Between Sisters (29 page)

“I thought the point of love was holding each other up through the hard times.”

“That's what I'm doing.”

“Really? It sounds to me like you're afraid he won't want to come.”

“Shut up.”

Meghann went to her sister then, sat down beside her. “I know you're scared, Claire. And I know Mama and I left you a long time ago. I know . . . we hurt you. But you have to give Bobby the chance to—”

“This isn't about the past.”

“My shrink says everything is about our past, and I'm beginning to agree with her. The point is—”

“Do
not
tell me the point of my own life. Please.” Claire's voice cracked. “I'm the one who has a tumor. Me. You don't get to organize or critique my choices, okay? I love Bobby and I am
not
going to ask him to sacrifice everything for me.” Claire stood up. “We better get going. I need to tell Dad what's going on.”

“What about Mama?”

“What about her?”

“You want to call her?”

“And hear her say she's too busy picking out sofa fabrics to visit her sick daughter? No, thanks. I'll call her if I get worse. You know how she hates unnecessary scenes. Now let's go.”

Two hours later, Meg turned onto River Road and they were there. Late-afternoon sunlight drizzled down the yellow clapboard sides, caught the blooming pink roses and turned them orange. The garden was a riot of color. A small bicycle with training wheels lay on its side in the overgrown grass.

Claire whispered, “Oh, man . . .”

“You can do it,” Meg said. “Radiation can save you. Just like we talked about. I'll help you.”

Claire's smile was wobbly. “I need to do this alone.”

Meg understood. This was Claire's family, not hers. “Okay.”

Claire got out of the car and walked haltingly up the path. Meg fell in step beside her, offering a solid arm for support.

At the front door, Claire paused, drew in a deep breath. “I can do this. Mommy's sick.”

“And the doctors are going to make her better.”

She looked helplessly at Meghann. “How do I promise that? What if—”

“We talked about this, Claire. You promise it. We'll worry about what if later.”

Claire nodded. “You're right.” Forcing a smile, she opened the door.

Sam sat on the sofa, wearing a pair of faded overalls and a smile. “Hey, you two, you're late. How was the spa week?” Halfway through the sentence, his smile faded. He looked to Claire, then to Meghann. Slowly, he got to his feet. “What's going on?”

Alison was on the floor, playing with a Fisher-Price barnyard set. “Mommy!” she said, scrambling to her feet and running for them.

Claire dropped to her knees and scooped Alison into her arms.

Meghann saw the way her sister was trembling, and she longed to reach out to her, to hold her as she had when they were kids. She felt a fresh surge of rage. How could this happen to
Claire
? How could her sister possibly look into her daughter's eyes and say
I'm sick
without breaking like finely spun sugar?

“Mom
my
,” Alison said at last, “you're
squishing
me.” She wiggled out of her mother's arms. “Did you bring me home a present? Can we all go to Hawaii for Christmas? Grandpa says—”

Claire stood up. She glanced nervously back at Meghann. “Pick me up at six, okay?” Then, smiling, Claire faced her father and daughter. “I need to talk to you two.”

Meghann had never seen such bravery.

I need to do this alone.

She backed out of the door, ran for the safety of her car, and drove away.

She didn't even know where she was going until she was there.

The cabin looked dark, unoccupied.

She parked out front and killed the engine. Leaving her purse in the car, she headed across the street and walked up to the front door.

She knocked.

He opened the door. “You have got to be kidding me.”

That was when she remembered their date. Last Friday. She was supposed to bring the wine and dessert. It felt like decades ago. She looked past him, saw a dying bouquet of flowers on the coffee table, and hoped he hadn't bought them for their date. But of course he had. How long had he waited, she wondered, before he ate his dinner alone? “I'm sorry. I forgot.”

“Give me one good reason not to slam the door in your face.”

She looked up at him, feeling so fragile she could barely breathe. “My sister has a brain tumor.”

His expression changed slowly. A look came into his eyes, a kind of harrowing understanding that made her wonder at the dark roads that had traversed his life. “Oh, Jesus.”

He opened his arms and she walked into his embrace. For the first time, she let herself really cry.

Joe stood on the porch, staring out at the falling night. At the park across the street, a baseball game was being played. An occasional roar of the crowd erupted through the silence. Otherwise, there was only the sound of a cool breeze rustling the honeysuckle leaves.

It had been better, he now understood, to be angry at Meghann, to write her off for standing him up. When she stepped into his arms and looked up at him with tears in her eyes, he'd wanted desperately to help her.

My sister has a brain tumor.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to remember, not wanting to feel the way he did.

He'd held Meghann for almost an hour. She'd cried until there were no tears left inside her, and then she'd fallen into a troubled sleep. He imagined that it was her first sleep in days.

He knew. After a diagnosis like that, sleep either came to a person too much or not at all.

They hadn't spoken of anything that mattered. He'd simply stroked her hair and kissed her forehead and let her cry in his arms.

He couldn't think of it without shame.

Behind him, the screen door screeched open and banged shut. He stiffened, unable to turn around and face her. When he did, he saw that she was embarrassed.

Her cheeks were pink, and that gorgeous hair of hers was a fuzzy mess. She tried to smile, and the attempt tore at him. “I'll put you in for a Purple Heart.”

He wanted to take her in his arms again, but he didn't dare. Things were different between them now, though she didn't know it. Hospitals. Tumors. Death and dying and disease.

He couldn't be a part of all that again. He had only just begun to survive his last round of it. “There's nothing wrong with crying.”

“I suppose not. It doesn't help much, though.” She moved toward him; he wondered if she knew that she was wringing her hands.

He got the sense that the time in his arms had both soothed and upset her. As if maybe she hated to admit a need. He'd been alone long enough to understand.

“I want to thank you for . . . I don't know. Being there. I shouldn't have busted in on you.”

He knew she was waiting for an argument, waiting for him to say
I'm glad you're here.

At his silence, she stepped back, frowning. “Too much too soon, I guess. I completely understand. I hate needy people, too. Well. I better go. Claire starts radiation tomorrow.”

He couldn't help himself. “Where?”

She paused, turned back toward him. “Swedish Hospital.”

“Did you get second opinions?”

“Are you kidding? We got opinions from the best people in the country. They didn't agree on everything, but
inoperable
was a favorite.”

“There's a guy. A neurosurgeon at UCLA. Stu Weissman. He's good.”

Meghann was watching him. “They're all good. And they all agree. How do you know Weissman?”

“I went to school with him.”

“College?”

“Don't sound so surprised. Just because I live like this now doesn't mean I always did. I have a degree in American lit.”

“We know nothing about each other.”

“Maybe it's better that way.”

“Normally I'd have a funny comeback to that. But I'm a little slow today. Having a sister with a brain tumor will do that to a girl. Pretend I was witty.” Her voice cracked a little. She turned and walked away.

With every step she took, he wanted to go after her, apologize and tell her the truth, who he was and what he'd been through. Then, perhaps, she'd understand why there were places he couldn't go. But he didn't move.

When he went back inside the house, he saw the last remaining picture of Diana staring at him from the mantel. For the first time he noticed the accusing glint in her eyes.

“What?” he said. “There's nothing I can do.”

Alison listened carefully to Claire's explanation of a golf-ball-size “owie” in her brain.

“A golf ball is little,” she said at last.

Claire nodded, smiling. “Yes. Yes it is.”

“And a special gun is gonna shoot magic rays at it until it disappears? Like rubbing Aladdin's lamp?”

“Exactly like that.”

“How come you hafta live with Aunt Meg?”

“It's a long drive to the hospital. I can't go back and forth every day.”

Finally, Ali said, “Okay.” Then she got to her feet and ran upstairs. “I'll be right back, Mommy!” she yelled down.

“You haven't looked at me,” Dad said when Ali was gone.

“I know.”

He got up and crossed the room, then sat down beside her. She felt the comforting, familiar heat of him as he put an arm around her, pulled her close. She rested her head on the hard ledge of his shoulder. She felt a splash of tears on her face and knew he was crying.

“I'd drive you back and forth, you know,” he said softly, and she loved him for it. But she didn't want to grow weak in front of him. She and Meghann had read about radiation; when it was focused on the brain it could really make a person sick. It would take everything she had to stay strong through the treatments. She couldn't come home every night and see herself through her dad's eyes. “I know that. You've always been there for me.”

He sighed heavily, wiping his eyes. “Have you told Bobby?”

“Not yet.”

“But you will?”

“Of course. As soon as he's finished in Nashville—”

“Don't.”

She looked at him, confused by the sudden harshness of his voice. “What?”

“I didn't know your Mama was pregnant, did I ever tell you that?”

“You told me.”

“I left one night to run to the store and when I got back, she'd left me. I tried to get ahold of her, but you know Ellie, when she's gone, she's gone. I went back to my job at the paper plant and tried to forget her. It took a long time.”

Claire put her hand on his. “I know all this.”

“You don't know all of it. When Meg called me to come get you, I went from alone in the world to father of a nine-year-old in one phone call. I hated Ellie then like you can't believe. It took years before I stopped hating her for denying me your childhood. All I could think about was what I'd missed—your birth, your first words, your first steps. I never got to hold all of you in my arms, not really.”

“What does this have to do with Bobby?”

“You can't make decisions for other people, Claire, especially not for people who love you.”

“But you can sacrifice for them. Isn't that what love is?”

“You see it as sacrifice? What if he sees it as selfishness? If . . . the worst happens, you've denied him the one thing that matters. Time.”

Claire looked at him. “I can't tell him, Dad. I can't.”

“I could kill her for what she did to you and Meg.”

“This isn't about Mama dumping us,” Claire said, believing it. “This is about how much I love Bobby. I won't make him give up his big break for me.”

Before Dad could say anything else, Alison bounded into the room, dragging her worn, stained baby blanket, the one she'd slept with every single night of her life. “Here, Mommy,” she said, “you can have my wubbie till you get all better.”

Claire took the grayed pink blanket in her hands. She couldn't help herself; she held it to her face and smelled the little-girl sweetness of it. “Thanks, Ali,” she said in a throaty voice.

Alison crawled up into her arms and hugged her. “It's okay, Mommy. Don't cry. I'm a big girl. I can sleep without my wubbie.”

C
HAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

M
EGHANN SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM, TRYING TO READ THE
newest issue of
People
magazine. It was the “Best- and Worst-Dressed” issue. Honest to God, she couldn't tell the difference. Finally, she tossed the magazine on the cheap wooden table beside her. The wall clock ticked past another minute.

She went up to the desk again. “It's been more than an hour. Are you sure everything is okay with my sister? Claire—”

“Austin, I know. I spoke with radiology five minutes ago. She's almost finished.”

Meghann refrained from pointing out that she'd received the same answer fifteen minutes earlier. Instead, she sighed heavily and went back to her seat. The only magazine left to read was
Field & Stream
. She ignored it.

Finally, Claire came out.

Meghann rose slowly. On the right side of her sister's head was a small area that had been shaved. “How was it?”

Claire touched her bald spot, feeling it. “They tattooed me. I feel like Damien—that kid from
The Omen.
”

Meg looked at the tiny black dots on the pale, shaved shin. “I could fix your hair so you couldn't even see the . . . you know.”

“Bald spot? That would be great.”

They looked at each other for a minute or so. “Well, let's go, then,” Meghann finally said.

They walked through the hospital and out to the parking garage.

On the short drive home, Meghann kept trying to think of what to say. She had to be careful from now on, had to say the right thing. Whatever
that
was.

“It didn't hurt,” Claire said.

“Really? That's good.”

“It was hard to keep still, though.”

“Oh . . . yeah. It would be.”

“I closed my eyes and imagined the rays were sunlight. Healing me. Like that article you gave me.”

Meg had given her sister a stack of literature on positive thinking and visualization. She hadn't known if Claire had read them until just now. “I'm glad it helped. The lady at Fred Hutch is supposed to be sending me another box of stuff.”

Claire leaned back in her seat and looked out the window.

From this side, she looked perfectly normal. Meghann wished she could say something that mattered; so much was unsaid between them.

With a sigh, she pulled into the underground lot and parked in her space.

Still silent, they went upstairs. In the condo, Meghann turned to Claire. She stared at the bald spot for a second too long. “Do you want something to eat?”

“No.” Claire touched her briefly, her fingers were icy cold. “Thanks for coming with me today. It helped not to be alone.”

Their gazes met. Once again, Meghann felt the weight of their distance.

“I think I'll lie down. I didn't sleep well last night.”

So they'd both been awake, staring at their separate ceilings from their separate rooms. Meghann wished she'd gone to Claire last night, sat on her bed, and talked about the things that mattered. “Me, either.”

Claire nodded. She waited a second longer, then turned and headed for the bedroom.

Meghann watched the door slowly close between them. She stood there, listening to her sister's shuffling footsteps beyond the door. She wondered if Claire was moving slower in there, if fear clouded her eyes. Or if she was staring at that small, tattooed pink patch of skin in the mirror. Did Claire's brave front crumble in the privacy of that room?

Meg prayed not, as she went to the condo's third bedroom, which was set up as an in-home office. Once, files and briefs and depositions had cluttered the glass desk. Now it was buried beneath medical books, memoirs,
JAMA
articles, and clinical trials literature. Every day, boxes from
Barnes & Noble.com
and Amazon arrived.

Meghann sat down at her desk. Her current reading material was a book on coping with cancer. It lay open to a chapter called “Don't Stop Talking Just When You Need to Start.”

She read:
This time of tragedy can be one of growth and opportunity, too. Not only for the patient, but for the family as well. It can be a time that draws you and your loved ones closer.

Meghann closed the book and reached for a
JAMA
article about the potential benefits of tamoxifen to shrink tumors.

She opened a yellow legal pad and began to take notes. She worked furiously, writing, writing. Hours later, when she looked up, Claire was standing in the doorway, smiling at her. “Why do I think you're planning to do the surgery yourself?”

“I already know more about your condition than that first idiot we saw.”

Claire came into the room, carefully stepping over the empty Amazon boxes and the magazines that had been discarded. She stared down at the filled legal pads and inkless pens. “No wonder you're the best lawyer in the city.”

“I research well. I'm really starting to understand your condition. I've made you a kind of abstract—a synopsis of everything I've read.”

“I think I better read it for myself, don't you?”

“Some of it's . . . hard.”

Claire reached for the standing file on the left side of the desk. In it was a manila file with the word
Hope
emblazoned in red ink on the notched label. She picked it up.

“Don't,” Meg said. “I've just started.”

Claire opened the file. It was empty. She looked down at Meghann.

“This goes in it,” Meg said quickly, ripping several pages out of her notebook. “Tamoxifen.”

“Drugs?”

“There must be people who beat brain tumors,” Meghann said fiercely. “I'll find every damn one and put their stories in there. That's what the file is for.”

Claire leaned over, picked up a blank piece of paper. On it, she wrote her name, then she placed the paper in the file and returned the file to its stand.

Meg stared up at her sister in awe. “You're really something. You know that?”

“We Sullivan girls are tough.”

“We had to be.”

Meg smiled. For the first time all day, she felt as if she could draw an easy breath. “You want to watch a movie?”

“Anything except
Love Story
.”

Meg started to rise.

The doorbell rang.

She frowned. “Who could that be?”

“You act like no one ever visits you.”

Meghann sidled past Claire and walked to the door. By the time she got there, the bell had rung another eight times. “Damn good doorman,” she muttered, opening the door.

Gina, Charlotte, and Karen stood clustered together.

“Where's our girl?” Karen cried out.

Claire appeared and the screaming began. Karen and Charlotte surged forward, mumbling hello to Meghann, then enfolding Claire in their arms.

“Sam called us,” Gina said when she and Meghann were alone in the hallway. “How is she?”

“Okay, I guess. The radiation went well, I think. She goes every day for four weeks.” At Gina's frightened look, Meghann added, “She didn't want to worry you guys.”

“Yeah, right. She can't be alone for a thing like this.”

“I'm here,” Meghann answered, stung.

Gina squeezed her arm. “She'll need all of us.”

Meghann nodded. Then she and Gina looked at each other.

“You call me. Whenever,” Gina said quietly.

“Thanks.”

After that, Gina eased past Meg and went into the living room, saying loudly. “Okay, we've got spas-in-a-bucket, gooey popcorn balls, hilarious movies, and, of course, games. What should we do first?”

Meghann watched the four best friends come together; they were all talking at once. She didn't move toward them, and they didn't call out to her.

Finally, she went back to her office and shut the door. As she sat there, reading the latest literature on chemotherapy and the blood-brain barrier, she heard the high, clear sound of her sister's laughter.

She picked up the phone and called Elizabeth.

“Hey,” Meg said softly when her friend answered.

“What is it?” Elizabeth asked. “You're too quiet.”

“Claire,” was all she could say before the tears came.

Joe sat sprawled across the sofa, drinking a beer. His third. Mostly, he was trying not to think.

The ephemeral chance for redemption—the one that only last week had glittered in front of him like a desert oasis beside a long, hot highway—had vanished. He should have known it was a mirage.

There would be no starting over. He didn't have the guts for it. He'd thought, hoped, that with Meg he'd be stronger.

“Meg,” he said her name softly, closed his eyes. He said a prayer for her and her sister. It was all he could really do now.

Meg.

She wouldn't clear out of his mind. He kept thinking of her, remembering, wanting. It was what had sent him reaching for the bottles of beer.

It wasn't that he missed her, precisely. Hell, he didn't even know her last name. Didn't know where she lived or what she did in her spare time.

What he grieved for was the
idea
of her. For those few moments—unexpected and sweet—he'd dared to step onto old roads. He'd let himself want someone, let himself believe in a new future.

He took a long drink. It didn't help.

In the kitchen, the phone rang. He got slowly to his feet and started that way. It was probably Gina, calling to make sure he was okay. He had no idea what he'd tell her.

But it wasn't Gina. It was Henry Roloff, sounding hurried. “Joe? Could you meet me for a cup of coffee? Say in an hour?”

“Is everything okay?”

“How about the Whitewater Diner? Three o'clock?”

Joe hoped he could walk straight. “Sure.” He hung up the phone and headed for the shower.

An hour later he was dressed in his new clothes and walking down Main Street. He still felt a faint buzz from the beer, but that was probably a good thing. Already he could feel the way people were staring after him, whispering about him.

It took an act of will to keep smiling as the hostess—a woman he didn't know, thank God—showed him to a booth.

Henry was already there. “Hey, Joe. Thanks for coming so quickly.”

“It's not like I was busy. It's Saturday. The garage is closed.” He slid into the booth.

Henry talked for a few minutes about Tina's garden and the vacation they'd taken to St. Croix last winter, but Joe knew it was all leading up to something. He found himself tensing up, straightening.

Finally, he couldn't take the suspense. “What is it, Henry?” he asked.

Henry stopped midsentence and looked up. “I want to ask a favor of you.”

“I'd do anything for you, Henry. You know that. What do you need?”

Henry reached down under the table and brought out a big manila envelope.

Joe knew what it was. He leaned back, put his hands out as if to ward off a blow. “Anything but that, Henry,” he said. “I can't go back to that.”

“I just want you to look at this. The patient is—” Henry's beeper went off. “Just a minute.” Henry pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.

Joe stared down at the envelope. Someone's medical charts. A record of pain and suffering.

He couldn't go back to that world. No way. When a man had lost his faith and his confidence as profoundly as Joe had, there was no going back. Besides, he couldn't practice medicine anymore. He'd let his license lapse.

He got to his feet. “Sorry, Henry,” he said, interrupting Henry's phone call. “My consulting days are over.”

“Wait,” Henry said, raising a hand.

Joe backed away from the table, then turned and walked out of the restaurant.

Though the radiation treatments themselves lasted only a few minutes a day, they monopolized Claire's life. By the fourth day, she was tired and nauseated. But the side effects weren't half as bad as the phone calls.

Every day, she called home at precisely noon. Ali always answered on the first ring and asked if the owie was all better yet, then Dad got on the phone and asked the same question in a different way. The strength it took to pretend was already waning.

Meghann stood beside her for every call. She hardly went to the office anymore. Maybe three hours a day, tops. The rest of the time, she spent huddled over books and articles, or glued to the Internet. She attacked the issue of a tumor the way she'd once gone after deadbeat dads.

Claire appreciated it; she read everything that Meghann handed her. She'd even consented to drink the “BTC”—brain tumor cocktail—Meghann had devised based on her research. It contained all kinds of vitamins and minerals.

They talked daily about treatments and prognoses and trials. What they didn't talk about was the future. Claire couldn't find the courage to say,
I'm afraid
, and Meg never asked the question.

The only time Meg seemed willing to disappear into the woodwork was at 2:00. The designated Bobby Phone Call time.

Now, Claire was alone in the living room. In the kitchen, the 2:00 buzzer was beeping. As usual, Meg had heard it and made an excuse to leave the room.

Claire picked up the phone and dialed Bobby's new cell phone number.

He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, baby,” he said. “You're two minutes late.” Bobby's voice poured through her cold, cold body, warming her.

She leaned back into the sofa's downy cushions. “Tell me about your day.” She'd found that it was easier to listen than to talk. At first, she'd been able to laugh at his stories and make up pretty lies. Lately, though, her mind was a little foggy, and the exhaustion was almost unbearable. She wondered how long it would be before he noticed that she spent their conversations listening to him, or that her voice almost always broke when she said,
I love you
.

“I met George Strait today. Can you believe it? He passed on a song—one called “Dark Country Corners”—and then mentioned that it'd be a good match with my voice. I listened to the song and it was great.” He started to sing to her.

A sob caught in her throat. She had to stop him before she burst into tears. “That's beautiful. Top 10 for sure.”

“Are you okay, baby?”

“I'm fine. Everyone here is fine. Meg and I have been spending a lot of time together; you'd be surprised. And Ali and Sam send their love.”