The Secret to Hummingbird Cake (11 page)

We rode back slowly that evening, stopping now and then to steal a kiss, squeeze a hand. Neither of us wanted the day to end. But it was getting dark and we had to get back. When we'd made it almost home, he stopped his horse and grabbed the reins of mine. “We never got to talk today.”

I squeezed his hand. “It's okay, Jack,” I said. “We'll talk.”

“Before I tell you anything, I just want you to know I have always loved you,” he said. “Even if you didn't think I did.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. Suddenly I no longer cared what he'd done or who he'd done it with. Just like that, it didn't matter any more. We had both made mistakes. Whatever his were, they certainly couldn't be any worse than mine. But we were still standing, we were still here, and we still had a chance. Isn't that all anybody could really ask for?

In that instant I didn't care if everybody in Bon Dieu Falls thought I was a fool. This was
my
Jack. What could another woman do to touch what was between the two of us? I was immediately filled with regret and disgust for my part of the mess we had made. I was just about to tell him how sorry I was and how I loved him, and beg him for forgiveness, when I heard a shrill and panicked voice. Ella Rae?

“Carrigan! Carrigan!” Ella Rae was shouting my name.

I slid off the horse and ran toward her. Why was she here? What had happened? When I reached her she was trembling
all over. I'd never seen her like this. She was rambling about her cell phone and no reception and calling me. And she was sobbing.

“What is it?” I heard my own voice shaking, horrified of what she was about to tell me. “Ella Rae! Is it Tommy?”

She shook her head and bent to grab her knees as if to catch her breath. Jack was beside her instantly, holding her up, soothing her. “What is it, Rae?” he said. “Can you tell me?”

She grabbed his hand and finally looked up, her face wet with tears. She took a deep breath and looked into my eyes. “It's Laine,” she said, “and it's bad.”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

I knew the man was talking, I could see his lips moving. But the roaring in my ears prevented me from understanding a word he said. I caught broken sentences once in a while, a few words strung together, but it made no sense to me. Like a cell phone with awful reception.

I stared at him, willing myself to
hear
him. Still . . . broken phrases. “Often asymptomatic . . . terminal . . . maybe a year . . .” What was he talking about? Had I lost my ability to process English? I stared at him again. My hands were shaky and cold and clammy. And as much as I tried, a coherent thought would not come. But mostly I was furious, and it was all I could do to remain in my chair.

Ella Rae and I sat in the conference room on the third floor of Shreveport Medical Center with Laine's mother, Jeannette, and her brother, Michael. There was a man sitting at the head of the conference table, a doctor, telling us Laine had been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.

But surely that wasn't what he had said. He said the cancer had spread. He said she had a year left, maybe eighteen months with treatment. He said they could make her comfortable but didn't sound too convincing about it.

I looked at Mrs. Jeannette. Stunned. I looked at Michael. Stoic. I looked at Ella Rae, who had cried so much her eyes were nearly swollen shut. She was clinging to my hand as if it were a life raft. I wanted to cry, too, but the tears wouldn't come. I knew they should, and I felt guilty because they wouldn't. But my eyes remained dry.

The room was stifling, and the walls kept creeping in until it was becoming smaller and smaller. It smelled like hand sanitizer and carpet cleaner. I changed positions in my chair again, tugged at my collar, tried to breathe. “Do any of you have any questions for me?” the doctor said.

I stared at him again, his little wire-rimmed glasses and bald head. What was his name? He had told us his name, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember it.

I looked around. Nobody said a word. They just sat there. Staring. Seriously? I had a million questions.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Doctor . . . I can't remember your name . . .”

“Rougeau.”

“Yes, Doctor Rougeau.” I fidgeted, wringing my hands until they hurt. I tapped my foot. “I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I mean, I get that she's ill, and it's serious, but it's treatable, right?”

He cleared his throat and glanced at his desk before
looking up at me. “As I said, I am not optimistic. But stranger things have happened.”

I blinked. Finally. “What does that even mean?” I asked.

He took a deep breath. “Your friend is very sick. Stage four means—”

“Look,” I said, “I know what stage four means. My grandfather died of lung cancer. I'm not an idiot. But this is a young, healthy woman. She's thirty years old.” The more reasons I came up with for why Laine couldn't possibly have cancer, the louder I got. “She was riding a bicycle for miles two months ago. There is no way she can have stage four cancer!”

He looked at me sympathetically, but he didn't budge. “I'm so sorry.”

“She doesn't smoke.” I continued as if he hadn't spoken, as if I could change the outcome if I just kept talking. “She doesn't drink more than a thimble full of fuzzy navel once a month. She takes care of herself. She can't have cancer.”

Doctor Rougeau nodded. “Sometimes . . . and we don't always know why . . . people get sick. I wish I had an explanation to give you. I just don't. We'll make her as comfortable as we can.”

White-hot anger flew all over my body. “That's it? Are you kidding me? You can make her comfortable? This is crap.” Ella Rae grabbed my hand.

“Carrigan, don't!”

In the background I heard Mrs. Jeannette apologize to Doctor Rougeau. “She and Laine are very close, and Carrigan can be a bit . . . headstrong.”

“Come
on
, Ella Rae,” I said. I couldn't stand it one more second. It had become impossible to breathe and even more impossible to listen to the conversation. I hated the doctor for talking, and I hated everybody else for staying silent. I dragged Ella Rae down the hall so fast we were almost jogging.

Ella Rae stumbled to keep up. “Carri, please!” she said. “Stop! Please!”

I stopped and turned on her. “What?”

“What are we gonna do?”

Tears were spilling down her cheeks. It hurt me to look at her. I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw so tightly it popped. I knew I should hug her, comfort her, but I couldn't. In my mind, if I acknowledged her pain, this whole nightmare would become real. So I shoved her into the ladies' room. “Straighten your face up,” I said. “I don't want her to see you like this. And hurry up.”

I stood in the hall waiting for her and forced myself to take deep breaths. I knew I had been close to hyperventilating sitting in that conference room, and I wasn't sure it had passed yet. I couldn't pull that mess in front of Laine. I felt bad for being so hateful to Ella Rae when I shoved her in the bathroom. But she had to get it together. I clamped my jaws down again, determined. If I was going to have to be the strength of this little group, then fine, I could do it. I had to do it. If everybody else was willing to give up on her, that was their business. But I wasn't going to. I wasn't going to let Ella Rae give up and I surely wasn't letting Laine give up on herself.

Ella Rae stepped out of the bathroom but began to cry again as soon as she looked at me. “I can't do this, Carrigan.”

“Yes, you can.” I tried to make my voice a little gentler. “You have to.” I pointed down the hall toward the conference room we'd just left. “They've already buried her. You hear me?” I felt my own voice break with the words. “But she's not gonna die. She just isn't. Now, come on.”

Ella Rae, bless her, did all she could to put on a brave face as we headed down the hall. But it was a thinly veiled front, and I knew she could fall apart any moment. In some way, I wished I could join her.

Laine was asleep when we walked into her room, the remaining effects of a sedative still hanging on. Ella Rae sat on a chair beside the bed and cried softly. There was no sense in telling her to stop. She couldn't and I knew that.

Asleep, Laine looked frail, and it was clear she was sick and suffering. How could Ella Rae and I have missed this? She was white as the sheet she was lying on. There were dark circles under her eyes, even more pronounced because her face was thin and pale.

I had seen her only three weeks ago. How could this have happened already? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Charlotte saying Laine looked tired at the Crawfish Boil back in May. My mother had mentioned it to me at church a couple of weeks later. Laine herself had complained about being tired a time or two, but she always said she was tired.

Why hadn't I seen this? Was I so wrapped up in my own petty crap that I allowed a third of my lifetime trio to wither away in front of my eyes? Was I so shallow and superficial, so
caught up in me, my wants, my needs, my indiscretion, that I couldn't see the truth? I had lugged her all over the place when she wanted to stay home. I kept her out half the night when she didn't want to stay out. I worried her all the time with my marriage, Romeo, and my preposterous, insane, self-created drama.

Everything was a joke to Ella Rae and me. Everything we did was for entertainment purposes only. Not Laine. She took life seriously, her job, the kids she taught, everything. She took my marriage more seriously than I did. I swallowed at the bile rising in my throat. I couldn't stand my own skin and wanted to claw at the thoughts inside my head.

Laine began to move her legs around, and after a few moments she opened her eyes. She looked at me and smiled slightly, then at Ella Rae. “I'm so sorry.”

Ella Rae laid her head on Laine's chest and completely crumbled. They both began to sob. I was frozen, unable to react verbally or physically. It was one of the truest moments of my life. I wanted to sob along with them, but the tears in my throat were as thick as the July humidity. That in itself was an anguish I couldn't describe or ignore.

Surely there was something else when tears weren't enough, some other outlet for these emotions I had never experienced. I felt numb and inadequate. I couldn't talk, and evidently couldn't move. I just stared at them, crying quietly now and clinging to each other.

Then Laine reached her hand out to me. I zombied over and sat on the side of the bed, trying to find my voice.

Finally I managed to squeak out one weak sentence. “It's gonna be okay.”

“Of course it is,” Laine said. But the second our eyes met, I knew neither of us believed it.

She gently pushed Ella Rae away from her. “You got my gown soaking wet, Rae,” she said.

“Laine! I'm so sorry!”

Laine shook her head. “I was joking . . .”

Ella Rae and I looked at her and neither of us laughed.

“Come on,” she said. She sat up straighter in the bed. “I know this is bad. But, please, don't either of you get all weird on me.”

I looked at Ella Rae, who was staring at her hands.

“Please,” Laine said, more forcefully this time. “I can take it from anybody but the two of you.”

“Okay,” Ella Rae and I said in unison.

“Look, I know this is . . . shocking for you both,” Laine said. “But I've had some time to digest it.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked back and forth from Ella Rae to me. “And I need to say something to you both. Today. Right now, while it's just us and before Mother and Michael come back in here. There are some things I need you to do for me, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. The conversation was making me terribly anxious. “Listen, we'll do
anything
you want us to do, but this isn't . . . you know . . . Nobody's giving up here . . .”

She smiled a little and grabbed my hand. “Just listen to me, okay?” She took a deep breath. “First of all . . . never turn weird on me again. I'm still me. I'm just . . . sick. If I can't count on the two of you, I don't know . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Of course you can count on us,” I said. “For anything.”

Laine nodded, obviously relieved. “I need to know the two of you will always, always tell me the truth no matter how bad the truth is. I'm not sure Mother and Michael will. They want to protect me. And I know y'all do, too, but promise me.”

We nodded.

“And one more thing.” Her lips trembled. “I need you both to stay with me, no matter how hard it gets. Can you do that for me?” A tear fell from her cheek onto my hand. Ella Rae began crying again, and I felt as if I had been punched in the gut.

“Of course.” I choked out the words.

Laine gathered her composure and cleared her throat. “I . . . understand what the prognosis is. I understand the cancer is in stage four and it is a rapidly growing type.” She paused and looked at me. “I know you won't like what I'm about to say, Carrigan, but this is my decision and I've made it. I am at peace with it.” She took a deep breath before she spoke again. “I have chosen not to take chemo. I don't want them injecting me with poison that won't prolong my life by much but will make me sick for the remainder of it.”

I finally found my voice. “Are you crazy?” I snatched my hand from hers and stood up. “Of course you're taking the chemo!”

She put her hand in the air. “It's not negotiable, Carrigan,” she said, “and it's not your decision.”

I sucked in my breath to speak again, but she shook her head. “Don't. Please.”

I pressed my lips together. I would let it go for now, but not
for long. If this cancer was as aggressive as Doctor Rougeau said it was, there was no time to waste. I wanted to wheel her over to the chemo store right now. She was absolutely taking it, whether she knew it or not. I would somehow convince her to do it. I had to.