Sam's Letters to Jennifer

  “You okay?” I asked. I knew that he was, of course. How could he not be?

  “I . . . uh . . . ,” he said. And then Brendan didn’t say anything.

  “You’re at a loss for words? I can’t believe it. I don’t believe it. You . . . uh . . . what?” I kidded.

  But he didn’t joke back for once. What was this? Was it time for Brendan to share a few secrets, too? Did he trust me enough?

  “I have to tell you something, Jennifer,” he said.

  I turned my shoulder so that it wasn’t touching his anymore. I could see his face better now. Brendan was averting his eyes.

  “You’re not going to tell me that you’re still married?” I asked, and didn’t like those words as they came out of my mouth.

  He looked at me. “I’m divorced, Jennifer. That’s not it. . . . The problem is that when we met a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea that any of this was going to happen. Who could have? I had no idea there was somebody like you out there.”

  “What a shame, buddy,” I said. “I feel pretty bad for you.”

  But Brendan didn’t laugh. If anything, he looked worried. Not like himself. Now I got it. He was falling for me. “But . . .”

  I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like but. I was so sure of it that my body went cold.

  “But what?” I asked.

  Forty

  HE DIDN’T ANSWER my question right away, and my insides continued to churn. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good. Brendan wouldn’t, or couldn’t, look me in the eye, and he’d never been like that before.

  “Brendan, what is it?”

  He sighed. “This is going to be hard. I think I’m going to have to back into it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  He held out his wrist. “Have I ever shown you this, Jennifer?”

  It was a handsome Rolex watch. Of course I’d noticed it before, but he hadn’t said anything about the watch.

  “Kind of fancy for you,” I said.

  “It was a gift from a friend who used to live next door to me in Indiana. His name was John Kearney. John was a professor at Notre Dame. Very, very nice guy. Four kids, all girls. We used to go to football games together, play tennis once a week. When he was fifty-one, he went to his doctor about a little cough and came back with an X-ray showing a large spot on his lung,” Brendan said.

  “He showed it to me. When I saw the film, I got John into the Mayo Clinic, where I had interned. I found him a top surgeon. Oncologist. Jennifer, six months later, John weighed a hundred and ten pounds. He couldn’t eat and couldn’t get out of bed. He was in constant pain and he wasn’t getting any better.”

  Brendan looked into my eyes. I was touched by the depth of his sadness. I had been there myself; maybe I was still there.

  “I was going to take John in for another radiation treatment, but he flat out refused. He said, ‘Please stop this, Brendan. I love you and I know you mean well. But I’ve had a good life. I have four beautiful daughters. I don’t want to be like this. Please let me go.’

  “I apologized and I hugged him, and then both of us cried. I knew John was right. I couldn’t change what I’d already done, but the way I viewed the aggressive measures that doctors sometimes take, because we can, changed forever.

  “When he died, John left me his watch,” Brendan said. “What it means to me is ‘quality time,’ making the best of it. So when I read my own CAT scan at the beginning of the summer, I decided to do what’s best for me. I’m sorry about this. I can’t tell you how sorry. I don’t like melodrama very much, especially when it’s happening to me. I’m dying, Jennifer.”

  Forty-one

  I MAY HAVE blacked out for a second or two. I heard Brendan say “my own CAT scan” but I’m not completely sure I grasped what came after that. Then he said, and I heard this very clearly, “There’s nothing that can be done for me. Believe me, I’ve examined every possibility.”

  I felt this incredible core of pain at the center of my chest, or maybe where my heart used to be. I was dizzy and nauseous and I couldn’t really believe what I knew I’d just heard. Everything around me on the dock seemed fuzzy and unreal. The water I had my feet in, my own body, Brendan’s hand resting on mine. Suddenly I reached out and held him as tightly as I could. I kissed his cheek, the side of his forehead. I felt so incredibly sad, and empty.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” I finally said.

  “Well, it’s called glioblastoma multiforme, Jennifer. Big name for a bad cancer that I have right here.” He pointed his finger to the back and side of his head, just behind his left ear. He explained that he’d looked at his own case over and over, consulted experts from as far away as London, and kept arriving at the same unfortunate conclusion.

  “The only treatment for this form of cancer is experimental, extremely radical,” he told me. “Surgery is a nightmare. The risk of paralysis is phenomenal. They probably can’t get all of the cells, anyway. The cancer usually keeps coming back, even with radiation and chemo.”

  Tears were rolling down my face, and I felt hollow. “This isn’t true,” I whispered.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you, Jennifer. I still don’t.” He pulled me into his arms, and I let Brendan hold me. When he spoke again, his voice was low and measured. “I’m so, so sorry, Jennifer.” He was soothing me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, Brendan,” I whispered. “How can this be happening?”

  “A little quality time. That’s all I wanted,” he said in the softest whisper. “That’s why I decided to have a last summer up here. And then I found you again, Scout.”

  Forty-two

  BRENDAN AND I hadn’t even been to bed together, and now maybe I understood why. It was one of the few things that I did understand at that point.

  “I don’t want to be alone tonight,” I said against his cheek. “Is that okay?”

  Then Brendan gave me that incandescent grin of his. “I didn’t want to be alone for the past thirty-four nights.”

  “But who’s counting?”

  “I am,” he said.

  I took Brendan’s hand and kissed it. “You were.”

  It seemed that we got from the dock to the bedroom without even touching the ground. We held on to each other inside the doorway, swaying together on the threshold. We kissed for a long moment, and I finally admitted to myself that I really loved Brendan’s kisses. Then we fumbled with our clothes and fell onto the bed in my room.

  “I guess my sob story worked,” he cracked.

  “Shhhhh. No jokes.”

  He couldn’t resist, though. “Scout? Is it you?” he asked, and both of us started laughing again. Actually, I loved laughing with him, loved that he could make me laugh.

  I put my hands in Brendan’s thick hair and kissed him over and over. I loved the sensation of his skin rubbing against mine. I loved his smell. I touched the soft curls on his chest, then ran my hands down the length of his body. I was taking him all in, learning about him. I wanted to consume Brendan, and in every way that I could, I did. I couldn’t deny my feelings anymore. I didn’t want to.

  Brendan tenderly kissed my breasts, the hollow of my throat, my mouth, my eyelids; then he did it all over again. I was completely lost. He was so gentle and good. He murmured my name, his hands gliding over my body. He had a wonderful touch, and it gave me goose bumps.

  “You’re beautiful without your clothes on, even more beautiful than I imagined,” he said. It was very nice to hear, just the right thing. I doubt that he knew how much I needed to hear that. I hadn’t been to bed with anybody in over a year and a half.

  “So are you,” I said.

  “I’m beautiful?”

  “Yep, you are.”

  We didn’t hold anything back; there was no shyness, not too many first-time nerves. It was as if this had always been meant to happen. Maybe that was even true. After a while we rested in each other’s arms, whispering. I couldn’t stop staring into Brendan’s incre
dible eyes.

  All of my fear was gone, all of the uncertainty and doubt. Finally, we lay on our sides, facing each other, snuggled in so tight that there was no space between us. My legs were hooked around his waist, his knees tucked into mine.

  That’s how we slept.

  When I woke up, I was still in Brendan’s arms. I had to admit I liked it there.

  “Scout?” he whispered, and I punched him in the arm.

  “See, you’re still a tomboy.”

  “How can you say that—after last night?”

  “Right. A tomgirl. Definitely a girl. No, you’re a beautiful woman, Jennifer. You make me so happy.”

  I hugged him tightly, and just then “the crack of dawn” sliced through the part in the curtains.

  Almost on cue, Brendan’s eyes widened, and there was that amazing smile of his.

  “We’re off!” he said.

  How could I possibly say no?

  Not wearing any swimsuits, we ran like little kids out into the yard. A flock of startled ducks flew up through the mist that was rising off the lake as we thundered down the dock. The planks clanked and clunked beneath our bare feet.

  We screamed as we dove into the crystal-clear lake.

  As if everything was right with the world, instead of terribly, terribly wrong.

  Forty-three

  I VISITED SAM that morning and I had to tell her everything. In the past Sam would have said, “You’re bubbling over. Slow down, Jennifer.” But I couldn’t slow down; there wasn’t time. Still, we talked—well, I talked—for over an hour.

  “Sam, I don’t feel guilty anymore, and I don’t much want to examine why. Maybe it’s because Brendan is sick. I have to try and do something. What do you think, Grandmother? I need your help. You’ve been resting long enough.” But Sam had nothing to say to me, and it was terribly sad and frustrating. All my life, she had always been there.

  Later in the morning I had a meeting with Max Weisberg. I needed a second opinion, and not about Sam. I wanted to talk to Max about Brendan.

  I followed the charming aromas of burned macaroni and coffee to the hospital coffee shop, a cafeteria-style room with Formica tables and a commanding view of the parking lot. I filled a paper cup with sugar and coffee, then turned to see Dr. Max sitting at one of the tables near the window.

  I’d met with Max so many times in the past couple of weeks, he’d almost lost his power to intimidate. Actually, he looked really young, sitting across from me in his scrubs. His brush-cut blond hair was standing at attention as he polished off dry rye toast and black coffee.

  “Yum,” I said.

  “Eat your heart out. What’s up?”

  I summed up what Brendan told me the night before, that he had a serious brain tumor, with a very poor prognosis, and that he’d elected to have a great summer and not to pursue any radical treatment program.

  When I was finished, Max said, “When are you going to stop smoking?”

  “Max. Don’t. Please. Besides, I basically quit. Until yesterday.”

  “I mean it.” He sighed. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you. GBM is a horror. Brendan is absolutely right about that. The surgery is dangerous; the treatment fails as often as it works. Brendan knows all of this.”

  “Max, can anything be done? Is there any chance he could come through this with a decent quality of life?”

  “If he survived the experimental surgery, if he survived the treatment, he’d have a thirty percent chance of living for two to five years. But, Jennifer, he could go through the surgery and be completely paralyzed. Brendan would be able to think but not speak or do anything for himself. Believe it or not, I’m understating the risk.”

  I didn’t want to start crying in front of Max, but sometimes he had the bedside manner of a stun gun.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I’m going a little crazy here. Can you tell?”

  “Sorry,” said Dr. Max. “My specialty is neurology.”

  I glared at him, tears started down my cheeks, and to my amazement, his cold demeanor melted.

  “I’m sorry. That was bad,” he said. “Even for me.”

  He put his head in his hands and his elbows on the table. “Let me say this in a better way, Jen. It sounds to me like Brendan has decided to make good use of whatever time he has left. He’s chosen to have a beautiful summer with you. He’s lucky to spend a summer with you, and I’m quite certain he knows it. In other words, I think he’s making a very intelligent choice. I really am sorry.” Then Max actually took my hands in his. “You don’t deserve this, Jennifer. And neither does Brendan.”

  Forty-four

  I TURNED OVER a lot of things that Dr. Max Weisberg had said as I drove toward Sam’s house. I parked the car under the oak, kicked off my loafers, and walked to Shep’s dock. Brendan was out on the lake, swimming. He looked so vital—not sick, certainly not terminally ill. My stomach started to churn.

  He saw me and waved. Then he called, “Come in, the water’s perfect. You look perfect.”

  “No, you come,” I said, patting the dock beside me. “Sit by me. I’m saving a spot. The dock is perfect.”

  Brendan swam my way. He pulled himself up in one smooth motion. Then he put his arm around me and we kissed.

  “Not right now,” he said after the kiss.

  “Not right now, what?” I asked.

  “Let’s not talk about it right now, Jen,” he said. He looked me in the eye, squinting on account of the sun. “It would be a waste of such a beautiful day. We have time to get into the serious stuff.”

  Fine. So I made lunch and served it on Sam’s wide front porch: chicken salad with white grapes on eight-grain, chips, iced tea. Below us, sunlight skipped across the lake and the fragrance of Sam’s roses saturated the air. Henry was working in the garden; he seemed to be there all the time.

  It was a perfect day, wasn’t it? The right guy, the right girl, only the timing was wrong. I couldn’t help it, I felt as though I was going to break down and cry all through lunch, but I held it inside. Maybe Brendan was used to the idea of his dying, but I wasn’t.

  He was waterproofing Shep’s deck and the job was only half done, so after lunch Brendan went back to work. I was clearing the table when I found a note folded under my plate. It read:

  JENNIFER,

  YOU ARE FORMALLY INVITED TO DINNER AT THE GUESTHOUSE.

  7:00 P.M. MORE OR LESS.

  COME AS SWEET AS YOU ARE.

  BRENDAN

  Forty-five

  A CHORUS of peepers and crickets accompanied me as I walked across the lawn at dusk and headed west along the shore path. It was such a gorgeous night, with clear skies and a cooling breeze. I wore black pants and a halter topped with a black cardigan, and I carried sandals. I wanted to look nice for Brendan and I thought that I looked passable. I am no beauty queen, but I dress up okay.

  There was a small guesthouse in a clearing by the lake with an attached bluestone patio. I saw steaks marinating and a bottle of red and Brendan stirring coals in the barbecue, raising sparks into the sky.

  He kissed me, and he was a good kisser. His kisses lingered on the lips. “Special occasion,” he said, handing me a glass of wine. “My birthday.”

  “Ohhh, Brendan. Jeez Louise. Why didn’t you tell me?” I know that I turned the brightest shade of red, and I felt just terrible.

  “I didn’t want any fuss,” he said, and shrugged. “It’s not a big birthday. Doesn’t have any zeros in it.”

  I did the math. He was forty-one. Only forty-one. I clinked my glass against his and said, “Happy, happy birthday!” I held back all the coulda-woulda stuff.

  “I love it that you’re here,” he said. “It is a happy birthday.”

  The fireflies traced cursive neon letters in the night air as I tossed the salad and Brendan put the steaks on the grill. There was a CD player in the guesthouse, and soon Eva Cassidy was remembering the night as only she can. Brendan asked me to dance. I took his hand and immediatel
y felt the blood rush to my head. He wrapped me in his arms and shuffled with me barefoot on the grass. Simple as this was, I loved it. Eva was followed by Sting on Brendan’s personalized CD.

  He was a good dancer, very coordinated, even barefoot in the grass. He could lead, or follow, and he was so light on his feet that I felt as if I were blending into him. The two of us floated over the lawn, cheek to cheek. It was so nice—glorious, actually. The two of us fit together.

  “The steaks are burning,” I whispered as Toni Braxton started in on “Unbreak My Heart.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Brendan.

  “You’re an incredible Prince Charming, you know. Handsome, witty, sensitive for a football fan.”

  He smiled at me. “What a nice birthday thought.”

  “After we eat,” I said, “I have a really nice present for you. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon.”

  “So you must have known it was my birthday.”

  “I’m improvising,” I said, and smiled.

  So we ate first and drank some delicious wine from somewhere in Washington State. Two bottles. We danced to Jill Scott and Sade and then . . . well, it was his birthday after all.

  The guesthouse was filled with chintz-covered furniture and had a great bed looking out over the lake. That’s where Brendan and I made love until “we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer.” He was an incredible Prince Charming, in every way I could imagine. Even on his birthday.

  I remember something else sweet. Just before we finally fell asleep, I sang, “Happy birthday, sweet Brendan. Happy birthday to you.” I sang it with all my heart, and he joined in with all of his.

  Forty-six

  I AWOKE in the guesthouse with a mild headache from the wine I’d had, followed by a start of fear when I realized that I was alone. From the height of the sun, I estimated that a portion of the morning was gone as well. I gathered up my clothes and, to my relief, found a note lying on top of my sandals.