Habit (7 page)

P
ICTURE AN ELDERLY WOMAN
, three-thirty in the morning. She is standing in a pool of water outside her bathroom, barefoot, surrounded by broken glass. Her youngest daughter walks in and knows right away what to
not
do with the Elephant in the Room.

Twelve hours earlier:

We're sitting in a corner of the infusion room's waiting area. Ma is sound asleep, crumpled in a wheelchair. She's just had a chemo port installed under the skin of her chest, a procedure done under general anesthetic, so she's still pretty groggy. The next step is to get the poison hooked up and pumping into her veins.

We've been around Huntingdon enough to understand that it can take a lot out of you. Of course, you would expect a cancer hospital to take a lot out of you, a lot of
cancer
. But there's this collateral loss of time and energy that has to do with the sheer number of sick people. I had no idea. Our problem seems to radiate from this infusion area, which I've realized reminds me of airport lounges since 9/11 with the lines backed up and the planes overbooked. It's packed with people, mostly in pairs: one person usually wearing a kerchief, pallid in complexion, and a rosier-looking friend/spouse/sidekick who has a large shoulder bag full of reading material and knitting supplies.

What I find disappointing is that there is a notable contrast between our first meeting with the surgeon and the rest of the team, and what has gone on since we signed up. On the morning of our interview, we were greeted at the hospital entrance by a friendly grey-haired volunteer and whisked efficiently from one sign-in area to another. A handsome, official-looking blue ID card stamped with Ma's name was presented with a flourish. There was a brief pause in the doctors' waiting room, just long enough to appreciate its fireplace and picture windows looking out on beautiful landscaping. Then we had the full, focused attention of several very solicitous, intelligent experts who did their absolute best to make everything very clear to us before Ma committed to treatment.

The infusion room shares its waiting area with the lab. There are no fireplaces, no windows. We did bloodwork the last time we were here. I came unprepared, and as the wait dragged on, I yearned for my own shoulder bag like the ones around me. I'd have given anything for a garish orange-and-purple synthetic shawl to crochet. Most of all, I wanted to snatch the Nicholas Sparks novel from the woman next to me; it couldn't have been worse than sitting there with no distraction whatsoever. Instead I had to make do memorizing a pamphlet for a smoking cessation program. There are a lot of these lying around. I assume they are cleverly intended for the rosy sidekicks who don't yet know enough to bring their own entertainment and, left with nothing to do but take in the scene, become understandably terrified they will end up forced to wear bandannas themselves. Terrified enough to actually consider quitting smoking once and for all.

Today I've brought three recent
New Yorker
s to pass back and forth with Ma, but she's mostly been asleep since the tech handed her over after the port procedure. That was freaky, too. He just wheeled her out and shoved her at me, and there I was, alone with this unconscious person in a wheelchair, thinking
outpatient my ass
. It was quite a jolt to suddenly be the solitary custodian of Ma in such a helpless state. I first experienced the shock of having a vulnerable soul casually plopped into my utterly unskilled hands after our daughter Eliza's birth, when the nurse loaded the three of us into our car in the parking garage at Cedars-Sinai. The emotional contrast is not lost on me now, between the heady joy of a shiny new baby and the mixed emotional bag when a complicated octogenarian parent entrusts you with her life.

There was a little time before Ma's infusion “appointment” so I tried to get her some food, which was just silly. I could barely get her to wake up enough to find out what she would eat. The snack bar was packed; I had to elbow my way around people scrambling for something that didn't look too processed. You'd think they'd offer some reassuringly whole-grain steamed veggie miracle cure food, but the most natural options were pre-packaged salad (Ma can't chew it) or yogurt, which she doesn't think is healthy because of the sugar they put in the fruit. Perversely, she went for a piece of pound cake instead, and then fell asleep mid-bite.

Now I'm reading cartoons and “Shouts and Murmurs” and hoping nobody minds Ma's snoring. It's been three hours, and the door to the infusion room has opened maybe once this whole time. You could knit enough shawls for an army at this rate. The people behind the desk where you sign in are no help. They have these clipboards and headsets, and they announce things over a loudspeaker. They talk on the phone a lot and seem very hardworking, but they have a remarkable talent for not making eye contact when you are standing right smack in front of them, wanting to know what the holdup's all about. I would not want that job—it has to be wearing when people are irritated with you all day long.

Finally home, very late, both of us feeling drained. I'll be sleeping on the daybed in Ma's study next to her bedroom tonight because she is not safe alone after anesthesia. Which raises the Big Question, the rather large Elephant in the Room we've been tiptoeing around since the diagnosis: How much longer can she live alone? What are we going to do when she can't?

David's not going anywhere for a couple of days. Thank God, the kids have one parent in the house, or I don't know what I'd do. I make a brief call to my brother, Felix, hemmed in by the Vermont snow. He usually needs details and has been obsessing about Ma's beautiful white hair (
When does her hair fall out? I've got to get my driveway cleared so I can come down and see her hair!
). Colette is conveniently asleep in England, unreachable.

We're all adults now. I'm still
the spoiled one
to Felix. In my darkest moments, I imagine behind-the-scenes murmuring about the justice of Ma and her
Special
child partnered in this final lonely dance. There's a general vibe of sympathy and concern though, because we all know I never consciously asked to be groomed for the caretaker job. The siblings are trying to figure out ways to help, but still, what can they do? I'm the one who's here.

Colette may be right. She thinks I imprinted unnaturally on Ma at birth, like a foundling duck hatched accidentally in the nest of a needy, scatterbrained rattlesnake.

Ma has woken up enough for a little dinner. She now has a canister of chemo fluid strapped to her waist. It drips in via a thin tube attached to the port in her chest, and we're supposed to go have it refilled once a week in the dreaded infusion room. Tomorrow we begin radiation: five mornings a week. This will take six weeks, and then there's a rest period before they can remove whatever's left of the tumor. Ma has a reassuring 90 percent chance of recovery if she sticks to the program.

It's my first time sleeping in my mother's home since Daddy's last days in Florida. Funny to think of the journey from being afraid to sleep under a roof away from Ma, through the stage where I'd beg my friends to invite me for the night so I could get some peace, and now back at “home” again, even if it's just for a night or so. There's a scary teetering-on-the-precipice feeling to this—if I stay too long, I might get too comfortable, sort of fall metaphorically asleep and forget where I really live.

I'm older, more tired, and less patient now. The eccentricities get to me. There's a lot to do figuring out how to get Ma's clothes on and off around the canister, which nightclothes will work okay with this new obstacle and which will not, or where the right ones are for that matter. We lose her glasses several times. Ma has all these issues about her prayer ropes, her candles, and her special Holy Oil, and the phone keeps ringing. On top of that, there are the usual obsessive-compulsive rules:
Coats go in the coat closet, not draped over a chair!
She has a thing about bathroom doors (
they must always be kept shut!
). I keep having to go into the bathroom to look for things, and if I forget to close the door on my way out, I'm supposed to drop everything, rush back, and close it—and the trash cans (
Don't call them that. They're scrap baskets!
) are actually not meant for trash. If you put something in the one in the bedroom, like a small piece of scrap paper or Kleenex, you are supposed to empty it into the kitchen trash instantly because otherwise
it's too messy, living in an apartment is like being on a boat, everything in its place.

When you're exhausted and you have a whole list of things ahead of you to do, that extra trip to shut the bathroom door can tip you right over the edge. But I hold my tongue and tell myself Ma's tired, too, she needs her order, it's just for the night. Looming over us is how we'll manage through the next six weeks. They say she'll be all right on her own till about the third or fourth week, then she'll start to feel ill and need help. There's that Elephant again.

I can't just move in here with Ma. I've got the kids. David will be back and forth doing an Anne Hathaway thriller followed by
John Adams
, so I have to assume he won't be around when I might need him. Nobody wants a strange caregiver to move into their home if they can avoid it, so that's a last resort. Besides, it's expensive and we have a lot of co-pays now. I'm not sure we could get the Long-Term Care Insurance to pay for live-in help or assisted living, when the affliction is curable cancer.

Do I dare even think this? Should Ma move in with us, even temporarily?

I have friends who have done it. Margaret (the picky eater) bought the house she grew up in from her parents, arranging the deal in such a way that the price was more affordable. In exchange, her parents get to stay there for the rest of their lives, in the master bedroom, for lord's sake. Margaret, her husband, George, and the two kids sleep up on the third floor. They all share the kitchen, and it is probably my imagination, but sometimes I think they seem a little overly pleased with themselves.

I have another friend whose mother is a prescription drug addict. The family tried a series of interventions, which accomplished nothing. They have disowned each other, and now she barely knows where her mother is. Having a friend whose mother is this much of a disappointment is a great solace to me.

It's really confusing. One month ago, I was hardly on speaking terms with Ma. Since I escaped to boarding school, I've had recurring nightmares about her that cause me to curse loudly in my sleep. David can do a great imitation of me, flailing spastically in the dark. (
Mfff. Mrrr, stop id you always mumff. Sprrgrm mad at yooghhh. Why do you spremf me I fffff . . . Prr stupid grr selfish. Oh, fff. Fffff. Ffff-ug.
)

It's only recently with this crisis that I've had it in me to spend more than an hour or two with Ma without blowing my stack, but as luck would have it for whatever reason, my relationship with her is the overall best of my siblings. And I have the biggest house, which means I'm the most logical candidate and we all know it.

It's not like it's the first time I've considered this. I knew the day would come eventually. Ma doesn't seem to want to move in with me any more than I want her to. The siblings have been funny. Felix's advice was to move somewhere like Boston and leave Ma to figure things out for herself. Colette is adamant, sort of:

—I support you if you want to try, but I'm not asking you to do that.

—Good, Colette, because I don't think I can. I might turn into a lunatic and I don't think I can subject David and the kids—

—Good, Susie, because I think it would be a TERRIBLE idea.

—Right. Terrible.

—That doesn't mean I'm against it if you change your mind and decide to try it. I'll support you if you decide to try.

—Thanks.

—But I'll support you if you don't, too. That would be completely understandable. Nobody should have to do that.

—I know.

—I'd do it for you if I could, but I don't think anyone should have to. She could literally suck the life out of you.

—I'm not going to do it unless she can't walk and she can't talk. Then I'll consider it.

—Good. But even then I will support you if you don't.

Colette is my confidante. She's a Libra, with the scales. I love Libras; I married one and then gave birth to two, deliberately. The boys were due on Halloween and when the doctor offered to give them a little shove three weeks early I leaped at the chance to dodge having twin male teenage Scorpios to cope with down the road. Libras are perfect for me, they're honest and loyal, they're tidy (not the boys, yet, but David and Colette sure are), but they can't make up their minds that easily. You should see David at the grocery store:

David picks up a jar of whatever. He looks at the label. He reads the ingredients for like ten minutes. He puts the jar in his cart. Then he takes it out and puts it back on the shelf. He wheels down the aisle and picks up some other item and reads that jar's label. Back on the shelf it goes. He goes back to the first product again, takes two jars, and puts them in the cart. He stares into space for a while. He puts one jar back and returns to the second product. He puts it in the cart next to the first one he chose. He starts to wheel away, then stops. He takes the two different jars out of the cart and sort of weighs them in his hands to see which one is lighter. He holds them up side by side and reads both labels at the same time.

When David goes to Whole Foods, he is gone for hours.

Ma's dishwasher's sort of almost full. I could have started it, but it's late and we'd hear it while we're trying to go to sleep. This daybed's not too bad. Ma spotted it at Ikea a few years ago and when she was out one day, I set it up for her as a surprise. I try not to fixate on the intermittent warning
beep
of the smoke detector that has needed a new battery for more than a year. Ma doesn't believe in smoke detectors and doesn't want to have it changed (she can't hear it anyway). I'd always figured it was her business, but now I wish I'd fixed it when I had the energy. I have earplugs for when David snores, but I forgot them
. I miss David and the kids.