Not To Us (4 page)
Authors: Katherine Owen
I can no longer pretend to want what Robert and I have had. Maybe, it’s the threat of cancer. If I die from cancer, is this the life I would have chosen? If I don’t die from cancer, would I still choose this life?
Maybe, it
is
Michael. Whatever
this
is…this unrest within me…this change that has shifted my view of the world, now makes me question everything.
Is this what I want?
That is the first question.
I sweep my make-up off the dresser into an open bag. I throw in perfume, lingerie and bath salts. I empty my side of the medicine cabinet. By the time I’m done, even
I
can sense my absence in this room. I wonder if Robert will, too. Well, based on the last seven days, I am sure that he will, in fact, notice.
Thinking about this dissolves my determination to leave in the first place, so I try not to dwell on that.
When did my life get so complicated?
I have been to see Dr. Josh Liston and the lumpectomy of my left breast is scheduled for tomorrow. Michael was able to get my case put to the front of the line and Dr. Liston was happy to help out his friend. I know Dr. Liston was confused about my relationship with Michael.
I know that he does wonder where my husband, Robert, is in all of this. I have kept Robert out of the plans regarding my cancer. I’m not sure why. Except that in my way of thinking, somehow, my cancer is responsible for bringing him back to me and that in itself is wreaking havoc on all other aspects of my life. I have put Robert off from asking too many questions about my cancer treatment by telling him that my appointment with Dr. Liston was not for another two weeks. I’ve told Robert there is little to be concerned about and that we would find out more then. Of course, by then, I would have had the surgery. Since it seemed like a fairly straightforward procedure, I didn’t tell Robert about it.
≈≈
I have so many secrets and have told so many lies; it’s difficult to keep them all straight. I’ve barely told Michael. I haven’t seen him since…since that first day.
Today, after I drive off the ferry, I almost turn the car back towards Bainbridge Island at least six times. What am I doing going to Michael’s apartment? What am I thinking getting involved with him at this crucial time of my life? But somehow, Michael seems to be the only one in my life who makes sense, who truly cares about me and loves me, despite cancer. Not because of it, which seems to be Bobby’s reasoning. So, what happens to Bobby and me, when I don’t have it anymore, huh? I do wonder.
My cell phone rings. Carrie’s name flashes on the screen.
“Ellie,” she says in a shaken voice when I answer. “I just heard.”
“From who?” I ask in sudden irritation.
Robert and I agreed to keep this on the down low for the kids’ sake. I know Michael would know better than to say anything to her.
“Well, the office manager, Liz Banner, is from Bainbridge. She called me, wondering why you’re seeing Dr. Liston. Why are you doing that? Michael is the best for this kind of thing.”
“This kind of thing. You mean
cancer
?”
I really hate it when people talk all around cancer without invoking the word and my tone is impatient and full of derision.
“I’m aware of Michael’s extraordinary…surgical skills,” I say.
I blush and glimpse my face in the car’s rearview mirror in just thinking of Michael’s hands all over my body from that one and only day we were together, more than a week ago. My uncertainty resolves at taking the next exit. Now, I’m determined to get to his apartment as fast as I can.
“Carrie, I’m going to be okay,” I say with reassurance. I feel reassured by what I say and I can hear my former best friend crying through the phone taking solace in what I say. The fact is I sense her life falling apart across the phone lines and I feel sorry for her.
“Ells, I love you. You know that.”
I
do
know this, which makes it harder still to fathom why this girl that I have known and loved for almost twenty years would royally fuck me over. My anger is instantaneous and I strike out at her now without thinking it through.
“I guess you love Robert more though, right; Carrie? You’ve been fucking around with him for more than a year, so I guess you made your choice. Live with that, friend, and don’t call me anymore.”
“Michael left me,” she says in a broken voice.
“Yeah, I know that, too.”
I hang up the phone and I don’t answer when her name flashes across the cell screen, thirty seconds later. Right now, I have both Robert and Michael in my life, apparently, making me their first priority. Carrie, normally, always the winner, seems to have lost this round to me.
I’m glad that I have packed at least a week’s worth of clothing in my suitcase. I feel liberated as I pull into the underground garage of Michael’s condominium and find him standing there, waiting for me.
Hello world. I have cancer and it may lead me to the best part of my life.
I smile at Michael as he comes over to me and retrieves my suitcase from the trunk.
“Are you moving in?” I hear wistfulness in his voice.
“I’m not sure. For an hour, for a day, for a week, for a year, for a decade, for eternity. What do you think we should do? How much time do we have?”
“Forever,” he says. He kisses me. It feels like I’ve come home.
“Your wife just called,” I say in a nonchalant tone. I follow him on to the elevator with all of my bags.
“She’s not having a good day. She’ll be served divorce papers within a few hours.”
I only nod, although I feel uneasy. “Are you sure?” I ask.
“I’m sure.” Michael looks at me with a desire that I have never seen on a man’s face before. I am taken aback and it shows in my faltering step as we step off the elevator. “Don’t be scared, Ellie. You’re all I want
—
you’re all I have ever wanted.” He puts his arm around me and we head into his apartment.
I fight the sudden urge to leave and feel this strange foreboding. Now, I’m anxious, as if I’m trying to keep my balance on unstable earth beneath my feet.
I’ve told too many lies. I hold too many secrets. Who can I really trust? Who can trust me when I don’t even trust myself?
≈ ≈ ≈
Day 89
T
he alarm goes off on the opposite night stand, farthest away from me. It buzzes incessantly. I try unsuccessfully to stretch my body and good arm across the made-up side of the bed to turn it off. Finally, I jump out of the bed and go around and pull the clock radio, plug and all, from the wall in rapid fury.
“Damn you, Robert!” I scream into the empty room.
I look at my haggard self in the mirror. My blonde locks are going every which way. I look like Cinderella on a really bad hair day. My torn t-shirt drapes wearily off my shoulders. Robert’s t-shirt
—
the one I’ve kept because the scent reminds me of him. Even in this moment, when I should hate him the most, I still seek comfort in the smell of his clothing.
“Damn you,” I whisper to the empty bedroom. I wearily crawl back into the bed and pull the covers over my face.
≈≈
“Momma?” I open my eyes and peek out from my contrived fortress of bed sheets and the duvet at my five-year-old daughter-going-on-twenty, who stands in the doorway. “Momma, you have to wake up and take me to school.”
Emily, another blond replica of me, stands with her hands on her hips in a mismatched red and white outfit
—
a plaid skirt and a polka-dot shirt. The colors were fine, the patterns not so much.
I don’t have the heart or strength to tell her this right now. I sigh.
“Mathew and Nicholas are eating breakfast. I’m just checking on you. You do remember that you need to take me to school; right Momma?” She comes over to me and shakes my shoulder as I struggle to keep my eyes open. The bottle of wine that I managed to drink all by myself last night doesn’t shake loose of me, now.
“I’m up, Em,” I say in a shaky voice.
“No, you’re not. You’re lying down, Momma. You
need
to get up.”
“Send Mattie up. Tell him, I need him to do the lunches today.”
“He’s already done the lunches, Mother.”
I sit up with a quick humph and slide my feet from underneath the warm covers down across the cold carpet in one swift movement. Emily hands me my bathrobe. I put it on and follow her, listless, down the stairs.
My house is in disarray. Everything is out of place. My house reflects myself. I am in disarray. In silence, I curse Robert as I make my way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Mathew is busy trying to fill the coffee maker with ground coffee in the water section.
“Mathew, I got it.” I move over to him and brush my lips across his forehead. My thirteen-year-old gives me a wistful smile and I try to smile back, but fail.
“Morning, Mom. I’ve packed the lunches.” My middle child proudly shows me three paper sacks filled with lunch items for himself and his two siblings.
“Thank you, sweetie.” I glance over at my sullen, sixteen-year-old son, Nicholas. “Good morning, Nicky.”
“Is it?” He looks over at me with barely veiled disdain, taking in my much disheveled appearance. “Exactly,
when
are you going to get it together, Mom? It’s been three months.”
“Two months, twenty-nine days,” I answer. “Tomorrow’s the day.” There are audible sighs of relief from all three of my children.
I smile over at Nicholas with a smile that I didn’t know I could manage. He grins back at me, now. My first-born is still my baby. “Love you, Nicky,” I say now.
“Love you too, Ellen Kay Bradford.” I laugh at his impertinence
—
my son, the charmer. He got this from me, not his father, Robert. “I’ve got a basketball game tonight, Mom, at 4:30 P.M. Will you come?”
I haven’t been out socially, well, for eighty-nine days. I can feel my oldest child staring at me, projecting his will on me, waiting for my reply. I resist the urge to stammer an automatic
no
, as I’ve done for almost three months, now.
“I’ll be there,” I say, before the word
no
transfers from my brain to my lips. I give him another weary smile and he beams back at me.
“Great, Mom. I’ll see you at the game at
4:30
p.m. I made varsity. It’s no big deal.”
It is, in fact, a big deal. Huge for Nick and I know this. I already start berating myself to keep my promise to him and make this different than the other eighty-nine days that have passed us by, in which, I have miserably failed my children and myself, at every turn.
“Nicky, I’ll be there. I…will…be…there.” I pull him to me and give him a brief hug, before he awkwardly pulls away from me. Emily is grabbing me at my waist and Mathew hovers nearby. “Shall we go watch your big brother play basketball tonight?”
I receive excited nods from my two younger children and realize how much my mental absence has affected them all. I feel bad. I blame Robert and Carrie. The sudden anguish must appear on my face as all three of my children each come closer to me, as if to hang on to me, in case, I might just fade away.
“I’ll be there,” I whisper.
The moment ends. The living room clock chimes eight o’clock signaling arrival of the school bus in less than three minutes. The boys grab their backpacks and lunch sacks. Emily and I watch them race up the long driveway to catch the bus. It’s just us girls, now, my daughter and me. I openly sigh, while my daughter gives me an intense, appraising stare.
“Were you going to change?” Emily finally asks.
I look down at my open tattered bathrobe, a gift from Robert on our third anniversary, and my Huskies football t-shirt faded to a light purple from too many washings, and a pair of ugly boxer briefs of Robert’s and little else.
I had, in too many days to count now, slid into the car in this very outfit. I get the distinct impression from her today that was not going to happen, nor would be acceptable to her.
“I’ll change,” I say with an edge of defensiveness.
I race up the stairs and clumsily pull on skinny jeans and a white angora sweater, brush my hair and clip it back in a ponytail, and line my lips with plum-shaded gloss. Studying my face in the mirror, I scrutinize the emaciated forlorn woman staring back at me. I start adding a little foundation, blush, eye shadow and mascara. I try to remember the last time that I actually got dressed and put on make-up. I touch my long blonde hair and finger-fix the tendrils on each side into place and spray a little hair spray to keep it there.
I should be glad I have my hair. It seemed like the cancer had taken everything else: my normally attractive looks, the sheen of my hair, my boundless energy, my normally somewhat positive outlook on life, my best friend Carrie, my husband Robert, and even Michael. Oh, I didn’t want to think about all of that. Truth be told: Robert and Carrie’s actions took most of that stuff away, not the cancer. Michael, well, that was another story. I don’t want to think about him today either. I take one final glance in the mirror and start toward the door, only to find Emily standing there, regarding me with the uninhibited enthusiasm only kindergartners possess.
“You look beautiful, Momma,” she says, breathless.
How does this child know how to give away such gifts? Tears fill my eyes. I wipe them away, trying to regain my composure. I finally look over at her. “Thanks, Em,” I manage to choke out.
≈≈
I have succeeded in getting the long promised manuscript edited for my boss. I glance at my many blue pencil markings with satisfaction. I stuff it into the Fed Ex envelope and mark the address for my employer in New York City.
I make the unusual foray into town and mail it off. I’m three weeks late in editing this manuscript and I have to hope I still have a job. When I call my office to let them know the tracking number, I have to take in the praise that is given and deflect the questions regarding my health. “Yes the radiation treatments are done. Everything is fine. I’m fine. We just have to wait and see. Yes, I’ll have a follow-up in the next few weeks and we will see if there is any more cancer. Yes, I’m great. Just have to wait and see. Robert is fine. I guess. He’s fine. He…he’s fine. The kids are great. Okay, just send me the next one,” I say with manufactured cheerfulness. My energy wanes the longer this conversation goes on. My office does not know about the blow-up of my life just eighty-nine days ago.
I pull into Safeway and practice my automatic responses to the invariable social questions that will come up, as I head into this grocery store where much of the Bainbridge Island community shops. I have not been here for eighty-nine days. I have not been anywhere except my doctor appointments in downtown Seattle and Swedish Hospital for ultrasounds, radiation and consultations. I am put to the test right away with Marjorie Bingham.
“Ellie!” Marjorie exclaims. She pushes past two other shoppers’ carts to reach me. “You look fantastic! I can’t believe it.”
An unwelcome wasp, she’s practically vibrating with unchecked fervor as she alights upon me. I haven’t said anything, yet. Marjorie is not my favorite person. If I could only choose a few people that I wanted to see on a desert island, where I had a limited choice of friends and companions, Marjorie wouldn’t make that list.
Carrie and I used to make fun of Marjorie. Her shallow tendencies had always grated on us both. I think of this now and I’m sad. I really do miss Carrie. Tears threaten to spill over as I try to find the right words to respond to Marjorie Bingham.
“Oh, Ellie. I’m so sorry about everything. It’s great to see you.”
“I’m doing great. The kids are great. Everyone’s great. Cancer’s all, but gone. Just doing check-ups, now,” I say in a hushed, please-don’t-ask-me-any-more-questions voice.
“And you kept your hair,” Marjorie gushes.
She touches my hair like people do when you are eight months pregnant, when your stomach is sticking out as if there’s a basketball under your shirt and people assume your personal space is now theirs and they touch your stomach as if it is art on display. Marjorie fingers my blonde locks this same way. I have to prevent myself from physically stepping back from her, so I don’t appear bad-mannered, even though, clearly, she is being impolite by doing this to me. I can feel the tears reform behind my eyes with her invasion. I am just about undone. I move my cart away from her as a form of a subtle goodbye.
“I’ve got to get on with this. We’ve eaten pizza every night for the last three months. I’m here for my children.” I form a weak smile, move away from her, leaving her standing there with her mouth open, still trying to form her next words for me.
≈≈
Cancer is hard. There are many things the doctors don’t tell you, such as, after you have a lumpectomy that you can’t really raise your arm for weeks at a time, which means vacuuming is an excruciating challenge and makes even getting dressed awkward and somewhat unmanageable. Try doing the housework by yourself during the day, while your children are at school with your one good arm. It takes the majority of the day.
That’s wasn’t the hard part though. The hard part was eighty-nine days ago, when Robert moved out after learning that I was involved with Michael. And, Michael, who became uninvolved with me because he learned that I was still sleeping with Robert, because I had cancer and well, it had just happened, but apparently, these reasons were not enough for Michael. I haven’t talked to either one of them for eighty-nine days, which explains my current distraught, worn-down state and the general upheaval of my home and existence.
Yeah, cancer’s hard, but well, when your whole world comes crashing down in so many different directions, all at once. Cancer is the least of my problems.
Dr. Josh Liston has been great, except for the omission of the minor details of how long my recovery from this little procedure would take. He had recommended
radiation only
because he said the margins looked good and
we
got it all.
We
got it all.
We
did that. As if, I was, somehow, a part of a team. I was grateful for that.
In fairness, I was grateful to Michael for pulling strings to get me in and take care of this so quickly. I was ungrateful to Michael because of his adverse reaction to the whole thing with Robert. I thought he would understand, but he didn’t. He said that he didn’t want to see me anymore because clearly I didn’t know what I wanted.
“Is that so?” I’d asked. “If Carrie hadn’t fucked around with my husband, you would have seen your way to me?”
My question took him by surprise. Michael had this trouble look and couldn’t really answer me.
We were all four of us, a mess. Imagine the loss between just the four of us. We had done
everything
together for eighteen years
—
weddings, anniversaries, vacations, bowling nights, dinner parties, birthday parties, summer barbecues, even work promotions.
Everything
.
I lost my husband, my best friend Carrie, and Michael. Michael lost his wife, his best friend Robert, and me. Carrie lost her husband and me, her best friend. Robert lost his best friend Michael and me, if that even counted.
I’m not sure that Robert felt that bad about losing me; once he found out I was involved with Michael. Robert, out of all of us, seems to be doing just fine.
The rest of us? Well, we’re a mess
.
I signed the divorce papers two weeks ago, which is why I’ve been drinking an entire bottle of wine each night for the last fortnight. You know, to celebrate my newly single status in my unkempt house, with my somnolent children, who just want their mom to mentally return back to the homestead. I believe my children are alarmed and tired out by my ghostly presence. I’ve done little else, except sleep, drink wine at night, and drive the SUV when one of them tells me where to take them.
≈≈
I stand in line at the check-out counter, awaiting my turn, and then, absently load the groceries on the conveyor belt. We are out of everything, so I have a lot to buy. I give the clerk my card and she runs it through with an exasperated sigh.
“Declined,” she says in a biting tone.
“What?” The conveyor belt stops. The clerk looks over at me, expectant. “Run it, again,” I command in a tired voice.
“Declined,” she says. Her loud voice carries two check stands over where another four people can hear her. “The total is $198.42. Do you have any cash?”
She speaks to me as if I am an imbecile.
Automatically, I dump out my wallet and count out five twenty-dollar bills. I find twenty-two cents in change and hand it all over. I’m standing there, in a frozen state of mind, wishing that I had never gotten out of bed. The tears well up in my eyes and I’m about to tell her that I have
cancer
, which isn’t exactly true anymore, but I am ready to use this excuse with her to embarrass her into sympathy for me.
Without reason, I hate this rude oversized, twenty-something-year-old, who stands before me with her uncombed straggly black hair, pock-marked face, and scornful expression.
