Phoenix Rising (8 page)

Why can't bad things stop happening for one second? Just stop—so the world can be happy. Everything looks pretty, but inside it's spoiled, like that watermelon Dad got for Helen. She wasn't feeling well and he knew it would please her; Helen loved watermelon.

It was late in the season and most of the fruit stands were closed. We kept driving and driving down country roads. The longer we drove, the worse we all felt. The fun was gone; we could tell Dad was desperate, as if this mission, if successful, would cure Helen. Meanwhile, in the backseat, she's saying, “Daddy, it doesn't matter.” Lucas was mad. “Dad, you're not going to find one.” Mom stared out the window, silent.

My father finally found one, in a grocery store. We took it home and cut it open. It was bad. Helen insisted on eating some anyway. “This part in the middle's pretty good,” she kept saying. Dad and Lucas got into an argument.

It was as if our family was captured in that rind; what had been so pink and sweet had turned bitter. The season for good times was in the past and all we could see ahead was winter.

“I'm sorry,” Bloomfield said. He sat up and wiped his eyes. I never cry; my eyes are like stones. If I cried, I would die. I would drown in sorrow. Sorrow surrounds me. It fills my lungs.
Jessie's sad
, sing the songs on the radio.

Across the park, church bells began to ring. When we were children that meant it was time to go home. The kids on the swings leaped off and flew through the air, landing in the sandbox, almost at our feet. One of them was Sara Rose.

She walked over to me, hitching up the red tights under her dress.

“Hi, Jessie,” she said. “Where's Helen?”

She always asks me that, as if I'll finally come up with an explanation she likes better.

“You know where she is,” I said.

Sara Rose peered at me. “Is she still dead?”

I thought, I wish Helen could hear that. She'd laugh.

“Yes,” I said.

“I wish she wasn't.”

“Me, too.”

“Come on, Sara!” her brother called. “We have to go home!”

Sara Rose studied Bloomfield, then looked back at me. She said, “Did Helen have a heartichoke?”

“You mean a heart attack?”

Sara Rose nodded.

“No, she had cancer.”

“What's that?”

“It means she was real sick,” I said.

“I know,” Sara Rose said. “I miss her.”

“Sara, come on! I'm leaving!” screamed her brother.

The wind whipped the curls around Sara Rose's face. “Can you come over to my house and play?” she asked.

“Not today,” I said. “Maybe soon.”

“Okay!” She ran away across the grass.

Bloomfield said, “Was that a munchkin?”

“Helen used to sit for her. I sit for them sometimes, but the kids don't like me as much. Who does?”

“I'm sorry I said that.”

“Everybody's sorry. What difference does it make?” I said.

The streets were full of rush-hour traffic. The cars made me nervous. They were going too fast. I kept my eyes on the sidewalk on the way home. When we got to the house I handed Bloomfield his jacket.

“Thanks for the great time. We'll have to do it again,” I said.

“Is it okay if I call you?”

“Call me what?”

“Maybe we could see a movie.”

“Maybe,” I said. His tears had washed away my hate, but I was empty.

I knocked and my brother opened the door. “It's unlocked,” he said, glaring at Bloomfield. As soon as I got inside, he said, “What's that jerk want?”

“Your autograph,” I said. “He's just using me.”

Later, he and Dad got into it bad. Dad started it. He got all worked up about the way Lucas was playing Helen's favorite Christmas carol, “Joy to the World.”

He pounded on Lucas's bedroom door and told him to turn down the amp. Didn't Lucas have any consideration? It was a Christmas carol! Not heavy metal!

Lucas's eyes blazed. He'd play it any damn way he liked! It was supposed to sound joyful! It was called “Joy to the World”! Joy, Dad, get it?

I hid in the living room. Mom dragged Dad downstairs. They drove off to buy a Christmas tree. I wanted to talk to my brother, but he was so angry, I was afraid.

When they left I thought he'd turn up the amp so high it would blow the house to kingdom come. But he didn't. He got out his old acoustic guitar and began to play the same carol, picking out the tune as if plucking each note from the anthem of creation; the sound the earth makes as it spins in the dark, the song of the stars in heaven.

Halfway up the stairs I sat down and listened to Lucas serenade our sister.

11

April 26

My hair is falling out. My face is puffy. I am ugly. I am so ugly
.

Bambi told Bloomfield I am wearing a wig. She told him I have cancer
.

I am never coming out of this bedroom again. I don't even want the family to see me
.

I have put off writing down what has happened. When I see the words on paper, I'll know they're true. I don't want to think about it. I want to pretend it never happened
.

What's the use? Bambi told Bloomfield I have cancer. The words fell out of her big mouth. She keeps calling me up to apologize, and came over here yesterday with boohoo eyes. “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” As if that makes any difference
.

The carriage is a pumpkin. The bubble has shattered. The instant of enchantment is gone
.

It's been over a week since I heard from Bloomfield. I'll probably never hear from him again
.

Jessie wants to kill him. She wants to burn down his house. “That bastard,” she says. “You're too good for him, Helen.”

Yes, I'm such a prize, with my yellow eyes and my threadbare teddy bear hair
.

When he called me up, I already knew what had happened, because Bambi told Jessie and Jessie told me
.

I should've told him the truth a long time ago. So both of us are phonies. Just illusions
.

He said, “I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, Helen, but I didn't know how to say it.”

“Say what?” My vocal chords were stiff. The words sounded like chunks of wood
.

“Things are getting a little too intense with you and me.”

“Intense?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Like when we went to the beach.… I really like you, Helen.”

“So that's why you're calling me up to say good-bye? Because you like me so much?” I sounded mean
.

He said, “I'm not ready to settle down with one person.”

“No kidding.” I laughed. “You think I am? I'm eighteen.”

“That's what I mean. I'm not ready to go steady. I think it would be good if we saw some other people. For a while.”

“Do you have anybody in mind?” Everybody knows Cheryl Prentiss still wants him. She's made that very clear to me
.

He sighed. “I didn't call you up to argue, Helen.”

“No, you called me up to say so long. This has nothing to do with my cancer, right?”

Dead silence
.

“Bambi told me she told you,” I said. “What's the matter; don't you like bald women?”

“Helen—”

“Forget it. Just forget it.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I don't want you to be sorry! I don't need your pity!”

“This has nothing to do with your illness,” Bloomfield said
.

“Oh bullshit,” I said. “That's a lie.”

“Talk about liars! You never told me the truth!”

“Because I knew you'd do what you're doing right now! I knew you'd bail out!”

“I'm not bailing out! I just need a little space!”

“You can take all the space you want, Bloomfield! You can take all the space in the universe! I don't want you coming over here, or writing me, or calling. I just want you to leave me alone! Is that clear?”

I slammed down the phone, cutting off his voice. I'll never know what he was going to say. I'll never know if he got scared because we were getting “too intense” or because he found out that I'm dying
.

I am dying. There is no escape
.

Here comes my visual therapist, galloping up on her spangled stallion. She says, “Dying only takes a hot second, Helen. We're living till the last breath.”

That's easy for her to say; her bones don't ache. She has all her strength and her hair. She has the future to open like a birthday present. She isn't trapped in a body that's betraying her
.

No matter what she says, she can't save me
.

I wish I could talk to Jess, but she gets scared when I'm depressed. And the folks keep up this big cheerful front; like, if they run fast enough, the truth won't catch up. So I feel like a cloud at their garden party
.

I know how hard this must be for them. Their baby is sick and all they can do is stand by helplessly. Whereas I'm on the inside, looking out, and I know how I feel, and how much I can stand, and frankly, my dear, I can't stand it
.

Sara Rose just came over. She wanted me to come out and play, but I asked Mom to send her away. I told Mom I was nauseated (true) and hid my eyes, so she wouldn't see Bloomfield inside them
.

I am so sick of being tired. I am so tired of being sick. I'm dying from the feet up. My toes are always frozen. I'm sick of being examined and stabbed and jabbed. They expect me to be such a “good sport,” as if I'd been born to be a pincushion, as if my mission in life was dying
.

My therapist charges by, hollering, “Rise above the pain!” I'm trying but it drags me down, grabbing my ankles, grounding me. “You're a bird, Helen! Fly!” And I rise off the pain plain, like a plane lifting up off a flaming runway, into a blazing blue sky
.

O lift me up! My God, please take me. My heart is breaking. I want to die. I am so cold and no one will hold me. O Bloomfield, why won't you love me
?

Please love me please love me please love me
.

I am too much trouble. Revolting. Repulsive. A piece of diseased meat. I could smash my bedroom mirror and use the glass to slash my wrists, but Mom would just have to clean up the mess, which wouldn't be red, it would be green as money and stink like chemotherapy. Hold your nose and drink the poison, Helen; it might kill the cancer or it might kill you. Look on the bright side
—
what have you got to lose
?

I feel so sorry for myself. This is a true extravaganza. I am wallowing in a tub of warm self-pity
.

Damn it to hell, I have a right to be angry! Damn it to hell, I'm going to die! And I'll still be a virgin! And I won't ever have a baby! And nobody's ever going to love me most of all
!

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I believe in you and you don't believe in me! I'm the only person in this family who isn't an atheist or a Unitarian
—
and you're going to kill me
!

Why is this happening? If there's some reason or plan, could You give me a hint? It would mean a lot
!

I want to die for something, like rescuing people, or fighting for freedom. I want there to be a reason for my life, and my death. Is that so much to ask
?

Nobody's answering
.

The only person I can really talk to is Ms. Tormey. She's known about the cancer for months. (Now everybody at school knows. Secrets leak out of Bambi. It's amazing she kept her mouth shut so long.)

Ms. Tormey listens; she doesn't flinch or change the subject. She tells me to write down my feelings on paper. She says, “Use it, Helen! Use the fear and the rage!” Writers can't change the world, she says, but they can make poetry and laughter from pain. She is urging me to work on my book
. (How to Survive Your Life
Tip #1: Don't get cancer.). We're currently studying mythology. Next month she plans to have us become (on paper) our favorite mythological creature. Will I be a dragon? A griffin? A mermaid? I used to love unicorns until they became so cliché; there were unicorn earrings, lunch boxes, stationery; unicorns everywhere you looked. Which is funny, because the breed is so rare, you can't hunt one; it must come to you
.

So I'm trying to decide which creature to be. But it's hard to care when I feel so crummy, and in the back of my mind I can't help wondering what difference it all makes
.

Ms. Tormey says, Helen, we're all going to die
.

True, but for most people, that time is way off in the future. I don't have a future. I don't even have today because Bambi Bigmouth took it all away. I don't ever want to go back to school
.

O Bloomfield, why can't this all be a mistake? Why can't we start from the beginning? I would be reborn, new and healthy and strong
—
and still so in love with you
.

News travels fast. The kids at school treat me differently. They're too nice, even the ones who never liked me. At the same time, they've all taken a step back, keeping their distance, as if death might be contagious. And I see them staring at my hair (or where my real hair used to be) and at my skinny thighs and chicken-bone wrists. You could snap me down the middle and make a wish. I am swimming in my clothes. Mom tries to get me to eat eat eat, but even the smell of food makes me sick
.
They're upset because I wouldn't go downstairs for dinner tonight
.

I didn't have the strength for it
.

My family needs a table-side referee, officiating, blowing his whistle. Foul! Out of bounds! Low blow! Cheap shot! Their voices carry up the stairs to my room; Lucas and Dad tearing each other into bite-sized pieces
.