Page 45 of When I'm Gone
“Daddy, you left your letters downstairs yesterday.” Clayton held a pile of mail in his hands. “Annie picked them up.” Luke had been so distracted by his trip with May, fight with Annie, and the date with Felicity that he’d forgotten to check the mail.
“Thanks, bud.” Luke snagged the pile of bills stacked on top of a Natalie letter from his little hand. “Why don’t you go snuggle up on the couch and I’ll make some pancakes? Can you watch your shows, though, until I’m ready?” He measured the envelope between his fingers, counting silently in his mind. Five pages. For sure.
“Can I have a granola bar now?” Clayton was already a skilled bargainer. He knew his dad wanted some peace and quiet, so if it would cost a granola bar, so be it.
“Sure.” Luke grabbed the golden letter opener he kept on the rectangular entry table and ran it under the sealed flap, hesitating for a second before calling after him. “Just one!”
“Okay!” Clayton shouted back, the crinkling of wrappers almost drowning him out.
Luke sat on the bottom stair, his favorite letter-reading spot. The letter unfolded neatly. Every time Luke opened one of her letters for the first time, he couldn’t help but imagine Natalie sitting in her hospital bed in the front room, carefully folding the pages and slipping them into the robin’s-egg-blue envelopes, licking the seal or maybe using a wet towel. He might not always like what was written inside the letter, but knowing she made such an effort to get it to him gave him more comfort than any condolences he’d received.
When Luke saw the date on this letter and calculated the gap between this letter and the one he’d received a week ago, he shuddered. Oh no.
DAY 270
Monday, September 9
Dear Luke,
My doctors are liars. They said I was in remission. They said I could move on with my life, that my hair would grow back, that I’d look back on this whole cancer thing as a little smudge on my book of life ... well, they’re freaking liars.
Why did I stop writing in this journal when I got those clear scans three months ago? Stupid optimism. Why did I go to that appointment alone? Stupid naiveté. I have cancer on my brain, Luke.On. My. Brain.Unlike the Scarecrow, I do need a brain to live.
I knew something was up when I walked into the office. Usually Dr. Saunders is very chatty, asking about the kids and work, even you. Today he looked at me with these sad eyes, like he was about to tell a kid he had to put down his beloved dog. After a brief greeting he sat in his rolling chair, elbows on his knees.
“Natalie.” Then he sighed. That was a dead giveaway. “So, last week we discussed some abnormal labs and how it was important to do a follow-up scan to be careful.”
I nodded like a good little girl in school. Last week he’d told me it was probably nothing. He’d said I’d be fine. He told me not to worry. So I fasted, drank the disgusting orange-flavored contrast, lay in the PET machine for nearly forty-five minutes. Annie took me out to lunch after for pizza and I scarfed down three slices without any effort, trying to fill the ever-growing pit in my stomach. Maybe it was a premonition, though I’m not sure because when the words “metastasized” and “brain and lungs” and “stage IV” came out of his mouth, all the air sucked out of my lungs and my head spun.
I’m still not sure what Dr. Saunders actually said to me in those next few minutes, something about treatment options and prognosis. It is hard to believe my death sentence started as a microscopic lump of cells inside my body. I’ve let myself blame the chemo and the radiation for how horrible I’ve felt, losing the hair, becoming so unbearably weak. But it was cancer. Hiding. Waiting. Why? What did I ever do to make my body turn on me? Doesn’t cancer know I have children? That killing me so ruthlessly will leave a permanent scar on their lives much deeper than the one on my body?
I tried to call you after the appointment, but you weren’t at your desk or answering your cell. I was relieved because telling you that kind of news over the phone was probably not the best idea. I needed to think before breaking the news to you or even Annie, so I drove to EMU and started walking. I didn’t get far before sitting down on an abandoned bench in the quad. It was packed with freshmen, some flanked by parents, walking through campus wide-eyed and ready for a new phase in their life. That’s when I lost it. I was entering a new phase in my life too, the end of it. That’s not supposed to happen at thirty-six or thirty-seven. It’s not fair.Not fair. Not fair. Not fair!
As I tried to hide my tears behind my hand, the bench shifted beside me. Great, I thought, some oblivious teenager won’t even let me have my “I’m dying of cancer” pity party. But then I felt a warm arm around my shoulders.
“Natalie, what’s wrong?” Dr. Neal whispered in my ear. I yanked my hand off my face, not caring how horrible I must look after the crying jag. He had a gentle smile on his face. “It’s not Tiff and her gang again, is it?”
I laughed, which felt so weird at the moment. “No, I think I got her kicked out and doomed her to a life of ‘Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?’ No wonder my karma sucks.”
He told me she probably deserved it, but then his face grew serious, and he asked, “So, are you going to tell me why you are crying on the quad and scaring all the freshmen?”
I shook my head, knowing if I spoke, the tears would start again. He must’ve been able to read it all over my face because he knew, Luke. He just knew.
“It’s back, isn’t it?” he asked, and I nodded. “How bad?” I shook my head, and he asked again.
I said “stage IV,” out loud for the first time. Told him that I’m a goner. Then, how Dr. Saunders said I have a few months, maybe a year if I’m lucky.
I closed my eyes against the flood of tears. His arm tightened around me, and I was suddenly grateful to have the comfort of a friend, especially someone who’d been the recipient of equally terrible news in his own life.
Dr. Neal sat with me for a while and told me it was okay to be scared, but that I didn’t have to spend the last few months of my life terrified. He told me about how his wife, Maria, wasn’t scared to die and how she got all Zen at the end. He kept saying, “She was a good, strong woman.”
That made me mad. Why shouldn’t I be scared? Since I was scared, did that mean I was weak? Did it mean I wasn’t “good” enough? I’m not sure how Maria wasn’t scared, but maybe she had less she was leaving behind. How dare he compare me to his saintly dead wife on the worst day of my life?
But then he asked me a question that I somehow heard through my terror and anger. He asked: “Are you afraid of death, or are you afraid of leaving your family?”
I considered his question carefully. Yes, the promise of pain was frightening, not knowing what would happen ... after. But the thought that crushed my throat like hands around my neck was the thought of leaving you to suffer alone. Almost worse was the jealousy I felt at you living out the life we’d planned together without me. Leaving. I was definitely more afraid of leaving.
Dr. Neal said that Maria felt the same way, so she wrote letters, made videos, and set aside meaningful keepsakes to leave behind. He said that those plans made it easier to “let go.” “Let go”—the phrase sounded so ridiculous to me. I’d never let go of my family, not willingly. Death will have to peel my fingers off the life I’m living to get me to leave you and our kids. I shook my head, crying harder than I ever had in front of someone that wasn’t family. I asked Dr. Neal how I could “let go” when there were no guarantees?
