The Return of Jonah Gray (13 page)

The phone rang.

“I'd better get that,” my mother said.

“Just let it go,” I said.

“It might be the hospital.” She stepped inside the house. “He should be coming out of surgery soon.”

“He's in surgery?” I called after her. I turned to Kurt. “Did you know about any of this?”

He shook his head. “I should have. I can't believe I didn't see it.”

“It's brain cancer,” I said. “Why do you think you would have been able to see it?”

“I can't believe you're swimming at a time like this,” he snapped.

“Sasha,” my mother called. “It's for you.” She stood at the sliding door with the receiver in her hand.

“Who is it?” I asked, but she just shrugged. I pulled myself out of the pool and padded over to her.

“Aren't you going to dry off first?” my mother asked.

I grabbed a ratty towel from the nearest chair and patted my legs. “Surgery?” I repeated.

My mother handed me the phone. “Say you're in the middle of something,” she said.

“I told you not to answer it,” I said. “Hello?” I pulled the line tight and stood just outside the sliding doors. The last thing I needed was a lecture from my mother about wet carpet.

“Sasha, it's Ellen Maselin. Your parents' neighbor?” she said.

I covered the receiver and whispered to my mother. “Ellen Maselin.”

“Why is she calling you?”

I shrugged. I didn't remember the last time I had said more than hello to Ellen Maselin. I barely knew the woman.

“Of course, Ellen. How are you?” I asked.

“I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time,” she said.

I looked around the patio. Everyone was staring at me. “It's not great,” I said.

“I won't keep you,” she said. “I just called to say…well, you've seen my garden, haven't you?”

“I guess.” I passed the Maselin's front yard whenever I visited my parents. Was the Maselin house the one with the flowers that reminded me of old ladies' swim caps? I thought my mother had called them hydrangeas.

“Well, I'm a bit of a fanatic. Oh, you know, I like to keep up, when and where I can. I read. I take courses. I even use the Internet.”

“Okay,” I said, not sure where she was going.

“What does she want?” my mother whispered.

I waved her off. I couldn't explain what I was doing on the phone, in my bathing suit, numb from the news of my father's terminal diagnosis.

“I'll cut to the chase. I understand that one of your audits this year is a man named Jonah Gray,” she said.

My mind whizzed to a stop. Had I heard her correctly? “Jonah Gray?” I repeated.

“Oh, Jesus,” Kurt muttered. “Not that guy.”

“Who's Jonah Gray?” my mother asked. “Do I know him?”

“Let me just say,” Ellen went on, “neighbor to neighbor, that I do hope you'll take it easy on him. He's a remarkable gardener. And so generous with his time and his advice.”

In the August sun, I felt myself growing cold. The water from my bathing suit dripped down my legs, like insects racing across my skin. I wanted to know more about my father, not about the merits of the married Mr. Gray. Not just then, in any case.

“Mrs. Maselin,” I managed to say. “You realize that I can't discuss such matters with anyone but the person being audited. It's a privacy issue.” It wasn't exactly true—especially with Jonah's own open discussion of the audit. But it would get me off the phone more quickly.

“Oh, of course,” Ellen said. “I just thought, since Ian mentioned that he saw your car, I thought I'd give a call.”

“I'm going to have to go now,” I said. “You take care.”

“You, too. Hi to your parents for me.”

“Sure,” I said and stepped inside to hang up the phone.

“What was that about?” my mother called. “Try not to drip on the carpet.”

“When can we see Dad?” I asked.

The front door slammed and a few seconds later Blake loped around the corner, twirling a Popsicle stick. Blake was the tallest of us Gardners, taller than my father by age thirteen, and now, at fifteen, just beginning to grow out of gangly.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Before I could answer, my mother squeezed past me and planted herself between Blake and the door to the patio. “Your sister came to help with the pool cover,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Is that Kurt and the boys?” Blake asked, craning his neck to see past her.

“I hope you're not ruining your appetite with Popsicles,” my mother said.

Blake frowned. “They're, like, thirty calories each,” he said.

“Why does he know the calories in a Popsicle?” I asked my mom.

My mother shrugged.

Eddie ran inside just then and barreled into Blake. “Uncle Blake!” he shrieked.

“Hey, kiddo,” Blake said, lifting him up.

I turned to my mother. “I take it you haven't told him about Dad?” I whispered.

She took a deep breath. “We didn't want to worry him before we knew more.”

“You know more now,” I said.

“Don't do this, Sasha,” my mother said. “Your father and I are his parents. We decide. You're his sister.”

It struck me that my uncle had said the same thing to me at the anniversary party. Only about Marcus. Which reminded me that I still hadn't called Ed to apologize for missing dinner.

“Grandpa's sick,” Eddie said, loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear him clearly. “Six months.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Blake asked. He looked from Eddie to me and my mother.

“He's got six months,” Eddie said. “That's half a year.”

“Shouldn't we be getting ready to go to the hospital?” Kurt called from the patio. Lori had Jackie out of the pool and dried off.

Blake carefully lowered Eddie to the ground. He looked at my mother. “What's going on? Is it true?”

“It is true,” my mother said.

“So why is Eddie telling me about this? Why didn't you tell me? Apparently you invited Sasha and Kurt over to tell them, but you couldn't even wait for me to get home? What the hell?”

“Your father and I didn't want you to worry,” my mother said.

Blake looked exasperated. “But you could tell a three-year-old?”

“It just kind of worked out that way,” I said.

“Jackie knows, too,” Eddie said proudly.

Blake shook his head. “You know, sometimes I feel like I'm not fully a part of this family.”

“Don't say that,” my mother said sadly. “You're a very important part.”

 

The lot of us crammed into my father's car. My mother's usual car was a late-model luxury sedan. It didn't matter which make or model; she never kept a car long enough to grow attached. She'd pick out something on a one-year lease, then trade it in a year later for whatever was newer and more expensive. As luck would have it, her lease had expired earlier that week, and news of my father's recurrence had trumped her car-shopping plans, so she'd turned in her used car without bringing home another.

At the other automotive extreme sat my father's ancient Mercedes. For years, he had driven the same diesel station wagon we referred to as “the Truckster.” Butter-colored and always smelling slightly of gas, the Truckster seemed to run on knocks and shudders.

“Do you want me to drive?” I asked her, when we were out in the driveway.

“Is that thing even safe?” Kurt asked.

“I've already got the car seats in there for the boys,” my mother said. “Get in and let's go.”

 

Uncle Ed was already at the hospital, talking with Dr. Fisher, as the rest of us swarmed into my father's oncologist's office. We stared at them expectantly.

“I told them,” my mother said.

“Actually, she told the rest of them, and Eddie told me. Eddie is five,” Blake snapped.

“A lot can change,” Dr. Fisher said. “We don't know everything about cancer. We're learning more all the time.”

“You said the same thing the first time,” I said. “Can't you give us any specifics?”

“Sasha, be polite,” my mother said.

Dr. Fisher said that my father's surgery had gone as smoothly as brain surgery goes. The surgeon had shaved his head and made quiet incisions and brief explorations, then sewn him up again. When we arrived, he was still unconscious but recuperating.

“Jacob's metastasis is relatively aggressive,” Dr. Fisher said. “I'm recommending a course of radiation to start immediately. Chemo will follow. But the brain is difficult.”

“I want him to get the best care possible,” my mother said.

“Of course,” Dr. Fisher said.

“He wants to be at home, in his own home. He's going to be cared for at home.”

I wanted her to stop saying
home.
You repeat a word too many times and it loses its context. I was already unsure what
home
meant.

“You're going to need help taking care of him,” Ed said.

“Already?” I asked. “Is it that bad?”

Dr. Fisher rooted around a pile of papers on his desk, then handed us all copies of a brochure. “This is that twenty-four-hour home-nursing service I mentioned before,” he said to my mother. “They're excellent. It's likely that his sensory and motor skills will deteriorate first. That's just the nature of where the lesions are. That's why we want to start the radiation as soon as possible.”

“Can I sign up now?” my mother asked.

“Give it some thought. Talk it over. They're not cheap,” Dr. Fisher said.

“Cost doesn't matter. I want Jacob to have the best.”

“Would you excuse me, please?” Uncle Ed said. He stood and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” my mother asked, but he didn't answer her.

I turned to Dr. Fisher. “There must be examples of people beating this.”

“People beat every kind of cancer,” he said.

“Okay then,” I said. “I don't see why we're not focusing on that.”

“But at your father's stage…well, it would be statistically remarkable.”

“Oh, damn,” my mother murmured.

“What?” I asked.

“I forgot your father's health care folder. He wanted me to give it to Ed. Sasha, will you take your father's car and go get it?”

“It's a folder?” I asked.

She nodded. “Marked Health Care. It's probably in your father's study.”

With car keys in hand, I left Dr. Fisher's office and shuffled down the hospital hallway. I could barely remember when the oncology department was unfamiliar territory. I'd grown to know its twists and turns, where the closest bathrooms were, where the soda machine was, the quickest route to the cafeteria. I hated that I knew it so well, and that I would now have the opportunity to get reacquainted.

At the end of the hall, I saw Uncle Ed talking with a man I didn't recognize. He could have been anyone—patient or the family member of a patient or a colleague. Maybe he was the surgeon who'd just peered into my father's brain. Maybe he would know something more specific.

As I headed toward them, Ed looked up, then nodded. The man—I could see that he was younger than Ed, maybe even younger than I was—turned to look at me. Then he shook Ed's hand and walked off. He had disappeared around a corner by the time I reached Ed's side.

“Who was that?” I asked.

But Ed didn't answer. “Where's your mother?”

“Still with Dr. Fisher,” I said. “I'm headed back home to get Dad's health-care file for you.”

“Ah, right. Jacob mentioned that. Thanks.”

“Do you have any idea when Dad will wake up?” I asked him.

“Apparently, he just did. He's still groggy, but I'm sure he'll want to see you when you get back,” he said. “Sasha,” Ed began.

“I know,” I cut in. “I totally spaced on dinner last week. I was having the worst day at work. A guy I was auditing—”

“I'd like to try again,” Ed said.

“What do you mean?”

“I'd like to bring Marcus around again. For dinner.”

“Again?”

“It's just dinner,” Ed said.

“Why?”

“Because he's family. If it was a good idea before this news about your father, it's got to be even more important now.”