Good Harbor

  Joyce’s face betrayed her. “Purple is neutral,” Francesca reassured her. “Besides, someone as interesting and artistic as yourself should have an interesting and artistic home,” she said, snipping out swatches named Pretty Putty, Golden Light, Bluish, and Lemon Crème and laying them beside Summer Aubergine, which Joyce continued to eye with suspicion.

  “Buy a quart and just paint a swatch. Live with it for a while,” Francesca said. “If it still doesn’t work for you, call me.”

  Joyce waved as Francesca backed her sleek black Saab out of the driveway. She walked over to the Madonna, whose gray concrete arms reached down toward last year’s withered mums. “I like being told that I’m interesting and artistic,” she said to the statue, and pinched its solid cheek. “Don’t you?”

  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.

  In June, every wave and rock and gull is lit up from inside, the sky is a daily miracle. But I won’t be able to enjoy it, Kathleen thought bitterly. The margins won’t be clean. They’ll find invasive cancer cells on the margins. There will be more surgery, and radiation and chemotherapy, and God knows what. I’ll be too weak and nauseated to sit up, much less have energy to pull weeds or plant bulbs.

  Kathleen loved the steep, rocky hill behind the house. It had been a “nature preserve” — her own euphemism for scrubby and neglected — while her sons were growing up. But once they left home, she fortified the worn-out soil with coffee grounds and manure, and now there were flowers everywhere, daylilies mostly, in and around the ten granite boulders on the hillside. A few years ago, Buddy had hired a cherry picker so she could get up to the top, and she had planted a big stand of yellow Stella d’Oros up there. They bloomed the whole summer.

  She wouldn’t be planting anything this summer. No new lilies. No tomatoes. Nothing.

  By the time she pulled into the parking lot, she was in a rage. “Damn it!” she shouted. “Damn it all to hell.”

  She leaned back in the seat and calmed down enough to walk into the building, retrieve her date book, and tell the principal that she would be out the rest of the week. He put his arm around her shoulder and said, “You take all the time you need.” Then he got that look on his face and Kathleen knew what his next words would be. “My sister had breast cancer.”

  Back home, she called Buddy to tell him the news. She called Hal and Jack. She talked to receptionists at medical offices. “We can fit you in Friday, but it may be a long wait,” said the woman at the internist’s office. “Bring a book.”

  Kathleen sat in one waiting room after another, unable to read. She picked at her cuticles and wondered what had happened to the woman who had canceled her surgery with Dr. Truman. Had she come down with the flu? Found a better surgeon? Did she decide she’d just rather die?

  The last stop was at a lab for a final blood test to rule out anemia. A child’s outraged wail filled the silence in the waiting room outside the lab. The grown-ups in the chairs around her smiled at each other and shook their heads in sympathy. “Poor thing,” said the woman sitting next to Kathleen.

  Danny hadn’t cried. He was knocked unconscious by the car. And then they had put the tube down his throat. Pat had promised Kathleen that her little boy wouldn’t remember the pain or the disgusting procedures they did on him — because of the drugs. Amnestics.

  Buddy and Kathleen spent the Sunday night before surgery at a motel near the hospital in Boston. The bed was as hard and flat as a frozen pond, but somehow they managed to fall asleep, waking at dawn to get to the operating room on time.

  Within minutes of entering the building, Kathleen lay gowned and shivering on a gurney. She was so frightened — trembling and almost blue at the lips — the anesthesiologist asked if she’d like a mild sedative once they hooked up the IV. Kathleen was mortified at her cowardice, but said yes. Was it Fiona or Madge who had told her about some woman, diagnosed with DCIS and dead of metastatic breast cancer a year later.

  Buddy sat beside her in pre-op, alternately silent and gasping. She thought about reminding him to breathe, but she couldn’t spare the energy to form the
words.

  Lying between the green curtains, she remembered Pat’s last days in the hospital: the foul, metallic smell of her sister’s breath, her face, bilious and yellow, distorted into a bloated circle. And then Pat in her casket. “Isn’t she the picture of peace?” the old nuns had said. But Kathleen had been horrified. Who had picked that lime green polyester suit? Who had turned Patty into a frump for a roomful of strangers to peer at and pronounce “at peace”?

  She closed her eyes tighter against the memories and the bright light and the cold of the pre-op room. Why did they keep it so cold?

  Dr. Truman walked into the room, transformed by the green operating scrubs into an outsize elf. The doctor’s fingers felt dry and warm on Kathleen’s arm as she crouched down close enough for Kathleen to feel her breath against her cheek. Kathleen smiled at the sound but didn’t pay attention to the words. The voice was calm. “Okay, Doc,” Kathleen said. At least she thought she said it.

  The doctor vanished, Buddy kissed her, and Kathleen was wheeled into an even brighter, even colder room. She shuddered under the sheet. A voice told her to take three breaths, and she fell back.

  She woke up vomiting into a blue plastic basin in another curtained cubicle. A West Indian nurse held her by the shoulders. “There you go, darling, you’ll be feeling better now.” She wiped the inside of Kathleen’s mouth with a minty swab and asked, “Ready to see your husband?”

  Buddy walked in with a broad smile across his face. “Dr. Truman says you were great. She says we can go home whenever you feel up to it.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes, just for a moment, just to rest from the strain of retching. But she woke up much later, in a hospital bed. The room was illuminated only by the fading daylight slipping through narrow blinds. She stirred, aware of the bandage on her breast, a dull ache beneath it.

  “Buddy?” He was asleep in the chair beside her.

  “What!” he said, jumping up.

  “I’m ready to go home.”

  An aide helped Kathleen out of bed and wheeled her out to the curb. They drove home without speaking, and both fell into bed, exhausted, with their clothes on.