Pictures (a short story)

Clouds tumbled over one another as I watched, a distant observer. The wind caught my robe and whipped it into a chaotic mess and still I stood, gazing up into the sky. I was mesmerized by those clouds; they were dark, full of moisture that was begging to be released, tumbling and rolling as frantically as two small children caught in a tussle of wills. I only moved when the first few water drops hit my face. they were enormous-a promise of what was to come from those angry, defiant clouds.

As I walked back in through the patio door the nurse was entering my room with a tray. She looked at me in exasperation and asked if I'd been outside again. Yes, I answered her. My treatment says nothing about confinement and only stale air for breathing. She set my breakfast down and told me doctors make the worst patients. Everyone knows that. I would have tried to argue with her, but I stuck out my tongue at her back and figured everyone is right.

Breakfast was the same it had been for a week-gritty scrambled eggs, floppy bacon, tasteless cardboard that was supposed to be toast. It was over and another nurse came to escort me to treatment, trying to chat me up as we walked, trying to take my mind off my troubles. Another dose of chemotherapy. The drip, drip, drip of the IV bottle poured forth and I watched, letting my mind drift and float. I was standing before an endless blue sea, waves creating gentle ripples. It wasn't a dream, but a memory of days not so long ago. BC. Before Cancer.

I'm waiting for him. He is in the distance and I'm excited. I've known him a few months; how we met-who cares, I can't even remember so much. He is nothing like my husband who has his strong points, but when I met Darryl I'd been itching, restless, bored with my life and ready to take on something new. I didn't know when I'd feel like giving him up; I'd found a new toy, the forbidden kind with a label that warns the user to beware. I was ripe for that kind of danger, I reveled in it. I take in Darryl's sun-kissed face. His arms are sinewy and I feel electricity, the buzz he creates in me that I've become addicted to. I have a camera around my neck and I take his picture. I've never felt sensual, before. My husband asks me about the latest research, discusses his theories concerning a financial crisis, but he never makes me feel sensual. Not like this. We spend a few hours on the beach, just us and the ocean.

"Okay Dr. Davis, all done."

My mouth had curled up into a small smile. I felt so weary suddenly. I shuffled back to my room and slowly, painfully crawled into the bed. I covered myself with a thin blanket and drifted away.

I am a small child standing in front of my fourth grade class, spelling the last word in the spelling bee. I get the word right and the class crowds around me, slapping my back and telling me how smart I am. I'm proud of myself, and then I see the teacher's face. she isn't proud at all, she doesn't like me. It feels sort of bad because I don't know why she doesn't like me. I'm a good child, the one who always does what's asked or told, never colors outside of the lines. the kids love me, the principal, even the janitor. They always smile at me. I get my picture taken for the paper with a gold medal around my neck, smiling the gap-toothed grin of missing teeth, innocence beaming from my plump, freckled face.

Another nurse woke me to give me a pill. I sat up and felt groggy and the room spun on a hazy, tilted axis. I drank water in a paper cup. the nurse asked me if I wanted a snack but I didn't. When she left I reached for the remote, switching channels a bit and feeling bored with it all. I wasn't used to all the inactivity. My life used to be a whirlwind, from meeting to meeting, luncheon to dinner, appointment to symphony. The last year has changed all that.

I went for the annual checkup that my HMO insists upon and was impatient, wanting to get it over with so I could move on and up. I am a busy woman with research to complete and a book to write; I have appointments to keep and dinner to attend. I have Darryl to juggle and a husband to placate. An hour or two for a doctor's visit seems extreme, a waste of my valuable time. I'm tired, but my lifestyle lends itself to that. My stomach has been upset lately, but my eating habits aren't as good as they should be. I drink far too much coffee. I've actually been throwing up a little, but since Darryl I've been on edge, having to prance between my life with him and the one with Ted. Of course my stomach heaves every now and then! I think nothing of the cramps that slice through my midsection occasionally, causing a pain so intense I double over with it. I play squash, I must have pulled something.

Then I receive the call on my cell phone. I almost delete it without even listening-call your doctor's office immediately, it says. I wait a few days for some important research to finish up, and then I have to coordinate the data and compile results. I have a date with Darryl, so I don't return that call for days. At 10a.m. on Thursday, October 3rd, I return the call expecting to hear that I should ready myself for menopause or add more iron to my supplements, blah blah. And me a doctor-granted, a research scientist, but still an M.D. I should have known, should have seen it.

Lunch arrived and I was less than impressed. I ate a dry chicken breast, some of it at least, and I tried to swallow a few spoons of peas, but they stuck in my throat and I had to drink milk to force them down. My stomach tap danced. I waited fifteen minutes and ate the biscuit for a half hour until it was finally gone.

When I tell Ted about the meeting at the doctor's office he stares at me. Cancer, he says. It can't be. Well it is, I say. He continues to stare for a few minutes then sits in his easy chair, the shell pink one he fell in love with at Pier One, and he contemplates as if I've told him we have to sell the Jaguar. I shouldn't be surprised at his reaction. This is a man who is flummoxed when the evening paper doesn't appear on our doorstep at precisely 6p.m. He doesn't take the unexpected well.

I met him at Boston University when I was in my third year of med school. I liked him because I could talk to him, didn't feel he was staring at my breasts during conversations. He was thin and angular with a sheet of smooth, straight brown hair on the top of his head, almost like a skating rink. But he'd been nice. We used to talk for hours, sitting in the quad on balmy spring mornings. When we missed several classes once for talking, Ted laughed a little hysterically and said we'd better get married to avoid such future blunders. He said he'd rather be able to talk to me late into the night than miss another class; we married in June the next year. I knew we weren't a couple full of fire, but I truly did like him, and how many people could say that, I reasoned. It's there in our wedding photo: me with a tremulous smile, a sort of what-have-I-done expression and Ted with a smile, but his eyes were drifting to the side. About five years ago I realized that I'm not happy. I never thought about it before that, too busy with work to worry about happiness. I'm working on curing the world of dreaded diseases. It all started to feel tedious and really, really bad.

The doctor came in to see me. He poked and prodded, asked me how I was feeling today. Fine, I said. As fine as anyone feels with stage three pancreatic cancer, I thought. He said we'd take more pictures tomorrow to assure them that my blood clots had not returned. If the pictures were negative I'd get to go home. After he left I slept and had a dream about the day I was going through my mother's boxes a week after her death, the ones in the attic I'd never seen before.

My brother has to return to Delaware. Fine, I tell him. I'll take care of the house, the possessions. Thanks. Goodbye. I find pictures I don't recognize, pictures of a baby. Edging dates the pictures three years before my brother's birth, six before mine. A family member I don't know, I think. Then a family photo with my parents, wide smiles I don't remember ever seeing on their faces. The photo features that baby and I get tingles, ones that talk to me, tell me something isn't right. I keep searching through boxes, upending, sifting, reaching, until I unearth it. Condolence messages. We're so sorry for your loss, they say. We feel terrible. So senseless. No reason. Crib death. I stare at these pictures for a long time feeling robbed of something undefinable, untouchable. The boxes break away to dust as I sit in shock, pondering the loss I never knew but somehow felt all through my childhood.

I call my brother and he didn't know, either. He returns and we both look at these pictures, at a sibling we never knew we had. Why hadn't they told us, why weren't we aware. We were never close as a family, but something shifted with new information, something nice but uncomfortable. Later, when my diagnosis reaches my brother's ears, he picks up and flies across the country to help.

When Darryl heard he was valiant. He remained with me as much as he was able, but when it started to overtake my life I cut him loose, making him promise to feel no guilt. We'd never been in it for longevity. The fun was gone so the relationship was over. Ted was over, too. I had enough to handle and Ted was like the child I never had. I carried him through most hard stuff but I couldn't carry him through this, didn't even want to. So we weren't divorced but we weren't together and I seldom saw him, anymore. It was fine with me.

I lay in that hospital bed and thought about what makes life worth living. Ice cream that drips and begins to melt onto your hand in a delectable mess. Sunny days when a light breeze sends the sweet and sour aroma of nature up your nostrils. Storms where clouds go tumbling, one after another, into a frenzy of activity. Brothers who stand by your side and hold your hair while you vomit. Nieces and nephews who make artistic get-well cards. Friends who smuggle pizza into the hospital room. Support groups filled with people who hand you a tissue when you cry.

Dinner was as bland as lunch. I walked a little, watched t.v. a little, and slept off and on throughout. Thank goodness the pictures show no signs of blood clots. I was released, but I have to return for the rest of my chemotherapy. This is a second go-round, the chances are slim. My brother came to drive me home, and as he drove he asked if I was hungry. I wasn't but I told him to stop, anyway. I wanted some ice cream.