Good Harbor (5 page)

In June, every wave and rock and gull is lit up from inside, the sky is a daily miracle.
But I won’t be able to enjoy it, Kathleen thought bitterly. The margins won’t be clean.
They’ll find invasive cancer cells on the margins. There will be more surgery, and
radiation and chemotherapy, and God knows what. I’ll be too weak and nauseated to
sit up, much less have energy to pull weeds or plant bulbs.

Kathleen loved the steep, rocky hill behind the house. It had been a “nature preserve”
— her own euphemism for scrubby and neglected — while her sons were growing up. But
once they left home, she fortified the worn-out soil with coffee grounds and manure,
and now there were flowers everywhere, daylilies mostly, in and around the ten granite
boulders on the hillside. A few years ago, Buddy had hired a cherry picker so she
could get up to the top, and she had planted a big stand of yellow Stella d’Oros up
there. They bloomed the whole summer.

She wouldn’t be planting anything this summer. No new lilies. No tomatoes. Nothing.

By the time she pulled into the parking lot, she was in a rage. “Damn it!” she shouted.
“Damn it all to hell.”

She leaned back in the seat and calmed down enough to walk into the building, retrieve
her date book, and tell the principal that she would be out the rest of the week.
He put his arm around her shoulder and said, “You take all the time you need.” Then
he got that look on his face and Kathleen knew what his next words would be. “My sister
had breast cancer.”

Back home, she called Buddy to tell him the news. She called Hal and Jack. She talked
to receptionists at medical offices. “We can fit you in Friday, but it may be a long
wait,” said the woman at the internist’s office. “Bring a book.”

Kathleen sat in one waiting room after another, unable to read. She picked at her
cuticles and wondered what had happened to the woman who had canceled her surgery
with Dr. Truman. Had she come down with the flu? Found a better surgeon? Did she decide
she’d just rather die?

The last stop was at a lab for a final blood test to rule out anemia. A child’s outraged
wail filled the silence in the waiting room outside the lab. The grown-ups in the
chairs around her smiled at each other and shook their heads in sympathy. “Poor thing,”
said the woman sitting next to Kathleen.

Danny hadn’t cried. He was knocked unconscious by the car. And then they had put the
tube down his throat. Pat had promised Kathleen that her little boy wouldn’t remember
the pain or the disgusting procedures they did on him — because of the drugs. Amnestics.

Buddy and Kathleen spent the Sunday night before surgery at a motel near the hospital
in Boston. The bed was as hard and flat as a frozen pond, but somehow they managed
to fall asleep, waking at dawn to get to the operating room on time.

Within minutes of entering the building, Kathleen lay gowned and shivering on a gurney.
She was so frightened — trembling and almost blue at the lips — the anesthesiologist
asked if she’d like a mild sedative once they hooked up the IV. Kathleen was mortified
at her cowardice, but said yes. Was it Fiona or Madge who had told her about some
woman, diagnosed with DCIS and dead of metastatic breast cancer a year later.

Buddy sat beside her in pre-op, alternately silent and gasping. She thought about
reminding him to breathe, but she couldn’t spare the energy to form the words.

Lying between the green curtains, she remembered Pat’s last days in the hospital:
the foul, metallic smell of her sister’s breath, her face, bilious and yellow, distorted
into a bloated circle. And then Pat in her casket. “Isn’t she the picture of peace?”
the old nuns had said. But Kathleen had been horrified. Who had picked that lime green
polyester suit? Who had turned Patty into a frump for a roomful of strangers to peer
at and pronounce “at peace”?

She closed her eyes tighter against the memories and the bright light and the cold
of the pre-op room. Why did they keep it so cold?

Dr. Truman walked into the room, transformed by the green operating scrubs into an
outsize elf. The doctor’s fingers felt dry and warm on Kathleen’s arm as she crouched
down close enough for Kathleen to feel her breath against her cheek. Kathleen smiled
at the sound but didn’t pay attention to the words. The voice was calm. “Okay, Doc,”
Kathleen said. At least she thought she said it.

The doctor vanished, Buddy kissed her, and Kathleen was wheeled into an even brighter,
even colder room. She shuddered under the sheet. A voice told her to take three breaths,
and she fell back.

She woke up vomiting into a blue plastic basin in another curtained cubicle. A West
Indian nurse held her by the shoulders. “There you go, darling, you’ll be feeling
better now.” She wiped the inside of Kathleen’s mouth with a minty swab and asked,
“Ready to see your husband?”

Buddy walked in with a broad smile across his face. “Dr. Truman says you were great.
She says we can go home whenever you feel up to it.”

She nodded and closed her eyes, just for a moment, just to rest from the strain of
retching. But she woke up much later, in a hospital bed. The room was illuminated
only by the fading daylight slipping through narrow blinds. She stirred, aware of
the bandage on her breast, a dull ache beneath it.

“Buddy?” He was asleep in the chair beside her.

“What!” he said, jumping up.

“I’m ready to go home.”

An aide helped Kathleen out of bed and wheeled her out to the curb. They drove home
without speaking, and both fell into bed, exhausted, with their clothes on.

Dr. Truman called in the morning to ask how Kathleen was feeling. They would meet
the following Monday to review the pathology report. “Don’t worry,” Dr. Truman said.
It was a stupid thing to say, and Kathleen tried to forgive her for it.

Kathleen did nothing but worry. It was a school vacation week, and it rained. The
phone rang and she told her sons she was doing fine. That’s what she said to Madge
and Fiona, and to Louisa, her next-door neighbor, who brought over a pie.

“Waiting is hard,” she admitted when they asked how she was feeling, but she said
nothing about the ugly bruises from the intravenous lines, or about how the steady
beat of fear kept time with the dull throbbing of the incision. She certainly didn’t
talk about how she woke up sweating, the sheets twisted around her arms and legs,
or about how she was trying to get used to the idea of never seeing her sons married,
never meeting her grandchildren.

Buddy rented movies he thought Kathleen might like. Eating popcorn and fruit for dinner,
they watched a succession of recent comedies, which neither of them found especially
funny. Finally, after a damp weekend that included — on Buddy’s insistence — a long
walk through a crowded mall, and a nearly silent dinner at the White Horse Inn, they
were ushered into Dr. Truman’s office for the verdict.

The doctor was smiling. “Good news, Kathleen. The best news I could give you today.
The margins were clean, and there was no evidence of invasive cancer cells anywhere.”
She looked down at Kathleen’s chart. “Of course, given your family history, we want
to be extra careful. After the radiation, you’ll need to be checked every six months.
But it looks good. And you understand that the surgery confirmed that your diagnosis
and prognosis are completely different from your sister’s.”

The doctor closed the chart and talked about radiation treatment, but Kathleen had
stopped listening. Her ears pounded. For a moment she thought she might faint. She
wasn’t going to die. At least not this summer. She wasn’t going to die.

“Is it okay to get the radiation closer to home, instead of down here?” she heard
Buddy ask. Thank goodness he was paying attention, taking notes on the little pocket
pad he used for orders at the store. Kathleen tried to look interested in the conversation.
But she was busy reclaiming the summer. The light, the garden, the beach.

Thank You, God, thank You.

Dr. Truman recommended a radiation oncologist in a new clinic near Beverly. Buddy
wrote as she described the probable treatment: every day for six and a half weeks.

I’m not going to lose my hair or throw up or turn yellow and die like Pat. Forgive
me, Pat, Kathleen prayed silently, lying on the table while the doctor examined her
incision and pronounced her a “good healer.”

Walking to the car, Buddy said they could schedule her treatments to start after school
let out for the summer. Kathleen would likely be fully recovered from the surgery
by then. He would map out the quickest route to the clinic. She’d be done early in
August, so the summer wouldn’t be a total loss. Come September, she’d be rested and
ready to go back to school.

Kathleen said almost nothing all the way home. How did I get away with this? she wondered.
Why Pat and not me? I’m sorry, Pat. You didn’t deserve to die. God forgive me, but
I’m glad to be alive. You’ll forgive me, too, won’t you, Pat?

They approached the end of the “mainland,” passing the last of the malls and condo
developments. Then there was nothing but trees to look at, all on the verge of green.

Kathleen rolled down the window and took a deep breath, letting herself feel how much
she wanted to be in school next fall. The kindergarten class included several “grand-students”
— children born to parents she had taught. At the open house last month, she’d met
SueEllen Puello’s daughter, Jasmine, a delicious girl with big black eyes. And she
had a feeling that Alex Maceo would be a lot like his dad, an active boy she’d turn
into a reader.

Then they were at the A. Piatt Andrew Bridge, which meant almost home. Hal and Jack
used to compete to see which one of them could say it the most times as they drove
over.

“A. Piatt Andrew?” Buddy asked, grinning. “A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt
Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew. A. Piatt Andrew.

“How many was that, Mom?” he asked, the way the boys would ask, every time.

The tide was high and bright in the midday sun.

She might yet see grandchildren. Please, God. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.
Please. And thank You.

J
OYCE
groaned when she found out that her book group had chosen
Anna Karenina.
She groaned again when she opened it and faced the barrage of -evitches, -ovitches,
and -ovnas. She couldn’t keep any of the names straight and, after one hundred pages,
put the book down.

“I give up,” she said.

Frank, beside her in bed watching the news, said, “Does it matter? You always say
Marie dominates the whole conversation, anyway.”

It was true. “The whole group feels more and more like homework, anyway,” Joyce said.
“Other women’s book groups seem to have more fun.”

Frank, apparently mesmerized by the weather report, said nothing.

“Hello? Frank?”

He turned to her. “So quit and find another one that’s more fun.”

“What a rotten thing to say.”

“What? If you don’t like this group, why not make a change?”

Joyce turned her back on Frank, switched off the bedside lamp, and fumed. She’d missed
a few meetings, but she couldn’t afford to quit her book group entirely.

She was lonely. After four years of working at home, she had started to feel like
a hermit. Her coworkers at the magazine had stopped inviting her to lunch a while
ago; she’d just said no too many times.

But that wasn’t the main source of her isolation; she hadn’t been all that close to
the people at work, anyway. Her two best friends had moved: Lauren and her husband
were in Atlanta, and Pia’s assignment in Paris had been extended twice.

Joyce was down to her second string, which was unraveling. Missing book group yet
again would only add to her funk.

When she walked into Heidi’s living room for the meeting a few nights later, Marie
was, indeed, holding forth. Four women were gathered around the blond Danish coffee
table, where cups and plates were artfully arranged around an uncut cake. But Marie
wasn’t talking about
Anna Karenina.
For a moment, Joyce wondered if she’d been in an accident; the circles under her
eyes were so dark they looked like bruises. But no, it was just the exhaustion, as
Marie was explaining, of taking care of a nearly three-year-old with absolutely no
interest in using the toilet, while at the same time contending with her teenage twins.
“Forty-seven is just too old to be doing this,” she said.

Heidi, a fifty-two-year-old pediatrician married to a shrink, was the oldest member
of the group. Joyce, at forty-two, was the youngest member. The rest of them had started
when all their kids were in elementary school. Now, Heidi’s oldest was in college,
and their occasional non-book-related conversations revealed the changes. A few months
back, before Heidi — the group’s schoolmistress-cum-den-mother — could rein them in,
there had been a hilarious debate about whether there was a causal relationship between
hormone replacement therapy and the exponential increase of VW Beetles in Boston’s
western suburbs.

But no one was laughing tonight. In the long pause that followed Marie’s confession,
Alice blurted, “I moved out of the house.”

Marie’s mouth dropped open. They could hear a door close upstairs.

“What happened?” asked Heidi, her long, blue caftan swishing around her legs as she
sat down next to Alice.

“Nothing happened,” Alice said slowly. “There was nothing left with Tim. It was just
. . . empty.”

“What will that do to Petra?” Marie said a little too quickly. Alice winced at Marie’s
typical rush to judgment.

“Joint custody.”

The room went silent again.

“I had no idea you were unhappy,” said Joyce, who had always liked Tim, who seemed
like such an easygoing guy; Frank liked him, too.

“Did you guys try counseling?” Heidi asked gently.

“No. It’s me. I’m in therapy,” Alice said. “Actually, I’m, um, taking Zoloft.”

Joyce giggled. Four pairs of eyes turned to her, and she felt her face redden. “I’m
sorry. It’s just so much, isn’t it? All at once, I mean. Isn’t anyone here having
a torrid affair? Then we’d have a complete set of midlife crises.”

Marie tried to lighten it up and, with a mock leer, pointed at Joyce. “Hey, I figured
that’s what’s been keeping you away.”

“Not me,” Joyce said, “maybe that’s why Susan’s not here,” trying to deflect attention
away from herself.

“Actually, Susan is in Cleveland to help move her father to a nursing home,” said
Marie. “The Alzheimer’s got to be too much for her mom to handle.”

“Oh, God,” Joyce said, “I haven’t talked to her in ages.” She and Susan used to walk
around the high school track twice a week, but that had stopped when Susan went back
to school last fall.

Heidi headed for the kitchen and returned with two bottles of wine. “I don’t think
decaf is going to cut it tonight,” she announced.

Alice didn’t want to say more about her problems, so Marie took up where she’d left
off. They all knew the story of her last pregnancy; her husband hadn’t wanted another
child, and her fifteen-year-old boys weren’t the least bit interested in baby-sitting
for their little brother. “I think I had a baby so I wouldn’t have to deal with the
rest of my life,” Marie said, as close to tears as any of the women had ever seen
her. “But now I’m bored out of my skull at home all day with Ryan. Al is working eighty
hours a week, and the boys are going to spend the whole summer at my sister’s house
on Nantucket. I think I made a terrible mistake.”

Diana, the therapist, put an arm around Marie. Diana had a “challenging” son, too,
a thirteen-year-old who was perpetually failing in school. “Hang on, Joyce,” Diana
said by way of warning. “I, too, have a tale of woe.

“I didn’t tell you before, but Dylan was arrested for shoplifting a couple of months
ago. The judge ordered tests, and they came back with a diagnosis of ADD and depression.
Herb insisted we try Ritalin and his grades are up. He’s hanging out with other kids
more.” Diana paused. “He’s happier. He even said so.” She raised her glass for a refill.
“All those years I wouldn’t let him be evaluated because I thought the teachers and
counselors just wanted to drug my creative, free-spirited boy. God forgive me.”

The phone rang and Heidi hoisted herself off the couch to answer it. Joyce used to
think Heidi carried her extra weight stylishly in her long skirts and Navajo jewelry,
but tonight she just looked dated and tired.

There was a pause as they waited for Heidi to return. Then, Alice turned to Joyce
and asked, “So, what’s really up with you, Tabachnik?”

“I, um, wrote a novel.” Joyce’s timid announcement was met by an outburst of congratulations
and questions. Did she have an agent? A publisher? Who? When?

Joyce smiled weakly. “It’s signed, sealed, and available in a supermarket near you.”

The faces around her went blank. Taking a deep breath, she said, “It’s a romance novel.”

That shut them up. Joyce figured that these women might read the occasional British
mystery, but they were more likely to subscribe to
Soldier of Fortune
than pick up a romance.

She felt herself begin to sweat. “You guys know that none of my nonfiction projects
panned out. Three different agents tried on the last one, but no one wanted to buy
a book about the Children’s AIDS program. Too depressing. Too many AIDS books.”

Joyce was ashamed for parading her “serious” credentials, but she continued anyway.
“I decided to go commercial.”

She entertained them with a description of the how-to-write-a-romance workshop she’d
attended, quoting sample phrases from handout sheets: “Her body vibrated in response
to his presence.” “He felt a numb certainty that the moment was wrong.”

She told them about her lunch with Mario Romano, but stopped short of revealing her
pen name.

Joyce emptied her glass and excused herself. The buzz from the wine was starting to
turn into a headache. Serves me right, she thought, as she walked out of the bathroom.
I’m such a hypocrite.

They agreed to postpone the discussion of Tolstoy until after the summer. Marie offered
her house for the September meeting, and the women said good-night to each other.

Joyce and Alice walked out together. “That’s great news about your book,” Alice said.
“But you seem a little tense. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. What about you? And how’s Petra taking this?”

“Petra will be okay,” Alice said as she unlocked her car. “Kids are resilient. I stayed
with Tim for a lot longer than I should have, for Petra’s sake. But I just can’t anymore.
My marriage is empty, and I know it sounds stupid, but all I really want is to fall
in love again. I want to feel alive like that again. Besides, it can’t be good for
her if I’m miserable.”

“Alice, I wish you all the best,” Joyce said. “It takes a lot of courage to do what
you’re doing.”

“Yeah. Or mental illness.”

Joyce’s scalp prickled. Hadn’t Alice said she was taking antidepressants?

“Call me?” asked Joyce.

In the car, Joyce switched off the radio. She felt like a rat about the way she’d
made fun of her own book. It’s not a bad book, she thought. It’s pretty good, actually.
“Magnolia would spit on me,” Joyce muttered, glancing at herself in the rearview mirror.
“And she’d be right.”

Alice was a wonderful woman, a sweet person, but no great beauty. Her skin was leathery
from all the years of working in her father’s landscaping business. What were the
odds of her finding a new love?

Joyce recognized the fantasy, though. After eighteen years, who didn’t? Her marriage
was stuck in its own mud. All the conversations she and Frank had these days turned
into skirmishes about Nina. They hadn’t been to a movie for ages. She could count
on one hand the number of times they’d had sex in the last year.

Sex with someone new. Conversation with a man whose eyes locked on hers. Shopping
for new sheets hand in hand. She’d seen women her age in love, glowing like lanterns.
Was it endorphins or gratitude? God, it would be great to feel like that again.

But it would kill Nina. All that “resilient kid” stuff aside, Joyce could imagine
the scene at the kitchen table: “Your father and I have decided . . .” Her daughter
would crumble.

Frank didn’t deserve that, either. He was a good husband. Not hostile, like Marie’s.
Or arrogant, like Heidi’s. As for Alice’s Tim, Joyce had to admit, he was dull, bordering
on dumb.

The big problem with Frank was the way he withdrew into things — his work, his gardening,
whatever book he was reading, or even a TV show. When they’d first met, Joyce had
fallen in love with his self-sufficiency — especially after two high-maintenance boyfriends.
But now his independence felt like distance. Most of the time, he seemed a million
miles away. The only thing they seemed to share anymore was Nina. And the mortgage.
And a billion memories.

Back in her own driveway, Joyce sat in the car looking at the dark windows. To be
fair, she wasn’t exactly knocking on Frank’s door these days, either. He’d probably
respond if she said something, but she couldn’t muster the energy.

They’d had these long dry spells before, and each time Joyce had been the one to insist
they find their way to water. One time, she’d shanghaied Frank — left Nina with a
sitter, picked him up at work, drove them to New York City for dinner, a play, and
a night in a hotel. Once, she insisted they talk to a therapist.