Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(27)

Maybe a leisure vacation was a bad idea. There would be countless opportunities just like this, during which I had nothing but thoughts of impending doom to occupy me. As I watched a ship depart from a marina not far from the restaurant, I found myself thinking of my mother—at the end, but before things became really bad. She quit her job as an elementary school teacher to concentrate on her health and spend time with us. During those months, she napped a lot and went for chemo; but every day, Paul and I each got at least an hour alone with her. She and Paul often went for walks or headed to the library or comic book store. She and I spent most afternoons baking, even though I rarely saw her take more than a bite of the things we made.

One summer afternoon—or perhaps it was several, conflated by memory—we stood side by side at the counter making chocolate chip cookies. The sun streamed into our small yellow kitchen. Her hair was long gone, and she had wrapped her head in an ivory scarf; with the light on her face, she looked angelic. “The secret is to put a pinch of salt on top of each cookie before you put them in the oven,” she whispered in my ear. “Remember that, okay, Libby Lou?” I didn’t understand that she was preparing me for life without her. I didn’t want to understand. I thought it would always be like that: her taking us to Chuck E Cheese’s, and falling asleep with us in our beds, and pulling us out of school to drive us across the state to see a park or lakefront beach where she’d played as a child. I couldn’t comprehend that she was stuffing us full of happiness to prepare us for the famine that was to come.

The waitress must have put my food down in front of me while I wasn’t paying attention, because she startled me by returning to see if it was okay. I glanced down at the untouched plate and stuck a suspiciously pale fry in my mouth.

“Nothing’s ever tasted so good,” I told her, but of course, I was referring to the cookies.



Paul called as I was finishing lunch. “Where are you?” he said.

“What do you mean, where am I? I’m in Chicago,” I said blithely, just as a large bird landed on the veranda banister and let out a ridiculously tropical-sounding caw.

“Oh, are you?” he said dryly. “Am I also to believe you just purchased a toucan?”

“Ha, ha. No.” I hadn’t planned on telling him where I was just yet, as I was still feeling vulnerable and was pretty sure that spilling the beans on one thing would prompt me to unwittingly share other secrets, including a particular revelation that started with a c and ended with ancer. In retrospect, I probably should have let Paul’s call go to voice mail, but I didn’t want him to worry, especially after my panicked text message the day before.

“Come on, Libs. As if your freaky-but-sweet message yesterday wasn’t alarming enough, now you’re going to try to convince me Chicago has been invaded by exotic fowl? You know I can have the tech guys at my firm run a GPS data search on your cell and pinpoint your exact location in four seconds flat.”

“I hope you’re joking, because that is fricking creepy.”

“Not as creepy as me being forced to read your mind. Give it up, Libs. Estas en Meh-ee-co?”

Unlike me, Paul had been smart enough to study Spanish in school, which he mastered in about two months before moving on to Mandarin.

I exhaled loudly so he would sense my wrath over the transom. “I’m in Vieques.”

“Is that near Bogota?”

“Ask your security guys.”

“Libbers,” he said playfully. “Stop being cranky and throw your beloved brother a bone.”

“Fetch this, Toto. I’m south of Cuba and east of the Dominican Republic.”

“Puerto Rico? How the heck did you end up in Puerto Rico? I hope there’s a cabana boy next to you right now.”

“That was him you heard crowing earlier.”

“Libs on the loose!” he said with delight. “Vacationing by yourself. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks. I’m proud of me, too, if only because I managed to royally tick Tom off when I ran into him on the way to the airport.”

“Oooh, the element of surprise. Brills. How long are you going to be there?”

“I don’t know,” I responded truthfully.

“When you do leave, will you please come to New York to see us?” Paul persisted.

“I will.”

“Hurrah! You just made my entire week better, which is no small feat, considering the Dow plunged two hundred points last night.”

It pained me not to tell him that the stock market wasn’t the only thing plunging, but I knew that if I told him about the plane, it would undo years of therapy he’d undergone to deal with his fear of flying. Instead, I said, “I’m here to help.”

Paul got serious. “Are you hanging in there? Because you know it’s okay if you’re not, right? You don’t have to be perky all the time. This Tom crap is pretty awful.”

“I’m not perky all the time,” I grumbled.

“I can hear that, sweetie, and I’m going to take it as a sign of improvement. It’s just that—one sec.” I heard him say something in an official-sounding voice, and only then did I remember that he was in the middle of his workday.

“Hey, I know you’re busy,” I told Paul when he returned. “We can talk again soon. And next time, I won’t wait so long to call.”