Chapter 26
26
Lucy
My grandpa had leukemia. It happened when I was nine. I remember Carmen had just finished her sophomore year of college and was finally settling into life as a college student. She told my parents she didn’t know what she wanted to major in, leaving her status as “undeclared.” It wasn’t until she saw the state of my grandfather, sickly and powerless to this illness taking over his body, that she decided she wanted to study medicine. It fueled a passion inside her. She wanted to help people, to learn disease processes and how to cope with this stage of life.
Not all illness is a curse. There can come some sort of shining light from it. A silver lining. Whether it be a calling or a way to bring family together.
He survived, living another five years in remission before the cancer came back and he decided to forgo treatment. He wanted to live his last few months with us, with my mom and her brothers, with my grandma and the rest of his grandbabies. Those last moments, before morphine became his only source of reprieve, were beautiful. We did things for the last time, like bake brownies with my cousins or go watch a movie at the drive-in. The goodbye was bittersweet, knowing he would no longer be suffering and leaving behind a memory I’ll always cherish because it was his time.
I can’t help but think, as I remember my grandpa and our memories with my sisters, how it would be the complete opposite with Dexter and Janet. No amount of time would be enough for them to say a goodbye worth reminiscing. If Janet didn’t survive, those last moments would never be enough for Dexter. He wouldn’t even be able to consider any silver lining, like the relief of knowing her pain and suffering were over or that she’d done everything to fight this cancer. He would only focus on the fact that she’s gone and he’s alone.
“If you call the cafeteria ahead of time, they send over chocolate soft serve,” Janet exclaims in excitement. We’re sitting in Janet’s hospital room, relieved that it’s a private room with a good view of the East River instead of the hectic Manhattan traffic on the other side. A lot of her color is back, the gaunt, grayish tone of her skin having faded away into rosy cheeks and warm skin. Her eyes still have that sunken-in look from lack of sleep, which she blames on the constant interruption at night from round the clock antibiotics.
“Well,” Dexter says, “maybe once you get out of here, you can have some real food. Not any of this mystery meat.”
Janet stabs a small chunk of said mystery meat and savors the taste before she nudges away the rest of her meal tray. “It’s actually not that bad,” she comments. “I’m just getting a little bored.”
“Which means you can finally get some of that rest Dr. Pham was telling you to get,” Dexter comments sternly.
“I know,” she agrees, flattening the sheets resting atop her legs. “But some reading material might be nice.” She flashes an innocent smile at Dexter.
“How about some magazines?” Dexter offers, giving into her silent plea. “I saw some in the gift shop. ”
Janet gives a cursory nod, including a small lift of her shoulder, exposing the swollen edge of her chemo port right below her collarbone. “Sure.”
Dexter stands, looking down at me in the seat next to his. “You’ll be okay while I go downstairs for a minute?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly, reaching for his arm to give a reassuring squeeze. “Take your time.”
Once Dexter leaves, it’s just me and Janet. Along with the monitors by her bedside displaying squiggly lines and neon green numbers and the low volume of the television playing an episode of Shark Tank .
“Thank you for coming to visit, Lucy.”
“Of course,” I tell her. “I hope I’m not intruding on your time with Dexter.”
She waves a hand at me. “We’d probably be fighting over the TV remote anyway.”
I let out a giggle, and Janet smiles. “I hope this isn’t putting a damper on you two spending time together,” she adds.
“Oh, of course not,” I assure. I reactively reach my hand toward the rough blanket draped over her legs, finding her knee and noticing how bony it feels. “I-I can’t imagine what you’re going through—what Dexter’s going through—and it means a lot that he’d include me. I mean, even if it’s just to visit you here, it means a lot.”
A moment of silence lingers between us, and I worry if maybe I spoke out of place. Maybe it was too personal. Maybe, in reality, I shouldn’t be here, and I really am intruding on a space that’s meant to be carved out for Janet and her brother. I did sort of invite myself. I look away, suddenly embarrassed.
But then Janet smiles, placing her cold hand on mine still resting on her bed. “It’s been hard on him, I know.” I look at her and notice a mistiness coating her eyes, along with her sad smile. “This all happened so fast. Cancer wasn’t really in the cards for us.”
My brow pinches together, and my lips purse. “It’s a pretty shitty card you’ve been dealt.”
“You know what I’m most scared about with this cancer?”
I shake my head.
“It’s that…if I don’t make it and this cancer wins, Dexter won’t have anyone.”
An enormous knot forms in my throat. It feels tight and stuck, no matter how hard I try to swallow it. Dexter told me this, that he has no one else besides Janet, but hearing it from her and making that possibility into a very likely probability crushes me.
“And I’m so scared to leave him here without anyone,” she continues, a small tear trickling down her cheek. “I keep picturing him on holidays and birthdays, all alone with no one to spend them with, and it sort of kills me. And if I think about it long enough—” Her words are cut off by a sudden sob, and her hand covers her mouth as if to stop the rest of that sentence. Like if she doesn’t say it out loud, then it won’t happen, and she can pretend Dexter will be just fine without her.
“He won’t,” I say hoarsely, my voice sounding scared and weak. “He won’t be alone.”
I can’t guarantee she’ll be fine. I can’t make false reassurances that this will pass and she’ll wake up one day to realize she worried for nothing. But I can promise one thing: Dexter won’t be alone.
Nat and I have a family, one that’s expanding with her upcoming nuptials to Hayden, and one I hope will continue to grow. Dexter can fit into that family. We have room, enough to love and embrace him as the friend who pummeled his way into our lives. I can promise Janet that much.
She nods, wiping at another runaway tear, and huffs a laugh. “I guess you can add ‘emotionally unstable’ to the long list of cancer symptoms.”
I smile back at her, but it’s much bleaker than her forced laughter .
She clears her throat and busies her hands with the hem of her hospital gown. “So,” she says clearly, smiling at me too kindly. “I hear your sister’s marrying Hayden.”
I nod, my smile a little brighter. “In a little over a month. We’re all flying out to Hawaii for the wedding.”
“Dexter too, right?” she asks, her question sounding more like a confirmation.
“I’m not sure,” I answer. “He was, but with you being sick, he might?—”
She throws a hand between us. “He’s definitely going,” she says sternly. “There’s no way he’s going to miss out on a trip to Hawaii because of me.”
I chuckle.
“You know, the last time we were on a beach together was in Ocean City,” Janet says in a hushed tone. We both smile and duck our heads toward each other. “He got so sunburned. He started blistering all over. Charles and I called him Mr. Bubble Wrap.”
I snort a laugh.
“We spent the rest of the weekend hydrating him and rubbing aloe vera on his back.” She cowers forward, laughing into her hand. “So you make sure he wears plenty of sunblock when you’re out there.”
“I will,” I assure her through a laugh. Just then, Dexter stalks back into the room with a stack of magazines in his arms and a large Crunch bar on top. He gives us a wary look once he takes in our stifled smiles and lingering giggles.
“What were you guys talking about?”
“Nothing,” Janet answers. “Just the efficiency of proper packaging materials and prolonged sun exposure.”
“O kaaay ,” he answers, his eyes narrowing. “I got Vogue , Cosmopolitan , and a very interesting copy of In Touch .”
Janet reaches for In Touch . “Oh, Brangelina reunion! ”
He plucks out the Crunch bar before handing Janet the rest of the magazines. “And this”—he extends the chocolate bar in my direction after plopping back in his seat—“is for you, milady.”
I beam at him and take my treat from his fingers. “Thank you.”
We’re interrupted by two short knocks at the door. “Sorry I’m late.” Charles rushes to Janet’s side, pecking her temple before placing the overnight bag in his hand on a nearby chair. “I got caught up on a quick work call, and it ran later than I thought.”
“It’s okay,” Janet assures. “Dex and Lucy have been keeping me company.” The two exchange looks, something that hints at I told you so .
We’re interrupted by another knock on the door, followed by the entrance of a woman in red-wine-colored scrubs. She smiles kindly at Janet, bustling around her bedside table and pressing buttons on the blue box attached to a metal pole, where tubes and bulbous bags of clear fluid hang. “I’m just going to start your antibiotics and the anti-nausea medication we gave you this morning so you don’t feel too sick again.”
Another nurse enters the room, handing over some supplies like a fresh bag of mystery fluid and a random roll of tape. She lingers around, repositioning Janet so she’s comfortable and wrapping a vinyl blood pressure cuff around Janet’s arm. “This is Lisa,” the nurse pushing a syringe into Janet’s IV explains. “She’s just going to grab a set of vitals for me and make sure you’re comfortable.”
It starts to get a little crowded in the small room. Charles moves around so he doesn’t get in the way, and Dexter and I scoot our chairs further back against the wall under the TV. Dexter reaches for my hand and stands, looking at Charles while jutting a thumb toward the door and moving a finger between us, signaling our exit.
“You okay?” Dexter asks once we’re in the hallway.
I nod. “I’m good. ”
He nods too in response, smiling softly at my fingers twisting in front of me. “You, uh…you hungry?”
We haven’t eaten anything since the yogurt I inhaled before we left the apartment and the Gatorade Dexter bought at the vending machine. “Uh, yeah. A little.” My stomach decides to protest just then with a deep growl. We both chuckle. “Okay, maybe more than just a little.”
He gently slides his hand into mine and stares at it, our hands linked together with his thumb stroking my knuckles and his arm brushing mine. We haven’t really talked about what happened earlier when we made each other come while in a post-sleep haze. And I’m sure we will at some point, but right now, I just want to focus on the low timbre in his voice and the balmy caresses against my skin. And how all of it makes me feel giddy and hopeful.
“Would you like to join me in the cafeteria?” he asks playfully. “I hear the mystery meat here is top notch.”
I swear, I could throw my arms over his shoulders and kiss him. “It’s a date.”
Dexter
“So? What happened after that?”
I shrug, holding back a laugh while looking at Lucy’s wide eyes and gaping mouth. I just finished telling her about the time my sister and I lured a stray dog home only to find out my parents’ excuse for never letting us have one—that my dad had a heavy pet dander allergy—was in fact true, not a ruse to avoid responsibility for yet another living being.
“After six hours of hiding it in Janet’s room, sneaking it scraps and praying to the gods it wouldn’t make a peep, we got caught,” I explain. “My dad’s allergies got so bad, he had to go to the emergency room.”
“Aww,” she says, letting a fake frown shine through the laughter in her eyes.
“We named him Zac Michael Murray,” I explain.
She responds with a confused tilt of her head.
“Janet had an obsession with High School Musical and A Cinderella Story ,” I explain. “So Zac Efron and Chad Michael Murray consumed much of her bedroom walls. And a surplus of cheetah print and magenta bedding.”
A twinkle in Lucy’s eyes takes over her laughter. “Our parents never let us have a dog either,” she explains. “But we never resorted to some covert scheme to hide a dognapping.”
“He came willingly,” I defend. “It just involved some treats and baby talk.”
“So no catcher’s net?”
I shake my head. “No catcher’s net.”
We’ve been sitting off to a corner of the cafeteria, the buzzing sound of hospital workers and other visitors with the bright Visitor tag taped to their chest, like Lucy and I are both wearing right now, surrounding us. We ordered a plate of the mystery meat and steamed vegetables, and a saran wrapped turkey sandwich with potato chips just in case the mystery meat was as awful as it looked. Turns out, the mystery meat, labeled turkey loaf, was pretty good. The remnants of it and the leftover gravy that was poured over it in excess sit on the plate, while the sandwich remains in its plastic wrapping, the chips long gone.
I don’t want to stay too long. Janet will probably wonder where we’ve gone, and, in all honesty, I want to make sure she’s okay after she got her meds. But this…I don’t want to walk away from this either. Lucy and I’ve spent the last hour exchanging stories like they’ve become some sort of interactional currency, one that hasn’t seemed to deplete on my end or hers. In fact, the stories keep coming. When I think I’ve already learned so much about Lucy and her life and her childhood, she has more of herself to give. More opinions, more musings. More pieces of her that make me want even more.
“That was the last time we got in trouble. Like, deep, ‘you’re getting your PlayStation taken away and grounded for three weeks’ sort of trouble,” I say to the table. “And then…I don’t really remember much about our parents after that. It’s just bits and pieces that stay with me.”
The mood shifts, and I stare at the space between my hand and hers, right next to the scattering of empty plates and crumpled utensil wrappers. Where if I inch just a little closer, I could feel her soothing touch graze over my skin. And maybe this is okay now. After last night and today, maybe we can gently and carefully push back those boundaries we set until we’re both standing on the same side of the line.
Her brow furrows, and she looks at me, a mistiness coating her eyes and the bottom halves of her front teeth peeking through her lips. “The last time I got grounded was when Nat hit a mailbox on a late-night Dairy Queen run. We tried to hide the chipped paint on my dad’s minivan with white nail polish. I guess the Alpine Snow shade was a little too white in contrast to Toyota’s original finish.”
That draws a chuckle out of me, the image of a panicking Nat and Lucy crouched over a crap paint job using nail polish and prayers.
“But, you know,” she continues, “my parents got over it, we paid the damages using our allowance, and things went back to normal. We went back to Dairy Queen as soon as our sentence was up, and my parents just warned us to be careful.” She pauses when her voice cracks. Her eyes start to water, and her mouth twitches into a reflexive frown. “Bu-But, you didn’t get to…Things didn’t go back to normal for you.”
She pauses, looking away from me, and takes a deep breath. “I know you’ve had time to grieve, not that you’re over it. I mean, you’d never be over losing both of your parents at the same time, but you’ve lived with it pretty much your whole life, and you and Janet grew up. I guess what I’m saying is…I’m so sorry, Dex. I can’t imagine what you two went through, and it breaks my heart knowing you two only had each other…Everything Janet had to take on. Everything you had to learn on your own as a child—” Her words are cut off by a soft sob, and I scoot my chair closer to her. I wrap my a rm around her, and she lays her head against my shoulder. Her tears start to fall, staining my shirt in fat droplets, and she lets out a loud sniff.
“Hey,” I coax calmly. “I’m okay. I think I turned out pretty good considering. At least I’m not into recreational drugs or…pyramid schemes.” I reach for a napkin and hand it to her. She takes it, dabbing at the loose stream of tears running down her face.
“I should be the one consoling you. Not the other way around,” she says in a watery voice.
“Eh,” I brush off. “It’s nice to switch roles every once in a while. Makes me feel useful.”
She huffs a sad laugh before a fresh wave of tears pools in her eyes. “It’s not funny,” she says, her mouth twitching into another involuntary frown.
“It’s really okay,” I say, smoothing a hand down her arm. “I mean, you’re right, it was a lot to take on and we—it was tough. Like, really tough. But we figured it out, and we’re okay now.”
Lucy sobs again, and I just hold her to me. I know she said she should be the one consoling me considering the situation, but this feels so much more cathartic. Her mourning over my parents’ death and the childhood I didn’t get to have. She understands the extent of what Janet and I went through without me having to lay it out and explain it to her. The level of empathy she carries awes me.
“We should go check on Janet,” she says, pulling away from me, drawing a loud sniff and wiping at her nose. “She’s probably wondering where we went.”
“Yeah,” I answer, smiling at her. It shouldn’t be this easy, this uncomplicated. But despite all of the underlying reasons Lucy and I shouldn’t be in each other’s arms, consoling each other surrounded by the scent of hospital disinfectant and the occasional interruption of PA announcements, it feels like just that: easy .
We collect our trash and walk back toward the elevator. I press a hand to her lower back, and she wraps her arm around my waist.
“Thanks for being here with me,” I say, low enough for only her ears.
She turns to smile at me. “Thank you for bringing me.”
When we get back to Janet’s room, she’s asleep. Charles is curled up in an uncomfortable ball in a chair at her bedside. Lucy and I glance at each other, unsure if we want to disturb either one of them. Just then, Janet stirs and notices us.
“Finally,” she says weakly. “I thought you two found an empty hospital bed.”
Lucy turns beet red, and I glare at my sister. “We were grabbing some food,” I say flatly.
She smirks and stretches into a yawn. “Well, Dr. Pham came by. She said I can probably go home Monday. As long as she can transition me to oral meds instead of this fancy stuff.” She gestures to the IV pole next to her. “She looked pretty happy with my progress.”
“That’s good,” I say quietly, eyeing Charles and taking a few steps closer to her. Lucy follows, staying a step behind me as I perch at the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. I don’t feel as weak and achy like I did when we got here.”
“You look better too,” I say.
“Why don’t you guys go on home,” she says, her eyes moving between me and Lucy. “It’s getting late anyway, and you can always come back tomorrow morning if you want.”
I hesitate, and Lucy does too.
“Really,” Janet assures. She points at the TV. “ Jurassic World is playing next, and I’m going to ask the nurses for some orange Jell-O. I’ll be in nap mode before the T-Rex fights the abominable rex.”
“You mean the Indominus rex?”
She throws her hands in the air. “To-may-to, to-mah-to. ”
“I can stay the night so Charles can go home,” I offer, still not wanting to leave.
“They probably won’t even let you stay once visiting hours are over,” she says glumly. “We got kinda lucky last night. I think they felt bad for the sad-looking cancer patient with an even sadder-looking boyfriend.”
“Still,” I offer. “We can stay until they kick us out.”
She shakes her head. “Seriously. Go home, get some sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I finally give in and stand, leaning down to place a small kiss on Janet’s forehead. Lucy steps in front of me, hugging Janet before we both turn to leave. We exit through the same way we did the night before but without the fear and anguish I had then. It almost feels like a different lifetime. Like everything heavy and scary was temporarily placed in a box and shoved in a corner. And I know deep down I’ll have to eventually unpack that box, reopen it, and place its contents back into the corners of my life where they’re meant to be, but for now, this feels nice.