Megan's Way (3 page)

She could not bring herself to imagine the
devastation that her death would cause Olivia. Instead, she guided
her thoughts to dissecting her daughter’s feelings toward her
decision. Would Olivia ever be able to get past the fact that it
would have been her choice to terminate treatments? Would Olivia
hate her forever? Would she understand that it would break Megan’s
heart to watch her daughter’s hopeful eyes, only to know the hope
was useless? Would the pain and anguish of false hopes that the
treatments would give Olivia just extend her inevitable torture?
How could she choose to leave her daughter?

Megan was depleted, ravaged by the
irresolution, yet she remained unable to escape her tangled
thoughts. Her mind swam in circles, inevitably drifting to Holly.
An overwhelming sense of loss and jealousy consumed her, and guilt
pierced her heart. She loved Holly. She could think of no one else
that she’d rather have raise Olivia than Holly and Jack.
Jack
. Megan couldn’t even go down that road. She had enough
anguish on her plate.

As evening turned to night, Megan felt
smothered by her illness, as if it hovered around her, waiting to
steal her last breath. Its vigilance was inescapable. She tried to
distract herself. She attempted to paint, but her mind was a black
hole. Her typical creativity lay dormant, stale. Reading was out of
the question; each word attacked her in its own way. Living,
I
won’t be living anymore
. When,
There will be no when to plan
for. Mother, What kind of a mother leaves her daughter?

She sat on the couch until fatigue settled
in. Then she made her way upstairs to Olivia’s bedroom and listened
at the door—silence. She peered into the dark room. Olivia was
tucked into her blankets, still wearing her clothes from the
afternoon.

Her sleeping face looked soft as cotton and
smooth as water. Megan’s eyes washed over her daughter’s, which,
even closed, she knew were green around the edges with brown flakes
in the center.
Fields of lily
, the ophthalmologist had said.
The most beautiful ones he had ever seen. She took in her upturned
nose and her delicate pink lips, which had spread across her face
through puberty, as if they were painted on, bringing with them a
confidence that only a teen could posses and a seductive quality
that Olivia herself had yet to become aware of.

Olivia’s fine golden hair reached across the
pillow in straight lines. Megan reached up and fingered the ends of
her own chestnut brown hair. Once full of body and effortless
bounce, it hung frizzy and limp against her sheer cotton nightgown.
It’s so thin
. Megan remembered how she had always wanted
hair like the other girls—the other women— straighter, thinner, and
more manageable; the kind you could throw up in a pony tail and
pull down without thought; the kind that cascaded over your
shoulders and flowed with the wind. Now she’d give anything to once
again have her thick mop of unruly curls. She laughed to herself as
she remembered her mother’s daily rant,
Brush your hair! It
looks like “where’s that hair going with that girl!”

Megan’s limbs ached from exhaustion. She
lowered herself carefully behind Olivia, whose body settled
naturally against her own. Megan draped her arm around Olivia and
listened to her breathe, memorizing the simple sound of air being
released from her daughter’s lungs. She felt Olivia’s heartbeat
through her back, strong against her own fragile chest. She closed
her eyes and willed her heart to dance to the same rhythm as
Olivia’s, reveling in the feeling of oneness, the closeness she’d
always shared with her—the closeness she now had to let slowly slip
away.

Moonlight crept in through the sheer
curtains, and Megan carefully extracted herself from the warmth of
Olivia’s body. She padded to her bedroom, slowing only for a moment
to ponder getting into her own unmade bed. Her body, however, had
another destination in mind and carried her into the bathroom.

Megan caught sight of her reflection in the
mirror. She wondered how her body could have betrayed her in this
way. She ran her fingers along her right shoulder and traced her
sharp, visible collar bone. She did not want to believe the signs
her body was giving her. If she ignored them, she hoped that maybe
they would go away and the whole mess could be chalked up to a
miracle, or a mistake.

Megan’s stomach heaved, pushing her hopes out
of her body along with the contents of her stomach. She clung to
the cold toilet and waited for the next retch to tear through her.
Anger and helplessness stewed within her and flushed her cheeks.
Every muscle in her body tensed. A chill ran down her spine. She
clenched her eyes shut.
I cannot do this to Olivia! We cannot go
through this again!
She shook her head to clear her mind, but
the heart-wrenching decision to forgo her treatments remained.

Megan pulled herself to her feet with
determination. She lifted her gaze to the medication on the shelf
above the toilet, staring with both desire and angst. Seven pill
bottles like the seven dwarfs: sleepy, nasty, nauseous, baldy,
weepy, starving, and full. That’s how they made her feel. She
closed her eyes and reached for the bottles. Her hand shook as, one
by one, each plastic container released a pill until all seven
settled restlessly into her palm. She closed her fingers around
them, recognizing each pill by their odd shapes and sizes, their
sandpaper scratch or too-smooth texture. Megan hated the way they
made her hand feel heavy and wrong. Her eyes closed again, her body
swayed, the slightest of movements. She took in a quick and deep
breath and brought the pills toward her mouth, hesitating for just
a second beneath her nose. The pungent odor of the medicine, a
mixture of metal and dung, hung in the air. Her stomach lurched
again. Her throat impulsively closed. With a quick jerk of her hand
she threw the pills into the toilet. Breath rushed out of her like
a balloon emptying its belly, and she took several gulps of the
cool night air streaming through her window. Tears sprang from her
eyes as she flushed the toilet.

She watched the seven dwarfs swirl in the
water and wash slowly down the drain, wondering for a split second
if she’d done the right thing. She turned back to the mirror.
Seeing horror in her eyes and a withering face that she did not
recognize, she knew she had made the right decision. She accepted
the tears that came from deep within her soul and wept into her
frail hands. Her body became heavy, tired. She leaned back against
the pale green walls and let her deflated body slowly sink down to
the tile floor.

The early hours of dawn found Megan back in
Olivia’s bedroom, rocking in the same chair in which she had rocked
Olivia as a newborn. She looked around the bright yellow room and
remembered the squabble she and Olivia had had over the color.
Megan had thought that light purple might be more soothing, but
eleven-year-old Olivia had insisted on “the color of the sun.” The
breeze from the bay window blew the dragonflies that she and Olivia
had spent three weeks creating out of wire, fabric, and paint. They
moved in circular motions, as if they were flying rather than
hanging by yarn.

Olivia’s blanket shifted slightly with each
breath, each breath strengthening Megan’s resolve to maintain her
choice—the choice that she believed would hasten her death, thereby
diminishing the suffering and agony Olivia would endure during a
prolonged and fruitless battle.

“Mom?” Olivia said quietly from her bed.
“Mm-hmm.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Megan opened her eyes and
whispered. “I just needed to be with you. I’m sorry.”

Olivia sat up in bed. “Why? What’s up? What
did I do?”

“Nothing, honey,” Megan said. “I just missed
you.” “O-kay,” Olivia said, laden with sarcasm.

Megan reached down and brushed Olivia’s hair
from her face. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t.” energy crept into Olivia’s
voice, “What are we doing today?”

Megan had anticipated, even dreaded, the
question. They spent most weekends together, shopping, gardening,
or watching movies. There was a time that Megan had worried about
Olivia’s lack of desire to hang out with other girls her age.
Teenage girls were supposed to do fun things with their friends,
not their mothers, but ever since Megan’s first bout with ovarian
cancer, Olivia was reluctant to leave her side. Megan knew that if
she was going to save Olivia from prolonged heartache, she had to
put some distance between them.

“I don’t really know, honey,” Megan said,
softly. She looked at the pillows, the floor, anywhere but into
Olivia’s eyes. “I thought you might want to call one of your
friends, go to a movie maybe.”

Olivia stood abruptly. “No, thanks. What are
we doing today?”

Megan shifted her legs under her body and got
off the rocker, keeping her back to Olivia. “Well, I have some
painting that I need to do, so you should find something else to
keep you busy.”

“Can I come with you?” Olivia asked,
energetically. “Not today, honey. Today, I have to do it by
myself.” “But you always bring me!” Olivia pouted.

“I know,” Megan said, as she peered out the
window at the dunes in the distance, “but this time I can’t. I’m
sorry.”

Olivia stood and adjusted her boxer shorts
and t-shirt. “Well,” she stretched her arms and carried her voice
with them, “can we go shopping later for my new binder?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” Megan felt a pang in
her heart. She’d lived her life taking extra care to spend time
with Olivia, intentionally keeping her weekends free from other
commitments. That was
their
time. Megan reveled in being a
single parent. Raising Olivia had completed her in a way that she
felt no man ever could. The thought of Olivia living her life
without Megan in it was devastating.

Through her heartache she managed, “When I
get back we’ll see what time it is.”

“Whatever.” Olivia’s deflated voice was
almost a whisper as she sulked toward the bathroom.

As the afternoon sun reached its peak, Megan
cleaned her paint brushes, pleased with the peach color she had
spent hours trying to produce. She stood back from the mural and
crossed her arms, thinking not about its beauty, but about the
sickness inside of her—the sickness that was taking her away from
Olivia. “God damn it,” she mumbled to herself. She looked around at
the scattered paints, the flecks of color across her tarps, and was
struck by how meaningless it all seemed.
What the hell am I
doing?
She went through the motions of cleaning her brushes and
collecting her supplies—guilt wrapped around her mind like a vice.
She should be with Olivia.
To hell with the cancer. To hell with
giving her space!
She stacked her paint cans, folded her tarp,
and threw her cloths and brushes, along with other miscellaneous
supplies, into her car and headed home.

As she drove, her mind was fixated on Olivia.
She
needed
to be with her, near her, but she also knew that
she might hurt Olivia more by doing so. Her head spun with
confusion. She pulled off of the road quickly as a wave of
dizziness passed through her. She stepped onto the road, and leaned
her shaking body against the car. She wiped her forehead, sighed,
and looked to the sky.

“What have I done?” she asked the clouds,
which lingered above in halted silence.

She climbed back into the front seat and felt
a familiar prickly sensation crawl up her legs. “Shit!” She braced
herself for what she knew was coming, Olivia was in distress, and
at any second Megan would lose awareness of herself and link to
Olivia’s senses as if they were her own. Suddenly, flames of agony
ripped through her middle. Her breath came in short spurts. Sweat
streamed down her brow. She wrapped her arms around her middle and
folded into herself just as the edges of her sight began to fade.
Images of Olivia rolling on the couch clutching her stomach,
thrashing about in pain, hit with such force that Megan fell
sideways across the front seat, writhing as if her intestines were
tied in knots. The pain from her illness was mild compared to the
torture that accompanied her visions. Megan’s entire body went
rigid, and just as quickly, fell limp.

She blinked several times, trying to make the
foggy feeling in her mind disappear. “I empower thee,” echoed in
her head, words she both loathed and treasured.

The encounter was not new for Megan, having
felt each of Olivia’s major traumas as if they were her own since
Olivia was just two days old. The feeling it left her with, one of
a limp rag doll, was one she never seemed to get used to. Megan sat
up, fumbled for her cell phone, and dialed frantically.
Come on!
Come on!
Her words tripped over each other as they tumble out
of her mouth, “Holly! Olivia. go to…go to her!”

“Megan? What’s wrong, honey?” Holly’s voice
was filled with concern. She knew of Megan and Olivia’s spiritual
connection. She had seen it firsthand on several occasions. Though
she had never understood it, she trusted it inexplicably. She also
knew what it did to Megan, which was what worried her most with
each episode.

“Olivia! it’s Olivia!” Megan spat,
exasperated. “She’s in pain. She’s at home. Please, go!” Megan’s
vision was clear, but her mind remained unsteady.

“I’m there! Don’t worry,” Holly said. “I’ll
call you. Are you okay?”

The sound of Holly’s keys jingling brought
relief to Megan. “Okay. Okay. Yes. Just go!” she said, depleted.
“I’m gone.”

Megan didn’t hang up until the line had gone
dead. Her arms and shoulders trembled with fear and fatigue. She
rested her head on the steering wheel, moaning with pain and worry,
and wondering who would know when Olivia was in trouble after she
was gone.