they multiplied like those late winter beetles she remembered from the Midwest that collected on her window screens and then crawled into her bedroom to form puddles of soft red and black on her light blue bathrobe like moving paintings from some science-fiction movie. The tumors multiplied, and then as if the ovaries were not enough, they started looking around and then saw another warm place and jumped, one by one, to that warm spot in her abdomen and the other warm spot just below that and from there to the next spot until that day when the doctor put her hands there, at the spot where they were about to jump to next, and said very loudly so Annie could hear it, “No.”
“No, damn it. No, you have had enough of her.”
And then Annie knew what her doctor did—that it was the time for miracles and the trying and the wanting to live. Just simply wanting to live.
And then the next part, which necessitated keeping a spiral notebook with her so that she could plan what happened after this. So that in the end when she knew she had so very few choices left, when she knew that her commands and wishes were buried beneath the tangled mass of the cells leaping over each other to get to the next spot, when she knew that to dare to wish for anything but for the pain to go away for just five seconds or maybe, maybe just one second—one quiet heartbeat of a second—was asking too much, then all she had left was the notebook and this plan. This idea. A reason to keep sailing to Tuesday just one more time.
The notebook never crossed your mind again because that very day you had to call the ambulance because it was impossible for you to know what Annie needed next and which pill was supposed to cap the pain until the next pill and then when you said goodbye you knew that she would never remember and that it would not have mattered if she had remembered anyway.
What mattered had already happened and you, her friend Laura, hold only what you remember in the palm of your hand—a friendship which had turned into a deep love and respect and admiration that carried you through years of richness with a woman who came to you once, just once, for help, and then opened her heart so wide that you slipped inside without ever knowing your feet had left the earth.
“So,” Katherine says, waking Laura from her memory. “Is this all too much to do?”
“Too much to do for Annie Freeman?”
“Ridiculous question, but all I really know of you is how you rescued her that one horrid night and how your connection with women’s centers has never been broken. There are so many things that I don’t know. So I have to ask: Is this too much?”
“It’s not too much for a friend, for what we all had with her, for this one last thing that she asked of us, whatever her reasons.”
Then a quiet descends and at the same moment Laura and Katherine are imagining what Annie’s reasons might be, what might happen, who they will become or what they will know of themselves.
And one more thing.
“Katherine,” Laura says, her voice dipping just below her level of normal command, “when I was there, those days before she died, we talked a lot and one thing we talked about for a very long time was that she wanted me to think about buying her house and moving to California.”
Katherine finds nothing surprising this day. A traveling funeral? Here we go. Jill sobbing on her back porch? Seems normal. Laura and her husband moving to California? Why not.
“If you come on the funeral,” Katherine tells her, “I’ll help you end that part of your story and then we’ll all go back to Chicago and help you pack.”
“There, that was easy,” Laura laughs. “We’ll see. I don’t and can’t see everything about that issue clearly, especially with the news you just dropped into my lap, but we’ll see about this. Annie got me thinking about it for sure and then toward the end when she was so sick we let it go.”
“Will you need anything before we
“No, damn it. No, you have had enough of her.”
And then Annie knew what her doctor did—that it was the time for miracles and the trying and the wanting to live. Just simply wanting to live.
And then the next part, which necessitated keeping a spiral notebook with her so that she could plan what happened after this. So that in the end when she knew she had so very few choices left, when she knew that her commands and wishes were buried beneath the tangled mass of the cells leaping over each other to get to the next spot, when she knew that to dare to wish for anything but for the pain to go away for just five seconds or maybe, maybe just one second—one quiet heartbeat of a second—was asking too much, then all she had left was the notebook and this plan. This idea. A reason to keep sailing to Tuesday just one more time.
The notebook never crossed your mind again because that very day you had to call the ambulance because it was impossible for you to know what Annie needed next and which pill was supposed to cap the pain until the next pill and then when you said goodbye you knew that she would never remember and that it would not have mattered if she had remembered anyway.
What mattered had already happened and you, her friend Laura, hold only what you remember in the palm of your hand—a friendship which had turned into a deep love and respect and admiration that carried you through years of richness with a woman who came to you once, just once, for help, and then opened her heart so wide that you slipped inside without ever knowing your feet had left the earth.
“So,” Katherine says, waking Laura from her memory. “Is this all too much to do?”
“Too much to do for Annie Freeman?”
“Ridiculous question, but all I really know of you is how you rescued her that one horrid night and how your connection with women’s centers has never been broken. There are so many things that I don’t know. So I have to ask: Is this too much?”
“It’s not too much for a friend, for what we all had with her, for this one last thing that she asked of us, whatever her reasons.”
Then a quiet descends and at the same moment Laura and Katherine are imagining what Annie’s reasons might be, what might happen, who they will become or what they will know of themselves.
And one more thing.
“Katherine,” Laura says, her voice dipping just below her level of normal command, “when I was there, those days before she died, we talked a lot and one thing we talked about for a very long time was that she wanted me to think about buying her house and moving to California.”
Katherine finds nothing surprising this day. A traveling funeral? Here we go. Jill sobbing on her back porch? Seems normal. Laura and her husband moving to California? Why not.
“If you come on the funeral,” Katherine tells her, “I’ll help you end that part of your story and then we’ll all go back to Chicago and help you pack.”
“There, that was easy,” Laura laughs. “We’ll see. I don’t and can’t see everything about that issue clearly, especially with the news you just dropped into my lap, but we’ll see about this. Annie got me thinking about it for sure and then toward the end when she was so sick we let it go.”
“Will you need anything before we
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