Page 78 of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter
“Turns out the reason she fell was from pain. She had lemon-size blockages in her intestines. They tested them. It was stage II colon cancer. It had already spread. According to the doctor, we had to preparefor another surgery and prep for chemotherapy right then if we wanted to stop it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He nods, biting his lip. “It just came out of nowhere. Here she was, this young, vibrant spirit. She was one of the healthiest people I knew, but in retrospect, there were signs. The cramping, changes in bowel habits, and she had started losing weight. We thought it was due to her workouts. Once the news came, there was nothing we could do. That next day, she had surgery removing thirty percent of her bowels and started chemotherapy right after.
“She got so tiny during the treatment. I begged her to marry me early on, but she said she would when she beat it—cancer wouldn’t take away our special day. The treatments went on, and it seemed to be better for a bit. By the following year, we had picked a day, June fourth, to get married, when the report came back that they had found the cancer had metastasized to her liver.
“We postponed the wedding, but they couldn’t do anything once it had traveled to her liver. She just deteriorated so quickly. Watching the light slip out of her was the most painful thing I’ve experienced. She was convinced she could beat it right up to the end. She prayed daily and started an all-vegan diet, but nothing we did made it any better.
“It wasn’t until they recommended hospice that she finally agreed to marry me. We got married—in that little room, with the monitors beeping, her parents, sister, Big Pat, her line sisters, and all the nurses on the floor in attendance. Her mother had come in and done her hair, and her sister helped her into a white dress. She was so small; I remember how it hung off her body—how they arranged the fabric to hide her chest port. It was beautiful. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room, including the priest. We exchanged those rings, and I wished with all my soul that some miracle could save her.
“She got to be my wife for two weeks while I cared for her at home in our little apartment. I kept her company as she slept, gave her meds to stave off the pain, and witnessed the end of her beautiful life.”
Muffled early-morning sounds filter in from outside, reminding us that life is still going on around us despite our mutual foray into the past.
I take his hand back in mine and pull him close, hoping he can feel my heart break for them and their life together. He squeezes me, my head fitting into the space under his chin, his spicy aftershave surrounding me. We stay that way for a while, clinging to each other in our respective seas of pain. His eyes glitter with unshed tears when we break apart, sparkling like tiny stars.
He coughs and wipes his eyes with a tissue. “So, I get what you mean about being numb. I wasn’t that at first. First, I was angry—mad at God, fate, and the universe for what they had taken from me. The wound ripped open every time I came home and she wasn’t there. After the anger came the darkness. I hadn’t started my PhD program, having deferred my acceptance to care for Pattie, so I had nothing to do and nowhere to be. I just existed in my dark and dirty apartment, sleeping away the day, waiting for the pain to stop.”
“Did it?”
He shakes his head. “It never did. Until I lost Pattie, I didn’t know a human could live with that amount of crushing pain. It felt like I would never be happy and never know love again.”
“But what happened?”
“Big Pat happened. She pulled me out. One day, about six months after the funeral, she knocked on my door. She had left her assisted-living facility, called an Uber, and made her way across town because she said she had a message for me. She said she’d had a dream the night before that Pattie had told her to find me. She said I had to live for both of us to make our dreams come true. I just fell to the floor, crying like a baby, as her grandmother comforted me. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was like Tricia was in the room with us. For the first time in that whole episode, I felt a brush of peace—like the burden had lifted for a moment. It was as if to tell me that was enough. That I needed to get back to work and have a life.”
“And that worked?” I marvel at the concept. I’ve had no one to pull me back from the edge. How nice it would have been to have a support system, anyone at all.
“It did ... The thing is, the night before, I was having some dark thoughts. Thoughts about how this pain wasn’t worth it. That life seemed to have no point. Big Pat showing up the next day seemed like a sign.
“So I got up. I cleaned the apartment and moved out. I found a smaller place with fewer memories and started living again. That’s when the numbness started. I would get up, go to class, and then come home, living like a robot, the same day over and over. Big Pat would call and make sure I ate. She was my lifeline at the time. Pattie’s parents were deep in their grief; they had no room for me. I understood, though. Every time they saw me, it had to be similar to what you went through—a potential future, the hope of grandchildren and family memories, crushed.”
“Are you still in touch with Big Pat?”
Sebastian cracks a grin despite the mood. “Sure am—visit whenever I can. She’s giving the orderlies hell at ninety-two.”
“You’re a good man, Sebastian.” There is something so sweet and pure about him checking up on her. He has a kindness that life hasn’t taken from him yet.
I lie back in his arms, tired but safe. He has known loss, too, experienced the darkness that comes with being alone, and has managed to come out on the other side. He sat on my couch, listening to my story, allowing me to relive it one last time, dredging up all the sour and sweet memories.
I picture the stack of postcards sitting in my trunk, waiting for their tale to be told.
I’m glad to tell him.
I’m glad I’m not alone.
Especially as the next memories might have been the most bittersweet of all.
Part VI: Montgomery
The Postcards—1955
Twenty-Seven
Ireviewed the notes as the plane’s two propeller engines roared around me, trying to get an angle on the story—a planned bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, starting Monday, December 5, 1955. The protest was in response to a Black woman being arrested the Thursday before for not giving up her seat. All I had was a name: Jo Ann Robinson, with the Women’s Political Council, based in Montgomery.
It wasn’t my usual beat—it’d normally go to Mattie Smith Colin, one of the other writers onThe Chicago Defender’s staff, but she was still busy covering Mamie Till and the aftereffects of her son Emmett Till’s murder. She’d been the one to interview Mamie when Emmett’s body arrived in Chicago for his widely publicized second and final burial.
