Chapter 17

“I don't give a damn! I won't!” She was almost hysterical.

“Listen to me!” He was shaking her, and they were both crying as they walked along. “I want you to come to New York with me …” He tried to fight for calm, for air …they had to be sensible …cancer didn't always have to mean the end …what the hell did this guy know anyway? …He himself had recommended them to four other specialists. A bone man, a lung man, a surgeon, and an oncologist. He recommended a biopsy, perhaps followed by surgery, and then radiation or chemotherapy, depending on the advice of the other doctors. He admitted that he himself knew too little about it.

“I won't have chemotherapy. It's horrible. Your hair falls out, I'm going to die …I'm going to die …” She was sobbing in his arms and he felt as though his guts were going to fall out. They both had to calm down. They had to.

“You're not going to die. We're going to fight this thing. Now calm down, dammit, and listen to me! We'll take the kids to New York when I go, and you can see the best men there.”

“What'll they do to me? I don't want chemotherapy.”

“Just listen to them. No one said you had to do that. This guy isn't sure what you need. For all you know, you have arthritis and he thinks it's cancer.” It would have been nice to believe that anyway.

But that wasn't what the lung man said, or the bone man. Or the surgeon. They wanted to do a biopsy. And when Bernie had his father call them, he said to go ahead. The doctors in New York would want that information anyway. And the biopsy told them that Johanssen was right. It was osteosarcoma. But the news was even worse than that. Given the nature of the cells they'd found, and the extent of it, metastasized in both lungs they discovered now, it made no sense to operate. They suggested brief and intense radiation, followed by chemotherapy as soon as possible. And Liz felt as though she had fallen into a nightmare and could not wake up. They had said nothing to Jane, except that Mommy wasn't feeling so great after the baby and they wanted to do some tests. They had no idea how to tell her what had been discovered.

Bernie sat up late at night talking to Liz after the biopsy came back, and she sat in her hospital bed with patches over both breasts where the biopsies had been done. And she had no choice now, she had to wean the baby. He was crying at home, and she was in the hospital, crying in Bernie's arms, trying to express the sorrow she felt, the guilt, the regret, and the terror.

“I feel … I feel as though I would poison him if I would nurse him now …isn't that terrible? Think of what I've been giving him all this time.”

He told her what they both knew anyway. “Cancer isn't contagious.”

“How do you know? How do you know I didn't catch it from someone on the street…some crazy goddamn germ that flew into me …like in the hospital when I had the baby …” She blew her nose and looked at him and neither of them could believe the gravity of the situation. It was something that happened to someone else, not to people like them, with a seven-year-old and a baby.

He was calling his father five times a day these days, and he already had everything lined up for her in New York. Bernie talked to him again the following morning before he went to pick her up at the hospital.

“They'll see her as soon as you get in.” His father sounded grave, and Ruth was crying beside him.

“Great.” Bernie tried to pretend to himself they'd have good news, but he was frightened. “Are they the best?”

“Yes, they are.” His father sounded very quiet. His heart was grieving for his only son and the girl he loved. “Bernie …this isn't going to be easy … I talked to Johanssen myself yesterday. It seems to be pretty well metastasized.” It was a word he hated. But it was new to Bernie. “Is she in pain?”

“No. She just feels very tired.”

“Give her our love.” She needed that. And their prayers. And when he hung up the phone, Bernie found Jane standing in the bedroom doorway.

“What's wrong with Mommy?”

“She's …she's just real tired, sweetheart. Like we told you yesterday. Having the baby just made her get pooped.” He smiled, choking on a lump in his throat the size of her elbow, but he put an arm around her anyway. “She'll be okay.”

“People don't go to the hospital because they're tired.”

“Sometimes they do.” He gave her a sunny smile, and a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Mommy's coming home today.” He took a breath. It was time to prepare her. “And next week we're all going to see Grandma and Grampa in New York. Won't that be fun?”

“Will Mommy go to the hospital again?” She knew too much. She'd been listening. He could feel it, but he couldn't face it.

“Maybe. Just for a day or two.”

“Why?” Her lip trembled and tears filled her eyes. “What does she have?” It was a plaintive wail, as though she knew, as though some spirit in the depths of her knew just how badly her mommy was ailing.

“We just have to love her very much,” Bernie said through his own tears as he held the child. The tears fell into his beard as he held her. “Very, very much, sweetheart….”

“I do.”

“I know you do. So do I.” She saw him crying and dried his eyes with her little hand. They felt like butterflies on his beard.

“You're a wonderful daddy.” It brought the tears back to his eyes again and he held her for a long, long time. It was good for both of them, and they had a special secret that afternoon when he picked her up. The secret of a special kind of closeness and love and courage. She was waiting in the car with a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses, and Liz clung to her all the way home, as she and Bernie told her all the funny things Alexander had done that morning. It was as though they both knew that they had to help her now, that they had to keep her alive with their love and their jokes and their funny stories. It was a bond that laced them even tighter than before, and it was an awesome burden.

Liz walked into the baby's room and Alexander woke up and let out a squeal of ecstasy when he saw her. His little legs shot out, and he waved his arms, and Liz picked him up and winced as he hit the spots where the biopsies were.

“Are you going to nurse him, Mommy?” Jane was standing in the doorway, watching her, the big blue eyes wide and worried.

“No.” Liz shook her head sadly. She still had the milk he wanted but she didn't dare feed him anymore, no matter what they said. “He's a big boy now. Aren't you, Alex?” She tried to fight back the tears that came anyway as she held him and turned her back to Jane so she wouldn't see them. Jane walked back to her room quietly and sat holding her doll, staring out the window.

And Bernie was in the kitchen cooking dinner with Tracy. The door was closed. The water was on. And he was crying into a kitchen towel. Tracy patted his shoulder from time to time. She had cried herself when Liz had told her but now she felt she had to have strength for Bernie and the children.

“Can I get you a drink?” He shook his head and she touched his shoulder again as he took a deep breath and looked up at their friend.

“What are we going to do for her?” He felt so helpless, as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Everything we can,” Tracy answered. “And maybe a miracle will happen. Sometimes it does.” The oncologist had said as much, maybe because he didn't have much else to offer. He had talked to them about God and miracles and chemotherapy, and Liz had insisted again that she didn't want it.

“She doesn't want chemotherapy.” He was in despair, and he knew he had to pull himself together. It was just the shock of it. The incredible brutality of the blow that had been dealt them.

“Can you blame her for not wanting it?” Tracy looked at him as she made the salad.

“No …but sometimes it works … for a while anyway.” What they wanted, Johanssen had said, was a remission. A long one. Like fifty years maybe, or ten or twenty … or five … or two … or one….

“When are you going to New York?”

“Later this week. My father has everything arranged. And I told Paul Berman, my boss, that I couldn't go to Europe. He understood perfectly. Everyone's been wonderful.” He hadn't been to the store for two days and he didn't know how long he'd be gone, but his managers had promised to take care of everything for him.

“Maybe they'll suggest something different in New York.”

But they didn't. The doctors there said exactly the same thing. Chemotherapy. And prayers. And miracles. Bernie sat looking at her in the hospital bed, and she already seemed to be shrinking. The dark circles had darkened and she was losing weight. It seemed incredible, like an evil spell that had been cast on them, and he reached out and took her hand. Her lip was trembling terribly and they were both frightened. He didn't hide his tears from her this time. They sat and held hands and cried, and talked about what they felt. It helped that they had each other.

“It's like a bad dream, isn't it?” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and then realized that it wouldn't be there soon. She had agreed to start chemotherapy when they went back to San Francisco. He had been talking about leaving Wolffs and coming back to New York if they wouldn't bring him back, so she could get care in New York. But his father told him that in truth it didn't make any difference. The doctors were just as good in San Francisco, and it was familiar to her. There was a lot to be said for that. She didn't need to worry about finding an apartment, or a new house, or putting Jane in a new school. And right now they needed to cling to what they had …their house …their friends …even her job. She had talked about that with Bernie too. She was going to keep on working. And the doctor hadn't objected. She was going to get the chemotherapy once a week at first, for a month, and after that once every two weeks, then once every three. The first month would be horrible, but after that she would only be sick for a day or two, and Tracy could substitute for her. The school was willing to let her do that. And they both thought she'd feel better if she didn't sit home moping.