Page 42 of That Birthday in Barbados
“What?” she asks, caution entering her voice.
“We’ll save that for another day,” I determine, suddenly certainI do not want to change the way she sees me. Because I know that if I tell her the truth, she will not look at me the same. And I’m not ready for that yet. I suppose it’s inevitable, but I don’t want to see that look in her eyes. Not yet.
*
Four years ago
ONCE PEOPLE REALIZE you have cancer, they don’t look at you the same. It’s not that I blame them or don’t understand the reaction. I do. If I’m honest, I can admit I’ve had the same feelings myself. Pity. Empathy. And there’s fear too. Maybe all us are so afraid of getting it that on some level we’re afraid it’s contagious.
When someone looks the way I look now, it is an understandable fear. I am the poster boy for what cancer does to a human body.
I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirrorand realize I have given up on the only hope I’ve been given. Six weeks ago, I knew nothing about cancer. Nothing about treatment options other than the most obvious facts known to the public. What I know now is that conventional treatment will not be for me.
I go into my small living room that has not seen the touch of a decorator and is bare in the way of a place more passed through than lived in. A desk sits by the window that overlooks a busy Manhattan street. My laptop sits in the center, and I realize I haven’t touched it in weeks.
For the first week of chemo, I went to work after the session. But as the nausea kicked in, and I was spending more time going to the bathroom to throw up, it became obvious there was little point to my being there. And so, I asked my manager for some time off. I couldn’t give him any idea of how much time. I didn’t know myself. I realize now I am never going back to that office.
I stand next to the chair beside the desk, study the people walking by below, joggers weaving their way down the sidewalk. A wave of weakness hits me, and I sink onto the chair, wondering if my body is telling me it is time to give up.
Some part of me wants to. I’m shocked by the thought. Two months ago, I would never have believed I could even think it. But it feels like the easy way. The road that won’t require more struggle to find the will to fight. I glance at the bed visible through the bedroom door and wonder if I should just lie down and wait for death to take me. Stop eating. Stop drinking. Let the inevitable hurry toward me. Is that so unreasonable if that is where I willend up, anyway?
If there is an actual bottom for a person to hit, I realize that I am there. There is nowhere to look but up.
I reach out and lift the lid to my laptop. The screen lights up. Facebook is the window I’d last had open in the browser. I stare at the page, and I don’t have the heart to scroll down the feed and see the undeniable evidence that the world is already going on without me. Birthdays being celebrated. New babies being born. Dogs being adored by their people.
As the wireless signal registers, the page refreshes, and a new post pops up in the feed. It’s a picture of an infinity pool with a person standing at its edge. The water looks so inviting that I am captivated by it. I glance at the type on the picture and then read it.Where Hope Lives.The words settle for a moment, and I click on the photo. It takes me to the home page. Sanoviv Medical Institute. Curious, I read the recommendations of people who had been there. I quickly realize I’m reading about people like me, peopleon the verge of giving up. Who did not want to go the normal route of conventional medicine.
I click over to the website and read further. And for the next two hours, I lose myself in reading every piece of information available on the website and then I read every review and testimonial I can find.
By the time I sit back and close my laptop, I know that I am going to this place. I have absolutely nothing to lose.
Chapter Fifteen
“Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.”
?Louise Gluck
Nicole
Twenty-eight years ago
SHE CAN SEE that Catherine is going to have breasts before she does.
They’re at Camp Wagamucha in North Carolina for a four-week stay away from home, the first time their parents let them go for this long. Their original intention had been to let only Catherine go, but Nicole had begged until they couldn’t stand hearing her ask one more time and finally said, okay, you can go too.
The Camp Wagamucha T-shirt is the clue to Nicole’s observation. Catherine’s once flat-as-a-pancake chest is no longer flat at all, and the T-shirt does little to conceal the small but notable buds(they’d learned in health class that’s what they were called ooh gross).
Even though she finds the whole idea nauseating in the same way she feels after eating too much popcorn at the movies, she still knowsa pang of jealousy. She’s only ten. Catherine is twelve, and Nicole can only begin to guess at all the things Catherine will start to want to do without her.
She really doesn’t have any idea what those things will be but just the thought terrifies her. For as long as she can remember, as far back as her memory goes, she and Catherine doeverything together. Where Catherine leads, Nicole follows. Their Grandpa’s nickname for them was Pete and Repete. If it was good enough for Catherine to do, Nicole did not need to question it.
Sitting here now on the sandy beach made for the camp on Lake Wagamucha, Nicole would like to burn the eyes out of Johnny Atkins. He’s been staring at Catherine’s chest for the entire ten minutes they’ve been waiting for their canoes to be brought over from the storage dock. Or most of it anyway. And somehow, even though she doesn’t think Catherine has noticed yet, she has a feeling she will like Johnny’s attention when she does become aware of it.
Nicole steps in front of Catherine, blocking Johnny’s view. “I want to ride with you, Cat,” she says.
Catherine glances around, as if to make sure no friends have heard Nicole’s heartfelt plea. “Don’t you want to ride with Sarah and Penny?” she asks, her gaze skipping to Johnny. And it’s then that Nicole knows she has been wrong. Catherine has noticed Johnny looking at her, and she’s hoping he’ll ask to ride with her in the canoe.
Nicole clutches her stomach and puts on her most pained expression. “My stomach hurts, Cat.”
