Cracks in the Sidewalk(26)

While she was napping, I called Melanie down at the Garden Patch and ordered a dozen pink roses sent to the hospital. Pink roses are Elizabeth’s favorite. Put in a card, I told Melanie, one that reads “We miss our Mommy,” and sign it “With lots of love from David, Kimberly, and Christian.” I said Kimberly, not Kimmie, because that’s what Jeffrey calls her, and I wanted Liz to think he was the one who sent the flowers.

The roses weren’t delivered until almost dinnertime, but when the aide brought them in Liz beamed.

“That was sweet of JT, wasn’t it, Mom?” she said.

“It certainly was,” I answered, but that’s not what I was thinking.





March 1985


In early March the weather turned unseasonably warm, and tiny green buds suddenly appeared on the branches of winter-ravaged trees. Claire put her parka in the closet and began wearing sweaters. For almost two weeks, every day was as warm and sunny as mid-May.

At the same time Elizabeth had a string of good days. Days when her memory was sharp and the brain-rattling headaches disappeared. She still had little ability to move her left side, but after only six treatments of the wonder drug Elizabeth looked and felt better than she had in months.

~

The previous month, two days after her third treatment, the CT scan indicated Elizabeth’s tumor had stopped growing. The technician checked the film several times, then reported his finding. The tumor measured the same size as the previous week.

Doctor Sorenson raised a dubious eyebrow. “Repeat the scan.”

He did. The second scan confirmed what he’d seen on the first.

“This could be a fluke,” Doctor Sorenson told Elizabeth. “Let’s see what happens next week.”

They waited. Liz received another treatment and then another CT scan.

“Excellent, this is excellent,” Doctor Sorenson mumbled, as she slid the latest film onto the light box. She turned to Elizabeth with a smile. “It looks like your tumor is starting to shrink.”

She slid a second film alongside the first. “Right here.” She pointed to the outside edge of the dark mass. “It’s almost, but not quite, a millimeter smaller.”

Elizabeth gave a lopsided smile from the right side of her face.

“I knew it,” she said. “I just knew it.”

“There’s definitely been improvement.” Doctor Sorenson found it hard not to smile back. “But we still don’t know if it’s a long-term solution.”

“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth said. “You can see it’s working, my memory is better, the headaches are gone and—”

“Yes, and as we move ahead with the treatments, hopefully you’ll continue to improve,” the doctor said. “But right now we’re looking at a millimeter of shrinkage. A millimeter is about one-twenty-fifth of an inch.”

“It’ll keep working, I just know it,” Elizabeth answered. She happily leaned back into the pillow.

On that same morning, a morning so sunny and warm even a sweater wasn’t necessary, Claire stopped at the Garden Patch and bought two purple hyacinths on the verge of blossoming, one for her kitchen window and the other for the hospital.

“Spring is officially here,” she said, setting the hyacinth on Elizabeth’s tray table.

“It’s beautiful,” Liz answered. “Too bad I won’t be here to see it bloom.” She feigned a look of sadness.

“What—what are you talking about?”

The alarm in her mother’s voice made Elizabeth give up the charade. “Doctor Sorenson said I can go home Friday.”

“Wonderful!” Claire shrieked, hugging her daughter without regard for the hyacinth crushed between them.

“I still have to come back for treatments,” Elizabeth said. “Two days every other week.”

“Two days, that’s nothing! It’ll be wonderful to have you home, where I can take care of you. We’ll have a chance to do things together. And wait until you see your old room! It’s completely redecorated. Lots of pink just like—”

The look on Elizabeth’s face diffused Claire’s explosion of happiness.

“The stairs!” Claire smacked her hand to her forehead. “Of course I know you can’t go up and down stairs! What I meant is your new room! Daddy and I decided to turn that useless old living room into a guest suite.”

“Mom—” Elizabeth twisted the right side of her face into an expression of doubt, but Claire continued.

“There’s no sense discussing it, the decision has already been made. The living room is going to be a girl’s dorm. There’ll be a place for you and for me. That way I can sleep downstairs with you any time I want.”

The “any time” sounded casual, but in truth Claire already knew she’d sleep in that room with Elizabeth the first night, the second night, and every night from then on. And on those nights when Elizabeth returned to the hospital for treatments, Claire would return to the recliner alongside Elizabeth’s hospital bed.

Later that afternoon while Elizabeth napped, Claire called the Goodwill Thrift Shop.

“I’ve got a lovely living room set for you,” she said. “Sofa, chairs, tables, lamps, everything, but it has to be picked up tomorrow morning.”