s up?” I was just in three days ago for the gynecological visit with her.
“Well, based on what I think your husband has planned for you this afternoon, I thought I would check up on my patient.” Lisa gives me a strange look.
“What?”
“Michael has plans, Ellie. He’s taking you away for the night to some romantic place downtown.”
“And you’re spoiling this surprise because
—
?”
“I’d like to keep these babies inside your uterus as long as possible.”
“You’re a real killjoy, you know that?”
“Disrobe. I’ll be back in five,” Lisa commands.
I strip out of my clothes and put the examination gown on, fuming all the while. Dr. Lisa Chatham could be really impossible some days and today was one of those. I’m excited at the prospect of spending the afternoon with Michael and Lisa has just unceremoniously destroyed the surprise.
With a quick knock, Lisa steals back into the room. “How do you feel, baby-wise?”
“Pregnant. Very.” I sigh and lay back on the examination table.
“Besides that. Any back pain? Cramping? Anything unusual?”
“Not really. I mean my back has been killing me for a while. It’s hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in at night, since I’m as big as house now.” I stop talking and hold my breath, while Lisa examines me.
“That’s what I thought. You’re fifty percent effaced and two centimeters dilated.”
“Okay, remind me about what that means? Exactly?”
“It means your romantic rendezvous just got cancelled. I’m putting you on full-time bed rest. And, Ellie, you better start picking out some names.”
“What? It’s June 19
th
. I’ve got another two weeks.”
“No. You don’t.” She’s shaking her head now. “You’re not going to go full-term. If we can buy another week with full bed rest; I’ll take it. But, I doubt we get that much time. My preference would be to have you close by. What are the chances of that?”
“I don’t know.” A new kind of terror takes hold. I’m really not prepared to have these babies. We haven’t spent enough time getting ready. “Let me think,” I murmur to Lisa.
“Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll wait and talk to Michael.” Lisa tries to give me her version of a yeah-team smile. I roll my eyes at her as she leaves.
I dress in record time and adjust my wig in the mirror. In all this time, during this whole pregnancy, I haven’t taken more than a moment to think about the ramifications of having a baby, to say nothing of the fact, that we’re having twins. Drained, I sit down in the chair next to the bed and rest my head at the back of the chair and close my eyes trying to quell the rising panic inside of me.
The door swings open. “Michael,” I whisper.
He’s over to me in a matter of seconds. “Ellie, what is it?”
“I have to go on full bed rest,” I say in this forlorn voice. “Lisa thinks we have a week, if we’re lucky, before we have twins.
Twins
, Michael. Oh my God.”
“Babe, it’s going to be okay. You’re hair looks great, by the way.” He laces a few stands between his fingers, as he kneels in front of me. He pulls me forward and kisses me.
“Sex is out of the question, Dr. Shaw,” Lisa says in this nun-like voice, as she enters the room, spying Michael and me.
“So I hear,” Michael says, as he smiles only at me. “We’ll just have to find something else to do.” His adoring look comforts me in this mysterious way. I reach out to trace his face.
“She’s two centimeters dilated and fifty percent effaced. She is on full-time bed rest, as of now. So, you can cancel your hotel room and take her home. Or, you can check her into the hotel room, which I hope is nearby the hospital and we wait.”
“Bed-rest in a hotel room?” Michael asks, looking over at Lisa with a quizzical glance.
“I’m not a fan of the ferry system and am not interested in delivering these babies anywhere else, but here.”
“Okay. Can she at least go home for tonight and say goodbye to the kids and her mother?”
“It’s not my favorite option, but I guess for one night I’m okay with that, as long as I have your word that she is back within the vicinity of the hospital beginning tomorrow.
“Okay. Ellie, are you good with that plan?” He refocuses on me. I nod, grab Michael’s hand and try to smile.
≈≈
“I guess I don’t understand why you have to go away,” Emily says to us, now.
Everyone is gathered in the confines of our master bedroom. It seems Michael is intent on full bed rest being exactly that. All five of us, including my mother, have enjoyed pizza on top of the king-size bed.
I’m propped up on pillows and being treated like an invalid, which I haven’t allowed throughout the past eight months in any form whatsoever. I’m in awe.
A combination of things seems to be going on here. We seem to be reforming as a family and given the turmoil of the last month and the cataclysmic loss of Nick and Elaina four months before; it is the witnessing of some kind of miracle. We’re finally coming together again with a different make-up, but a family, nonetheless. I don’t even think my latest foray with chemo and cancer has any impact on what is going on this master bedroom tonight. Something new is taking place. Something different has happened. The birth of the twins is something wonderful. Its sudden reality transforms my little family right here in this very room. The excitement and the anticipation of these new babies emanates from every person here.
