spent most nights on the floor of Elizabethâs living room. I had a bed at my house, but my room was dark and empty in those days, haunted, I knew, by a specter named Victor and his little sister, who turned off my lamp without warning. Each evening Elizabeth and I stoked the fire heavily before falling asleep. Inevitably it died, and we woke, shivering under holey baby blankets dotted with wood chips tracked around by the guinea pig, Hitler. He lived wild under the stove, and he had his name because Elizabeth loved terrible things.
That autumn Elizabeth almost never came to my house. When she did she left her Converse (matching mine) in the mudroom while we sat on my motherâs bed. My mother asked polite questions, thoughtful questions. But Elizabeth was uncomfortable and I was uncomfortable for her. I looked at the two most important women in my life, and I knew I could only be with them apart.
On November 17 my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I gave my junior anatomy class a presentation on the disease, and I got a good grade. Metastatic cholangiocarcinoma (pronounced as naturally as my name) attacks the bile ducts of the liver, beginning as an autoimmune disease which, in 10 percent of cases, changes. It turns from preparing your three children for the inevitability of your liver transplant to the inevitability of your very near death. It turns from buying rubber livers that grow when put in water, and making jokes about motorcycle riders without helmets (wonât they make good donors for Mom), and it turns metastatic. Metastatic means the cancer has already spread to the lymph nodes by the time you take your family to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a twenty-four-hour diner. The specialists cry when they give you your prognosis, because what goes to the lymph nodes spreads to the rest of the body, and what you get is a tumor on the abdomen that makes you look five months pregnant, according to my mother, and still I canât look at babies. Life expectancy upon diagnosis is three months. My mother lived for four.
The months passed and Elizabeth learned these facts with me. But she was sixteen and she didnât know what to do about them. She knew enough to defend me from our Spanish class, when it was over and the teacher asked her, âWhat do we say to Kendra?â
She told them to leave me alone. That they should not mention God, or his plan. She understood enough to attend the memorial at the United Methodist Church. I sat in the first pew with my family, next to my crying, balding cousin who had removed his bandanna in public for the first time; I watched Elizabeth come in late with Russell, picking through the legs of the congregation, looking for a seat, and I felt a kind of comfort. But this was as involved as Elizabeth could become.
And so we spent our time together beneath the low ceiling of her house, and Russell flipped cauliflower in a wrought-iron pan.
Russell wore work boots and jeans with small holes nicked in the denim, and he left dishes gray with lard on the counter for days. He was a wonderful cook. Whenever I stepped into the warm, dirty kitchen, Russell poked me in my skinny ribs and asked, âWhat does Kendra Bear want for dinner?â
We ate with Russell on the stained living-room couch. Spinach salad and stir-fried shrimp, garlic pasta.
The Count of Monte Cristo
,
Six Feet Under
, or
Lord of the Rings
played on the television. For a while it was
Pirates of the Caribbean
, over and over. Russell tossed his boots into the hall and stretched his feet in their yellowed socks beneath the coffee table.
âBoo Boo Bear, pour me another glass of wine.â
Eventually the bottle of Cabernet was empty and the black woodstove began choking smoke into the living room. We waited for Russell to fall asleep, and once he was drowsing, Brie and cracker crumbs smeared into his work sweatshirt, we tiptoed past him.
In half-sleep,
That autumn Elizabeth almost never came to my house. When she did she left her Converse (matching mine) in the mudroom while we sat on my motherâs bed. My mother asked polite questions, thoughtful questions. But Elizabeth was uncomfortable and I was uncomfortable for her. I looked at the two most important women in my life, and I knew I could only be with them apart.
On November 17 my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I gave my junior anatomy class a presentation on the disease, and I got a good grade. Metastatic cholangiocarcinoma (pronounced as naturally as my name) attacks the bile ducts of the liver, beginning as an autoimmune disease which, in 10 percent of cases, changes. It turns from preparing your three children for the inevitability of your liver transplant to the inevitability of your very near death. It turns from buying rubber livers that grow when put in water, and making jokes about motorcycle riders without helmets (wonât they make good donors for Mom), and it turns metastatic. Metastatic means the cancer has already spread to the lymph nodes by the time you take your family to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a twenty-four-hour diner. The specialists cry when they give you your prognosis, because what goes to the lymph nodes spreads to the rest of the body, and what you get is a tumor on the abdomen that makes you look five months pregnant, according to my mother, and still I canât look at babies. Life expectancy upon diagnosis is three months. My mother lived for four.
The months passed and Elizabeth learned these facts with me. But she was sixteen and she didnât know what to do about them. She knew enough to defend me from our Spanish class, when it was over and the teacher asked her, âWhat do we say to Kendra?â
She told them to leave me alone. That they should not mention God, or his plan. She understood enough to attend the memorial at the United Methodist Church. I sat in the first pew with my family, next to my crying, balding cousin who had removed his bandanna in public for the first time; I watched Elizabeth come in late with Russell, picking through the legs of the congregation, looking for a seat, and I felt a kind of comfort. But this was as involved as Elizabeth could become.
And so we spent our time together beneath the low ceiling of her house, and Russell flipped cauliflower in a wrought-iron pan.
Russell wore work boots and jeans with small holes nicked in the denim, and he left dishes gray with lard on the counter for days. He was a wonderful cook. Whenever I stepped into the warm, dirty kitchen, Russell poked me in my skinny ribs and asked, âWhat does Kendra Bear want for dinner?â
We ate with Russell on the stained living-room couch. Spinach salad and stir-fried shrimp, garlic pasta.
The Count of Monte Cristo
,
Six Feet Under
, or
Lord of the Rings
played on the television. For a while it was
Pirates of the Caribbean
, over and over. Russell tossed his boots into the hall and stretched his feet in their yellowed socks beneath the coffee table.
âBoo Boo Bear, pour me another glass of wine.â
Eventually the bottle of Cabernet was empty and the black woodstove began choking smoke into the living room. We waited for Russell to fall asleep, and once he was drowsing, Brie and cracker crumbs smeared into his work sweatshirt, we tiptoed past him.
In half-sleep,
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