Tessie: Ok.
Birdistheword: And did Will say that your wedding anniversary is on the 16th? Should I pack a party dress?
Tessie: About that. I’ll explain when you get here.
She can’t very well celebrate thirty years of wedded bliss if she discovers that she’s the only one who feels that way.
She’s on her knees planting geraniums in the front garden mulling over how she was going to deliver the news to Haddie, when she startles at the sound of the Chevy’s classic ah…oo…ga horn as Will pulls into the driveway. She waves at her daughter as she gets out of the car and calls, “Welcome home, baby!” She thinks Haddie looks slightly more filled out. That could change after she told her about the cancer.
Henry, who’d been playing poker on the computer, hears Garbo’s happy yipping and comes strolling onto the front porch to welcome his sister home. “Yo,” he says. “What up?”
After Tess had told her son about her illness, he’d made a small turnabout, the same way she has. He still spoke to his mama much of the time like she was deaf and dumb, but in a more polite way. And when she suggested they make Thursday “their” night, he’d agreed. He even let her pick the movie, and grumbled only mildly on the drive to the East Side of Milwaukee to participate in the midnight showing—exhaustion, be damned—of the musical comedy, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (She wanted to wear her packed-away Janet Weiss costume, but it didn’t fit anymore, which was for the best. Henry would’ve refused to sit with her.)
Tess believes that her boy’s sporadic thoughtfulness is the opening gambit of a more grown-up Henry. Someday he would show his true colors. (She’s right. Years from now, he’ll settle down after he gets into a couple of scrapes with bookies in Las Vegas. He’ll turn his back on cards, move to Los Angeles, and after many years of paying dues will receive kudos, not only for the documentary films he and his partner—waiter Cal from the diner—write and direct, but for his humanitarian efforts to feed the homeless, which will make his movie-loving mother and foodie father inordinately proud.)
After Haddie had gotten unpacked and settled in, Tess asks Will and Henry if they’d change the oil in the Volvo, so she and her daughter can have, “A little girl time,” which is code for: I’m about to break the cancer news to her so you might want to seek cover.
On the back porch deck, a relaxed Haddie informs her tense mother that she dumped boyfriend Rock. Her new beau is a boy from Chicago named Kevin Scanlon, who is an “awesome watercolorist,” and then she moves on to how much she’s getting out of her therapy with Dr. Chandler, the eating disorder specialist. A little nervous, a little proud, she asks, “Can you tell? I’ve gained two pounds.” And then she launches into how once school is over, she’ll need to prepare for her trip to New York to work the summer as an intern for National Geographic and…and….
She sounds far away, like she’s talking from the bottom of a wishing well, because Tess’s mind is otherwise engaged. She’s remembering the conversation they’d had the morning of her routine mammogram appointment four months ago. How’d she reassured her daughter that it was nothing to worry about.
When Haddie takes a break from her excited chatter for a sip of tea, Tess unearths her courage, and says, “Honey, I’ve got something really important to tell you.”
“What?” she asks with a sunny smile.
“Ah…I….” It’d been so long since she’d seen her daughter so happy. It’d be cruel to burst her bubble. “I…I love you. It’s so good to have you home.”
The weather had been so great that the Ruby Falls Country Club opened the golf course early, so Will and Henry took off on Saturday to play nine holes between the lunch and the dinner rush, while Haddie took herself and her camera to the Easter festivities in town.
There was a parade down old-fashioned Main Street with marching bands and baton twirlers and merchants advertising their shops. High atop the last float, the Easter Bunny—Stan from Olsen’s Market—tossed candy to the kids who’d lined up on the sidewalks with baskets.
Afterwards, most everybody adjourned to the park alongside the river to partake in an egg hunt, all-you-can-eat pancake and sausage breakfast, and the opportunity to have their children’s picture snapped with the Easter bunny. This was the third year that Haddie had volunteered to be one of the photographers. The proceeds from the sale of the pictures would go to the Ozaukee County Humane Society, a cause near and dear to the Blessings’ hearts. It’s where they’d found Garbo.
Not up to all the holiday hubbub, Tess stayed home and filled the kids’ baskets, planned out the logistics of her sister’s visit, topped off the bird feeders, and napped on a backyard bench. Garbo woke her by dropping a muddy Frisbee on her face.
On their way back into the house, she hangs her gardening clippers on the peg in the garage, and then, instead of sneaking past the golden box the way she usually does, she pauses in front of the shelf that holds her mother’s remains and says, “Birdie and I will be burying you soon.”
It’s about time.
(Truer words were never spoken.)
Easter morning, Will and the children oohed and aahed at the wicker baskets overflowing with treats. Henry stuffed himself with Emporium candy, but Haddie only ate a couple of jelly beans. “I’m saving my appetite for supper,” she said.
It being one of the life and death holidays, Tessie donned a white frock and yellow pillbox hat that she’d spotted in the window of What’s Old Is New Again and joined her family at the ten o’clock Mass at St. Lucy’s.
Henry, who was kneeling next to his mother, elbowed her when she welled up. “Bored to tears?” he whispered.
That wasn’t it at all. Instead of being put off by the St. Joan stained-glass window the way she used to be, she remembered our parting talk and felt humbled and inspired by the young woman who was willing to die for what she believed in. Tess dared to hope that tonight after she broke the cancer news to Haddie that the both of them would be capable of summoning the necessary faith and courage they’d need to soldier on.
“Mmm…mmm…mmm,” Tess and the kids take turns telling the chef. “The best ever!”
The windows are wide open and the tantalizing aroma of budding life fills the peach-and-green dining room where Will had elegantly served the Blessings’ Easter dinner—strawberry and brie salad followed by honey and maple-sugar encrusted baked ham, sweet potato casserole, brussels sprouts sprinkled with bacon bits, homemade applesauce, freshly baked potato rolls served with butter in the shape of a lamb, topped off by lemon meringue pie. Henry and Tess licked their plates clean, and Haddie took a few bites out of every dish.
The conversation had been lively. Golf and school talk. The soccer schedule. Haddie’s upcoming one woman show when she returned to campus. Town gossip. There’d been another altercation between two of the menopausal mommies at a recent school orchestra concert that started with name calling and concluded with a wrestling match on the gym floor.
My friend had spent most of the dinner studying Haddie, and wondering if her decision to explain the illness to her on a walk beneath Chestnut Street’s old-fashioned street lamps was the wisest one.
When father and son get busy clearing the table, that’s Tess’s cue to say to her daughter, “It’s such a beautiful night, let’s take Garbo for a walk.”
“Good idea.” She pats her concave tummy. “I could use the exercise. I’ll grab her leash.”
After the three of them come down the front porch of the house, Haddie turns left toward town, but Tess tells her, “Let’s go this way instead,” because she has a specific destination in mind. Garbo stops a few times to pee before they arrive at the three-story gingerbread Victorian halfway down the block.
Tess says, “I need to talk to you about something important and there’s no easy way to—”
“Are you leaving Daddy?” Haddie says alarmed. “Is the diner having money problems again?”
My friend is completely thrown. “Why would you ask if—?” Bu
t then…out of the blue…Haddie’s questions spark the illuminating insight that Tess had been dying for.
Talk about bad timing.
Tess wonders if it would be best to deal with both topics in one fell swoop, but quickly decides that she can’t tell her daughter about the cancer and discuss what she thinks now might be at the root of her eating disorder, it would be much too much for the both of them to deal with at one time.
“No, I’m not leaving Daddy,” she tells Haddie.
What if he’s cheating on you? Louise asks. Then what?
“And the diner is doing great.” Already worn-out but the day’s festivities and her fear, Tess leans against the tree in front of the Thresher’s house for support. “While you were at school….” How many times had she rehearsed this moment in her mind? Agonized over the consequences. “I…ah…shit.” She swallows back the bile in her throat. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Haddie is standing directly beneath one of the old-fashioned street lights so Tessie has no problem seeing the pain ripple across her face. “Oh, Mommy. No!” She throws herself into her mother’s arms and bursts into a round of violent sobbing. “Are…are you gonna…die?”
Tess coos over and over into her daughter’s hair, “I’m fine, honey,” until the fear quiets some. When she feels Haddie stiffen, she steels herself.
Her daughter pulls out of her arms and shouts, “But why didn’t you…? I’m so pissed at you for not telling me sooner!”
“I’m sorry. I…I kept it a secret because you’re going through some serious problems of your own. I was trying to protect you. I didn’t want to add—”
“Fuck you!”
Knowing all too well what it feels like to be emotionally hijacked, Tess doesn’t take Haddie’s anger to heart. She knows what’s driving it. Fight or flight. She snags her daughter by her arm before she can take off. “I know you’re scared, but—” She points to the backyard of the Victorian that she’d purposely stopped in front of. “Remember Thunder?”
When she was four years old, Haddie was terrified of the Great Dane that’d lived in the house. The dog’s owner was an emergency-room doctor who often worked a night shift at St. Mary’s North, so he’d turn the dog out in the fenced yard before he took off for the hospital. The beast would howl until it wore itself out, but not before badly scaring Haddie when Tess was trying to tuck her in for the night.
Will and Tess talked to their neighbor and he empathized, but Thunder needed to be outdoors to do his duty while he was doing his.
Tess thought that if Haddie could meet the beast, it’d help reassure her. An opportunity arose a few evenings later. After the two of them arrived at Dr. Kellogg’s house, she picked up Haddie’s hand and tugged her toward the backyard, but she dug in her heels in and screamed, “No, Mommy! I too scared!”
Nobody knew better than Tess that fear cannot be reasoned with, so she told her, “Wait here,” and edged down the driveway toward the dog and his massive howling mouth. She resorted to a little prayer when she reached over the chain-link fence to pet him. The force of his wagging tail lifted her bangs and he settled right down. Hoping that her plan had worked, she turned and called back to her daughter, “See? There’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s a good boy, just a little scared too. Come say hi.”
Haddie shook her head and stood steadfast, but when Tess returned to her on the sidewalk, she threw her little sweaty arms around her mom’s neck, gave a pint-sized shudder, and told her, “Mommies are such bravery.”
Things weren’t perfect after their close encounter of the Thunder kind, he stilled howled occasionally, but Haddie wasn’t as scared when he did.
Maybe that’s all anyone could hope for when confronting fear. Not perfect, just better, Tess is thinking when she takes in the scowl on her daughter’s face that’s informing her that the visit to the Victorian hadn’t had the inspiring effect that she had hoped it would.
“Thanks for treating me like a child,” Haddie growls. She yanks her arm out of her mother’s hand, races down the sidewalk, up their front porch steps, and doesn’t look back.
After my depleted Tess and Garbo make it back to the house, she finds her daughter exactly where she was afraid she’d be. Locked in the upstairs bathroom. Tess hears the telltale sound of the toilet lid clanking against the tank. Haddie was waiting until her mother returned to drive home her point.
Tess places her forehead on the door and says, “Baby, we need to talk.”
“Go away!”
She takes a couple steps down the hall before she has a change of heart. Time to implement Plan C. The cancer plan.
“Please don’t take that tone with me,” she comes back to tell Haddie. “Open the damn door.”
There’s silence, then the sound of running water, the jiggle of the lock, and the door opens a slice.
“I’m getting a radiation treatment tomorrow morning,” Tess tells the empty space. “Like it or not, you’re driving me. Be ready by eight.”
After Haddie listened to Tess explain the surgeries and the goal of the radiation treatments on the drive to St. Joe’s the following day, she asks, “How many more do you have to do?”
“Surgeries—none. Treatments—ten.”
As the old silver Volvo turns into the cancer center lot, Haddie asks the same thing she had when Tess told her she had the appointment for her routine mammogram months ago, “Does it hurt?”
“Not during the treatment.” Tess wonders how much she should tell her. She doesn’t want to pile on too much information—like the burn on her breast and the utter exhaustion—but she doesn’t want to lie to her either, so she says, “But afterwards…you know how you feel after you sit out in the sun for hours?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s kinda like that.”
After they take seats in the cancer center’s waiting room, artistic Haddie, who’s always been deeply affected by her surroundings, gets twitchy. She narrows her eyes at the manufactured nature prints on the walls and says, “Those are sooo hideous. They should hang something more…uh…,” she steals a glance at her mother, “hopeful.”
When Irwin shows up to collect Tess, she introduces attractive Haddie, who he lavishes with compliments. “How nice you’ve come to support your mom,” he says. “You can watch the treatment on the television screen in the control room with me, honey.”
This is one Lifetime movie your kid should have done without, Louise criticizes.
When the radiation machine is done doing its thing, Tess hears the static click of Irwin’s microphone switching on, but this time it isn’t him telling her breezily to relax her arms and that he’ll be right in, the way he always does. It’s Haddie who comes through loud and clear.
Bzzz. “Mommies are such bravery.” Bzzz.
Back to the Future
On day thirty-six, Tessie brought along a loaf of celebratory chocolate chip-banana bread she’d baked to thank the crew at the center, but her daughter had far outdone her.
Haddie had secretly gathered twenty of her most awe-inspiring nature photographs and hid them in the trunk of the Volvo. When Tess returned to the waiting room after the last treatment, she unveiled the collection. Tess cried as the staff accepted the donation with praise and gratitude, especially Irwin, who cut himself a healthy slice of the homemade bread and promised to oversee the immediate removal of these, “Hideous Holiday Inn prints,” and the installation of her daughter’s “hopeful” ones.
(He selected two flower shots for the radiation room. Pink peonies in full bloom.)
Haddie is on a run, Henry at soccer practice, and Will is delivering flowers to waitress Jessie Burke who’d delivered her baby girl last night. The respite in the action has given Tess much-needed time alone.
Now that she’s completed radiation, it’s time to get down to the other pressing business at hand. She’s in the sunroom, working so intently on her revised To-Do List, that she barely notices the damp earthy smell that reminds her so much o
f her daughter coming through the open windows.
She crosses out number nine on the list: Tell Haddie about the cancer. But adds a number eleven: Deal with the part you played in Haddie’s eating disorder.
Tess dreaded the conversation she’d have with her as much as the one they’d had Easter night. Getting breast cancer was the luck of the draw, and if she had it to do again, she would still keep it hidden from her vulnerable girl. What she needs to discuss with Haddie now is the insight she’d had during their walk after dinner. When her girl asked, “Are you leaving Daddy? Is the diner having money problems again?”
Before Tessie can beat herself up, she refocuses on her list and what she has accomplished. Tells herself to keep her eyes on the prize. By tonight, number eleven will be history. And it won’t be long before she’ll also be able to run her pen through:
4. Convince Will to love me again. (What about Connie?)
6. Bury Louise once and for all. (With Birdie).
Her sister will be here in a few days and the agenda is set and ready.
She’s not sure how it will go with Will. Unless he’s more Machiavellian than she’d ever imagined, he still seems to care about her. He’s been cracking jokes, and he left a love note in the bread box and cooked a heck of a pot roast last night. So other than making passionate love, their life seems to be approaching normal, which has left Tess even more puzzled. What if she’d just imagined his possible straying with Connie Lushman after all? Made one of her “erroneous assumptions” and her PTSD brain ran with that. After all, he’d explained his lack of interest in bedding her. It was a midlife crisis, that’s all. And that long blond hair she’d found on his blue shirt and his smelling of Tabu…had I been right when I’d told her—“They work together?”
You’re stupid enough to fall for a gypsy siding scam, Theresa.