8:20 P.M.
I got called down to dinner. When Aunt Morgan calls, you obey. Actually, I was kind of relieved to close up the journal and do something mundane, like eat.
Aunt Morgan is not much of a cook. Or a housekeeper. But she saw it as her duty to fly out here and take care of Dad and me. So she worked really hard this afternoon to make supper for the three of us. She made a vegetable lasagna. It was runny, overcooked on the top, and undercooked in the middle. It took her a long time to make it. I am trying to be appreciative.
Dad and Aunt Morgan and I ate in the kitchen with the door into Mom’s room open so she could hear us. I think Mom was asleep the whole time, though. Already I don’t remember much about dinner. Only that I wasn’t hungry, but that I forced some of the lasagna down. And I tried to answer Dad’s and Aunt Morgan’s questions about school and stuff.
Then I just looked at the two of them sitting there, all defeated. After a few moments, I excused myself.
Why has everyone given up on Mom?
I want to yell, “DON’T GIVE UP! DON’T GIVE UP!” I even want to yell those words at Mom. Because she has given up too. I know she has. And I don’t understand why.
Also, I don’t want the end to come. I AM NOT READY.
10:32 P.M.
I knew I wasn’t going to do any homework tonight, but I didn’t expect to be so busy. The last few evenings have been quiet, and some of my saddest times. That’s why I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work. I thought I would just sit and write.
But a couple of hours ago, the phone started to ring. And since Dad’s spending all his time with Mom, and Aunt Morgan was busy with her everlasting laundry chores, I was put in charge of the phone. The first caller was Mr. Schafer, just checking up on things. Funny, for some reason when I heard a guy’s voice I thought Ducky was calling. I was disappointed for a moment but glad to hear from Dawn’s father. He and Carol, especially Carol, have been so wonderful. Maybe I’ll go talk to Carol tomorrow. Mr. Schafer asked me if I wanted to talk to her on the phone tonight, but I’d rather talk in person.
After Mr. Schafer called, Greta called. I don’t know why, but I have a little trouble talking to those people from Mom’s cancer support group. They’re all very nice and everything, but I don’t know how to finish this sentence. What is my problem with Greta and the others? Not sure. Maybe it’s that so far they’re surviving their cancers. And Mom is not. I talked to Greta for a few minutes, and then someone from the bookstore called with questions for Dad. I guess he’s not dispensable after all. I knew Dad didn’t want to be disturbed, so I tried to answer the questions myself. It even occurred to me that this would be a good excuse to call Ducky finally. He’s spent time working at the bookstore. Maybe he could answer the questions. But I just couldn’t get up the nerve to call him. I wonder how long that will take.
Okay. I’ll try going to bed. Maybe tonight is the night I’ll be able to sleep at last.
11:18 P.M.
No luck. Tossing and turning.
11:41 P.M.
The light from the street lamp is driving me crazy. I can’t block it out.
11:53 P.M.
what has happened to my pillow? It feels like someone flattened it with a sledgehammer.
Wednesday 3/17
12:08 A.M.
Oh my god. This is awful. Mom is making the most horrible noises downstairs. I’ve never heard anything like them. This is new. Dad is down there with her, of course, but what do I do? Should I go to her? What do the noises mean? Is this the end? Oh god, I can’t stand it if this is really the end. Right now. Right now. I’m still not ready.
I feel like praying. I haven’t prayed since I was a little kid.
Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I
Oh god. I never paid much attention to that prayer before. It’s horrible.
12:11 A.M.
The noises have stopped. What does that mean? I know I should go downstairs but I’m afraid to. I’m really not prepared for it to be over.
Please. Just let me have a few more days. That’s all I ask.
I’m going downstairs now.
12:28 A.M.
Mom is asleep. Dad said he’d never seen her in so much pain. The morphine had worn off, the nurse had given her some more, and it hadn’t really helped, so she’d given her even more. It takes longer and longer for it to work. The noises Mom was making before were like howling. Like an animal howling.
I was so scared when I tiptoed downstairs. I really thought I might go into Mom’s room and Dad would say, “Sunny, I’m sorry, Mom is gone.”
My heart was pounding and my mouth had gone dry. I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a second and listened. I could hear Mom moaning but not howling like before. The room was lit by a night-light and that street lamp. I peeked into Mom’s room. I could see her hunched up in the bed, the nurse hovering, and Dad sitting with her, stroking her hand, her hair, talking softly to her. I remember when Mom used to do that for me when I was sick.
I didn’t know if I should say anything, but finally I whispered, “Dad?”
“It’s okay, honey,” he said. “The morphine is starting to work again. She’s going to sleep.”
I nodded. I went into the kitchen for something to drink. Then I sat in the living room and stared out the window for a bit. After a few minutes, Dad joined me and we talked a little. But not about anything important. And then I came back to bed.
10:16 A.M.
What a night last night. This morning I decided not even to go to school. For one thing, I think the end really is near. I couldn’t bear to be at school and not with Mom when it finally comes. For another thing, I don’t think I’ve ever, EVER, been so bone-weary tired as I am this morning.
Last night, after I tried to go back to bed, I decided I needed to see the moon. I looked out my window but I couldn’t find it. Then I wanted to smell the night air. I raised my window. And across the yard I saw Dawn’s window being raised too.
“Sunny?” she called softly. “Are you okay? I heard your window open.”
“I can’t sleep. I wanted to see the moon and smell the air.”
“I can’t sleep either.”
“Meet me outside?”
“Okay.”
It was just like when we were kids, on hot summer nights when we couldn’t sleep. Why did we always meet in my yard, I wonder?
Three minutes later we were sitting together on an old lawn chair.
“Remember when we used to come out here when we were little?” Dawn said.
“I was just thinking about that.”
“What did we talk about then?”
“Stuff that scared us.”
“Like what?”
“Kid stuff. Bad dreams. Shadows.”
“Our dreams back then were so silly. Remember the one I had about the foxes under my bed?”
I smiled. “Yeah. Why were the foxes so scary?”
“I don’t know. But they were really scary. And you had that dream about the bulldog. Remember?”
“Yeah. You’d think we hated animals,” I said.
“Have you been asleep at all tonight?” asked Dawn.
“Nope. Not one wink. How about you?”
“I fell asleep for about an hour and then I woke up. I was just lying there when I heard you.”
“Mom was making noises downstairs. She’s in a lot of pain tonight.”
Dawn winced. “I’m sorry.”
We leaned against the back of the lawn chair. We could just barely squeeze into it, side by side.
“We used to fit better,” said Dawn.
“Remember the time we were sitting on this with Maggie and Jill and it collapsed?”
Dawn laughed. “Then we added up our weights and altogether they only totaled, like, the weight of one really large adult, so we couldn’t figure out why the chair wouldn’t hold us.”
“Like, the four of us weren’t using it as a tr
ampoline.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes and gazed at the sky. Now I could see the moon. It was the thinnest of crescents. Just a hair.
After awhile Dawn said, “Sunny, do you remember the time your mom gave us the pennies—”
I didn’t want to think about that. “Not now,” I said, cutting her off. A little chatting was okay, but I didn’t want a big talk about Mom.
For just a second Dawn looked wounded, but then her face changed. “All right,” she said.
I am so, so glad that Dawn and I are friends again. I have my best friend back, the person who always understands me. I can’t believe that I almost lost her.
Only your best friend could understand everything you mean when you say just two words, like “Not now.”
11:50 A.M.
Have been looking in my closet. What a mess. I’ll have to straighten it out one day. First I need to clean it out. I bet I have stuff in there from second grade.
12:22 P.M.
The doctor just left. He looked pretty grim. Now Dad and Aunt Morgan look grim too. I didn’t hang around to hear what the doctor said.
I don’t want to know.
12:38 P.M.
Aunt Morgan has fixed lunch but none of us can eat it. Dad doesn’t want to leave Mom’s side, and anyway, he doesn’t have an appetite. Neither do Aunt Morgan or I. So this bowl of potato salad is sitting on the kitchen counter with three clean plates beside it. Aunt Morgan has been here for three days and this is the first time she hasn’t insisted on a “family meal.” We are all so tired and drawn-looking.
1:15 P.M.
There’s the weirdest talk show on TV. I almost never watch TV during the day so I don’t know—maybe the show isn’t so weird. But anyway, it’s all about women who used to be married to other guys and now they’re married to the guys’ brothers. Truly. When a new face comes on the screen a caption will appear that reads something like CINDY—BROTHER-IN-LAW IS ALSO EX-HUSBAND. Some of the brothers seem to get along pretty well. Others, of course, are furious at each other. One caption read JOSEPH—HAS RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST BROTHER.
Why are people interested in this sort of thing? I’m mystified.
1:28 P.M.
All right. I’ll admit it. I’m also bored. Well, maybe I’m not really bored. I think I’m afraid. The program is over and now I’m just sitting up here in my room, afraid to go downstairs. Nothing has changed. Dad hasn’t given me any news. I think Mom has another visitor. But for some reason I’m now afraid.
I guess Mom isn’t going to be with us much longer.
1:32 P.M.
By “much longer” I mean I think she is going to die in the next day or two.
1:47 P.M.
God, my hair is a mess. I really need to get it cut.
2:26 P.M.
School is almost over. I wonder what I missed today.
But I don’t care.
2:39 P.M.
I just realized that I haven’t done anything today. I’m hiding out in my room, sitting, staring out the window, picking up the journal every so often. I’ve barely talked to Mom or Dad or Aunt Morgan. I wonder if anyone remembered to put away the potato salad. I better go do that before the mayonnaise goes bad.
Oh, doorbell
6:17 P.M.
Stopped writing earlier to answer the doorbell, and suddenly I wasn’t bored anymore. Didn’t get back to the journal until just now.
I could hear the doorbell ring—and then ring a second and a third time. Why didn’t Dad or Aunt Morgan answer it? All of a sudden that panicky feeling overwhelmed me once more. Maybe Mom had…Maybe that’s why no one could answer the door. Again my heart started racing and I could feel the blood pulsing in my head. My mouth got dry.
Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Ding-dong.
My leaden feet dragged me out of my room and down the stairs. And I heaved a sigh of relief. Aunt Morgan was on the phone and Dad was busy with Mom. I bet he hadn’t even heard the bell.
I was shaking when I answered the door.
“Hi, Sunny.”
Mom’s friend Anne was on our front stoop. She looked tired and drawn like the rest of us. I tried to remember if she’d been here yesterday. I think she might have been. And the day before. She came to the hospital nearly every day too.
“Hi,” I replied.
“How is she today?”
“The same. No, maybe a little worse. Come on in.” I know Anne is always welcome. Mom has wanted to see her no matter what.
I walked with Anne to Mom’s room and left her there. She greeted Dad, but then to my surprise, Dad left the room and sat in the kitchen, giving Mom and Anne time alone together, I guess. I thought Dad’s eyes looked a little red. Well, of course. He was operating on almost no sleep.
When Anne left Mom’s room about twenty minutes later, her eyes were red too. Actually, she was crying. Actually, she was sobbing. I wondered if she had been sobbing with Mom, or if Mom had been asleep, or if Anne had just now begun to cry. I felt as if I were watching the scene from very, very far away.
Anne came over to me again, cupped my chin in her hand, and looked into my eyes for a moment before leaving the house.
I didn’t say anything.
Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang again and this time Grandma and Grandad were there.
“Hi!” I greeted them. Suddenly I felt all perky.
Grandma gave me an odd look, though. “Hi, honey,” she said softly.
“I guess you want to see Mom.”
“Well, yes.”
No one said so, but suddenly I had the feeling that Grandma and Grandad were here to say good-bye to Mom. I squashed the feeling. I led them to Mom’s room, then rushed outside and sat on the stoop.
That was how I happened to see Dawn come home from school. Ducky drove her in his old wreck of a car. He pulled into Dawn’s driveway and turned off the ignition. The two of them started to walk into the Schafers’ house. Then Dawn spotted me. She waved. “Hi, Sunny,” she called, but she wasn’t smiling.
“Hi,” I replied.
Dawn headed across the lawn toward me, but behind her, Ducky hesitated. Dawn turned to him. “Come on,” she said.
“No, I better —”
“Come on.”
This was horrible. Ducky was afraid of me, I think. And I couldn’t blame him. What I did to him was terrible.
I jumped up. “Ducky?” I called.
“Yeah?”
“Can we talk?”
8:01 P.M.
Had to stop for dinner, which was horrible. Not the food. Just the whole thing. Dad and Aunt Morgan and I sat at the kitchen table and picked at the potato salad and didn’t say much. We still weren’t hungry, but I guess we thought we shouldn’t skip two meals in a row.
I have lost seven pounds.
Now I am back upstairs, safe in my room.
Anyway, Ducky finally followed Dawn across the lawn. He looked almost frantic when Dawn said, “Sunny, can I go see your mother?”
I knew he didn’t want to be left alone with me. I also knew that Dawn was purposely leaving him alone with me. Not to be mean, but because we needed to talk.
Ducky and I sat on the front porch.
“Ducky—” I began. And then all the dreadful things I said and did to him the night of the concert came flooding back to me. How could I have said those things? Done those things? It was like some other person was saying and doing them. Not me. “Ducky,” I said again. “Um—”
“Sunny,” Ducky said at the same time, “I—”
“No, let me go first.”
“Okay.” Once again, Ducky looked almost afraid of me.
I barged ahead. “Ducky, I want to apologize. You’re one of my best friends. I don’t know why I said those things. I didn’t mean them. I just wanted to hurt you.”
Ducky’s expression changed from wary to angry. “If I’m such a good friend, why did you want to hurt me? Is that how you treat all you
r good friends?”
“No, of course not.”
“Just the ones you think you can step on?”
“Ducky, please,” I said. I was surprised but almost glad to hear that he was so mad. “I thought if I could embarrass you, then you would drive us home after all. I didn’t want to go home in disgrace with Mr. Schafer. I wanted a perfect, grown-up evening. I had this fantasy about the evening. It had been keeping my mind off Mom. And I didn’t want anything to spoil it.”
Ducky softened a little, but all he said was, “Then why did you keep giving me drinks?”
“I don’t know. The drinks were part of the perfect, grown-up evening. I just wasn’t thinking ahead to what would happen when it was time for you to drive. But Ducky, I’m really, really, really sorry. You truly are one of my best friends. I know I hurt you, but I hope we can be friends again. I’ve missed you.”
Now Ducky softened completely. “I’m sorry too.”
“What are you sorry about?”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you.”
I shrugged. I’m sorry about that too, but it was my own fault.
“Sunny?” said Ducky when I didn’t say anything. “Speak to me.”
I smiled. Ducky is one of the few people who can make me smile these days. “Speak to you about what?” I said, even though I knew perfectly well what he meant.
“Tell me exactly what is going on with your mom right now. I know what Dawn tells me, but I want to hear it from you. Also, how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking. You know.”
Here’s the thing about Ducky. If almost anyone else said that to me (tell me what you’re thinking or tell me what you’re feeling) I would reply with something rude and sarcastic like, “My mother is dying. How do you think I feel?” Or, “My mother is dying. That’s what I’m thinking about.” But I knew Ducky really wanted to know specifically what was going on with Mom. And specifically what my innermost thoughts are. (Ducky is almost like this journal.) So if I was thinking, “This is so hard and painful that I wish Mom would just die now and get it over with,” that is what I could say to Ducky, and he wouldn’t think I was a horrible person.