Random Acts of Kindness (11 page)

Claire clanked her tea on the bedside table. “I’m not calling.”

“Let’s table that issue for later,” Nicole said. “Right now you have to explain what’s going on, Jenna.”

Jenna’s neat, prepared speech flew right out of her head. Her reasons swam in her mind, a strange stew formed from three events, mostly the visit to Theresa’s burned-out house. It was while poking around the weeds in front of that house that Jenna couldn’t help imagine what Three-Tat Tess would have done had she found herself in Jenna’s situation. Theresa wouldn’t have filled a suitcase and a box, swept up the dog, and thrown everything in the backseat before taking off across country. No, Theresa probably would have done exactly what Nicole had suggested: doused the porch in gasoline and tossed a lit cigarette upon the stairs.

Unless Theresa had a daughter who was part of that same home and that failing marriage. When there was a child involved, it was selfish to indulge in an act of escape or destructive fury, and a child of Zoe’s—or Noah’s—age was particularly susceptible. You had to think. You had to be smarter.

You had to be strong.

“Nic,” Jenna sputtered. “I spent most of my adolescence watching you with awe from the grandstands. You would step up to the plate when the bases were loaded and there were two outs, and you just grinned like you knew you were hitting a single to left field.”

“Wait.” Nicole clawed her fingers through her hair. “Are you talking about baseball now?”

“My mom was a Red Sox fan,” Jenna explained. “My firm has season tickets to the Mariners.”

“How your mind works,” Claire commented as she came to the bureau to retrieve milk and Cocoa Krispies, “is one of the universe’s great mysteries.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I know Nicole is strong and competent and a great mother. And what I saw of Lars makes me think he’s the most amazing father. And yet you two still struggle as parents.
Together.
”

Nicole said on a breath, “Please tell me your decision to leave has nothing to do with what I told you about Noah.”

“Then I’d be lying—”

“We struggle with
Noah
,” Nicole said. “Chris’s and Julia’s issues are garden-variety. But Noah’s issues require medication. Zoe won’t—”

“Zoe’s got a few mood problems herself.”

“As does every teenage girl.” Nicole leaned forward. “Listen, I know you think I’m some sort of expert. I’m really
not
. But from what you’ve told me about Zoe, it seems like you’ve got a daughter who has pinpointed all her rage on
Mama
—not an uncommon thing. All other aspects of Zoe’s life function absolutely normally, yes?”

“For now.” Jenna shoved her fists deeper into her pockets as the small muscles of her neck started to tighten. “Theresa’s whole personality changed dramatically between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, to the point of setting things on fire—just,” she added, “as her parents
divorced
.”

“Zoe isn’t going to be like Noah
or
Theresa. You can’t think that way. Just because Zoe has some anger issues, just because she has slammed a few doors—”

“More than a few.”

“I should have kept my mouth shut.” The cup shook as Nicole lowered it to her knee. “I’ve scared you to death by telling you the details about Noah. And I still don’t understand why you’re doing this now.”

“You will. I told you something in the car yesterday.”

Nicole bobbed her head as she pressed her fingers into her eye sockets. “You still love Nate.”

“Who do I love more than Nate?”

No one spoke Zoe’s name, but Jenna saw it in their eyes, she heard the name like an echo in the room.

She said, “Zoe deserves to be protected from the kind of domestic disruption that can turn a perfectly normal adolescent girl into an angry stoner. Zoe deserves a chance to deal with her garden-variety issues in a stable, supportive, two-parent household. The only way that’s going to happen is if Nate and I sit down—now, before these papers have to be dealt with—and work out our differences.”

Jenna watched Nicole exchange a look with Claire, a look that made Jenna’s heartbeat stutter. She’d never been a good reader of body language and swift, silent communications, but she understood this kind of look. She’d been on the receiving end of it since the age of ten. It was a look of empathy that bordered on pity, a look that suggested that Jenna in her social incompetence didn’t fully grasp the consequences of her decision.

She blurted, “I know what you’re both thinking.”

Nicole braced her hands on her knees and creaked her way into a standing position. “We’re worried that this may not work out the way you want.”

“The situation is already worse than I ever imagined.”

“What you’re planning to do will be painful—”

“Is divorce ever a happy process?”

Nicole looked for a nod from Claire. “Considering how fast Nate’s pushing this through, it’s likely that his feelings for you have long changed.”

Her throat constricted. “Of course his feelings have changed.”

“You’re setting yourself up for failure, Jen.”

Jenna looked up at the ceiling, at the blinking light of the smoke detector, seeking a way to explain her new determination in words that would make sense to folks who lived outside her head.

“Nearly two weeks ago, I abandoned my home and my husband to knock on the door of a friend I hadn’t seen in years.” A watery laugh bubbled up in her throat. “I had this crazy idea that the reason why I’d screwed up every relationship in my life was because I’d never
really
given myself over. I hid. I was too ashamed to share because, if I did, people like you, Nicole, would know that I was on the inside what I appeared to be on the outside: clueless, awkward, and unworthy of affection.”

“Jenna—”

“Something had to change. So I flung myself upon Claire.”

Claire sat as still as stone, a Cocoa Krispie stuck to her chin. Jenna wanted to thumb it off her face.

“Now I don’t have a choice but to do what I’m afraid of doing. If I fail, I fail for Zoe’s sake. And at least I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering what could have happened if I’d just had the courage to fling myself at Nate’s feet.”

Claire stood up. She set her bowl of cereal on the bureau. She walked the length of the bed and took Jenna’s hands in hers.

“If we have to break every speed limit on every highway in Iowa, Jenna, we’ll get you to Des Moines by five.”

“There’s security.” Nicole fast-walked toward the security area that led to the airport gates. “Thank God the line is short. You know what gate, right?”

Jenna said, “A4.”

“You’ve got your liquids separated?”

She tugged the edge of a plastic ziplock bag out of her purse for what she figured was the third time Nicole had asked.

“Boarding pass?”

“Enough, Nic.” Claire slowed down near the line entrance. “Jenna’s got twenty minutes at least. She’ll make the flight before the doors close.”

“With no phone,” Nicole said, “how are you going to let us know when you’re on the flight?”

Jenna fumbled with the strap digging into her shoulder. “If I don’t make this flight, I’ll just make the next on standby.”

“That could be hours stuck in this place.”

“Which is why I’m glad you two are keeping Lucky with you.”

Nicole frowned as her phone rang in her purse. “Maybe I should give you my phone—”

“And leave us stuck with only mine?” Claire shifted Lucky into her other arm and stepped out of the way to let someone pass in line. “We can’t depend on my toy phone while we’re driving Jenna’s car and Jenna’s dog another thousand miles to Pine Lake.” Claire waved at Nic’s ringing purse. “Just pick it up—that’s the second time in the last ten minutes.”

Nic pulled the phone out of her purse, and her expression shifted. “Bad timing. But I have to take this.” She flung an arm around Jenna’s neck. “Have a great flight, Jenna. And good luck.”

Jenna squeezed Nicole, feeling strangely disoriented, and not just by the frantic trip to the Des Moines airport, during which they talked logistics for Lucky, for the car, for meeting up in a week in Pine Lake when Jenna flew out to fetch Zoe from camp. All during the four-hour trip Claire kept twisting in the seat and glancing through the rear window, as if Paulina were hot on their trail. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Jenna. She’d been the first one to start this vacation off, running and dodging phone calls. Now that she had determined to stop fleeing, it was Claire’s turn to run and dodge calls.

Claire opened her arms for a hug. Jenna closed eyes that were too dry. She felt Lucky’s warm body against her, felt Lucky lick her cheek. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to dump this whole crazy idea and return to the Lumina, sprawl in the backseat, listen to Nicole hum some disjointed country song, and watch Claire plow her way through a bag of Cool Ranch chips. She wanted to visit Chicago and go to a Cubs game with Nicole. She wanted to shop for hats with Claire. The longing had a bittersweet edge, something that made her feel sad and warm and full all at the same time.

Maybe she was doing something right. Maybe she’d feel like this even when Nate rejected her.

“United Airlines flight 792 now boarding at gate A4.”

“That’s me.”

She pulled away and gave Lucky a last scratch.

“You’ll be fine, Jenna.” Claire squeezed her shoulder. “Nate’s an idiot, but you’ll be just fine.”

The stitch in her chest tightened and twisted as she turned to walk away. She was facing forward, but her heart had turned back.

She handed her boarding pass to the TSA agent. She slipped off her sandals, piled her things in a gray plastic bucket, and walked through the metal detector. Once she was past security, she turned around and quick-stepped backward in the hope of one last glimpse of her friends.

Claire smiled and swept one arm in a long, comic wave. Nicole stood stiffly beside her, hugging her elbows.

And behind them came Paulina.

Des Moines, Iowa

C
laire didn’t have to guess who had tipped off Paulina as to where she was, or who had told her sister to hustle to the security area of the Des Moines airport. It was always the friends with the best intentions who caused the worst damage.

Amid the white noise of the high-ceilinged terminal, she turned away from Nicole’s stricken face, determined to deal with her after she’d dealt with Paulina. She focused her sights on her sister. Paulina had the same Petrenko brown eyes and auburn hair, but her face was thinner. Wiry strands of white hair poked out from her braid. Her sister looked tired, her cotton batik top wrinkled, tiny lines etched around her eyes. Yet those bird-bright eyes belied fatigue.

Claire said, “You would have made a fabulous Mormon missionary, Paulina. If you were on the case, by now all of Africa would be evangelized.”

“I know you’re afraid, Claire.”

That whisper-soft, kindergarten voice, like sandpaper to her ears. “Afraid? Please. Ask Nicole. Last night I ordered take-out Kansas Mountain Oysters. I ate every last one of them even after I found out they were fried bull testicles.”

Paulina pulled her lips in the kind of smile you’d give a recalcitrant toddler. “You know I’ll be there with you through the whole time. Me and Alice and Zuza—”

“Maybe you’ve noticed I’m on vacation right now. You just missed our driver, Jenna. Though apparently you’ve met Nicole, at least by phone.”

Nicole had the grace to look sheepish.

“A vacation is always a good idea,” Paulina said in that voice that never changed pitch, “but it’s all about timing.”

“Well, we’ve been talking, talking, talking about timing since I left Roseburg. It’s amazing how little you hear when I open my mouth.”

Paulina put a hand on her arm. “Why don’t I just return my rental car here at the airport and then arrange two flights back to Oregon?”

Claire resisted the urge to pull her arm away. “In Cheyenne, I should have tossed my phone under the same truck that Jenna tossed hers. Life is full of these little regrets.”

Paulina said, “There are so many people worried about you.”

“I know
exactly
how many people are worried about me.” Claire looked longingly down the terminal at a neon sign advertising a bar. “By the way, has Zuza been checking in on my raven? Jon Snow gets cranky if you don’t throw out a handful of corn by ten a.m.”

“When you come home with me, you can check on him yourself.”

She dropped her arm. “You really do think I’m your seven-year-old younger sister who you can just pick up from school.”

“Be reasonable, Claire. This is not something you can run away from.”

“I’m not running away from
it
, Paulina. I’m running away from
you
.”

Paulina’s lids fluttered closed. Her nostrils flared ever so slightly. Claire knew that sign, the indication that Paulina was reaching the end of her patience. If only she would reach the end of her determination.

When Paulina opened her eyes, her expression was smooth. “I’ve set another appointment. The doctor can insert the portacath in three days.”

“The nurses will be so disappointed when you cancel it on my behalf.”

“You can’t put off the chemo any longer.”

“I’m not ‘putting it off,’” Claire interrupted. “I’m choosing not to do it at all.”

Claire had always known cancer was coming. The certainty had been born when she sat on a tree bench outside her
guti
in Thailand. She’d fallen into a meditation so deep she’d woken up to find a large blue butterfly warming itself upon her white sarong. She’d remained in place and watched the butterfly on her knee until it flapped its wings and flew away. A few days later, she’d flown away, too.

The six years since she’d returned from Thailand had been a serene pause, pruning squash vines, tending injured goats, blind possums, and broken-winged birds, waiting for the inevitable. When she found the chickpea-size lump under her arm and the oncologist had confirmed the diagnosis, Claire had accepted the news like the arrival of an old friend.

Ah, you’re finally here.

“Claire.”

Claire pretended she didn’t hear Nicole’s call as she strode across the terminal. She continued to weave through the crowd in the airport as she strode away from the security area—away from a pale Paulina—tucking a quivering Lucky closer to her side.

Nicole’s fingers curled around her arm, tugging. “Talk to me.”

Lucky made a whining noise, his neck arched as he sniffed the air. “You’re making Lucky nervous,” Claire said. “I’ll tell you the whole sordid story just as soon as I’m convinced you won’t be tipping Paulina off to my location from here on in.”

“But we can get you on a flight to—”

“I don’t fly, remember? Let’s get in the car and head to Pine Lake. Straight-arrow this time, no more detours, just the way you always wanted.”

Claire headed toward the glass walkway that led from the terminal to the parking garage. She heard Nicole reluctantly follow. At the car, she dropped Lucky to his feet where he quivered until the concrete was wet. When he was done and looking up at her with buggy, frightened eyes, she swept him into the front seat with her.

Lucky started a series of little whines as they headed out of the airport north onto Interstate 35. He kept crawling up Claire’s shoulder to look out the back window, raising his snout as if searching for Jenna’s scent. He didn’t begin to settle until they’d cleared the city limits and headed out into the flatland cornfields, the enormous sky a soft-serve swirl of gray clouds. Even then, his toenails dug into her thighs.

“I should have known something was up,” Nicole said, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “I should have known from the moment you showed up at my door in San Mateo.”

“I’m surprised my sisters didn’t send out an APB. They could have told the police that I’d been kidnapped by you and Jenna. That would have been exciting. If we got pulled over, I could tell the sheriff not to shoot us because we were wanted in two states.”

“You’re still joking about this.”

“Or maybe my sisters would have tried one of those silver alerts, have you heard about these? Like when an Alzheimer’s patient wanders off. That’s how they treat me most of the time. Like I’ve lost the capacity to understand what’s happening to my body. When I understand it a hundred thousand times better than any one of them.”

When Melana had been sick, Claire’s older sister would pop in now and again, bringing food, picking up a prescription, taking stock of things, spewing research, being the controlling busybody that Paulina always had been. Alice had been pregnant and terrified of coming into the house altogether. Zuza had been living like a theater rat in New York City and couldn’t afford the fare back. Bill and Henry were, well, Bill and Henry. In a family that once had six women, they did what their older sisters told them, which was mostly to stay out of the way. In the end, Claire had been the one elbow-deep in the caretaking. And even in the late states of her chemo fog, Melana was always piercingly aware of what was going on.

Nicole said, “You intentionally missed your appointment for chemo.”

“Nope.”

“But Paulina said—”

“I didn’t
miss
that appointment because I didn’t
make
that appointment. That appointment was made by them.”

“You told them you’d be back from this trip by then.”

“I lied.”

“Claire—”

“Yes, I broke Buddhist precept number four. Even the Dalai Lama believes that you must weigh the price of a lie against the pain of speaking the truth.”

Nicole stuttered, “So the truth is painful.”

“It appears to be painful to everyone else, because I haven’t yet found one single soul who wants to hear it.”

Nicole struggled to compose the features of her face. “Paulina told me that your oncologist said—”

“—that when you’re suffering from Stage III HER2-positive cancer that includes the involvement of a sentinel lymph node, radiation and adjuvant chemotherapy is strongly recommended.”

Nicole’s spine didn’t quite touch the back of her seat. “You know that Jin’s woo-woo pills can’t be a replacement—”

“Of course not. What the oncologist really wants to do is give me doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide together for two or three months followed by paclitaxel and trastuzumab for three months, then keep up with the trastuzumab to round out the chemo for an awesome full year.” Claire scratched Lucky in that spot under his collar that made the dog sink into an ecstatic swoon. “Jin’s woo-woo pills give my immune system a boost, which is something I sure wouldn’t get from a year’s worth of slow-dripping poison.”

“Claire, you had a double mastectomy.”

“And I thought I’d hid that so well.”

“But you must have known that chemo would be the next rational step.”

Claire resisted the urge to close her eyes. The progression of events after she’d found the lump under her arm had been eerily familiar. She’d dreamed her way through them. The sonogram, the MRI, the biopsy, the call into the office for the diagnosis. Her sisters took the news with quivering smiles and determined hope.
It’s Stage III, not Stage IV—isn’t that encouraging?
The news was a ghoul they draped in blinking Christmas lights.

Claire said, “Do you garden, Nic?”

Nicole blew out a long, frustrated sigh. “Just once, I’d like a straight answer from you.”

“I’ve got a Fuji apple tree in my forest garden that came down with a disease called fire blight. It’s a nasty, withering bacterial infection, but if you prune off the infected branches in winter, you can actually save the tree.”

“Oh for goodness sake, you’re not a tree.”

“Bleach, ammonia, copper fungicides, on the other hand, they do very little. And they poison everything around them.”

“Those drugs could save your life.” Nicole’s gaze skittered all over the highway as her jaw worked. “Paulina told me the five-year survival rates.”

Sixty-seven percent.
The percentage might as well have been branded on her forehead. “Paulina does love her numbers.”

“But the statistics are only valid for women who go through treatment,” Nicole added. “Not for women who forgo treatment altogether.”

Claire dropped her head back on the headrest. She’d had this argument from the beginning. She wasn’t thinking clearly, Paulina said. She was still foggy and recovering from the surgery, they insisted. But her mind was fine. She knew that radiation would sap her energy, make her skin dry and itchy until it wept. It would give her aches in her chest and the cough that plagued Melana long after the radiation was done. Chemo would be a thousand times worse. You can’t say no, they told her. You have to
fight
. Then they’d babble about how close Melana had come to beating it. They’d chatter about how the medicines were so much better. They’d say wistfully that if Mum had had the drugs that Melana had had, maybe she’d be alive, too.
And if Melana had had the options that
you
have now…

Then their voices would waver and the tears would well until Claire, exhausted, couldn’t muster any energy to argue anymore.

Back in Salt Lake City, she’d hoped that Jin would be the one who would understand. Jin would grasp the consequences of her decision, and since she used homeopathic remedies in her practice, Claire had hoped she’d keep an open mind. But Claire had hesitated. She and Jin hadn’t had enough time together for her to probe her about her philosophies. And in the end, she weighed the promise of Jin’s sympathy against the possibility that Jin might contact her sisters if she knew Claire’s plan. Salt Lake City wasn’t far enough away from Oregon and not close enough to Pine Lake. Claire wanted to be far, far past the midpoint of this journey before her sisters discovered that she’d made her own special plans.

Now Claire opened her eyes to the swirl of slate-bellied clouds, the cornfields of mid-American Iowa, every mile taking her farther away from a confused and disappointed Paulina, finally resigned—she hoped—to returning to Oregon. She just hoped her sister didn’t get it into her head to follow her all the way to Pine Lake.

Claire glanced at her friend. Nicole was flexing her fingers over the steering wheel while she chewed a hole in her lower lip. Claire cast about for a way to explain and decided to start from the beginning.

“The problem, Nic, is that everyone thinks they have time.”

Nicole didn’t answer. She kept staring ahead, tipping the steering wheel with a finger, a line deepening between her brows.

“We rush, rush, rush to get things done, and in the process, our lives rush past us.”

“Maybe that’s true, but—”

“Life isn’t supposed to rush past you like that. You’re supposed to
live
it. Moment by moment. Mile by mile. Day by day.”

Nicole’s throat flexed. “But you would have time in your life—maybe years and years—if you went through chemo.”

“There were no years after for my sister. None for my mother, either.”

Nicole beat a tattoo on the steering wheel. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be any for you.”

“And who should be the one who makes that call?”

“Paulina told me—”

“For Buddha’s sake, it’s the voice, isn’t it? Everyone listens to Paulina like she’s preaching Gospel.”

Then a terrible noise came from the engine, a high whine that screamed and then gave a metallic grind before settling into a silence almost as frightening. Nicole startled then glanced at the instrument panel. She flicked the hazard lights on.

Claire said, “What the heck is going on?”

“Not sure.” Nicole glanced over her shoulder, then kept her gaze in the rearview window as she switched lanes. She pumped the brake pedal as she steered toward the shoulder. “The engine is stalled. Hold on,” she said, as they rumbled over the rumble strips. “This is going to get bumpy.”

Claire fumbled for the seat belt she should have been wearing, then strapped in herself and Lucky. Nicole steered the Chevy onto the shoulder, crushing the gravel as they hit it at high speed, spewing up clouds of dust until the car eased to a stop. They waited a moment for the dust to settle.