Good Harbor (4 page)

At Ferguson’s, the clerk advised against the cheap brushes she brought to the counter.
“A good brush gives you a nice finish, even if you use lousy paint,” said the young
man, who smelled faintly of beer. “Since you’re springing for the good paint, you
may as well get the good brushes. That’s what my uncle tells me. And he’s a professional.”

He was a good-looking kid, twenty years old, if that, with deep brown eyes and sandy
hair that hung over his shoulders. He told Joyce how to wash and hang the brushes
so they would stay in good shape. There was a tattoo on his forearm, a little blue
star or maybe a starfish.

Joyce thought about leaning down to kiss it.

Later that day, waiting in the car for Nina to get out of school, she remembered the
tattoo and wondered what the hell was going on with her. Nina slammed the door hard.

“Hi, sweetie.”

“I’m in a bad mood, Mom,” Nina warned.

“What’s wrong?”

She shrugged violently and said, “Lucy and Ruth were talking about me behind my back.
They say I’m stuck-up and fat.”

“Fat?” Nina’s ribs were practically visible through her T-shirt.

Nina flashed Joyce a look that warned against disagreement.

Joyce took a breath. No matter what she said, it would be wrong, though saying nothing
wouldn’t work either.

“Mom,” Nina demanded, “do you not even care that my back is killing me and my throat
hurts?”

“Of course I care,” Joyce said as sympathetically as possible.

“Yeah. Right.” Nina pounded the button for her radio station and crossed her arms.
Through her daughter’s silence Joyce counted six commercials — acne remedy, a television
show, running shoes, a contest for concert tickets, a candy bar, another TV show —
before they arrived at the field.

“Jenny’s mom will pick you up,” Joyce shouted as Nina slammed the door and ran toward
the other girls, her aches and pains forgotten.

Joyce drove around the corner and pulled over. She tried to put things in perspective.
She thought about how much she really loved her daughter. She thought about how supportive
Frank was of her decision to freelance from home. She thought about how much she loved
the beach at Good Harbor.

But it didn’t work. She turned off the ignition, leaned back into the headrest, and
let herself cry.

KATHLEEN BARELY SLEPT
the night before her appointment with Dr. Truman. Startling awake every hour, she
counted Buddy’s sleeping breaths to calm herself and finally took the first birdsong
as permission to get out of bed. She walked to the end of the block, threading her
way between the neighbors’ houses to watch the tidal river turn gray, then blue in
the growing light. By the time she returned, Buddy had the kettle boiling.

They left home an extra hour early, planning for traffic in Boston, but the roads
were oddly empty and they arrived at the medical complex before Dr. Truman’s office
opened. Buddy and Kathleen shared the elevator with a young woman who had a gold stud
in her nostril and who turned out to be Madge’s niece, Ellen. When Kathleen started
to thank her, Ellen raised her hand like a traffic cop stopping a car. “Having a little
bit of pull is the best part of this job. And don’t you worry. Our patients get the
best care in the world.”

Kathleen noticed Ellen didn’t say “Our patients get well,” but that was okay with
her. Honesty in a doctor’s office is a good thing, she thought.

They sat in the mauve-and-cream waiting room as the office staff arrived and started
swapping stories about the weekend. A receptionist, who looked to be about forty,
had been out on a blind date. The nurse with cornrowed hair had a colicky baby at
home.

The phone rang and the smell of fresh coffee saturated the room. Kathleen felt as
though she’d fallen down another rabbit hole. But I’m in better shape than Alice,
she figured: I feel like I know everything and everyone here.

When Ellen warned them that the doctor was running a little late, Buddy let out a
loud “Huh.” Kathleen had forgotten the way he held his breath when he was nervous.
He squirmed in the flowered armchair that was far too small and feminine for him and
reached for a copy of
Good Housekeeping.

Ten minutes later, Dr. Truman barreled through the door, white coat flapping over
khaki pants, a stack of folders in her arm. She lifted her finger at the desk staff,
signaling that she needed a moment, and hurried down the hall.

Kathleen watched her go. The doctor was shorter than she had pictured her: maybe an
inch over five feet, and no string bean. Not fat, but substantial. Her hair was longer
and darker than Kathleen remembered from the newspaper photographs.

When she realized that Buddy was holding his breath again, Kathleen touched the tip
of his nose and he snorted, embarrassed.

“Mrs. Levine?”

Kathleen looked up.

Dr. Truman had her hand out. “Mr. Levine?” Buddy stood. “Come on down.” She gestured
for them both to follow her.

Kathleen was glad for the window in the doctor’s office and for the chestnut tree
it framed. “Sit down, Mr. Levine, Mrs. Levine. Or would you rather I called you Kathleen?
Or is it Kathy?” Dr. Truman closed the door.

“Kathleen,” she said. The wall behind the desk was decorated with diplomas and photos:
Dr. Truman shaking hands with Barbara Bush, with an arm around Barbra Streisand, behind
a lectern with Barbara Walters.

“You’ve got a theme going there,” Buddy said.

“Yeah,” the doctor said. “I’d like to get Barbara Kingsolver. Too bad Barbara Stanwyck
is no longer with us.”

Dr. Truman pulled up a chair next to Kathleen and asked about her children: Two sons?
Where did they live? What did they do?

She asked about how long it took to drive in from Cape Ann, and about Kathleen’s job.
When the doctor heard the words “children’s librarian,” she grabbed a notepad and
asked about books for her daughter, who was just on the verge of reading.

Kathleen mentioned four titles and thought of a few others while Dr. Truman led her
into the adjoining examination room. She took off her blouse and bra and lay down
on the table while the doctor washed her hands. They were big, Kathleen noticed, the
nails cut flat across the top, like Buddy’s. The doctor palpated her left breast and
then the right without any change in expression.

After Kathleen dressed, Dr. Truman clipped the mammograms to the light board and,
using a pencil, pointed to a scattering of what looked like white grains of sand contrasted
against the shadowy mass of her breast. “These are the calcifications,” the doctor
said, and described how a wire would be inserted into that area to guide the incision.
“But let’s go back into the office and talk all this through with your husband, so
you both get the whole picture.”

From the doorway, Kathleen was startled at how pale Buddy looked in the light from
the window.

“Okay now,” said Dr. Truman, looking from one anxious face to the other, “I’m not
telling you to pretend that this isn’t serious or to act all stiff-upper-lip around
each other. But we caught this early, and there’s every reason to be optimistic.”

Buddy let out a breath.

“Mr. Levine,” Dr. Truman said.

“It’s Buddy,” he corrected her.

“Well, Buddy, I believe Kathleen is going to be around for a long time. And I’m not
feeding you a line.”

Buddy and Kathleen nodded.

Quickly, but not too quickly, Dr. Truman reviewed the options. Since the biopsy had
confirmed DCIS, they had to decide between wide excision with radiation or mastectomy
— with or without reconstructive surgery.

“Dr. Cooperman didn’t say anything about a mastectomy,” Kathleen said, alarmed.

“Yes, she did,” Buddy corrected quietly.

“That is a more radical choice,” said Dr. Truman, “but some women choose it to avoid
the radiation, or just for peace of mind.”

Kathleen reacted instantly, instinctively: no mastectomy.

“That’s fine,” Dr. Truman said, and explained that if the margins around the excision
were cancer-free, there would be no need for further surgery.

“And if the margins aren’t cancer-free?” Kathleen asked.

More surgery, Dr. Truman said gently, but cautioned against getting too far ahead
of the facts. “At this point, I want you to be perfectly clear that you do not have
the kind of disease that killed your sister. Your sister had inflammatory breast cancer,
which is rare. Back in the 1970s, it was almost always fatal. But that is not your
diagnosis.”

“I understand,” Kathleen said. “But I want you to do the surgery, the excision. Will
you? Will you do it?”

“Sue Cooperman is a very good surgeon, Mrs. Levine.”

“Please,” said Kathleen, leaning forward in her chair. “I know you’re busy, but it
would mean the world to me if you could do it.”

The doctor started to explain that her schedule was very busy when she noticed the
yellow Post-it note on Kathleen’s chart. “You have an inside track here, but the fact
is, I don’t control my own OR schedule. Dr. Cooperman could probably operate much
sooner. You’ll have to make that decision yourselves.”

At the desk, Ellen looked at the computerized calendar, pinching her mouth over to
one side. “Gee, the best I can do for you is the very end of June. But I’ll call if
there’s a cancellation. It happens. Not often, but once in a while, and you’re right
at the top of that list. So you be ready and keep a good thought.”

Kathleen tried to smile and said, “I’ll do that.”

But in the elevator, she started to panic. How could she get through two more months
with this thing inside her? Maybe she should let Dr. Cooperman do the surgery. But
Dr. Truman had made her feel so much more taken care of. So . . . cradled.

She wanted to talk about it on the way home, but the traffic was bad and Buddy was
too tense to pay the kind of attention she needed.

When Jack heard her dilemma, he said, “I’ll try to get an extra day off and come home
next week.” Hal spent an hour on the phone with her, going over the pros and cons.
Finally, he declared that medically there was probably no harm in waiting for Dr.
Truman, but if it would drive her crazy, she should schedule the surgery with Dr.
Cooperman.

Kathleen felt as if she were wearing a lead cape. She couldn’t bear waiting nine weeks.
Still, she needed Jane Truman to take care of her. And yet, she was also convinced
that it made no difference which doctor did the surgery. Kathleen was certain they
would find more cancer. She knew it in her bones. No question.

She tried calling Jeanette again, but hung up as soon as the answering machine switched
on.

After another sleepless night, she made an appointment to have Dr. Cooperman do the
surgery on May 9. But the following day Ellen called to say there had been a last-minute
cancellation. Next Monday. Six days away. In the meantime, she would have to come
down to Boston for a pre-op visit with the anesthesiologist, and to meet with one
of their nurses. She’d also need to get a clean bill of health from her own internist.

“See you soon, Mrs. Levine,” said Ellen, sounding as if Kathleen had just booked a
haircut.

She wrote down her assignments and then put the receiver down a little harder than
necessary. “This must be my lucky day.”

Driving to school, she was suddenly furious. She counted all the ways she was angry.
About having cancer, about being too scared to sleep, about having to disrupt everything
in her life. And it was going to ruin the whole summer.

It
would
have to happen
now
, she fumed. Summers in Gloucester could make you forget the miseries of winter, just
like those drugs. What were they called? Amnestics.

Summers on Cape Ann erased the cumulative assault of January darkness, the relentless
February chill, the raw misery of March, and the final heartbreak of April, when the
light returns but the wind still stabs you in the back.

In May, there are birds everywhere, and by the end of June the beach roses bloom and
the supermarket fills with sun-stunned vacationers loading their carts with chips
and lemonade.