Ask Again Later Part 9

"Listen to you," Perry says.

Who needs a map when there's only one pa.s.sable road to the future? When you're headed in the only direction that makes any sense at all to you? You don't need a map to find your home.

Life is a selfish pursuit. You tend to your own little corner of the world and hope your conscience keeps you in check. The first week after my mother was diagnosed, I felt guilty for reading the newspaper. Shouldn't that thirty minutes have been invested in a cure for cancer?

Vogue NOT UNLIKE MANY WOMEN my age, I have begun praying as a result of an article in Vogue. Among the shoes and frocks of the fall season was a not-so-short article about the healing effects of prayer. Prayer is good-that was the gist of it-whether the person being prayed for knows he is being prayed for or not.

Now I pray for my mother while I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I pray for my mother while I'm at the bank machine, waiting for cash and a receipt. I changed my PIN to H-E-A-L. Empty seconds and minutes are now replaced with praying, and some begging, too. I pray for my mother before I go to bed. I pray whenever I think of it, which is often. And because I was raised with so little faith, I give G.o.d my address when I pray. It's a big world. A zip code, at the very least, has to be appreciated by the One in charge. The organized get rewarded.

After so much hard work, my heart races when I read a follow-up study that finds that praying for people may actually add undue pressure to them during recovery. They may heal more slowly and have more complications, perhaps out of the awesome responsibility to get well soon.

I continue to pray in my quiet, covert way.

Amnesty I HAVEN'T BEEN back to my apartment in a week. Or maybe longer. Nothing inside has changed, which is a relief.

I sift through the mail. Con Ed bill. Cable bill. Reminder from the dentist. Two party invitations. One birth announcement. One letter. I love letters. Return address is East Sixty-second Street. The color of the paper is ecru, heavy bond. All male. I know what it says. The sentiment of it. He's disappointed in me. I've disappointed him. I'm a disappointment.

Dear Emily, Did it really happen the way I remember it happening? You ran out of my office in midsentence? I also remember that you really like me. You like me way too much to end things like this.

I hope your mother is doing well. Let's talk when the time is right.

Regards, Sam P.S. We're offering you amnesty regarding that stapler you "borrowed."

Okay, it turns out that's not what I thought it would say....

Green AT LEAST I'VE CAUGHT up on my magazine reading at these doctor appointments. You never know what you're missing until you have eight to ten hours to devote to magazines. You stumble across facts that surprise you, and you promise yourself you'll remember them. But there are gems on every page! It's not possible to retain all of this unnecessary information.

I've just read an article on interior design and choosing a paint color not to match your current mood, but to match the mood you want to adopt.

The walls of the hospital are painted pale green on purpose. It's supposed to soothe people. Calm them. Regulate their blood pressure.

Purple energizes. It's a good color for a gym, or a dance club. Orange is the color favored by the criminally insane.

My mother is in a pale green room changing into her hospital gown. And the doctor is in his pale green gown. His body fading into the pale green walls creates this bizarre effect of a disembodied head chatting me up. It's so distracting, it's impossible for me to listen carefully to what he's saying.

Yet he has the nicest voice in the whole world. People must fall in love with him all the time. Not hero worship, either. He deals with cancer every day, and he knows that the people who are diagnosed do not. He's not tired of questions. He's not tired of explaining.

The Pa.s.sionate & the Youthful is really making a mistake by not toning down Dr. Cleft Palate and modeling that character after Dr. Kealy instead. He's the kind of guy who would easily inspire fan clubs and major merchandising agreements.

More than anything, though, I finally feel that my mother is in good caring hands. A part of me realizes I need this fantasy. I need to believe that someone is stronger than the cancer and knows how to get rid of it.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't listening," I say.

"To which part," Dr. Kealy says.

"All of it, or, none of it," I say. "I was just thinking you've really been so nice, and that's made all the difference to me and to my mom. Really. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Dr. Kealy says. "Your mother is feisty. That's good. It will serve her well. I'm very optimistic. But this is serious surgery. We shouldn't be in there too long, maybe an hour or less. You can go sit with her until we're ready."

"Okay," I say.

It's so well organized. They do this every day, I tell myself. If you're going to get cancer, this is where you want to be.

I walk in the room. She's lying in the bed.

"HEY, DR. KEALY SAYS it won't take too long, and you can probably go home tonight," I say.

This will be the last conversation I have with my mother before she goes in for the lumpectomy. It is the closest I may ever come to knowing her. This strikes me as the conversation is happening. I know this is a window-a s.p.a.ce in time that won't be duplicated. Perhaps she's been more vulnerable or frightened in her life, but in this room, in this gown, with this IV in her arm-she can't conceal it or walk away from it. Jokes don't work.

A clear plastic tube hangs down from her wrist. It runs up to a bag of liquid. There is blood on her hand from where they missed a vein-or two. There is a streak of brightly colored blood on the sheet, too. I roll it under, in hopes that she doesn't see it.

She reaches out for my hand.

"When you were born, you were a fussy one," Mom says. "Oh, you screamed and cried until your father held you."

I smiled at the recollection, which is not actually a recollection at all but a created memory. A story I'd been told so often when I was very young that I remember it as if it happened a week ago.

"Some babies are just that way; they have a preference. Your father always said it was because he talked to you so much when you were in the womb. He read to you. Performed for you, really. I mean, when he told a story he was dramatic, animated. I was busy sewing. Getting things ready. I didn't talk to you until you were born. And by then it was too late; you already preferred him. You were his little girl."

In twenty-five years, the topic of my father never came up. Until now, we've observed a code of silence. We weren't just avoiding talking about him, it was deeper than that: he didn't exist. He was as absent from thought and conversation as he was from our lives. But now there is a certain longing in her voice.

"That's just not true," I say. But the tears were already in my eyes. It is something I've always felt guilty about; I never needed her that much, not the way mothers need their children to need them.

"Now," Mom swallows hard, trying not to cry, "now I can't help wondering if you didn't like me to breast-feed you because, I don't know, it was almost like you knew something was wrong. That something in me was poisonous. I think maybe babies know those things."

A few tears run down her cheek. I reach for a tissue, but she's already unrolled the sheet with the blood on it. She is about to dab her eyes when she sees the blood. I hand her some tissues, and reroll the sheet.

"How'd you like to be responsible for all of the laundry in this place?" Mom says, with a laugh.

As she's lying there waiting for surgery, I imagine a cancerous Pac-Man-or Lady Pac-Man-running through her body eating up her healthy tissue, her life, expanding its ma.s.s and taking over. Devouring the flesh that nurtured me, or longed to. I want to scream. And I'm mad that I'm of a generation that can best relate a parent's cancer to a video game.

Pay Phone AN HOUR HAS COME and gone. I drink some tea. I look inside my wallet for some quarters.

I walk down the hall to a pay phone and call Sam.

"h.e.l.lo?" Sam says.

"Hi," I say. "It's me. Emily."

"Hi. Where are you?" Sam asks. "A friend is here for brunch. Can I call you back?"

Still there and having brunch? Or has just come over to have brunch? Either way, it doesn't sound good.

"No. I'm at a pay phone at the hospital," I say. "I got your note."

"Good. How is it going with your mom?" Sam asks.

"She's in surgery right now, and it was supposed to take an hour...but it's been almost two hours. I'll let you go," I say.

"No, don't do that, I can talk," Sam says.

"I used all of my quarters," I say. "We can talk later. I mean, we should talk later."

"Let me know how things go," Sam says.

"Okay," I say.

Brunch. A friend. They seem like a distant luxury right now. In the fantasy version of this, Sam leaves his guests at his apartment and races to the hospital to be by my side. He is toting a honey-colored wicker picnic basket. It's lined in a lovely toile pattern. No, too girlie. It's lined in plaid. A handsome, manly plaid. Inside are a.s.sorted cheeses and fresh fruit and real china plates and silverware. Cloth napkins. The works. When Mom wakes, I'd introduce her to Sam. She'd make some comment about what a refined man he is-owning his own picnic basket and all. And everything would be okay.

But the reality is, he's moved on to brunch and regular life. He's not a dweller. His wife left him, and he didn't wallow. He lived his life. It's healthy. But it scares me. If he can move on from marriage and divorce, he can move on from the on-again, off-again relationship we had.

I call Marjorie.

"Hey," I say.

"How is she?" Marjorie asks.

"It's taking longer than it's supposed to," I say. "I'm feeling kind of panicky."

"Do you want me to come there and keep you company?" Marjorie asks. "You know I think hospitals are disgusting. They are filled with germs and people coughing. But I'll come over if you want me to. I really think she's going to be okay. Mom's tough. Dr. Kealy does that operation a few times a day."

I start to imagine the torture of spending any time with Marjorie in a "disgusting" hospital. The price is too high.

"Oh, wait, I forgot. I have a cooking cla.s.s with Marcella Hazan," Marjorie says. "She's the G.o.d of Italian cooking. Impossible to get into her cla.s.s. I can't miss it. If you miss one, she bans you for life."

"That's the only kind of cooking cla.s.s you'd ever take. But please, send flowers or something. I just needed to talk to someone. Everything will be fine, and I'll call you after I see her," I say. "By the way, thanks for that rant about dirty hospitals. Now I feel like I need to burn my clothing when I get home."

I think Marjorie is right. Everything will be fine. But sitting here alone makes me feel like I don't have a family. I'm lonely and helpless all at once.

I see now how useful some of my mother's traits are. If she were here, waiting to see me, she'd be dialing through her archival phone books. She'd elicit sympathy from strangers. She would not go uncomforted.

I dial the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?" Jim says.

"Hi. It's Emily. What are you doing?" I say.

"Jumping on a trampoline," Jim says.

"Yeah, me, too," I say.

"Good for the heart," Jim says.

"Want to come and have coffee at the hospital?" I ask.

"The surgery was today?" Jim asks.

"Yeah," I say. "It's taking a long time, though, and I keep thinking she's going to die. That's crazy, right? It's a simple procedure. One lump."

"Your mother wouldn't die there; she doesn't like hospitals. Thinks they're dirty. Besides, dying in a hospital is convenient. Expected. That's just not her," Jim says.

Games MY FATHER AND I drink coffee in the waiting room.

"I kind of wish I smoked at a time like this," I say.

"Me, too," Jim says.

We stare at the floor for a while. There is a TV hanging in the corner. Some people are watching The Price Is Right. How does Bob Barker do it? How does he play the same game every day for thirty years and still manage to smile and remember people's names and appear interested?

My father looks up. "I'm going on a trip. The first thing I'm going to pack in my suitcase is a bowling ball," Jim says.

I stare at him blankly. Did he just have a stroke? Is that what I'm witnessing?

"Now it's your turn," Jim says.

"My turn?" I ask.

"What are you putting in the suitcase?" Jim asks.

I sip my coffee.

"What suitcase?" I say. Do I need to have him admitted now? Or do I wait to see if things right themselves? I pray they do. I really can't see myself bouncing back and forth between oncology and whatever the stroke wing is called.

"You don't remember this?" Jim says. "We used to play it on car trips. It's your turn to put something in the suitcase. Then you have to say what I put in the suitcase and so on...."

I have no memory of this game. I have no memory of road trips. He could be making this up, and I wouldn't know the difference.

"A bowling ball and...a number two pencil," I say.

"A bowling ball, a number two pencil, and an anemone," Jim says.

"Oh, I see. That's how you want to play it? Okay. A bowling ball, a number two pencil, an anemone, and a hot shoe," I say. "I'm taking you down, old man."

I regret the last part after I say it, because I said it in a way that could have been taken seriously. When I was actually grateful to have someone there with me.

"A bowling ball, a number two pencil, an anemone, and a hot shoe-what is a hot shoe?" Jim asks.

"It's a groove on a camera that holds the flash attachment," I say.

"I'll take your word for it-under protest," Jim says.

My plan is working. He protests. He forgets the order of the words. Victory is closer than antic.i.p.ated. In this moment life is simple.

"Oh, and you see people putting anemones in suitcases on a regular basis," I say.

"It's not a literal game," Jim says. "A bowling ball, a number two pencil, an anemone, a hot shoe-under protest-and a tension column," Jim says.

"A bowling ball, number two pencil, an anemone, a hot shoe-under protest-a tension column, and a carboniferous reptile," I say.