The Mother's Promise(73)
“I need to get to class,” she said, jumping up. But afterward, at her locker, she was still thinking about something Dr. Sanders had said. Even just knowing who he is has the potential to bring you a lot of peace. She wondered about this. And it occurred to her that maybe she should find him.
54
“Hungover but still here,” Paul announced, when Alice opened the door. Indeed he did look worse for wear. His eyes were bloodshot and his plaid shirt was buttoned so badly Alice couldn’t understand how he’d managed it. Also, she caught the faint whiff of alcohol. The strangest thing was, instead of feeling angry, she felt grateful that he’d shown up at all.
Paul had been more dependable than Alice expected. Apart from twice, when he was drunk and uncontactable (Alice had had to call Sonja for a last-minute ride), he’d managed to show up when required, and even sometimes when he wasn’t. Truth be told, Alice had started to enjoy having the company, and, she suspected, so did Paul. After a while it occurred to Alice that she hadn’t been the only one alone all these years.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Do turkeys stampede at dawn?”
Paul’s expression said he was too hungover to process humor.
“Forget it,” Alice said. “Let’s go.”
Alice was more than ready. It had been a rough few weeks. Not just the chemo, but the complications. She’d had infections. Low white-cell count. A blood transfusion. She’d had to delay chemo twice. Before she knew it, two months had passed.
As sick as it made her, Alice wanted to have chemo. There was power in the knowledge that she was fighting the disease. Sometimes, when she was stuck in that chair with the tube going into her arm, she’d visualize the poison flowing through her veins, attacking the cancer cells. Stopping it in its tracks. It was, if not a good feeling, the only thing that gave her hope.
Today, she was optimistic. She’d had a blood transfusion a few days before and her blood exam had shown that her white-cell count was up. Yesterday Dr. Brookes had given her the go-ahead for chemo. She was all set. Unlikely as it was, somewhere along the way she’d started to enjoy chemo. She’d trundle in there with Paul and watch a movie or have a cup of tea and chat. The nurses were so upbeat and happy. Last time the young girl and her mother had been there again, and they’d passed two whole hours talking and exchanging magazines.
Paul dropped her off out in front of the hospital, as was their routine, and she went on up while he parked the car. In the elevator she saw Iris, her favorite nurse, who asked about Zoe, and Alice asked her about Russell, the man Iris had met online and was planning to go on a date with. At her last chemo session Iris had shown Alice a photo of him and Alice had commented on his large muscles.
“His profile picture was quite deceiving.” Iris chuckled. “Then again, so is mine.”
By the time Alice got to the chemotherapy room, she was feeling quite chipper. It was nice, being surrounded by people. It was, she suspected, the kind of community most people would have if they worked in an office, or were members of a club. Alice found her community at chemo.
Alice went to her usual station. There were no rules about where to sit, but she always seemed to end up at the same spot. Remarkably, it was always free. “People are creatures of habit,” Iris had said, when Alice had asked about it. “They sit somewhere once, it becomes their spot.”
The spot beside her, typically, belonged to the young girl and her mother, but today it was taken by a woman who looked to be in her seventies, and a support person who must have been her son. They nodded hello, and Alice tried not to be disappointed. She didn’t see any familiar faces. No patients she knew.
Suddenly Alice noticed Kate at the desk. Kate glanced up at the same moment, then quickly looked away again. It was the first time Alice had seen her since her verbal reprimanding a few weeks ago. Since then, as far as Alice knew, Zoe hadn’t seen Kate again. These last few weeks, Alice felt like she had her daughter back. At night, Zoe slept by her side. In the morning, before she went to school, Zoe made her a breakfast that she wouldn’t eat. Still, she felt thoroughly cared for. It was nice.
Paul came up, then promptly disappeared—presumably to the bar across the road for a little hair of the dog.
After a time, the woman next to her drifted off to sleep. Her son, Alice noticed, was about Alice’s age, with a crop of thick, sandy hair and blue eyes made bluer by his thin, periwinkle V-neck sweater. All of this Alice happily registered from her seat, comfortably aware that as a bald, forty-year-old cancer patient, she was hardly going to attract his attention.
But then, he looked up and said, “Oh, hello.” His smile was as earnest as it was lovely. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you there.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Alice said. “I think I was staring. You start to lose social graces in here. Like being in an old folks’ home. Or at a kindergarten.”
He laughed.
“Is this your mom’s first session?” she asked.
“My aunt,” he corrected. “And yes. You?”
“Oh, I’m an old hand,” she said with faux pride. “Anything you want to know, ask me.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So what do I need to know?”
Alice was in a good mood. It had been a while since she’d chatted with anyone socially except Paul. She told the man—Andrew was his name—about the good nurses and the bad nurses, the secret parking spaces across the road (free!), the coffee carts to avoid. Andrew, as it turned out, was a doctor in the hospital—a hand surgeon—so he didn’t need her tips (he had his own parking space) but he was very polite. Alice told him not to mention that he was a doctor when her brother arrived because he would probably try and get him to write out a prescription for morphine for him. Andrew laughed. Alice told him not to laugh, she was serious. He laughed more. He was one of those people who laughed easily. A lovely trait, Alice had always thought.